Devil's Kiss

the next circle, closer to the devil's agent, you have—well, let's call them workers, stooges, whatever. They, too, can be destroyed by anything that would kill a mortal. A bullet, a life, a club. At least, I hope I'm correct in that hypothesis. Inside the last circle, the smallest circle, we'll find the real evil.' He looked at his friends. 'Like Michelle. And there is only one way they can be killed.' He held up a sharpened stake.

'Just like in the movies,' Chester said, without any mirth. His voice was tight with emotion as he looked at the stake in Sam's big fist.

'What about this tablet?' Wade asked.

'I think if we can find it, and destroy it, we'll have whipped him—at least in Fork. But I don't hold much hope of finding the tablet. It will be well hidden.'

'Well, let's storm the Dig site,' Chester suggested. 'You've got the Thompson, I've got my Greaser. We can get some dynamite—make some Cocktails. We can blow them back to Hell!'

Sam shook his head. 'Too many of them, Ches. We've got to take those in power out first—one at a time. And now, we've got that asylum to worry about. And don't think for a minute Satan didn't figure on it, too.' Sam had two dozen stakes lying on the ground. 'Help me with these, please.'

Arms full of stakes, the men walked back to the road, dumping the stakes in the bed of the truck.

On the way back to Whitfield, Wade asked, 'Tell me the truth, Sam, do we have a chance?'

'I believe so. A little less than even.'

'Sixty-forty, huh?'

'Something like that.'

'Those are not the greatest odds I've ever heard,' Chester commented.

'But we have something on our side they don't,' Sam grinned.

'I'd be very much relieved to know what that is,' Wade said.

Sam very briefly met his gaze. 'God.'

Just before reaching the outskirts of Whitfield, Wade said, 'Glen Haskell, Sam. His body, I mean. Is he —?'

'One of them, I would imagine. I know John is.'

Chester shuddered.

In front of the drive-in, the county road was blocked by milling teenagers and their cars and pickup trucks. The three men watched as a young man openly and carelessly caressed the buttocks of a teenage girl. The young man cupped both cheeks of her denim-clad rump. The girl giggled obscenely, rubbing against his crotch.

'That's the new preacher's daughter,' Wade said. 'Margaret Farben.'

'I know,' Sam replied, cutting his eyes to the side of the drive-in. 'Look at that.'

A teenage boy had a young girl, Laurie Conway, backed up against a car, her Levi-clad legs spread wide, the boy between them, hunching, crotch to crotch.

'I believe,' Sam said dryly, 'if memory serves correctly, we used to call that dry-fucking.'

'Sam!' Wade was shocked. He knew his preacher was a maverick—everybody knew that, But not this much a maverick.

'Pardon my bluntness,' Sam said. 'But what would you call it?'

Wade shook his head. A light, airy sensation had overtaken him at the sight of all this sexual lay. He felt a slight erection begin to grow. He could not clear his head.

'SAM!' he shouted the word.

'Steady, Wade,' the minister cautioned him. Fight it. All this is being done for our benefit, It's a stage show, set up by the devil. Fight it!'

Wade closed his eyes, erasing the sight. 'He never gives up, does he?'

'No. Are you all right?'

'Be quiet, preacher—I'm trying to pray.'

Sam grinned. His friends would all resist; they're strong in their faith.

'Let's try to get through them without trouble,' Chester suggested.

But the young people would not let them through. Their profanity was shocking. They shouted things at the men Wade would not have believed had he not been sitting in the truck listening to the verbal garbage.

Chester merely shook his head in disgust.

'Mother fucker!' a boy shouted at them. A young girl, perhaps fifteen at the most, leaned against the truck. She winked at Sam. She also smelled bad. 'Want some pussy, preacher?' She opened her shirt, exposing young braless breasts to him.

Sam averted his eyes, looking straight ahead. Suddenly, as if on some hidden cue, the crowd of young people parted. The road was empty, the kids returned to the drive-in. Sam looked behind them. A car, bearing out-of-state plates drove slowly down the road.

'They know,' Sam muttered. 'I don't know how, but somehow all of them knew that car didn't belong.'

'Sam! Let's stop that car and tell the people about—'

'No!' Sam cut Wade off in midsentence. 'Do you want more innocent people to die?'

'No,' the editor whispered.

'Then just calm down. I want to see what these kids do after this car passes.'

When the out-of-state car had gone, turning onto highway 72, out of town, the kids returned to the road, blocking it as before.

'Interesting,' Sam observed. 'It's as if they receive a signal. But I don't know how they receive it.'

A burly young man, in his late teens, leaned against the truck, blocking any movement. Wade stuck his head out the window. 'Roy! Get the hell out of the way!'

The young man looked at him, his face reflecting pure insolence. 'Don't get all worked up, Thomas. You don't own the fuckin' road.'

Sam's smile was sad and knowing, as was Chester's. Both men said nothing.

'I can't believe this,' Wade said, his voice trembly. 'I taught his Sunday School class for five years. I don't believe he said that to me.' Then he became angry. 'I ought to get out of this truck and kick his butt!'

'Let it slide, Wade,' Sam said. 'Besides, are you sure you can kick it?'

The editor grew even angrier. 'Look, Sam, I'm forty-one years old. I—'

'Smoke a pipe and two packs of cigarettes a day,' Sam cut him off. 'And have for years.' He watched the young people mill about in the road. 'And you don't get enough exercise. Look at that kid—he's hard as a rock.'

'You sound as though you might be afraid of him, Sam?' Wade spoke before he thought, and was instantly sorry he did.

Sam glanced at him. Wade realized, then, that he did not know his minister as well as he thought he did. There was no fear in Sam's eyes; just a calmness and a certainty that he could and would cope with any situation that might confront him.

'Sorry I said that, Sam.'

'It's all right, Wade. You're under a strain. I understand. No, I'm not afraid of him—I'm not afraid of any living man. I've killed men with guns, knives, grenades—and my bare hands. I've forgotten more about fighting than most men could even comprehend, much less physically achieve; not that it's anything to brag about. But en if I were not a minister, it would do no good for me to manhandle that young man.'

Realization filled Wade's eyes. He nodded. 'It's a game, isn't it, Sam? Just a damned game! An evil game between Christianity and Satanism.' Several of the young men began to rock the light truck back and forth. They were not attempting to over turn it, just playing a game with the men inside.

'You stood up to the devil,' Wade said. 'But you knew he wasn't going to kill you, didn't you? Didn't you? He can't kill you, can he, Sam?' The minister shook his head in agreement. 'Yeah,' Wade said, 'that's what I thought. Now I get it. That would bring the wrath of God down on him, and he doesn't want that, does he?'

'The key word is not yet; he can't kill me.' Sam's words were soft.

'But he got Glen! Why Glen and not you?'

'I can't answer that, Wade.'

'Do you feel you've been—Chosen, Sam?'

The truck continued to rock.