CHAPTER ONE

In the breathing dark of his quiet office, Kinderman brooded above his desk.
    He adjusted the desk-lamp beams a fraction. Below him were records, transcripts, exhibits; police files; crime-lab reports; scribbled notes. In a pensive mood, he had carefully fashioned them into a collage in the shape of a rose, as if to belie the ugly conclusion to which they had led him; that he could not accept.
    Engstrom was innocent. At the time of Dennings' death, he had been visiting his daughter, supplying her with money for the purchase of drugs. He had lied about his whereabouts that night in order to protect her and to shield her mother, who believed Elvira to be dead and past all harm and degradation.
    It was not from Karl that Kinderman had learned this. On the night of their encounter in Elvira's hallway, the servant remained obdurately silent. It was only when Kinderman apprised the daughter of her father's involvement in the Dennings case that Elvira volunteered the truth. There were witnesses to confirm it. Engstrom was innocent. Innocent and silent concerning events in Chris MacNeil's house.
    Kinderman frowned at the rose collage. Something was wrong with the composition. He shifted a petal point---the corner of a deposition---a trifle lower and to the right.
    Roses. Elvira. He had warned her grimly that failure to check herself into a clinic within two weeks would result in his dogging her trail with warrants until he had evidence to effect her arrest. Yet he did not really believe she would go. There were times when he stared at the law unblinkingly as he would the noonday sun in the hope it would temporarily blind him while some quarry made its escape.
    Engstrom was innocent. What remained?
    Kinderman, wheezing, shifted his weight. Then he closed his eyes and imagined he was soaking in a lapping hot bath. Mental Closeout Sale! he bannered at himself: Moving to New Conclusions! Positively Everything Must Go! For a moment he waited, unconvinced. Then, Positively! he added sternly.
    He opened his eyes and examined afresh the bewildering data.
    Item: The death of director Burke Dennings seemed somehow linked to the desecrations at Holy Trinity. Both involved witchcraft and the unknown desecrator could easily be Dennings' murderer.
    Item: An expert on witchcraft, a Jesuit priest, had been seen making visits to the home of the MacNeils.
    Item: The typewritten sheet of paper containing the text of the blasphemous altar card discovered at Holy Trinity had been checked for latent fingerprints. Impressions had been found on both sides. Some had been made by Damien Karras. But still another set had been found that, from their size, were adjudged to be those of a person with very small hands, quite possibly a child.
    Item: The typing on the altar card had been analyzed and compared with the typed impressions on the unfinished letter that Sharon Spencer had pulled from her typewriter, crumpled up, and tossed at a wastepaper basket, missing it, while Kinderman had been questioning Chris. He had picked it up and smuggled it out of the house. The typing on this letter and the typing on the altar-card sheet had been done on the same machine. According to the reports however, the touch of the typists differed. The person who had typed the blasphemous text had a touch far heavier than Sharon Spencer's. Since the typing of the former, moreover, had not been "hunt and peck" but, rather, skillfully accomplished, it suggested that the unknown typist of the altar-card text was a person of extraordinary strength.
    Item: Burke Dennings---if his death was not an accident---had been killed by a person of extraordinary strength.
    Item: Engstrom was no longer a suspect.
    Item: A check of domestic airline reservations disclosed that Chris MacNeil had taken her daughter to Dayton, Ohio. Kinderman had known that the daughter was ill and was being taken to a clinic. But the clinic in Dayton would have to be Barringer. Kinderman had checked and the clinic confirmed that the daughter had been in for observation. Though the clinic refused to state the nature of the illness, it was obviously a serious mental disorder.
    Item: Serious mental disorders at times caused extraordinary strength.
    Kinderman sighed and closed his eyes. The same. He was back to the same conclusion. He shook his head. Then he opened his eyes and stared at the center of the paper rose: a faded old copy of a national news magazine. On the cover were Chris and Regan. He studied the daughter: the sweet, freckled face and the ribboned ponytails, the missing front tooth in the grin. He looked out a window into darkness. A drizzling rain had begun to fall.
    He went down to the garage, got into the unmarked black sedan and then drove through rain-slick, shining streets to the Georgetown area, where he parked on the eastern side of Prospect Street. And sat. For a quarter of an hour. Sat. Staring at Regan's window. Should he knock at the door and demand to see her? He lowered his head. Rubbed at his brow. William F. Kinderman, you are sick! You are ill! Go home! Take medicine! Sleep!
    He looked up at the window again and ruefully shook his head. Here his haunted logic had led him.
    He shifted his gaze as a cab pulled up to the house. He started the engine and turned on the windshield wipers.
    From the cab stepped a tall old man. Black raincoat and hat and a battered valise. He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless, staring at the house. The cab pulled away and rounded the corner of Thirty-sixth Street. Kinderman quickly pulled out to follow. As he turned the corner, he noticed that the tall old man hadn't moved, but was standing under street-light glow, in mist, like a melancholy traveler frozen in time. The detective blinked his lights at the taxi.
    Inside, at that moment, Karras and Karl pinned Regan's arms while Sharon injected her with Librium, bringing the total amount injected in the last two hours to four hundred milligrams. The dosage, Karras knew, was staggering. But after a lull of many hours, the demonic personality had suddenly awaked in a fit of fury so frenzied that Regan's debilitated system could not for very long endure it.
    Karras was exhausted. After his visit to the Chancery Office that morning, he returned to the house to tell Chris what had happened Then he set up an intravenous feeding for Regan, went back to his room and fell on his bed. After only an hour and a half of sleep, however, the telephone had wrenched him awake. Sharon. Regan was still unconscious and her pulse had been gradually slipping lower. Karras had then rushed to the house with his medical bag and pinched Regan's Achilles tendon, looking for reaction to pain. There was none. He pressed down hard on one of her fingernails. Again no reaction. He was worried. Though he knew that in hysteria and in states of trance there was sometimes an insensitivity to pain, he now feared coma, a state from which Regan might slip easily into death. He checked her blood pressure: ninety over sixty; then pulse rate: sixty. He had waited in the room then, and checked her again every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half before he was satisfied that blood pressure and pulse rate had stabilized, meaning Regan was not in shock but in a state of stupor. Sharon was instructed to continue to check the pulse each hour. Then he'd returned to his room and his sleep. But again the telephone woke him up. The exorcist, the Chancery Office told him, would be Lankester Merrin. Karras would assist.
    The news had stunned him. Merrin! the philosopher-paleontologist! the soaring, staggering intellect! His books had stirred ferment in the Church; for they interpreted his faith in the terms of science, in terms of a matter that was still evolving, destined to be spirit and joined to God.
    Karras telephoned Chris at once to convey the news, but found that she'd heard from the Bishop directly. He had told her that Merrin would arrive the next day. "I told the Bishop he could stay at the house," Chris said. "It'll just be a day or so, won't it?" Before answering, Karras paused. "I don't know." And then, pausing again, said, "You mustn't expect too much."
    "If it works, I mean," Chris had answered. Her tone had been subdued. "I didn't mean to imply that it wouldn't," he reassured her. "I just meant that it might take time."
    "How long?"
    "It varies." He knew that an exorcism often took weeks, even months; knew that frequently it failed altogether. He expected the latter; expected that the burden, barring cure through suggestion, would fall once again, and at the last, upon him. "It can take a few days or weeks," he'd then told her. "How long has she got, Father Karras?..."
    When he hung up the phone, he'd felt heavy, tormented. Stretched out on the bed, he thought of Merrin. Merrin! An excitement and a hope seeped through him. A sinking disquiet followed. He himself had been the natural choice for exorcist, yet the Bishop had passed him over. Why? Because Merrin had done this before?
    As he closed his eyes, he recalled that exorcists were selected on the basis of "piety" and "high moral qualities"; that a passage in the gospel of Matthew related that Christ, when asked by his disciples the cause of their failure in an effort at exorcism, had answered them: "... because of your little faith."
    The Provincial had known about his problem; so had the president, Karras reflected. Had either told the Bishop?
    He had turned on his bed then, damply despondent; felt somehow unworthy; incompetent; rejected. It stung. Unreasonably, it stung. Then, finally, sleep came pouring into emptiness, filling in the niches and cracks in his heart.
