Quickly, he told the priest what he'd done. "I need your help, Michael. Can you come over here?"
"Five minutes, Sam."
He met the priest on the front porch, watching as Dubois blessed the house with prayer and Holy Water.
"Will this work, Michael?"
"If it doesn't," the old priest said grimly, "it will kill her."
"Isn't she already dead?" Sam's voice was harsh.
"Yes, son, she is, in a manner of speaking. Come on, this is not going to be pleasant."
The men followed the sounds of screaming, cursing, snarling.
"You picked a good day for this," Dubois glanced at his watch. "We have about three and a half hours 'til midnight. I think it best we do it by then."
In the bedroom, Michelle snarled at the sight of them, her eyes rolling back in her head, only the white showing at the sight of the Bible in Dubois's hand. She spat at him, the spittle catching him on the cheek. He wiped it away with a handkerchief, careful not to let any of the spit touch his lips.
"What do we do, Michael?"
The priest knelt by the bed. "Pray, Sam—let me do the rest. Pray harder than you've ever prayed in your life. We've got to fill this room with the power of God."
And the men prayed.
Michelle howled like an animal on the bed, fighting her bonds until her ankles and wrists were raw and bleeding. She cursed their prayers, screamed as the Holy Water touched her flesh. She yelled filth and profanity, working as hard against the exorcism as they worked toward saving her soul.
Dogs barked in the streets of Whitfield; the crow, the owl, the night hawk hooted and cawed and screeched their outrage; and a summer storm sprang up in the dark skies, sending flashes of lightning licking across the heavens, thunder rolling in waves.
And the men prayed and worked.
Michelle strained against her bonds, blasphemy from her tongue opposing the supplications from the men of God.
An owl bashed itself to blood and broken feathers against the house, the Doberman from across the street ran around the parsonage, frantically seeking entrance into the house, its blood-lust high, the only thought in its brain: KILL. And in the homes of the possessed in Whitfield, eyes turned in the direction of the parsonage, mouths snarled, and tongues uttered chants learned in the pits of Hell.
"NNNOOO!" Michelle screamed, lunging against the bonds that held her. Her body arched upward in pain.
The minutes passed into hours as the power of God fought the mind-possessing tyranny of the devil. Michelle seemed to grow no weaker as the sweat gathered on her body, darkening the sheets.
Sam placed his hand on her forehead. "Speak of God's love, Michelle. Ask Him for help. Ask him! He will help."
She snarled and attempted to bite Sam. "Fuck God!" she hissed. "Fuck Jesus! Praise the Prince of Darkness. Hail the Lord of Flies!"
She pulled back her lips and the men watched in horror as her teeth yellowed, enlarging, becoming fanged. Her eyes narrowed to slanted slits, yellow shining from the crooked apertures.
Father Dubois drenched her with Holy Water, and she squalled in pain, the metamorphosis reversing as she transformed back into Michelle.
"I thought so," the priest muttered. He rose from his kneeling, a look of hate on his usually serene face. "It's no use. She's one of Them. Very old."
Sam had backed against a wall, seemingly frozen there. Not so much from fear, although that was certainly a part of it, but more from shock at what he had lived with for years.
Dubois glanced at his watch. "Five minutes," he muttered. "Only five more minutes and she'll have us."
He walked out of the room, returning with a broom. He handed the broom to Sam. "Break it, Sam. I need a stake." Sam hesitated. "BREAK IT!" Dubois shouted, slapping Sam across the mouth.
Sam came out of his shock with a lurch. He snapped the broom handle, leaving one end jag-gedly pointed. "Sorry, Michael," he apologized. "It just got to me."
"Watch me, son," the priest ordered. "For when I'm gone, it's going to be up to you to do this—and you will have to do it many, many times. Be strong."
And Sam watched in horror as the priest whirled, raised the stake with both hands, and brought it down, the jagged point driving into Michelle's chest.
Blood spewed from her mouth, both men ducking to avoid the gushing crimson.
But Michelle would not die.
She howled at them, blood spraying from her lips. Her teeth grew fanged, her eyes wild and yellow.
"Missed the heart," Dubois said calmly, ignoring her shrieks of pain. "Pull the stake out for me, Sam. I don't have the strength."
Sam jerked the stake from his wife's chest. He gave the dripping stick to Dubois.
The priest raised the stake far above his head. "Give me the strength, my God, to destroy this creature of Satan. In Your name, Lord." He drove the stake deep into Michelle's heart.
Still she howled as the hands of the clock drew only seconds from midnight. The town seemed to hold its breath. All the howling from the animals had ceased; no birds called in the night.
Dubois was covered with sweat from his exertions. He worked the stake deeper into her chest. As the stake ruined the heart, the woman on the bed changed before their eyes. Where there had once been a healthy, beautiful woman, there was now a dirty hag. The hag changed again, into a smaller younger woman, but a woman covered with thick hair. The transformation back into time continued to run its course, until what was left on the bed did not in any way resemble a human form.
The thing on the bed was of such horrible features it was disgusting to look upon. It was an animal, but it was more; it was a Beast, but it was not. It was, to Sam, indescribable.
A stench filled the room, winding throughout the house. Both Sam and Father Dubois fought back vomit at the smell. It was the odor of thousands of years of evil, of sickness of the soul.
Wiping his face with his hand, Sam said, "You mean—you mean, I've been married to THAT? All this time!" He looked at Dubois. "You never liked her. I sensed that. You KNEW!"
"I suspected, Sam." Both men seemed unable to pull their eyes from the rancid sight on the bed. "But I could not be certain. How could I tell you? I couldn't."
Sam shuddered at the sight on the bed and of his own memories of Michelle. He was still somewhat in shock. "Wh—what do we do with her—it?"
"First we wash and change clothes. Then we wrap the thing up and take it out to Tyson's Lake. Dump it over the fence. Give it to the Beasts."
"We killed—"
"A thing!" Dubois finished Sam's sentence. "Something of the most perverse evil to ever walk God's earth. She—it never accepted our God, Sam. She only pretended to accept, all the while working toward her Master's ultimate goal."
"Michael, what was she?"
"One of the originals, I believe. A—witch, I suspect. She's been here on this earth for hundreds—perhaps thousands of years, in one form or another, changing with the times, and always ... waiting for her Master's signal to do evil—to strike. There is no way of knowing how much evil she has spread over her many lifetimes and lifestyles. How many lives she has ruined. She was very difficult to destroy," he mused. "She must have been very old and very powerful."
The men washed the stink from them, Sam giving Dubois some of his clothes to wear. The shirt and pants were far too large, but they were clean.
Sam rolled what was once his wife into a thick blanket, then a tarp, securing the bundle with rope. He dumped the foul-smelling thing in the back of the truck, then pulled out the Thompson submachine gun from under the seat, along with a drum and several boxes of ammunition. Walking back to the house, the Steiner's Doberman lunged at him, teeth bared, snarling. Sam kicked the animal savagely in the side, sending it away, yelping and whining in the night.