he was standing on the Key Bridge walkway, arms atop the parapet, fidgeting, waiting, while homeward-bound traffic stuttered thickly behind her, while drivers with everyday cares honked horns and bumpers nudged bumpers with scraping indifference. She had reached Mary Jo; told her lies.

"Regan's fine. By the way, I've been thinking of another little dinner party. What was the name of that Jesuit psychiatrist again? I thought maybe I'd include him in the..."

Laughter floating up from below her: a blue-jeaned young couple in a rented canoe. With a quick, nervous gesture, she flicked ash from her cigarette and glanced up the walkway of the bridge toward the District. Someone hurrying toward her: khaki pants and blue sweater; not a priest; not him. She looked down at the river again, at her helplessness swirling in the wake of the bright-red canoe. She could make out the name on its side: Caprice.

Footsteps. The man in the sweater coming closer, slowing down as he reached her. Peripherally, she saw him rest a forearm on the top of the parapet and quickly she averted her head toward Virginia.

"Keep movin', creep," she rumbled at him huskily, flipping her cigarette into the river, "or, I swear to Christ, I'll yell for a cop!"

"Miss MacNeil? I'm Father Karras."

She started, reddened, jerked swiftly around The chipped, rugged face. "Oh, my God! Oh, I'm--- Jesus!"

She was tugging at her sunglasses, flustered, and immediately pushing them back as the sad, dark eyes probed hers.

"I should have told you that I wouldn't be in uniform. Sorry."

His voice was cradling, stripping her of burden, as his powerful hands clasped gently together. They were large and yet sensitive: veined Michelangelos. Chris felt her gaze somehow drawn to them instantly.

"I thought it would be much less conspicuous," he continued. "You seemed so concerned about keeping this quiet."

"Guess I should have been concerned about not making such an ass of myself," she retorted, quickly fumbling through her purse. "I just thought you were---"

"Human?" he interjected with a smile.

"I knew that when I saw you one day on the campus," she said, as she searched now in the pockets of her suit. "That's why I called. You seemed human." She looked up and saw him staring at her hands. "Got a cigarette, Father?"

He reached into the pocket of his shirt. "Can yon go a nonfilter?"

"Right now I'd smoke rope."

He tapped out a Camel from the packet. "On my allowance, I frequently do."

"Vow of poverty," she murmured as she slipped out the cigarette, smiling tightly.

"A vow of poverty has uses," he commented, reaching in his pocket for matches.

"Like what?"

"Makes rope taste better." Again, a half smile as he watched her hand holding the cigarette. It trembled. He saw the cigarette wavering in quick, erratic jumps, and without pausing, he took it from her fingers and put it up to his mouth. He lit it, his hands cupped around the match. He puffed. Gave the cigarette back to Chris, his eyes on the cars passing over the bridge.. "Lots easier. Breeze from the traffic," he told her.

"Thanks, Father."

Chris looked at him appraisingly, with gratitude, even with hope. She knew what he'd done. She watched as he lit up a Camel for himself. He forgot to cup his hands. As he exhaled, they each leaned an elbow on the parapet.

"Where are you from, Father Karras? Originally."

"New York."

"Me too. Wouldn't ever go back, though. Would you?"

Karras fought down the rise in his throat. "No, I wouldn't." He forced a smile. "But I don't have to make those decisions."

"God, I'm dumb. You're a priest. You have to go where they send you."

"That's right."

"How'd a shrink ever get to be a priest?" she asked.

He was anxious to know what the urgent problem was that she'd mentioned when she telephoned. She was feeling her way, he sensed--- toward what? He must not prod. It would come... it would come.

"It's the other way around," he corrected her gently. "The Society---"

"Who?"

"The Society of Jesus. Jesuit is short for that."

"Oh, I see."

"The Society sent me through medical school and through psychiatric training."

"Where?"

"Oh, well, Harvard; Johns Hopkins; Bellevue."

He was suddenly aware that he wanted to impress her. Why? he wondered; and immediately saw the answer in the slums of his boyhood; in the balconies of theaters on the Lower East Side. Little Dimmy with a movie star.

"Not bad," she said appraisingly, nodding her head.

"We don't take vows of mental poverty."

She sensed an irritation; shrugged; turned front, facing out to the river. "Look, it's just that I don't know you, and..." She dragged on the cigarette, long and deep, and then exhaled, crushing out the butt on the parapet. "You're a friend of Father Dyer's, that right?"

"Yes, I am."

"Pretty close?"

"Pretty close."

"Did he talk about the party?"

"At your house?"

"At my house."

"Yes, he said you seemed human."

She missed it; or ignored it. "Did he talk about my daughter?"

"No, I didn't know you had one."

"She's twelve. He didn't mention her?"

"No."

"He didn't tell you what she did?"

"He never mentioned her."

"Priests keep a pretty tight mouth, then; that right?"

"That depends," answered Karras.

"On what?"

"On the priest."

At the fringe of his awareness drifted a warning about women with neurotic attractions to priest who desired, unconsciously and under the guise of some other problem, to seduce the unattainable.

"Look, I mean like confession. You're not allowed to talk about it, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And outside of confession?" she asked him. "I mean, what if some..." Her hands were now agitated; fluttering. "I'm curious. I... No, No, I'd really like to know. I mean, what if a person, let's say, was a criminal, like maybe a murderer or something, you know? If he came to you for help, would you have to turn him in?"

Was she seeking instruction? Was she clearing off doubts in the way of conversion? There were people, Karras knew, who approached salvation as if it were an unreliable bridge overhanging an abyss. "If he came to me for spiritual help, I'd say, no;" he replied.

"You wouldn't."

"No. No, I wouldn't. But I'd try to persuade him to turn himself in."

"And how do you go about getting an exorcism?"

"Beg pardon?"

"If a person's possessed by some kind of demon, how do you go about getting an exorcism?"

"Well, first you'd have to put him in a time machine and get him back to the sixteenth century."

She was puzzled. "What do you mean by that? Didn't get you."

"Well, it just doesn't happen anymore, Miss MacNeil."

"Since when?"

"Since we learned about mental illness; about paranoia; split personality; all those things that they taught me at Harvard."

'You kidding?"

Her voice wavered helpless, confused, and Karras regretted his flipness. Where had it come from? he wondered. It had leaped to his tongue unbidden.

"Many educated Catholics, Miss MacNeil," he told her in a gentler tone, "don't believe in the devil anymore, and as far as possession is concerned, since the day I joined the Jesuits I've never met a priest who's ever in his life performed an exorcism. Not one."

"Are you really a priest,"she demanded with a bitter, disappointed sharpness, "or from Central Casting? I mean, what about all those stories in the Bible about Christ driving out all those demons?"

Again, he was answering crisply, unthinking: "Look, if Christ had said those people who were supposedly possessed had schizophrenia, which I imagine they did, they would probably have crucified him three years earlier."

"Oh, really?" Chris put a shaking hand to her sunglasses, deepening her voice in an effort at control. "Well, it happens, Father Karras, that someone very close to me is probably possessed. She needs an exorcism. Will you do it?"

To Karras, it suddenly seemed unreal: Key Bridge; across the river, the Hot Shoppe; traffic; Chris MacNeil, the movie star. As he stared at her, groping for an answer, she slipped off the glasses and Karras felt momentary, wincing shock at the redness, at the desperate pleading in those haggard eyes. The woman was serious, he realized.

"Father Karras; it's my daughter," she told him huskily, "my daughter!"

"Then all the more reason," he at last said gently, "to forget about exorcism and---"

"Why? God, I don't understand!" she burst out in a voice that was cracking and distraught.

He took her wrist in a comforting hand. "In the first place," he told her in soothing tones, "it could make things worse."

"But how?"

"The ritual of exorcism is dangerously suggestive. It could plant the notion of possession, you see, where it didn't exist before, or if it did, it could tend to fortify it. And secondly, Miss MacNeil, before the Church approves an exorcism, it conducts an investigation to see if it's warranted. That takes time. In the meantime, your---"

"Couldn't you do the exorcism yourself?" she pleaded, her lower lip starting to tremble. Her eyes were filling up with tears.

"Look, every priest has the power to exorcise, but he has to have Church approval, and frankly, it's rarely ever given, so---"

"Can't you even look at her?"

"Well, as a psychiatrist, yes, I could, but---"

"She needs a priest!" Chris suddenly cried out, her features contorted with anger and fear. "I've taken her to every goddam, fucking doctor, psychiatrist in the world and they sent me to you; now you send me to them!"

"But your---"

"Jesus Christ won't somebody help me?" The heart-stopping shriek bolted raw above the river. Startled birds shot up screeching from its banks. "Oh, my God, someone help me!" Chris moaned as she crumpled to Karras' chest with convulsive sobs. "Please help me! Help me! Please! Please, help!..."

The Jesuit looked down at her, lifted up comforting hands to her head as the riders in traffic-locked automobiles glanced out windows to watch them wig passing disinterest.

"It's all right," Karras whispered as he patted her shoulder. He wanted only to calm her; to humor; Stem hysteria. "...my daughter''? It was she who needed psychiatric help. "It's all right. I'll go see her," he told her. "I'll see her."

He approached the house with her in silence, with a lingering sense of unreality, with thoughts of the next day's lecture at the Georgetown Medical School. He had yet to prepare his notes.

They climbed the front stoop. Karras glanced down the street at the Jesuit residence hall and realized he would now miss dinner. It was ten before six. He looked at Chris as she slipped the key in the lock. She hesitated, turned to him. "Father... do you think you should wear your priest clothes?"

The voice: how childlike it was; how naïve."Too dangerous," he told her.

She nodded and started opening the door, and it was then that Karras felt it: a chill, tugging warning. It scraped through his bloodstream like particles of ice.

"Father Karras?"

He looked up. Chris had entered. She was holding the door.

For a hesitant moment he stood unmoving; then abruptly he went forward, stepping into the house with an odd sense of ending.

Karras heard commotion. Upstairs. A deep, booming voice was thundering obscenities, threatening in anger, in hate, in frustration.