    But again the ring of the phone woke him, Chris calling to inform him of Regan's new frenzy. Back at the house, he checked Regan's pulse. It was strong. He gave Librium, then again. And again. Finally, he made his way to the kitchen, briefly joining Chris at the table for coffee. She was reading a book, one of Merrin's that she'd ordered delivered to the house. "Way over my head," she told him softly, yet she looked touched and deeply moved. "But there's some of it so beautiful---so great." She flipped back through pages to a passage she had marked, and handed the book across the table to Karras. He read: ... We have familiar experience of the order, the constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory as is every part of it, restless and migratory as are its elements, still it abides. It is bound together by a law of permanence, and though it is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again. Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of organization, and one death is the parent of a thousand lives. Each hour, as it comes, is but a testimony how fleeting, yet how secure; how certain, is the great whole. It is like an image on the waters, which is ever the same, though the waters ever flow. The sun sinks to rise again; the day is swallowed up in the gloom of night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it had never been quenched. Spring passes into summer, and through summer and autumn into winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate return, to triumph over that grave towards which it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to wither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops---which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.
    "Yes, it's beautiful," Karras said softly. His eyes were still on the page. The raging of the demon from upstairs grew louder.
    "... bastard... scum... pious hypocrite!"
    "She used to put a rose on my plate... in the morning... before I'd go to work."
    Karras looked up with a question in his eyes. "Regan," Chris told him.
    She looked down. "Yeah, that's right. I forget... you've never met her." She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes. "Want some brandy in that coffee, Father Karras?" she asked.
    "Thanks, I don't think so."
    "Coffee's flat," she whispered tremulously. "I think I'll get some brandy. Excuse me." She quickly left the kitchen.
    Karras sat alone and sipped bleakly at his coffee. He felt warm in the sweater that he wore beneath his cassock; felt weak in his failure to have given Chris comfort. Then a memory of childhood shimmered up sadly, a memory of Ginger, his mongrel dog, growing skeletal and dazed in a box in the apartment; Ginger shivering with fever and vomiting while Karras covered her with towels, tried to make her drink warm milk, until a neighbor came by and saw it was distemper, shook his head and said, "Your dog needed shots right away." Then dismissed from school one after-noon... to the street... in columns of twos to the corner... his mother there to meet him... unexpected... looking sad... and then taking his hand to press a shiny half-dollar piece into it... elation... so much money!... then her voice, soft and tender, "Gingie die...."
    He looked down at the steaming, bitter blackness in his cup and felt his hands empty of comfort or of cure.
    "... pious bastard!"
    The demon. Still raging.
    "Your dog needed shots right away...."
    Quickly he returned to Regan's bedroom, where he held her while Sharon administered the Librium injection that now brought the total dosage up to five hundred milligrams.
    Sharon was swabbing the needle puncture while Karras watched Regan, puzzled. The frenzied obscenities seemed to be directed at no one in the room, but rather at someone unseen---or not present.
    He dismissed the thought. "I'll be back," he told Sharon.
    Concerned about Chris, he went down to the kitchen, where again he found her sitting alone at the table. She was pouring brandy into her coffee. "Are you sure you wouldn't like some, Father?" she asked.
    Shaking his head, he came over to the table and sat down wearily. He stared at the floor. Heard porcelain clicks of a spoon stirring coffee. "Have you talked to her father?" he asked.
    "Yes. Yes, he called." A pause. "He wanted to talk to Rags."
    "And what did you tell him?"
    A pause. Then, "I told him she was out at a party."
    Silence. Karras heard no more clicks. He looked up and saw her staring at the ceiling. And then he noticed it too: the shouts above had finally ceased.
    "I guess the Librium took hold," he said gratefully.
    Chiming of the doorbell. He glanced toward the sound; then at Chris, who met his look of surmise with a questioning, apprehensive lifting of an eyebrow.
    Kinderman?
    Seconds. Ticking. They waited. Willie was resting. Sharon and Karl were still upstairs. No one coming to answer. Tense, Chris got up abruptly from the table and went to the living room. Kneeling on a sofa, she parted a curtain and peered furtively through the window at her caller. Thank God! Not Kinderman. She was looking, instead, at a tall old man in a threadbare raincoat, his head bowed patiently in the rain. He carried a worn, old- fashioned valise. For an instant, a buckle gleamed in street-lamp glow as the bag shifted slightly in his grip.
    The doorbell chimed again.
    Who is that?
    Puzzled, Chris got down off the sofa and walked to the entry hall. She opened the door only slightly, squinting out into darkness as a fine mist of rain brushed her eyes. The man's hat brim obscured his face. "Yes, hello; can I help you?"
    "Mrs. MacNeil?" came a voice from the shadows. It was gentle, refined, yet as full as a harvest.
    As he reached for his hat, Chris was nodding her head, and then suddenly she was looking into eyes that overwhelmed her, that shone with intelligence and kindly understanding, with serenity that poured from them into her being like the waters of a warm and healing river whose source was both in him yet somehow beyond him; whose flow was contained and yet headlong and endless.
    "I'm Father Merrin."
    For a moment she looked blank as she stared at the lean and ascetic face; at the sculptured cheekbones, polished like soapstone; then quickly she flung wide the door. "Oh, my gosh, please come in! Oh; come in! Gee, I'm... Honestly! I don't know where my..."
    He entered and she closed the door.
    "I mean, I didn't expect you until tomorrow!"
    "Yes, I know," she heard him saying.
    As she turned around to face him, she saw him standing with his head angled sideways, glancing upward, as if he were listening---no, more like feeling; she thought---for some presence out of sight... some distant vibration that was known and familiar. Puzzled, she watched him. His skin seemed weathered by alien winds, by a sun that shone elsewhere, somewhere remote from her time and her place.
    What's he doing?
    "Can I take that bag for you, Father? It must weigh a ton by now."
    "It's all right," he said softly. Still feeling. Still probing. "It's like part of my arm: very old... very battered." He looked down with a warm, tired smile in his eyes. "I'm accustomed to the weight.... Is Father Karras here?" he asked.
    "Yes, he is. He's in the kitchen. Have you had any dinner, incidentally, Father?"
    He kicked his glance upward at the sound of a door being opened. "Yes, I had some on the train."
    "Are you sure you wouldn't like something else?"
    A moment. Then sound of the door being closed. He glanced down. "No, thank you."
    "Gee, all of this rain," she protested, still flustered. "If I'd known you were coming, I could have met you at the station."
    "It's all right."
    "Did you have to wait long for a cab?"
    "A few minutes."
    "I take that, Father!"
    Karl. He'd descended the stairs very quickly and now slipped the bag from the priest's easy grip and took it off down the hall.
    "We've put a bed in the study for you, Father:" Chris was fidgeting. "It's really very comfortable and I thought you'd like the privacy. I'll show you where it is." She'd started moving, then stopped. "Or would you like to say hello to Father Karras?"
    "I should like to see your daughter first," said Merrin.
    She looked puzzled "Right now, you mean, Father?"
    He glanced upward again with that distant attentiveness. "Yes, now---I think now."
    "Gee, I'm sure she's asleep."
    "I think not."
    "Well, if---"
    Suddenly, Chris flinched at a sound from above, at the voice of the demon, booming and yet muffled, croaking, like amplified premature burial.
    "Merriiiiinnnnnn!"
    Then the massive and shiveringly hollow jolt of a single blow against the bedroom wall.
    "God almighty!" Chris breathed as she clutched a pale hand against her chest. Stunned, she looked at Merrin.
    The priest hadn't moved. He was still staring upward, intense and yet serene, and in his eyes there was not even a hint of surprise. It was more, Chris thought, like recognition.
    Another blow shook the walls.
    "Merriiiiinnnnnnnnnn!"
    The Jesuit moved slowly forward, oblivious of Chris, who was gaping in wonder; of Karl, stepping lithe and incredulous from the study; of Karras, emerging bewildered from the kitchen while the nightmarish poundings and croakings continued. He went calmly up the staircase, slender hand like alabaster sliding upward on the banister.
    Karras came up beside Chris, and together they watched from below as Merrin entered Regan's bedroom and closed the door behind him. For a time there was silence. Then abruptly the demon laughed hideously and Merrin came out. He closed the door and started down the hall. Behind him, the bedroom door opened again and Sharon poked her head out, staring -after him, an odd expression on her face.
    The Jesuit descended the staircase rapidly and put out his hand to the waiting Karras.
