In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue. -Ethan Allen, revolutionary (1738-1789)

Paul picked up the hitchhiker a little before one in the afternoon as the guy walked down the highway. They were about five miles out of Hennas Crossing, and a couple miles past the old Chevy that had been neatly tucked as far off the road as the trees allowed. Dressed in a leather jacket and battered jeans, and boots not really built for a wandering life, the hitchhiker turned to hook out his thumb at the sound of the car, but Paul had already started to slow. There was a nasty, drizzling rain, and Paul didn't see room in the guy's pack for an axe.

Paul leaned over to roll down the window. "I'm only going as far as Hennas Crossing, but you're welcome to a ride there," he said, as the kid bent down.

His grin sent a little flutter along Paul's nerves. He looked young, early twenties at most, with a face that must have caused trouble for him as a boy; it was still growing into the more mature yet still remarkable good looks of a man.

"Thank you, I'd sure appreciate that," he said. He slid into the car, settling his pack at his feet. He rolled the window up before offering his hand. "Name's Arthur Brown Call me Art, and you wouldn't believe how pleased I am to meet you. This is not a highly-traveled road."

His grip was firm, his hand callused, his green eyes direct and somehow older than his years.

"Paul Callan," Paul said. "That your Chevy parked a couple miles back?"

This time the kid's smile lit his whole face. "Yeah, the Impala's my baby, although she's giving me a little trouble right now. My own fault, I didn't buy a spare belt when I should have. I was headed into town to get a couple things to get her going again." He looked out the window. "Might wait until it clears up." He turned back to Paul. "Know of any place to get a room in town?"

Paul pulled back onto the highway. "I'm afraid not. This is my first trip here."

Art slouched down in the seat. "Likewise. Business or pleasure?"

Paul considered. It certainly wasn't pleasure that had him out on what would probably prove another of Poppi's wild goose chases. "I guess you'd call it business. I'm here as a friend of a friend, to see if I can help someone out."

"You a counselor, or something?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"I dunno, you said you were going to try to help, I just wondered. Mostly making conversation."

Paul looked at the landscape as he considered Art's question. Even this close to Hennas Crossing, Paul couldn't see any traces of the town, no signs for local businesses or organizations, none of the kind of buildup that usually trails along a main road into a town. Poppi had said it was just barely on the map. The only reason it still had an active church at all was that somebody had enough money to make sure of it.

"I guess you could call me a kind of investigator," Paul finally said.

Art sat up a little straighter. "Like a detective? This wouldn't have anything to do with the disappearances around here, would it?"

Paul looked at him sharply. "What do you know about it? I was under the impression there hadn't been much notice outside of the town itself."

"None at all, as far as I can tell, which you have to admit is just a little weird, if people really are disappearing. Rumors, though, plenty of rumors about Hennas Crossing." He held his hand out again. "I didn't really fully introduce myself. I'm Art Brown, with the Derry News."

"A reporter?" That made Paul's day. The Church hated this kind of publicity, and even if Paul wasn't here officially, they wouldn't be happy if the Diocese started getting questions from a reporter.

"Yeah, although I'm kind of here on my own time, seeing if there's enough of a story. Like I said, all I've got is rumors. Hey, if your friend knows something about the disappearances, think he'd talk to me?"

"I doubt he'll want to talk to a reporter."

"No, listen, off the record, then. Could you at least ask him?"

They passed a sign that said: HENNAS CROSSING, Population 1,997, and the speed limit sharply dropped to 35.

Art put his hand on Paul's shoulder. "Seriously, Paul, this could really help me out. I was going to just go blindly into the police station and see what they had to say, but any information your guy could provide..."

Paul shook his head. He was definitely going to regret this, but Art seemed like a genuinely nice guy. "It's not up to me. I'll ask...my friend if he's willing to talk to you, but if he says no, that's it."

Art grinned. "Sure, no problem! I won't write anything he doesn't want me to write, promise." He peered out the window at the town, such as it was. "I wonder if they even have a motel." He turned back to Paul, who was trying to figure out the instructions he'd written down. "Is it okay with you if I just kind of tag along, then? I'll need to get those parts I mentioned at some point, but it hardly looks like I even need a car around here..."

Paul gave him a hard look. Art came across as very young in some ways, very canny in others; sharper than he let on, but...mostly harmless. He shoved the directions at Art. "See if you can figure out which street I'm supposed to turn on."

Hennas Crossing was obviously in the midst of an economic crisis. Many buildings and homes were simply empty, and not many of those that were occupied were in very good shape. Although there were signs of changing fortunes: a new store, a couple of houses undergoing renovations. They saw a few people on the street, a couple of children in a yard, but the rain was keeping most people in where it was dry. Everyone they did see turned and watch them pass, which was kind of spooky. While Art was still puzzling out street names, Paul saw a sign for the Sts. Lucian & Marcian Catholic Church, and turned left as directed.

Once they'd gone a few blocks, the building was hard to miss. It was clearly and aggressively a church, and even more clearly dated from more prosperous times. Although not particularly large, it looked less like a traditional New England church and more like a small medieval one, the architectural elements a mix of periods, incorporating arches, large windows, and large amounts of decoration. Masses of stone were covered with elaborate carvings; stained glass windows were ornate and crowded.

"That's... a hell of a church," Art said. "That's a church that really wants you to know it's a church. Man, I didn't even know they made churches like that around here."

Paul pulled his collar up and opened his door to climb out into the drizzling rain. "They don't, usually. I gather Hennas Crossing has a lot of money, or had at one time."

Art followed him, still looking at the bas relief in fascination. "Those are pretty gruesome, dude. Like something out of the middle ages. These are supposed to make people want to go to church?" He looked at Paul, who shrugged.

"I'm told the original name of the town was Gehenna's Crossing, and it looks like the people who founded it took Hell pretty seriously." Even so, he winced at some of the depictions in the elaborate windows. They looked like they'd been designed by Bosch. "They were from a rather strict sect that wasn't highly thought of by the rest of the church of the time."

"I can see why — they look like big time party poopers even by Puritan standards. So," Art said, looking at Paul again, "who are we looking for?"

Paul led the way to the church, looking for an office, but heading for the church front doors when he didn't see one. "Father Saunders went to seminary with my friend, Father Calero. Father Calero asked me if I'd talk to Father Saunders, see if there's any real reason for concern."

Art caught Paul's sleeve, before he reached the doors. "And what are his concerns?"

Paul hesitated before answering. "Father Saunders says knew several of the people who are supposed to have disappeared."

The inside was fully as elaborate as the outside, a Gothic cathedral in miniature, although not as high as it should have been to visually support the architecture. It was a full Latin cross in shape, the transept arms ending in a small chapel on one side, and what looked like a sealed crypt on the other, with a candle burning outside it. The crypt was inset, with a rough stone facing; it looked as if the church had been built around it.

They moved slowly into the church proper, staring around. Art moved off to the right, towards the crypt.

"Can I help you?"

Paul jumped slightly as the voice echoed through the space. He turned toward the altar to see a woman coming in from a side door. She looked to be in her seventies, well-preserved and handsome, but with an odd look about her eyes. "I'm looking for Father Saunders," he said. "He's expecting me."

"And who might you be?" she asked.

He moved forward to offer his hand, but she ignored it. Most of her attention was directed behind him, where Art was studying the front of the crypt. "My name is Paul Callan. Is Father Saunders available?"

She sniffed. "I'm Mrs. Eugenia Ginty, his housekeeper. You won't find Father Saunders here, I'm afraid. He's off poking his nose into other people's affairs, I shouldn't wonder." She walked past Paul. "You there, boy, what are you doing?"

Art had taken out a pad of paper and was making notes. He waved and smiled, then turned back to his pad.

"He's with me, Mrs. Ginty. He's harmless, just... interested in local history."

She sniffed again, and looked at him disapprovingly. "We don't much care for outsiders around here," she said. "If you want to find Father Saunders, I'd look at the Dark Man, over on the corner of Main Street and Hastings. He's sure to show up there sooner or later," she said with a sneer. "We'll all be better off when Father Rede takes over. You, boy! Stop that right this instant!"

Paul turned to see Art scraping the stone with a rather dangerous-looking knife. He thanked Mrs. Ginty and hurried over, thinking that if Poppi's Father Saunders spent that much time in a local bar, he might not be the most reliable source. He grabbed Art's shoulder and squeezed. "Are you trying to make things more difficult?"

"This place totally gives me the creeps. Look at this, Paul. I mean, first, what's a crypt doing inside the main church? Doesn't that strike you the least bit strange? And I recognize some of these symbols; they're supposed to hold back demons, other evil beings."

Paul blinked at Art, then looked over his shoulder, to see Mrs. Ginty still watching them. He looked back at the crypt; he left his hand on Art's shoulder. They were of a height, so it wasn't uncomfortable. "It's not that unusual to have a crypt inside a church. Maybe the folks who originally built this were a superstitious bunch, and the guy buried in here was the dark sheep of the family."

"What did that harpy say her name was?"

"Please keep your voice down. Her name is Ginty, why?"

Art pointed to a brass plaque on the wall next to the crypt. "Your girlfriend's ancestors helped build this thing, looks like."

To ensure the good fortune and prosperity of Gehenna's Crossing, from this time forward.

Paul looked for any sign of who occupied the tomb.

"I couldn't find anything," Art said.

"What?"

Art gestured around. "No notice of who's buried inside, anywhere. There's the plaque, and these symbols, and here comes your girlfriend."

"What?"

"If you gentleman are quite through," Mrs. Ginty said. It wasn't a question.

Art smiled at her, and to Paul's surprise, it didn't have any effect. "Hello, Mrs. Ginty, is it? My name is Art Brown, and I was just wondering if you knew the history of this?" He jerked his thumb towards the crypt entrance. "Is there any way to see inside?"

She crossed her arms and frowned at him, supremely uncharmed. "This isn't an historical society, young man. We prefer to be left alone."

"I couldn't help but notice that one of the gentleman on the plaque was also named Ginty, so I thought—"

"Obadiah Ginty was my ancestor, and along with the others, was one of the founders of Hennas Crossing. This—" She looked at the crypt, and smiled. Her smile sent chills along Paul's spine. "Probably just foolishness on the part of the Council. I think each of the founding families has a member interred in there." She looked sternly at them both. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have cleaning to get back to."

Clearly dismissed, they made their way out of the church. It was still grey and dismal, but the rain had stopped.

"Another interesting thing about those sigils on the crypt, Paul?"

"Yeah?"

"They were all broken, or too faded to work."

Paul looked at him. "You aren't serious. How would you even know that?"

Art shrugged and looked a little uncomfortable. "Let's say it's a hobby of mine. And yeah, I am kind of serious."

Paul shook his head. "Exactly what kind of rumors have you been listening to?"

"Are you going to tell me that what you've heard from your friend Father Calero didn't include anything even a little strange about these disappearances?"

"Supposed disappearances. Father Saunders admitted that even the local police don't think there's anything criminal going on, there's nothing in the newspaper — nothing but Father Saunders." Paul headed for the car.

"And that doesn't strike you as odd? Saunders can name multiple people that have disappeared, and the police and the newspaper don't care?"

Paul faced Art over the top of the car. "Look, I'm here as a favor to a friend, but I don't know anything yet. In fact, you seem to know a whole lot more than I do, so why don't you tell me what you think is going on?"

Art just looked at him for a minute, his face serious, and again Paul felt that he was older than he looked. "I don't know yet, okay? I've just done background reading, that kind of stuff. But that crypt in there gives me a really bad feeling."

Paul wanted to tell him that in all the time he'd been working for the Vatican, he'd yet to see a sign of the truly supernatural, and that he hardly expected to find it in Hennas Crossing. But he wasn't sure yet how much he was willing to tell Arthur Brown, reporter for the Derry News, or exactly why he was letting him tag along. Maybe he'd just leave it up to Father Saunders, if they could find him.

They found the Dark Man Tavern with little trouble; there weren't many operating businesses on the main street. Art left him outside the bar to go to a garage further down the street to find the parts he needed. It would also give Paul time to sound Father Saunders out on whether he minded talking to a reporter, or not.

The bar itself lived up to the first half of its name. It was dark and dusty, the kind of place that let you lose track of time once you were inside and had a few beers inside you.

"Can I help you?" This voice sounded no more welcoming than Mrs. Ginty's had, at the church. Walking carefully, as his eyes adjusted, Paul moved to the bar. The man behind it might well have been the one the tavern was named for, big and bulky, with a great shocks of dark hair sticking out from his head and his face.

"I was told I might find Father Saunders here. Thomas Saunders?"

The man swiped a less than clean rag over the countertop. "And who might have told you to look here?"

Paul looked around. There weren't very many people here, midway between lunch and dinner. "Mrs. Ginty, at the church."

The man looked faintly apologetic, but almost defiantly so. "We like our privacy around here," he said.

"So I'm given to understand," Paul said. "Is Father Thomas here? He's expecting me."

"Over here, son," a tired voice called from a back corner.

Paul nodded at the bartender, and headed to the back. "Father Saunders?"

The man Paul saw resembled Poppi's description, but only in the bare outlines. He was the right age and size, but this man looked haggard and ill-used, as if he hadn't slept or eaten well in months, and his clothes were none too clean. There was little left of the hearty, good-natured man Poppi had spoken of so affectionately. Saunders sat in a booth, the table empty except for a single full tumbler of amber liquor sitting right in front of him. Poppi had said Saunders was a recovering alcoholic.

