The thunder roared, and bright flashes of lightning cracked the sky. The full moon, which would have normally illuminated the sky, had been covered with dark storm clouds. It had been defeated. Now Darkness ruled.

The flashes of lightning allowed a momentary glimpse of Riversville, a relatively small town built around an old river. In the late 1800s, the river flowed strong, and the town was booming. Merchants could use the river to carry their goods to markets miles away. Today the river looked more like a meandering snake than a distribution system. It was filled with silt and debris.

The town itself looked to be in the same shape. Most of the downtown buildings were old and falling apart. There were a few modern government apartment buildings on the south side of town. The area around them was the town's red light district, where the streets were always full of homeless and drunks. The apartment buildings themselves were covered with pentagrams, gang symbols, and other graffiti.

Even though most of Riversvillie's citizens were sitting out the storm, one dark figure was outside. On a hill above the town, a single man struggled to walk against the storm. The contest between the man and the storm's winds was almost comical; he was blown first to the right and then to the left. However, Pastor Brown continued to put down his head and push forward.

As the flash of light disappeared, the young man thought about his first trip to Riversville. He had been Reverend Brown when he came to try out for the pastorate of the First Church of Riversville. He still remembered the strange feeling he had when he first came into the town. It was like someone was watching him. The feeling had made his skin tingle and his spine cringe.

After a while Reverend Brown was able to ignore the feeling and delivered a great sermon. The Sunday morning service had gone well. In fact, the people liked him so much, they voted that night to elect him as pastor. He was thrilled and quickly accepted the position.

He had grown weary of the evangelistic field. It was undependable and exhausting, with very few monetary rewards. Here at Riversville, Reverend Brown saw his first chance to make a name for himself and maybe a little bit of money; so he changed his title from Reverend Brown to Pastor Brown. "Pastor Brown" it sounded good to his ears.

Now, as Pastor Brown moved through the storm, he squinted his eyes to see the frame of the church ahead. The building looked dark and haunting. It had looked much better when he first tried out. The church had been freshly painted with a large steeple and expensive stained-glass windows added. The parsonage, with its large windows and brass fixtures, was another big prize. It was one of the best houses he had ever lived in.

As for the weather, the days had been beautiful. Almost every day the sun rose into a cloudless sky and warmed the valley with its bright rays. Then, in the early evening, the thunderstorms created large dark clouds. Around midnight, a hellish wind would blow the storms over the town.

Looking up, Pastor Brown wondered if he would have accepted this job if he had known about the storms. A flash of lightning and a roar of thunder interrupted his thoughts.

As he walked toward the church, the young pastor realized that the church building looked smaller in the dark. He made a mental note to show the building to his fellow pastors during the daylight hours. Despite the building's size, Pastor Brown was sure that he could make it grow. He could build another wing over to the east and extend the parking a little closer to the highway.

When he reached the church doors, the pastor unlocked the deadbolt lock. He fumbled in the dark for the light switch. As the lights filled the apparently empty room, the pastor walked inside.

However, the church building was not empty. Markus, who had been napping on the first row, was startled by the bright light. Slowly he opened his large red eyes, all six of them. Groggily, Markus stood and stretched his large eight foot frame to tower over the young pastor.

Markus's appearance was frightening. His head was a large hairless block of red flesh covered by a thin red slime. Each eye was positioned to allow him to see in all directions simultaneously. The large mouth, spiked with incredible incisors, stretched the width of his head. The large body, full of bulging muscles, was covered with small red pus pockets.

Despite Markus's horrifying appearance, Pastor Brown walked in completely unaware of his presence. Markus was not surprised. Markus was a demon.

Markus was not just an everyday run of the mill demon, like the Hollywood producers painted on their horror films. He was a member of the Seer's race. More importantly, Markus was a Sixth Level Supervisor, the immediate controller of one thousand square miles of territory around Riversville. The advancements had not come easily. He had been on the first level for several years before the Deacon Smith campaign.

Deacon Smith had been making some frightening headway into the slums, and the Big Boss was so unhappy that he assigned a task force to stop him. It was on this team that Markus's talents first became known. Since then he had been promoted eleven times. Each promotion brought more power and responsibilities.

This was Markus's church, and it had been for ten solid years. He had been using this church as a headquarters while controlling the surrounding area. He had seen pastors come and pastors go. Even though he really disliked the task of conditioning the new pastors, it was his job; so he studied the young pastor.

Pastor Brown walked down the aisle, looking at the rows of seats. He counted the rows aloud as he walked by them.

"One, two, three, four, five, and six. Six rows," he said, "I bet we could get six on a row fairly comfortably. That means we can seat thirty-six people on each side. Of course, we have lots of aisle space. We could always bring in folding chairs."

Sadly Markus shook his giant hairless head and walked to the doorway. Today was the first time he had actually seen the new pastor. The day before the elections, he had gone out of town on business. He was beginning to think that might have been a mistake.

"Yes, sir," the pastor said to himself, "I am going to build this church into the next super church of the century. It's perfect."

He walked out.

