The Devil's Touch (33 page)

"I'll explore the center," Nydia said. "What are we looking for?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But I think we'll know it when we see it."

Noah opened a creaking trunk lid and hauled out a pair of women's old-time bloomers. "My word!" he said. "Obviously the meetings conducted here were not all confined to matters of religion."

"Maybe they belonged to a nun," Nydia said.

"Possible," Noah said. "But not likely. These— undergarments were worn about eighty or ninety years ago. Not many women took part in any serious business of any type back then."

"Bring back the good old days," Sam said with a grin, knowing he would get a rise out of Nydia.

"Keep talking, turkey," Nydia responded. She opened a trunk and removed a leather-covered book. She worked at the rusted clasp and finally opened the book. The pages were all handwritten in a beautiful flowing style.

All in Latin.

"Damn!" she said. "I had to take Latin in high school, but this is too much for me."

"Let me see it," Noah said, walking to her. "I read Latin." He studied it for a few silent moments. "Well, now. This is most interesting. Might be what we are seeking. Listen to this, you two."

He carefully turned a page and said, "This is a copy—not the original, of course, this is dated 1901 — of the Compendium Maleficarum. In short, a breakdown on how to become a witch or warlock. It was first written in Italy, in the early 1600s."

Noah quickly and silently scanned more of the old pages, speed-reading.

"All right," he said. "This part concerns the Black Mass, the Sabbat. This next text is in French. It concerns the coldness of the Devil's penis. Excuse me, Nydia." He closed the old book. "Fascinating reading, but I don't believe it's what we're looking for. But I think we're on the right track. So let's continue our search."

A knocking reached the ears of the searchers. The trio froze in place. The tapping seemed to be coming from a dark corner of the dusty attic. Coming from a large crate.

A crate large enough to contain a body, Sam thought.

"I picked up on that," Nydia said. "Thanks a lot, lover-boy."

"Picked up on what?" Noah asked.

"Forget it, Noah," Sam told him. He looked around the attic. His eyes found a rusty, dust-covered old crowbar. Sam picked it up, shook off the dirt, and walked to the large crate. The thumping became louder.

"Sam!" Nydia said.

"It has to be," he told her. "Whatever is in that crate is coming out. Maybe with or without our help."

Noah pulled his .357 from leather and stepped up to the crate, standing beside Sam.

Three thick metal strips, secured by heavy old locks held the lid in place. Sam broke the first lock. The knocking and tapping ceased. Sam looked at Noah. The man's face was sweaty but his grip on the big pistol was firm and steady. Sam pried loose the second lock, then the final lock was broken, freeing not only the lid, but whatever was in the crate.

Sam wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and gripped the lid in his big hands. He flung it open.

Noah gasped.

Nydia turned loose the scream that had gathered in her throat.

Something dark and bloody flew at the trio.

The news had spread quickly throughout the coven: The Master was gone. The Dark One was no longer in the area. But his daughter, the Princess, was here, so everything had to be all right.

But the seeds of doubt had been sewn, and fertile minds were nurturing the seeds.

For the tenth time that day, Princess Xaviere tried to make communication with her Master Father. For the tenth time she failed.

She sat in her quarters in the Giddon House, in the flickering candlelight, and stared in the direction of the mansion on the other side of the stone wall. She thought she had heard a woman scream just a moment before, but she was not sure. So much screaming from the weak Christians left in the town. She did not know what to do. She could not understand why her Master Father had deserted her when victory seemed so near.

"Very well," she muttered. "Obviously he is testing me. So be it." She made up her mind.

She rang for the coven leaders to come to her.

"Make plans to storm the house," she told them. "It seems the only way left us. But Sam Balon must be taken alive. 1 must have his seed. See to it."

And far away, in his nether region at the far north, Satan screamed his outrage.

"No!
You dumb bitch. That is exactly what He wants. You're playing right into Balon's hands. You stupid fucking cunt. You useless daughter of a whore!"

Satan pointed his dark evil face to the heavens and screamed his fury at the Almighty, wrongly blaming Him for what was occurring on Earth.