Saunders motioned him to sit down opposite him in the booth. "You must be young Callan. Calero's told me a great deal about you. You're doing great things, he says."

"Am I?" Paul said, surprised at how bitter it sounded.

"Important work, surely?"

"Maybe so, Father. I wonder sometimes. I seem to do more to take wonder out of the world than to confirm it."

Saunders shook his head. "At my age, such an attitude isn't surprising, but someone as young as you should still have some illusions." His voice was wavery, sounding older than it should, and his hand shook as he made an aborted move for the glass. He finally clasped his hand around it, but didn't try to lift it.

"Are they just illusions, then?"

Saunders smiled grimly. "I used to think so, during my rather conventional crisis of faith. That was before I came to Gehenna's Crossing, and now..." His grip on the drink tightened. "If the existence of the Devil proves the existence of God, then I've had my faith restored."

Paul blinked at the dramatic statement, as well as the older form of the town's name, but Saunders sounded completely sincere. He wanted to ask more, but waited. "I have someone with me, Father, someone I met here in town." At that, Saunders looked around, spilling some of his drink; for a moment, Paul thought he looked afraid. "It's a reporter, from Derry, who's heard rumors about disappearances. I told him I didn't know if you'd be willing to talk to him, but that it was up to you."

"From Derry, not from here?"

"Yes, Father. His name is Arthur Brown."

"As long as he's not from here. Can't see how he could have heard anything, though; they aren't letting any word of it get out, s'far as I can tell. But hell, maybe a reporter is a good thing. They can't keep it quiet, if it gets into real newspapers."

"If you're sure. He should be here soon. Can I get you something to eat?"

Saunders shook his head fretfully. "I don't have any appetite lately. No, I'm pretty much left with a tremendous craving for oblivion, so I come here, buy a drink, and sit and test myself." He looked up and smiled at Paul. "So far, I'm winning, if you can call it that." He sighed. "I've been here five years, boy, and it's been the longest five years of my life. The last six months have been the hardest of it all. I'm just glad Father Rede is finally able to take over, and it can't happen soon enough for me."

"How much longer are you supposed to be here?" Paul asked.

"A few weeks, a month at most. That's another oddity about Hennas Crossing: they home grow their priests here, have for generations, and somehow, they get away with it. Ain't healthy, to my mind, having someone in spiritual authority that grew up with you, or your kids. Better to get new ideas, fresh blood—" He shuddered slightly, as from a chill. "Blood. Blood tells — that's Shakespeare, isn't it?" He went on without waiting for confirmation. "I'd say it certainly does where Daniel Rede is concerned."

The bar door opened, and Art came in, blinking and looking around. Paul motioned to him until Art waved back, but he stopped at the bar first. Then he came back, carrying a beer in each hand. He handed one off to Paul and set the other one at the place next to him, then took off his coat, dropping it over a nearby chair before sliding in next to Paul. The booths weren't large, so his knee pressed lightly against Paul's, who shifted slightly sideways in the booth, his back in the corner. He thought Art smiled a little, but he wasn't sure.

"I ordered us each a burger and fries. I figured I owed you for the ride." He held a hand out to Father Saunders. "Hello, sir, I'm Art Brown, it's good to meet you."

Saunders shook the offered hand. "Thomas Saunders, call me Thomas. Paul here tells me you're a reporter?"

"Yes, sir, the Derry News, sir. I'm just getting started."

"And what kind of rumors is it led you to this God forsaken stain in the road?" Saunders asked; Paul was pretty sure he didn't mean his words figuratively. "I'm pretty sure they're not letting anything much get out. That's why they pick the folks they do."

"You said 'they' before," Paul said. "Who are you talking about?"

"I don't know, exactly. I think they call themselves the Council, and I have my suspicions about a couple of them. But more on that after, what have you heard, boy? I know there's been nothing in our newspaper, such as it is, and the police tell me I'm losing my mind, if not in so many words. I can't see how much rumor could have spread outside of town."

Art cleared his throat, his expression blank for a moment. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. "Well, sir, I know at least one man who passed through town and heard rumors of a couple disappearances, one a hitchhiker and one a local homeless man. And that the family of the hitchhiker hired a private detective, but everyone he talked to said that they'd either never seen the guy, or that they were pretty sure he'd caught a ride right on through town, seeing as they always notice strangers around here."

Saunders laughed. "You'll have noticed that yourself, I suspect."

Paul remembered the town folk who'd watched them drive past, and nodded.

"You ordered a couple burger baskets?" The bartender was carrying one in each hand.

"Yeah," Art said, "one for me, and one for my friend here." He took both, and passed one to Paul. "You guys got any ketchup?"

The guy reached into the next booth, then slammed a bottle down on the table. "Anything else?"

"A couple more beers?" Art said.

He grumbled and moved off.

"Don't mind Tolliver, lads. He's not a bad sort, for all he's Gehenna born and bred."

Paul took a drink of his beer, while Art dug into his burger with gusto, eating as if he hadn't eaten in a week. "You use the old form of the town's name, is there a reason?" asked Paul.

Saunders snorted. "It's Hell, by any other name, and if the name fits." His hand tightened around his drink again.

"It doesn't look like a bundle of laughs, I grant you," Art said, "but what's so bad about it?"

"There's something wrong here, boys. Something evil, and there are folks that know it, and feed it."

"What do you mean, feed it?" Paul said, at the same time as Art was saying, "Are we talking human sacrifice, here?"

Paul turned to stare at Art, who was looking at Father Saunders. When Paul turned to look at him, too, he saw that Father Saunders looked surprised, but he was nodding, all the same.

"Beers," said Tolliver, plonking them down and walking off. Paul hoped he hadn't overheard.

"You're kidding, right?" Paul asked, looking back and forth at the two of them. "You're not taking this seriously, are you, Art?"

"I know of five people who have disappeared in the last six months," Saunders said, "every one of them around the time of the new moon, every one of them either alone in the world, or the type that people wouldn't think anything of them just pulling up stakes and moving on. Hell, even your hitchhiker probably said something to somebody that made them think he was safe."

Paul pulled a pen and a pad of paper out of his pocket and started taking notes.

Father Saunders counted on his fingers. "There's the hitchhiker, and old man Crowdie, he's the homeless fella your friend here heard tell of, although he wasn't exactly homeless. Had him a shack on the edge of town. Bonnie Tesser, she supposedly went off on a trip and met somebody, but I have my doubts. Alicia Monger packed up for her, swears she'd heard from her, but I wouldn't trust the newsMonger any further than I could throw her, and that goes for that rag of a newspaper she runs.

"Jim Silvie, he used to go off for weeks at a time, so nobody thought anything of it when he did it again a couple months back, but he always stopped his mail before. And Annie Sullivan, she was nearly eighteen, her mother hit her something awful, she'd always talked about running away to Los Angeles, so nobody was surprised when she turned up missing. The police just chalked her up as a runaway and never followed up on it, far as I know. Chief Burbar is one of those I'd look into, myself. He's a little too smooth, with a few too many answers."

Art had finished off his burger and fries, and started stealing a few fries out of Paul's basket. "You think he's part of this Council you mentioned? Who else?"

"And nobody else is missing these people?" Paul asked.

Saunders shrugged. "The hitchhiker headed on out of town, they figure Crowdie wandered off and just hasn't been found yet, the rest..." Saunders shrugged again. "Burbar had perfectly reasonable explanations for all of them, I'm just not buying it. Especially with the timing, always around the new moon."

"What did Burbar say about that?" Art asked.

"He asked me if I thought there'd been two gunmen, too. As for who else I think is involved... Captain Joseph T. Burbar and Alicia Monger are the two I'd look at. The police aren't doing anything, and the newspaper isn't questioning it, and that's suspicious to me."

Art looked puzzled, and thoughtful.

Paul shoved the remainder of his basket of fries over to him. "What is it?"

Art shook his head. "I don't know. Something's nagging at me, but I can't quite figure it." He shrugged, and stuffed a few more of Paul's fries in his mouth. "It'll come sooner or later."

"So, why haven't you gone to any other officials, like the State Police?" Paul asked. "What makes you think this is something that I should look into? So far, even if these disappearances are linked, there's nothing you've said that makes them...unusual."

"Do you think they'd listen to me, when the local authorities just think I'm a drunk old man? Besides, I haven't told you all of it. I get these dreams, full of blood and screaming, horrible, horrible things. And I hear voices, in the church at night, but I can never find anything. Chants, ritual sounding type things. It's muffled, but I can hear it, from the parsonage, even. Not just at the new moon, but at all the different phases. It will wake me up, some nights. And when I go to the church, it's so cold, particularly outside the crypt—"

"Father Saunders? Mrs. Ginty sent me to find you. She says it's time for your medicine, and you need to rest."

Looking up, Paul saw a man, another priest, around Paul's own age. He was just as attractive in his own way as Art Brown, his smile just as charming, but something about him repelled Paul; something in his eyes was almost sinister, but then it was gone, and Paul decided he'd imagined it.

He didn't think he imagined the haunted look on Father Saunders face.

"And who are your friends?" the man asked, his voice patronizing, then introduced himself without bothering to wait for Father Saunders to speak. "Hello, I'm Father Rede," he said, holding his hand out to Art.

"Art Brown, pleased to meet you!" Art popped up out of the booth, topping Father Rede by a couple of inches, and grasped his hand. It looked like Art won the handshake, judging by how Rede flexed his fingers once he finally let go. "I'm a friend of Paul's, and we're just catching up with Father Saunders on behalf of an old friend of his."

Paul admired the way Art selectively edited the truth, without actually ever lying. He nodded at Father Rede, but didn't get up.

"Hello," Paul said. "Are you done?" he asked Father Thomas. "We can continue, if you'd like, I'm sure Father Rede won't mind. And we'll make sure to get you home soon."

Father Rede smiled, but Paul could tell he wasn't pleased.

"No, it's okay, Paul, I don't mind," said Father Saunders. "I am tired, and I think I've chatted enough to catch you up on what's going on with me. You might come by the parsonage tomorrow, give us a little more time to talk."

"We can do that," Paul said. "I'll talk to Father Calero tonight, see if he has any more questions?"

"That would be fine." Father Rede stood back so that Saunders could stand up, then caught him as he sagged a bit, Art on his other side. "I guess I'm more tired than I realized," he said. "You boys take care, and— Good luck." Paul heard the unspoken "you'll need it" in his voice.

They watched the two men silently as they left. Then Art sat back down, by Paul, instead of taking the open seat left by Father Saunders.

"Well, that was kind of spooky," Art said, mopping up the last of the ketchup with the last two cold fries, before stuffing them in his mouth.

Paul was troubled, but he didn't know if he believed Father Saunders' story, or if he was just troubled at the sight of a rather broken man, older than his years and possibly looking for excitement in a too boring life, with the help of some delusional thinking.

"You don't believe him, do you," Art said. He clasped his hands, elbows on the tabletop, and rested his cheeck on them, looking directly at Paul.

Paul looked back at him, shaking his head. "Don't tell me you do. I mean, ritual chanting in the church, human sacrifice? They've pretty much disproved the whole idea of secret cults of Satan worshippers, you know."

Art smiled, and it wasn't a pretty one. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

"You don't strike me as the type to believe in the devil."

Art shrugged. "But I'm definitely the type to watch The Usual Suspects. It would be a pretty good scam, though, don't you think? Evil manages to convince most folks that there's nothing else out there, makes the human race pretty much easy feeding. You don't think there's something more going on here?"

Paul shook his head, and drank his beer. "I don't know what I believe any—" He stopped. "I don't know if it's anything more than the idle fancies of an alcoholic priest."

"Are you going to keep looking?"

Paul nodded. "I promised Poppi. Father Calero," he explained, at Art's quizzical look.

"What is it you do, anyway, that this kind of thing is business, for you?"

Paul looked at him consideringly. "Off the record?"

Art smiled. "Of course, off the record."

"I investigate strange occurrences, for the Church. See if there's anything to them. I... test miracles."

Art blinked. "No shit."

Paul laughed. "No shit."

"Man, how do you get a job like that?"

"Luck of the draw, I guess," Paul said dryly. "It's not as fun as it might sound. And they'd be very unhappy if they knew I was talking to a reporter about it."

"This isn't official, though, right?"

Paul nodded. "Even if Father Saunders is right about the disappearances being related, it's unlikely to have anything to do with the supernatural. It's more likely just ordinary, everyday human evil."

Art finished off the last of his beer. "Maybe so," he said. "Anything's possible." He pushed the empty burger baskets across the table, and pulled over Father Saunders untouched drink. "What's next, then?"

Paul leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at the dirty ceiling. "I probably need to talk to the police, just to see what they have to say. If they'll talk to me."

Art nodded a couple of times, drinking Saunders drink. "How about, while you do that, I'll see if there's anything in the local library about the crypt, or the founding fathers, stuff like that." He smiled disarmingly at Paul. "Cops and me, we don't get along so well. I don't know what it is, but they always think I'm up to somethin'."

"I can't imagine why they'd think that," Paul said, and Art laughed.