"Why can't you guys just be content to let well enough alone?" Markus asked in the direction of Pastor Brown. "I think the people who come here are happy. I am happy. All you have to do is show up on Sunday and go through your routine, and they will love you. You will receive a good salary and a decent place to live. Why are you going to mess all of that up?"

Of course, the young pastor could not hear anything that Markus was saying. He was too busy thinking about a bus ministry to bring the poor slum kids to Sunday school. This pastorate was a place to make a name for himself. He wanted more than a good salary and a beautiful parsonage; he wanted a reputation among his fellow ministers. He wanted to be somebody.

As he walked out of the church building, Pastor Brown felt good. Markus stood at the window and watched him walk down the hill.

Pastor Brown was almost halfway down the hill when Markus saw Pinklin, his chief military commander, almost run down the new pastor. Pastor Brown did not even notice. He just kept on walking toward the parsonage. Pinklin climbed the remainder of the hill and entered the church.

Markus greeted his right hand man sharply.

"Pinklin, you dumb ox, you almost bumped into the pastor!" Markus yelled. "I can't believe you could be so careless."

"I know. Sorry. I never dreamed that he would be out in this weather."

Markus knew Pinklin's record well. He was a good soldier with a history of earning fast promotions. He was a little inexperienced in dealing with humans, but overall Marcus liked him. Maybe even more important, he trusted him and his judgment. Pinklin had completed his Inteller training five years ago. After several fast promotions, he was now at the rank of Third-Level Inteller.

An Inteller was an intelligence agent. The qualifying requirements were the toughest in the organization. The candidates had to score within the top ten percent in intelligence, physical conditioning, and creativity to be accepted into the program. However, the training used to prepare the candidates was so intense that only about half of the qualifying candidates actually graduated. Markus remembered his own training well. He had passed the requirement easily, then graduated the highest in his class as an Inteller.

Markus could not help remembering his final exam. He had been ordered to gather intelligence from a large Christian church. The mission was to discover and report on the church's current plans within a week. It was probably the most difficult assignment he had ever been given. The organization stored everything in computers, but Markus could not physically operate them, so he had to gather most of his data by eavesdropping. This technique was more difficult than it sounded, because the church leaders rarely talked. The atmosphere was too tense and competitive. No one trusted anyone at the office.

Markus was able to follow each leader to his home and gather the information there. The ministers bottled up their thoughts and anxieties all day at the office, but in the safety of their homes, they talked about everything. They talked about their dreams, fears, and plans. Listening eagerly, Markus wrote down every word. Then he took back all the information and organized it with his other notes.

It took Markus a little longer to write his report, but it paid off. The more in-depth study allowed him to build personality profiles for each of the ministers. In the leader, he was able to discover a personality flaw that had been missed in the past. The instructors were so impressed by the report that he received a perfect score.

The information was transferred to a Sixth-Level Supervisor to be used in the next campaign. Within six weeks the Sixth-Level Supervisor was able to exploit that weakness into a major victory. The organization lost both credibility and influence.

"Are you okay, sir?" Pinklin shocked Markus back to reality. "I apologize about the human. I really didn't see him."

"I know you didn't. You just need to be careful. Have I ever told you about the Texas tent revival?" Marcus asked.

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, it was supposed to be a routine intelligence operation down in Texas. I was investigating some stories about a tent revival that was getting a lot of attention. While I was sitting on the front row taking notes, this country hick of a preacher walked right up to me. I mean he walked directly in front of me and looked me in the eye. I couldn't believe it. Do you know what he said?"

"No... what?"

"He told me to get out of his Father's house," Markus responded quickly.

"He actually said that to you?" Pinklin asked, almost unbelieving.

"Yeah, and then he started to pray. Needless to say, I left that church in a hurry. My point is that a few humans out there have their spiritual eyes open. Not many, but a few and it can really blow an operation if you get spotted by the wrong human at the wrong time. I don't know, but it seems to me that the closer you get to them, the more they can sense you."

"I am really sorry, Marcus. I hope I didn't mess things up with that preacher fellow. I didn't know they could see us."

"As I said before, most can't. Then there are a few others who can't see us but can sense our presence. It's just good to be careful around them."

Pinklin let Markus's story soak into his hard skull. He had never seen a human react to him, but the information sounded very useful. Markus turned back toward the window, looking over the parsonage below. Pinklin waited patiently for him to continue the conversation, but Markus was totally absorbed by Pastor Brown.

"Is that preacher going to be trouble, sir?" Pinklin asked.

"I don't know. He is young and ambitious, but I just don't know."

"What do you want me to do about him?"

"Nothing, yet. No, wait! Put an Inteller on him. Someone who could use the experience. I want to know everything that he does. I want to know every word that he says and writes. I want your man to get inside of this preacher's head. Do you understand?"

"Will do!"

Pinklin did not know why the young preacher made Markus nervous, but there was no doubt that he did. He was going to put his best First Level Inteller on the job. Even Markus knew that a demon could not actually read the human mind, but his man would do the closest thing to it.