She had spent most of the day in meditation, so her mind was calm and clear. She had practiced several other mental disciplines, as well. The last hour or so had been given to a series of muscle contraction routines, including some Kegel exercises that Libby thought might prove very beneficial in a short while.

Pardee approached the bed, and sniffed loudly. "What"s this-you haven"t soiled yourself? Such discipline! However, I fear it will prove all for naught. When I plunge my sacrificial knife in your lower belly and start working my way up, I"m afraid both your bladder and bowels will give up all their contents."

He stood next to the bed now, and was staring into her eyes. "But do you know what?" he said. "I"m not going to let it spoil my enjoyment, not even a little bit. In fact, your sudden incontinence might even add to it. Now, then."

Pardee reached out one hand and cupped it over the top of Libby"s head. He noticed her right hand suddenly form a fist; clearly, she was not as composed as she pretended. Good. Pardee said a short phrase in some arcane tongue and Libby instantly went limp, eyes closed, head lolling to one side.

"Can"t have you putting up a fuss along the way, dear girl. Although I doubt you would prove very much of a problem."

Pardee touched the shackle binding Libby"s right hand and said another word in the same language. The manacle dropped free, then slid off the bed to hit the carpeted floor with a soft thud. He repeated the operation three more times, then picked up Libby"s limp form and carried her out of the room.

The grin remained in place. If possible, it was even wider.

11:26pm Pardee, now clad in black ceremonial robes, dumped Libby Chastain onto the altar as if she had been a load of dirty laundry. He then faced the witches, most of whom, being engaged in various forms of debauchery, had not yet noticed his arrival. Pardee watched for a few moments, finding special interest in a chunky, tattooed blonde and what she was having done to her by both a minor demon, covered in scales like an alligator, and her familiar, which had taken the form of a large, clearly aroused, Great Dane.

Then Pardee raised his arms skyward, the signal to cut the music. Def Leppard was silenced in mid-screech, although the orgy down below tapered off more gradually. When he was sure he had their attention, Pardee said, "The time is come, my sisters. Go to your positions, ready your materials, and prepare to welcome the new king of this world!"

The witches, some of them walking a bit unsteadily, got to their feet and began to move toward their designated fire pits. Some pulled their clothes on first, while others chose to remain skyclad. Soon, flames began to rise from several locations, and soon all twenty of the pits being used were burning. The body organs of dead children would be burned in those pits, accompanied by suitable incantations.

"Sisters, I bid you begin your rituals now!" Pardee cried.

Then he turned to the altar and began tearing off Libby Chastain"s clothing.

11:27pm When Ellie Robb noticed that the awful music had finally ceased, she closed her eyes and concentrated, sending the same message, over and over, to the white witches who had accompanied her: Begin, my sisters, Begin, my sisters, Begin, my sisters...

Then she opened the backpack she had brought with her, and prepared to join her own efforts with those of the others. She sent a quick prayer to the G.o.ddess that they would be enough, in number and in power, to stop the abomination that was beginning behind those concrete walls.

11:28pm Pardee had just finished stripping Libby Chastain, and he was looking with interest at her nude body when he sensed something... wrong.

He focused all his concentration, and suddenly knew what it was. There was white magic being practiced in the immediate vicinity, and from a number of individual sources. So the Whities have figured out what my plans are, and have a.s.sembled outside somewhere to try and stop them. Well, we"ll just have to see about that, won"t we?

Pardee reached under his robes and produced a cell phone with a walkie-talkie function. He depressed the b.u.t.ton and brought the device to his mouth. "Hannigan! Hannigan, pick up d.a.m.n you!"

The voice of the security detail"s commander sounded in his ear. "Yes, sir, Mister Pardee."

"Hannigan, there are some people, probably all women, outside the wall somewhere. They are disrupting my ceremony here. Send your people out there and stop them! At once!"

"Yes, sir. Uh, when you say "stop them," do you mean we should-"

"Hannigan, I don"t care if your goons shoot them, hit them on the head, arrest them, or tie them down and f.u.c.k them. Just stop them! Now!"

"Uh, yessir, Mister Pardee. Will do. Hannigan out."

Pardee had no way of knowing that behind him, Libby Chastain"s eyes had cracked open, briefly, before closing again.

