He laughed a little at that one. The laugh caused a sudden blackout. He clawed his way out of the blackness to the accompaniment of someone screaming. Suddenly the priest knew that the screaming was his own. Zerchi was suddenly afraid. The itch had been transmuted into agony, but the screams had been those of raw terror, not of pain. There was agony now even in breathing. The agony persisted, but he could bear that. The dread had arisen from that last taste of inky blackness. The blackness seemed to brood over him, covet him, await him hungrily-a big black appetite with a yen for souls. Pain he could bear, but not that Awful Dark. Either there was something in it that should not be there, or there was something here that remained to be done. Once he surrendered to that darkness, there would be nothing he could do or undo.