    "Father Karras..."
    "Hello, Father."
    Merrin had clasped the other priest's hand in both of his; he was squeezing it, searching Karras' face with a look of gravity and concern, while upstairs the laughter turned to vicious, obscenities directed at Merrin. "You look terribly tired," he said "Are you tired?"
    "Not at all. Why do you ask?"
    "Do you have your raincoat with you?"
    Karras shook his head and said, "No."
    "Then here, take mine," said the gray-haired Jesuit, unbuttoning the coat. "I should like you to go to the residence, Damien, and gather up a cassock for my-self, two surplices, a purple stole, some holy water and two copies of The Roman Ritual." He handed the raincoat to the puzzled Karras. "I believe we should begin."
    Karras frowned. "You mean now? Right away?"
    "Yes, I think so."
    "Don't you want to hear the background of the case first, Father?"
    "Why?"
    Merrin's brows were knitted in earnestness.
    Karras realized that he had no answer. He averted his gaze from those disconcerting eyes. "Right," he said. He was slipping on the raincoat and turning away. "I'll go and get the things."
    Karl made a dash across the room, got ahead of Karras and pulled the front door open for him. They exchanged brief glances, and then Karras stepped out into the rainy night. Merrin glanced back to Chris. "You don't mind if we begin right away?" he asked softly.
    She'd been watching him, glowing with relief at the feeling of decision and direction and command rushing in like a shout in sunlit day. "No, I'm glad," she said gratefully. "You must be tired, though, Father."
    He saw her anxious gaze flick upward toward the raging of the demon.
    "Would you like a cup of coffee?" she was asking. "It's fresh." Insistent. Faintly pleading. "It's hot. Wouldn't you like some; Father?"
    He saw the hands lightly clasping, unclasping; the deep caverns of her eyes. "Yes, I would," he said warmly. "Thank you." Something heavy had been gently brushed aside; told to wait. "If you're sure it's no trouble..."
    She led him to the kitchen and soon he was leaning against the stove with a mug of black coffee in his hand.
    "Want some brandy in it Father?" Chris held up the bottle.
    He bent his head and looked down into the mug without expression. "Well, the doctors say I shouldn't," he said. And then he held out the mug. "But thank God, my will is weak."
    Chris paused for a moment, unsure, then saw the smile in his eyes as he lifted his head.
    She poured.
    "What a lovely name you have," he told her. "Chris MacNeil. It's not a stage name?"
    Chris trickled brandy into her coffee and shook hey head. "No, I'm really not Esmerelda Glutz."
    "Thank God for that," murmured Merrin.


Chris smiled and sat down. "And what's Lankester,

Father? So unusual. Were you named after someone?"
    "A cargo ship." he murmured as he stared absently and put the mug to his lips. He sipped. "Or a bridge. Yes, I suppose it was a bridge." He looked rueful. "Now, Damien," he went on, "how I wish I had a name like Damien. So lovely."
    "Where does that come from, Father? That name?"
    "Damien?" He looked down at his cup. "It was the name of a priest who devoted his life to taking can of the lepers on the island of Molokai. He finally caught the disease himself." He paused. "Lovely name," he said again. "I believe that with a first name like Damien, I might even be content with the last name Glutz."
    Chris chuckled. She unwound. Felt easier. And for minutes, she and Merrin spoke of homely things, little things. Finally, Sharon appeared the kitchen, and only then did Merrin move to leave. It was as if he had been waiting for her arrival, for immediately he carried his mug to the sink, rinsed it out and placed it carefully in the dish rack. "That was good; that was just what I wanted," he said.
    Chris got up and said, "I'll take you to your room."
    He thanked her and followed her to the door of the study. "If there's anything you need; Father," she said, "let me know."
    He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. Chris felt a power and warmth flowing into her. Peace. She felt peace. And an odd sense of... safety? she wondered.
    "You're very kind." His eyes smiled. "Thank you."
    He removed his hand and watched her walk away. As soon as she was gone, a tightening pain seemed to clutch at his face. He entered the study and closed the door. From a pocket of his trousers, he slipped out a tin marked Bayer Aspirin, opened it, extracted a nitroglycerin pill and placed it carefully under his tongue.
    Chris entered the kitchen. Pausing by the door, she looked at Sharon, who was standing by the stove, the palm of her hand against the percolator as she waited for the coffee to reheat.
    Chris went over to her, concerned. "Hey, honey," she said softly. "Why don't you get a little rest?"
    No response. Sharon seemed lost in thought. Then she turned and stared blankly at Chris. "I'm sorry. Did you say something?"
    Chris studied the tightness in her face, the distant look. "What happened up there, Sharon?" she asked.
    "Happened where?"
    "When Father Merrin walked in upstairs."
    "Oh, Yes..." Sharon frowned. She shifted her faraway gaze to a point in space between doubt and remembrance. "Yes. It was funny."
    "Funny?"
    "Strange. They only..." She pause. "Well, they only just stared at each other for a while, and then Regan---that thing---it said..."
    "Said what?"
    "It said, 'This time, you're going to lose.' "
    Chris stared at her, waiting. "And then?"
    "That was it," Sharon answered. "Father Merrin turned around and walked out of the room."
    "And how did he look?" Chris asked her.
    "Funny."
    "Oh, Christ, Sharon, think of some other word!" snapped Chris, and was about to say something else when she noticed that Sharon had angled her head up, to the side, abstracted, as if she were listening.
    Chris glanced upward and heard it too: the silence; the sudden cessation of the raging of the demon; yet something more... something... and growing.
    The women flicked sidelong stares at each other.
    "You feel it too?" asked Sharon quietly.
    Chris nodded. The house. Something in the house. A tension. A gradual thickening of the air. A pulsing, like energies slowly building up.
    The lilting of the door chimes sounded unreal.
    Sharon turned away. "I'll get it."
    She walked to the entry hall and opened the door. It was Karras. He was carrying a cardboard laundry box. "Thank you, Sharon."
    "Father Merrin's in the study," she told him.
    Karras moved quickly to the study, tapped lightly and cursorily at the door and then entered with the box. "Sorry, Father," he was saying, "I had a little---"
    Karras stopped short. Merrin, in trousers and T-shirt, kneeled in prayer beside the rented bed, his forehead bent low to his tight-clasped hands. Karras stood rooted for a moment, as if he had casually rounded a corner and suddenly encountered his boyhood self with an altar boy's cassock draped over an arm, hurrying by without a glance of recognition.
    Karras shifted his eyes to the open laundry box, to speckles of rain on starch. Then slowly, with his gaze still averted, he moved to the sofa and soundlessly laid out the contents of the box. When he finished, he took off the raincoat and draped it carefully over a chair. As he glanced back toward Merrin, he saw the priest blessing himself and he hastily looked away, reaching down for the larger of the white cotton surplices. He began to put it on over his cassock. He heard Merrin rising, and then, "Thank you, Damien." Karras turned to face him, tugging down the surplice while Merrin came over in front of the sofa, his eyes brushing tenderly over its contents.
    Karras reached for a sweater. "I thought you might wear this under your cassock, Father," he told Merrin as he handed it over. "The room gets cold at times"
    Merrin touched the sweater lightly with his hands. "'That was thoughtful of you, Damien."
    Karras picket up Merrin's cassock from the sofa, and watched him pull the sweater down over his head, and only now, and very suddenly, while watching this homely, prosaic action, did Karras feel the staggering impact of the man; of the moment; of a stillness in the house, crushing down on him, choking off breath.
    He came back to awareness with the feeling of the cassock being tugged from his hands. Merrin. He was slipping it on. "You're familiar with the rules concerning exorcism, Damien?"
    "Yes, I am," answered Karras.
    Merrin began buttoning up the cassock. "Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon...."
    "The demon." He'd said it so matter-of-factly, thought Karras. It jarred him.
    "We may ask what is relevant," said Merrin as he buttoned the collar of the cassock. "But anything beyond that is dangerous. Extremely." He lifted the surplice from Karras' hands and began to slip it over the cassock. "Especially, do not listen to anything he says. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us; but he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien. And powerful. Do not listen. Remember that. Do not listen."
    As Karras handed him the stole, the exorcist added, "Is there anything at all you would like to ask now, Damien?"
