"I've got an idea, Sam," she said, moving closer to him. He could smell the clean scent of bath soap, and the ends of her raven hair were slightly damp from the shower. A pulse beat strongly in her throat.

It was not a holy union, his father's words returned to him.

Sam could see she was wearing nothing under her robe, from the waist up. He could but guess about from the waist down.

If anything, it was blessed by the Dark One.

Sam pushed his father's words from his mind. "I'll be glad to hear your ideas, Nydia." His voice was husky. "I sure don't have any." Boy, what a lie!

"Your dad may not like this," she warned, taking another step closer to him.

"My dad dumped this ... mission in my lap." Sam's tone was a bit sarcastic. "And if you're listening, Dad, I'm sorry. But I don't know what to do."

"Let's play along for a time," she suggested. "I mean ... can we leave? I don't think so. I found out my mother can't read me as before, and I suspect your dad had something to do with that. But the strangest thing has happened, Sam ..."

He arched an eyebrow at her pause, very much aware that that was not the only part of him that was beginning to arch upward. He resisted an impulse to fold his hands over his crotch.

"I can pick up on your thoughts, now," she said, smiling. "And yes, Sam, I am wearing panties."

And she deliberately chose not to wear a bra. The thought popped into Sam's mind.

"You see?" she said. "It's not exactly reading a mind as much as just guessing accurately what the other has done or is about to do."

She wants me to kiss her. Sam sensed that mental push very strongly.

"So do it, Sam. Before I change my mind."

He stepped off the short distance between them with as much mixed emotion as when he first hurled himself out the open door of a plane, back in jump school. The one main difference being, he recalled, he did not have a hard-on back then.

"How crude," Nydia whispered. She was slightly tense as his hands cupped her face.

"We're going to have to do something about this new power of ours."

"First things first," she said, her lips trembling as her hands found his lean waist and pulled him to her.

Sam kissed her mouth, her throat, her neck, as their hips met in a frontal a.s.sault, as frenzied an attack as storming a beachhead.

And then, as they both would later recall, events began happening as if they were really above it all, watching two distinctly different beings in the room.

Her gown dropped to the carpet in a silken rustle of fabric, and his eyes became as greedy as his searching mouth. She pulled the waistcord to his robe and it parted. One touch from her hand and a shrug of his shoulders and robe made contact with gown on the floor.

Her pantie was no more than a thin strip of almost diaphanous silk, the lushness of womanhood vividly outlined, a perfumed jungle resting at the completion of gently curving belly.

"I am not perfection," she told him, thoughts mingling and meeting invisibly.

"You are to me," he replied.

She wore nothing except the gold cross, nestling between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His shorts joined her panties on the floor and they were content to stand naked in the center of the room, their lips touching gently, minds speaking volumes of silent words.

"I can't believe it's wrong," she said.

"Nor I."

She ran her hand down his flat, ridged belly to grasp his maleness, fingers encircling the thickness. "Will it hurt me?" she asked, her voice throaty with pa.s.sion and trembly from antic.i.p.ation.

And he knew she was telling him she was a virgin. "I ... don't know."

The bed seemed the most logical place to answer any number of questions, and they were soon there, without either of them realizing they had traversed the short distance.

His lips found the hardness of nipple and his tongue brought them to jutting nubs of excitement, while his hand traveled over the silkiness of belly to touch the edge of pubic hair and beyond: touching, lingering, fondling the wet lips and extended c.l.i.toris, finally moving to caress and part the folds of her, entering the soul of womanhood while she breathed words into his mouth as they clung to each other, joined at the lips.

She found his maleness, hard and eager, and with a knowledge that is inbred, began stroking him, finding to her astonishment and delight, the muscle of love thickening and hardening even more under her soft hand.

She clutched almost frantically at him, whispering, "Now, Sam! Now!"

He shifted on the bed and was between her legs, positioning himself. He gently placed the source of his manhood against the outer fold of woman and gently pushed, penetrating only a bit. She sighed under him, arching her hips upward, willingly asking for and receiving more of what she had desired since the moment of introduction only a few hours before.

