Devil's Kiss

But Michelle would not die.

She howled at them, blood spraying from her lips. Her teeth grew fanged, her eyes wild and yellow.

'Missed the heart,' Dubois said calmly, ignoring her shrieks of pain. 'Pull the stake out for me, Sam. I don't have the strength.'

Sam jerked the stake from his wife's chest. He gave the dripping stick to Dubois.

The priest raised the stake far above his head. 'Give me the strength, my God, to destroy this creature of Satan. In Your name, Lord.' He drove the stake deep into Michelle's heart.

Still she howled as the hands of the clock drew only seconds from midnight. The town seemed to hold its breath. All the howling from the animals had ceased; no birds called in the night.

Dubois was covered with sweat from his exertions. He worked the stake deeper into her chest. As the stake ruined the heart, the woman on the bed changed before their eyes. Where there had once been a healthy, beautiful woman, there was now a dirty hag. The hag changed again, into a smaller younger woman, but a woman covered with thick hair. The transformation back into time continued to run its course, until what was left on the bed did not in any way resemble a human form.

The thing on the bed was of such horrible features it was disgusting to look upon. It was an animal, but it was more; it was a Beast, but it was not. It was, to Sam, indescribable.

A stench filled the room, winding throughout the house. Both Sam and Father Dubois fought back vomit at the smell. It was the odor of thousands of years of evil, of sickness of the soul.

Wiping his face with his hand, Sam said, 'You mean—you mean, I've been married to THAT? All this time!' He looked at Dubois. 'You never liked her. I sensed that. You KNEW!'

'I suspected, Sam.' Both men seemed unable to pull their eyes from the rancid sight on the bed. 'But I could not be certain. How could I tell you? I couldn't.'

Sam shuddered at the sight on the bed and of his own memories of Michelle. He was still somewhat in shock. 'Wh—what do we do with her—it?'

'First we wash and change clothes. Then we wrap the thing up and take it out to Tyson's Lake. Dump it over the fence. Give it to the Beasts.'

'We killed—'

'A thing!' Dubois finished Sam's sentence. 'Something of the most perverse evil to ever walk God's earth. She—it never accepted our God, Sam. She only pretended to accept, all the while working toward her Master's ultimate goal.'

'Michael, what was she?'

'One of the originals, I believe. A—witch, I suspect. She's been here on this earth for hundreds—perhaps thousands of years, in one form or another, changing with the times, and always ... waiting for her Master's signal to do evil—to strike. There is no way of knowing how much evil she has spread over her many lifetimes and lifestyles. How many lives she has ruined. She was very difficult to destroy,' he mused. 'She must have been very old and very powerful.'

The men washed the stink from them, Sam giving Dubois some of his clothes to wear. The shirt and pants were far too large, but they were clean.

Sam rolled what was once his wife into a thick blanket, then a tarp, securing the bundle with rope. He dumped the foul-smelling thing in the back of the truck, then pulled out the Thompson submachine gun from under the seat, along with a drum and several boxes of ammunition. Walking back to the house, the Steiner's Doberman lunged at him, teeth bared, snarling. Sam kicked the animal savagely in the side, sending it away, yelping and whining in the night.

'Bastard!' the minister cursed, then looked heavenward. 'Excuse me, Lord—but these are trying times.'

There was a great feeling of relief in Sam concerning his late wife. It was un-Christian of him, he knew, but on this he could not control his emotions.

In the house, the priest seemed able to read his thoughts. 'Think of it this way, Sam, you were never married in the eyes of God. The ceremony was a farce from beginning to end. Put her out of your mind, for she never existed in God's eyes.'

'How do you have the power to get inside my head like that? How did you know what I was thinking?'

Dubois smiled, almost laughed. 'Nothing mystical, Sam, I assure you.' He looked very frail, Sam's clothing hanging on him. 'I saw the love in your eyes when you looked at Jane Ann this afternoon. Pure love. Good love, as it should be between a man and a woman. You need her, and she needs you. Now you're free to speak to her of your love, and she of hers. It will be a strong union, Sam, for as long—' He stopped abruptly.

'I know, Michael. You can go ahead and say it. I'm not going to survive this fight. I know that. I'll beat the devil here, but he'll kill me in the process. Won't he?'

Dubois's eyes were cloudy. 'I—wish, I hope you and Jane Ann produce a son, Sam. There is time; you must!'

'I said something last evening, Michael, after the devil finished his games with me. I remember saying: 'We'll meet again. Me or mine.' And I don't know why I said it.'

The priest said nothing, just slowly nodded his head, watching Sam feed cartridges into the sixty round drum for the SMG. He smiled. 'Good, Sam—good! You're girding your loins for the fight. It will be up to you to lead.'

Sam's gaze was level. 'Why me, Michael? And why do you want a son of mine to be born? To be conceived in the midst of all this horror?'

The old priest shrugged. 'I rarely question God, son—it's not good business for mortals. I simply believe you've been chosen—by Him. And that is that.'

Driving out to the lake, past the darkened homes of Whitfield, the bundle of filth rolling and bumping in the bed of the truck, Sam said, 'Michelle could not have been the only one of her kind. There has to be more.'

'Yes, Sam, many of them. Probably in every town and city in the world. But not like Michelle. There are, I believe, relatively few like her—thank the Lord. But those who can be easily swayed into accepting Satan's doctrine of evil? Millions, Sam, millions. Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Moslem. In most cases they don't know they can be—and most would deny it. But if one knows what to look for, they are easily spotted. They are the rumor-spreaders, the gossip-mongers, the profane. They are the hypocrites, the people who condemn others for their faith, or because of their skin, or the slant of their eyes, or, just look at that filth, Hitler, because one is a Jew. They are the vicious, both physically and verbally. I could go on and on, but you know as well as I.'

'I know there are some people in this world who need killing,' Sam said bluntly.

Dubois chuckled. 'My, you are a maverick, aren't you? He chose well.'

'What you said, Michael; that takes in about sixty or seventy percent of the population.'

'At least, Sam. Heaven, my boy, will be sparsely populated. And there are going to be a lot of very surprised people come Judgment Day.'

Sam chuckled. 'I hope I won't be one of them.'

'You won't.' Dubois said it with finality.

'Thank you for that,' Sam said dryly. 'Michael, what you said about those types of people; most psychiatrists would argue that those people are just suffering from some type of mental problem.'

Father Dubois again chuckled, darkly. 'George Herbert said it best, Sam: fHe that lies with dogs, riseth with fleas.' '

'The company one keeps.'

'Exactly. Most psychiatrists are, in my opinion, grossly out of touch with reality. Most eggheads are. It's very easy—convenient, even—to place a clinical term on a person who is basically just not a fit human being. And never will be,' he added.

'We're entering the age of Liberalism, Sam, and it's going to be awful! 'Poor little Sammy or Johnny or Susie doesn't know right from wrong' will be the battle cry of the next couple of decades. And that has got to be one of the most ridiculous statements ever uttered from the mouths of so-called educated men. Good heavens! Pavlov taught his dogs right from wrong.

'Oh, certainly, Sam, there are people with mental problems. Only a fool would deny that. But as for the others I mentioned—no! You know and I know, Sam, that if we all would be willing to accept just a little less of material things, understand a little more—of those who need and want understanding, that is—what a wonderful place this earth would be. God is the answer, if people would just trust in Him, believe in Him, and do His bidding. But,' again