Last we left our heroes they were staring at the dead body of Hesepti in horror. He's suddenly turned into a demon ghost from a Japanese horror movie - you know, twisting about unnaturally to push himself up while grinning inhumanly. I'm just going to say this chapter is bonkers but not for the reason you'd expect.
The blood bullets keep Hesepti from being able to reanimate completely so Collin has the chance to tackle him and cut his head off with "his blood-quenched hunting knife". It continues to smile and try to speak.
"It was a moment no human being could experience and remain unaltered. But Collin had been through worse, and he did not release the head. He gazed down with a face that could have been carved from stone and said coldly and quietly, "Fuck you."" p.276
He drops the head, the lights come back on and everyone stands for a bit in shock before deciding that they need to go back to Zaire and talk to Hasha.
They get there a week later and discover something awful: Everyone has been gruesomely killed, apparently by each other. Hesepti and the demon could communicate from a distance and read the minds of Egan and Hunt and it learned the location of the village, bringing destruction as retribution. And it never did this before because... The priestesses were shielding Hasha's mind despite the connection they shared? It never bothered to take it from Smith or McPhearson? I guess the demon doesn't think of everything while simultaneously thinking of everything. (I'm just going to mention that they also refer to the monster as the Satan or the Satan animal. All evil things are this and this is the basis for all evil things.)
Samantha is, of course, devastated. She'd been living with these people for the better part of a year, I guess. They try to work out if they can tell where the creature could have gone by checking boat or plane manifestos and I have no idea how any of this works, really. The demon is in one place and Mr. G another and the cultists a third or everywhere but the demon's influence can spread over the world? Or does he have to physically send a possessed person before having power in a place? Also, are the cultists then different from the mind-controlled people?
Samantha says she learned that the demon has difficulty reading minds where there are a lot of people so they head to New York City. She has $500,000 and Collin has $5,000 and I have no idea how far that would stretch in 1970.
We rendezvous with them three weeks and three condos later - they move every week. Collin has been accumulating "explosives and illegal weapons", Egan has been tapping into Raymond's sources to track down missing person leads and Hunt has been putting them in a computer so it can "know or guess the locations and characteristics of its hideouts."
Collin grabs a beer, watches a vampire movie for a few moments and then joins Samantha for a swim.
Switching locations, to the other side of the city, we check in on Mr. G and 15 "members of the Guardian's entourage" where he is watching the same vampire movie "with a boyish fascination equal to Collin's" and the followers are having sex. Sex and "nameless, terribly potent drugs". Mr. G "lost the last remnants of sexual desire" centuries ago and finds "the corrupt, perverted practices of most of his followers mildly disgusting." I like the implication that some of his followers apparently have tame, conventional sex.
A man named Weston comes in and reports that they found one of the condos that the trio was using but that they had already moved on, that they've acquired a lot of equipment and that Hunt is growing a beard. Mr. G threatens him perfunctorily and dismisses him.
Back at the ranch, Collin and Egan swim. "He...could not help but admire Samantha's trim figure, revealed nicely in her dark brown one-piece swimsuit..."
"Collin smiled. "I better mark this day on my calendar, " Samantha said... "Why?" "You actually smiled, " she said good-naturedly. "Am I that bad?" She pretended to consider for a moment, frowning. "Pretty bad." He splashed water in her face and laughed. "So, I'm a cad, am I," he said with exaggerated dramatics. "Take that!"...For her it was a surprise to see him so relaxed, so human." p.289-90
Ok, one: this is "flirting". Two: Collin doesn't know what "cad" means. Three: What did I say? What did I say about the next woman to show up? Samantha has plans to go to her brother's wedding but discretely because a major event involving a close relative is totally not the first place someone hunting for you would look. They flirt some more, Collin mentions he hasn't been on a date in a long time and they go inside where Hunt looks at them funny. Collin is pretty sure Hunt is in love with Egan. Love triangle! Oh blargh. Collin, however, feels he can't trust either of them because he is the only person whose mind is safe from "the Satan beast".
Samantha brings beer and backgammon to Collin in his room and they play for a bit when she suggests they go get Italian food. "Collin took another drink of beer. "Dan hates Italian food."..."Then he can stay home.""p.293 Then she kisses him and after a moment he gets into it "with the pent-up force of his long suppressed emotions" and, of course, Hunt walks in on them. Drama!
Dan is hurt and starts shouting about how they've been fooling around while he's been working hard. Collin tries to placate him when we get this hilarious diatribe from Dan.
"I'm not going to have you take advantage of this girl, Goddammit. I know what kind of man you are! A killer! A man with no roots and no hope, nothing left but hate in you. You can't love, and you can't trust, and by heaven I'm not going to let you use this woman, not Samantha. She's too good for that." And: "Can't you see that he just wants to use you?" p.295
What? He talks about Collin like he's a hardened mercenary with no past, not a journalist whose life up until a few months previously was entirely normal. And he does have roots. He mentioned a family and friends and colleagues in an earlier chapter. They might not be happy with him because he's been difficult to get ahold of and he's borrowed a lot of money without paying it back but presumably he has a place to stay if he needs it. It's all just a tad silly.
Anyway, things get heated even further and ends with Collin belting Hunt across the face "out of sheer reflex". He's immediately sorry and basically has a breakdown, cradling Dan's head in his lap, "sobbing pathetically" "completely unmanned" while brokenly talking about "Ever since they got Sandra, my fiancée...I haven't been...I haven't been-" At this point Samantha realizes he's not over his dead girlfriend.
Dan comes to, they all make up, both Dan and Collin are embarrassed and ashamed. Samantha apologizes for making Dan feel rejected. "But don't ask me to choose between the two of you...Not now."
Dan finally gets on with what he came to tell them about. There's a pattern to the Satan beast's relocations. "Two long-distance relocations, say in excess of three thousand miles, followed by a short move, generally not more than a few hundred miles." Why? Dunno.
Anyway, Dan takes an aspirin and goes to sleep leaving Collin and Samantha to talk. Collin says he'll do anything to kill their enemy because he wants revenge. Samantha tells him he never let himself deal with his feelings. He says he'll make any sacrifice. Then we get a "romantic" moment where he tells her he could love her and she lets him know that's not necessary and to take her to bed. Off they go. For the sex, I guess.
The word of this book is "trim".
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