He turned back to the altar, and made sure his sacrificial knife, which he had made with his own hands, was nearby. He pushed down on Libby Chastain"s knees to make her body lie flat. He would wake her up and remove the tape from her mouth just before he was ready to put the knife into her. He hoped she would give a good long scream to welcome the Lord Satan to His new kingdom.

Pardee began to recite the "Ritual for Calling forth Shaitan" from Abdul Alhazred"s Book of Shadows. It had taken him months to memorize, but he knew the thing by heart, now.

Pardee had just completed the first section, and was rewarded by a shimmering in the air over the Sacred Circle. His Lord was not here yet, but was on his way. Pardee had no idea whether the magic circle would contain Satan"s power-but, then, it was never his intent to contain it. If the circle proved a barrier, Pardee would simply break it, to allow his Lord ready access to the world he had coveted for so long.

Pardee was well into the second part of the ritual, the section that would end with Libby Chastain"s slow disembowelment, when his concentration was disrupted by the sound of gunshots-lots of gunshots. And some of them, by the sound, were being fired by heavy rifles, which were not part of the a.r.s.enal provided to the compound"s security people.

Pardee turned his back on the altar again and produced his walkie-talkie phone. "Hannigan! What the f.u.c.k is happening? Hannigan!"

Behind Pardee, two important things were taking place. One involved the Sacred Circle, where the shimmering in the air had increased noticeably, and the vague outlines of a humanoid form could now be perceived. The second event involved Libby Chastain, who slowly spread her naked legs wide and began to bear down hard with certain muscles that she had trained to suppleness over the last twenty-eight hours.

"Hannigan!"

11:35pm When that heavy metal c.r.a.p had stopped screeching from inside the walls, Fenton knew that the time for action was very nearly upon him. He was in a good position, concealed by some brush, a clear field of fire to the front gate, the weapon"s stock tight against his shoulder. It wasn"t long before there was a flurry of activity inside the big gate, and then it swung open.

All of the entrances to Grobius"s little fortress were well lit by floodlights, so vision was not a problem. Fenton had been worried they might have to rely on nightscopes for their rifles, and those things were not only heavy and clumsy, but also unreliable.

Fenton had decided the best way to show the dudes in the khaki uniforms that he meant business was to drop one of them. Not kill him-not unless absolutely necessary. But despite that b.i.t.c.h Hannah"s sneers about shooting to wound, Fenton was betting he was still a good enough marksman to maim a stationary target, especially one who had no idea that Fenton was even in the neighborhood.

A heavyset guy with sergeant"s stripes on his khakis was standing out in front of the gates, apparently giving orders to his crew of guards. Fenton interrupted the briefing by putting a round into chubby"s leg from what he estimated to be 320 meters away. Sarge dropped like a marionette with the strings cut, and after a second for the sound of the shot to catch up with the bullet, the rest of the group scrambled for cover.

Center of body ma.s.s, my smooth black b.u.t.t. Put that pipe up your a.s.s and smoke it, Widmark!

11:37pm "All right, then, have them split up and go out the side gates, both groups at the same time," Pardee said. "This isn"t f.u.c.king World War Two, Hannigan. It"s just one man with a rifle, and he"s at the main gate, which is the logical place for him to be. It isn"t physically possible for him to cover the front and both sides at once. And if you don"t get your people moving right now, Hannigan, I promise you, getting fired is going to be the least of your worries. Do you understand me? Then do it!"

While Pardee had been yelling into his walkie-talkie, Libby Chastain had carefully pulled from her v.a.g.i.n.a an object about the size of a thick pen. It was still slick with the thick coating of KY Jelly she had applied before inserting it, just prior to taking part in the Circle the other night. It wasn"t that Libby distrusted Quincey"s vigilance, but this was something she did every time she had to send her spirit out of her body-it made her feel more secure, knowing that she had a collapsible, fully charged magic wand secreted inside her body, just in case. Well, Libby, welcome to "Just in case."

Libby grasped the wand at both ends to extend it to its full length. She had to move slowly, carefully, since the thing was so slick, and to drop it now would be to send disaster an engraved invitation.

She had just gotten the wand extended when Pardee turned back toward the altar and looked right at her.

11:40pm Any soldier who"s fought in a war will tell you how important luck is when it comes to staying alive in combat. Your buddy happens to step on the mine, instead of you; the mortar sh.e.l.l lands in somebody else"s foxhole, instead of yours. No matter how brave, or quick, or well-trained you are, luck, whether good or bad, has a lot to do with making that age-old distinction between the quick and the dead.

