And in the firmament, the Total Being knew He had been right, choosing well.

Balon said: "Very well. That choice is entirely up to you."

Jane Ann felt Balon's presence fade. Once more, she was alone, looking down at her tormentors from her nailed position of pain and faith. She gazed at the a.s.sembled throng of Satanists, and many looked back at her, most with open hatred and defiance, but a few with concern and pity. Her eyes touched those, holding for a few seconds. When Jane Ann had their attention firm, she said, "I can promise you nothing except what help I might be able to give ... offering my prayers for you. The rest is up to you."

"What the f.u.c.k are you mouthing about now, b.i.t.c.h?" Jake yelled up at her. He laughed hoa.r.s.ely. "The silly c.u.n.t is losing her mind."

But a few among the many knew better. About thirty moved to the base of the pain-wracked tower. The numbers equally divided between men and women. They stood defiantly before the crowd, many of whom were old friends and lifelong acquaintances. The few looked at one another, then began to sing, softly at first, then with gathering power as the faith they had lost once more filled them with the strength they knew they would soon need. Many openly wept as their love of G.o.d returned to them, overwhelming them with the feeling that at last, at long last, they were doing something worthy with their lives.

No one among the large crowd watching them attempted to interfere, for those gathered under the b.l.o.o.d.y, starkly vivid cross were all armed.

"Throw down your guns," Jane Ann told them.

All but one did. He walked back into the crowd that encircled the Cross of Faith and the few who, at the last, had seen the True Way.

The powerful strains of "Faith Of Our Fathers" rang over the site of rape and defilement and slow, agonizing death.

Shouting profanities, the Coven members surged forward, with Jean shouting orders to build more crosses, and do it quickly.

FIVE O'CLOCK, SAt.u.r.dAY THE LAST DAY.

Sam darted across the grounds, toward the mansion, only faintly defined in the growing darkness. No lights showing. Dark windows like evil, watching eyes. Stopping at the back door, he paused to catch his breath and to ponder his sanity at doing this. Putting an ear to the door, he listened, but could detect no sound from within. He drew back, extending his arm to the door k.n.o.b. Just before his hand touched the bra.s.s, the door swung open, and Falcon stood smiling at him, his fanged teeth glistening wetly in the darkness of the room.

"My dear Mr. King," the warlock said, his smile hideous. "So good to see you. Please come in. We've been waiting."

"Stay away from me," Janet warned the older girl. "1 mean it. I don't trust you," she whispered.

Linda smiled, her smile both evil and wanting. She returned the whisper. "Why don't you scream? Nydia will come to your aid."

"I will if you don't leave me alone." Nydia lay on the couch before the fire, deep in sleep. Her stomach was hurting. She moaned in her sleep.

Linda was steadily backing the child into a corner, her face holding a strange look, eyes burning. "Really thought you could get away with it, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you mean," Janet whispered. "I thought you were my friend."

"I am your friend, and you know what I mean."

Janet's hand closed around a poker, her back to a wall. "Leave me alone."

"Open your shirt," Linda commanded. "I want to see if you're marked."

"You're bananas!" the child hissed her fear.

"I want to see if you're marked!"

"Marked?" the girl questioned. "Is that all?"

Linda nodded, running her tongue over her lips and teeth.

"All right," Janet said. "But I still think you're nuts." She fumbled with the b.u.t.tons of her shirt. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bare, the buds tipped with tiny nipples.

Linda's tongue snaked out of her mouth, wetting her lips. Her tongue was unusually red. "I knew you were one of us."

"I'm not one of anybody! I'm not marked." The child pressed her back against the wall.

"I can see it in your eyes. You're really one of us." She held out her arms. "Come to me."

"You touch me and I'll bop you with this." Janet lifted the poker.

"Don't be afraid, child of ours, our G.o.d understands," Linda said.

Janet raised the poker. "Don't take another step," she warned.

Linda moved toward her, eyes shining, lips wet.

The poker swung. A dull splatting sound filled the room.

Nydia awakened to screaming.

"It's good," Jean spoke to the Coven. "We have been a.s.sured a long, exciting life on this earth. This act guarantees it."