    Karras shook his head. "No. But I think it might be helpful if I gave you some background on the different personalities that Regan has manifested. So far, there seem to be three."
    "There is only one," said Merrin softly, slipping the stole around his shoulders. For a moment, he gripped it and stood unmoving as a haunted expression came into his eyes. Then he reached for the copies of the Roman Ritual and gave one to Karras. "We will skip the Litany of the Saints. You have the holy water?"
    Karras slipped the slender, cork-tipped vial from his pocket. Merrin took it, then nodded serenely toward the door. "If you will lead, please, Damien."
    Upstairs, by the door to Regan's bedroom, Sharon and Chris stood tense and waiting. They were bundled in heavy sweaters and jackets. At the sound of a door coming open, they turned and looked below and saw Karras and Merrin come down the hall to the stairs in solemn procession. Tall: how tall they were, thought Chris; and Karras: the dark of that rock-chipped face above the innocent, altar-boy white of the surplice. Watching them steadily ascending the staircase, Chris felt deeply and strangely moved. Here comes my big brother to beat your brains in, creeps! It was a feeling, she thought, much like that. She could feel her heart begin to beat faster.
    At the door of the room, the Jesuits stopped. Karras frowned at the sweater and jacket Chris wore. "You're coming in?"
    "Well, I really thought I should."
    "Please don't," he urged her. "Don't. You'd be making a great mistake."
    Chris turned questioningly to Merrin.
    "Father Karras knows best," said the exorcist quietly.
    Chris looked to Karras again. Dropped her head. "Okay," she said, despondently. She leaned against the wall. "I'll 'wait out here."
    "What is your daughter's middle name?" asked Merrin.
    "Teresa."
    "What a lovely name," said Merrin warmly. He held her gaze for a moment, reassuring. Then he looked at the door, and again Chris felt it: that tension; that thickening of coiled darkness. Inside. In the bedroom. Beyond that door. Karras felt it too, she noticed, and Sharon.
    Merrin nodded. "All right," he said softly.
    Karras opened the door, and almost reeled back from the blast of stench and icy cold. In a corner of the room, Karl sat huddled in a chair. He was dressed in a faded olive green hunting jacket and turned expectantly to Karras. The Jesuit quickly flicked his glance to the demon in the bed. Its gleaming eyes stared beyond him to the hall. They were fixed on Merrin.
    Karras moved forward to the foot of the bed while Merrin walked slowly, tall and erect, to the side. There he stopped and looked down into hate.
    A smothering stillness hung over the room. Then Regan licked a wolfish, blackened tongue across her cracked and swollen lips. It sounded like a hand smoothing crumpled parchment. "Well, proud scum!" croaked the demon. "At last! At last you've come!"
    The old priest lifted his hand and traced the sign of the cross above the bed, and then repeated the gesture toward all in the room. Turning back, he plucked the cap from the vial of holy water.
    "Ah, yes! The holy urine now!" rasped the demon. "The semen of the saints!"
    Merrin lifted up the vial and the face of the demon grew livid, contorted. "Ah, will you, bastard?" it seethed at him. "Will you?"
    Merrin started sprinkling.
    The demon jerked its head up, the mouth and the neck muscles trembling with rage. "Yes, sprinkle! sprinkle, Merrin! Drench us! Drown us in your sweat! Your sweat is sanctified, Saint Merrin! Bend and fart out clouds of incense! Bend and show the holy rump that we may worship and adore it! kiss it! lick it, blessed---"
    "Be silent!"
    The words flung forth like bolts. Karras flinched and jerked his head around in wonder at Merrin, who stared commandingly at Regan. And the demon was silent. Was returning his stare. But the eyes were now hesitant. Blinking. Wary.
    Merrin capped the holy-water vial routinely and re-turned it to Karras. The psychiatrist slipped it into his pocket and watched as Merrin kneeled down beside the bed and closed his eyes in murmured prayer. " 'Our Father...' " he began.
    Regan spat and hit Merrin in the face with a yellowish glob of mucus. It oozed slowly down the exorcist's cheek.
    " 'Thy kingdom come... ' " His head still bowed, Merrin continued the prayer without a pause while his hand plucked a handkerchief out of his pocket and unhurriedly wiped away the spittle. " '... and lead us not into temptation,' " he ended mildly.
    " 'But deliver us from evil,' " responded Karras.
    He looked up briefly. Regan's eyes were rolling upward into their sockets until only the white of the sclera was exposed. Karras felt uneasy. Felt something in the room congealing. He returned to his text to follow Merrin's prayer: " 'God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; I appeal to your holy name, humbly begging your kindness, that you may graciously grant me help against this unclean spirit now tormenting this creature of yours; through Christ our Lord.' "
    "Amen," responded Karras.
    Now Merrin stood up and prayed reverently: " 'God, Creator and defender of the human race, look down in pity on this your servant, Regan Teresa MacNeil, now trapped in the coils of man's ancient enemy, sworn foe of our race, who...' "
    Karras glanced up as he heard Regan hissing, saw her sitting erect with the whites of her eyes exposed, while her tongue flicked in and out rapidly, head weaving slowly back and forth like a cobra's.
    Once again Karras had a fling of disquiet. He looked back at his text.
    " 'Save your servant,' " prayed Merrin, standing and reading from the Ritual.
    " 'Who trusts in you, my God,' " answered Karras.
    " 'Let her find in you, Lord, a fortified tower.' "
    " 'In the face of the enemy.' "
    As Merrin continued with the next line, Karras heard a gasp from Sharon behind him, and turning quickly around, he saw her looking stupefied at the bed. Puzzled, he looked back. And was instantly electrified. The front of the bed was rising up off the floor!
    He stared at it incredulously. Four inches. Half a foot. A foot. Then the back legs began to come up.
    "Gott in Himmel!" Karl whispered in fear. But Karras did not hear him or see him make the sign of the cross on himself as the back of the bed lifted level with the front.
    It's not happening! he thought, as he watched, transfixed.
    The bed drifted upward another foot and then hovered there, bobbing and listing gently as if it were floating on a stagnant lake.
    "Father Karras?"
    Regan undulating. Hissing.
    "Father Karras?"
    Karras turned. The exorcist was eyeing him serenely, and now motioned his head toward the copy of the Ritual in Karras' hands. "The response, please, Damien."
    Karras looked blank and uncomprehending. Sharon ran from the room.
    " 'Let the enemy have no power over her,' " Merrin repeated gently.
    Hastily, Karras glanced back at the text and with a pounding heart breathed out the response: " 'And the son of iniquity be powerless to harm her.' "
    " 'Lord, hear my prayer,' " continued Merrin.
    " 'And let my cry come unto Thee.' "
    " 'The Lord be with you.' "
    " 'And with your spirit.' "
    Merrin embarked upon a lengthy prayer and Karras again returned his gaze to the bed, to his hopes of his God and the supernatural hovering low in the empty air. An elation thrilled up through his being. It's there! There it is! Right in front of me! There! He looked suddenly around at the sound of the door opening. Sharon rushed in with Chris, who stopped, unbelieving, and gasped, "Jesus Christ!"
    " '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?..."
    " '... deliver...' "
    "Your abode is in a nest of peacocks, Merrin! your place is within yourself! Go back to the mountaintop and speak to your only equal!"
    Merrin continued with the prayers, unheeding, as the torrent of abuse raged on. "Do you hunger, Saint Merrin? Here, I give to you nectar and ambrosia, I give to you the food of your God!" croaked the demon. It excreted diarrhetically, mocking, "For this is my body! Now consecrate that, Saint Merrin!"


Repelled, Karras focused his attention on the text as Merrin read a passage from Saint Luke: " '..."My name is Legion," answered the man, for many demons had entered into him. And they begged Jesus not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a herd of swine was there, feeding on the mountain-side. And the demons kept entreating Jesus to let them enter into them. And he gave them leave. And the demons came out from the man and entered into the swine, and the herd rushed down the cliff and into the lake and were drowned. And...' "
    "Willie, I bring you good news!" croaked the demon. Karras glanced up and saw Willie near the door, stopping short with an armload of towels and sheets. I bring you tidings of redemption!" it gloated. "Elvira is alive! She lives! She is..."
    Willie stared in shock and now Karl turned and shouted at her, "No, Willie! No!"
