"That does not mean she is undergoing a normal gestation period. The sperm may be in combat within her. It could be days, even weeks-before the matter is decided. It is entirely possible it will not be decided until the moment of birth, or even weeks afterward. It depends upon who is present; if one of our kind is there, and has the power from the Prince, it could even take months ... years. I know of such cases. In any event, I will not know the outcome for some time."

"Why, Roma?"

"Because I will be gone."

"Roma?" He walked to the bed of Devil-induced pain, "What of the demon?"

"If it is a true demon-and believe me, I know that it is-it will need very little a.s.sistance after birthing. Only a week or so of suckling. Then the metamorphosis is so rapid it is not only unbelievable, it is also utterly terrifying in its majesty."

"If ..." Falcon struggled for words.

"Go, Falcon, you have much to do and I do not wish you to witness my suffering. Go."

He moved away from the bed, walking to the door. He paused. "I will tell you how things went this night, Roma.

She laughed, and her laughter chilled him. "If you live through it, darling. Many of those called will be rabid from the pits."

TUESDAY MORNING.

They had slept unusually late. Sam awakened the young ladies roughly, no gentleness to his touch. He spoke the same message to each young woman: "Get up. Get dressed. Boots, jeans, heavy shirt. Keep a jacket close by. It's only a matter of hours before we have to run for our lives."

"What's happened, Sam?" Nydia asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"I...think we're about to witness the most awesome event to ever occur on the face of this earth.'' He smiled. "Other than that fellow who was born in Bethlehem, that is." He sobered again. "Remember what the voice told us: the calling out of the forces of darkness? It's going to happen tonight."

"He came to you? He told you?"

"No. I just know." Sam shook his head. "I don't know, Nydia-maybe he did come to me in my sleep. I have no recall of any conversation between us. I just woke up and knew it was going to happen."

"I am scared half out of my mind," Linda said.

"That makes it a club of three," Sam replied.

In the lush timber behind the great house, a shadowy figure drifted in and out of the tall trees. Whilemovements seemed vague and uncertain, the tall warrior was actually deep in thought, his musings troubled and sometimes dark with fury. Of all things that held sway outside of the firmament, the warrior hated Satan with a pa.s.sion that borderlined on disobedience to the teachings of G.o.d the Father. Indeed, the warrior had come close to admonition from Him on more than one occasion for his pa.s.sionate hatred of Satan. The warrior had pleaded with Him for millennia to destroy the Beast once and for all. Have done with the Filthy One. End it. Call His peoplehome.

But the Master of All Things would merely shake His head and say, "Not yet."

And the warrior knew that "not yet" would apply to this blinking in the span of all things, as well. He was not afraid of the od forces; he knew no fear of the demons and the other grotesque creatures that would soon be called to appear. He had destroyed their kind many times in the past, and would this time. No...what troubled the old warrior was the mystery in the great house of the Evil One, and should he alert the young Christian offspring of Balon to that mystery?

No, he finally decided. No, I can do only so much without overstepping the boundaries. Really, he concluded, I have probably interfered too much as it is.

He stopped by the filthy, sin-encrusted circle of dark stones and looked toward the mansion. No, young warrior, you must cope with that mystery by yourself. I will help in other matters, but in this, your strength must be all powerful; your faith all-believing and never wavering; and your cunning at its zenith.

G.o.d be with you.

TUESDAY NOON.

The wailing had stopped. The great house was silent. It seemed to the trio seated close together in Sam's room as if they were alone: the only ones left in the mansion.

"The only humans," Nydia said.

Linda shuddered with fear. Sam had a brief fleeting thought of putting his arm around her shoulders, but gave up that idea when Nydia read his thoughts and gave him a look that would fry bacon.

"Sam?" Nydia asked. "What is an od force?"

"Beats me. Where'd you hear that?"

"It just popped into my head."

"It has to do with the supernatural," Linda said. "Sorcery ... stuff like that."

Eyes swung toward her. Nydia stiffened on the day couch.