In the small war that took place around Walter Grobius"s compound that night, luck also had its role to play. Captain Seamus Hannigan, who had a.s.sumed personal command of the security detail after Sergeant Willner was wounded, divided his troops into two groups, acting quickly and arbitrarily. The group you were a.s.signed to was determined by where you happened to be standing when Hannigan made his selection.

One group of ten men was lucky. They were sent out the south gate, where Quincey Morris was waiting to shoot above and around them, thus urging the wisdom of their staying exactly where they were.

The other group was arbitrarily a.s.signed to the north gate, where Hannah Widmark was prepared to receive them. They did not fare as well.

The men who, at Hannigan"s command, had surged out the south gate, surged back in shortly thereafter. Their only casualty was a man who had been hit in the eye by a splinter of stone that was sent flying when one of Morris"s rounds. .h.i.t the wall close to his head.

Of the ten men who charged out through the north gate, only six returned, one of them bleeding heavily from a wound to the arm that looked as if it would require amputation below the elbow.

None of the security guards had tried to leave by the rear gate, so Colleen O"Donnell never got to see how badly she could scare them with near misses. After a while, she began to doubt that the rear gate was figuring in the plans of anyone inside the compound. Colleen was not impatient by nature, but she was acutely aware of how precarious was the situation that pitted her Sisters" magic against that of the unknown number of black witches inside.

Finally, when the shooting from the side gates had died down, and with no activity at all at the rear, Colleen put down her rifle close to hand, and opened her carryall to remove the implements of her craft. Within three minutes, she was adding her power to the ritual being performed by her Sisters all over the property. It was, she concluded, the best use of her time and talents.

11:41pm Walter Grobius, with the help of two trusted employees, had been brought to the scene of the ceremony just as Pardee ordered the music stopped. Grobius was glad-all that noise, which apparently pa.s.sed for music in some degenerate circles, made his head pound.

His people had led him to a throne-like chair that had been set up on the other side of the Sacred Circle from where Pardee was presiding over the altar. From the moment the air began coruscating over the circle, Grobius was mesmerized. Once the dimly perceived shape of The One could be seen, he was positively transfixed. He paid no real attention to the distant gunshots, or even to what difficulties Pardee might be having up on the altar. Walter Grobius knew that his time was at hand, and he sat ready, in breathless antic.i.p.ation of his coming glory.

11:42pm As soon as Libby Chastain had seen Pardee turn around, she had rolled her naked body away from him, off the altar and onto the marble floor. The drop of three feet had hurt like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but Libby was pleased by what followed her to the floor a second later: Pardee"s ceremonial dagger. Libby wasn"t sure exactly what use it would be to her, but at least if she had it, Pardee couldn"t use it to slice her open like a Christmas goose.

And Libby had maintained possession of her wand.

Pardee rounded the corner of the altar quick as a cat, already declaiming a spell, which was no doubt intended to subdue her in some way. As he came into sight, Libby pointed her wand at him and began reciting the words of an all-purpose defense spell that might not stop Pardee, but would surely slow him down.

And Libby could hear the shots, too. She had never doubted that Quincey would find her, and he had not only found her in time, but brought help with him, by the sound of it. Libby was fairly certain that time was on her side.

But then Pardee bore down, and she felt the full force of his power. It might have been Libby"s weakened state (not having eaten in almost forty-eight hours) or maybe it wouldn"t have made any difference, anyway. Because Pardee had been right about one thing.

His magic was stronger than hers.

11:44pm Frank Durkin was a smart guy. He knew it, even if the other guys he worked with were too jealous to admit his intellectual superiority. While everybody else was running in and out of the front and side gates like headless chickens, getting shot at each time, Durkin realized that n.o.body had tried getting out through the back.

Sure, he knew he was taking a chance. The people attacking, whoever they were, might have the back gate covered, too. But it was one thing to hit somebody who was part of a bunch of guys all coming out together. It was something else to nail one guy who you weren"t expecting, in the first place. Especially if the guy in question was Frank Thomas Durkin, who had been a track star in high school, and never let anybody he knew forget it.