    "... a drug addict, Willie, a hopeless---"
    "Willie, do not listen!" cried Karl.
    "Shall I tell you where she lives?"
    "Do not listen! Do not listen!" Karl was rushing Willie out of the room.
    "Go and visit her on Mother's Day, Willie! Surprise her! Go and---"
    Abruptly the demon broke off and fixed its eyes on Karras. He had again checked the pulse and found it strong, which meant it was safe to give Regan more Librium. Now he moved to Sharon to instruct her to prepare another injection. "Do you want her?" leered the demon. "She is yours! Yes, the stable whore is yours! You may ride her as you wish! Why, she fantasizes nightly concerning you, Karras! She masturbates, dreaming of your great priestly..."
    Sharon crimsoned and kept her eyes averted as Karras gave instructions for the Librium.
    "And a Compazine suppository is use there's more vomiting," he added.
    Sharon nodded at the floor and started stiffly away. As she walked by the bed with her head still lowered, Regan croaked at her, "Slut!" then jerked up and hit her face with a flung bolt of vomit, and while Sharon stood paralyzed and dripping, the Dennings personality appeared, rasping, "Stable whore! Cunt!"
    Sharon bolted from the room.
    The Dennings personality now grimaced with distaste, glance around and asked, "Would someone crack a window open, please? It bloody stinks in this room! Its simply---!
    "No no no, don't!" it then amended. "No for heaven's sake, don't, or someone else might be bloody well dead!" And then it cackled, winked monstrously at Karras and vanished.
    " 'It is He who expels you...' "
    "Does he, Merrin? Does he?"
    Now the demon returned and Merrin continued the adjurations, the applications of the stole and the constant tracings of the sign of the cross while it lashed him again obscenely. Too long, worried Karras: the fit was continuing far too long.
    "Now the saw comes! The mother of the piglet!" mocked the demon.
    Karras turned and saw Chris coming toward him with a swab and disposable syringe. She kept her head down as the demon hurled abuse, and Karras went to her, frowning.
    "Sharon's changing her clothes," Chris explained, "and Karl's---"
    Karras cut her short with "All right," and they approached the bed.
    "Ah, yes, come see your handiwork, sow-mother! Come!"
    Chris tried desperately not to listen, not to look, while Karras pinned Regan's unresisting arms.
    "See the puke! see the murderous bitch!" the demon raged. "Are you pleased? It is you who have done it! Yes, you with your career before anything; your career before your husband, before her, before..."
    Karras glanced around. Chris stood paralyzed, "Go ahead!" he ordered. "Don't listen! Go ahead!"
    "... your divorce! Go to priests, will you? Priest will not help!" Chris's hand began to shake, "She mad! She is mad! The piglet is mad! You have driven her to madness and to murder and..."
    "I can't!" Face contorted, Chris was staring at the quivering syringe. Shook her head. "I can't do it!"
    Karras plucked it from her fingers. "All right, swab it! Swab the arm! Over here!" he told her firmly.
    "... in her coffin, you bitch, by..."
    "Don't listen!" cautioned Karras again, and now the -demon jerked its head around, its eyes bulging fury, "And you, Karras!"
    Chris swabbed Regan's arm. "Now, get out!" Karras ordered her, flicking the needle into wasted flesh.
    She fled.
    "Yes, we know of your kindness to mothers, dear Karras!" croaked the demon. The Jesuit blenched and for a moment did not move. Then slowly he drew the needle out and looked into eyes that rolled upward into their sockets. Out of Regan's mouth came a slow, lilting singing, almost chanting, in a sweet clear voice like a choirboy's. " 'Tantum ergo sacramentum veneremur cerniu...' "
    It was a hymn sung at Catholic benediction. Karras stood bloodlessly as it continued. Weird and chilling, the singing was a vacuum into which Karras felt the horror of the evening rushing with a horrible clarity. He looked up and saw Merrin with a towel in his hands. With weary, tender movements he wiped away the vomit from Regan's face and neck.
    " '... et antiquum documentum...' "
    The singing. Whose voice? wondered Karras. And then fragments: Dennings... The window... Haunted, he saw Sharon come back in and take the towel from Merrin. "I'll finish that, Father," she told him. "I'm all right now. I'd like to change her and get her cleaned up before I give her the Compazine; all right? Could you both wait outside for awhile?"
    The two priests stepped into the warmth and the dimness of the hall and leaned wearily against the wall.
    Karras listened to the eerie, muffled singing from within. After some moments, he spoke softly to Merrin. "You said---you said earlier there was only... one entity."
    "Yes."
    The hushed tones, the lowered heads, were confessional.
    "All the others are but forms of attack," continued Merrin. "There is one... only one. It is a demon." There was a silence. Then Merrin stated simply, "I know you doubt this. But you see, this demon... I have met once before. And he is powerful... powerful...."
    A silence. Karras spoke again. "We say the demon... cannot touch the victim's will."
    "Yes, that is so... that is so... There is no sin."
    "Then what would be the purpose of possession?" Karras said, frowning. "What's the point?"
    "Who can know?" answered Merrin. "Who can really hope to know?" He thought for a moment. And then probingly continued: "Yet I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us... the observers... every person in this house. And I think---I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is matter of love; of accepting the possibility that God could love us..."
    Again Merrin paused. He continued more slowly and with a hush of introspection: 'He knows... the demon knows where to strike...." He was nodding. "Long ago I despaired of ever loving my neighbor. Certain people... repelled me. How could I love them? I thought. It tormented me, Damien; it led me to despair of myself... and from that, very soon, to despair of my God. My faith was shattered...."
    Karras looked up at Merrin with interest. "And what happened?" he asked.
    "Ah, well... at last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion at all. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other." He shook his head. "I know that all of this must seem very obvious, Damien. I know. But at the time I could not see It. Strange blindness. How many husbands and wives," he uttered sadly, "must believe they have fallen out of love because their hearts no longer race at the sight of their beloveds! Ah, dear God!" He shook his head; and then nodded. "There it lies, I think, Damien... possession; not in wars, as some tend to believe; not so much; and very seldom in extraordinary interventions such as here... this girl... this poor child. No, I see it most often in the little things, Damien: in the senseless, petty spites; the misunderstandings; the cruel and cutting word that leaps unbidden to the tongue between friends. Between lovers. Enough of these," Merrin whispered, "and we have no need of Satan to manage our wars; these we manage for ourselves... for ourselves...."
    The lilting singing could still be heard in the bedroom. Merrin looked up at the door and listened for a moment. "And yet even from this---from evil---will come good. In some way. In some way that we may never understand or ever see." Merrin paused. "Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness," he brooded. "And perhaps even Satan---Satan, in spite of himself---somehow serves to work out the will of God."
    He said no more, and for a time they stood in silence while Karras reflected. Another objection came to mind. "Once the demon's driven out," he probed, "what's to keep it from coming back in?"
    "I don't know," Merrin answered. "I don't know. And yet it never seems to happen. Never. Never." Merrin put a hand to his face, tightly pinching at the corners of his eyes. "Damien... what a wonderful name," he murmured. Karras heard exhaustion in the voice. And something else. Some anxiety. Something like repression of pain.
    Abruptly, Merrin pushed himself away from the wall, and with his face still hidden in his hand; he excused himself and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. What was wrong? wondered Karras. He felt a sudden envy and admiration for the exorcist's strong and simple faith. He turned toward the door. The singing. It had stopped. Had the night at last ended?
    Some minutes later, Sharon came out of the bedroom with a foul-smelling bundle of bedding and clothing. "She's sleeping now," she said. She looked away quickly and moved off down the hall.
    Karras took a deep breath and returned to the bedroom. Felt the cold. Smelled the stench. He walked slowly to the bedside. Regan. Asleep. At last. And at last, thought Karras, he could rest.
    He reached down and gripped Regan's thin wrist, looking at the sweep-second hand of his watch.
    "Why you do this to me, Dimmy?"
    His heart froze.
    "Why you do this?"
    The priest could not move, did not breathe, did not dare to glance over to that sorrowful voice, did not dare see those eyes really there: eyes accusing, eyes lonely. His mother. His mother!
    "You leave me to be priest, Dimmy; and send me institution...."
    Don't look!
    "Now you chase me away?..."
    It's not her!
    "Why you do this?..."