But the Almighty had grown weary of Satan's tirades, and had blocked the Dark One from His ears.

But the warrior heard. And the mighty warrior could not conceal his victorious smile.

"Kick ass time," the warrior muttered.

An old ragged piece of red silk, attached to the inside of the lid, flapped in the sudden rush of air following the opening of the crate's lid.

But the crate itself was empty.

When their hearts had settled down into a slower pulsing, and jangled nerves ceased ringing, Sam was the first to speak.

"What the hell? I know the knocking was coming from this empty crate."

Noah shone the beam from his flashlight into the dark reaches of the crate. "Not entirely empty," he said. "Put your light in here, Sam."

The twin beams of light played off the interior of the crate, piercing the gloom, settling on the bottom of the huge rectangular box.

"It's a book of some sort," Nydia said.

Noah rose to his tiptoes and reached into the crate, almost falling in. Sam grabbed the smaller man by the seat of his pants and hauled him back.

"It's a journal of some kind," Noah said, carefully opening the old manuscript, bound in leather and worn leather strips. "When was it written?" he muttered. "Ah! Here it is—1666. Three sixes," he said. "How apropos." He visibly paled when he saw the name of the author on the inside of the leather covering.

"What's wrong, Noah?" Nydia asked, looking at the man's sudden loss of composure.

"Samuel Balon," the man said softly. "Samuel Balon wrote this. He started the journal in France, in 1659." He carefully turned the old pages. They were in remarkably good condition for a journal written more than three hundred years before. "This entry was written in a place called Ville Marie."

"Montreal," Nydia said. "Ville Marie was the original name of the city."

"Listen to this," Noah said. "I think this might have some bearing on our predicament.
Le cog s'oyt par fois es sabbats sonnat le retraicte aux Sorciers."

"Translate it, please," Sam said.

Father Le Moyne's voice startled them all. The priest stood in black, framed in light in the shattered doorway to the attic. He said, "the cock crows; the Sabbat ends; the Sorcerers scatter and flee away."

"But what message does it contain for us?" Noah threw the question to anyone who might have an answer.

"I think," Sam said, "that it goes along with what my father said. It's telling us to hold out until Sunday. If we can make it until then, we're safe."

"But Sam," Nydia said. "I—what about the town? Even if we do make it—when we make it," she amended that. "All the dead people; the destruction, everything. What do we do? How do we explain it? Are we going to have to run again? Are we always going to be looking over our shoulder, living in fear?"

The young man was silent for a moment, very conscious of Father Le Moyne's eyes upon him. It was as if the priest could see something about him; knew something about him that Sam did not know.

"I can't answer that, Nydia. Maybe—maybe I— we—have been—picked for this job; maybe this is what we were put here to do. Wherever there is a coven, perhaps it's our job to seek it out, destroy it. I don't know. I hope with all my heart that is not the case, but if it is, then we have to obey. I think when this is over, here in Logandale, then we will know for sure. One way or the other."

Her dark eyes searched his strong face. "All right, Sam. If that is the case, where you go, I go."

Father Le Moyne smiled. It was working out well. Michael was going to see his dream become reality. The mighty warrior would have a man on Earth to do His work.

But the heavens would roar when the Almighty discovered what His warrior had done. But, Le Moyne thought, the firmament has shook from the rage of God before—and probably would again.

Nydia tapped the journal Noah held. "But who, or what, was this Samuel Balon?"

Father Le Moyne decided he could no longer hide the truth from the group. He could continue to hide his true identity for a while longer, but even that, in time, would have to be revealed.

"He was a priest," Le Moyne said. He sighed. "Close the crate and come downstairs. I'll tell you what I know about Father Balon." Or what I am allowed to tell you, that is, he thought.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Sam muttered.

"Samuel was not the priest's name. His name was Yves. The Church gave him the name of Father Sam. From—what I have been able to gather through the years, Father Sam was a huge bear of a man, and rather a maverick as far as the Church was concerned. One of the reasons he was sent to the New World, I should imagine. I know all this because—well, let's just say I did a paper on the man in college.

