Blood Sins

Chapter Twelve

Paris

FBI DIRECTOR MICAH HUGHES would never be accused of being an extrovert, so the fact that he was expected to socialize with other law enforcement officials from all over the world was a trial, not a pleasure. Even in Paris.

He would have preferred to attend the seminars during the day and then retreat to his hotel room, where he could review on his laptop the day's happenings back in D.C., but cocktail parties and dinners were an expected part of the trip, and he was nothing if not doggedly professional.

Still, he was more relieved than especially curious or anxious when the post-dinner small talk on this Thursday night was interrupted as one of the waiters slipped him a note that said he had a phone call. Another waiter directed him to the hotel's house phones, in an alcove outside the banquet room where this particular dinner was taking place.

It was blessedly quiet out in the hallway, and he took a moment to enjoy that before going in search of the house phones. The alcove was, as promised, nearby, but as soon as he turned into it, he stopped. Nobody was on one of the half dozen or so phones lining the desk-height counter that ran around all three walls, but the room had one occupant.

"What are you doing here?"

The man was tall, broad-shouldered, and athletic, and could have been any age between fifty and sixty-five. He had the sort of regular features and good bone structure that made for a handsome face, and striking green eyes made it even more memorable.

"You should know by now that I can turn up just about anywhere." He had a deep voice with a note in it that Hughes had heard many times in his life: the absolute assurance of a man who was very much accustomed to getting what he wanted.

"I just thought you were back in the States." Hughes heard the slightly nervous note in his own voice and bitterly resented it.

"I was. Yesterday." He paused a moment, then went on calmly, "I take it you've made no progress?"

"Look, I warned you it would take time. Bishop may be ruthless, but he isn't reckless, at least not openly. He knows he's being watched, that his unit exists only as long as it's successfuland he keeps it out of the news. He's careful. Very careful. He knows just how far to bend the rules and the regs without breaking them. And until he does cross that line, I can't touch him. Not officially."

"I see. And were you aware that he's currently in North Carolina investigating a church?"

"What?"

"Ah. Not aware, I see. Clearly my spies are keeping a closer eye on Bishop than your own are."

Hughes did not like the idea of anyone outside the FBI cmploying spies within it, but he had spent enough time with this man over the last months to swallow any retort or objection he might have made. But that didn't stop an increasingly familiar jolt of profound uneasiness.

It had seemed so clear at first. But now he wasn't at all sure he was doing the right thing.

"You'll be receiving a packet via courier by morning. Background information on the church and its leader, details your own people could have easily discovered and, in fact, probably have filed away somewhere. Plus some additional information less easy to acquire concerning recent activities of the SCU. And Bishop."

Hughes was reasonably sure at least one of the "spies" this man had within the FBI was actually inside the SCU, but he had never asked and didn't now. He had no need to know that. "Is there anything in the information that's actionable?"

"Perhaps. It certainly does raise questions as to whether Bishop is working for the FBIor is conducting a vendetta of his own."

"A vendetta?" Like yours? "You believe this church or its leader has done something to personally injure Bishop?"

"What I believe is that he's a dangerous man who's pursuing an investigation based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And he's getting people killed."

"You know that for a fact?"

"I do. He hasn't reported the latest casualties, but I have good reason to believe that at least two have died within the last two weeks. One of his own agents, and an operative with that civilian organization he helped found."

"I've told you I can't do anything about Haven. Not as long as they keep their activities on the right side of legal. And so far, they have. John Garrett is also neither careless nor reckless."

"As far as you know, they've broken no laws."

Hughes nodded unwillingly. "As far as I know."

"I'll keep my people working on that. In the meantime, I would assume that the death of a federal agent, presumably in the line of duty, at the very least calls for an investigation."

"It's automatic."

"Then you might, when you return to the States, check into the whereabouts of Agent Galen."

"I'll do that." Hughes drew a breath. "The wild card in all this is still Senator LeMott. Bishop caught the murderer of the senator's daughter three months ago. Not just the SCU; Bishop himself was personally involved in the capture. LeMott is not going to forget that, and he's a powerful man."

"So am I."

"Yes. I know. But LeMott could cause me a lot of trouble. I have to be careful when and how I act."

"I doubt you'd have your present appointment had I not exerted considerable influence on your behalf."

"I know that too. Believe me, I'm more than grateful."

