"Excuse me," said Karras very softly. "Is Karl in his room?"
She shook her head. "He's on an errand," she whispered huskily. Karras heard her sniffle.
Then, "There's coffee there, Father," Chris murmured. "It ought to perc in just a minute."
As Karras glanced over at the percolator light, he heard Chris getting up from the table, and when he turned he saw her moving quickly past him with her face averted. He heard a quavery
"Excuse me." She left the kitchen.
His gaze shifted to the album. He walked over and looked down. Candid photos. A young girl.
With a pang, Karras realized he was looking at Regan: here, blowing out candles on a whipped-creamy birthday cake; here, sitting on a lakefront dock in shorts and a T-shirt, waving gaily at the camera. Something was stenciled on the front of the T-shirt. CAMP... He could not make it out.
On the opposite page a ruled sheet of paper bore the script of a child: If instead of just clay
I could take all the prettiest things
Like a rainbow,
Or clouds or the way a bird sings,
Maybe then, Mother dearest,
If I put them all together,
I could really make a sculpture of you.
Below the poem: I LOVE YOU! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! The signature, in pencil, was Rags.
Karras shut his eyes. He could not bear his chance meeting. He turned away wearily and waited for the coffee to brew. With lowered head, he gripped the counter and again closed his eyes, Shut it out! he thought; shut it all out! But he could not, and as he listened to the thump of the percolating coffee, his hands began to tremble and compassion swelled suddenly and blindly into rage at disease and at pain, at the suffering of children and the frailty of the body, at the monstrous and outrageous corruption of death.
"If instead of just clay..."
The rage drained to sorrow and helpless frustration.
"...all the prettiest things..."
He could not wait for coffee. He must go... he must do something... help someone... try....
He left the kitchen. As he passed by the living room, he looked in. Chris was on the sofa, sobbing convulsively, and Sharon was comforting her. He looked away and walked up the stairs, heard the demon roaring frenziedly at Merrin. "...would have lost! You would have lost and you knew it! You scum, Merrin! Bastard! Come back! Come and..." Karras blocked it out.
"...or the way a bird sings..."
He realized as he entered the bedroom that he had forgotten to wear a sweater. He looked at Regan. The head was turned away from him, sideways, as the demon continued to rage.
"...All the prettiest..."
He went slowly to his chair and picked up a blanket, and only then, in his exhaustion, did he notice Merrin's absence. On the way back to Regan to take a blood-pressure reading, he nearly stumbled over him. Limp and disjointed, he lay sprawled face down on the floor beside the bed. Shocked, Karras knelt. Turned him over. Saw the bluish coloration of his face. Felt for pulse. And in a wrenching, stabbing instant of anguish, Karras realized that Merrin was dead.
"...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.