Durkin approached the back gate slow and sneaky, so he wouldn"t be seen coming by anybody who might be lurking out there in the dark. If he made it through okay, he"d break left, then find some of those chicks that Captain Hannigan had said Mister Pardee was so p.i.s.sed off about. He"d take out a couple of them, which none of the other guys had been able to do, and be the f.u.c.kin" hero. h.e.l.l, he might even get a big, fat check from Mister G for being the only guy on the security detail with enough brains and b.a.l.l.s to try something like this. Thinking out of the box, that"s what they called an idea like his.

Durkin was at the gate now, a few yards to the left of the entrance.

Okay, running start, slam the gate open without stopping, then run like h.e.l.l off to the left and into the trees. No problem at all. Ready, set, and here"s the starting gun! Go!

11:45pm Colleen O"Donnell was about a third of the way through the Sisterhood"s most powerful anti-black magic ritual when she saw the man in khaki burst out of the back gate and run, very fast, off to the left. She put down the religious implements she held (she could not bring herself to drop them; her training had been too thorough for that) and grabbed the rifle, but the man was out of sight even before she could bring the weapon to her shoulder.

f.u.c.k! c.o.c.ksucking motherf.u.c.ker. s.h.i.t!

She heard several fast gunshots then, but they were too far away to have anything to do with the guard she had just, through her own negligence, let through.

Colleen O"Donnell put the rifle back down, got to her feet, and ran.

11:45pm Hannah Widmark had approached the north gate at an oblique angle, in the dark, wearing her usual black clothing. The group of guards milling around just inside the gate, wondering what to do next, had no idea she even existed until she casually walked through the gate and stood facing them, hands on hips. "h.e.l.lo, boys. How"s everybody tonight?"

No one knows what might have happened if they had just continued to stand there, dumbfounded, and let her pa.s.s. Because some fool decided to go for his gun.

The twin shoulder holsters that Hannah wore each had a thin nylon cord that hung down from the bottom. This was designed to be tied to the belt of the wearer, to prevent the holster from snagging when the gun it held was drawn very fast. Hannah had both those cords fastened securely to the wide belt she wore, and her holsters did not snag the twin .45s as she drew them, very fast indeed.

The guard who had gone for his weapon was the danger man, so Hannah shot him first, aiming for center of body ma.s.s, just as Cranston had taught her. The big .45 slug caught him in the sternum, sending the man to the asphalt as quickly as if the hand of G.o.d had reached out and pulled him down.

By then, of course, the other five guards had no choice. No choice at all.

Hannah took the two on the outside first, left and right, one round from each of the .45s doing the job nicely. Then she dropped the next two, who had yet to clear leather with the Walther PPKs they wore on their hips. Then there was only one man left; he had actually managed to draw his weapon, and was bringing it to aim when two of Hannah"s slugs blew his heart out between his shoulder blades.

Without any hesitation, Hannah turned left and ran, toward the area where the aerial photos showed the sacrificial altar to be. That was where she would find Pardee. She changed clips as she ran, replacing the half-expended ones in her guns with fresh clips containing the full eight-round combat load. Hannah had no idea what she was going to encounter on her way, but she was not interested in running out of ammunition when she dealt with it.

And she wanted plenty of ammo left for when she saw Pardee again.

11:47pm Libby Chastain was forced to face the fact that, for reasons either temporary or permanent, Pardee was stronger than she was. That meant she was going to die in the next few minutes, unless she did something extraordinary.

She decided to do something extraordinary.

White magic does not employ blood sacrifice. Unlike its black counterpart, which is dedicated to death and destruction, white magic is about life, and nature, and growth. Thus, no grisly symbolism plays a role in its practices.

With one exception.

White magic does allow for one kind of blood sacrifice-when the pract.i.tioner deliberately offers up her own blood. Since this does not involve doing harm to another, and instead represents the voluntary giving up of one"s own life essence, it is consistent with the philosophy, laws, and practices of those who follow the Right-Hand Path. It can, done properly, temporarily increase the pract.i.tioner"s magical power as much as tenfold. Of course, if too much blood is sacrificed, the pract.i.tioner dies. And the sacrifice may be made only in the direst of circ.u.mstances.

Libby Chastain regarded her present circ.u.mstances as pretty f.u.c.king dire.

Libby had never done a blood sacrifice, only read of it in the Sisterhood"s books on magic theory. Plus, she tended to be something of a baby about pain. But she had never turned away from grim necessity in her life. She was not about to start now.