    His head throbbing, heart in his throat, Karras shut his eyes tightly as the voice grew imploring, grew frightened, grew, tearful. "You always good boy, Dimmy. Please! I am 'fraid! Please no chase me outside, Dimmy! Please!"
    ... not my mother!
    "Outside nothing! Only dark, Dimmy! Lonely!" Now tearful.
    "You're not my mother!" Karras vehemently whispered.
    "Dimmy. please!..."
    "You're not my---"
    "Oh, for heaven's sake, Karras!"
    Dennings.
    "Look, it simply isn't fair to drive us out of here! Really!
    I mean, speaking for myself it's only justice I should be here! Little bitch! She took my body and I think it only right that I ought to be allowed to stay in hers, don't you think? Oh, for Christ's sake, Karras, look at me, now would you? Come along! It isn't very often I get out to speak my piece. Just turn around -now."
    Karras opened up his eyes and saw the Dennings personality.
    "There, that's better. Look, she killed me. Not our innkeeper, Karras---she! Oh, yes, indeed!" It was nodding affirmation. "She! I was minding my business at the bar, you see, when I thought I heard her moaning. Upstairs. Well, now, I had to see what ailed her, after all, so up I went and don't you know, she bloody took me by the throat, the little cunt!" The voice was whiny now; pathetic. "Christ, I've never in my life seen such strength! Began to scream that I was diddling her mother or something, or that I caused the divorce. Some such thing. It wasn't dear. But I tell you, love, she pushed me out the bloody fucking window!" Voice cracking. High-pitched now. "She killed me! Fucking killed me! Now you think it's bloody fair to throw me out? Come along, now, Karras, answer me! You think it really fair? I mean, do you?"
    Karras swallowed.
    "Yes, or no," it prodded "Is it fair?"
    "How was... the head turned around?" asked Karras hoarsely.
    Dennings shifted his gaze around evasively. "Oh, well, that was an accident... a freak... I hit the steps, you know.... It was freaky."
    Karras pondered, a dryness in his throat. Then he picked up Regan's wrist again; And glanced at his watch in a move of dismissal.
    "Dimmy, Please! Don' make me be alone!"
    His mother.
    "If instead of be priest, you was doctor, I Live in nice house, Dimmy, not wit' da cockroach, not all by myself in da apartment! Then..."
    He was straining to block it all out, but the voice began to weep again.
    "Dimmy, please!"
    "You're not my---"
    "Won't you face the truth, stinking scum?" It was the demon. "You believe what Merrin tells you?" It seethed. "You believe him to be holy and good? Well, he is not! He is proud and unworthy! I will prove it to you, Karras I will prove it by killing the piglet!"
    Karras opened up his eyes. But still dared not look.
    "Yes, she will die and Merrin's God will not save her, Karras! You will not save her! She will die from Merrin's pride and your incompetence! Bungler! You should not have given her the Librium!"
    Karras turned now and looked at the eyes. They were shining with triumph and piercing spite.
    "Feel her pulse!" The demon grinned "Go ahead, Karras! Feel it!"
    Regan's wrist was still gripped in his hand, and now he frowned worriedly. The pulse beat was rapid and...
    "Feeble?" croaked the demon. "Ah, yes. A trifle. For the moment, just a bit."
    Karras fetched his medical bag and took out his stethoscope. The demon rasped, "Listen, Karras! Listen well!"
    Karras listened. The heart tones sounded distant and inefficient.
    "I will not let her sleep!"
    Karras flicked up his glance to the demon. Felt chilled.
    "Yes, Karras!" it croaked. "She will not sleep! Do you hear? I will not let the piglet sleep!"
    As Karras stared numbly, the demon put its head back in gloating laughter. He did not hear Merrin come back into the room.
    The exorcist stood by him at the side of the bed and studied his face. "What is it?" he asked.
    Karras answered dully, "The demon... said he wouldn't let her sleep." He turned haunted eyes on Merrin. "Her heart's begun to work inefficiently, Father. If she doesn't get rest pretty soon, she'll die of cardiac exhaustion."
    Merrin looked grave. "Can you give her drugs? Some medicine to make her sleep?"
    Karras shook his head. "No, that's dangerous. She might go into coma." He turned as Regan clucked like a hen. "If her blood pressure drops any more..." He trailed off.
    "What can be done?" Merrin asked.
    "Nothing... nothing..." Karras answered. "But I don't know---maybe new advances---" He said abruptly to Merrin, "I'm going to call in a cardiac specialist, Father."
    Merrin nodded.
    Karras went downstairs. He found Chris keeping vigil in the kitchen and from the room off the Pantry he heard Willie sobbing, heard the sound of Karras consoling voice. He explained the need for consultation, carefully not divulging the full extent of Regan's danger. Chris gave him permission, and Karras telephoned a friend, a noted specialist at the Georgetown University Medical School, awakening him and briefing him tersely.
    "Be right there," said the specialist.
    He was at the house in less than half an hour. In the bedroom he reacted with bewilderment to the cold and the stench and with horror and compassion to Regan's condition. She was now croaking gibberish. While the specialist examined her, she alternately sang and made animal noises. Then Dennings appeared.
    "Oh, it's terrible,"' it whined at the specialist. "Just awful! Oh, I do hope there's something you can do! Is there something? We'll have no place to go, you see, otherwise, and all because... Oh, damn the stubborn devil!" As the specialist stared oddly while taking Regan's blood pressure, Dennings looked to Karras and complained, "What the hell are you doing! Can't you see the little bitch should be in hospital? She belongs in a madhouse, Karras! Now you know that! Really! Now let's stop all this cunting mumbo-jumbo! If she dies, you know, it's your fault! All yours! I mean, just because he's stubborn doesn't mean you should behave like a snot! You're a doctor! You should know better, Karras! Now come along; there's just a terrible shortage of housing these days. If we're---"
    Back came the demon now, howling like a wolf. The specialist, expressionless, undid the sphygmomanometer wrapping. Then he nodded at Karras. He was finished.
    They went out into the hall, where the specialist looked back at the bedroom door for a moment, and then turned to Karras. "What the hell's going on in there, Father?"
    The Jesuit averted his face. "I can't say," he said softly.
    "Okay."
    "What's the story?"
    The specialist's manner was somber. "She's got to stop that activity... sleep... go to sleep before the blood pressure drops...."
    "Is there anything I can do, Bill?"
    The specialist looked directly at Karras and said, "Pray."
    He said good night and walked away. Karras watched him, every artery and nerve begging rest, begging hope, begging miracles though he knew none could be. "... You should not have given her the Librium!"
    He turned back to the room and pushed open the door with a hand that was heavy as his soul.
    Merrin stood by the bedside, watching while Regan neighed shrilly like a horse. He heard Karras enter -and looked at him inquiringly. Karras shook his head. Merrin nodded. There was sadness in his face; then acceptance; and as he turned back to Regan, there was grim resolve.
    Merrin knelt by the bed. "Our Father..." he began.
    Regan splattered him with dark and stinking bile, and then croaked, "You will lose! She will die! She will die!"
    Karras picked up his copy of the Ritual. Opened it. Looked up and stared at Regan.
    " 'Save your servant,' " prayed Merrin.
    " 'In the face of the enemy.' "
    In Karras' heart there was a desperate torment. Go to sleep! Go to sleep! roared his will in a frenzy.
    But Regan did not sleep.
    Not by dawn.
    Not by noon.
    Not by nightfall.
    Not by Sunday, when the pulse rate was one hundred and forty, and ever threadier, while the fits continued unremittingly, while Karras and Merrin kept repeating the ritual, never sleeping, Karras feverishly groping for remedies: a restraining sheet to hold Regan's movements to a minimum; keeping everyone out of the bedroom for a time to see if lack of provocation might terminate the fits. It did not. And Regan's shouting was as draining as her movements. Yet the blood pressure held. But how much longer? Karras agonized. Ah, God, don't let her die! he cried repeatedly to himself. Don't let her die! Let her sleep! Let her sleep! Never was he conscious that his thoughts were prayers; only that the prayers were never answered.
    At seven o'clock that Sunday evening, Karras sat mutely next to Merrin in the bedroom, exhausted and racked by the demonic attacks: his lack of faith; his incompetence; his flight from his mother in search of status. And Regan. His fault. "You should not have given her the Librium..."
