For a moment, Sam felt a mishmash of emotions for Black Wilder. Then he remembered the man that destroyed a town full of people.
'No, Mr. Balon,' Wilder read his thoughts. 'I did not destroy those people.
'And you tortured and degraded and murdered those who would not join.'
Wilder shrugged. 'A few, perhaps. No matter—that is my job. You will see, Sam, when you arrive in Heaven— if you arrive,' he added, smiling, 'that Heaven is sparsely populated.' He sighed. 'And Hell is abysmally overcrowded. The people who came to me, sir? Don't trouble your mind with them. They were greedy, grasping, hypocritical, arrogant, ignorant, bigoted, shallow fools!'
Sam recalled Father Dubois saying much the same thing.
'I think you are of above-average intellect, Mr. Balon, so allow me to tell you something.' A flash of irritation crossed his face. 'I
She laughed at him.
'You see? One can't even insult her. What I was going to say, sir, is this; did you know—of course not!—how
Sam wasn't sure he was really hearing all this.
Wilder looked at the seven people in the camp, grouped together, watching them. 'There,' he waved his hand, 'is a perfect example of what I'm referring to. Out of almost three thousand people, only a handful really resisted enough to beat my Master. That is pathetic, Balon!'
'I'll admit that a lot of people will be disappointed come Judgment Day.'
'Many more than you realize, sir.' Wilder's eyes touched the stake. 'Do it. I'm weary of all this. Perhaps we'll meet again in a few hundred years. Or,' he smiled, 'tomorrow.'
'Are you telling me that when man dies, he goes directly to Heaven or Hell?'
'I'm afraid, sir, there are certain areas I am forbidden to discuss with mortals. Rules of the game, don't you know?'
'Well—' Sam raised the stake.
Black leaned close to Sam, grinning wickedly, and whispered in his ear, 'Nydia is really a great piece of ass, Sam!'
Black drew back, roaring with laughter at the astonishment on Sam's face and the hissing from the witch.
Sam drove the stake into Black's chest, burying the shaft up to his knuckles.
But there was no foul odor. No horrible metamorphosis. Black Wilder was simply no longer with them. The stake lay on the ground. Sam's expression was of utter confusion.
'Do you believe a mortal man can kill an Angel?' Nydia asked, amused at Sam.
'What? No! No, of course not.'
'Then why did you think you could kill a Prince of Satan?'
'What happened to him?'
'He went home.'
'Will he be back?'
'I don't know. All I know is he failed his assignment.'
'I see.'
'No, you don't, darling. You're still a mortal. For a while, that is.' She took his hand. 'Come, it's growing dark, and I have much to do and not long in which to do it.'
'You're going to lose this battle, Nydia,' Sam said, as he felt himself being pulled into velvety darkness. The darkness was incredibly soft and satiny wet. Like a woman, he thought, and with that thought, knew he was in trouble.
Then the darkness changed into a rainbow of blinding hues and Sam felt himself falling.
Her voice came to him in the whirling vortex of colors, all tinted with black. 'No, darling. No, you lose. You could have sacrificed your wife and your friends, and we would have been forced to retreat.'
'But then,' Sam's voice had a hollow ring to it, 'my son would not have been bom—would he?'
She laughed. 'Correct. You see, this is how we play the game to its conclusion. You're on your own, my darling. Your God allowed you the option, and you took it.'
He felt her hands on his body, pulling at his clothes.
And they were naked.
He fought her.
Sam's body was found the next morning. There was not a mark on him. Scrawled next to the naked body, in the earth, was the message: HE MET ME—AND I DO RESPECT COURAGE.
The initial S was beneath the sentence.
'Met who?' Doris asked.
'Sam signed his own death message?' Wade asked.
'No,' Jane Ann said. 'Satan.'
Miles took his wife's hand. Just before they walked away, he said, 'For there liveth no man on earth who is so righteous that he sinneth not.'
Jane Ann sat in the newly constructed home outside what was left of Whitfield, her hands folded over her swelling stomach. She watched the snow fall, covering the plains just as the governor and federal people had ordered the covering-up of what had really happened in Whitfield and this part of Fork County.
A cult killing, was what the press was told, followed by a massive fire that destroyed the town. The press was told that by the governor, by federal people, by senior members of the Highway Patrol, by senior members of the FBI, and, most importantly, by Wade Thomas, one of the survivors. For after all, Wade Thomas was a respected small-town editor: no reason for him to lie about it.
The cult members, several hundred strong, had put something in the water system of Whitfield. The people went berserk, killing crazy, burning the town.
No, it was not yet known what was put in the water. The government lab people were working on that right now.
Maybe the Russians had something to do with it? the question was asked.
Maybe, was the reply, but we have no proof.
The cold war was freezing the world: it was easy to blame the Russians.
The press was not told about the bodies that lay rotting under the sun, on the prairie. Bodies that had to be burned by special units of the military; units known for keeping their mouths shut. These units moved in quickly, securing the area, sealing it off, cleaning it up.
And no one would speak of the evil. Not for more than twenty-one years.
And the boy that would soon emerge from Jane Ann's womb—he would not be told of what happened or who he was. Not for almost twenty-two years.
Slowly, a few families were moving into the area: relatives were taking over the burned-out ranches. Whitfield would never be the same, but another town was being built by Army Engineers and Navy Seabees. They were ordered by the president to keep their mouths shut.
They did just that. The president was also a five star general.
A few buildings had gone up, many more would follow in the spring.
The town would need a doctor, so Tony stayed. Jane Ann married him. The town would need a paper, so