Karras glanced at Chris. She was staring at him mutely. Then she moved on ahead. He followed her upstairs and along the hall to Regan's bedroom, where Karl leaned against the wall just opposite her door, his head sagging low over folded arms. As the servant looked slowly up at Chris, Karras saw bafflement and fright in his eyes. The voice from the bedroom, this close, was so loud that it almost seemed amplified electronically. "It wants no straps, still," Karl told Chris in an awed, cracking voice.

"I'll be back in a second, Father," Chris told the priest dully.

Karras watched her walk down the hall and into her own bedroom; then he glanced at Karl. The Swiss was looking at him fixedly.

"You are priest?" Karl asked.

karras nodded, then looked quickly back to the door of Regan's room. The raging voice had been displaced by the long, strident lowing of some animal that might have been a steer.

Something prodding at his hand. He looked down. "That's her," Chris was saying "that's Regan." She was giving him a photograph. He took it. Young girl. Very pretty. Sweet smile.

"That was taken four months ago," Chris said numbly. She took back the photo and motioned with her head at the bedroom door. "Now you go and take a look at her now." She leaned against the wall beside Karl. "I'll wait here."

"Who's in there with her?" Karras asked her.

"No one."

He held her steady gaze and then turned with a frown to the bedroom door. As he grasped the doorknob, the sounds from within ceased abruptly. In the ticking silence, Karras hesitated, then entered the room slowly, almost flinching backward at the pungent stench of moldering excrement that hit him in the face like a palpable blast.

Quickly reining back his revulsion, he closed the door. Then his eyes locked, stunned, on the thing that was Regan, on the creature that was lying on its back in the bed, head propped against a pillow while eyes bulging wide in their hollow sockets shone with mad cunning and burning intelligence, with interest and with spite as they fixed upon his, as they watched him intently, seething in a face shaped into a skeletal, hideous mask of mind-bending malevolence. Karras shifted his gaze to the tangled, thickly matted hair; to the wasted arms and legs; the distended stomach jutting up so grotesquely; then back to the eyes: they were watching him... pinning him... shifting now to follow as he moved to a desk and chair near the window.

"Hello, Regan, " said the priest in a warm, friendly tone. He picked up the chair and took it over by the bed.

"I'm a friend of your mother's. She tells me that you haven't been feeling too well." He sat down. "Do you think you'd like to tell me what's wrong? I'd like to help you."

The eyes gleamed fiercely, unblinking and a yellowish saliva dribbled down from a corner of her mouth to her chin. Then her lips stretched taut into a feral grin, into bow-mouthed mockery.

"Well, well, well," gloated Regan sardonically, and hairs prickled on the back of Karras' neck, for the voice was an impossibly deep bass thick with menace and power. "So it's you... they sent you! Well, we've nothing to fear from you at all."

"Yes, that's right. I'm your friend. I'd like to help," said Karras.

"You might looses these straps, then," Regan croaked. She had tugged up her wrists so that now Karras noticed that they were bound with a double set of restraining straps.

"Are they uncomfortable for you?" he asked her.

"Extremely. They're a nuisance. An infernal nuisance." The eyes glinted slyly with secret amusement.

Karras saw the scratch marks on her face; the cuts on her lips where apparently she'd bitten them. "I'm afraid you might hurt yourself, Regan."

"I'm not Regan," she rumbled, still with the hideous grin that now seemed to Karras to be her permanent expression. How incongruous, the braces on her teeth looked, he reflected.

"Oh, I see. Well, then, maybe we should introduce ourselves. I'm Damien Karras," said the priest. "Who are you?"

"I'm the devil."

"Ah, good, very good." Karras nodded approvingly. "Now we can talk."

"A little chat?"

"If you like."

"Very good for the soul. However, you will find that I cannot talk freely while bound with these straps. I'm accustomed to gesturing." Regan drooled. "As you know, I've client much of my time in Rome, dear Karras. Now kindly undo the straps!"

What precocity of language and thought, mused Karras. He leaned forward in his chair with professional interest "You say you're the devil?" he asked.

"I assure you."

"Then why don't you just make the straps disappear?"

"That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras. Too crude. After all, I'm a prince!" A chuckle. "I much prefer persuasion, Karras; togetherness; community involvement. Moreover, if I loosen the straps myself, my friend, I deny you the opportunity of performing a charitable act."

"But a charitable act," said Karras, "is a virtue and that's what the devil would want to prevent; so in fact I'd be helping you now if I didn't undo the straps. Unless, of course"--- he shrugged--- "you're really not really the devil. And in that case, perhaps I would undo the straps."

"How very foxy of you, Karras. If only dear Herod were here to enjoy this."

"Which Herod?" asked Kum with narrowed eyes. Was she punning on Christ's calling Herod "that fox"? "There were two. Are you talking about the King of Judea?"

"The tetrarch of Galilee!" she blasted him with anger and scorching contempt; then abruptly she was grinning again, cajoling in that sinister voice: "There, you see how these damnable straps have upset me? Undo then. Undo them and I'll tell you the future."

"Very tempting."

"My forte."

"But then how do I know that you can read the future?"

"I'm the devil."

"Yes, you say so, but you won't give me proof."

"You have no faith."

Karras stiffened. "In what?"

"In me, dear Karras; in me!" Something mocking and malicious danced hidden in those eyes. "All these proofs, all these signs in the sky!"

"Well, now, something very simple might do," offered Karras. "For example: the devil knows everything, correct?"

"No, almost everything, Karras--- almost. You see? They keep saying that I'm proud. I am not. Now, then, what are you up to, fox?" The yellowed, bloodshot eyes gleamed craftily.

"I thought we might test the extent of your knowledge."

"Ah, yes! The largest lake in South America," japed Regan, eyes bulging with glee, "is Lake Titicaca in Peru! Will that do it?"'

"No, I'll have to ask something only the devil would know. For example, where is Regan? Do you know?"

"She is here."

"Where is 'here'?"

"In the pig."

"Let me see her."

"Why?"

"Why, to prove that you're telling me the truth."

"Do you want to fuck her? Loose the straps and I will let you go at it!"

"Let me see her."

"Very succulent cunt," leered Regan, her furred and lolling tongue licking spittle across cracked lips. "But a poor conversationalist, my friend. I strongly advise you to stay with me."

"Well, it's obvious you don't know where she is"--- Karras shrugged--- "so apparently you aren't the devil."

"I am!" Regan bellowed with a sudden jerk forward, her face contorting with rage. Karras shivered as the massive, terrifying voice boomed crackling off the walls of the room. "I am!"

"Well, then, let me see Regan," said Karras. "That would prove it."

"I will show you! I will read your mind!" it seethed furiously. "Think of a number between one and ten!"

"No, that wouldn't prove a thing. I would have to see Regan."

Abruptly it chuckled, leaning back against the headboard. "No, nothing would prove anything at all to you, Karras. How splendid. How splendid indeed! In the meantime, we shall try to keep you properly beguiled. After all, now, we would not wish to lose you."

"Who is 'we'?" Karras probed with alert, quick in¬terest.

"We are quite a little group in the piglet," it said, nodding. "Ah, yes, quite a stunning little multitude. Later I may see about discreet introductions. In the meantime, I am suffering from a maddening itch that I cannot reach. Would you loosen one strap for a moment, Karras?"

"No; just tell me where it itches and I'll scratch it."

"Ah, sly, very sly!"

"Show me Regan and perhaps I'll undo one strap," offered Karras. "If---"

Abruptly he flinched in shock as he found himself staring into eyes filled with terror, at a mouth gaping wide in a soundless shriek for help.

But then quickly the Regan identity vanished in a blurringly rapid remolding of features. "Won't you take off these straps?" asked a wheedling voice in a clipped British accent.

In a flash, the demonic personality returned. "Couldjya help an old altar boy, Faddah?" it croaked, and then threw back its head in laughter.

Karras sat stunned, felt the glacial hands at the back of his neck again, more palpable now, more firm. The Regan-thing broke off its laughter and fixed him with taunting eyes.

"Incidentally, your mother is here with us, Karras. Do you wish to leave a message? I will see that she gets it." Then Karras was suddenly dodging a projectile stream of vomit, leaping out of his chair. It caught a portion of his sweater and one of his hands.

His face now colorless, the priest looked down at the bed. Regan cackled with glee. His hand dripped vomit onto the rug. "If that's true," the priest said numbly, "then you must know my mothers first name. What is it?"

The Regan-thing hissed at him, mad eyes gleaming, head gently undulating like a cobra's.

"What is it?"

Regan lowed like a steer in an angry bellow that pierced the shutters and shivered through the glass of the large bay window. The eyes rolled upward into their sockets.

For a time Karras watched as the bellowing continued; then he looked at his hand and walked out of the room.

Chris pushed herself quickly away from the wall, glancing, with distress at the Jesuit's sweater. "What happened? Did she vomit?"

"Got a towel?" he asked her.

"There's a bathroom right there!" she said hurriedly, pointing at a hallway door. "Karl, take a look at her!" she instructed, and followed the priest to the bathroom.

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed in agitation, whipping a towel off the bar. The Jesuit moved to the washbasin.

"Have you got her on tranquilizers?' he asked.

Chris turned on the water taps. "Yes, Librium. Here, take off that sweater and then you can wash."

"What dosage?" he asked her, tugging at the sweater ¬with his clean left hand.

"Here, I'll help you." She pulled at the sweater from the bottom. "Well, today she's had four hundred milligrams, Father."

"Four hundred?"

She had the sweater pulled up to his chest "Yeah, that's how we got her into those straps. It took all of us together to---"

"You gave your daughter four hundred milligrams at once?"

"C'mon, get your arms up, Father." He raised them and she tugged delicately. "She's so strong you can't believe it."

She pulled back the shower curtain, tossing the sweater into the tub. "I'll have Wilie get it cleaned for you, Father. I'm sorry."

"Never mind. It doesn't matter." He unbuttoned the right sleeve of his starched white shirt and rolled it up, exposing a matting of fine brown hairs on a bulging, thickly muscled forearm.

