The Devil's Touch (20 page)

Viv had to fight to hide a smile.

"Lordy!" Joe said.

Hasseling's face grew red and he was about to respond when something came shattering through the picture window of the den. The heavy object bounced on the floor, leaving a wet red smear as it slid to a halt at Richard Hasseling's feet. Richard took one look at the horrible thing and vomited up his breakfast.

There would be no turning back for her now. She was under the full power of the Dark One. Standing this close to evil, Nydia could but obey the messages her brain was receiving from the forces that gleefully guided her actions.

She could function, she could ask questions, but she had no control over her actions. "Where are your parents, Jon?"

"Syracuse," the young man said. He reached out and ran his hand down the side of her face, caressing the softness of her throat. He hesitantly fondled a breast. When she did not draw away from his touch, he pressed both hands to her breasts. "They were coming back today, but I just got a call from the state police telling me they were killed in a car accident early this morning."

Part of her mind registered shock at the matter-of-fact manner he related and was responding to the death of his parents. But that small part of her mind was being overridden by the evil transmitted to her. "Your father is the priest's brother? Father Le Moyne?"

"Yeah," the young man said. He unbuttoned her blouse and licked his lips at the sight of her bra. He touched the soft flesh of her.

"Have you notified Father Le Moyne?"

"Naw. Who gives a shit? The bodies will be here late this afternoon anyways. Then he'll get a chance to see them tonight." Jon giggled. "And I mean
really
see them. You know what I mean?"

That small part of her mind that still functioned under her control recoiled at what she knew he was saying. His parents were now a part of the living dead. The undead. And the boy thought it funny. Again, that part of her mind was overridden by the dark forces. She stood passively as he slipped her blouse from her shoulders and dropped the garment to the floor. She felt coolness on bare skin. His hands caressed her, found the clasp to her bra, and that followed her blouse to the floor. Her breasts swung free.

Jon touched one nipple with a trembling fingertip. The nipple swelled. "Take off the rest of your clothes, Nydia," he told her.

She undressed and stood naked before him.

Jon ran his hands over her body, inspecting, exploring. The dark voices instructed her to respond, and she did, becoming as aroused as the boy.

He jerked his clothing from him, buttons flying and bouncing around the room. He stood naked before her, and she could not take her eyes from his hardness.

"We're going to have fun today, Nydia," he told her. "We're going to fuck away the afternoon. Just the two of us, doing things we've both dreamed of."

"All right," she heard herself say.

"Get down on your knees in front of me. You know what to do."

She knelt down on the carpet and lifted her eyes to meet his.

"Lick it," he told her.

An invisible barrier was being erected around Logandale. Extending for ten miles in any direction, the line could not be seen by the naked eye or felt by any human not confined within its barriers. But it was as real as Heaven and Hell.

The nonbelievers in Logandale, those not committed to the practices of the black arts, were trapped. There were only two ways out: accept the Dark One as a master—or die.

Out-of-town motorists driving through the barrier could not detect the line of evil. But they would not stop within the ten miles the system spanned, encircling the designated area of control. Logandale and Nelson College were slowly being cut off from the outside world. Good would soon be replaced by Evil.
If
all went as the Prince of Darkness planned;
if
his orders were carried out by his followers as he dictated;
if
God or his warrior did not intervene … then for the first time in the history of the United States, one entire community would be under the powers of the Prince of Hell. The Lord of Flies. Master of Darkness and Evil.

If
all went as planned.

It looked good to the leader of the coven and his council. The daughter of the Prince was here, and the Princess would soon make her move against Sam Balon. Very soon, young Mr. Balon would no longer be any threat. Very soon.

The object that had shattered its way into the den of the Draper house, and into the lives of the people gathered there had, in its living form, been a poodle. It now resembled, at best, something out of a horror movie. The little animal had been skinned and its belly sliced open. When it was hurled through the window, its intestines and other organs were sprayed all over the room. Joe found the heart and liver in his lap. He yelled and threw the bloody objects off him.

Byron Price looked down at the floor. A gray pile of intestines lay by his feet.