Which is why, without ever taking her eyes off Pardee, or lowering the wand she held in her dominant right hand, Libby seized the sharp ceremonial dagger with her left, quickly brought it down to the inside of her bare left thigh, and with one get-it-over-with-before-I-lose-my-nerve movement, deeply slashed her leg, severing the femoral artery.

11:49pm Quincey Morris approached the south gate cautiously. It appeared unattended, but there was no way to know, until he was inside, whether any guards were lurking in the vicinity. Morris hoped there weren"t any around. He didn"t want to kill anybody tonight-but time was running out. He was going to find Libby, if he had to do it over the bodies of Grobius"s entire security unit, then that"s just what he would do.

He was nearly at the gate when he heard gunshots from inside. n.o.body was shooting at him-there were no muzzle flashes, and no bullets went whipping past. And he thought he recognized the distinctive report of a .45. It would appear that Hannah had gotten tired of waiting, too.

When Morris cautiously poked his head around the corner of the gate, he saw that the few guards in the vicinity were running hard toward the north gate. He slipped inside then, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, and headed for the altar of sacrifice. At first he went at a fast walk, looking everywhere, prepared for trouble. But soon, encountering no challenge, he began to run.

11:50pm Colleen O"Donnell was in the undergrowth for about thirty seconds when she realized that her eyes weren"t going to help her much. Despite the full moon overhead, it was impossible to track the man"s pa.s.sage in this light, through this undergrowth. Then Colleen did something smart. She stood still. And listened.

There was crashing through the brush, ahead of her and maybe ten yards to the right. She quickly developed a technique that worked. Move twenty or thirty feet ahead. Listen. Catch the noise the guard was making. Adjust course, if necessary. Move forward. Repeat as needed.

Then she heard a voice. A man"s voice. Moving slowly, pistol drawn, she followed it.

"Lady what the f.u.c.k are you doin" here?" the voice said. "Coming around, upsetting Mister G. and all that. You can"t do s.h.i.t like that, lady. Not and keep livin"."

Colleen was close enough to hear the click of a hammer going back. She ran forward now, yelling, "FBI, hold it!"

She broke through the last of the brush into a small clearing. One of the Sisters, Colleen couldn"t remember her name, was kneeling on the ground, her magical implements arranged around her, clearly terrified of the man who was holding his gun on her, even though he was now looking at Colleen.

"FBI!" she said again, pointing her Glock at him. "Drop your weapon! Do it!"

The man seemed to sneer in the moonlight. "FBI, yeah right. Where"s your f.u.c.king ID, Miss FBI Man?"

Her ID was back at her firing position. s.h.i.t! "I"ll be happy to show you my ID in a second. But, put your weapon down now!"

The man was shaking his head. "I don"t think so, sister. You ain"t taking this away from me. It"s my big chance." Then he pivoted at the hip and pointed his pistol, some kind of automatic, right at Colleen.

She double-tapped two rounds into his chest, and killed him.

11:53pm Libby Chastain, stark naked, sat in a growing pool of her own blood and felt the magical power within her grow stronger, even as her body became weaker. Pardee was staring at her, his eyes wider than Libby had ever seen them. The s.h.i.t-eating grin was gone now.

Although she was starting to feel light-headed, Libby forced herself to concentrate, to focus on the sacrifice she was making. O G.o.ddess, I make you this gift of my blood, my life force, my very essence, I make it of my own free will, and I beg of you to give me the power to defeat this Son of Darkness. Then, if you would have my life as recompense, it is yours to take.

Libby could feel the power swell within her. Pardee was driven a step back, then another, then, in a final surge, Libby could feel her power wrap around Pardee"s, wrap around it and smother it and crush it until it lived no more.

Pardee lowered his hand and just looked at her. He knew it too, she could tell: his magic was gone. Maybe for an hour, a day, forever. But as he stood before her now, he had no magic whatever.

Libby"s vision began to blur, and she saw Pardee"s face twist as he started toward her. He might be without magical power, but soon Libby would be so weak that any mortal man would be able to kill her. And Pardee seemed to think that he was just the man to do it.

Libby tried to keep the wand raised, tried to focus, tried to stay alive. Her vision was fading and there was a roaring in her ears now, but it did not prevent her from hearing the voice that spoke from behind her, a female voice, beautiful as an angel"s, that said, "Looks like a fun game, kids. Can anybody play?"