No one was in the lavatory. The tiles gleamed in the fluorescent light, brighter than the day outside, which had grown ever darker. The wind had picked up and was howling through the treetops, pushing dark clouds across the sky.

With trembling hands, Damien set the stolen Bible down on the sink and stood before the toothpaste-spattered mirror. There was no doubt in his mind as to what he was looking for. He rubbed a section clean with the heel of his hand, then peered closely at the reflection.

There was no mark on his right hand, that was obvious. He would have seen it a thousand times. Even so, he checked once more, subjecting his hand to the most intense scrutiny under the fluorescent tube.

Nothing. A normal hand. Then it occurred to him that there was another place it might be where he might never have noticed it.

He parted his hair with shaking hands and looked.

Nothing.

He parted his hair again, in another spot, and looked.

Still nothing. He began to think he was going mad. Why else would he allow himself even to imagine the possibility of this horror?

Or was it just that he was letting the grown-ups instill their own fears in him? Now that he was thirteen and supposedly a man, maybe he was feeling the first stirrings of the sexual urge. Maybe this was what sex was. Maybe this was why it made some people go crazy.

Another boy, having seen what he had hoped to see, but was afraid he would not (or rather, having not seen what he feared he would), might have stopped there.

But not Damien; whatever else he was, he believed he was a Thorn, and the Thorns were thorough. He had been taught to be that for as long as he could remember.

This time Damien reached high up onto his forehead and spread his hair apart once again.

And there it was.

No wonder no one had ever seen it. It was so tiny. But it was there. Or they were there, to be more exact; a tiny cluster of sixes, barely noticeable even under the powerful light of the fluorescent bulb overhead.

666.

Damien gasped, and stumbled back against the wall with the enormity of the shock. It was true—everything he had feared, everything Neff had told him, everything Buher had slyly hinted at. It was all true.

And he was only a young boy.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he bolted out of the lavatory, clutching the Bible to his chest. He didn't know what to do, where to go. All he knew was that he needed to be alone for a while.

He ran along the balcony and headed for the stairs. The band was still there, practicing. As Damien tore down the stairs and broke through the ranks on his way out, Mark caught sight of him and called out, 'Damien!'