John Morton stared in undisguised revulsion at the red smear of blood on the floor.

Viv and Mille both held back screams, checking the outrage in their throats.

Monty Draper cussed.

Father Le Moyne crossed himself while Noah fought back sickness that gathered hotly in his stomach, threatening to boil from his mouth.

Ginny sat in numbed shock.

And Richard Hasseling puked on his shoes.

"It's begun," Father Le Moyne said. "We failed to heed the warnings. Now it's begun. And it may be too late for any of us."

"No!"
Hasseling screamed, jumping from his chair. "It's a filthy game of some sort."

"It's filthy, all right," Noah told him. "But as I tried to tell you before, this is no game. Now maybe you'll pull your head out of your ass and wise up."

"Don't you
dare
speak to me in that manner!" the minister shouted at the writer.

Noah adjusted his beret. "Oh—stuff it, you prissy prig."

"Gentlemen," Monty said wearily. "We don't need to fight among ourselves. We—"

Mille began screaming, pointing to the hallway. A foul odor filled the den.

Something about Fox Estate reminded Sam of Falcon House. Perhaps it was its hugeness. He didn't know. But something about it …

Then all thoughts of Falcon House were wiped from his mind. Sam was frozen in time as Nydia entered his mind. His wife was standing nude in a bedroom, a young man facing her. He was naked, his erection jutting out from his lean body. Sam watched Nydia take the erection in her hands and caress it. The young man fondled her breasts. One hand left her breasts and lingered between her legs.

The scene faded from Sam's mind, leaving wild, hot anger in its place. He clenched his hands into fists and wanted to strike out at something.

"Not strike to cause physical pain," a voice entered his head. "But there is a way to seek revenge for her unfaithfulness."

Sam listened as the voice gave him instructions. He smiled his satisfaction.

"Yes," Sam murmured. "That's what I'll do."

He was left with no conscious memory of the voice or the instructions.

Sam turned at Desiree's footsteps behind him. She was carrying a silver service, a pot of coffee on the tray. She smiled at him and said, "Let's sit over by the window. The view is so nice from there."

A lot better than what I just viewed, Sam thought. He did not question how he was able to bring to his mind's eye the infidelity. Something nagged at him, but he was unable to pinpoint the cause.

"1 apologize for what happened back there on the side of the road," Desiree said. "Something—something came over me. I don't know how to explain it. I've never experienced anything like it before."

"You don't have to apologize to me, Desiree. Truly, I enjoyed it."

"Truly," she said shyly, "so did I."

They drank their coffee and nibbled on small cookies in silence. They studiously avoided any eye contact until it became obvious to both of them they had best either play the hands they were dealt, or fold.

"Why are we behaving like this?" Desiree asked. "Something is the matter with me."

Sam struggled for full use of his senses. She watched the young man's face dot with sweat. She looked at him curiously. Sam gripped the small table's edges with his big hands.

"Desiree!" he blurted. "Can't you feel this—"

Sam could not finish the sentence. He could not remember what he was about to say. He knew only that he wanted the woman seated across from him.

Desiree smiled and put a small soft hand over his big hand. "1 know what I felt back on the road's edge, when you kissed me. I know that 1 have been drawn—somehow, to you from the first day I saw you, at Nelson. And those feelings have grown stronger by the hour. I want you, Sam."

She rose from her chair and came to him, drawing his head to her breasts.

Sam gave up. He was weary of fighting something he could not understand; weary of combating his failing memory and forces that were beyond his present level of comprehension. He gratefully placed his head against the softness.

With her standing, and Sam seated, he let his hands drift from her waist to her buttocks. She sighed longingly as his hands gripped her buttocks. He rose to his feet and pulled her to him, kissing her open lips, feeling her tongue meet and explore his own.

Sam did not see Jimmy Perkins watching them from the outside, peering through the window. The ageless spawn of the Devil grinned grotesquely. It was all going as planned. The Master would be so pleased.

Jimmy hoped the young couple would perform the sex act where he would be able to watch them. Jimmy enjoyed watching people fuck. But that was not to be.