"Little old ladies and librarians, now. They trust me," he said. "And little kids. Little kids think I'm pretty cool."

Almost unwillingly, Paul was starting to think Art was pretty cool, himself.

"Let me ask you something," Art said, as he slid out of the booth.

Paul stopped and looked up at him. Art was completely serious, as if whatever he was going to ask was important. "Yeah?"

"These 'strange occurrences' you investigate. You ever test a miracle that passed the test?"

Paul could tell what Art wanted him to say; he knew that desire intimately. His gut clenched at once more being the bearer of unwelcome news. "No. Not a single one."

Art smiled bleakly, and Paul recognized the smile, as well. "I didn't think so."

The Hennas Crossing Police Station was basically a store front with a dispatch room, an office for the chief, and a big room for everything else.

Only one of the desks was occupied, by a male officer, and Paul could hear someone's voice from the dispatch room. The woman behind the counter couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall, and her hair was the last three inches of that. She sat at a computer, but Paul wasn't sure how she actually used it with her three-inch nails.

"Yes, sir, can I help you?" She was the first person to ask him this in Hennas Crossing that actually sounded as if she wanted to help him.

"I hope so. I was wondering if I might be able to speak to Chief Burbar?"

She glanced over to the chief's office. The door was ajar, and Paul could hear voices, although he couldn't tell what they were saying. "Let me just check. Can I tell him what it's about, sugar?"

"I had some questions about some possible disappearances here in town, I wondered if he would be willing to speak to me?"

He hadn't spoken very loudly, but the voice from the dispatch room cut off abruptly, and the officer sitting at his desk looked up at Paul. The woman behind the counter just looked surprised; the officer, on the other hand, looked a little too interested.

"It sounds like you've been talking to Thomas Saunders, over at the church. He's the nicest man, but he does get these strange ideas, and then he goes gettin' folks all stirred up over nothing." She shook her head. "I'm sure Chief Burbar will tell you the same things he told Tom Saunders, but I'll ask him for you. What's your name, then?"

"Paul Callan."

She smiled and nodded. "Okay, hon."

The officer kept his eye on Paul as she walked over and leaned in the chief's door. "You're from out of town," he said.

Paul nodded. "Yes, sir, I am."

"You related to one of these folks that supposedly disappeared?"

"No, I'm not."

The officer kicked back in his chair, putting his feet up on his desk. "Then what's your interest?"

"I just have a few questions for Chief Burbar," Paul said, as the woman got back to the counter.

"Chief Burbar says he'd be glad to give you a few minutes, if you could wait just a bit? He's got someone with him right now, and he wants to finish that up."

Paul smiled, and nodded. "Thank you, ma'am, I'll be happy to wait."

The chairs in the waiting area weren't the worst he'd ever spent time in, but they clearly weren't intended to make you comfortable. "Just a bit" turned into nearly an hour, part of which Paul spent considering how little he knew, and how unlikely it was he was going to learn much more from the chief. He thought Poppi was more worried about Saunders state of mind than any possible occult activity. He also knew that he'd asked Paul to go, instead of coming himself, because of Paul's position with the church. Maybe Poppi saw it as kind of a busman's holiday, with a chance to prove that something bad wasn't true, instead of always dashing the hopes of those who believed they'd found a good reason to believe.

Art had sounded as if he'd wanted to hear Paul say yes. Yes, there are miracles, let me tell you about them. It was the main reason Paul didn't talk much about what he did. People either looked to him for confirmation that they weren't wasting their time, or confirmation that other people were. He wasn't sure which were worse, the disappointed hopes, or the smug righteousness. At least the former didn't come tied up with feeling he needed to defend something he wasn't sure he even believed in anymore.

"Mr. Callan?"

The receptionist beckoned from the end of the counter, ushering him around it and into the chief's office.

"Joe, this is Mr. Callan."

The chief was a tall man, solid, starting to get a little thick around the middle, and a little thin on top. "Thanks, Stella, that'll be all, if you want to take off early."

Stella nodded and waved at the other woman standing to the side of the chief's desk. "Okay, Joe, goodnight, and you, too, Alicia. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Callan."

Paul was fairly certain the chief didn't share her sentiments. He held out his hand. "I'm Paul Callan, chief. Thank you for giving me some of your time."

Burbar's grip was firm, but he didn't seem to want to prove anything. "Stella said this had something to do with Thomas Saunders' idea that people are disappearing around here, is that so?"

Paul looked over at the woman, Alicia, in the corner, and back to Burbar. "Yes, sir, that is what I wanted to talk to you about."

Burbar followed Paul's look by turning to look at Alicia. "Oh, hell, where are my manners. Mr. Callan, this here is Alicia Monger. She runs what passes for a newspaper in Hennas Crossing. I thought maybe she might know something I don't, concerning your questions."

Alicia Monger was probably about ten years younger than the chief, a striking woman in her forties, dressed in a stylish dress probably twenty years too young for her, topped off with a rich fall of red hair that didn't look natural. "Hello, Mr. Callan."

Her grip was firm, as well, and lingered, as did her smile. Both of them made Paul uncomfortable, but he returned the smile. "It's good to meet you, Ms. Monger."

"Oh, Alicia, please."

Paul wondered if that was what a simper looked like. He turned back to the chief, who motioned him into a chair.

"So, what brings you to our backwater, Mr. Callan?"

Paul had decided that the truth was probably the best approach — at least a portion of the truth. "I'm here at Father Saunders — Thomas Saunders — behest, to try and put his mind at ease. He's convinced that several people from Hennas Crossing have gone missing in the last few months, and that nothing is being done to find out what happened to them."

Burbar nodded consideringly, and looked over at Alicia Monger, who nodded slightly, herself. "What's your interest in this, then?"

"A friend of mine went to seminary with Father Saunders. He's...concerned about him, and now that I've met him, I am, too. If there's nothing to what he says, I hope I can help convince him of that, and give him peace of mind."

Alicia Monger laughed. "I think that retirement and a little less booze would go a lot further towards that goal, Mr. Callan."

Paul didn't disagree with her, but hearing it from her made him want to defend Father Saunders. "I understand that Father Saunders won't be here much longer, so I hope you're right."

"Oh, right," Burbar said. "Daniel Rede finally finished his schooling and got himself ordained. Local boy," he said to Paul. "Eugenia's about ready to bust a gut she's so proud of him. Eugenia Ginty, does for Father Saunders. Rede's her boy."

Paul wasn't sure how they got off on talking about the new priest in town, but he tried to pull the conversation back around. "About these disappearances—"

"Supposed disappearances," Burbar said.

"—supposed disappearances. Father Saunders was concerned—"

"Look, I've told that man over, and over, there's nothing mysterious about even one of these folks droppin' out of sight. Hell, it's amazing that Crowdie didn't take a powder years ago. He probably got drunk and fell in a creek someplace, or he's buried in the town trash heap."

"You did look for him, though?"

"By the time we realized nobody'd seen him, it had been a good three to four weeks. Sure, we looked, but you may have noticed that we're not exactly swimming in manpower around here. Couple of the churches got together and did some searching, too, but nobody found anything. But there ain't nothin' sinister about it, no so-called foul play."

"What about Annie Sullivan," Paul asked. "Father Saunders said you said she was a runaway. Have you done anything about tracking her down?"

Burbar nodded. "I sent her description out, as a missing person, with a particular note that New York or Los Angeles was where she'd talked about heading. But she was seventeen, pretty, although not as pretty as she thought she was, always talking about being a celebrity, getting on one of those reality TV shows. Hell, the surprising thing is that we don't have more kids like Annie running away, especially with her family life.

"Now, Jim Silvie, that's another one Saunders nagged me about, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if something happened to him, but I don't think it happened around here. He grew up around here, but he had his own business, called it 'import-export,' but I always had my suspicion that he was muling drugs across the border. Never could catch him at anything, though. He's one I thought would turn up dead someplace, but not a hint."

"And there was a hitchhiker?" Paul said.

"And that there's the craziest one of all. I got a couple folks'll swear that kid barely stopped in town, got a ride out on a truck headed for Derry."

"Why do you think Father Saunders doesn't believe that?"

"Hell if I know. Maybe he's just a conspiracy nut, has too much time on his hands. What do you think, Alicia?"

"Oh, he means well, Joe. He just doesn't know people around here as well as he could, so he takes things wrong. I mean, we're just a little no account weekly, but if I thought there was something major going on, I'd be all over it. There's just nothing to it, I'm afraid."

Paul looked at Alicia Monger. "Weren't you the person who talked to Bonnie Tesser, the other person Father Saunders thinks is missing?"

Alicia threw her head back and laughed, a full-bodied roar that even had Paul smiling. "Now that one was a surprise, I'll tell you! Mousy Bonnie, takes a cruise and meets some lover boy half her age, who sweeps her off her feet. She didn't even come back to Hennas Crossing, just asked me to pack up a few things, got Jenny Brandsen to sell off the house, and wiped the dust from her heels."

"Do you still have that forwarding information?" Paul asked.

Alicia looked surprised. "Noooo, I doubt it. We weren't what you'd call close, cousins on my mother's side, I think? Far removed. Jenny might still have it, though, Brandsen Realty, over on Main Street."

Paul thanked her, and turned back to the police chief. "Chief Burbar, would it be possible to get the names of the witnesses who saw the hitchhiker leave town? And is Annie Sullivan's family in the phone book? And which churches did you say took part in looking for Mr. Crowdie?"

Burbar seemed a little flustered by Paul's questions; Alicia just smiled an disquieting smile at them both. "Well, now, I don't know that I know all that offhand. Stella would have the witnesses names, and the searchers lists, but she's gone home already—"

"Hush, Joe. It's not going to hurt anybody for Mr. Callan here to have that information. Annie Sullivan's mama, Darleen, is in the phone book, she lives over on Eastern, I think. And it was the Catholics and the Presbyterians who helped out, I think. Crowdie did odd jobs for both of them, time to time. As for the witnesses, you're talking to one of them, Mr. Callan, and I can assure you that that boy went along with that trucker, just like the chief said."

"So you say the man in question get into the truck and drive out of town?"

This time it was her turn to look flustered, and a little annoyed. "Well, I don't know that we saw the truck leaving town, but Ed and I were having lunch at Gloria's, and we heard the kid asking the driver for a ride, and it sure looked to us like they went down the street together, to where his truck was parked."

Paul smiled at her. "Thank you, I appreciate it. Both of you. You've been very helpful."

"Chief?" This came from the officer from the outer room, who leaned in the door. "Streeter's calling over from the library, says he's got some kid, claims he's a reporter or something, causing a fuss. Want me to go over?"

"Sure, go ahead, we're not gonna get busy or anything." Burbar turned back to Paul. "So, you think you're gonna have any trouble convincing Saunders that he's just imagining things?"

Paul smiled again. "I'll do my best to get it all straightened out. Thank you again for your time."

"Listen," Alicia said. "You're welcome to come by the newspaper, look through our files, if you want. I don't think there's anything in there, but." She waved a hand around.

"I might take you up on that," Paul said. "If you'll excuse me? Oh, and is there someplace I could get a room tonight?"

Burbar said, "We don't have a motel or anything like that, but my aunt rents out rooms, over on Hill and Eastern. Turn right as you leave here until you hit Lantern, then left to Eastern, then right."

"Thanks again," Paul said.

The library wasn't far, and Paul got there just in time to see Art escorted out the front door. Paul didn't see any handcuffs, and Art looked fairly cheerful. Paul breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't responsible for Art, but he didn't want to see him end up in Burbar's jail, either. He stayed at a distance until the officer drove off, then pulled up alongside Art, who was walking back towards the police station.

Art stopped as soon as he noticed the car and slid in beside Paul. "Great timing!"

"I was just in time to see you escorted out of the library by the police."

Art grinned. "I told you that we didn't get along."

"I thought you got along with librarians?"

Art whistled. "Mr. Streeter is unlike any librarian I've ever had the pleasure to meet. I think he has a stick permanently stuck up his ass, and no inclination at all to help educate the public. I mean, librarians love me! But basically, I made out like a bandit. How did you do?"

Before he even thought about it, Paul said, "How exactly do bandits make out?"

Art didn't even miss a beat. "With masks on. I'll show you later."

The silence that followed probably didn't last nearly as long as Paul thought it did.

Then Paul said, "So, what did you find—" at the same time as Art said, "Did you learn anything—?" They looked at each other and started laughing at the same time, and it felt really good.

It was about four; it wouldn't start getting dark until after six. Paul was the first to speak, this time. "Chief Burbar gave me directions to place that rents rooms, which apparently is our only option for the night. If I took you out to your car, I could come back and get us a couple of rooms." He didn't look at Art, just watched the man who'd come out of the library to watch them. "Then we could get something to eat, talk about what to do next."

Art was watching the man, too. "That is the enchanting Mr. Streeter, public librarian," he said. "I wonder who he's calling. Yeah, that sounds good to me. It shouldn't take me more than an hour or so to get my girl running smooth. Where's the place?"

Paul told him as they pulled away from the library, then drove by it on their way out of town. It had a rather faded sign hanging out front that declared it "Rosy's Restful Repose."

"Sounds like a funeral home," Art said, then shrugged. "Won't be the worst place I've ever stayed, though, by a long shot. So, did you find out anything new from Sheriff Andy?"

