I shall give to the men of the coven. Monty, I shall—'
'All right, Xaviere,' Sam said, with a curt slash of his hand. 'All right. I get your point. All sorts of dire and perverted acts lay in store for us. I'll relay your messages to the others.'
She looked at him oddly. 'Yes, I believe you will. Honesty. That queer Christian trait. Do tell them, Sam. But please remember, the only way to prevent their torture and abuse is to give me your seed.'
'I'll pass the word along. That all you have to say to me, Xaviere?'
'You can't win, Sam. Not this time. Neither your God nor His warrior will interfere this time. And your God has forbidden your earth father to take a hand. You are alone. You and your pitiful little band of weak-sister Christians. It is now ten-thirty.' She did not look at her watch but Sam did not dispute her word. 'You will have until six o'clock this evening to reach a decision. After that—' She shrugged. 'What will be, will be.'
Sam grinned. 'Yeah. I saw that old movie on TV some years ago.'
'What!'
'Never mind. All right, Xaviere, I'll deliver the good word from you. Anything else?'
'Nothing. Except do not be foolish, Sam. You've put yourself into a box at the Fox Estate. I don't know why you did it. But it is done. And you cannot undo it. Believe this, Sam: You cannot, you
'Yes. I'm rather certain of that, Xaviere. Wish I could say I looked forward to it.'
He watched her walk away, disappearing into the Giddon House. He had tried to see himself in any part of the young woman, but could not. It was almost impossible for him to believe she was of his seed. But she was. He walked back into the mansion and gathered everybody in the large study. There, he told them, word for word, what Xaviere had told him.
There were a number of oohhs and aahhs and one or two 'gross-out!' and several cuss words. Richard asked, 'Do you think she means it, Sam?'
'Every word of it, Richard. Don't any of you doubt it for a second. Those people are unparalleled when it comes to savagery and cruelty. They enjoy it.'
'If she were to become impregnated by your seed, Sam,' Monty asked, 'what would the—baby be?'
'A demon-child,' Noah told him. 'But Xaviere would not die birthing it, as Roma did. But just as Xaviere is, the child could not be killed. It would be a pure spawn of Satan. And just as Xaviere will, the child would live forever.'
'A demon cannot be killed?' Joe asked. 'How come that is?'
'They can't be killed by a mortal,' Father Le Moyne told him. 'Not unless the mortal is blessed.' He looked at Sam in an odd way.
Sam did not catch the strange look.
'So what is going to happen to us, and when?' Viv asked.
'For the next couple of days,' Sam replied, 'my guess would be nothing much. It will be a battle of nerves, mostly. Satan will attempt to sway you with whispered promises, promises of all sorts of things. He'll try to tempt you, play on your weaknesses, anything to make you fall from grace. When that fails, then they use force.' He shrugged his muscular shoulders. 'But I could be wrong. The coven members might try to beat down the front door tonight. We're just going to have to be very careful and stay alert at all times.'
'Let's get some lunch,' Nydia suggested. 'We could all use a good meal. And this afternoon, we'll take shifts resting. It's the night we have to fear.'
'They're out there, aren't they?' Monty asked. He stood beside Sam, in a large room facing the road that ran in front of the mansion. Night had wrapped its cloak over the land, and the gathering purple was deep.
'Yes,' the young man replied. 'Watching. Waiting for us to make some sort of mistake. But they haven't set foot on this property. Not yet.'
'I wonder why they haven't.'
'I don't know.'
A pitiful howling moan reached the ears of those in the mansion. The sound was that of a human being who had reached the end of his endurance, before sliding off into death or insanity.
'What in God's name was that?' Monty asked.
'They're torturing people.' Sam's response was bluntly offered. 'Get used to it. You're going to hear a lot of it before this is over.'
The voice shrieked once more, the awful yowling of pain ending with a hideous tapering bubble of agony. The sounds of hammering reached the mansion.
Footsteps came up softly behind the two men. They turned to face Father Le Moyne.
'I wonder what they are building in the dead of night?' the priest asked.
'Crosses would be my guess,' Sam replied. 'They're crucifying people.'
Father Le Moyne signed the cross and bent his head for a moment. He sighed deeply and shook his head in disgust and sorrow. 'I wish there were something we could do for those poor people in torment.'
'Hey, the house!' A man's harsh voice cut the night. The man was speaking through a bullhorn. 'We got Old Man Fontaine all nailed up proper. We're makin' bets as to how long he'll last 'fore his heart quits on him. Any of you folks want to buy into the bettin'?'
'There is no limit to man's inhumanity to his fellow man,' Father Le Moyne said. 'Not when Satan is at the helm of the ship.'