"You see, Father Sam—and that is a misnomer—for the man left the Church, married, and when his wife—" He hesitated, seemed to inwardly struggle for a few seconds, then continued, but Sam and Noah both saw the grimace on his face when he said the word, …
"died;
well, he attempted to once more assume the title of priest. Of course, it was refused him." Father Le Moyne smiled strangely. "But Father Sam, being the type man he—was, did not let that deter him. He came to this part of the New World, established a Church, and went about his business as if nothing had happened. This house is supposedly built over his grave, so the story goes. No one has yet been able to verify that.

"As far as why those religious leaders met here," the priest said, doing his best to wear a sheepish look, "had it not been for Father Sam's leaving the Church and marrying, the man might well have been canonized. It is—said that Father Sam met the Devil face on and beat him. Right here on this very spot where we are sitting. I, ah, don't know all the particulars, but that's it in a nutshell."

The priest is lying, Sam thought. But not lying for any personal reasons. He's lying for a very—pure reason, the phrase came to him.

"You said he married, Daniel," Noah said. "Do you know the name of the woman he married?"

The priest's smile was strangely rueful. "Oh, yes," he said softly. "Very well. Michelle Dubois. The union produced several children. One priest came out of that union. Father Sam killed one of the children with his bare hands; a daughter. The other daughter, named after her mother, Michelle, married a man by the name of Duhon. That union produced a cabin-full of children. Several of the boys became trappers. They went west, out around what is now Nebraska; in that area. The other boys of that union became priests. Those that didn't go into the priesthood married— more children. More priests out of those unions.

"The last record of priests from any marriage of those related to Father Balon was in the late 1700s, in Nebraska. For some reason, the Balons, the Duhons— they left the Catholic faith behind them and joined the Protestant religion. I don't know why."

Sam leaned back in his chair. He was aware of Father Le Moyne's eyes on him. The stories he had heard as a child; rumors and tall tales about the goings-on around Whitfield came to Sam's mind. He began tying them all up into neat little packages.

"You appear to be deep in thought, Sam," Noah said, looking at the expression on Sam's face.

"Yes," he said. Sam then related all the stories he had heard as a child. About Tyson's Lake, Father Dubois, the trapper Duhon, Sam's own father's first wife, Michelle the witch.*

"It keeps coming back to you, Sam," Monty said.

"Unfortunately," Sam muttered, very much aware of Father Le Moyne's intense gaze.

"Seventy-eight hours to go," Joe said. "Might as well be seventy-eight years."

Mille put her hand on Joe's arm. "We're going to make it out of this, Joe," she said, gently squeezing his forearm. "And I want you to know I think you are a fine, good man for staying here, helping in this fight."

"I ain't no better than none of the others, Mille. I really don't understand what is happening around here. All this Devil stuff and exorcisms and the walking dead." He shook his head. "Too much for an ol' country boy like me."

"How old are you, Joe?"

"Too damned old for a young chicken like you," he replied, sensing the direction the conversation was taking.

She smiled up at him and something soft touched his heart. "How about you letting me be the judge of that?" she responded, her words gentle.

"Mille—"

"Shut up, Joe. Just put your arms around me and hold me for a minute or two, all right?"

"Be glad to oblige," Joe said, his voice husky.

Father Le Moyne stood in the darkness of the foyer and smiled. He slipped quietly back into the shadows and left the two alone. He approved of Mille and Joe, despite the vast differences in age.

Barbara came to John and put her arms around her husband. "If we get out of this mess, John, I'll walk out of your life. You can tell people I died—anything. I won't disgrace you with a divorce. I'll change my name and move away. You can get another church and—"

"No," her husband said, a new firmness to his voice. "Barbara, I never really tried to understand your—problem. Or mine, for that matter. We'll go to doctors, counselors, anything or anybody you like. But we will work it out, I promise you."

"But the things Duke said."

"Forget about Duke, Barbara. Put all that behind you. It's over."

She put her head on his shoulder and wept.

Monty and Viv sat upstairs, looking out over the darkened sector assigned to them. Sam had referred to it as their perimeter. They were content to be together, touching, their love vibrating between them, constantly reaffirming with silent love messages.