Behind them, all around the circle of stones, around and slightly beneath the height of Jane Ann's lonely perch, a low moaning, sobbing sound was heard, the anguished sounds of pain and prayer audibly mixing with the silent flicker of the torches that lit the scene of awfulness. Some of the men and women who had repented to the True Way had been crucified; some had been stripped naked and the skin peeled from living bodies; others had been s.e.xually mutilated and left to bleed to death; all of the women and some of the men had been s.e.xually a.s.saulted ... hideously.

But not one had renounced the Lord G.o.d.

"Good-bye, Sam," Jane Ann spoke to her son. "Remember that Mother loves you."

The words slammed into Sam's brain as he stood poised in the open doorway of Falcon House. "Good-bye, Mother," he said, flinging his thoughts with all the mental strength he could muster.

"I heard," his mother's voice was faint in his brain. "Be careful."

Sam's head was once again clear of voices. He felt new strength enter him. He looked at Falcon.

"You can save yourself a great deal of pain, young man," the warlock said. "With just one simple act."

"And that is ... ?"

"Renounce your G.o.d."

"I have something to say to that." Sam returned the mocking smile.

"Yes, young man?"

And just before Sam hit the warlock smack in the mouth with his leather-gloved fist, dropping him to the floor, momentarily stunning the man, he said, "f.u.c.k you!"

Sam was past the dining area and into the den, running hard, before Falcon could pull himself up from the floor, vile-smelling blood leaking from his bruised mouth. The young man charged the room full of satanists, startling them. Holding the Thompson SMG firm, swinging it left to right, Sam blew a half dozen of them into the arms of their Master, then charged through the house, running up the first flight of stairs, heading for Roma's quarters. He had several sharpened stakes shoved behind his belt.

Turning at the landing by the second flight of steps, Sam ended the life of several more, emptying the drum into them as they charged recklessly behind him. A wildly fired shot pulled at Sam's left arm, gouging a b.l.o.o.d.y path. His arm burned from the lead, but it was slight and not serious. He ran up the stairs.

Lana confronted him, hissing at him, teeth fanged, fingers turned into talons, reaching for him, her breath stinking. He fired into her body and she flopped on the floor, screaming oaths at him. But she would not die. She crawled to her feet, mouth and tongue blood-red just as Sam tore the top off a vial of holy water and flung it at her. The water bubbled and hissed as it burned her face, searing and smoking as acid, eating into her living but dead unholy flesh. She screamed and thrashed on the floor, beating her feet to a macabre dance of pain and death.

Furious footsteps sounded behind him. Sam spun, ejected the drum and rammed home a clip, jacking a round into the chamber. He crouched, at the ready, as several youthful members of the Coven, all from Nelson or Carrington College came rushing at him. Sam pulled the trigger back and held it, starting the hard burst waist high. One slug caught Mac on the hipbone, flinging him backward, over the railing. He screamed as he flailed through the air, the screaming abruptly halted when he hit the marble floor. He splattered with an ugly sound.

The hallway was littered with dead and dying and undead. Sam doused them with blessed water and raced to Roma's quarters, the screaming smoking flesh fouling the air behind him.

Roma was gone, her quarters empty. Sam ran through the three room suite, pausing to look at a picture on a dresser by a rumpled bed. It was the 8 x 10 of his father. Sam stood for what he thought was only a moment, but he had a feeling that time was spinning past him, and he did not understand that. The picture seemed to hold him mesmerized; he was conscious of a strange stillness in the great house. Nothing was moving. Then, he shook his head. Noise once again drifted to him. And before his disbelieving eyes, the photograph melted into nothing.

He spun at a noise behind him. Black stood, a dueling sword in each hand. "I will guarantee my position of greatness by your death at my hands," he said smiling. "We will fight fairly, you and I. With these," he held up the slim swords. "You mortals have a streak of justness inherently bred in you. So I know we shall have a fair fight. Shall we begin, half brother?"

"If you'd ever gone through Ranger school, Black, sou'd know better than to ask a stupid question like that." Sam lifted the Thompson and blew a dozen holes into Black.

Black was flung backward, slamming against the wall, the bullet holes in his chest smoking pocks. But he would not die. He slowly rose to his feet, laughing insanely. "You don't fight fair, half brother," he said, flicking the tip of the sword at Sam.

"Ain't that the truth?" Sam said, then cut off Black's legs at the knees with another burst of lead.

Black shrieked and thrashed on the floor, unable to get up. Sam heard loud voices and the faint sounds of boots, running, a door slamming, then another door opening and closing. He jerked a stake out of his belt and drove it into Black's chest. A filthy liquid poured from his half brother's chest and mouth, the color and odor of stinking pus.