"I'm sorry," Chris repeated quietly, slowly sitting down on the edge of the tub.

"Is she taking any nourishment at all?" asked Karras. He held his hand beneath the hot-water tap to rinse away the vomit.

She clutched and unclutched the towel. It was pink, the name Regan embroidered in blue. "No, Father. Just Sustagen when she's been sleeping. Bu she ripped out the tubing."

"Ripped it out?"

"Today."

Disturbed, Karras soaped and rinsed his hands, and after a pause said gravely, "She ought to be in a hospital."

"I just can't do that," answered Chris in a toneless voice.

"Why not?"

"I just can't!" she repeated with quavering anxiety. "I can't have anyone else involved! She's..." Chris¬ dropped her head. Inhaled. Exhaled. "She s done something, Father. I can't take the risk of someone else finding out. Not a doctor... not a nurse..." She looked up. "Not anyone."

Frowning, he turned off the taps. "...What if a person, let's say, was a criminal..." He lowered his head, staring down at the basin. "Who's giving her the Sustagen? the Librium? her medicines?"

"We are. Her doctor showed us how."

"You need prescriptions."

"Well, you can do some of that, can't you, Father?"

Karras turned to her, hands upraised above the basin like a surgeon after washup. For a moment he met her haunted gaze, felt some terrible secret in them, some dread. He nodded at the towel in her hands. She stared blankly. "Towel, please," he said softly.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Very quickly, she fumbled it out to him, still watching him with a tight expectancy. The Jesuit dried his hands. "Well, Father, what's it look like?" Chris finally asked him. "Do you think she's possessed?"

"Do you?"

"I don't know. I thought you were the expert."

"How much do you know about possession?"

"Just a little that I've read. Some things that the doctors told me."

"What doctors?"

"At Barringer Clinic."

He folded the towel and carefully draped it over the bar. "Are you Catholic?"

"No."

"Your daughter?"

"No."

"'What religion?"

"None; but I---"

"Why did you come to me, then? Who, advised it?"

"I came because I'm desperate!" she blurted excitedly. "No one advised me!"

He stood with his back to her, fringes of the towel still lightly in his grip. "You said earlier psychiatrists advised you to come to me."

"Oh, I don't know what I was saying! I've been practically out of my head!"

"Look, I couldn't care less about your motive," he answered with a carefully tempered intensity. "All I care about is doing what's best for your daughter. I'll tell you right now that if you're looking for an exorcism as an autosuggestive shock cure; you're much ¬better off calling Central Casting, Miss MacNeil, because the Church won't buy it and you'll have wasted precious time." Karras clutched at the towel rack to ¬steady his trembling hands. What's wrong? What's happened?

Incidentally, it's Mrs. MacNeil," he heart Chris telling him drily.

He lowered his head and gentled his tone. "Look, whether it's a demon or a mental disorder, I'll do everything I possibly can to help. But I've got to have ¬the truth. It's important for Regan. At the moment, I'm groping in a state of ignorance, which is nothing supernatural for me or abnormal, it's just my usual condition. Now why don't we both get out of this bathroom and go downstairs where we can talk." He had turned back to her with a faint, warm smile of reassurance and reached out his hand to help her up. "I could use a cup of coffee."

"I could use a drink."

While Karl and Sharon looked after Regan, they sat in the study, Chris on the sofa, Karras in a chair beside the fireplace, and Chris related the history of Regan's illness, though she carefully withheld any mention of phenomena related to Dennings.

The priest listened, saying very little: an occasional question; a nod; a frown.

Chris admitted that at first she'd considered exorcism as shock treatment. "Now I don't know," she said, shaking her head. Freckled, clasped fingers twitched in her lap. "I just don't know." She lifted a look to the pensive priest. "What do you think, Father?''

"Compulsive behavior produced by guilt, perhaps, put together with split personality."

"Father, I've had all that garbage! Now how can you say that after all you've just seen!"

"If you've seen as many patients in psychiatric wards as I have, you can say it very easily," he assured her. "Come on, now. Possession by demons, all right: let's assume it's a fact of life,, that it happens. But your daughter doesn't say she's a demon; she insists she's the devil himself, and that's the same thing as saying you're Napoleon Bonaparte! You see?"

"Then explain all those rappings and things."

"I haven't heard them."

"Well, they heard then at Barringer, Father, so it wasn't just here in the house."

"Well, perhaps, but we'd hardly need a devil to explain them."

"So explain them," she demanded.

"Psychokinesis."

"What?"

"Well, you have heard of poltergeist phenomena, haven't you?"

"Ghosts throwing dishes and things?"

Karras nodded. "It's not that uncommon, and usually happens around an emotionally disturbed adolescent. Apparently, extreme inner tension of the mind can sometimes trigger some unknown energy that seems to move objects around at a distance. There's nothing supernatural about it. Like Regan's strength. Again, in pathology it's common. Call it mind over matter, if you will."

"I call it weird."

"Well, in any case, it happens outside of possession."

"Boy, isn't this beautiful," she said wearily. "Here I am an atheist and here you are a priest and---"

"The best explanation for any phenomenon," Karras overrode her, "is always the simplest one available that accommodates all the facts."

"Well, maybe I'm dumb," she retorted, "but telling me an unknown gizmo in somebody's head throws dishes at a ceiling tells me nothing at all! So what is it? Can you tell me for pete's sake what it is?"

"No, we don't under---"

"What the hell's split personality, Father? You say it; I hear it. What is it? Am I really that stupid? Will you tell me what it is in a way I can finally get it through my head?" In the red-veined eyes was a plea of despairing confusion.

"Look, there's no one in the world who pretends to understand it," the priest told her gently. "All we know is that it happens, and anything beyond the phenomenon itself is only the purest speculation. But think of it this way, if you like: the human brain contains, say, seventeen billion cells."

Chris leaned forward, frowning intently.

"Now looking at these brain cells," continued Karras, "we see that they handle approximately a hundred million messages per second; that's the number of sensations bombarding your body. They not only integrate all of these messages, but they do it efficiently, they do it without ever stumbling or getting in each other's way. Now how could they do that, without some form of communication? Well, it seems as if they couldn't. So apparently each of these cells has a consciousness, maybe, of its own. Now imagine that the human body is a massive ocean liner, all right? and that all of your brain cells are the crew. Now one of these cells is up on the bridge. He's the captain. But he never knows precisely what the rest of the crew below decks is doing. All he knows is that the ship keeps running smoothly, that the job's getting done. Now the captain is you, it's your waking consciousness. And what hap¬pens in dual personality--- maybe--- is that one of those crew cells down below decks comes up on the bridge and takes over command. In other words, mutiny. Now--- does that help you understand it?"

She was staring in unblinking incredulity. "Father, that's so far out of sight that I think its almost easier to believe in the devil!"

"Well---"

"Look, I don't know about all these theories and stuff," she interrupted in a low, intense voice. "But I'll tell you something, Father; you show me Regan's identical twin: same face, same voice, same smell, same everything down to the way she dots her i's, and still I'd know in a second that it wasn't really her! I'd know it! I'd know it in my gut and I'm telling you I know that thing upstairs is not my daughter! I know it! I know!"

She leaned back, drained. "Now you tell me what to do," she challenged. "Go ahead: you tell me that you know for a fact there's nothing wrong with my daughter except in her head; that you know for a fact that she doesn't need an exorcism; that you know it wouldn't do her any good. Go ahead! You tell me! You tell me what to do!"

For long, troubled seconds, the priest was still. Then he answered softly, "Well, there's little in this world that I know for a fact."

He brooded, sunk back in his chair. Then he spoke again. "Does Regan have a low-pitched, voice?" he asked. "Normally?"

"No. In fact, I'd say it's very light."

'Would you consider her precocious?"

"Not at all."

"Do you know her IQ?"

"About average."

"And her reading habits?"

"Nancy Drew and comic books, mostly."

"And her style of speech, right now: how much different would you say it is from normal?"

"Completely. She's never used half of those words."

"No, I don't mean the content of her speech; I mean the style."

"Style?"

"The way she puts words together."

"Gee, I'm really not sure I know what you mean."

'Would you have any letters she's written? Compositions? A recording of her voice would be---"

"Yes, there's a tape of her talking to her father," she interrupted. "She was making it to send to him as a letter but she never got it finished. You want it?"

"Yes, I do, and I'll also need her medical records, especially the file from Barringer."

"Look, Father, I've been that route and I---"

"Yes, yes, I know, but I'll have to see the records for myself."

"So you're still against an exorcism."

"I'm only against the chance of doing your daughter more harm than good."

"But you're talking now strictly as a psychlatnst, right?"

"No, Im talking now also as a priest. If I go to the Chancery Office, or wherever it is I have to go, to get their permission to perform an exorcism, the first thing I'd have to have is a pretty substantial indication that your daughter's condition isn't a purely psychiatric problem. After that, I'd need evidence that the Church would accept as signs of possession."

"like what?"

"I don't know. I'll have to go and look it up."

"Are you kidding? I thought you were supposed to be an expert."

"You probably know more about demonic possession right now than most priests. In the meantime, when can you get me the Barringer records?"

"I'll charter a plane if I have to!"

"And that tape?"

She stood up. "I'll go see if I can find it."

"And just one other thing," he added. She paused beside his chair. "That book you mentioned with the section on possession: do you think you can remember now if Regan ever read it prior to the onset of the illness?"

She concentrated, fingernails scraping at teeth. "Gee, I seem to remember her reading something the day before the shi--- before the trouble really started," she amended, "but I really just can't be sure. But she did it sometime, I think. I mean, I'm sure. Pretty sure."

"I'd like to see it. May I have it?''

"It's yours. It's overdue at your library. I'll get it." She was moving from the study. "That tape's in basement, I think. I'll look. Be right back in a second."

Karras nodded absently, staring at a pattern in the rug, and then after many minutes he got up, walked slowly to the entry hall and stood motionless in the darkness, stood without expression, in another dimension, staring into nothing with his hands in his pockets as he listened to the grunting of a pig from upstairs, to the yelping of a jackal, to hiccups, to hissing.

