Sharon probed at the silence in a strained, low voice. "They've got an awful lot of hippie joints down around M Street and Wisconsin. Pot-heads. Occultists. The police call them 'hellhounds.'
" She paused as if waiting for comment, her eyes still fixed upon the notes; then continued: "I wonder if Burke might have---"
"Oh, Christ, Shar! Forget about it, will you!" Chris erupted. "I've got all I can think about with Rags! Do you mind?" She had her eyes shut. She clenched the book.
Sharon returned instantly to the keys of the typewriter, clicking off words at a furious tempo for a minute, then abruptly bolted up from her chair and out of the kitchen. "I'm going for a walk!" she said icily.
"Stay the hell away from M Street!" Chris rumbled at her moodily, her gaze on the book over folded arms. "I Will!"
"And N!"
Chris heard the front door being opened, then closed. She sighed. Felt a pang of regret. But the flurry had siphoned off tension. Not all. Still the glow in the hall. Very faint.
Shut it out!
Chris took a deep breath and tried to focus on the book. She found her place; grew impatient; started hastily flipping through pages, skimming, searching for descriptions of Regan's symptoms. "...demonic possession... syndrome... case of an eight-year-old girl... abnormal...
four strong men to restrain him from..."
Turning a page, Chris stared--- and froze.
Sounds. Willie coming in with groceries.
"Willie?... Willie?" Chris asked tonelessly.
"Yes, madam," Willie answered, setting down her bags. Without looking up, Chris held up the book. "Was it you put this book in the study, Willie?"
Willie glanced at the book and nodded, then turned around and began to slip items from the bags.
"Willie, where did you find it?"
"Up in bedroom," Willie answered, putting bacon in the meat compartment of the refrigerator.
"Which bedroom, Willie?"
"Miss Regan. I find it under bed when I am cleaning."
"When did you find it?"' Club asked, her gaze still locked to the pages of the book.
"After all go to hospital, madam; when I vacuum in Regan bedroom."
"You're sure?"
"I am sure, madam. Yes. I am sure."
Chris did not move, did not blink, did not breathe as the headlong image of an open window in Regan's bedroom the night of Dennings' accident rushed at her memory, talons extended, like
a bird of prey who knew her name; as she recognized a sight that was numbingly fair; as she stared at the facing page of the book.
A narrow strip had been surgically shaved from the length of its edge.
Chris jerked her head up at the sounds of commotion in Regan's bedroom.
Rappings, rapid, with a nightmarish resonance; massive, like a sledgehammer pounding in a tomb!
Regan screaming in anguish; in terror; imploring!
Kark! Karl bellowing angrily at Regan!
Chris bolted from the kitchen.
God almighty, what's happening?
Frenzied, Chris raced for the stairs, toward the bedroom, heard a blow, someone reeling, someone crashing like a boulder to the floor with her daughter crying, "No! Oh, no, dont! Oh, no, please!" and Karl bellowing--- No! No, not Karl! Someone else! A thundering bass that was threatening, raging!
Chris plunged down the hall and burst into the bedroom, gasped, stood rooted in paralyzing shock as the rappings boomed massively, shivering through walls; as Karl lay unconscious on the floor near the bureau; as Regan, her legs propped up and spread wide on a bed that was violently bouncing and shaking, clutched the bone-white crucifix in raw knuckled hands; the bone-white crucifix poised at her vagina, the bone-white crucifix she stared at with terror, eyes bulging in a face that was bloodied from the nose, the naso-gastric tubing ripped out. "Oh,
Please! Oh, no, please!" she was shrieking as her hands brought the crucifix closer; as she seemed to be straining to push it away.
"You'll do as I tell you, fifth! You'll do it!"
The threatening bellow, the words, came from Regan, her voice coarse and guttural, bristling with venom, while in an instantaneous flash her expression and features were hideously transmuted into those of the feral, demonic personality that had appeared in the course of hypnosis. And now faces and voices, as Chris watched stunned, interchanged with rapidity:
"No!"
"You'll do it!"
"Please!"
