The Altar

“You drive,” he said to Crissy, who shut the back door.

It was as simple as taking candy from a baby.

5

Erik had no idea how difficult it was to sit still. Thralls had found a relatively comfortable spot for them behind some trees, and had wrapped them both up in camouflage materials so they’d fit in. But as the minutes turned to hours, his back had begin to hurt, then he’d started to itch everywhere. His legs fell asleep, his feet cramped up and he constantly fought back the urge to sneeze. It was a miserable experience, especially when the sun went down and the mosquitoes showed up in battalions. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even imagine what was going to go down tonight. The waiting was almost unbearable. The suspense and the anticipation were driving him crazy. And the worst part, he felt like he always had to go to the bathroom. He didn’t know how the SWAT teams did it. They must have been specially trained just to hold their bladders.

He flipped the switch on his digital watch to see the time. It was 11:35 at night, just ten minutes since he’d checked last. Jay Leno would just be starting his monologue, and the news of the day would be over. He’d been here for hours but it seemed like days. And who knew if anything even was going to happen. The demon had already killed once today. Why would it strike again so soon? Still, something warned him that it would happen tonight.

He thought he heard a scuffling in the trees and wondered if it were the breeze, or maybe one of these elite officers was as restless as he was. He would have found the thought somehow comforting. He relaxed for a moment and then realized that something was moving through the field ahead of him. It was a line of people wearing white robes and carrying torches. It reminded him of the Ku Klux Klan rally he’d seen years ago in Washington when a dozen or so clan members marched and the government had to close down the entire city to protect them from protesters. This group looked almost as pathetic.

He looked more closely, trying to make out details through the flickering of the torch flames. He recognized the leader-the thing on his head was almost the size of a basketball now, and it flopped unceremoniously from side to side as he walked. It was almost comical, because he tried to walk slowly and dignified, like a professor at commencement exercises, but the thing on his neck made it look all the more ridiculous. Erik almost laughed. Perhaps he had given these idiots more credit than they deserved. Maybe Collins had just lost his marbles for the moment, and these fools had no more power than a defrocked priest.

Then he noticed a naked woman and teenage girl, being led along by the group. The two looked as if they had been beaten and perhaps drugged. They seemed to have no mind of their own as they walked along, flanked on either side by tall men in white robes.

Erik looked around quickly to see what the reaction of the police would be. So far, though, they did nothing.

Erik counted twelve others in white robes in addition to the leader. They slowly circled the altar stone with the leader taking his place at the stone’s head. He nodded and the woman and girl were placed on the stone. They huddled together, holding one another for warmth and comfort. Only now did they seem to be aware of their surroundings. He heard the girl begin to whimper.

“Please let her go,” the woman said. “She’s just a child.”

Erik heard a click, followed by a bird call, the signal that the troops were about to move into action. Thank God, he thought. The last thing he needed was to witness another killing today, particularly that of an innocent woman and her child. He held his breath and waited.

The leader raised his hands up over his head and shouted a brief chant. Erik could feel the troops moving, inching forward. But he could also feel something else, something sinister. A mist appeared out of nowhere just as the SWAT Team moved forward. The cult leader turned to look at the advancing troops, then closed his eyes. His head slumped to the side on his shoulders, and the growth on his neck seemed to straighten up and come to life.

“Halt!” Thralls shouted. “No one move! We have you surrounded.”

The leader held his hands over his head for a moment, as if obeying the command. Then he took a step forward into the sacrificial stone. At first, Erik thought it was a trick of the light, or the mist, or of his own fatigue or nerves. The growth on the leader’s neck was forming into a definite shape now, and the leader took another step into the stone. The entire lower half of his body, from the waist down, absorbed itself into the stone.

The woman and girl began to scream in agony as the thing came toward them, rippling through the stone like a tidal wave. Someone opened fire on the leader, but if the shot hit, it had no effect. Other shots rang out, and the twelve followers in white robes began to scream and scatter. One of them jerked backward and dropped; a smear of blood appeared on his back. Another was shot in the head and dropped. But still the leader advanced across the terrible stone like a ripple through a still pond.

The scene was a war zone now. The victims on the slab screamed in agony as they, too, were literally absorbed by this thing that had turned into a monster. It was growing larger and was glowing a bright red, like a hot piece of coal in a campfire. The original leader’s head had all but disappeared into the molten mass the creature had become. Erik could just see the tiny face contorted in the worst kind of agony imaginable. The SWAT team peppered the thing with gunfire, but the bullets seemed to pass straight through, or were absorbed into the stone itself, which had also become like molten lava.

The woman and her daughter burst into sudden flames, and the demon rose up like a rearing cobra, spitting flame like poison. Erik watched in horror as the flame hit an officer, immediately transforming him into a red-hot inferno. He felt another shot of flame pass just to his right where it caught a fleeing officer and incinerated him on the spot. The heat from the blast singed the hair on Erik’s right arm as he’d held it over his face.

He snuck a quick look back at the altar stone. It resembled a huge funeral pyre now as the stone, the sacrificial victims, and the demon all burned with an intense fury, lighting up the night sky. The SWAT team had given up the fight now, and were either dead, dying, or running for their lives. Erik had no idea what happened to Thralls, and didn’t wait around to find out. Dovecrest was right. This was no ordinary battle. His only chance was to escape, regroup, and determine how to destroy this thing before it really was too late.

He looked back once as he ran and saw what looked like the entire forest engulfed in flames. Then again, maybe it already was too late, he thought grimly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 1

Erik had no idea how he found his way through the woods and back home. His survival was strictly due to luck and not based on any special skills or abilities of his own. As far as he could tell, the entire SWAT team had been destroyed in a horrible attack of flame, molten lava and brimstone. It was as if the gates of hell themselves had opened and exploded like a volcano into the woods. The demon was definitely ready now, having absorbed the power from the stone as well as two new victims and the body of the cult leader.

He found the path leading to his backyard, and only when he saw the lights from the house did he realize where he was. He had suffered burns on his right arm, and had scratched himself badly on his flight through the woods. His clothes were covered with a coating of black ash, and his pants had been ripped in several places. In short, he looked like he’d survived a fierce battle. In point of fact, he had.

Vickie saw him first, as she looked through the glass sliding doors in the kitchen. Though he couldn’t hear her, he saw her throw her hands up in the air and come running out. Pastor Mark followed. Todd, he guessed, was already in bed.

She ran through the haze of the backyard flood lights and wrapped her arms around him.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, looking at him. “Erik, what happened!”