Joshua make love that evening, their relationship given its approval by

Rachel herself.

That evening Rachel makes a frightening discovery. Her body is beginning to change in order to conform to the spirit it is hosting.

The first change manifests in the appearance of a tail. Rachel is horrified at first, but is counseled by Althea, who demonstrates some of the benefits of her new appendage. The following morning Rachel confesses Althea's existence to Josh. Confronted with physical proof in the form of the tail, her husband accepts the truth, but is suspicious as to whether Althea's spirit is as benign as she claims.

Later that day Rachel, Maria, and Alex go to the hospital in order to check in on Althea's body. They find her well-cared for, but her body is growing frail after weeks in the Intensive Care Unit. Driven partly by Althea's aphrodisiacal presence, partly by their own desire, Maria,

Alex, and Rachel make love in Althea's hospital room. They are interrupted in the act by Dr. Yasna Marafi, the physician who has been caring for Althea. They return home to find a strange man trying to break into their house. Rachel confronts him, and she and Althea discover he is a servant of a demon-spawn named Mortimer Kincaid, the unholy offspring of a male human and a female demon. What is worse,

Kincaid knows of Althea's injuries. It is only a matter of time before he finds her body and kills her.

Or worse, finds Rachel and her family.

We rejoin our story on Memorial Day afternoon...

“Hey there, little girl," Jeremy Edwards said softly. The object of his affection opened her dark brown eyes, peering up at him sleepily.

“Who's the most beautiful girl in the wide green world?" he asked quietly, smiling down at the blinking face of his niece.

“You are!" he exclaimed, raising her high above his head. In response, baby Abigail grinned happily, her fat pink face creased in glee. He smiled up at her, heedless of the stream of drool that hung down from her toothless gums.

"You keep that up, and she's going to spit up all over you," his older sister Frances informed him dryly, cocking an amused eye at her younger brother. She was sitting beside him outside her small house in

Deerfield. A few feet away, her husband Walt was slathering barbeque sauce on a rack of ribs, steaming gently on the grill. Their parents were scattered on the small Lawn, cans of soda or beer in their hands, enjoying the bright May sunshine and the end of the Memorial Day weekend. Nearby, a radio was tuned to the ballgame, punctuating the summerlike atmosphere.

“You can't scare me," he retorted, holding Abigail over his head. "I've got three nieces and two nephews, thanks to you and Alicia and Karen.

You think I'm not used to a little spit-up?"

As he spoke, Abigail went through a series of unnoticed facial gyrations. As he turned back to her, she burped and deposited a fetid blob of partially digested milk on his shirt.

"Gack!" Jeremy said, lowering Abbie to his lap and futilely trying to brush off the offending item as his sister giggled. His nose wrinkled as the smell of sour milk hit his nostrils. "Bad baby," he scolded

Abigail, who took no notice and burbled cheerfully up at him. "No

Christmas present for you this year."

“She Looks terrified," Walt said as Jeremy gingerly dabbed at the mess with a napkin. A tall, shambling, slump-shouldered man running rapidly to fat, Frances doted on him nonetheless. He worked in the financial district in downtown Chicago, doing something arcane with stocks and bonds. Jeremy had tried to have him explain several times what his job consisted of, but each time he was lost inside of a few minutes.

“Uncle Jeremy!" shouted a newcomer to the scene. His nephew Nathan,

Abigail's older brother, darted out onto the deck, brandishing a brand-new baseball glove and a wiffle ball.

“Come play catch with me!"

“ALL right," he said, heaving himself out of the patio chair with an exaggerated groan.