    The priests had just finished a cycle of the ritual. They were resting, listening to Regan singing "Panis Angelicus." They rarely left the room, Karras once to change clothes and to shower. But in the cold it was easier to stay wakeful; in the stench that since morning had altered in character to the gorge-raising odor of decayed, rotted flesh.
    Staring feverishly at Regan with red-veined eyes, Karras thought he heard a sound. Something creaked. Again: As he blinked. And then he realized it was coming from his own crusted eyelids. He turned toward Merrin. Through the hours, the exorcist had said very little: now and then a homely story of his boyhood; reminiscences; little things; a story about a duck he owned named Clancy. Karras worried about him. The lack of sleep. The demon's attacks. At his age. Merrin closed his eyes and let his chin rest on his chest. Karras glanced around at Regan, and then wearily stood up and moved over to the bed. He checked her pulse and then began to take a blood pressure reading. As he wrapped the black sphygmomanometer cloth around the arm, he blinked repeatedly to clear the blurring of his vision.
    "Today Muddir Day, Dimmy."
    For a moment; he could not move; felt his heart wrenched from his chest. Then he looked into those eyes that seemed not Regan's anymore, but eyes sadly rebuking. His mother's.
    "I not good to you? Why you leave me to die all alone, Dimmy? Why? Why you..."
    "Damien!"
    Merrin clutching tightly at his arm. "Please go and rest for a little now, Damien."
    "Dimmy, please! Why you..."
    Sharon came in to change the bedding.
    "Go, rest for a little, Damien!" urged Merrin.
    With a lump rising dry to his throat, Karras turned and left the bedroom. Stood weak in the hall. Then he walked down the stairs, and stood indecisively. Coffee? He craved it. But a shower even more, a change of clothing, a shave.
    He left the house and crossed the street to the Jesuit residence hall. Entered. Groped to his room. And when he looked at his bed... Forget the shower. Sleep. Half an hour. As he reached for the telephone to tell Reception to awaken him, it rang.
    "Yes, hello," he answer hoarsely.
    "Someone waiting here to see you, Father Karras: a Mr. Kinderman."
    For a moment, Karras held his breath and then, weakly, he answered, "Please tell him I'll be out in just a minute."
    As he hung up the telephone, Karras saw the carton of Camels on his desk A note from Dyer was attached. He read blearily.
    A key to the Playboy Club has been found on the chapel kneeler in front of the votive lights. Is it yours? You can claim it at Reception.
    Without expression, Karras set down the note, dressed in fresh clothing and walked out of the room. He forgot to take the cigarettes.
    In Reception, he saw Kinderman at the telephone switchboard counter, delicately rearranging the composition of a vase full of flowers. As he turned and saw Karras, he was holding the stem of a pink camellia.
    "Ah, Father! Father Karras!" glowed Kinderman, his expression changing to concern at the exhaustion in the Jesuit's face. He quickly replaced the camellia and came forward to meet Karras. "You look awful! What's the matter? That's what comes of all this schlepping around the track? Give it up! Listen, come!" He gripped Karras by the elbow and propelled him toward the street. "You've got a minute?" he asked as they passed through the entry doors.
    "Barely," murmured Karras. "What is it?"
    "A little talk. I need advice, nothing more, just advice."
    "What about?"
    "In just a minute," waved Kinderman in dismissal.
    "Now we'll walk. We'll take air. We'll enjoy." He linked his arm through the Jesuit's and guided him diagonally across Prospect Street. " Ah, now, look at that! Beautiful! Gorgeous!" He was pointing to the sun sinking low on the Potomac, and in the stillness rang the laughter and the talking-all-together of Georgetown undergraduates in front of a drinking hall near the corner of Thirty-sixth Street. One punched another one hard on the arm, and the two began wrestling amicably. "Ah, college, college..." breathed Kinderman ruefully, nodding as he stared. "I never went... but I wish... I wish..." He saw that Karras was watching the sunset. "I mean, seriously, you really look bad," he repeated. "What's the matter? You've been sick?"
    When would Kinderman come to the point? Karras wondered. "No, just busy," he answered.
    "Slow it down, then," wheezed Kinderman. "Slow. You know better. You saw the Bolshoi Ballet, incidentally, at the Watergate?"
    "No."
    "No, me neither. But I wish. They're so graceful... so cute!"
    They had come to the Car Barn wall. Resting a forearm, Karras faced Kinderman, who had clasped his hands atop the wall and was staring pensively across the river. "Well, what's on your mind, Lieutenant?" asked Karras.
    "Ah, well, Father," sighed Kinderman, "I'm afraid I've got a problem."
    Karras flicked a brief glance up at Regan's shuttered window. "Professional?"
    "Well, partly... only partly."
    "What is it?"
    "Well, mostly it's..." Hesitant, Kinderman squinted. "Well, mostly it's ethical, you could say, Father Karras... a question...." The detective turned around and leaned his back against the wall. He frowned at the sidewalk. Then he shrugged. "There's just no one I could talk to about it; not my captain in particular, you see. I just couldn't. I couldn't tell him. So I thought..." His face lit with sudden animation. "I had an aunt... you should hear this; it's funny. She was terrified---terrified---for years of my uncle. Never dared to say a word to him. Wouldn't dare to raise her voice. Never! So whenever she got mad at him for something---for whatever---right away, she'd run quick to the closet in her bedroom, and then there in the dark---you won't believe this!---in the dark, by herself, and the moths and the clothes hanging up, she mould curse---she would curse!---at my uncle for maybe twenty minutes! Tell exactly what she thought of him! Really! I mean, yelling! She'd come out, she'd feel better, she'd go kiss him on the cheek. Now what is that, Father Karras? That's good therapy or not!"
    "It's very good," said Karras, smiling bleakly. "And I'm your closet now? Is that what you're saying?"
    "In a way," said Kinderman. Again he looked down. "In a way. But more serious, Father Karras." He paused. "And the closet must speak," he added heavily.
    "Got a cigarette?" asked Karras with shaking hands.
    The detective looked up at him, blankly incredulous. "A condition like mine and I would smoke?"
    "No, you wouldn't," murmured Karras, clasping hands atop the wall and staring at them. Stop shaking!
    "Some doctor! God forbid I should be sick in some jungle and instead of Albert Schweitzer, there is with me only you! You cure warts still with frogs, Doctor Karras?"
    "It's toads," Karras answered, subdued.
    "You're not laughing today," worried Kinderman. "Something's wrong?"
    Mutely Karras shook his head. Then, "Go ahead," he said softly.
    The detective sighed and faced out to the river. "I was saying..." he wheezed. He scratched his brow with his thumbnail. "I was saying---well, lets say I'm working on a case, Father Karras. A homicide."
    "Dennings?"
    "No, no, purely hypothetical. You wouldn't be familiar with it. Nothing. Not at all."
    Karras nodded.
    "Like a ritual witchcraft murder, this looks," the detective continued broodingly. He was frowning, picking words slowly. "And let us say in this house----this hypothetical house---there are living five, and that one must be the killer." with his hand, he made flat, chopping motions of emphasis, "Now, I know this---I know this---I know this for a fact." Then he paused, slowly exhaling breath. "But then the problem.... All the evidence---well, It points to a child, Father Karras; a little girl maybe ten, twelve years old... just a baby; she could maybe be my daughter." He kept his eyes fixed on the embankment beyond them. "Yes, I know: sounds fantastic... ridiculous... but true. Now there comes to this house, Father, a priest---very famous---and this case being purely hypothetical, Father, I learn through my also hypothetical genius that this priest has once cured a very special type illness. An illness which is mental, by the way, a fact I mention just in passing for your interest."
    Karras felt himself turning grayer by the moment.
    "Now also there is... satanism involved in this illness, it happens, plus... strength... yes, incredible strength. And this... hypothetical girl, let us say, then, could... twist a man's head around, you see. Yes, she could." He was nodding now. "Yes... yes, she could. Now the question.." He grimaced thoughtfully. "You see... you see, the girl is not responsible, Father. She's demented." He shrugged. "And just a child! A child!" He shook his head. "And yet the illness that she has... it could be dangerous. She could kill someone else. Who's to know?" He again squinted out across the river. "It's a problem. What to do? Hypothetically, I mean. Forget it? Forget it and hope she gets"---Kinderman paused---"gets well?" He reached for a handkerchief. "Father, I don't know... I don't know." He blew his nose. "It's a terrible decision; just awful." He was searching for a clean, unused section of handkerchief. "Awful. And I hate to be the one who has to make it." He again blew his nose and lightly dabbed at a nostril. "Father, what would be right in such a case? Hypothetically? What do you believe would be the right thing to do?"