"I didn't ask for much in return, did I, Micah? I didn't ask you to violate your oath, to break the law. I didn't ask you to betray your country or tarnish your office. All I asked was that you find a way to remove a dangerous man and his followers from an otherwise fine organization."

"Yes. And I have no problem with that request."

"Then we understand each other."

"We do."

"I'm glad to hear it. Enjoy the rest of your stay in Paris, Micah. It's a lovely city. Do yourself a favor and at least take the scenic route to the airport when you leave. Enjoy a few of the sights. Take your mind off business for a while."

"Thank you. I will." Hughes watched the other man stroll away, aware of his own tension only when he released a pent-up breath. He found himself actually looking around to make certain no one else had witnessed that telltale slump of relief.

And Micah Hughes resented that most of all.

Grace

"The only thing I can figure," Hollis said, "is that Lexie's owner has a pretty damn powerful personal shieldat the very least. That plus the obvious fact that this little dog has probably been carried around in that bag most if not all the time must have protected her from whatever killed the other pets."

Tessa glanced at the chair beside her own at the dining-room table, at the open bag in which the poodle was curled, sleeping. "I read somewhere that the tiny ones are bred to be companion animals, so that make sense. I mean that she'd be carried around most of the time. And that bag seems to be her security blanket. The question is, who's her owner?"

"One of the questions," Sawyer corrected. He had been introduced to Hollis upon their arrival at the Gray home and was still trying to cope with the notion of an FBI agent who was also a professed medium. A professed medium who not only knew about his own secret but was utterly matter-of-fact about his abilities. "I have more than I can count."

"Join the club," Hollis advised, then said, "My money's on Ruby Campbell as being Lexie's person."

Tessa wondered if Ruby's had been the voice in her mind there at the pet cemetery, the presence that had warned her with such insistence to close her mind that Tessa was pretty sure she had knocked herself outliterallyto obey.

"Because?" Sawyer's tone was the very polite one of a man who had decided to be calm about things. No matter what.

"Because I don't believe in coincidence. Because just about the time you guys were reading that note, I was being begged to help Ruby."

"Begged by a ghost," Sawyer said.

"You, of all people," Tessa told him, "should be able to accept the existence of spirits. You saw your grandmother when she died, didn't you?"

"Jesus, Tessa"

Reaching up to rub her forehead fretfully, Tessa said, "Sorry. I wasn't looking for that, it just came to me."

Hollis looked at Sawyer. "She's right? You saw your grandmother's spirit?"

"Just that once," Sawyer replied, hoping it mattered.

"I told you that your abilities were evolving," Hollis reminded Tessa. "Your visits to the Compound must have activated a new pathway in your brain. Or amped up the voltage somehow. Even with your shield in place, you're picking up stuff."

Sawyer muttered, "That weird energy up there. God only knows what effects it's having. On them and on us."

"I don't need any new pathways," Tessa announced. "I was justbarelylearning how to follow the ones I had."

"Doubt you've got a choice." Hollis shrugged.

"Great."

"It's another good reason for you to stay away from that place," Sawyer told her.

"No," Tessa said. "It isn't. We all take risks, Sawyer. You're in law enforcementyou know that."

"Not unnecessary risks."

"And how do you define unnecessary when a hundred men, women, and children are in danger?"

Sawyer didn't like the corner he'd been backed into. "Okay, then let's talk about effectiveness. There's no sense putting yourself at risk when you can't be effective in a dangerous situation. And from what I saw at the Compound, I'm thinking whatever is going on up there is not something you can handle without unnecessary risk. To you and possibly to everyone else."

"What's he talking about?" Hollis asked.

Sawyer continued to look steadily at Tessa. "What the hell happened to you at the Compound? There at the end, you were so distracted it was visible. As if you were listening to somebody else."

"Maybe I was," Tessa said.

Hollis was looking at her with a frown. "I just assumed that when you opened yourself up at the pet cemetery, all the pain and grief there overwhelmed you."

"It started before we got to the cemetery," Sawyer told her. "She was a little scatty."

"Scatty?"

"Distracted, like I said. I don't know what it was, but something affected her when we left that outdoor pulpit. Maybe sooner."

Tessa drew a breath and let it out. "Still here, guys." Hollis's frown deepened. "Tessa, did you consciously drop your shields at that cemetery?"

She didn't want to answer, but Tessa knew she had to. "No. I opened a door, just a little bit. But I didn't drop my shields."

