'We can't get out!' a Coven member told Jean, near hysteria in her voice. 'Everywhere we turn, we're blocked.'
' 'At's right,' another member said drunkenly. 'We done been ever' where in this part of Fork, down ever' road. We blocked in and shut out.'
'Blocked by what?' Jean almost screamed the question.
'Nothing.'
'There's something there, but you can't see it. It's invisible, but it's solid. Like a big bubble. You can feel it, but you can't see it. And it slopes upward, real gentle like, just enough where you can't get no purchase on it. And we seen two or three out-of-staters drive right through it, but when we run over there, it was closed to us. And them people in the cars didn't pay us no mind at all. It's like we was invisible, or something.'
'That's right,' the mayor of Whitfield said. He, like the others, was filthy, his clothing reeking from sex and sin and death. He was unshaven, and his breath and body stank. 'We're trapped in here, Zagone, trapped like rats in a barrel. What's going on?' he screamed, his fear becoming contagious, touching others of the Coven.
'Now, just calm down,' Jean said soothing them. 'The Master will take care of us. He promised he would; hasn't he always?'
So far, they all agreed.
'All right, I'll speak with him. For now, you people relax. Go get one of those not of us and crucify them—have some fun. Everything will be all right. You'll see.'
Her smile and words seemed to placate them, and they went into town, to find another luckless, hapless so- called Christian; they had all had such fun listening to them scream while they tortured them, raped them, nailed them to roughmade crosses. Selected areas of the town were dotted with crosses, with naked tortured bodies dangling from the towers of pain.
The men and women who still screamed out their lives were dying wondering why … just because they had cheated a little bit in business, here and there; just because they had professed to be Christians and had secretly or openly held hate in their hearts for niggers, Jews, spics, greasers, Indians … that shouldn't mean they should have to die this horribly … should it? Just because they had lied in their hearts while they prayed to Him, knowing they were lying all the time … that wasn't enough to warrant this … was it?
Just because they had enjoyed browbeating employees and cheating on income tax and palming a few bucks a day from their employers and every now and then getting in a quick fuck from their neighbor's wife or husband or secretly getting together with the boys to watch a fuck movie. … That wasn't enough of a sin to warrant this awfulness … was it?
After all, hadn't they gone to church every Sunday, just like the Bible instructed them to do? Hadn't they tithed like He asked them to do? Well … maybe not ten percent, but shit, in this day and time, that's just not reasonable. I mean, a fellow has Country Club dues and the whole family has to have a new wardrobe every year for every season and everybody's got to have their own car and bass boat and RV and all that, right? I mean, it's tough about all them starving kids in the world, but … that ain't my problem. Is it?
And didn't we pray for forgiveness every time we fell from grace and fucked the secretary or screwed the boss? Sorry it was an every week arrangement … but a guy or a gal's got a right to get a little strange cock or cunt every now and then … right?
But I guess, looking back over our lives, we really didn't try very hard to maintain His standards, His way. His rules, His teachings.
Maybe we did deserve all this.
The invisible barrier around Whitfield and parts of Fork County didn't upset Mephistopheles; there was no barrier he could not penetrate—except Heaven, and he certainly had no wish to go there. And the fact that he knew he was going to lose in this locale did not bother him very much … not really: he had lost before and would again. These ignorant, stupid, greedy, vain, petty, grasping mortals were all his anyway … no matter what took place during their short squirt of breathing life … most of them were too ignorant to understand that. No, what really bothered the Prince of Foulness was that he just could not understand why He was doing this. It was almost as if He had made up His mind to give up on the human race … end the game.
But Satan knew that wasn't true, knew they had a few more years in contest ahead of them. No, He wasn't yet ready to end the game and sear the world with nuclear fusion. This world. The game, the Foul One knew, had many millennia left; other worlds yet to experience his and His warfare; thousands of creatures left to yet develop into thinking beings, for now, though, as yet undeveloped enough to make the choice between darkness and light. Truth and lies. Beauty and ugliness.
No, Apollyon sighed, the sigh producing a great wind that raked the barren rolling hills around Fork County … no, that was not it. And then the Dark One decided, as he had done so many times in the past, that he really didn't know what motivated Him; what caused Him to accept one human being and reject another. His philosophy was so complicated … so simple, Satan corrected his thinking, to make it appear confusing.
Well, the Foul One concluded: so much for Whitfield. His enemy had won again. But, his smile was all things evil, there was still Falcon House, and even should I lose there, I will not lose entirely, for the witch was ready to make her move, to give him a demon child; the warlock ready to make his move, to give him another demon child, and he had more souls for the pits. So, all in all, it had not been an entirely fruitless pursuit. No, not at all. I'll leave these fools and twits to their own cunning here in this wretched village. Go to Falcon House, see how I may be of assistance there.
There was always tomorrow.
Neither Sam nor Nydia encountered many Coven members on this, the Lord's Day. Those they did see walked with quick, furtive steps, shifty, hurriedly averted eyes, and slumped shoulders, as if expecting a sudden blow from behind.
'Sam?' Nydia asked, as they had breakfast alone in the large dining room. 'Wouldn't this be the day to defeat them?'