    For an instant, the Jesuit throbbed with rebellion, with a dull, weary anger at the piling on of weight. He let it ebb. He met Kinderman's eyes and answered softly, "I would put it in the hands of a higher authority."
    "I believe it is there at this moment," breathed Kinderman.
    "Yes... and I would leave it there."
    Their gazes locked. Then Kinderman pocketed the handkerchief. "Yes... yes, I thought you would say that." He nodded, then glanced at the sunset. "So beautiful. A sight" He tugged back his sleeve for a look at his wrist watch. "Ah, well, I have to go. Mrs. K will be shrieking now: 'The dinner, it's cold!' " He turned back to Karras. "Thank you, Father. I feel better... much better. Oh, incidentally, you could maybe do a favor? Give a message? If you meet a man named Engstrom, tell him---well, say, 'Elvira is in a clinic, she's all right.' He'll understand. Would you do that? I mean, if you should meet him."
    Karras was puzzled. Then, "Sure," he said. "Sure."
    "Look, we couldn't make a film some night, Father?"
    The Jesuit looked down and murmured, "Soon."
    " 'Soon.' You're like a rabbi when he mentions the Messiah: always 'Soon.' Listen, do me another favor, please, Father." The detective looked gravely concerned. "Stop this running round the track for a little. Just walk. Walk. Slow down. You'll do that?"
    "I'll do that."
    Hands in his pocket, the detective looked down at the sidewalk in resignation. "I know." He sighed wearily. "Soon. Always soon." As he started away, his head still lowered, he reached up a hand to the Jusuit's shoulder. Squeezed. "Elia Kazan sends regards:"
    For a time, Karras watched him as he listed down the street. Watched with wonder. With fondness. And surprise at the heart's labyrinthine turnings. He. looked up at the clouds washed in pink above the river, then beyond to the west, where they drifted at the edge of the world, glowing faintly, like a promise remembered. He put the side of his fist against his lips and looked down against the sadness as it welled from his throat toward the corners of his eyes. He waited. Dared not risk another glance at the sunset. He looked up at Regan's window, then went back to the house.
    Sharon let him in and said nothing had changed. She had a bundle of foul-smelling laundry in her hands. She excused herself. "I've got to get this downstairs to the washer."
    He watched her. Thought of coffee. But now he heard the demon croaking viciously at Merrin. He started toward the staircase. Then remembered the message. Karl Where was he? He turned to ask Sharon and glimpsed her disappearing down the basement steps. In a fog, he went to the kitchen.
    No Karl. Only Chris. She was sitting at the table looking down at... an album? Pasted photographs. Scraps of paper. Cupped hands at her forehead obscured her from his view.
    "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. "Come on! Come on, loser! Try me! Leave the girl and take me! Take me! Come into..."
    It was barely a minute later where Chris and Sharon heard the sounds from above. They were in the study and, dry-eyed, Chris sat in front of the bar while Sharon, behind it, was mixing them a drink. As she set the vodka and tonic on the bar, both the women glanced up at the ceiling. Stumblings. Sharp bumps against furniture. Walls. Then the voice of... the demon? The demon. Obscenities. But another voice. Alternating. Karras? Yes, Karras. Yet stronger. Deeper.
    "No! I won't let you hurt them! You're not going to hurt them! You're coming with..."
    Chris knocked her drink over as she flinched at a violent splintering, at the breaking of glass, and in an instant she and Sharon were racing from the study, up the stairs, to the door of Regan's bedroom, bursting in. They saw the shutters of the window on the floor, ripped off their hinges! And the window! The glass had been totally shattered!
    Alarmed, they rushed forward toward the window, and as they did, Chris saw Merrin on the floor by the bed. She stood rooted in shock. Then she ran to him. Knelt. She gasped. "Oh, my God!" she whimpered "Sharon! Shar, come here! Quick, come---"
    Sharon screamed from the window, and as Chris looked up bloodlessly, gaping, she ran again toward the door.
    "Shar, what is it?"
    "Father Karras! Father Karras!"
    She bolted from the room in hysteria, and Chris got up and ran trembling to the window. She looked below and felt her heart dropping out of her body. At the bottom of the steps on busy M Street, Karras lay crumpled amid a gathering crowd.
    She stared horrified. Paralyzed. Tried to move.
    "Mother?"
    A small, wan voice calling tearfully behind her. Chris gulped. Did not dare to believe or---"What's happening, Mother? Oh, please! Please come here! Mother, please! I'm afraid! I'm a---"
    Chris turned quickly and saw the tears of confusion, the pleading; and suddenly she was racing to the bed, weeping, "Rags! Oh, my baby, my baby! Oh, Rags!"
    Downstairs, Sharon lunged from the house and ran frantically to the Jesuit residence hall. She asked urgently for Dyer. He came quickly to Reception. She told him. He turned pale.
    "Called an ambulance?"
    "Oh, my God, I didn't think!"
    Swiftly Dyer gave instructions to the switchboard operator, then he raced from the hall, followed closely by Sharon. Crossed the street. Down the steps.
    "Let me through, please! Coming through!" As he pushed through the bystanders, Dyer heard murmurs of the litany of indifference. "What happened?"
    "Some guy fell down the steps."
    "Did you...?"
    "Musta been drunk: See the vomit?"
    "Come on, we'll be late for the..."
    Dyer at last broke through, and for a heart-stop-ping instant felt frozen in a timeless dimension of grief, in a space where the air was too painful to breathe. Karras lay crumpled and twisted, on his back; with his head in the center of a growing pool of blood. He was staring vacantly, jaw slack. And now his eyes shifted numbly to Dyer. Leaped alive. Seemed to glow with an elation.
    Some plea. Something urgent.
    "Come on, back now! Move it back!" A policeman. Dyer knelt and put a light, tender hand like a caress against the bruised, gashed face. So many cuts. A bloody ribbon trickled down from the mouth. "Damien..." Dyer paused to still the quaver in his throat, and in the eyes saw that faint, eager shine, the warm plea.
    He leaned closer. "Can you talk?"
    Slowly Karras reached his hand to Dyer's wrist. Staring fixedly, he clutched it. Briefly squeezed.
    Dyer fought back the tears. He leaned closer and put his mouth next to Karras' ear. "Do you want to make your confession now, Damien?"
    A squeeze.
    "Are you sorry for all of the sins of your life and for having offended Almighty God?"
    A squeeze.
    Now Dyer leaned back and as he slowly traced the sign of the cross over Karras, he recited the words of absolution: "Ego te absolvo..."
    An enormous tear rolled down from a corner of Karras' eye, and now Dyer felt his wrist being squeezed even harder, continuously, as he finished the absolution: "... in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
    Dyer leaned over again with his mouth next to Karras' ear. Waited. Forced the swelling from his throat. And then murmured, "Are you...?" He stopped short as the pressure on his wrist abruptly slackened. He pulled back his head and saw the eyes filled with peace; and with something else: something mysteriously like joy at the end of heart's longing. The eyes were still staring. But at nothing in this world. Nothing here.
    Slowly and tenderly, Dyer slid the eyelids down. He heard the ambulance wail from afar. He began to say, "Good-bye," but could not finish. He lowered his head and wept.
    The ambulance arrived. They put Karras an a stretcher, and as they were loading him aboard, Dyer climbed in and sat beside the intern. He reached over and took Karras' hand.
    "There's nothing you can do for him now, Father," said the intern in a kindly voice. "Don't make it harder on yourself. Don't come."
    Dyer held his gaze on that chipped, torn face. He shook his head.
    The intern looked up to the ambulance rear door, where the driver was waiting patiently. He nodded. The ambulance door went up with a click.
    From the sidewalk, Sharon watched stunned as the ambulance slowly drove away. She heard murmurs from the bystanders.
    "What happened?"
    "Who knows, buddy? Who the hell knows?"
    The wail of the ambulance siren lifted shrill into night above the river until the driver remembered that time no longer mattered. He cut it off. The river flowed quiet again, reaching toward a gentler shore.