"Oh, you're there! I went looking in the study."

Karras turned to see Chris flicking on the light.

"Are you leaving?" She came forward with the book and the tape.

"I'm afraid I've got a lecture to prepare for tomorrow."

"Oh? Where?"

"At the med school." He accepted the book and the tape from her hands. "I'll try to get by here sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. In the meantime, if anything urgent develops, you be sure that you call me, no matter what time. I'll leave word at the switchboard to let your ring through." She nodded. The Jesuit opened the door. "Now how are you fixed for medication?" he asked.

"Okay," she said. "It's all on refillable prescription."

"You won't call your doctor in again?"

The actress closed her eyes and very slightly shook her head.

"You know, I'm not a GP," he cautioned.

"I can't," she whispered. "I can't."

He could feel her anxiety pounding like waves on an unknown beach. "Well, now, sooner or later, I'm going to have to tell one of my superiors what I'm up to, especially if I'm going to be coming by here at various unusual hours of the night."

"Do you have to?" She frowned at him worriedly.

"Well, otherwise, it might look a little bit odd, don't you think?"

She looked down. "Yeah, I see what you mean," she murmured.

"Do you mind? I'll tell him only what I have to. Don't worry," he assured her. "It won't get around."

She lifted a helpless; tormented face to the strong, sad eyes; saw strength; saw pain.

"Okay," she said weakly.

She trusted the pain.

He nodded. "We'll be talking."

He started outside, but then hung in the doorway for a moment, thinking, a hand to his lips. "Did your daughter know a priest was coming over?"

"No. No, nobody knew but me."

"Did you know that my mother had died just recently?¬

'Yes. I'm very sorry."

"Is Regan aware of it?"

"Why?"

"Is she aware of it?"

"No, not at all."

He nodded.

"Why'd you asks" Chris repeated, her brows sl¬ightly puckered with curiosity.

"Not important." He shrugged. "I just wondered." He examined her features with a faint look of worry. "Are you getting any sleep?"

"Oh, a little."

"Get pills, then. Are you taking any Librium?"

"Yes."

"How much?" he asked.

"Ten milligrams, twice a day."

Try twenty, twice a day. In the meantime, try to keep away from your daughter. The more you're exposed to her present behavior, the greater the chance of some permanent damage being done to your feelings about her. Stay clear. And slow down. You'll be no help to Regan, you know, with a nervous breakdown.

She nodded despondently, eyes lowered.

"Now please go to bed," he said gently. "Will you please go to bed right now?"

"Yeah, okay," she said softly. "Okay. I promise." She looked at him with the trace of a smile. "Goodnight, Father. Thanks. Thanks a lot."

He studied her for a moment without expression; then quickly moved away.

Chris watched from the doorway. As he crossed the street, it occurred to her that he'd probably missed his dinner. Then briefly she worried that he might be cold. He was rolling his shirt sleeve down.

At the corner of Prospect and P, he dropped the book and stooped quickly to retrieve it, then rounded the corner and vanished from sight. As she watched him disappear, Chris abruptly was aware of a feeling of lightness. She didn't see Kinderman sitting alone in the unmarked car.

She closed the door.

Half an hour later, Damien Karras hurried back to his room in the Jesuit residence hall with a number of books and periodicals taken from the shelves of the Georgetown library. Hastily he dumped them on top of his desk and then rummaged through drawers for a package of cigarettes. Finding a half-empty pack of stale Camels, he lit one, puffed deep and held the smoke in his lungs while he thought about Regan.

Hysteria. He knew that it had to be hysteria. He exhaled the smoke, hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked down at the books. He had Oesterreich's Possession; Huxley's The Devils of Loudun; Parapraxis in the Haizman Case of Freud; McCasland's Demon Possession and Exorcism in Early Christianity in the Light of Modern Views of Mental Illness; and extracts from psychiatric journals of Freud's "A Neurosis of Demoniacal Possession in the 17th Century," and "The Demonology of Modern Psychiatry."

"Couldya help an old altar boy, Faddah?"

The Jesuit felt at his brow, and then looked at his fingers, rubbing a sticky sweat between them. Then he noticed that his door was open. He crossed the room and closed it, and then event to a shelf for his redbound copy of The Roman Ritual, a compendium of rites and prayers. Clamping the cigarette between his lips, he squinted through smoke as he turned to the "General Rules" for exorcists, looking for the signs of demonic possession. He scanned and then started to read more slowly:...The exorcist should not believe too rapidly that a person is possesesd by an evil spirit; but he ought to ascertain the signs by which a person possessed can be distinguished from one who is suffering from some illness, especially one of a psychological nature. Signs of possession may be the following: ability to speak with some facility in a strange language or, to understand it when spoken by another; the faculty of divulging future and hidden events; display of powers which are beyond the subject's age and natural condition; and various other conditions which, when taken together as a whole, build up the evidence.

For a time Karras pondered, then he leaned against the bookshelf and read the remainder of the instructions. When he had finished, he found himself glancing back up at instruction number 8:

Some reveal a crime which has been committed and the perpetrators thereof---

He looked up at the door as he heard a knock. "Damien?"

"Come in."

It was Dyer. "Hey, Chris MacNeil was trying to reach you. She ever get hold of you?"

"When? You mean, tonight?"

"No, this afternoon."

"Oh, yes, I spoke to her."

"Good," said Dyer. "Just wanted to be sure you got the message."

The diminutive priest was prowling the room now, picking at objects like an elf in a thrift shop.

"What do you need, Joe?" Karras asked him.

"Got any lemon drops?"

"What?"

"I've looked all through the hall for some lemon drops. Nobody's got any. Boy, I really crave one," Dyer brooded, still prowling. "I once spent a year hearing children's confessions, and I wound up a lemon-drop junkie. I got hooked. The little bastards keep breathing it on you along with all that pot. Between the two, it's addictive, I think." He lifted the lid of a pipe-tobacco humidor where Karras had stored some pistachio nuts. "What are these--- dead Mexican jumping beans?"

Karras turned to his bookshelves, looking for a title. "Listen, Joe, I've got a---"

"Isn't that Chris really nice?"' interrupted Dyer, flopping on the bed. He stretched full length with his hands clasped comfortably behind his head. "Nice lady. Have you met her?"

"We've talked," answered Karras, plucking out a green-bound volume called Satan, a collection of articles and Catholic position papers by various French theologians. He carried it back with him toward the desk, "Look I've really got to---"

"Plain. Down-to-earth. Unaffected," continued Dyer. "She can help us with my plan for when we both quit the priesthood."

"Who's quitting the priesthood?"

"Faggots. In droves. Basic black has gone out. Now, I---"

"Joe, I've got a lecture to prepare for tomorrow," said Karras as he set down the books on his desk.

"Yeah, okay. Now my plan is we go to Chris MacNeil--- got the picture?--- with this notion that I've got for a screenplay based on the life of Saint Ignatius Loyola. The title is Brave Jesuits Marching, and---"

"Would you get your ass out of here, Joe?" prodded Karras, tamping out his cigarette butt in an ashtray.

"Is this boring?"

"I've got work to do."

"Who the hell's stopping you?"

"Come on, now, I mean it." Karras had started to unbutton his shirt. "I'm going to jump in the shower and then I've got to work."

"Didn't see you at dinner, by the way," said Dyer, rising reluctantly from the bed. "Where'd you eat?"

"I didn't"

"That's foolish. Why diet when you only wear frocks?" He had come to the desk add was smiling at a cigarette. "Stale."

"Is there a tape recorder here in the hall?"

'There isn't even a lemon drop here in the hall. Use the language lab."

"Who's got a key? Father President?"

"No. Father Janitor. You need it tonight?"

"Yes, I do," said Karras, as he draped his shirt on the back of the desk chair. "Where do I find him?"

"Want me to get it for you?"

"Could you do that? I'm really in a bind."

"No sweat, Great Beatific Jesuit Witch Doctor. Coming." Dyer opened the door and walked out.

Karras showered and then dressed in a T-shirt and trousers. Sitting down to his desk, he discovered a carton of Camel nonfilters, and beside it a key that was labeled LANGUAGE LAB and another tagged REFECTORY REFRIGERATOR. Appended to the latter was a note: Better you than the rats. Karras smiled at the signature: The Lemon Drop Kid. He put the note aside, then unfastened is wristwatch and plated it in front of him on the desk. The time was 10:58 P.M. He began to read. Freud. McCasland. Satan. Oesterreich's exhaustive study. And at a little after 4 A.M., he had finished. Was rubbing at his face. At his eyes. They were smarting. He glanced at the ashtray. Ashes and the twisted butts of cigarettes. Smoke hanging thick in the air. He stood up and walked wearily to a window. Slid it open. He gulped at the coolness of the moist morning air and stood there thinking. Regan had the physical syndrome of possession. That much he knew. About that he had no doubt. For in case after case, irrespective of geography or period of history, the symptoms of possession were substantially constant. Some Regan had not evidenced as yet: stigmata; the desire for repugnant foods; the insensitivity to pain; the frequent loud and irrepressible hiccuping. But the others she had manifested clearly: the involuntary motor excitement; foul breath; furred tongue; the wasting away of the frame; the distended stomach; the irritations of the skin and mucous-membrane. And most significantly present were the basic symptoms of the hard core of cases which Oesterreich had characterized as "genuine" possession: the striking change in the voice and in the features, plus the manifestation of a new personality.

Karras looked up and stared darkly down the street. Through the branches of trees he could see the house and the large bay window of Regan's bedroom. When possession was voluntary, as with mediums, the new personality was often benign. Like Tia, brooded Karras. Spirit of a woman who'd possessed a man. A sculptor. Briefly. An hour at a time. Until a friend of the sculptor fell desperately in love. With Tia. Pleaded with the sculptor to permit her to permanently remain in possession of his body. But in Regan, there's no Tia, Karras reflected grimly. The invading personality was vicious. Malevolent. Typical of cases of demonic possession where the new personality sought the destruction of the body of its host. And frequently achieved it.