Sam slowly and with a tiny bit of pain pushed the length of him into the hot wetness of woman, then slowly withdrew. And from that moment on, it was a battle with no losers; a war of silk and fire and pa.s.sion; an ageless confrontation between man and woman ... but it was more than that. It was a time of pain and pleasure for the both of them as they dueled on the bed, turning the sheets into a satiny battleground, a mixture of scents, a tangle of flesh. It seemed to them to stop time, to halt the forward movement of that which is unstoppable except for that brief time between the cessation of the heart and the soul exiting the cooling flesh.

Nydia began low whimpering sounds, shedding a few hot tears, not from pain or guilt, although one of those would come later, but from the knowledge, the signals her body was sending to her brain, that this deliciousness, this first time that would never again be the same, was about to end. Several small o.r.g.a.s.ms had shaken her, wavering almost sinfully through her, but as that one huge climax began its grip on her, she fought to hold on. But it was not to be. She grabbed almost too tightly at Sam's shoulders, pulling his mouth to hers as a feeling unlike anything she had ever before experienced ripped through her like the bow of an ice cutter charging through thick ice.

Sam exploded within her, his juices mingling with hers, a volcanic eruption of fluid that spread its warmth around the silken walls of the ultimate entrapment of male and female.

Nydia wrapped her legs around his and pulled him to her until it seemed there was only one person on the bed: a huge double-headed, many limbed creature. She shivered slightly as he softened within her, and she sighed as he withdrew from this battle. Not retreating, merely recouping resources. She kissed him, and he returned the touching of lips with a gentleness that was almost sad.

And they slept. Together. And the two were not alone.

Sam awakened once at the sound of a gentle knocking on the door. He fumbled for his clothes and padded barefoot to the door. The hall was empty, but two trays of food were beside the door. He took the trays in and placed them on the dresser. He wasn't hungry, and Nydia was deep in sleep. He crawled back into bed, and she nestled her warmth against him.

The food was forgotten.

"I have been blocked," Falcon said to Roma. "I cannot tell what is happening with Balon's son and Nydia. Is He interfering?"

"Indirectly, I believe. Through Balon, I am sure. My daughter and Sam now have powers even they do not realize they possess. And I do not understand that. I have attempted to speak with the Master, but I have been unable to do so. That distresses me."

"Roma?" Falcon lingered over the word, drawing it out as his mind raced. "Perhaps ... yes! I sense the battleground has been marked; the Master of Light and the Prince of Darkness have finally agreed on something."

"They haven't agreed on anything for thousands of years. Except Their mutual dislike of each other." She was silent as the implication of his words struck home. "You mean ... you believe we are alone in this? That neither Master will interfere any further?"

"For now, yes, I do. For how long ... ?" He shrugged eloquently, then put a finger to Roma's lips, a gesture of caution. "But I believe this, darling: should we fail here, we are through on earth."

She thought about that for a moment, her beauty marred by the ugliness of her deliberations. She laughed nastily. "Things seem to be repeating themselves. I'm beginning to believe our Master's sense of humor is equalled only by his lack of trustworthiness and loyalty."

"I hope you know what you are saying, for I surely don't."

"My sins-I hate hate that word!-have come home to roost." She smiled. "Isn't that a quaint expression? A colloquialism, really. I picked it up in Alabama, right after the American Civil War. Excuse me, the War Between the States. I plotted against Black Wilder more than twenty years ago. Someone in this house is plotting against me." that word!-have come home to roost." She smiled. "Isn't that a quaint expression? A colloquialism, really. I picked it up in Alabama, right after the American Civil War. Excuse me, the War Between the States. I plotted against Black Wilder more than twenty years ago. Someone in this house is plotting against me."

"Not I!" Falcon drew himself to his full height, indignant that she would even think him guilty of such treason.

She laughed darkly. "No," she said patting his arm, "not you, Falcon. Even for a warlock you have an inordinate sense of honor and loyalty. And we have known and liked each other for too many centuries."

"Then ... that leaves only ..." He refused to speak the name.

But Roma had no such reluctance. "Yes. My son. Black. He is ... strange, even for us. And he is also young, ambitious, and, I have to admit it: he possesses my genes and none of his father's."