Paul smiled at that, and shook his head. "I didn't really find out anything new. I talked to the chief of police, and the woman who runs the newspaper, who happened to be in his office, and... it was frustrating. I have a couple things to follow up on, but... It all sounds okay, more or less, but it's just off. And Monger is even one of the witnesses who said the hitchhiker left town, but it turns out she didn't actually see him leave town."

"Monger?" Art asked, intense interest in his voice.

"Yeah, Alicia Monger, she's the one who runs the local newspaper. Father Saunders mentioned her as one of the people he was keeping an eye on."

"Ginty, Monger... Rede... Burbar and Streeter." Art slapped his pad of paper down on his knee. "I knew something was bugging me." He turned to Paul. "Those are the people we've been dealing with, coincidentally or not, and they're also the same names that are on that damn crypt. The only one we're missing is a Hutchins. Want to bet we'll run into one of those, before we're done?"

"Art, it's not that unusual to run into the same names, even after generations, particularly in a town like this."

"You don't think it's even the least bit odd, that Burbar and Monger are the two people your Father Saunders fingered as probably being involved, somehow, and then there's this new priest, Rede, who really didn't like the fact that Saunders was talking to us. And Streeter, he was totally trying to steer me away from any history of this place, particularly the church."

"Mrs. Ginty."

"Yeah, what about her?"

"The chief said that Ginty is Rede's mother. Rede takes over at the church sometime this month, probably."

"Dammit, I should have looked up those family names, if I'd just made that connection sooner." Art slammed his hand against the dashboard.

"Look, we don't even know that there is a connection," Paul said.

Art looked at him like he was crazy. "Be a hell of a coincidence."

" How can it not be?"

"Look, something is going on at the church, connected to these disappearances, Ginty's in a good position as housekeeper to, I dunno, slip Saunders something to make sure he sleeps? And control of the police and the news sure would come in handy. Then they've got their own priest, ready to slip into place. And Streeter decides who gets to see anything at library." He laughed.

"What is it?"

"Old Mr. Streeter wasn't expecting my extremely charming and persuasive self."

Paul blinked. "I thought you said he threw you out?"

Art rolled his eyes. "He did, but because I wanted him to throw me out. I wanted him upset enough to not think about what I might be taking out with me. But he called the police before I even raised my voice." He stuck his hand inside his jacket, and pulled out a folder. "Here we have a transcribed copy of the diary of a certain Mister Archibald Rede, with entries from the years around the time the crypt was sealed. It was some kid's history fair project, or something."

"You still think the crypt has something to do with this."

"With all those names still floating around, acting all weird and shifty, you don't? Besides, Streeter obviously didn't want me to get this. The library is entirely closed stacks, you still have to look everything up on cards and ask for what you want. I found a mention of the diary in a local genealogy book some old lady put together, and I asked him if they had any copies. He said that the only existing copy was locked up tight, not available to the public."

"Then how did you—"

Art grinned. "I mentioned my boyish charm?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"While it didn't work on sour old Mr. Streeter, it worked just fine on Katie Owens, teenage employee of the Hennas Crossing Public Library." He flourished the folder. "Katie will apparently be free tonight, if we're in the mood for some company. I'm told she has friends."

"Exactly how old is this teenage girl?"

Art opened his mouth, and shut it again. "I was gonna say 'old enough,' but somehow I knew that you would not take it as a joke." Paul shot him a look. "No, really! You'll be happy to know that I thanked Katie, very charmingly, and told her that I was busy." He looked directly at Paul.

Paul felt his face heat up. "So, what does the diary say?"

"It's really something, although I haven't read it very closely, just skimmed it. It's all about how he and some friends started Gehenna's Crossing on the road to prosperty, with the help of a demon — although he calls it a fallen angel, one that wants to atone for its sins." He snorted. "A fallen angel which they managed to seal up in a crypt, and then they built a big old church around it. And every fifty years, somebody has to sacrifice six people to continue Gehenna's Crossing's 'good fortune and prosperity.'"

"You're kidding me," Paul said. "The man must have had a very fertile inner life. Are you sure it isn't a work of moral fiction, not a diary?"

Art held the folder out and looked at it. "You read it, you tell me. Man, you have to wonder at the ability of a guy to both believe that the demon wanted atonement, and that it needed human sacrifice to do what they wanted it to do. You almost have to admire the sons of bitches, sometimes."

"People like Rede?" Paul asked.

"No," Art said. "The fucking demons." He grinned, but for a second Paul almost thought he was serious.

The Impala was right where Art had left it, still intact, although Art had to walk all the way around it, and eye a couple spots up close, to make sure. Paul wouldn't swear to it, but he thought Art was cooing.

It was disturbingly appealing.

He turned back to his own car. "I'll, uh, just leave you two alone, if you're sure you'll be okay?"

Art grinned at him over the top of the Impala. "We'll be right behind you. The fewer the windows, in my room, the better!"

He already had the hood open and was leaning in over the engine when Paul pulled away. Paul kept his eyes on the rearview mirror right up to the point his right tire slipped off the edge of the road.

He tried to keep his mind on Father Saunders and what little they knew on the ride back into town, but instead he kept thinking of Art. Paul still had a feeling there was a lot more to him than he revealed, but he liked Art. He seemed to be a lot of things Paul wasn't, but instead of making Paul uncomfortable, it was strangely... relaxing. Art hadn't batted an eye at the strangeness of Paul's job, and his reaction to Paul's admission to not finding any real miracles had been a grim kind of acceptance. It was as if it were no more than he'd expected, but there had been an odd kind of...fragility about it somehow.

And maybe Paul was just projecting. He himself wanted desperately to feel that sharp certainty of belief again, to have the kind of faith he'd had growing up, and he could feel it slipping away from him day by day.

Art seemed like someone who'd had his own ripped away early on, who'd spent the rest of his life seeing confirmation of its absence everywhere he looked. A deep cynicism that was broken up by odd moments of near-vulnerability.

Paul knew he was letting himself get too close.

He decided to see if the realtor had Bonnie Tesser's address, and maybe go by and see if Annie Sullivan's mother was home. Neither task took more than five minutes, because the answer at the first place was, "No, sorry, and even if we did we wouldn't give it out," and the answer at the second boiled down to "Good riddance to the selfish bitch."

So half an hour later he was walking up the path to Rosy's. Close to, Paul could see that the place was even more rundown than it had looked from the street. It was an old Victorian with a sprawling porch, and there was a cheery little sign on the door that said, "Come on in, we're open!"

Inside it had an air of rather elderly finery, a little worn around the edges, but perfectly serviceable. It was the perfect setting for the woman who came from the back, wiping her hands on her towel. "Hello, there, excellent timing, I just put on a pot of tea."

"Hi, I'm Paul Callan. Chief Burbar told me that you might have a couple of rooms for rent tonight?"

A look brushed quickly over her face, as if she'd tasted something disagreeable. "Rose Treadwell. He a friend of yours?"

"No, ma'am, I just had some business at the police station, so I asked Chief Burbar. I hadn't seen a motel in town."

She laughed. "No more will you, Mr. Callan. Hennas Crossing is a dying town, it just won't admit it yet. Well, it's kind of Joe to remember me, seeing as he never has forgiven me for turning this place into an inn. Come on back and have a cuppa, we'll see what we can do."

The kitchen was clean and tidy, like everything else he'd seen. She fussed around, getting cookies out, as well, before she'd sit and get down to business. "So, you're needing a room, is it?"

"Two, actually, if you can. I have a friend who'll be along in a little bit."

She shook her head. "Oh, now that might be a problem, if you can't share. I only have three rooms to start with, and Mr. Edgington is in one, while his house is being fumigated, and another had some burst pipes, still haven't gotten the damage cleaned up. But the room I have has a good big bed, if you don't mind that."

Paul did mind, rather a lot, but he didn't see any alternative. He wasn't going to make Art sleep in his car, after all. His smile was uncomfortable. "That'll be fine."

"I don't do full meals anymore, but I do a breakfast bar. You can get meals at either Gloria's, before three in the afternoon, or at the Council Table after four, which does steaks, seafood, Italian, and some rather questionable Lebanese. They're both over on Main Street."

She walked as she talked, telling him the rates, leading the way out of the kitchen and up the stairs. "Sheets get changed daily, and there are extra blankets and pillows here in the hall." She stopped outside the closet and pulled out a couple pillows and pillowcases. "Since there'll be two of you."

The room itself was good-sized, with space for a small sitting area on one end, with two chairs and a table. The bed was as large as described, and Paul relaxed a little. "Thank you, this looks great."

"You're welcome to join me downstairs, if you'd like?"

"Thank you, but I have some reading to do before my friend gets here. His name is Art, he shouldn't be too much longer." He left her heading off back to her kitchen, an equally elderly Siamese cat trying to trip her.

He grabbed his bag and the folder from his car, and went back to the room. He hung up a few clothes, and after trying out the sitting room chairs, opted to kick off his shoes and stretch out on the bed.

There weren't a lot of pages in the folder, and they were handwritten, the script a rather faded, childish scrawl that wasn't always easy to decipher. A cover page introduced it as the history project of one Samantha Grier, age twelve, The transcribed contents of the Diary of Archibald Rede, b. 1621

The contents were much as Art had described, although he'd left out the part where the "demon" was a man named Razakel, who came to town with Samuel Hutchins, a sea captain. He'd been a sailor on Hutchins ship, and had gone into service with him when Hutchins left the sea.

It sounded as if Hutchins might actually have been something of a pirate; at the very least he'd accumulated significant wealth during his travels, and appeared to accredit that to Razakel. His friends didn't take long to reach the same conclusion.

At some point, Razakel started making demands, but Rede didn't specify what they were, just that they were despicable. And as time passed, Rede's writing became more and more erratic, his thoughts feverish and incomplete. Three things that did stand out for Paul, though: They had not only entombed Razakel alive in the crypt, accompanied by a member of each of the six most prominent families in the town, but they believed that every fifty years, six more people had to die to keep the "demon" from escaping. The sacrifices didn't guarantee prosperity so much as protection.

Surely the people of this town, people like Mrs. Ginty, and Chief Burbar, couldn't actually believe any of this. Paul stared at the ceiling, wondering at such credulity, that would allow rational modern adults, professionals, to even consider such a possibility. Of course, he and Art still had no proof, and it was much more likely it was just coincidence.

He was having a harder and harder time buying that.

Paul woke to a low, murmuring voice that slid smoothly through him and left him feeling comforted. He left his eyes closed and focused on trying to figure out what the voice was saying. Slowly he realized that he was hearing only half the conversation.

"Razakel, yeah."

"Madness and despair, huh? Cheerful bastard. So maybe the deaths are supposed to keep that— Yeah, probably so."

"New moon? When is the next— Shit, you're kidding me."

"I think I can handle it. Standard ritual should do it, don't you think? Yeah, okay. See you in a few days."

Paul opened his eyes as Art tucked his phone back in his coat pocket. His duffle was on one of the chairs.

"Well, hey, Sleeping Beauty, did Rede put you to sleep?"

Paul sat up, rubbing his eyes, and sat on the edge of the bed. He blinked a few times. "What time is it?" It was dark outside.

"A little after six-thirty."

Paul yawned. "You been here long?"

"Half-hour, hour, or so. I stopped to do a little shopping, take care of a few things. So, we're roomies, huh?"

Paul grimaced at that. He stood up and stretched, nodding, avoiding Art's eye. "Only room she had. Didn't seem like there was much alternative." He blinked again and turned around. The room felt smaller with Art in it.

"No, this is good. As long as I get the side near the door," Art said. Paul looked at him, and Art shrugged. "It's a thing."

"Not a problem." Paul staggered into the bathroom. Before coming back out, he splashed cold water on his face and felt a little more alert, and even more apprehensive about trying to share a room with Art Brown.

Art was lying back on the bed, on the side nearest the door. "Not bad. Pretty comfortable, actually."

The bed was definitely smaller than Paul had realized. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "So, you don't actually think people in this town, today, believe they have to kill six people to keep a demon from ruining the town, do you?"

Art pursed his lips. "I think that there are a lot of people who'd do worse things if they thought it would get them ahead. The crypt's plaque says "good fortune and prosperity." Even if the original bunch of nuts meant that it was ensured by keeping the demon locked up so he couldn't get out and cause a fuss, that doesn't mean this bunch hasn't misread it, and thinks there's something in there that can make them rich, or something."

Paul shook his head and sat down on the other side of the bed, facing the headboard. "That's just crazy."

Art rolled over on his side. Closer. "Haven't you had to deal with religious crazies, in your line of work? Are some of them any less crazy than this?"

Paul reflexively reacted to the term "religious crazies," but let it pass. Some of them were crazy, it was true. "But to kill people?" Paul said.

Art gave him one of those older than his years looks. "People all over the world kill for a whole lot less than belief."

Paul just stared at him for a while; Art regarded him evenly.

"We don't have any proof," Paul said.

"No, we don't," Art said. "We also may not have a lot of time."

"What makes you say that?"

"I called...a friend, who specializes in this kind of thing—"

"You have a friend who specializes in demons," Paul said evenly.

"In occult things, stuff like that. Anyway, he said that sacrifices like this usually take place on a particular phase of the moon. He looked up what the phase was when they started this, back in 1702, and if Rede recorded the time right, it was a new moon when they walled that thing up."