Moodily the Jesuit walked back to his desk, where he picked up a package of cigarettes; lit one. So okay. She's got the syndrome of demonic possession. Now how do you cure it?

He fanned out the match. That depends on what caused it. He sat on the edge of his desk. Considered. The nuns at the convent of Lille. Possessed. In early-seventeenth-century France. They'd confessed to their exorcists that while helpless in the state of possession, they had regularly attended Satanic orgies; had regularly varied their erotic fare: Mondays and Tuesdays, heterosexual copulation; Thursdays, sodomy, fellatio and cunnilingus, with homosexual partners; Saturday, bestiality with domestic animals and dragons. And dragons!... The Jesuit shook his head. As with Lille, he thought the causes of many possessions were a mixture of fraud and mythomania. Still others, however, seemed caused by mental illness: paranoia; schizophrenia,; neurasthenia; psychasthenia; and this was the reason, he knew, that the Church had for years recommended that the exorcist work with a psychiatrist or a neurologist present. Yet not all possessions had causes so clear. Many had led Oesterreich to characterize possession as a separate disorder all its own; to dismiss the explanatory "split personality" label of psychiatry as no more than an equally occult substitution for the concepts of "demon" and "spirit of the dead."

Karras rubbed a finger in the crease beside his nose. The indications from Barringer, Chris had told him, were that Reagan's disorder might be caused by suggestion; by something that was somehow related to hysteria. And Karras thought it likely. He believed the majority of the cases he had studied had been caused by precisely these two factors. Sure. For one thing, it mostly hits women. For another, all those outbreaks of possession epidemics. And then those exorcists... Karras frowned. They often themselves became the victims of possession. He thought of Loudun. France. The Ursuline Convent of nuns. Of four of the exorcists sent there to deal with an epidemic of possession, three--- Fathers Lucas, Lactance and Tranquille--- not only became possessed, but died soon after, apparently of shock. And the fourth, Père Surin, who was thirty-three years old at the time of his possession, became insane for the subsequent twenty-five years of his life.

He nodded to himself. If Regan's disorder was hysterical; if the onset of possession was the product of suggestion, then the source of the suggestion could only be the chapter in the book on witchcraft. The chapter on possession. Did she read it?

He pored over its pages. Were there striking similarities between any of its details and Regan's be¬havior? That might prove it. It might.

He found some correlations:...The case of an eight-year-old girl who was described in the chapter as "bellowing like a bull in thunderous, deep bass voice." (Regan's lowing like a steer.)...The case of Helen Smith, who'd been treated by the great psychologist Flournoy; his description of her changing her voice and her features with "lightning" rapdity" into those of a variety of personalities. (She did that with me. The personality who spoke with a British accent. Quick change. Instanttaneous.)...A case in South Africa, reported by the noted ethnologist Junod; his description of a woman who'd vanished from her dwelling one night being found on the following morning "tied to the top" of a very tall tree by "fine lianas," and then afterward "gliding down the tree, head down, while hissing and rapidly flicking her tongue in and out like a snake. She then hung suspended, for a time, and proceeded to speak in a language that no one had ever heard." (Regan gliding like a snake when she was following Sharon. The gibberish. An attempt at an "unknown language.")...The case of Joseph and Thiebaut Burner, aged eight and ten; description of them "lying on their backs and suddenly whirling like tops with the utmost rapidity." (Sounds pretty close to her whirling like a dervish.)

There were other similarities; still other reasons for suspecting suggestion: mention of abnormal strength; of obscenity of speech; and accounts of possession from the gospels, which perhaps were the basis, thought Karras, of the curiously religious content of Regan's ravings at Barringer Clinic. Moreover, in the chapter there was mention of the onset of possession in stages: "...The first, infestation, consists of an -attack through the victim's surroundings; noises--- odors--- the displacement of objects; and the second, obsession, consists in a personal attack on the subject designed to instill terror through the kind of injury that one man might inflict on another through blows and kicks." The rappings. The flingings. The attacks by Captain Howdy.

Maybe... maybe she read it. But Karras wasn't convinced. Not at all... not at all. And Chris. She had seemed so uncertain about it.

He walked to the window again. What's the answer, then? Genuine possession? A demon? He looked down and shook his head. No way. No way. Paranormal happenings? Sure. Why not? Too many competent observers had reported them. Doctors. Psychiatrists. Men like Junod. But the problem is how do you interpret the phenomena? He thought back to Oesterreich. Reference to a shaman of the Altai. Siberia. Voluntarily possessed and examined in a clinic while performing an apparently paranormal action: levitation. Just prior, his pulse rate had spurted to one hundred, then, afterward, leaped to an amazing two hundred. Marked changes in temperature as well. Its respiration. So his paranormal action was tied to physiology. It was caused by some bodily energy or force. But as proof of possession the Church wanted clear and exterior phenomena that suggested....

He'd forgotten the wording. Looked it up. Traced a finger down the page of a book on his desk. Found it: "...verifiable exterior phenomena which suggest the idea that they are due to the extraordinary intervention of an intelligent cause other than man." Was that the case with the shaman? Karras asked himself. No. And is that the case with Regan?

He turned to a passage he had underlined in percil: "The exorcist will simply be careful that none of the patient's manifestations are left unaccounted for..."

He nodded. Okay, then. Let's see. Pacing, he ran through the manifestations of Regan's disorder along with their possible explanations. He ticked them off mentally, one by one:

The startling change in Regan's features.

Partly her illness. Partly undernourishment. Mostly, he concluded, it was due to physiognomy being an expression of psychic constitution. Whatever the hell that means! he added wryly.

The startling change in Regan's voice.

He had yet to hear the original voice. And even if that had been light, as reported by her mother, constant shrieking would thicken the vocal cords, with a consequent deepening of the voice. The only problem here, he reflected, was the massive volume of that voice, for even with a thickening of the cords this would seem to be physiologically impossible. And yet, he considered, in states of anxiety or pathology, displays of paranormal strength in excess of muscular potential were known to be a commonplace. Might not vocal cords and voice box be subject to the same mysterious effect?

Regan's suddenly extended vocabulary and knowledge.

Cryptomnesia: buried recollections of words and data she had once been exposed to, even in infancy, perhaps. In somnambulists--- and frequently in people at the point of death--- the buried data often came to the surface with almost photographic fidelity.

Regan's recognition of him as a priest.

Good guess. If she had read the chapter on possession, she might have expected a visit by a priest. And according to Jung, the unconscious awareness and sensitivity of hysterical patients could at moments be fifty times greater than normal, which accounted for seemingly authentic "thought reading" via table-tapping by mediums, for what the medium's unconscious was actually "reading" were the tremors and vibrations created in the table by the hands of the person whose thoughts were supposedly being read. The tremors formed a pattern of letters or numbers. Thus, Regan might conceivably have "read" his identity merely from his manner; from the look of his hands; from the scent of sacramental wine.

Regan's knowledge of the death of his mother.

Good guess. He was forty-six.

"Couldjya help an old altar boy, Faddah?"

Textbooks in use in Catholic seminaries accepted telepathy as both a reality and a natural phenomenon.

Regan's precocity of intellect.

In the course of personally observing a case of multiple personality involving alleged occult phenomena, the psychiatrist Jung had concluded that in states of hysterical somnambulism not only were unconscious perceptions of the senses heightened, but also the functioning of the intellect, for the new personalities in the case in question seemed clearly more intelligent than the first. And yet, puzzled Karras, did merely reporting the phenomenon explain it?

Abruptly he stopped pacing and hovered by his desk, for it suddenly dawned upon him that Regan's pun on Herod was even more complicated than at first it had appeared: when the Pharisees told Christ of Herod's threats, he remembered, Christ had answered them: "Go and tell that fox that I cast out devils..."

He glanced at the tape of Regan's voice for a moment, then sat wearily at the desk. He lit another cigarette... exhaled... thought again of the Burner boys; of the case of the eight-year-old girl who had manifested symptoms of full-blown possession. What book had this girl read that had enabled her unconscious mind to simulate the symptoms to such perfection? And how did the unconscious of victims in China communicate the symptoms to the various un¬conscious minds of people possessed in Siberia, in Germany, in Africa, so that the symptoms were always the same?

"Incidentally, your mother is here with us, Karras..."

He stared unseeing as smoke from his cigarette rose like whispered curls of memory. The priest leaned back, looking down at the bottom left-hand drawer of the desk. For a time, he kept staring. Then slowly he leaned down, pulled open the drawer and extracted a faded language exercise book. Adult education. His mother's. He set it on the desk and thumbed the pages with a tender care. Letters of the alphabet, over and over. Then simple exercises:

LESSON VI

MY COMPLETE ADDRESS

Between the pages, an attempt at a letter.

Then another beginning. Incomplete. He looked away. Saw her eyes at the window... waiting....

" 'Domine, non sum dignus....' "

The eyes became Regan's... eyes shrieking... eyes waiting....

" 'Speak but the word...' "

He glanced at the tape of Regan's voice.

He left the room. Took the tape to the language lab. Found a tape recorder. Sat down. He threaded the tape to an empty reel. Clamped on earphones. Turned on the switch. Then leaned forward and listened. Exhausted. Intense.

For a time, only tape hiss. Squeaking of the mechanism. Suddenly, a thumping sound of activation. Noises. "Hello..." Then a whining feedback. Chris MacNeil, tone hushed, in the background: "Not so close to the microphone, honey. Hold it back." "Like this?" "No, more." "Like this?" "Yeah, okay. Go ahead now, just talk." Giggling. The microphone bumping a table. Then the sweet, clear voice of Regan MacNeil:

"Hello, Daddy? This is me. Ummm..." Giggling; then a whispered aside: "I can't tell what to say!" "Oh, just tell him how you are, honey. Tell about all of the things you've been doing." More giggling, then: "Umm, Daddy... Well, ya see... I mean, I hope you can hear me okay, and, umm--- well, now, let's see. Umm, well, first we're--- No, wait, now.... See, first we're in Washington, Daddy, ya know? I mean, that's where the President lives; and this house--- ya know. Daddy?--- it's--- No, wait, now; I better start over. See, Daddy, there's..."