"My little brother got all involved in that stuff for a time, until my parents made him stop it," Linda explained. "He was-right there at the end-trying to get in touch with the dead; all that junk. I heard him mention that od force thing several times. My uncle, Uncle Homer, really used to kid Billy-that's my kid brother-about it. It got to the point my brother hated ... really hated Uncle Homer. He'd go in his room at night with a doll he'd made-called it Uncle Homer-and read and light candles and chant all those weird incantations, trying to get something to happen to Uncle Homer. Finally Dad made him quit; said Uncle Homer didn't mean anything by it. But Billy hated Uncle Homer until the day he died. Billy refused to go to the funeral."

"The funeral?" Nydia asked.

"Yes. Uncle Homer was killed one day; strangest thing, too. Just walking along the street in Buffalo and a small piece of steel fell from up where some workers were doing repair work-really high up on a building. Split his head wide open. Died right then and there."

"What was Billy's favorite way of killing his Uncle?" Sam asked.

Linda blinked, paled, then said, "Hitting the doll on the head with a ... hammer."

TUESDAY NIGHT.

Sam had taken the heaviest pack and distributed the weight of the other materials evenly among the young women. He had looked for his father's picture, literally tearing up the room in his search. But the picture was gone. He gave up the search, turning as Nydia slipped something into his pocket.

"What's that, babe?" he asked.

She smiled. "I thought they might come in handy. Little pills you can buy on campus-if you know the right person-just before you have to start cramming for an exam."

Amphetamines. Sam returned the smile. "I heard that."

"How are we going to get out of here?" Linda asked. "Won't they stop us?"

"They would if they saw us." Sam grinned. "But I'm betting they won't."

"How do we manage that, Sam?" Nydia asked.

"You remember complaining about all that rope we took from the storage area that night?"

"Yes. So?"

"We're going to climb down, ladies," Sam said, pointing to the window. "Right through there and down."

"Sam! ... that's fifty feet."

"Not really. It just seems that far." He smiled mischievously. It was about forty feet down, though, but he wasn't going to tell them that. He pulled a knotted rope from under the bed. "I did this while you two were napping this afternoon." He secured the rope to a bed post and then opened the window, removing the screen. "You two go, then I'll secure the rope from that drain bracing just outside the window, crawl out on the ledge, and close the window behind me. The doors are locked to both rooms, so with any luck we'll be able to fool them 'til morning." He took a firm grip on the rope. "You first, Nydia. Easy does it."

She hesitated only long enough to kiss him on the mouth and then was gone down the rope, scampering to the ground. Sam looked at Linda. She shook her head.

"I ... can't. I'm afraid of heights, Sam."

Sam was painfully blunt with her. "How would you like to be gang-screwed, Linda? Pa.s.sed around among ten or fifteen guys? And then positioned on your knees and f.u.c.ked like a dog-right up the a.s.shole?"

She looked at him in shock, then without any further comments, she went out the window and down the rope, fear making her strong.

Sam watched the two women gather together on the ground. then untied the rope from the bed post and secured it to the drain brace. He lowered the three packs, then the other equipment, finally the weapons. He slipped out onto the ledge, feeling the bite of the suddenly cold winds of November as they came singing from the north.

He was halfway to the ground when he felt the rope begin to give in his hands and the bracketing spikes pull away from the brick and mortar. But Sam was a veteran parachutist, young and in excellent physical shape, and a fifteen foot drop was no more to him than stepping off a curb. He hit the ground rolling and sprang to his feet.

"Better this way," he said. "The rope won't be dangling for anyone to see. Besides, we might need the rope before we're through."

Sam struggled into his backpack and the others did the same, Nydia asking, "Which way do we go, Sam?"

"North, to the high ground," he said, pointing through the darkness. "That ridge about three-quarters of a mile from the stone circle. I want to see this calling out of the forces." He turned and took the point, leading the way, three who refused to bow to the whims of Satan, three who chose to fight rather than surrender; three who maintained a strong belief in their G.o.d.

But as they walked through the night, toward the deep timber, one among them looked back at the great house ... and smiled ... oddly.

Since he had first noticed the unusual activity in the Heavens, the astronomer at the observatory in California had been quietly working overtime. On his own time and with his own equipment. He had asked for and received permission to take two weeks of his vacation and Ralph was now deep and high in the rugged mountains of California, maintaining a vigil, sleeping during the day, working from dawn to dusk.

