'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. While movements 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 passion that borderlined on disobedience to the teachings of God the Father. Indeed, the warrior had come close to admonition from Him on more than one occasion for his passionate 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 people home.
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.
God be with you.
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.'
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.