"Yeah?"

"The next new moon starts tomorrow night. Now, it may last longer than just a single night, but if they really believe this stuff, and are this committed, I can't see them waiting very long."

"You think they're going to kill someone else tomorrow night." As he said it, he realized that he believed it — or he believed that there were people in this town who believed it.

"I think they're going to try. And I think we have to stop it." Art looked him straight in the eye.

"Who's going to believe us?" Paul asked.

"We don't have to find anybody to believe us, if we take care of it ourselves." His eyes didn't waver from Paul's.

Paul stared back at him. "They're killing people, Art. How are we going to stop that?"

Art half-smiled. "Well, I have a gun, and I have a ritual. You can read Latin, right?"

Paul blinked, and then it clicked. "You're going to try and exorcise their demon. Do you really believe this stuff?"

Art shook his head; his eyes were drifting down from Paul's face. "Doesn't matter what I believe. It's enough if they believe it, and if we can make them believe we've banished the demon..."

"But what about the other killings?" As Paul watched, Art sat up and took off his shoes.

"One thing at a time. I think we'll need to stake out the crypt tomorrow, see what happens. If anybody turns up, we deal with it," Art said.

"This is crazy."

Art lay back down on the bed, closer than he had been, looking at Paul, and suddenly Paul wasn't sure his words referred to just the craziness outside the room.

"Sometimes it takes insanity to deal with insanity," Art said. He reached out and trailed a finger down the arm Paul was braced himself with. He ended up with his hand circling Paul's wrist, his thumb brushing lightly over Paul's skin, sending shivers up his arm. Paul stopped breathing for a moment, but he didn't pull away. His head was already spinning with what Art was saying; something was happening, and he didn't know if he was ready, whether for what Art was describing for tomorrow, or what was happening right now.

He didn't pull away.

"Paul?"

"Yes?" he said huskily.

"My name isn't Arthur Brown. And I'm not a reporter for the Derry Daily."

"You mean the Derry News?" Paul said.

"Yeah, whatever." The corner of Art's mouth curled up. Except he wasn't Art.

Paul looked down at the hand clasped around his wrist. "So you're not a reporter, just some guy who follows up on weird rumors, knows a lot about demons and strange symbols and exorcisms, and just happened to get into my car?"

"Well... basically, yeah." He sounded sheepish.

Paul sat there quietly for a long moments, the hand still around his wrist. "So, who are you? And why are you telling me this now?"

"My name is Dean, and... I want you to know, before—" Dean took a breath. "Besides, I'm not really an "Art" kind of guy, you know? Not that Arthur Brown wasn't awesome, he totally was, but—"

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up." Paul turned his hand to twine his fingers with Dean's, and leaned over to kiss him.

It wasn't a bad kiss, as first kisses go. A little tentative, a little clumsy. There was a bit too much mouth on one side, and maybe not enough on the other. But then it clicked, and it was incredible, and Paul felt like he couldn't get enough. By then they were lying side-by-side, and Dean had one hand curved around Paul's head, sliding his fingers up into his hair, cradling Paul's cheek against the pillow. Paul's hands were already sliding under Dean's multiple layers of shirts, palms hot and damp against Dean's back.

Dean used his other hand to pull Paul closer, sliding one leg between his. It was only when Dean's thigh pressed against him that Paul realized he was hard, and he pressed back, and the kisses intensified. Paul was drowning, and he didn't want to stop.

That's when Dean's stomach growled. He pulled back, laughing, and rested his forehead against Paul's.

Paul ran his hands gently up and down Dean's back, enjoying the play of the muscles, the smoothness of the skin. He could feel Dean's irregular breathing against his face. He didn't want to stop, wanted so much more, but it was strangely comfortable to lie together like this. "That was the weirdest foreplay ever, I think," he said.

Dean laugh was short and clipped; he rubbed his leg up against Paul's cock again, and Paul shuddered.

"I've wanted to do this for hours," Dean said. "And here we were, both on the bed..."

"This seemed like a much bigger bed earlier," Paul admitted.

Dean slid his thumb along Paul's mouth, pushing at his lower lip, one way, then the other, rubbing. Paul responded by closing his mouth around the thumb and sucking.

"Fuck," Dean groaned. "Are we doing this now, or are we going to get something to eat? Because as much as I want to fuck you, I think they roll up the sidewalks pretty early here." He watched Paul, his thumb still in Paul's mouth.

Paul bit it, and pulled away. He tightened his legs against Dean's, and closed his eyes, then relaxed them again. "If we're going to get food, we have to leave now." He opened his eyes and looked into Dean's. He knew he shouldn't be doing this, that it really was crazy, but... He wanted it.

Dean looked like he was thinking about that for about thirty seconds, then groaned again as he rolled away to sit on the edge of the bed, his back to Paul. He rubbed his hand over his face and let out a gust of air.

Paul rolled over on his back and blew out his own breath. It had been so long since he'd felt like this, this hot rush of desire, that he wasn't sure if it was out of character, or not. He was sure that it was just complicating the reasons he was here, but he couldn't seem to care. He was here on someone else's business; should he have to give up everything for that?

He palmed himself and squeezed, trying to cool off. He turned at a muffled noise, and saw Dean watching him, his hands flexing. It made Paul want to do it again.

Dean glared at him and turned back around and picked up his boots.

After that they both quickly put their shoes and coats on, and left. Dean made sure he was the first out the door, and Paul noticed that he looked both directions before he moved enough to let Paul out.

Dean just raised an eyebrow and looked at Paul when he saw the name of the restaurant.

The Council Table's gimmick was Hennas Crossing itself. Photographs, from daguerreotype to contemporary prints, and paintings, documenting the history and populace of the town, vied for space on the walls with other memorabilia. It took Paul ten minutes to get Dean to actually sit down and stop climbing over customers to look at the walls, and that was only after the waiter started making blatant comments about what time the kitchen closed.

Dean grinned at the look Paul gave him once they were finally seated and the waiter had left them to look at the menus. "I know, you can't take me anywhere. My brother says the same thing." He looked like he wanted to take it back as soon as he said it.

"You have a brother?"

Dean nodded.

He obviously didn't want to pursue it, but Paul found he did. "Younger, or older?"

Dean flipped through the menu, obviously not looking at Paul. "Younger, name's Sam. He's away at college, so I haven't seen him for a while." He shook out his napkin and draped it in his lap. "I kind of miss him. We spent a lot of time together before he took off."

Paul put his menu down. "That must have been nice. You're lucky."

"What about you?"

Paul shook his head. "No, just me." He wanted to know more about Dean, who he really was, but was more reluctant to talk about himself. Too many people, when learning he grew up in an orphanage, fell back on intense curiosity and overdone sympathy. He didn't think Dean was like most people, but it wasn't a comfortable conversation for him. Paul didn't want his sympathy.

"Oh."

They sat awkwardly for a couple of minutes. Paul picked up his menu and pretended to look through it some more. Dean messed around with his silverware, drank his water, opened and closed and flipped through his menu, and Paul kept being distracted by Dean's hands.

The waiter finally forgave them and returned to take their order. Paul tried to come up with a neutral topic of conversation, but then found himself just staring at Dean's mouth as he sang something under his breath.

"Mr. Callan!"

The voice was overly bright and falsely intimate. Alicia Monger came up to their table like a ship under full sail, dragging what must have been her beleaguered husband in her wake. Another couple stood back and watched them.

Paul stood up as she approached the table. Dean did not.

"I'd say funny running into you like this, but with a town this small..." She laughed. "Are you going to introduce me?" The smile she directed at Art might more likely have been termed a leer.

"This is Art Brown. Art, this is Alicia Monger, who owns the local paper, and this is...?" He sat back down and looked inquiringly at the rather squelched-looking man following Alicia.

She blinked and turned. "Oh, this is my husband, Jeremy. Jeremy Tyrell." The last was said dismissively, and the man behind the name wasn't much more impressive. He hung back and looked faded and tired. "And who are you," she said, looking at Dean like she wanted to take him home in a doggy bag.

"He's...helping me with my investigation," Paul said.

As much interest as she'd directed at Dean, she immediately diverted her attention back to Paul. "Isn't 'investigation' laying it on a bit thick? I thought you were just here to put poor Father Saunders' mind at ease. Barbara? Barbara!" She beckoned to the woman waiting near the entrance, who finally closed her eyes briefly and came forward. She looked tired, too, and squeezed Jeremy Tyrell's shoulder as she walked by.

"Barbara, this is Paul Callan, remember, I told you and Phillip about talking to him and Joe? And this is his friend Art." She turned back to the table. "This is Barbara Hutchins, town doctor. Paul and Art are here to help Father Saunders, Barbara, isn't he a patient of yours? Oh, and over there is Barbara's husband Philip."

Philip Hutchins hung back like Jeremy Tyrell, but his reason was clearly lack of interest, not timidity. Barbara Hutchins, while not exactly timid, looked rather pinched and worn, as if she hadn't been sleeping well.

Paul felt a little overwhelmed by the barrage of information, and wondered what Alicia wanted. He looked at Dean, who was carefully looking over the newcomers.

"Isn't Saunders a patient of yours, Barbara?" Alicia repeated.

Barbara Hutchins looked embarrassed. "Doctor-patient privilege, Alicia."

Alicia waved her hands dismissively. "You're practically the only doctor in the whole damned town, chica, and you're over at the parsonage day and night. I hardly think it's a state secret." She laughed again, a slow, honeyed sound. "Like we said at Joe's office, Paul — you don't mind if I call you Paul, do you? — Saunders is not a well man. Not a well man at all." She shook her head in counterfeit sympathy. "There's more than a little gossip about the drinking and, well. Other problems. Don't get me wrong, he's a dear, dear man, just." She twirled her finger by her ear. "Not well."

Paul had only met Saunders that afternoon, but Alicia Monger's manner and loaded words angered him. Saunders seemed a decent man, genuinely worried about what he thought was going on, and Paul hadn't seen any sign that he was suffering from any obvious mental imbalance. His face and body language must have given him away, because he felt a hand close over his closed fist, on the table, and turned to see Dean look at him both compassionately, and warningly.

He turned back to face Alicia's raised eyebrow as she regarded their hands on the table. Paul almost pulled his hand back, but Dean's tightened on his.

Paul took a deep breath, and forced a smile. "Thank you for telling us, Mrs. Monger, I appreciate your concern. I didn't realize that Father Saunders was that ill, but appearances can be deceiving. " He kept his voice quiet and level. He thought he maybe heard Dean turning a snicker into a cough; Alicia Monger just narrowed her eyes.

"Can we go, Alicia?" Barbara asked. "I told my mother I'd be by to make sure everything was ready."

"I just wanted to make sure you knew," Alicia said, "that my offer to let you look through our archives still holds. Maybe if you're going to be around tomorrow morning...?"

"That'd be great, Mrs. Monger," Dean said, and smiled, his entire attitude somehow conveying all earnestness and the respect of a young man for an older woman who had the sexual appeal of a rock.

"Shall we say around ten, then?" Her voice was much cooler, but Paul noticed that Jeremy Tyrell, while still looking down at the floor, had a slight smirk on his face.

She nodded curtly, and turned and left. Her husband turned back slightly and waggled his fingers before following, and Barbara Hutchins actually smiled and said good night, before joining her clearly impatient husband.

Paul didn't look at Dean until they'd left the restaurant, at which point Dean pulled his hand back and winked at Paul, who ducked his head, grinning.

"I really don't like that woman," Dean said. "And I don't think she wanted to just offer us the use of her...archives." He grinned at Paul. "I think she was smitten with you."

"Smitten? Did you actually just say smitten," Paul said. His face grew hot at the look in Dean's eyes.

The scene with Alicia broke the ice between Paul and Dean, and the rest of dinner was fine. The food wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible, and somehow they found topics of mutual interest. Paul asked Dean again if he believed in demons and other occult phenomena; Dean looked at him for a moment, then said, "I deal with things as I find 'em, Paul. If these people believe they're dealing with a demon, then maybe for the time I'm dealing with them, it works better if I believe it, too."

Paul wasn't sure if that was a denial, and he thought Dean was offended, because he was quiet for a few minutes, focused on his meal. Then he asked Paul about the search for miracles, and he seemed genuinely interested, with questions that showed he understood what Paul did, and why. He was particularly interested in some of the standard ways that miracles were faked, or circumstances under which it might appear that a genuine miracle had taken place. Paul told him about uncorrupted bodies and apricots, red tides and algal bloom, self-imposed stigmata, the more extreme cases of purported healing and psychosomatic responses to it, and some of the stranger apparitions of Mary or Jesus that he'd heard of or had to investigate. Somehow a lot of it was much funnier when talking to Dean about it than it had been at the time.

He liked the way Dean kept looking at him, too, and that kept him distracted. It was only as they were walking back to Rosy's that he realized how neatly Dean had deflected any more questions about himself, or what he believed, whenever Paul tried to steer the conversation that way.

It was a cool night out, but clear. They walked in a companionable silence most of the way.