Karras heard the rest only dimly, from afar, through the roaring of blood in his ears, like the ocean, as up through his chest and his fate swelled an overwhelming intuition: The thing that I saw in that room wasn't Regan!

He returned to the Jesuit residence hall. Found a cubicle. Said Mass before the rush. As he lifted the Host in consecration, it trembled in his fingers with a hope he dared not hope, that he fought with every particled fiber of his will. " 'For this is My Body...' " he whispered tremulously.

No, bread! This is nothing but bread!

He dared not love again and lose. That loss was too great, that pain too keen. He bowed his head and swallowed the Host like lost illusion. For a moment it stuck in the dryness of his throat.

After Mass, he skipped breakfast. Made notes for his lecture. Met his class at the Georgetown University Medical School. Threaded hoarsely through the ill-prepared talk: "...and in considering the symptoms of manic mood disorders, you will..." "Daddy, this is me... this is me..."

But who was "me"?

Karras dismissed the class early and returned to his room, where immediately he hunched over his desk, palms of his hands pressed flat, and intently reexamined the Church's position on the paranormal signs of demonic possession. Was I being too hard-nosed? he wondered. He scrutinized the high points in Satan: "telepathy... natural phenomenon... movement of objects from a distance now suspect... from the body there may emanate some fluid... our forefathers... science... nowadays we must be more cautious. The paranormal evidence notwithstanding, however..." He slowed the pace of his reading. "...all conversations held with the patient must be carefully analyzed, for if they present the same system of association of ideas and of logicogrammatical habits that he exhibits in his normal state, the possession must then be held suspect."

Karras breathed deeply, exhausted. Then exhaled. Dropped his head. No way. Doesn't cut it. He glanced to the plate on the facing page. A demon. His gaze flicked down idly to the caption: "Pazuzu." Karras shut his eyes. Something wrong. Tranquille... He envisioned the exorcist's death: the final agonies... the bellowing... the hissing... the vomiting... the hurlings to the ground from his bed by his "demons," who were furious because soon he would be dead and beyond their torment. And Lucas! Lucas. Kneeling by the bedside. Praying. But the moment Tranquille was dead, Lucas instantly assumed the identity of his demons, began viciously lucking at the still-warm corpse, at the shattered, clawed body reeking of excrement and vomit, while six strong men were attempting to restrain him, would not stop until the corpse had been carried from the room. Karras saw it. Saw it clearly.

Could it be? Could it possibly, conceivably be? Could the only hope for Regan be the ritual of exorcism? Must he open up that locker of aches?

He could not shake it. Could not leave it untested. He must know. How to know? He opened his eyes. "...conversations with the patient must be carefully..." Yes. Yes, why not? If discovery that speech patterns of Regan and the "demon" were the same ruled out possession even with paranormal occurrences, then certainly... Sure... strong difference in the patterns should mean that there probably is possession!

He paced. What else? What else? Something quick. She--- Wait a minute. He paused, staring down, hands clasped behind his back. That chapter... that chap¬ter in the book on witchcraft. Had it mentioned...? Yes, it had: that demons invariably reacted with fury when confronted with the consecrated Host... with relics... with--- Holy water! Right! That's it! I'll go up there and sprinkle her with tap water! But tell her it's holy water! Sure! If she reacts the way demons are supposed to react, then I'll know she's not possessed... that the symptoms are suggestive... that she got them from the book! But if she doesn't react it would mean...

Genuine possession?

Maybe...

Feverish, he rummaged for a holy-water vial.

Willie admitted him to the house. In the entry, he glanced toward Regan's bedroom. Shouts. Obscenities. And yet not in the deep, coarse voice of the demon. Raspy. Lighter. A broad British... Yes!... The manifestation that had fleetingly appeared when he'd last sees Regan.

Karras glanced down at the waiting Willie. She was staring puzzled at the Roman collar. At the priestly robes. "Where's Mrs. MacNeil, please?" Karras asked her.

Willie motioned upstairs.

'Thank you."

He moved to the staircase. Climbed. Saw Chris in the hall. She was sitting in a chair near Regan's bedroom, head lowered, her arms folded on her chest. As the Jesuit approached her, Chris heard the swishing of his robes. She glanced up and quickly stood. "Hello, Father."

There were bluish sacs beneath her eyes. Karras frowned. "Did you sleep?"

"Oh, a little."

He was shaking his head in admonishment.

"Well, I couldn't," she sighed at him, motioning her head at Regan's door. "She's been doing that all night."

"Any vomiting?"

"No." She took hold of his sleeve as if to lead him away. "C'mon, let's go downstairs where we can---"

"No, I'd like to see her," he gently interrupted. He resisted the tugging insistence of her lead.

"Right now?"

Something wrong, reflected Karras. She looked tense. Afraid. "Why not now?" he inquired.

She glanced furtively at the door of Regan's bedroom. From within shrieked the hoarse mad voice: "Damned Naa-zi! Naa-zi cunt!"

Chris looked away; then reluctantly nodded. "Go ahead. Go on in."

"You've got a tape recorder?"

Her eyes searched his with quick movements. Little flicks.

"Could you have it bought up to the room with a blank reel of tape, please?"

She frowned with suspicion. "What for?" Then alarm. "You mean, you want to tape...?"

"Yes, it's im---"

"Father, I can't have you...!"

"I need to make comparisons of patterns of speech," he cut in firmly. "Now please! You're just going to have to trust me!"

They turned to the door as an excoriating, stream of obscenities apparently drove Karl out of Regan's bedroom. His face ashen and grim, he was carrying soiled diapers and bedding.

"Get 'em on, Karl?" Chris asked him as the servant closed the bedroom door behind him.

Karl glanced quickly at Karras, then at Chris. "They are on," he said tersely, and went quickly down the hallway toward the staircase.

Chris watched him. She turned back to Karras.

"Okay," she said weakly. "Okay. I'll have it sent up." And abruptly she was walking down the hall.

For a moment Karras watched her. Puzzled. What was wrong? Then he noticed the sudden silence in the bedroom. It was brief. Now the yelping of diabolic laughter. He moved forward. Felt the water vial in his pocket. He opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.

The stench was more powerful than the evening before. He closed the door. Stared. That horror. That thing on the bed.

As he approached, it was watching with mocking eyes. Full of cunning. Full of hate. Full of power.

"Hello, Karras."

The priest heard the sound of diarrhetic voiding into plastic pants.

He spoke calmly from the foot of the bed. "Hello, devil. And how are you feeling?"

"At the moment, very happy to see you. Glad." The tongue lolled out of the mouth while the eyes ap¬praised Karras with insolence. "Flying your colors, I see. Very good." Another rumbling. "You don't mind a bit of stink, do you, Karras?"

"Not at all."

"You're a liar!"

"Does that bother you?"

"Mildly."

"But the devil likes liars."

"Only good ones, dear Karras, only good ones," it chuckled. "Moreover, who said I'm the devil?"

"Didn't you?"

"Oh, I might have. I might. I'm not well. You believed me?"

"Of course."

"My apologies."

"Are you saying that you aren't the devil?"

"Just a poor struggling demon. A devil. A subtle distinction, but one not entirely lost upon Our Father who is in Hell. Incidentally, you won't retention my slip of the tongue to him, Kartas, now will you? Eh? When you see him?"

"See him? Is he here?" asked the priest.

"In the pig? Not at all. Just a poor little family of wandering souls, my friend. Yon don't blame us for being here, do you? After all, we have no place to go. No home."

"And how long are you planning to stay?"

The head jerked up from the pillow, contorted is rage as it roared, "Until the piglet dies!" And then as suddenly, Regan settled back into a thick-lipped, drooling grin. "Incidentally, what an excellent day for an exorcism, Karras."

The books! She must have read that in the book!

The sardonic eyes were staring piercingly. "Do begin it soon. Very soon."

Inconsistent. Something off here. "You would like that?"

"Intensely."

"But wouldn't that drive you out of Regan?"

The demon put its head back, cackling maniacally, then broke off. "It would bring us together."

'You and Regan?"

"You and us, my good friend," croaked the demon. "You and us." And from deep in that throat, muffled laughter.

Karras stared. At the back of his neck, he felt hands. Icy cold. Lightly touching. And then gone. Caused by fear, he concluded. Fear.

Fear of what?

"Yes, you'll join our little family, Karras. You see, the trouble with signs in the sky, my dear morsel, is that once having seen them, one has no excuse. Have you noticed how few miracles one hears about lately? Not our fault, Karras.Don't blame us. We try!"

Karras jerked around his head at a loud, sudden banging. A bureau drawer had popped open, sliding out its entire length. He felt a quick-rising thrill as he watched it abruptly bang shut. There it is! And then as suddenly, the emotion dropped away like a rotted chunk of bark from a tree: Psychokinesis. Karras heard chuckling. He glanced back to Regan.

"How pleasant to chat with you, Karras," said the demon, grinning. "I feel free. Like a wanton. I spread my great wings. In fact, even my telling you this will serve only to increase your damnation, my doctor, my dear and inglorious physician."

"You did that? You made the dresser drawer move just now?"

The demon wasn't listening. It had glanced toward the door, toward the sound of someone rapidly approaching down the hall, and now its features turned to those of the other personality. "Damned butchering bastard!" it shrieked in the hoarse, British-accented voice. "Cunting Hun!"

Through the door came Karl, moving swiftly with the tape recorder, setting it down by the bed, eyes averted, and then quickly retreating from the room.

"Out, Himmler! Out of my sight! Go and visit your club-footed daughter! Bring her sauerkraut! Sauerkraut and heroin, Thorndike! She will love it! She will---"

Gone. Karl was gone. And now abruptly the thing within Regan was cordial, watching Karras as the priest quickly set up the tape recorder; looked for an outlet; plugged it in; threaded tape.

"Oh, yes, hullo hullo hullo. What's up?" it said happily. "Are we going to record something, Padre? How fun! Oh, I do love to playact, you know! Oh, immensely!"