"But surely the young man realizes his power is not yet equal to yours; will not be until he leaves this life and a.s.sumes his true role in the ways of the arts." Falcon shook his head. "But ... you are right. Black is ... odd, even for us."

Her gaze silenced him. "I don't wish to discuss my son's pederastic tendencies. It is not forbidden by our Master." She sighed and waved her hand. "But you are correct, of course. He does go too far at times. But I have had many offspring-some good, some bad." A thought sprang into her mind; a thought she did not share with Falcon.

"If we are alone here," Falcon mused. "I wonder if the same applies in Whitfield?"

"Probably. I feel Balon is there, looking after his precious Jane Ann. I never could understand what he saw in her. No t.i.ts."

SIX.

"Explain a golem to me, Sam," Jane Ann said.

They were in her home, after having spent hours with Miles and Doris, Wade and Anita. Tony and some of his friends from the Coven had been to the house, and had, in the vernacular of the young, trashed it, writing filthy sentences on the walls, stating plainly what they were going to do with Jane Ann.

But Balon's Bible had not been touched. It sat on the small table like a sentry on duty.

Jane Ann had cleaned up the house and painted over the nasty words and obscene drawings.

"There is no such thing as a golem," Balon thrust his reply.

"But that ... creature standing in the corner in Miles's living room!"

"Yes."

"Then it is real?"

"All things are real. Mythology is real. Dreams are real. Evil is real."

"Sam ... you're being vague."

"In a sense. But really, I am telling you all that I can."

"All right," she said after a time. "I think I see. If we believe in it, it is real. But if someone does not, it doesn't exist." She waved her hand toward the outside.

"But ... will they believe in it?"

"Oh, yes. Be a.s.sured of that."

"G.o.d must have a sense of humor."

"He created humans, didn't He?"

And the clock in the hall chimed its message: it was Friday. The horror was about to begin.

Sam awakened with his arms full of soft, warm nakedness and his heart pounding. But he did not awaken with a start. He wondered why his heart was hammering so violently in his chest? He opened his eyes, looking around the dimly lit room. He saw the trays of food on the dresser and remembered bringing them in. Nothing else was disturbed. He listened but could hear nothing. He glanced at his watch on the nightstand and knew then what had awakened him. It was just past midnight. Friday. But what was so special about that? Friday? The day Satan is worshiped, of course.

He gently brought Nydia out of sleep.

"I love you," she whispered. "And I don't think it is wrong." She smiled. "And I must look awful."

"No, you're beautiful." He picked up his watch. "Look at the time."

"Oh, G.o.d! No wonder no one checked on us."

"What do you mean?"

"It's Friday. They would all probably be at the circle of stones, behind the house. I used to ask them what they did out there, but I would get such silly answers I finally quit asking. Something about star-gazing was what they finally settled on. I never did believe it."

"Nydia? You're holding something back from me."

"Yes."

"Tell me?"

"It ... isn't time, Sam. I will. I promise."

He thought of her statement in the four-wheel about knowing a lot about him. He shrugged it off. "You mentioned something about that circle of stones this afternoon while we were eating at the park. It triggered something in me then; the same thing happened now. There is something about a circle that is whispered about back in Whitfield-used to be, anyway." He paused. "Sure. Now I remember. Kids used to say that was where the Devil lived. That must be where Dad met the Devil. Oh, d.a.m.n, Nydia! How much of this is real and how much is not? What in G.o.d's name are we supposed to believe and do? I don't know. I do know this: I want to see this circle of stones. We'll go out there tomorrow."

"Are you out of your mind?"

He ignored that, for he believed he just might be ... for a number of reasons. "Can we see it from the house?"

"Faintly. From that window." She pointed. "But you can't see it at night."

He slipped from her warmth and blew out the small lamp, plunging the room into darkness. He opened the drapes. "Nydia," he called. "We can see it."

"What do you mean?" She crawled from the big bed and came to his side, pressing against him. She gasped at the sight in the small clearing behind the mansion.

It was torch-lit.

"I've never seen that before," she said.

"It's begun," Sam said flatly, without fear. And Nydia picked up on the firmness in his voice. "The nine days have begun."

"Sam, what are you talking about? What nine days?"