Paul wanted to ask Dean about demons again, really talk to him about it, find out if he actually believed that they were dealing with a demon here, or if it was just some kind of...psychological tactic. Paul didn't want to think that it might be true, that Dean actually thought they were going to confront a demon. No matter what the diary said, and even if Paul believed that someone, maybe someone they'd met today, was kidnapping and killing people thinking they were serving some demon, he couldn't believe it himself. The thought that Dean might believe it was...not disappointing, but disturbing. He came across as level-headed, practical, surely too much so to be a closet religious fanatic or occult kook. And his questions about the debunking of miracles all seemed to come from a place of deep disbelief. But how could you be so firmly convinced that miracles weren't real, and yet believe that demons were?

Paul tried to imagine it, and it was a bleak and terrible world.

He turned his mind from it, and enjoyed the walk. The streets were deserted, as if there were a curfew. He let his thoughts linger on the too short moments before they'd left for dinner and quickened his pace, eager to get back to their room. Dean was walking close enough to brush shoulders with him, and Paul stole a sideways glance at him. Dean looked deep in thought, himself, but he turned his head, as if he felt the weight of Paul's look, and half-smiled, a knowing look that made Paul want to stop him and kiss him right there on the street.

Dean must have felt the same, as instead of continuing up the front walk when they reached Rosy's, he grabbed Paul's arm and tugged him into the yard, pushing him up against a tall tree. It seemed wide enough to hide them from the street, and stood near the corner of the house, not easily seen from the house as long as nobody came out on the porch. Paul held Dean's arms as he leaned in for a kiss.

Dean grinned. "What, are you shy?"

"We have a room less than fifty feet away," Paul said breathlessly.

Dean leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "But this is more exciting, and I don't want to wait even that long to get my mouth on your cock."

Paul shivered and turned his mouth, and Dean met it in a deep, hungry kiss. Then he dragged one hand down Paul's chest and stomach until he could cup him through his jeans, pressing and squeezing as Paul hardened. Paul might have whimpered into Dean's mouth; he could feel Dean smile.

Dean managed to undo Paul's belt and open his jeans one-handed; the cool air on Paul's heated skin felt good, but not as good as Dean's hand, warm from his pocket. Dean slid his hand down and cupped Paul's balls, rolling them in his palm. Paul wasn't sure what to do with his hands, so he just held on to Dean.

Dean kissed and touched him like he had all the time in the world, and all he wanted to do with that time was keep on kissing and touching Paul. When Dean pulled away, Paul leaned forward to kiss him again, but Dean just licked his own lips— and went to his knees.

Dean's hand had felt good, but his mouth was wonderful, and Paul's knees buckled slightly. He clamped his hands on Dean's shoulders and let his head fall back; he barely noticed when it hit the tree, his attention was so focused on the heat and slick slide of Dean's tongue along his cock. He held himself still until Dean pulled back to say, "Show me what you want, Paul," one hand still stroking Paul's cock lightly.

Paul groaned and looked down at Dean, who looked back up at him, his face painted in shadows and light from the porch light. He moved one hand to the side of Dean's face, cradling it and tilting it up further, his thumb brushing against the corner of Dean's mouth, pulling it a little more open. Dean's breathing was rough. Paul made himself wait, a slight breeze cooling him off a little, until he couldn't stand it anymore, and then he put his other hand on Dean's head, as well, and gently pulled him forward, sliding his cock into the waiting mouth. He trusted that Dean would keep him from being too rough, or going too deep.

Dean did so with two fingers and a thumb wrapped around Paul's cock, allowing him deep into Dean's mouth. He kept his wet lips over his teeth so the glide in and out was smooth. And when slow and smooth was no longer enough, Paul held Dean's head in place and thrust, Dean encouraging him with his other hand pulling on Paul's hip.

His climax was sudden and strong, with no time to even try to give warning, but Dean kept sucking gently until Paul had to pull him away, too sensitive for any more for the moment. He sank down to the ground and went to rest his forehead against Dean's, but Dean lifted his head and kissed him again.

Paul reached between his legs and squeezed, and Dean groaned. "What do you want," Paul whispered.

Dean bit Paul's lower lip softly and sucked on it, before speaking. "I'd really love to fuck you," he whispered back.

"Do we— Do you have—" Still a little light-headed, Paul stammered, and Dean laughed.

"I may never have been a Boy Scout, but my daddy still taught me to always be prepared." Dean stood and pulled Paul to his feet. "Like I told you, I did some shopping this afternoon." He helped Paul straighten his clothes, and they both checked for grass and leaves in places they shouldn't be.

Paul was still a little euphoric, and his hands weren't quite steady. When they were done, Dean cradled Paul's head in his hands and stepped in close to kiss him again. There was an urgency underlying his kisses still, and Paul snugged his thigh up between Dean's legs, pressing against him.

Dean took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay, I'm ready to go inside now." He backed away and headed for the porch. Paul smiled and followed him.

They could hear the TV back in Rose's rooms, but fortunately they made it upstairs without seeing her, which was a blessing. Paul could just see Dean stopping to talk to her, just to prove that he wasn't in any hurry to go anywhere. As it was, Dean was taking the stairs two and three steps at a time. Paul followed, a little more quietly, but just as swiftly.

By the time he got to the room, Dean had stripped off his jacket, and now two shirts came off in one tug, and then he was stripping off his jeans while he tried to toe off his shoes, which wasn't working very well. He stumbled and staggered against the bed, so he sat down and unfastening his shoes, throwing a look at Paul as if daring him to say anything. Paul just grinned and locked the door before moving to the far side of the bed. From there he watched Dean while slowly taking off his own clothes, one item at a time.

They'd left a single light on in the sitting area, leaving the bed itself more in shadows. Dean finished undressing, kicking his jeans off to lie in a pile with his other clothes. Then he sat on the bed and watched Paul in turn, his hands clenched in the bedspread. If anything, Paul undressed more slowly, keeping his hands as steady as he could, not taking his eyes off Dean, who looked like he'd come by his body honestly, with hard work.

Paul was taking off his shoes when Dean nearly growled and threw himself up off the bed, opening the chest of drawers to pull out a sack, which he upended on the bed. Condoms and lube hit the spread, and Paul wondered how long it would take for the events at the restaurant to get paired up with Dean's purchases in the town's imagination. He had an odd moment of shyness when he was finally ready to take off his jeans, but he pushed past it, and was rewarded by an appreciative, throaty sound from Dean.

Dean scooped up condoms and lube to drop them next to the digital clock on the bedside table; they both reached for the quilted spread at the same time, pulling the bedclothes back out of the way. And then they were both on the bed, and there was a moment of awkwardness, of odd shyness again on Paul's part, but then Dean slid down and near enough to close his mouth over one of Paul's nipples, and things began to move more quickly.

Dean urged Paul over on his side, with his back to Dean, while Dean opened the lube and gave it to Paul. Then he started licking and lightly biting Paul's throat and shoulders, one hand smoothing and stroking down over Paul's hip, across the back of his thigh, lightly brushing his fingertips between his legs, squeezing his ass. Over and over, his fingers pressing more and more firmly, until Paul was pressing back against him. Then Dean handed Paul the tube and had him squeeze some out into his own hands, warming it between his palms before Dean held out his hand and let Paul coat it, rubbing it between both of Paul's, stripping each finger and leaving behind a layer of lube. Dean pressed up tight against his back while Paul worked, and finally bit his shoulder sharply, and took his hand back.

"Enough," he growled. He pulled back enough to slide his slick hand between Paul's buttocks, pressing in to stroke against him, back and forth, back and forth, then sliding a finger in, so slowly, but steadily. Paul took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing, raising his upper leg to open himself wider. Dean murmured in approval and slid another finger in, twisting and stroking, he head resting against Paul's, his breath harsh in Paul's ear. "Oh, yeah," he said, sliding them deep, and then out. Paul clutched at the sheets, and Dean pressed tight up against his back for a minute.

Dean pulled back again and urged Paul flatter on the bed, one leg still slid up, and then Paul felt Dean's cock against him, also slick. Dean used a hand on Paul's ass to open him even more, and then pressed in slowly, a little bit at a time, telling Paul to "...breathe...relax...God fuck, that's it—"

Paul kept his breathing deep and slow, carefully not tensing as Dean pressed in deep. There was no pain, just pressure, but Paul bit back what would have been a whimper. Then Dean just held him, for a minute, pressing his mouth against the curve of Paul's shoulder, setting his teeth in it, firmly. Paul felt him tremble slightly.

Then Dean began to move, slowly at first, carefully, then harder as it became easier, and Paul pressed back against him, wanting more, harder, scrabbling at the sheets. He thought he spoke, but he wasn't sure he was coherent. Dean answered him with a groan, then stilled and came, shuddering, curled over and around Paul.

For several minutes after he was almost a dead weight, but Paul was oddly comfortable, listening to Dean's breathing slow, feeling the stretch of his own body. Just at the point when it was shifting to uncomfortable, Dean moved, slowly drawing back and rolling over to lie looking up at the ceiling. He rested a hand on Paul's hip.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

A grunt was all Paul managed. Dean laughed, then slapped him on the hip before rolling out of bed and heading to the bathroom.

Paul stretched out his legs and lay there, still feeling the pressure of having Dean inside him. It had been years since he'd done this, since he'd wanted this, and he wasn't sure what it was about Dean that crept right past the barriers he'd had since Rebecca. It probably didn't matter; it wouldn't be long until they went their separate ways.

It was unsettling how much that idea bothered him.

He was almost asleep when Dean crawled back into bed and pushed at him. "Go clean up, you'll be sorry if you don't."

Paul stumbled to the bathroom and hurried through, then slid back in bed next to Dean's warm body. He fell asleep with the weight of Dean's arm curved across his back.

It was late when Paul woke, after eleven. There was sun coming in the window, but it was weak, watery. Dean was still asleep at his side, snoring slightly.

Paul wasn't ready to get up, so he lay there, trying to think about Saunders and their current situation, but mostly thinking about Dean, and the night before — and the fact that he thought of it now as "their" situation. And suddenly wondering why, if Dean wasn't a reporter, he was in Hennas Crossing at all.

He rolled on his side to face Dean, watching him sleep as he thought about it. Maybe he did the same kind of thing Paul did, on a different scale, tracking down supposed occult incidents, figuring them out. He had at least one person he was in touch with, who provided him with information, but Paul wondered what the angle was, particularly with something like what was — might be — going on here.

He didn't realize Dean was awake until his lips curved up, ever so slightly.

"Stop being such a girl," Dean said.

Paul reached over and traced a fingertip along Dean's mouth; Dean lunged up and tried to bite it, and Paul let out a sharp laugh of surprise. Dean fell back and cracked one eye open to look at him. "Lying in bed, staring at me while I sleep? Does it get any girlier than that?"

Paul responded by shoving his hand down and gripping and squeezing Dean's cock.

"I take it back," Dean gasped. "Just don't stop."

Whatever he didn't know about Dean, Paul knew he really enjoyed watching Dean come.

It was another thirty minutes before they staggered out of bed and through a shower, where Dean proved to Paul that the blowjob the night before wasn't a fluke, and left him light-headed again.

They ended up at Gloria's Café, where Paul had an exceptional omelet, and Dean had another burger and fries -- and onion rings. Paul watched him in bemusement, and at one point Dean looked up with his mouth stuffed as full as he could get it, blinked at Paul, and said, "Whu?"

Paul grinned. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?"

A shuttered look came over Dean's face, and he just shook his head. Paul thought that being with Dean was kind of like walking through a minefield, where you didn't know where it was safe to step, and what would trigger this kind of shutdown. Paul went back to his omelet, and they ate in silence for about five minutes.

"I'm sorry—," Paul said, at nearly the same time as Dean said, "Look, I'm sorry—"

This time, Dean forged ahead. "I'm sorry about that; it's not you. I just. I don't remember much about my mother. I was pretty young when she died." He ate another fry, glanced up at Paul and back down. "I don't usually talk about her."

"Thank you for telling me," Paul said. He felt a desire, not exactly to share, but to...show Dean he really did understand? Something. "I was raised in an orphanage," he said baldly. "I was abandoned when I was five."

Dean stared at him. "Whoa, dude, you win."

"It's not a competition," Paul said, more harshly than he intended. "I just meant... you know."

"Such a girl," Dean said, but he grinned. And he didn't ask what it was like, growing up in an orphanage. He just relaxed and tried to get Paul stirred up by being lewd with his remaining French fries.

"I missed you boys at the paper, this morning." Alicia Monger walked up in a leopard skin dress and a casual fur coat. "We don't usually have anyone there in the afternoon."

"I'm sorry," Paul said. "We... overslept." He didn't mean it to sound the way it came out. Dean just grinned again, and ate his last French fry. "Is there any way we can spend some time there this afternoon?"

Alicia looked put out, but nodded grudgingly. "Actually, my assistant is there this afternoon, making up some time. I'll tell her to expect you." She swept off past them towards the back of the Café.

"I think you've disappointed her, Paul," Dean said.

"Thank God," Paul said fervently.

The newspaper offices were in an older building several storefronts up from the police station. Unlike most of the other businesses on the street, both open and otherwise, the newspaper building had been cleaned up and restored at some point in the last twenty or so years, and looked much as it must have done when built.

The door was open, so they went on in, and Alicia's assistant Cassie was happy to help them, particularly Dean. She showed them the morgue, which was a room with a table and a number of filing cabinets, a microfilm and a microform reader, and a computer. There were what looked like scrapbooks piled on top of the filing cabinets.

