'... saintly flatulence! Die, will you? Die? Karras, heal him!' raged the demon. 'Bring him back and let us finish, let us...'
Heart failure. Coronary artery. 'Ah, God!' Karras groaned in a whisper. 'God, no!' He shut his eyes and shook his head in disbelief, in despair, and then, abruptly, with a surge of grief, he dug his thumb with savage force into Merrin's pale wrist as if to squeeze from its sinews the lost beat of life.
'... pious...'
Karras sagged back and took a deep breath. Then he saw the tiny pills scattered loose on the floor. He picked one up and with aching recognition saw that Merrin had known. Nitroglycerin. He'd known. His eyes red and brimming, Karras looked at Merrin's face. '... go and rest for a little now, Damien.'
'Even worms will not eat your corruption, you...'
Karras heard the words of the demon and began to tremble with a murderous fury.
Don't listen!
'... homosexual...'
Don't listen! Don't listen!
A vein stood out angrily on Karras' forehead, throbbing darkly. As he picked up Merrin's hands and started tenderly to place them in the form of a cross, he heard the demon croak, 'Now put his cock in his hands!' and a glob of putrid spittle hit the dead man's eye. 'The last rites!' mocked the demon. It put back its head and laughed wildly.
Karras stared numbly at the spittle, eyes bulging. Did not move. Could not hear above the roaring of his blood. And then slowly, in quivering, side-angling jerks, he looked up with a face that was a purpling snarl, an electrifying spasm of hatred and rage. 'You son of a bitch!' Karras seethed in a whisper that hissed into air like molten steel. 'You bastard!' Though he did not move, he seemed to be uncoiling, the sinews of his neck pulling taut like cables. The demon stopped laughing and eyed him with malevolence. 'You were losing! You're a loser! You've always been a loser!' Regan splattered him with vomit. He ignored it. 'Yes, you're very good with children!' he said, trembling. 'Little girls! Well, come on! Let's see you try something bigger! Come on!' He had his hands out like great, fleshy hooks, beckoning slowly. 'Come on! Come on, loser! Try me! Leave the girl and take me! Take me! Come into...'
It was barely a minute later where Chris and Sharon heard the sounds from above. They were in the study and, dry-eyed, Chris sat in front of the bar while Sharon, behind it, was mixing them a drink. As she set the vodka and tonic on the bar, both the women glanced up at the ceiling. Stumblings. Sharp bumps against furniture. Walls. Then the voice of... the demon? The demon. Obscenities. But another voice. Alternating. Karras? Yes, Karras. Yet stronger. Deeper.
'No! I won't let you hurt them! You're not going to hurt them! You're coming with...'
Chris knocked her drink over as she flinched at a violent splintering, at the breaking of glass, and in an instant she and Sharon were racing from the study, up the stairs, to the door of Regan's bedroom, bursting in. They saw the shutters of the window on the floor, ripped off their hinges! And the window! The glass had been totally shattered!
Alarmed, they rushed forward toward the window, and as they did, Chris saw Merrin on the floor by the bed. She stood rooted in shock. Then she ran to him. Knelt. She gasped. 'Oh, my God!' she whimpered 'Sharon! Shar, come here! Quick, come---'
Sharon screamed from the window, and as Chris looked up bloodlessly, gaping, she ran again toward the door.
'Shar, what is it?'
'Father Karras! Father Karras!'
She bolted from the room in hysteria, and Chris got up and ran trembling to the window. She looked below and felt her heart dropping out of her body. At the bottom of the steps on busy M Street, Karras lay crumpled amid a gathering crowd.
She stared horrified. Paralyzed. Tried to move.
'Mother?'
A small, wan voice calling tearfully behind her. Chris gulped. Did not dare to believe or---'What's happening, Mother? Oh, please! Please come here! Mother, please! I'm afraid! I'm a---'
Chris turned quickly and saw the tears of confusion, the pleading; and suddenly she was racing to the bed, weeping, 'Rags! Oh, my baby, my baby! Oh, Rags!'
Downstairs, Sharon lunged from the house and ran frantically to the Jesuit residence hall. She asked urgently for Dyer. He came quickly to Reception. She told him. He turned pale.
'Called an ambulance?'
'Oh, my God, I didn't think!'
Swiftly Dyer gave instructions to the switchboard operator, then he raced from the hall, followed closely by Sharon. Crossed the street. Down the steps.
'Let me through, please! Coming through!' As he pushed through the bystanders, Dyer heard murmurs of the litany of indifference. 'What happened?'
'Some guy fell down the steps.'
'Did you...?'
'Musta been drunk: See the vomit?'
'Come on, we'll be late for the...'
Dyer at last broke through, and for a heart-stop-ping instant felt frozen in a timeless dimension of grief, in
