The rain stung Martindale's chin whenever he tilted his head back to examine the heavens. It sizzled on the wooden sidewalk and the asphalt street like hot grease on a grill. It slanted to Martindale's left, and he found this significant. When it began to let up, the bulky black clouds rushing on, he was almost disappointed. The rain had seemed to express his own feelings; it had made him feel better when it came crashing down around him, Wagnerian and dark. Yet when the clouds broke and the sun made half a dozen rainbows in the mists rising from the sodden ground, he felt almost cheerful.

Almost, but not quite. He was never quite happy.

The woman's anger proves there's something she's afraid of, he thought. I wish she'd let me perform the exorcism. That would be proof, there would surely be a manifestation at an exorcism.

The terrible truth was that the Reverend Martindale was not quite a believer himself. Not continuously. When he'd spoken to June about it, early that morning, he'd really believed. And when he spoke to the Reverend Earl Baldwin, in Chicago, his mentor, he believed. Baldwin inspired belief.

The cold truth was that Martindale was basically a skeptic. But he was a skeptic who badly wanted to believe. Because if there was nothing to believe in, beyond the random growth and faltering that made up this world then life seemed hollow to Martindale. Living for the moment wasn't enough. He couldn't bear the thought of there being no Great Plan to tie it all together. If there were any supernatural being, Martindale reasoned, then there must be a God also. It was inconceivable that there could be a diabolical force without a divine one. In his way, Martindale sought God‹by looking for proof of the Devil.

He'd been driven by this obsession since October 17, 1968, when his mother, his father, his older brother, and his younger sister had been burned to death in a fire set by an arsonist. The arsonist was never caught; his motive was never known.

Martindale, ten years old, had been away visiting his grandparents at the time; two people he heartily disliked. They were both stone-cold cynics, and atheists. His grandfather had been an army career officer, retired. The young Martindale had been as close to his parents and his brother and sister as he was alienated from his grandparents. He'd felt that the universe, in somehow arranging for his family to be burned to death, had struck him a terrible blow out of simple sadistic mischief. And a strong part of him wanted to believe there was no God, no purpose; that would be so much easier. You could do what you wanted, all the awful things you'd ever imagined, if there was no God to judge you for it.

But if there was a God, then there was a devil too. And it might be that the devil--in defiance of God--had arranged the death of his parents. It might be that the Lord was not all-powerful, not quite, that he was constantly fighting with the devil, and in the fight to save or destroy Martindale's family, the devil had won. If Martindale could prove that the devil existed, he could infer a rational cause for his family's death--a supernatural war.

That's why he was honestly and genuinely glad to see the devil waiting for him when he got home.

He didn't see it at first. He came into the little crackerbox cottage shivering, relieved to be somewhere dry. He hung his dripping coat up on a nail over the kitchen sink, tossed his hat onto the drainboard beside a stack of dirty dishes, and went into the bedroom--not much more than an elongated closet--to change his shirt. It was just after he had removed the damp clerical collar and black shirt that he felt the breeze. But he'd left the window shut. So what was the source of the misty wind he felt lapping at his spine? He looked around, saw the yellow satin curtains billowing a little.

He pressed the curtain aside--and let it drop. There was a hole in the upper window pane, a hole big as a fist. Just below the hole, clinging to the white-painted wooden window frame, was what looked like a translucent housefly with a human face‹a fly at least eight inches long and four across its thorax. As he pushed the curtain aside, it swiveled its head to look at him. It was when he looked into its eyes that he knew: here is Evil. Its miniature human face could almost have been made of wax; it's bright green eyes gleamed; its tiny, lipless mouth seemed to be smiling, but Martindale knew it was a cat's smile, an accident of its features, an illusion. The face was stylized, almost like an Egyptian death mask.

Heart hammering, Martindale thought: God has sent me both proof and a trial. This thing is no aberration of the insect world. This thing is not native to our world at all. This is truly a visitor from hell.

For two minutes, Martindale stood rooted, staring at the fly, thinking, It's his servant. Satan's servant, the Patron of Flies.

"Why--" Martindale had to swallow hard, before he could speak in more than a croak. "Why did you come here, Beelzebub?" The thing tilted its head a little more, then began to shift on its perch. It was turning to face him. So it could spring directly at him. "Why did you come to this town, you and yours?" Martindale asked. "I knew you were coming. I dreamed it. I command you, in Jesus Christ's name, by the power he bestowed on his disciples, tell me what you have come for." It made no reply. It gave no reaction to the name of God's only Son. It gazed at him like a little basilisk, and he wondered if he could move. He had to have proof. Otherwise he would never know for sure if he'd hallucinated it. A photo. Take a photo.

He forced himself to move, sliding to the cabinet in the headboard of the bed. Keeping his eyes on the demon, he slid the cabinet door open, reached in, felt for his camera. His fingers closed on the old Kodak. There was film in it. He raised the camera to his eye, his finger poised over the shutter button.

The camera was slapped from his hand. It smashed against the wall, sprang apart, exposing the film. The film unwound, by itself, then flew through the air and bounced off the opposite wall, fell on the bedspread in a tangled heap. And through all this, the air was filled by a sharp buzzing.

His skin tingling, mouth dry, Martindale stared at the shattered camera, the film. That's proof enough for me, he thought. It flew from my hands, all by itself. That thing reached out invisibly, magically, and knocked it away and broke it. I'm not strong enough to shatter it like that with one blow.

The fly-demon had remained unmoving on the window frame. Its expression had not changed. But it crouched now. Poised. Martindale shuddered--but not with horror. With a great relief. "You're real," he said as he fell to his knees. "But I kneel for God, not you. To thank God for this sign. Thank you."

He made a high, gulping noise as the thing flung itself at his head, its wings a blur, its small, black, human hands opening and closing spasmodically, its bristling tail quivering, extruding the yellow-oozing stinger. He flailed at it, lost sight of it, tried to shout Jesus' Name to command the thing, and managed only, "Jes--" The second part of the Holy Name blended into a warbling sob, a sound that spoke of the full horror of defilement.

The thing had found his neck, and driven its stinger into his spine, just under the skull. And the pain was another kind of revelation.

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