He had discovered another area where unusual activity was periodically occurring. And he spent his nights alternating his powerful telescope between east and west. His wife, Betty, although not a professional stargazer, did have enough experience in the field to be more than an amateur, and, like her husband, was a Christian. If Ralph said he saw the face of G.o.d, then he saw it. Period. Now Betty would like to see His face. Or she thought she would.

"Why are you changing scope position tonight?" she asked, watching her husband reposition the small but extremely powerful scope, shifting it to the east.

"Hunch," he replied. "You ought to know after all these years of putting up with me that I'm a hunch player.

"What do you feel is going to happen?"

He shook his head. "I ... can't really answer that, honey." He glanced at his watch. Seven o'clock, PST. Ten o'clock over most of Quebec Province. He didn't know how he knew, but he felt time was growing short. Two more hours, maximum, until ... whatever it was would occur. Unless he was all wet in his hunch playing. "Make us a fresh pot of coffee, honey," he said. "Maybe sandwiches, too, if you will, please. Come midnight, hereabouts, we'll be too busy for anything else."

"Ralph! You're being deliberately vague."

"No. No, really that's not true. I just don't know ... what we're going to see. And ... I'm a little afraid of it, I think."

She shivered beside him.

He put an arm around her shoulders. "Cold?"

"No," the reply was softly given. And he asked no more questions, just held her to him in a loving embrace. They clung together for a few seconds before she pulled away. "Ralph! Now don't you get any funny ideas."

"Why not?" He grinned at her. "We have two hours."

She returned the grin and took his hand. As they walked to the solid little cabin they had built-working side by side-more than twenty years back, she said, "Ridiculous! And at our age, too."

The mist that was Balon's shape on earth shifted almost nervously. He sensed something was building, far to the east, and he was worried, wanting to go to his son, but knowing he could not. His place was here, with Jane Ann and the others, and young Sam would have to work it out alone. The mist seemed to smile. Well ... not quite alone. The warrior was there ... he knew the warrior was there, and knew, too, that the mighty one would help Sam all he could. But if Balon's suspicions were correct, the warrior would have his hands full combating the forces that would soon leave the netherworld, trekking their way past the smoking veil and into present life and form.

It would be an awesome sight, Balon felt. And one h.e.l.l of a fight.

"Here." Sam dropped his pack to the ground. "We can see it all from here and still have time to run if they spot us."

"Run where?" Linda asked.

"Run and run," Sam answered the edgy question. "Run. Hide. Then run some more. Until it's time to make a stand and fight it out."

"When will that be?" Again, the questioner was Linda.

"When it's time," Sam told her, patience in his tone. "I'll know."

"How?" she pushed him for a firm answer.

Nydia gave him a look that said all her past suspicions were returning.

"I can't give you a flat, firm answer to that." Sam looked at the flat plain that contained the dark circle of stones. The altar, although Sam could just barely make out, held a vivid white slash across its top. "But I'll know."

His answer did not satisfy the young woman, but she shut up.

"1 wonder what their reaction will be when they discover we're gone?" Nydia asked.

"Rage and hate," Sam said, shifting the Thompson from left hand to right. He looked at Linda. "Can you fire a weapon?"

She shook her head. "My dad never allowed them in the house. He said guns kill people."

"People kill people," Sam said, reb.u.t.ting her statement. He glanced at Nydia, and she picked up the unspoken question from his thoughts.

"I can shoot. Rifle, shotgun, pistol."

"All right!" Sam smiled.

"But I've never had to shoot at a human being," she added.

"These aren't human beings," Sam reminded her.

Linda shifted her b.u.t.t on the ground. Nydia put her hand to the side of her neck, touching the tiny bite marks. They itched. She wondered what had bitten her. "What time is it, Sam?"

"Eleven-thirty, Eastern time," Ralph said to his wife, "We'd better get into position."

She grinned at him.

"Old lady," he returned the grin, "you are a wanton woman."

"I'm a-wantin' you," she aped a southern accent. "Again."