"We also store copies of the town records and anything else Alicia's picked up and thinks ought to be preserved," Cassie said.

Once she got them set up, she didn't want to leave, and Dean had to finally physically usher her out the door, with assurances that they'd call her if they needed anything. Within the first hour she'd come back five times, almost tripping over herself to make sure Dean didn't need anything else. She brought them coffee, then water, then asked if they wanted anything to eat, did Dean want to take a break, maybe walk down to the Café?

After they'd been there about an hour and a half, Dean finally got up and sat on the table in front of Paul when they heard her coming down the hall, and when she opened the door, Dean had his tongue down Paul's throat, and Paul, though embarrassed, wasn't doing anything to stop him, and more than a little bit to help.

They heard a high-pitched squeak, then a crash, and fast-moving footsteps following the abrupt closing of the door.

Dean didn't stop kissing him for another five minutes, and was quite willing to clear space on the table. "She won't dare come back now," he said roughly. He took Paul's hand and pressed it between his legs.

"Hold that thought," Paul said, and squeezed. It was hard to let go, but he managed. "I want to see if we find anything else."

They'd already found out that Barbara Hutchins was Hutchins, ne`e Ginty, from her wedding announcement, and that Daniel Rede was her younger brother, from a picture of some kind of school pageant. Rede was apparently Ginty's child from a second union, but there was no evidence that she'd ever married the elder Mr. Rede. Her first husband hadn't been a Ginty at all; counter to the tradition of the time, Mrs. Ginty had kept her married name, but had still gone by Mrs.

They found no mention anywhere of any of the supposed disappearances, although there was a small all-text announcement of a wedding between Fran Tesser and a Howard Fortescue, of Miami, Florida. After they found that, Dean got on the computer, which had an internet connection, and failed to find any proof that any Howard Fortescue lived in Miami, although he did find one in Tallahassee, in a nursing home at the age of 93.

Paul didn't even want to know how Dean got the information.

What they found about the descendents of the men on the crypt's brass plaque was equally interesting; the names Rede, Hutchins, Ginty, Monger, Burbar, and Streeter cropped up over and over in the town's history, usually attached to men and women of some influence, power, or potentially strategic use, if you counted the public librarianship. And Father Saunders was right, it seemed like the priest of Sts. Lucian & Marcian had always come either from one of those families, or probable relations. The church itself, and the parsonage, were built on land donated by the Hutchins family, the former site of the original Hutchins homestead that had burned in the mid-18th century. The drawing of it in one of the scrapbooks was substantial, a three-story mansion.

The town's current bank had been bought out a few years previously by a conglomerate, but Philip Hutchins, whose family had owned it for generations, still served on the local board. There had been previous police chiefs named both Ginty, Burbar, and Rede. Barbara Hutchins was apparently the most recent in a long line of Hutchins family doctors, although the first female one. She was also the local coroner.

And Alicia Monger, who kept her maiden name, had inherited the paper from her father upon his death, among other businesses, and it had been in the family almost continuously since its founding. The only lapse in ownership just happened to be for a period of ten or so years, starting in the forties, right after the war — something Dean jumped on, since 1952 would have been the time of that last dissappearances.

Paul thought he was going to go blind, going through microfilm reels of the 1952 issues; he traded off with Dean. While they learned nothing conclusive, they did find a series of reports of odd disappearances, combined with a couple of surprisingly fast departures, that could indicate a similar series of problems. And according to the handy almanac excerpts on the back pages of the issues, it looked like the disappearances and such might have lined up more or less with the new moons of the time.

One of the people quoted concerning the rapid departure of someone or other was a young Eugenia Ginty, saying that the fellow in question had often talked of how homesick he was for the West, and it didn't surprise her at all that he'd just packed up and left.

The response of the police department was insignificant, something that seemed to provoke the newspaper of the time in a way it didn't now, under Alicia Monger's control.

When they were done, Dean looked vindicated; Paul was getting a headache.

"We don't actually know anything," Paul said.

"Well, no," Dean admitted, "But it looks an awful lot like these six families have had a lock on this town as far back as these records go. And that some other suspicious things happened right around the time that would line up with the requirements that Rede's diary talked about."

"So we don't just have a group of homicidal loons around now, we have families of them going back generations."

Dean shrugged. "If each family raises its children to believe that their status and fortune are dependent on these strange rituals, and indoctrinate each subsequent generation, isn't it possible?"

Paul just groaned and pinched his nose. "It still seems highly unlikely to me."

"You got a better explanation?" Dean asked.

There was a timid knock on the door not too long after that. Cassie waited until they told her to come in, and then she just called through the door that she was ready to leave for the night, and they'd have to go, too. They made a quick attempt to get everything back where it belonged, to the faint music of long-suffering sighs from the hallway.

It was going on six o'clock when they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

"Want to get something to eat?" Dean asked.

Paul looked at him. "How can you already be hungry, after all you ate for lunch?"

Dean shrugged. "That was lunch. Besides, what else could we possibly do until dark?" He grinned.

Rose was in the front room when they got back to the boarding house. Paul felt extremely awkward going upstairs in front of her, knowing what was going to happen. Dean, on the other hand, just waved cheerily, and called out hello.

"You boys enjoy yourselves," she said slyly, not looking up from her knitting.

Paul felt his whole face turn red, while Dean just laughed.

"Another couple days, we'll be out of here," Dean said. "Besides, we probably gave the old girl a thrill."

"It's not exactly my life's goal, to give old ladies a vicarious sexual thrill," Paul said, ignoring the pang at Dean's first words. "But hell," he added, tackling Dean to the bed, "too late to worry about it now."

They didn't even get their clothes off, just pushed them up, pulled them open, shoved them aside to let in hands and mouths. Paul found out that Dean's nipples were very sensitive, particularly to a judicious application of teeth, and Dean discovered that sufficient attention to Paul's ears and neck could almost get him off with nothing else necessary. Paul tried to be embarrassed about that, but he felt too damn good.

They dozed off, tangled up together, and woke up after well after dark, only just in time to call the Council Room and order food to go, before the kitchen closed at nine.

Dean yawned and stretched. "If they're typical, then they'll probably plan for whatever they're going to do to happen around midnight. I don't know why, but it's always around midnight."

"You do this kind of thing a lot, then," Paul said.

Dean shrugged, smiling, but his eyes didn't meet Paul's. "I do all kinds of things. It's kind of a family business," he said. "Kind of like what you do. Saunders needed help, you're here."

Paul waited, but Dean didn't offer anything else, and Paul didn't even know what to ask, so he just let it drop. Dean's words reminded him of something else, though.

"Damn, I was going to call and talk to Poppi last night, see what he made of all this."

"That's the friend who sent you here, yeah?" Dean asked.

Paul nodded. "And we were going to go see Father Saunders again."

"I don't think there's anything more we could have learned from him, and I bet Ginty and her daughter have him drugged six ways from Sunday."

Paul sighed. "When I get back, I'll have to talk to someone about getting him out of here as soon as possible. I don't like leaving him here."

"Take him with you, then. Worst they can do is fire him for leaving his post, or something, right? And I think worse could happen to him staying here."

Paul nodded.

"Let's take your car," Dean said. "It'll blend in better, and I don't let anybody eat in my girl. I just need to get a few things out of my trunk." He leaned over and kissed Paul. "Meet you at the car. I'm driving."

When Dean got to the car, all he was carrying was a book. He tossed it to Paul as he climbed in. "That's the exorcism rite. It's probably gonna look a little odd, even if you've ever seen the current version."

Paul would bet most people didn't even know there was a current exorcism ritual in the Church. "Why's that?"

"It's older, not exactly, uh, by the book, I guess you'd say. You can look it over while we wait; I've got a little reading light, so we don't have to turn on the car light."

Dean drove to the restaurant, and Paul went in and grabbed their food. Dean then drove toward the church and parked within a block of the building, but up a side street that let them park facing the church. It was a residential area, but as with the night before, nobody seemed to be out and walking around.

"You don't think anybody's going to see us, and call the police?"

"If they do, I'll just get you in a liplock and we can tell your Chief Bulgar--"

"Burbar."

"--whatever, that we needed a little more privacy than we could get at Rosy's." He grinned. "But mostly I'm betting that these folks mind their own business and keep their heads down more than is usual in a small town."

They ate their food, fingers getting greasy, and there weren't enough napkins. At one point Dean grabbed Paul's hand and licked each of his fingers clean of barbecue sauce. Paul noticed that he managed to keep his eyes on the church; Paul could only watch Dean, until he got his hand back.

"Thanks," he said roughly.

"Sometimes you just have to make do," Dean said.

After that, Dean kept an eye on the church, while Paul looked over the book that Dean had given him. It was filled with sample rites and obscure folklore, and he spent some time flipping through it, more and more confused. The rite itself was easy to follow, and it had a place to put in the name of the demon, to send it back to wherever it came from, presumably Hell.

"There goes somebody."

Paul looked, and Father Rede was unlocking the church doors. A half-hour later, Terence Streeter walked down the street and into the church, followed not too long after by Burbar, Alicia, and her husband. They didn't skulk or try and conceal their presence in any way, or look around like they were worried about being seen. If asked, they'd probably have a completely reasonable explanation for coming to church so late, but it stretched Paul's incredulity a little far to believe that these people, congregating on this night, was purely coincidental. It looked like Saunders and Dean were right, at least insofar as there being something going on with this group.

They waited a while longer, until it was nearly a quarter to midnight, but no one else showed up. All of sudden Dean swore and climbed out of the car. "C'mon, we've got to go. I'm an idiot."

Paul followed him. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that there's probably a way into the church from the parsonage, and they may not have to come outside at all. And I think we're late to the party. Don't forget the book." As he climbed out, Paul saw that he had his gun tucked down the back of his pants.

"You think you're going to need a gun?"

"Better to have it and not need it than the reverse," Dean said.

"Are you planning on shooting somebody?"

"Not unless I have to," Dean said. "Let's get going."

He moved fast, but once he got to the church, he moved quietly, holding a finger to his lips. The door was locked, but he did something with a tool he pulled from his pocket and had it open far more swiftly than Paul expected. Dean went in first, and moved immediately inside the door and beckoned Paul in.

They could tell as soon as they walked into the nave that the crypt was open, and they could hear the chanting, but it was muted. Moving around the walls to the door, Dean crouched down and peered in, then pulled back. "There are stairs, going down," he whispered. "There's probably a tunnel from the parsonage, and I bet they've got Father Saunders down there."

"You think he's their next victim," Paul said, appalled.

"I think that he'd be an easy target, and he's been asking too many questions."

"But how could they possibly plan to cover it up, though, especially with us here in town?"

Dean shook his head. "I can't say for sure, but they've got the local coroner involved, and did you see what one of the other businesses is that Alicia Monger inherited?"

Paul shook his head.

"A mortuary. Her husband runs it."

It took Paul a minute to process that, and when he did it made him feel a little ill. "What are we waiting for?"

Dean's smile this time was grim, and they slipped into the crypt and started slowly down the stairs, Dean in the lead, a flashlight in his hand. The stairs were sturdy, so fortunately there were no creaks to give them away.

The stairs went down twenty steps, nearly a level and a half under the church, and the chanting became clearer as they descended. Paul finally recognized the Latin, albeit a bastardized form.

The stairs ended in the corner of an L-shaped hallway, with one arm leading off in front of them, which Paul suspected headed towards the parsonage, and the other leading off to the left. The chanting was coming from the left. They passed a couple of doorways as they went, and Paul realized that they must be walking through the cellar of the original Hutchins house.

The chanting was coming from a room at the far end of hall; Dean halted a few feet shy of the doorway. He clicked off his flashlight and tucked it in his pocket. "Are you ready?" he said, his voice low.

"I don't even know what to be ready for!" Paul whispered back.

"Anything," Dean advised, and turned into the room, Paul on his heels.

They were all there, two at each point of the compass, the seven descendents of the original Council plus Jeremy Tyrell. It really was like something out of a horror movie, with black hooded robes, flickering black and red candles, and arcane etchings carved into the floor and walls. There were niches in the wall, presumably for the bodies of the original sacrifices, and Father Saunders was stretched out on the tomb itself, arms and legs tied down to bolts in the stone. Daniel Rede stood at his head holding a gold goblet and pouring a liquid that looked like blood into Saunders mouth and down his body. In his other hand he held a large ornate knife.

Father Saunders was clearly awake, but feeble, gagging and turning his head from side to side.

Burbar was the first to see them. Paul didn't see where he pulled the gun from, but then it was pointed straight at them. Fortunately, Dean had a gun pointed right back, and a second in his other hand.

The chanting faded as the others saw them.

"We're just here for Father Saunders," Paul said.

"We can't let them go," Eugenia Ginty said, pushing her hood back. She had a smear of blood around her mouth.

"Mother, please," Barbara Hutchins said. "We don't have to do this anymore!"

"Shut up, Barbara. Stop being so weak. If only you were more like your brother," her mother said.

"Okay, everybody shut up, and get over in that corner," Dean directed. They went, most of them reluctantly; Burbar obviously kept looking for an advantage. Hutchins and Streeter made sure they were behind everyone else. Paul saw Barbara Hutchins move to be close to Jeremy Tyrell, slipping her hand into his.