As he lay dying on the floor, Black said, "One point I must make, dear brother," he gasped, as unlife ebbed from him. "Have you taken into consideration that one day you may have to do this very thing to your wife?"

With pus and foulness rolling in streams from his body, Black closed his eyes and died.

Sam pulled out a small bottle of fuel. He doused the drapes and carpet with it, then tossed a match onto the floor, the extremely flammable fuel going up with a whooshing sound, the flames jumping around the room, spreading into the hall carpet.

Picking up a sword, Sam ran from the room, literally knocking Judy down in the hall. She hissed at him, teeth fanged. Sam ran her through with the rapier, leaving her pinned to the floor, flopping and screaming, foulness staining the carpet beneath her thrashings.

Sam ran from room to room, setting the drapes, beds, and closets, full of clothing, blazing.

"Fire!" someone yelled. "The house is on fire."

Sam ran to the balcony and opened fire on the panicked Coven members, knocking several of them spinning and howling to the marble floor. He ran down the hallway, setting rooms blazing, quitting only when he ran out of fuel and matches. He looked up at the top floor, it was blazing, smoke pouring out in oily plumes.

It can't be this easy, he thought. I can't have won this easily.

"Quite right, young man," Falcon's voice reached him from the floor below.

Sam spun, the Thompson at the ready.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Falcon said. "Put that foolish weapon away. It can't harm me in any manner-unlike your half brother. I've been shot by more jealous husbands than you have cartridges for your weapons."

Falcon's face was only slightly bruised from Sam's hard punch. He was dressed in a smoking jacket, his right hand in his pocket.

Sam looked at his watch. He was shocked to find it was eight-thirty. He had ninety minutes to get to Nydia and the others and get away. Where had the time gone? It must have had something to do with his dad's picture; that odd sensation he experienced.

"Are you taking some sort of medication or expecting company?" Falcon asked.

"What?"

"Your watch, and the expression on your face when you consulted your timepiece. Ah!" comprehension flooded his features. "I see. The ancient warrior gave you a timetable, did he not?"

Sam chose not to reply. He shifted the Thompson from right to left hand and stepped onto the stairs, the bannister hiding his right hand from Falcon's eyes. He hoped. His fingers closed around one of the two vials of holy water he had left.

"Ah, G.o.d's young warrior." Falcon smiled. "You are really going to fight me?" me?"

"I don't see that I have any choice. Where are all the others?"

Falcon laughed, rather bitterly, Sam thought. "What others? You've been charging around here firing that weapon and driving swords and stakes into people. We were not that many to begin with."

"You're a liar."

Falcon merely shrugged. "I have been called much worse, I a.s.sure you. No, a few ran away into the night."

"Roma?"

"Gone. Safe."

"You set Black up to die, didn't you? Giving him that silly sword?"

"Very astute of you. Yes."

Sam was only a few steps from the bottom. He slowly removed the bottle of holy water.

"You can't win by fighting me, Sam," Falcon told him. Then, quite unlike him, he said, "I set you up, too."

Sam flung the holy water at the warlock, deliberately aiming at the spot just in front of his feet, so the bottle would break and splatter its contents.

The blessed water splashed on Falcon's legs and a few drops. .h.i.t his flesh, burning him. The warlock screamed in pain. Sam jerked the last vial from his pocket, smashed the top against the railing, and threw it into Falcon's face.

It had the same effect as acid, producing holes in the man's face, smoking pits. One eye turned to ooze, running down Falcon's face.

"You lose, young man," Falcon managed to hiss, the words like a gurgle from the smoking holes in his throat.

"I lose?" Sam said.

But Falcon could no longer talk, his throat a burning hole, emitting putrid odors of the grave and beyond. He slowly pulled a flat automatic pistol from his jacket Docket and pulled the trigger twice, both slugs. .h.i.tting Sam, in the chest and stomach.

Sam tumbled forward, down the steps. He rolled next to Falcon's rapidly metamorphosing body, his blood mixing with the slime oozing from the warlock's rotting burning flesh.

Sam tried to get to his feet, but strength was leaving him. He collapsed as darkness enveloped him, falling into the oozing slime.

THE FINAL MOMENTS.

"Get into Wade's car," Balon projected. "Everybody! Don't ask questions. Do it. I will bring the Clay Man.'