The Devil's Touch

'How much time does it take to read, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me!''

The warrior gripped his sword. He turned to leave.

'I forbid your leaving the firmament.'

A smile played across the mighty warrior's lips. His beard moved as he spoke. 'What would You have done with me, then? Banishment?'

'You would not be the first,' the warrior was reminded. 'But banishment was your choice of punishment, not mine.'

'You will consider the problem?'

'Don't I always?'

'Sometimes for eons.' The warrior's reply was dry as the pits of hell are hot.

'Michael, old warrior friend, not everything can be solved by the sword.'

'Would You prefer the jawbone of an ass?'

The returning sigh was as thunder rolling across the heavens. 'Sometimes I wonder why I continue to tolerate such impudence.'

'Because absolute power corrupts!' the warrior said with a laugh that roared and rumbled like a hurricane.

He could not suppress the chuckle. 'Leave me for a time; I will consider your request.'

'I knew You would.'

And the heavens were silent.

FIVE

Sam cleared his head for a time—something cleared it—and drove past his house, intending to take Desiree in to meet Nydia. But his wife's car was still gone. For a reason the young man could not fathom, that irritated him, rubbed his ability to reason down to raw nerve ends. He ground his teeth together and silently swore. He was conscious of Desiree looking at him, a curious look in her eyes.

The young woman proved her astuteness when she said, 'Sam, if you and your wife are having troubles of some sort, being with me is the last thing you need at this time.'

Sam went on the defensive—with a little unknown help. 'What I do, Desiree, is my business. Besides, there are—certain things you don't know; no way you could know about them. Perhaps this is the time to—' He went blank. He could not remember what he was about to say. He blinked, then met her gaze. 'What was I just saying?'

She returned the blink and added a smile. 'It was nothing, Sam. Don't worry about it.'

'O.K. Let's drive a bit more.'

'I am with you, Sam.'

They began circling the town, the anger steadily growing in Sam. She just dumped the boy and took off, he thought. She knew where I was going; I told her that last night after going to bed. But she chooses not to tell me a goddamn thing. Hell with her.

'Perhaps she is with her lover,' a voice whispered in Sam's brain.

Yeah, Sam thought. Maybe.

'Perhaps she is searching for the ultimate orgasm. Didn't she once tell you that she liked a teeny bit of pain mixed in with her pleasures?'

Did Nydia say that? Sam pondered. Yeah, I guess she did. But he couldn't remember when.

'Jon Le Moyne would certainly give her just a teeny bit of pain with the pleasure.'

The voice faded.

There was that name again. It was coming up with too much frequency not to have some truth behind it.

He looked to his right at an intersection and stomped on the brakes so hard the rear tires sang against the pavement.

'Sam!' Desiree protested. 'What is it? What's wrong?' She fell back against the seat.

Sam expelled a long breath. He looked at Desiree. 'I guess the stories are true after all. That just about confirms it in my mind. That's my wife's car parked right over there, on the left side of the street.'

'All right. So she's visiting a friend. What is so wrong about that?'

'That friend is a high school student. A junior, I think.' How did I know that? 'A boy. But a young boy so well-equipped in the manhood department a lot of * women in this community would give anything to bed him down—so the stories go. I've heard stories, rumors, gossip, about my wife and Jon Le Moyne. Lot of stories.' But he could not recall the source of a single story. That thought quickly left him. It was replaced just as quickly by hot anger and a feeling for revenge. His time with Janet was something that had been, for the time, blocked from him.

'Well,' Desiree said. 'I see. She must be quite brazen to park her car in front of her lover's house in broad daylight. My people are a bit more discreet than that. Perhaps she doesn't care if you find them out, oui?'

Sam opened his mouth to tell her that perhaps Nydia was under the control of the Devil, but that was wiped from his mind before it could transmit to his tongue.

Sam said, 'Well if she doesn't care, then I damn sure don't. Can you blame me for that?'