Rede didn't move, just started to bring the knife down towards Saunders throat. Dean fired, and Rede fell back, clutching his hand. The knife fell to the floor.

"I will shoot any one of you idiots," Dean said calmly. "I'd enjoy it, so just give me a reason."

"Dean, what are we going to do now?" Paul said in a low voice. "We can't shoot them all."

"I could," Dean said calmly.

"You go ahead and try it, boy," Burbar said.

Dean ignored him. "What you're going to do, Paul, is call the police," Dean said, not taking his eye or his gun off of Burbar. "It's not likely you'll get a signal down here."

Burbar laughed. "There're only three other cops but me, and not a one of 'em'd raise a hand against me."

Dean wasn't phased. "Then he'll call the State Police. They can have somebody here in twenty minutes."

"You think you're going to last that long, boy?"

"I think I'll shoot you where you stand and not blink an eye, fat man."

"Shoot him, you idiot!" Mrs. Ginty said. "The other one won't give us any trouble."

"Calm yourself, mother," Rede said. "We are protected."

At that, Dean laughed like he was genuinely amused. "You guys think you have a real demon in here?" he said. He tilted his head sideways at the floor, the walls. "These markings here? Might as well be chicken scratch. You had a real demon in that box, no way that would keep it locked in." He snorted. "Like you bunch could control a demon anyway. Fuckin' amateurs. Looks like we won't need the exorcism ritual after all, Paul."

He sounded so completely sincere that Paul again wondered what Dean truly did believe, but now was not the time to worry about it. Most of the others looked a little stunned.

Dean clearly saw this, too. "What, you didn't think we could figure it out? Man, you guys left clues everywhere. It's a shame Mr. Streeter there doesn't know what all he's got in his library. And your newspaper morgue, whew, lady, that was a lot of help, thank you!"

There were angry mutters from the group, and Streeter and Alicia's voices stood out, sounding defensive.

"But that doesn't matter, because if you've got a demon here, I'll eat my shorts."

"Would you just shoot him, Joe!" Eugenia reached for Burbar's gun, and in his confusion, he let go of it. But it wasn't Eugenia who picked it up — it was her daughter.

"Shoot him, Barbara! It's your chance to prove yourself!"

"No, this is where it ends, Mother," Barbara said. She'd been crying. "I've lived with your insanity all my life, and I let it pull me into kidnapping, and murder, and Jeremy and I are putting a stop to it."

"You faithless bitch," Eugenia said, and started to go after her daughter, until Tyrell stood in the way.

"Do you guys even hear yourselves?" Dean said. "You're like some kind of bad made-for-TV movie-of-the-week!" He still had his guns pointing at the group of them, and one of them zeroed in on Barbara Hutchins as she moved toward him, but she gave the gun to Jeremy Tyrell, who immediately turned it on his fellows.

"Jeremy, what are you doing, you idiot," Alicia said. "Put that gun down!"

Tyrell ignored her completely.

"You've got to get out of here," Barbara said. "Take Father Saunders and go. We poisoned the goblet, and Jeremy's planted explosives. If we can keep them here, it all ends now, no more children, no more death, no more belief in this stupid legend."

"Go," Tyrell said. "We'll keep them here." Behind him, Eugenia clutched her stomach, and raised a hand to her mouth.

Dean motioned to Paul to get moving, so Paul picked up the knife from the floor and started slicing at Father Saunder's bindings. Between them, Dean and Tyrell kept the others back, while Barbara held herself and looked miserable behind Tyrell.

The knife was sharp and cut the cords easily. It felt strangely warm in Paul's hands, and he couldn't wait to put it down. When he finished, he started to drop it, but Dean held out an impatient hand, not even looking at him.

"Give it to me, and let's get out of here."

Paul hauled Father Saunders to his feet. Saunders sagged, barely able to stand; Paul pulled an arm over his shoulders and started staggering for the stairs. Dean backed out behind him, making sure that nobody was following them.

"Do you really think there are explosives?" Paul asked.

Once they were halfway up, Dean turned and took Father Saunders by the other arm. "I don't know, but do you really want to find out?" He forged ahead, pushing the pace until Paul almost tripped, his foot sliding off a stair. He lost hold of Father Saunders, who started to fall, but Dean grabbed him and kept hauling. "Paul!" he yelled, and Paul scrambled and made it up a few more stairs, Dean and Saunders already out into the church proper, when the world blew apart behind him.

The last thing Paul remembered was falling, and a sharp pain to his head, and then everything went dark.

Paul woke up in the church with an ambulance crew hovering, to find that he possibly had a mild concussion, and definitely had various minor scrapes and bruises. They wanted to load him up and take him to a nearby hospital, but he wasn't seriously injured enough that they were going to insist. They finally washed their hands of him and left him sitting in a pew. A State Trooper told him to stay put until they could talk to him.

Paul wondered if his car was where they'd left it. Dean was nowhere in sight. He decided that he wouldn't mention him until someone else did. He couldn't see Father Saunders, either, but he assumed he'd been taken away by ambulance. Paul's head ached.

It didn't take long before the site was crawling with Troopers. He could see a K-9 unit, probably hunting for explosives, and others who were probably bomb techs and investigators. He thought it odd that nobody was talking to him, since nobody else had any idea what had happened here.

He wasn't sure what had happened. He thought about it a lot until someone finally remembered him and drove him over to the police station, which was fully lit up. The other local police were standing around, looking like they were in shock. The State force had obviously taken over.

He was asked his name, then led back down a hallway and into what passed for an interrogation room in Hennas Crossing. He did get a glass of water and a cup of bad coffee, and then he waited another half-hour until a man and a woman in suits came in.

"Mr. Callan? I'm Agent McDonough, and this is Agent Reese. We're investigators with the Maine State Police. Are you sure you're feeling okay? Do you want to change your mind about going to the hospital?"

Paul cleared his throat. "No, I'm fine. What's happened with Father Saunders?"

The agents exchanged a look. Reese is the one who spoke. "Thomas Saunders is in critical care at the hospital. He's apparently been poisoned, and they don't know if he'll make it. What do you know about that?"

Paul's laugh was one of confusion, not humor. "Where do you want me to start?"

"Why don't you start with what an employee of the Catholic Church is doing in Hennas Crossing, possibly the sole survivor of an explosion in the local Catholic Church."

It was a good thing that Paul had had some time to think about it. He had little hope his story would hold up, but he hoped he could keep Dean out of it as much as possible. He wondered what they already knew.

He told a surprisingly long story of the last day and half, of Poppi's request, of Saunders' beliefs, of what he'd discovered about the leading families of Hennas Crossing, leading to a bizarre ritual in an old hidden basement and a schism among the major players involving poison and explosives.

He kept to the truth as much as possible. Art Brown played a major role, but only up to a point. In Paul's version, they'd met, and worked together, but Art had decided after their visit to the newspaper that there was nothing for him in the story, and had left town after grabbing some dinner. Paul had come to the church on his own, to see Father Saunders, and arrived in time to see him practically carried to the church. The church left inexplicably unlocked, Paul had followed them and found the strange secret entrance in the crypt, followed the chanting down, and arrived in time to help get Father Saunders out, assisted by the efforts of Barbara Hutchins and Jeremy Tyler.

Then came the questions. Would Mr. Callan be surprised to know that there was no Arthur Brown at the Derry News? Mr. Callan was very surprised to know this, the young man had seemed so genuine.

Did Mr. Callan bring a gun to the church? No, indeed, Mr. Callan did not own a gun, but Jeremy Tyler had had one.

Did Mr. Callan know what purpose this group had, why they were trying to kill Father Saunders? The only thing Mr. Callan could think was that they were afraid Father Saunders would expose them. As for why this group of prominent citizens would possibly kidnap and kill multiple people... Mr. Callan really had no idea, it was horrifying.

Would Mr. Callan be surprised to know that more than one citizen of Hennas Crossing claimed that Paul Callan and Art Brown were far more intimate than was suggested by their having met only on the road into Hennas? Privately, Paul would be surprised if anyone other than Alicia's assistant Cassie was readily available and willing to talk about that, but publicly Mr. Callan flushed a deep red and said that he had, in fact, only met Art Brown the day before, but he did not deny that they had become... intimate.

And where was Art Brown now? Mr. Callan had no idea, he had neither seen nor spoken to him since Art left earlier that evening.

Would the owner of the boarding house back him up? Mr. Callan didn't know why she wouldn't tell the truth, but since they'd shared the one room, he didn't know if she knew not to expect Mr. Brown back.

Had Mr. Callan made the call to 911 that brought the State Police and ambulance to the church? Mr. Callan didn't think so--

But the call was made from Mr. Callan's cell phone? Mr. Callan supposed it was possible he'd managed to call before being knocked unconscious; maybe the head injury is why he didn't remember.

If that were true, how was it that Mr. Callan knew the type of poison that had been administered to Thomas Saunders? The caller had identified it, before hanging up.

This took Paul a moment to figure out, but then he said that clearly Mr. Callan had learned it from Barbara Hutchins, who had urged him to get out and take Father Saunders with her. And what type of poison was it? Mr. Callan was sorry, but apparently that information had vanished along with his memory of making the phone call.

The questions kept coming, new questions, the same questions asked in different ways. After an hour another uniformed officer came in and whispered something to Reese, and Paul wondered if they'd finished searching their room. Paul assumed if they'd actually found anything incriminating, they'd have already charged him. He just kept cool, kept answering the questions, and tried to keep his lies straight.

Finally they finished and let him go, telling him that he'd have to make himself available for questioning, but they had his personal information. He probably wouldn't be required to stay in Hennas Crossing more than a day or so.

He walked out into the front room and stood there, exhausted. It was just daylight outside, but overcast. He finally asked one of the Troopers if he could get someone to drive him back to the boarding house. He'd worry about his car later.

They dropped him off out front. There was no sign of Dean's car. He stumbled down the walk and into the house.

"Hello, Mr. Callan," Rose said. "There were police here to look through your room. I hope it's okay that I let them."

"That's fine, Mrs. Treadwell. Do you know if they found anything?" he asked carefully.

"Oh, I wouldn't think so. Nothing but your stuff, Mr. Brown having left earlier. I haven't seen him, oh, since you two boys left for dinner, I think."

"That's the last I saw of him too, Mrs. Treadwell. I think he's left town," Paul said.

"Not a bad idea all around. Now, why don't you get upstairs and try and get some rest. Would you like some coffee, or tea? Maybe a muffin."

"No, thank you, I'm exhausted. I think I'll probably go right to sleep." Paul climbed the stairs slowly, remembering the last time he'd gone up them, following Dean, looking forward to the taste of his mouth, the touch of his hands.

The room was empty. He wasn't surprised, not really; he hadn't expected Dean to be there. All of Dean's things were gone, too. There was no sign he'd ever even been there -- well, almost no sign. Paul flushed a little when he saw the lube still on the bedside table. The remaining condoms had fallen to the floor. Paul picked them up and put them on the table.

He quickly stripped down to his briefs and undershirt, visiting the bathroom before crawling into the bed, on the side closest to the door. Mrs. Treadwell had apparently changed the sheets, because they smelled fresh and clean. Paul felt a pang of disappointment. He was asleep before he could figure out why.

It was dark when he woke, not even any light from the windows, but he didn't remember pulling the curtains. His head didn't hurt anymore. Then he heard someone else breathing in the room. "Dean?"

The light in the sitting area flipped on, and Dean was sitting there. "How'd you know it was me?"

Paul shrugged. "You shouldn't be here. They'll be looking for you."

It was Dean's turn to shrug. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Why are you here?" Paul asked.

Dean shook his head, but whether he meant that he didn't know, or Paul shouldn't ask, Paul wasn't sure. Dean stood up and walked up to the side of the bed. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood there, looking down at Paul. "I gotta leave."

Paul leaned up on an elbow. "I thought you already had."

Dean looked up and around the room. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Isn't that why you called the police and the ambulance?"

Dean pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed one hand over his chest. "I couldn't stay."

Paul just nodded.

"I made sure you were going to be okay, then I cleared stuff out of your car, high-tailed it over here and got my stuff, then got out of here. Rose didn't even see me."

"But you're back."

This time it was Dean's turn to nod.

Paul moved over in the bed. Dean was already unbuttoning his shirt, then he helped Paul out of his remaining clothes.

It was quiet, this time, and intense; they both knew it was the last time. Paul spread his legs and cradled Dean's hips in his own, and shuddered when Dean's cock pressed and slid against his own. Paul arched up to get even closer. Dean stilled him briefly so he could get the lube, and then he was slicking them both, easing the slide of sensitive skin.

Mostly they kissed, and touched, hands and mouths storing up information and learning bodies that were still brand new to each other. There was urgency, but there was no hurry; they had all night.

It was light again when Paul woke. He was alone again, but the bed no longer smelled fresh and clean, and he inhaled deeply. He had a vague memory of a kiss brushed on his mouth in the early, pre-dawn hours, and of the shutting of a door. He laid in bed for a long time, just staring at the ceiling. He knew he should get up, find out how Father Saunders was, call Poppi. He didn't want to leave the bed.

He finally looked over at the clock on the bedside table, to see what time it was, and he saw the note. He stared at it for a while before he picked it up.

Paul:

Dean Winchester

Underneath was a phone number.