Dema smiled up at Chaos, whose face totally lost its look of triumph, and fell into open-mouthed astonishment.

"You can do better than that," Dema said. But she knew that Chaos couldn't. El Diablo might have control of the surroundings, but he didn't have control of Dema's body. Where the knife blade had tried to enter her chest, it had simply disappeared, leaving Chaos holding a hilt with no blade attached.

The blade reformed itself quickly when she raised it, so most of the brujos present did not see what really occurred. All they knew was that the witch had been stabbed through the heart, and she still lived. Dema felt the fear rise in them.

El Diablo shoved Chaos roughly aside, and took the knife from her. Dema could feel him gathering the energies of all the enslaved entities he had bound to the boat, reinforcing his will. But it was not enough. She remained strong, in control of the integrity of her own body, and the result was the same. Except that this time the blade did not reform. It simply drifted away in a fine powder.

El Diablo was enraged, and struck Dema repeatedly, but his blows had no more effect than his dagger thrust. His own restraints, his commands to his enslaved entities to protect him, to prevent the use of magic against him here by other brujos, to allow no altered expectations, the commands that had prevented Dema from assuming snake form, now worked against him, and his will could not prevail against her.

His rage became driven by a sudden deep-seated fear, and he turned to the crowd of brujos, many of whom were now trembling in fear themselves. They were sure that he would now kill them all, one by one.

Their thoughts had been tumbling in confusion since the presence of the witch had been revealed. First because they had failed to kill her in the cave, which meant they were subject to the Master's wrath. Then, when he seemed to be pleased that she was here, had indeed hoped for it, planned for it, they were relieved, as perhaps their failure to kill her was not their fault, and he would forgive them.

But now he had failed to kill her himself, and was more angry than they had ever seen him. Undoubtedly he needed another victim, and would use one of them, or all of them, in her place.

But what he said was, "There is more than one way to kill a witch! Go, bring the gasoline cans from the engine compartment. Bring towels and blankets, anything that will burn. And bring the one in the back there who came in with her. Bind him to the table. We will burn the whole boat, and them with it."

So now rough hands grabbed Juan and brought him forward, and tied him to the table near Dema. Others brought the gas cans, and began to bring blankets and towels and pile them under and around the table. One of the brujos opened a gas can, and prepared to empty it into the pile.

But El Diablo stayed his hand. He could not resist the chance to gloat a little longer, and make the most of the moment. He turned to his minions. "This will be my greatest sacrifice ever," he declared, "For here is a witch of great power, and when she dies, her power will be ours."

He meant his, of course, thought Dema, but had avoided making the slip he made before. And he hadn't even mentioned Juan, whose power, more subtle than hers, seemed to have eluded him. Which said much about the limitations of El Diablo's own powers. And of course he and Chaos were both deceiving themselves if they believed they could acquire her power in this way.

El Diablo told the brujos about the Lamia, with her "unholy, self-righteous ways," and carried on in this vein. Juan challenged him on that, and provoked El Diablo to respond to him, arguing the point at some length.

Dema largely ignored all this, focusing instead on the enslaved entities who were bound to this boat he was about to burn. Their binding was in a way similar to that of the entities she had encountered in the Devil's Cave, but these were much more recent victims, and thus less entrenched. She had not been able to release the cave entities, but here she might have a chance.

She opened wide the shaman dream that allowed her to tune in to a familiar, and increased her awareness of the boat entities. There were many of them. Not so many as in the Devil's Cave, but a startlingly large number, considering that they were all sacrificial victims who had been dispatched by El Diablo.

She was surprised that the disappearance of so many could have gone undetected, until she realized that they had not all been sacrificed on this boat. Many El Diablo had managed to bring with him from another part of the country, where he had practiced his evil ways before he came to Catemaco.

The entities began responding to Dema. They were becoming agitated, reacting to El Diablo's deranged state of mind, realizing that he meant to abandon them, not knowing what that would mean. They had died in horror at his hands, and were filled with thoughts he had poured into their minds of how thoroughly they were at his mercy, now and forever, and the dark fate that awaited them should they ever refuse to obey his commands.

Dema tried to reassure them that no such dark unholy fate awaited, and that if they would help her defeat him they would be free. But they were hesitant, fearing the unknown. They had felt El Diablo's indignant wrath when he spoke of Dema's own unholy, self-righteous ways, and were unsure of her. They were too well inoculated with the expectations of El Diablo to easily change. Dema remained powerless.

Dema saw that El Diablo was about to pour out the gasoline and ignite the blaze. She was sorry it had come to this. She was pretty sure that, just as she had turned aside his dagger, both she and Juan would be able to survive while the boat burned down to the waterline around them, else Juan would surely have put up more of a struggle when the brujos grabbed and bound him. But she was disappointed to have come so close, only to have both Chaos and El Diablo get away.