"Then something was affecting you? Something that got through your shields?"

"Maybe."

"Tessa."

"All right, yes. I heard That same presence as before was in my mind. Not the dark one; the one who said, I see you. Only this time, it was warning me. To be careful. To not let my feelings overwhelm me, because heSamuel, I assumegets in that way. He makes people feel and gets in that way."

"How did you feel?"

It was Tessa's turn to frown as she tried to sort through the fragments of memory and emotion. "It's hard to separate things. At first I felt uneasy, as if someone was watching me. Sawyer felt the same thing."

He nodded when Hollis looked at him. "Tessa said maybe it was the cameras, butit didn't feel like that." He hesitated, then added, "Cameras pointed at me feel a certain way. This was something else."

Tessa nodded. "I felt a tugging, a pull, and when I looked around, I saw something flash at the edge of the pet cemetery. Once we got there, the pain and grief of the people, especially the children, started to overwhelm me. That's when that voice in my mind warned me to shut the door before he got in. So I shut it. Too hard, I guess."

Sawyer frowned at her. "That's why you went out? You did it to yourself?"

"Well, self-preservation. You asked me if I'd know if I was under the sort of attack Samuel is capable of; the insistence in that voice told me I had to protect myself, and fast. So I did."

"We're in trouble," Hollis said.

"Not necessarily."

"Tessa, you were chosen for this assignment partly for the strength of your shields and the fact that you don't read as psychic. No matter who that insistent voice belongs to, it shouldn't have been able to come through to you so clearly, not through what was in effect only a chink in your shields. And you shouldn't have been overwhelmed by the emotions of those people, not with your shields up. At all. That's new, we both know that, and the new stuff is the hardest to handle. We are definitely in trouble."

"I was tired and distracted before I even went up there, Hollis, and you know it. I felt like I was being pulled long before I reached the Compound. You said I connected to someone or something up there yesterday, and I agree." She reached for the piece of paper lying on the table in front of her and looked at it again, read it again.

Please, take care of Lexie.

can't protect her anymore.

Father's started watching me.

"This was addressed to me. Even more, it was placed in Sawyer's Jeep, not my car, when no one could have logically known I wouldn't be leaving the Compound the same way I came."

Hollis shook her head. "You didn't mention meeting any of the kids yesterday, not by name."

"I was introduced to a whole group of them pretty much at once. I barely spoke to them beyond saying hi. Until you told us about seeing Andrea's spirit and what she said about Ruby, I didn't remember picking up any names. But Ruby was there, a dark girl with really pale gray eyes. I think she's the one who touched me, physically touched me, and I'm almost positive she was carrying this bag."

"Almost?" Sawyer stared at her. "Wouldn't it have been obvious?"

Tessa thought about it and frowned again. "Now that you mention it, it should have, shouldn't it? A big bag for a little girl to be carrying, and unusual since they were all in that playground near the church. None of the other kids was carrying any sort of bag or backpack. But Ruby was. I have to concentrate to remember actually seeing it, but when I concentrate, it's there, clear as day."

Softly, Hollis said, "You need her help to stop him."

"Excuse me?" Sawyer said.

"It's what Andrea said. 'You need her help to stop him.' And she was talking about Ruby."

"How could a twelve-year-old girl help stop someone like Samuel?"

Tessa looked at him for a moment, then returned her gaze to Hollis. "Maybe that's why Sarah was so convinced the children were important."

"Who's Sarah?" Sawyer asked.

Knowing that would be a long and probably difficult conversation, Tessa chose to postpone it. "I'll tell you about Sarah later. Right now I'm more worried about Ruby. Hollis, you said Sarah had managed to get three of the kids out, right?"

Hollis nodded.

"Latents. But what if she was picking up the strength of an active psychic and didn't know it, because Ruby has the ability to obscure or disguise what's real?"

"That would be a hell of an ability," Hollis said slowly. "And one I've never heard of outside science fiction."

"But possible?"

"Sure, anything's possible. But how likely would it be that Samuel could miss something that unique?"

"Maybe because it's unique. Or maybe because he hadn't been paying attention. Until lately." Tessa looked down at the note and read the last chilling phrase out loud. "Father's started watching me."

"Christ," Sawyer said. "She's twelveshe's hitting puberty."

