Monty had mumbled something; he couldn't recall what. Now, driving the quiet streets of Logandale, it came to him: his sergeant handing out prints of a dead man found in an old condemned building. 'We got us a bunch of Satan nuts,' the sergeant said. 'Coroner's office says the old guy was alive when this was done to him. Look at it real hard, boys and girls, and keep your heads up on this one.'
That had been Monty's first year on the department. The pictures had made him violently ill.
And the same type of skinning had been done to Noah's dog; the same strange markings found on both the dog and the old man.
They never did find out who tortured and killed the old guy, but department shrinks said it definitely was the work of Satan worshippers.
Devil worshippers … here in Logandale? Monty just could not accept that. College kids up to something.
He rolled down the window to catch some air.
The air was hot and smelled bad.
'What the hell?' Monty muttered. It had been cool for the past few weeks; now hot air that smelled bad. Last week in October and getting summertime weather that smelled worse than the Hudson. Didn't make sense.
That's when Monty heard the shouting.
The hand that touched Father Le Moyne's face was sticky with blood. When Le Moyne recovered sufficiently from his initial fright to run inside his quarters and grab a flashlight, he could see why the man was bloody.
The man was naked, his body covered with strange-looking cuts and slashings and markings. The man was bloody from his mouth to his toenails. Or where his toenails were supposed to be. Father Le Moyne tried to avert his eyes from the man's groin. The man had been castrated. Among other hideous acts. Covering the tortured body with his jacket, Father Le Moyne told him, 'Lie still. I'll get help.'
He ran back inside and jerked up the phone. The phone was dead. But it had been all right an hour before. 'Damn!' the priest said. He ran out the side door of his quarters and toward the street.
The church was located on the edge of town, the nearest neighbor a full block away. The gas station across the street was closed. Le Moyne saw the lights of an approaching vehicle. He ran toward the street, waving his arms and shouting.
Monty slammed on his brakes and jumped out of the car. 'Steady now, Father. What's the matter?'
Pulling the chief toward the church, the priest explained as best he could. Monty could not believe what the priest was saying. In New York, yeah, it would not even make the pages of the worst rag in town. It seemed to the rest of the nation—Monty had been told, many times—the people living and working in the Big Apple seemed more concerned about the rights of street slime than in the rights of the citizen. That wasn't true. But just try explaining that to a tourist with a busted head, minus his watch, ring, and wallet. And the punks that mugged him back out on the streets before the tourist is out of the emergency room.
Maybe there was some truth in it, Monty finally admitted privately.
The priest knew his story sounded far-fetched. He held out his hands to the cop. Monty looked at the dark blood and quickened his step.
'There!' Le Moyne pointed to the side of the church.
The ground was sticky with blood. The jacket the priest had used to cover the man was there, blood soaked. But the man was gone.
The Beasts feasted that evening. They tore the intestines from the tortured man's belly and ate them while steam rose from the man's open stomach. The Beasts ripped flesh from bone and devoured the sweet meat. They cracked open bone and sucked the marrow from it. One Beast contented herself with eating the flesh from the man's head, peeling the head like an orange, popping the eyeballs into her mouth like grapes. Then she ate the brain.
The few bones that were left were gathered and taken deep underground, through a hole behind the Catholic church. The hole had at one time been a well. It now connected with an elaborate labyrinth of underground tunnels. The tunnels crisscrossed under the entire town of Logandale, with exits under all church basements, the city hall, the police station, the sheriffs department substation, the public schools, many homes, and into the town's sewage system.
The digging and reenforcing of the tunnels had begun years before, back in 1948. For when one coven falls, as happened that year, in another part of the country, it is written in The Book that another must spring forth so the number will remain constant. The coven in Logandale was one of the oldest in the Northeast, and one of the largest. The coven in Logandale was almost ready to begin its full possession of the town. It was down to a matter of hours.
THREE
Father Daniel Le Moyne sat in Chief Draper's small office. He went over his story again … and again. Monty could not break the priest's version. Not that he wanted to, or expected to, for he believed the priest had seen exactly what he described.
'Do you want to go over it again, Monty?' the priest asked patiently.
'That won't be necessary, Father. I believe you saw a man. Hell, here's your bloody jacket. The ground was covered with blood. I have samples to send off to the lab. But what happened to the man?'
Father Le Moyne shrugged, shrugged as eloquently as only a Frenchman can; even a third generation American of French heritage.
'Father, let me ask you a question you—well, may think odd.'
The priest waited.
Monty said, 'I don't know how to put this except to just jump right in. But bear in mind I fully realize this is not a question you would expect to hear from a trained cop. Have you felt—
Father Le Moyne lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He was thoughtful for a long moment, his eyes hooded with