"I'm Damien Karras," said the priest as he worked. "And who are you?"

"Are you asking for my credits now, ducks? Damned cheeky of you, wouldn't you say?" It giggled. "I was Puck in the junior class play." It glanced around. "Where's a drink, incidentally? I'm parched."

The priest placed the microphone gently on the nightstand.

"If you'll tell me your name, I'll try to find one."

"Yes, of course," it responded with a cackle of amusement. "And then drink it yourself, I suppose."

As he pushed the RECORD button, Karras answered, "Tell me your name."

"Fucking plunderer!" it rasped.

And then promptly disappeared and was replaced by the demon. "And what are we doing now, Karras? Recording our little discussion?"

Karras straightened. Stared. Then he pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat dawn. "Do you mind?" he responded.

"Not at all," croaked the demon. "I have always rather liked infernal engines."

Abruptly a strong, new stench assailed Karras. It was an odor like...

"Sauerkraut, Karras. Have you noticed?"

It does smell like sauerkraut, the Jesuit marveled. It seemed to be emanating from the bed. From Regan's body. Then it was gone, replaced by the putrid stench of before. Karras frowned. Did I imagine it? Auto-suggestion? He thought of the holy water. Now? No, save it. Get more of the speech pattern. "To whom was I speaking before?" he asked.

"Merely one of the family, Karras."

"A demon?"

"You give too much credit."

"How so?"

"The word 'demon' means 'wise one.' He is stupid."

The Jesuit grew taut. "In what language does 'demon' mean 'wise one'?"

"In Greek."

"You speak Greek?"

"Very fluently."

One of the signs! Karras thought with excitement. Speaking in an unknown tongue! It was more than he'd hoped for. "Pos egnokas hoti presbyteros eimi?" he quickly inquired in classical Greek.

"I am not in the mood, Karras."

"Oh. Then you cannot---"

"I am not in the mood!"

Disappointment. Karras brooded., "You made the dresser drawer come sliding out?" He inquired.

"Most assuredly."

"Very impressive." Karras nodded. "You're certainly a very, very power demon."

"I am."

"I was wondering if you'd do it again."

"Yes, in time."

"Do it now, please--- I would really like to see it."

"In time."

"Why not now?"

"We must give you some reason for doubt," it croaked. "Some. Just enough to assure the final outcome." It put back its head in a chuckle of malice. "How novel to attack through the truth! Ah, what joy!"

Icy hands lightly touching at his neck. Karras stared. Why the fear again? Fear? Was it fear?

"No, not fear," said the demon. It was grinning. "That was me."

Hands gone now. Karras frowned. Felt new wonder. Chipped it down. Telepathic. Or is she? Find out. Find out now. "Can you tell me what I'm thinking right now?"

"Your thoughts are too dull to entertain."

"Then you can't read my mind."

"You may have it as you wish... as you wish."

Try the holy water? Now? He heard the squeaking of the tape-recorder mechanism. No. Just keep digging. Get more of a sampling of the speech. "You're a fascinating person," said Karras.

Regan sneered.

"Oh, no, really," said Karres. "I'd like to know more about your background. You've never told me who you are, for example."

"A devil," rumbled the demon.

"Yes, I know, but which devil? What's your name?"

"Ah, now what is in a name, Karras? Never mind my name. Call me Howdy, if you find it more comfortable."

"Oh, yes. Captain Howdy." Karras nodded. "Regan's friend."

"Her very close friend."

"Oh, really?"

"Indeed."

"But then why do you torment her?"

"Because I am her friend. The piglet likes it!"

"She likes it?"

"She adores it!"

"But why?"

"Ask her!"

"Would you allow her to answer?"

"No."

"Well, then what would be the point in my asking?"

"None!" The demon's eyes glinted spite.

"Who's the person I was speaking to earlier?" asked Karras.

"You've asked that."

"I know, but you never gave an answer."

"Just another good friend of the sweet, honey piglet, dear Karras."

"May I speak to him?"

"No. He is busy with your mother. She is sucking his cock to the bristles, Karras! to the root!" it chuckled softly, and then added, "Marvelous tongue, your mother. Good mouth."

It was gleaming at him mockingly, and Karras felt a rage sweeping through him, a tremor of hatred that the priest quickly realized with a start was directed not at Regan, but at the demon. The demon! What the hell is the matter with you, Karras? The Jesuit gripped calm by its edges, breathed deep and then stood up and slipped the vial of water from the pocket of his shirt. He uncorked it.

The demon looked wary. "What is that?"

"Don't you know?" asked Karras, his thumb half covering the mouth of the vial as he started to sprinkle its contents on Regan. "It's holy water, devil."

Immediately the demon was cringing, writhing, bellowing in terror and in pain: "It burns! It burns! Ahh, stop it! Cease, priest bastard! Cease!"

Expressionless, Karras stopped sprinkling. Hysteria. Suggestion. She did read the book. He glanced at the tape recorder. Why bother?

He noticed the silence. Looked at Regan. Knit his bows. What's this? What's going on? The demonic personality had vanished and in its place were other features, which were similar. Yet different. And the eyes had rolled upward into their sockets, exposing the whites. Now murmuring. Slowly. A feverish gibberish. Karras came around to the side of the bed. Leaned over to listen. What is it? Nothing. And yet... It's got cadence. Like a language. Could it be? He felt the fluttering of wings in his stomach; gripped them hard; held them still. Come on, don't be an idiot! And yet...

He glanced to the volume monitor on the tape recorder. Not flashing. He turned up the amplification knob and then listened, intent, ear low to Regan's lips. The gibberish ceased and was replaced by breathing, raspy and deep.

Karras straightened. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Nowonmai," the entity answered. Groaning whisper. In pain. Whites of eyes. Lids fluttering. "Nowonmai." The cracked, breathy voice, like the soul of its owner, seemed cloistered in a dark, curtained space beyond time.

"Is that your name?" Karras frowned.

The lips moved. Fevered syllables. Slow. Unintelligible. Then shortly it ceased.

"Are you able to understand me?"

Silence. Only breathing. Deep. Oddly muffled. The eerie sound of sleep in an oxygen tent.

The Jesuit waited. Hoped for more.

Nothing came.

He rewound the tape, packed the tape recorder into its case, picked it up and took the reel of tape. He gave Regan a last look. Louse ends. Irresolute, he left the room and went downstairs.

He found Chris in the kitchen. She was sitting somberly over coffee at the table with Sharon. As they saw him approach, they looked up at him with a questioning, anxious expectancy. Chris said quietly to Sharon, "Better go check on Regan. Okay?"

Sharon took a final sip of coffee, nodded wanly at Karras and left. He sat down wearily at the table.

"So what's doin'?" Chris asked him, searching his eyes.

About to answer, Karras waited as Karl entered quietly from the pantry and west over to the sink to scrub pots.

Chris followed has gaze. "It's okay," she said softly. "Go ahead. What's the drill?"

"There were two personalities I hadn't seen before. Well, no, one I guess I'd seen for just a moment, the one that sounds British. Is that anyone you know?"

"Is that important?" Chris asked.

He saw again the special tension in her face. "It's important."

She looked down and nodded. "Yeah, it's someone I knew."

"Who?"

She looked up. "Burke Dennings."

"The director?"

"Yes."

"The director who---"

"Yes," she cut in.

The Jesuit considered her answer for a moment in silence. He saw her index finger twitching.

"Would you like some coffee or something, Father?"

He shook his head. "Thanks, no." He lead forward, elbows on the table. "Was Regan acquainted with him?"

"Yes."

"And---"

A clattering. Startled, Chas flinched, turned and saw that Karl had dropped a roasting pan to the floor and was stooping to retrieve it. As he lifted it, he dropped it again.

"God almighty, Karl!"

"Sorry, madam."

"Go on, Karl, get out of here! Go see a movie or something! We can't all stay cooped in this house!" She turned back to Karras, picking up a cigarette packet and slamming it down on the table when Karl protested, "No, I look---"

"Karl, now, I mean it!" Chris snapped at him nervously, raising her voice but not turning her head. "Get out! Just get out of this house for a while! We've all got to start getting out! Now just go!"

"Yes, you go!" echoed Willie as she entered and snatched away the pan from Karl's grasp. She pushed him irritably toward the pantry.

Karl eyed Karras and Chris briefly and then left.

"Sorry, Father," Chris murmured in apology. She reached for a cigarette. "He's had to take an awful lot lately."

"You were right," said Karras gently. He picked up the matches. "You should all make an effort to get out of the house." He lit her cigarette. "You too."

"So what did Burke Say?" Chris asked.

"Just obscenities," Karras said, shrugging.

"That's all?"

He caught the faint pulse of fear in her tone "Pretty much," he responded. Then he lowered his voice. "Incidentally, does Karl have a daughter?"

"A daughter? No, not that I know of. Or if he does, he's never mentioned it."

"You're sure?"

Willie was scouring at the sink. Chris turned to her. "You don't have a daughter, do you, Willie?"

"She die, madam, long, long before."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Chris turned back to Karras. "That's the first I ever heard of her," she whispered. "Why'd you ask? How'd you know?"

"Regan. She mentioned it," said Karras.

Chris stared.

"Has she ever shown signs of having ESP?" he asked. "I mean, prior to this time."

"Well..." Chris hesitated. "Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. I mean, there have been lots of times when she seems to be thinking the same things that I'm thinking, but doesn't that happen with people ¬who are close?"

Karras nodded. Thought. "Now this other personality that I mentioned," he began. "That's the one that emerged in hypnosis once?"

"Talks gibberish?"

"Yes. Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"It's not familiar at all?"

"Not at all."

"Have you sent for the medical reeords?"

"They'll be here this afternoon. They're being flown down. They'll be coming straight to you." She sipped coffee. "That's the only way I could get them loose, and even at that I had to raise hell."

"Yes, I thought there might be trouble."

"There was. But they're coming." She took another sip. "Now what about the exorcism, Father?"

He looked down, then sighed. "Well, I'm not very hopeful I can sell it to the Bishop."