Hollis drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Bastard. If he's looking for another good source to tap, the chaos of adolescence also produces an enormous amount of energy. Sexually and otherwise. It's when a high percentage of latents become active for the first timeusually because of some kind of trauma. Just guessing, I'd say the simultaneous death of almost all the pets and livestock in the Compound would be very traumatic for a little girl. Especially one who loved her dog."

"She had to protect Lexie," Tessa told them. "So, instinctively, she did. Some kind of energy shield, for sure. But more than that, she must have tapped into her latent ability to hide or disguise an object. And she's been able to continue hiding Lexie all this time, hiding her in plain sight, from everyone in that Compound, including Samuel. She must have thought they were safe. Until she realized he was beginning to look at her the way he looked at the older women. Until she understood."

Quentin Hayes had been a seer most of his life but preferred the official SCU designation of precog or precognitive instead, since the ability to actually see the future was very new to him. Until he had crossed paths with an extremely powerful medium in an extremely dangerous situation not so long ago, all he had been able to claim was an occasional precognitive awareness that something was about to happen.

All that changed when he met Diana Brisco.

So it was less than a year since he'd begun actually seeing visions, and since they were still comparatively rare, he hadn't yet grown accustomed to the sheer power of them.

They still came out of nowhere with no warning, and they still brought him to his knees.

"Christ."

"Quentin?"

He knew Bishop was there with him, in the same roombut after the blinding burst of pain, the room shimmered and then faded, and in its place was hell.

Dark clouds rolled and banked heavily above, so dark they shut out the sunlight, and thunder boomed and echoed. The air above his head crackled and sparked with pure energy; acrid smoke stung his nostrils with a smell that turned his stomach and caused his soul to flinch, because it was a smell he recognized.

Burnt flesh.

He didn't want to but forced himself to turn and look at what he only vaguely recognized as the outdoor amphitheater used by Samuel and his congregation. It was a charred and scorched place now, the large boulders intended to be seats blackened, still smoking. And among the rocks were other still-smoking shapes.

Human shapes.

They were twisted and contorted in mute agony, and it was obvious that many of the adults had tried in vain to protect children. But none of them had had a chance, Quentin realized sickly.

He heard a scream and pivoted sharply, finding himself looking up at the area of the granite "pulpit" where Samuel preached.

Samuel stood on the pulpit, staring down at his dead followers, his expression chillingly serene. His hands were smoking.

At his feet, staring up at him, sat a dark-haired little girl, her expression every bit as serene as his.

"Ruby!"

It was Tessa who had screamed, who cried out the little girl's name. She was she was bound to a cross, one of four placed on either side of the pulpit. Ropes at her wrists and ankles would have held her securely; the monstrous iron spikes driven through her hands and feet were clearly intended to maim and torture.

Two of the other three crosses held identically bound figures, but only Tessa was conscious; the others were unconsciousor dead. Hollis and Chief Cavenaugh hung motionless.

There was a lot of blood.

Samuel looked at the little girl, then smiled tenderly. He placed his left hand on the top of her head.

Before Quentin's horrified eyes, she began to smolder and, without a sound, she burst into flames.

Tessa screamed again. Samuel turned his head to look at her, his smile fading, replaced by a slight frown, just barely this side of indifference. He looked at her, Quentin thought, as one would look at a fly that annoyed with its buzzing. Then, with his left hand still on the head of the burning child, he extended his right hand, and a jagged bolt of pure energy shot from his fingers toward Tessa.

"Quentin."

Blinking, drawing in a gulp of blessedly normal air, Quentin looked down at the hand gripping his arm, then up to meet Bishop's concerned gaze. "Jesus. How do you and Miranda stand this?" The hoarse sound of his own voice startled him.

"Practice." Bishop helped him to his feet, and into a nearby chair. "What did you see?"

"I sawhell. Listen, I need to get to the Gray house. Like ten minutes ago."

"Why?"

"Because they're about to make a very, very, very bad decision. Trust me on that. And I don't think anything short of an unexpected visit will dissuade them."

Bishop reached immediately for a phone. "The chopper can land in that clearing between the house and the road; that should get you close enough without alerting the farmhands."

"Can he get away this time of day?"

"He'll have to. I can't risk getting that close to the Compound, and we don't have another pilot available right now. Bring them back here."

"Sure?"

"Quentin, you're white as a sheet. I don't need it described to me to know you saw something we do not want to happen. So it's time we pool our resources. All of them."