Desiree and Sam left the sitting room and disappeared into the depths of the huge mansion.

"Shit!" Jimmy said. He was disappointed, but not too much so. For the Master had promised him he could have his choice of any of the young local girls very soon. Jimmy could wait that long.

In an upstairs bedroom, clothing became tangled on the carpet and male flesh touched female flesh. Breathing became tense and hot and excited. Sam tongued the nipples of Desiree until they ached from passion. He slid his mouth lower, tracing patterns on her bare belly. His tongue explored the soul of the woman as she moaned under his mouth.

She breathed love words as she gripped his erection, heavy and hot under her fingers. She cried out in pain as he entered her. Blood dotted the sheets as he penetrated the maidenhead.

Passion overrode pain and she began meeting him lunge for stroke.

The day promised much for all concerned in Logandale. On both sides of the line separating the firmament from the nether world.

None were to be disappointed.

All whirled at the sounds of Mille's screaming. All were shocked into silence and momentarily frozen in place at the sight facing them from the hall.

It was a man, but a stranger to them all. The man was pale, whiter than any living human being any had ever seen. His clothing reeked of a foulness none were familiar with, and when he opened his mouth, his breath was that of a newly opened grave.

He shuffled up the hall toward the archway, his mouth open, his tongue a horrible sickly red color, his teeth fanged, his eyes wild with a fury no human could comprehend. No one except Noah Crisp and Father Daniel Le Moyne.

The priest lunged to his feet, the large cross in his right hand. He rudely shoved Monty and Mille aside and stood in the dimly lit hallway. He held the cross up to Max Oberlin.

"Spawn of
Hell!"
he shouted at Max. "See this!" He thrust the cross at the undead.

Max screamed as if in intense physical pain, the breath from him fouling the close hallway, the stench drifting into the den. He shielded his eyes with his hands, deflecting the silver light from the cross of Christ.

Father Le Moyne rushed the undead, slamming into him, knocking the man backward. Max grabbed at the wall to keep from falling to the floor in the narrow hallway. The priest kicked at the living dead, hitting him on the leg. Max howled, not in pain but in confusion. Max stumbled from the hall and staggered into the kitchen, knocking chairs from the breakfast table in all directions. He lurched onto the back porch and tore the porch door from its hinges in his haste to escape the priest's rage and the hideous sight of that awful cross.

Father Le Moyne pursued him, shouting at the undead, raining down God's words on the creature. Monty grabbed the priest by the seat of the pants before he could get off the porch and hauled him back into the kitchen.

"Stay inside!" Monty yelled at the man.

Father Le Moyne calmed himself and nodded his head in agreement. "Yes. Yes, you're quite right, Chief. There is no telling what might be lurking outside in wait." He seemed confused for a moment. "But it's daylight; the sun is shining. I never knew those—things roamed about under God's sunlight."

Before Monty could reply, Richard Hasseling charged into the kitchen. "Do you have any idea what you're saying, Daniel? Have you any idea what you're implying?" He was screaming the questions. His face was pale and his hands were trembling. "That poor man was ill. Perhaps mentally deranged. But he wasn't a—a
vampire!
Good Lord, man—have you taken leave of your senses? Get a grip on yourself, Daniel. You people are carrying this joke just a bit too far!"

Catholic had taken just about all of Baptist he could safely tolerate. Le Moyne looked at Hasseling and said disgustedly, "Oh—stick it in your ear, Richard!"

Max ran from the house in fright and confusion. He did not care where he ran, just get away. The sight of the Cross had filled him with dread. And the bright sun was hurting his eyes. He did not know what he was, where he was, and what had caused this change in him. He knew only that he must have blood to survive. The blood of an animal would not do. He must have fresh human blood. And have it quickly. He had awakened in the rear of an emergency unit, disoriented and weak. He could not remember his name, what he did for a living, or even where he lived. All he knew for sure was that he was caught between two worlds. And this was all there would ever be for him. How he knew that was now beyond his now rather limited sphere of comprehension; but he knew.