"What do you mean, 'not very hopeful'?" She set down the coffee cup, frowning anxiously.

He dipped into his pocket and extracted the vial, holding it out to show Chris. "See this?"

She nodded.

"I told her it was holy water," Karras explained. "And when I started to sprinkle her with it, she reacted very violently."

"So?"

"It's not holy water. It's ordinary tap water."

"So maybe some demons just don't know the difference."

"You really believe there's a demon inside her?"

"I believe that there's something inside of Regan that's trying to kill her, Father Karras, and whether it knows piss from water doesn't seem to have very much to do with it all, don't you think? I mean, sorry, but you asked my opinion!" She tamped out her cigarette. "What's the difference between holy water and tap water anyway?"

"Holy water's blessed."

"Mazel tov, Father; I'm happy for it! So what are you telling me, meantime--- no exorcism?"

"Look, I've only just begun to dig into this," Karras said heatedly. "But the Church has criteria that have to be met, and they have to be met for a very good reason: keeping clear of the superstitious garbage that people keep pinning on her year after year! I give you 'levitating priests,' for example, and statues of the Blessed Mother that supposedly cry on Good Fridays and feast days. Now I think I can live without contributing to that!"

"Would you like a little Librium, Father?"

"I'm sorry, but you asked my opinion."

"I got it."

He was reaching for the cigarettes.

"Me too," Chris said huskily.

He extended the pack. She took one. He popped one in his mouth and lit both. They exhaled with audible sighs and slumped around the table.

"I'm sorry," he told her softly.

"Those nonfilter cigarettes'll kill ya."

He toyed with the cigarette packet, crinkling cellophane. "Here are the signs that the Church might accept. One is speaking in a language that the subject has never known before. Never studied. I'm working on that one. With the tapes. We'll see. Then there's clairvoyance, although nowadays telepathy or ESP might nullify that one."

"You believe in that stuff?" She frowned skeptically.

He looked at her. She was serious, he decided. He continued. "And the last one is powers beyond her ability and age. That's a catchall. Anything occult."

"Well, now, what about those poundings in the wall?"

"By itself, it meals nothing."

"And the way she was flying up and down off the bed?"

"Not enough."

"Well, then, what about these things on her skin?"

"What things?"

"I didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Oh, it happened at the clinic," Chris explained. "There were--- well..." She traced a finger on her chest. "You know, like writing? Just letters. They'd show up on her chest, then disappear. Just like that."

Karras frowned. "You said 'Letters.' Not words?"

"No, no words. Just an M once or twice. Then an L."

"And you saw this?" he asked her.

"Well, no. But they told me."

"Who told you?"

"The doctors at the clinic. Look, you'll see it in the records. It's for real."

"Yes, I'm sure. But again, that's a natural phenomenon."

"Where? Transylvania?" Chris said, incredulous.

Karras shook his head. "No, I've come across cases of that in the journals. There was one, I remember, where a prison psychiatrist reported that a patient of his--- an inmate--- could go into a self-induced state of trance and make the signs of the zodiac appear on his skin." He made a gesture at his chest. "Made the skin raise up."

"Boy, miracles sure don't come easy with you, do they?"

"There was once an experiment," he explained to her gently, "in which the subject was hypnotized, put into trance; and then surgical incisions were made is each arm. He was told that his left arm was going to bleed, but that the right arm would not. Well, the left arm bled and the right arm didn't. The power of the mind controlled the blood flow. We don't know how, of course; but it happens. So in cases of stigmata--- like the one with that prisoner I mentioned, or with Regan the unconscious mind is controlling the differential of blood flow to the skin, sending more to the parts that it wants raised up. And so then you have drawings, or letters, or whatever. Mysterious, but hardly supernatural."

"You're a real tough case, Father Karras, do you know that?"

Karras touched a thumbnail to his teeth. "Look, maybe this will help you to understand," he said finally. "The Church--- not me--- the Church--- once published a statement, a warning to exorcists. I read it last night. And what it said was that most of the people who are thought to be possessed or whom others believe to be possessed--- and now I'm quoting--- 'are far more in need of a doctor than of an exorcist.' " He looked up into Chris's eyes. "Can you guess when that warning was issued?"

"No, when?"

"The year fifteen eighty-three."

Chris stared in surprise; thought. "Yeah, that sure was one hell of a year," she muttered. She heard the priest rising from his chair. "Let me wait and check the records from the clinic," he was saying.

Chris nodded.

"In the meantime," he continued, "I'll edit the tapes and then take them to the Institute of Languages and Linguistics. It could be this gibberish is some kind of a language. I doubt it. But maybe. And comparing the patterns of speech... Well, then you'll know. If they're the same, you'll know for sure she s not possessed."

"And what then?" she asked anxiously.

The priest probed her eyes. They were turbulent. Worried that her daughter is not possessed! He thought of Dennings. Something wrong. Very wrong. "I hate to ask, but could I borrow your car for a while?"

She looked bleakly at the floor. "You could borrow my life for a while," she murmured. "Just get it back by Thursday. You never know; I might need it."

With an ache, Karras stared at the bowed, defenseless head. He yearned to take her hand and say that all would be well. But how?

"Wait, I'll get you the keys," she said.

He watched her drift away like a hopeless prayer.

When she'd given him the keys, Karras walked back to his room at the residence hall. He left the tape recorder there and collected the tape of Regan's voice. Then he went back across the street to Chris's parked car.

Climbing in, he heard Karl calling out from the doorway of the house: "Father Karras!" Karras looked. Karl was rushing down the stoop, quickly throwing on a jacket. He was waving. "Father Karras! One moment!"

Karras leaned over and cranked down the window on the passenger side. Karl leaned his head in. "You are going which way, Father Karras?"

"Du Pont Circle."

"Ah, yes, good! You could drop me, please, Father? You would mind?"

"Glad to do it. Jump in."

Karl nodded. "I appreciate it, Father!"

Karras started up the engine. "Do you good to get out"

"Yes, I go to see a film. A good film."

Karras put the car in gear and pulled away.

For a time they drove in silence. Karras was preoccopied, searching for answers. Possession. Impossible. The holy water. Still...

"Karl, you knew Mr. Dennings pretty well, wouldn't you say?"

Karl stared through the windshield; then nodded stiffly. "Yes. I know him."

"When Regan... when she appears to be Dennings, do you get the impression that she really is?"

Long pause. And then a flat and expressionless "Yes."

Karras nodded, feeling haunted.

There was no more conversation until they reached Du Pont Circle, where they came to a traffic signal, and stopped. "I get off here, Father Karras," Karl said, opening the door. "I can catch here the bus." He climbed out, then leaned his head in the window. "Father, thank you very much. I appreciate. Thank you."

He stood back on the safety island and waited for the light to change. He smiled and waved as the priest drove. away. He watched the car until at last it disappeared around the bend at the mouth of Massachusetts Avenue. Then he ran for a bus. Boarded. Took a transfer. Changed buses. Rode in silence until finally he debarked at a northeast tenement section of the city, where he walked to a crumbling apartment building and entered.

Karl paused at the bottom of the gloomy staircase, smelling acrid aromas from efficiency kitchens. From somewhere the sound of a baby crying. He lowered his head. A roach scuttled quickly from a baseboard and across a stair in jagging darts. He clutched at the banister and seemed on the verge of turning back, but then shook his head and began to climb. Each groaning footfall creaked like a rebuke.

On the second floor, he walked to a door in a murky wing, and for a moment he stood there, a hand on the door frame. He glanced at the wall: peeling paint; Nicky and Ellen in penciled scrawl and below it, a date and a heart whose core was cracking plaster. Karl pushed the buzzer and waited, head down. From within the apartment, a squeaking of bedsprings. Irritable muttering. Then someone approaching: a sound that was irregular: the dragging clump of an orthopedic shoe. Abruptly the door jerked partly open, the chain of a safety latch rattling to its limit as a woman in a slip scowled out through the aperture, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

"Oh, it's you," she said huskily. She took off the chain.

Karl met the eyes that were shifting hardness, that were haggard wells of pain and blame; glimpsed briefly the dissolute bending of the lips and the ravaged face of a youth and a beauty buried alive in a thousand motel rooms, in a thousand awakenings from restless sleep with a stifled cry at remembered grace.

"C'mon, tell 'im to fuck off!" A coarse male voice from within the apartment. Slurred. The boyfriend.

The girl turned her head and snapped quickly, "Oh, shut up, jerk, it's Pop!"

The girl turned to Karl. "He's drunk, Pop. Ya better not come in."

Karl nodded.

The girl's hollow eyes shifted down to his hand as it reached to a back trouser pocket for a wallet. "How's Mama?" she asked him, dragging on her cigarette, eyes on the hands that were dipping in the wallet, hands counting out tens.

"She is fine." He nodded.tersely. "Your mother is fine."

As he handed her the money, she began to cough rackingly. She threw up a hand to her mouth. "Fuckin' cigarettes!" she choked out.

Karl stared at the puncture scabs on her arm.

"Thanks, Pop."

He felt the money being slipped from his fingers.

"Jesus, hurry it up!" growled the boyfriend from within.

"Listen, Pop, we better cut this kinds short. Okay? Ya know how he gets."

"Elvira...!" Karl had suddenly reached through the door and grasped her wrist. "There is clinic in New York now!" he whispered at her pleadingly.

She was grimacing, trying to break free from his grip. "Oh, come on!"

"I will send you! They help you! You don't go to jail! It is---"

"Jesus, come on, Pop!" she screeched, breaking free from his clutch.

"No, no, please! It is---"

She slammed the door in his face.

In the shadowy hall, in the carpeted tomb of his expectations, Karl stared mutely for a moment at the door, and then lowered his head into quiet grief. From within the apartment came muffed conversation. Then a cynical, ringing woman's laugh. It was followed by coughing.

Karl turned away, and felt a sudden stab of shock as he found the way blocked by Lieutenant Kinder¬man.

"Perhaps we could talk now, Mr. Engstrom," he wheezed. Hands in the pockets of his coat. Eyes sad. "Perhaps we could now have a talk..."