" 'Almighty Father, everlasting God...' "

The exorcist reached up his hand in a workaday manner and traced the sign of the cross, unhurriedly, three times on Regan's brow while continuing to read from the text of the Ritual:

" '...who sent your only begotten Son into the world to crush that roaring Lion....' "

The hissing ceased and from the taut-stretched O of Regan's mouth came the nerve-shredding lowing of a steer.

" '...snatch from ruination and from the clutches of the noonday devil this human being made in your image, and...' "

The lowing grew louder, tearing at flesh and shivering through bone.

" 'God and Lord of all creation...' " Merrin routinely reached up his hand and pressed a portion of the stole to Regan's neck while continuing to pray: " '...by whose might Satan was made to fall from heaven like lightning, strike terror into the beast now laying waste your vineyard...' "

The bellowing ceased. A ringing silence. Then a thick and putrid greenish vomit began to pump from Regan's mouth in slow and regular spurts that oozed like lava over her lip and flowed in waves onto Merrin's hand. But he did not move it. 'Let your mighty hand cast out this cruel demon from Regan Teresa MacNeil, who...' "

Karras was dimly aware of a door being opened, of Chris bolting from the room.

" 'Drive out this persecutor of the innocent....' "

The bed began to rock lazily, then to pitch, and then suddenly it was violently dipping and yawing, and with the vomit still pumping from Regan s mouth, Merrin calmly made adjustments and kept the stole firmly to her neck.

" 'Fill your servants with courage to manfully oppose that reprobate dragon lest he despise those who put their trust in you, and...' "

Abruptly, the movements subsided and as Karras watched, mesmerized, the bed drifted featherlike, slowly, to the floor and settled on the rug with a cushioned thud.

" 'Lord, grant that this...' "

Numb, Karras shifted his gaze. Merrin's hand. He could not see it. It was buried under mounded, steaming vomit.

"Damien?"

Karras glanced up.

" 'Lord, hear my prayer,' " said the exorcist gently.

Slowly, Karras turned to the bed. " 'And let my cry come unto Thee.' "

Merrin lifted off the stole, took a slight step backward, and then jolted the room with the lash of his voice as he commanded, " 'I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every satanic power of the enemy! every specter from hell! every savage companion!' " Merrin's hand, at his side, dripped vomit to the rug. " 'It is Christ who commands you, who once stilled the wind and the sea and the storm! Who...' "

Regan stopped vomiting. Sat silent. Unmoving, The whites of her eyes gleamed balefully at Merrin. From the foot of the bed, Karras watched her intently as his shock and excitement began to fade, as his mind began feverishly to thresh, to poke its fingers, unbidden, compulsively, deep into corners of logical doubt: poltergeists; psychokinetic action; adolescent tensions and mind-directed force. He frowned as he remembered something. He moved to the

side of the bed, leaned over, reached down to grasp Regan's wrist. And found what he'd feared.

Like the shaman in Siberia, the pulse was racing at an unbelievable speed. It drained him suddenly of sun, and glancing at his watch, he counted the heartbeats, now, like arguments against his life.

" 'It is He who commands you, He who flung you headlong from the heights of heaven!' "

Merrin's powerful adjuration pounded off the rim of Karras' consciousness in resonant, inexorable blows as the pulse came faster now. And faster. Karras looked at Regan. Still silent.

Unmoving. Into icy air, thin mists of vapor wafted from the vomit like a reeking offering.

Karras felt uneasy. Then the hair on his arms began prickling up. With nightmare slowness, a fraction at a time, Regan's head was turning, swiveling like a manikin, creaking with the sound of some rusted mechanism, until the dread and glaring whites of those ghastly eyes were fixed on his.

" 'And therefore, tremble in fear, now, Satan...' " The head turned slowly back toward Merrin.

" '...you corrupter of justice! you begetter of death! you betrayer of the nations! you robber of life! you...' "

Karras glanced warily around as the lights in the room began flickering, dimming, and then faded to an eerie, pulsing amber. He shivered. It was colder. The room was getting colder.

" '...you prince of murderers! you inventor of every obscenity! you enemy of the human ace!

you...' "

A muffled pounding jolted the room. Then another. Then steadily, shuddering through walls, through the floor, through the ceiling, splintering, throbbing at a ponderous rate like the beating of a heart that was massive and diseased.

" 'Depart, you monster! Your place is in solitude! Your abode is in a nest of vipers! Get down and crawl with them! It is God himself who commands you! The blood of...' " The poundings grew louder, began to come ominously faster and faster.

" 'I adjure you, ancient serpent...' " And

faster...

" '...by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the creator of all the universe, to...' "

Sharon cried out, pressing fists against her ears as the poundings grew deafening and now suddenly accelerated and leaped to a terrifying tempo.

Regan's pulse was astonishing. It hammered at a speed too rapid to gauge. Across the bed, Merrin reached out calmly and with the end of his thumb traced the sign of the cross on Regan's vomit-covered chest. The words of his prayer were swallowed in the poundings.

Karras felt the pulse rate suddenly drop, and as Merrin prayed and traced the sign of the cross on Regan's blow, the nightmarish poundings abruptly ceased.

" 'O God of heaven and earth, God of the angels and archangels...' " Karras could now hear Merrin praying as the pulse kept dropping, dropping...

" 'Prideful bastard, Merrin! Scum! You win lose! She will die! The pig will die!"

The flickering haze grew gradually brighter. The demonic entity had returned and raged hatefully at Merrin. "Profligate peacock! Ancient heretic! I adjure you, turn and look on me!

Now look on me, you scum!" The demon jerked forward and spat in Merrin's face, and then croaked at him, "Thus does your master cure the blind!"

" 'God and Lord of all creation...' " prayed Merrin, reaching placidly for his handkerchief and wiping away the spittle.

"Now follow his teaching, Merrin! Do it! Put your sanctified cock in the piglet's mouth and cleanse it, swab it with the wrinkled relic and she will be cured, Saint Merrin! A miracle! A--"

" '...deliver this servant of...' "

"Hypocrite! You care nothing at all for the pig. You care nothing! You have made her a contest between us!"

" '...I humbly...' "

"Liar! Lying bastard! Tell us, where is your humility, Merrin? In the desert? in the ruins? in the tombs where you fled to escape your fellowman? to escape from your inferiors, from the halt and the lame of mind? Do you speak to men, you pious vomit?..."