Blood Sins

Chapter Seven

"YOU SENT for me, Father?"

"Yes, child. How do you feel?"

Bambi smiled. "Oh, I feel wonderful, Father. I always do, after Testifying."

"I'm glad to hear that, child." He positively beamed as he came around his desk and took her hand. But even with the smile, he looked pale and weary, and his eyes were darkened and held a curiously flat, almost empty shine. "I want you to sit here and talk to me for a little while."

"Of course, Father." She sat down in the single low-backed visitor's chair in front of his big mahogany desk.

He perched on the edge of the desk, still holding one of her hands. "You've been happy here with us, haven't you, Bambi?"

"So happy, Father. It's just like I said in my Testimony. I found peace here. I found God here."

"And God is happy you found Him. He loves you very, very much."

Bambi began to tear up. "I feel that. Thanks to you and the church, I really do feel that, Father."

"I know you do, child. And God knows. But it never hurts to pray to Him and give thanks for your happiness." He slipped off the desk and went around her chair, releasing her hand so that both of his could rest on the top of her head, just as they had earlier in the church.

And just as in the church, she bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Pray with me," Reverend Samuel said, half-closing his eyes as his voice thickened. "Give thanks with me, child."

"Yes, Father. I give thanks to God" She jerked suddenly and moaned, her head tipping back.

He cradled her head in his hands, his fingers moving gently as though massaging her scalp, his own head moving side to side like some creature searching blindly. "Give thanks to God," he said hoarsely. "Give thanks to me. Give yourself to me, child."

Bambi moaned again. Her hands, resting on the arms of the chair, twitched spasmodically and then curled over the wood, fingers tightening until they turned white with the force.

"Give to me, child. Give me all that you are, all you have."

"Yes, Father yes oh, God it feels so good"

Her breasts rose and fell jerkily and her body shuddered. Again and again, as though shaken by wave after wave of sensation. Long minutes passed. Her face paled, then flushed, then paled again. Her moans grew quieter, weaker. Her hands relaxed their grip on the chair, fingers loosening and finally letting go.

Reverend Samuel lifted his head, his eyes opening. He looked down at her for a moment, then took his hands off her and walked around behind his desk.

He was changed. His face showed a healthy color, his eyes were bright, and his every movement showed a dynamic energy. Even his hair looked more silver than gray. He seemed almost to glow.

"Thank you, child," he said softly. He settled into his chair, then pressed a button on a very elaborate-looking phone system.

The door opened, and Reese DeMarco stepped into the room.

"Bambi and I are done," Samuel said.

"Of course, Father." DeMarco went to the visitor's chair and picked Bambi up, holding her limp body easily. His face was completely without expression. "Will there be anything else tonight?" he added, waiting there with the young woman cradled in his arms.

"No, I think not. Good night, Reese."

"Good night, Father." DeMarco carried Bambi from the room, closing the door quietly behind them.

Samuel leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "It's good not to be hungry," he said.

Tessa sat up in bed with a gasp, her heart pounding.

Oh, my God.

He was feeding off them.

"He's aa goddamn psychic vampire."

"Sounds like it," Hollis agreed.

Tessa turned to face the other woman, cradling her cup in both hands as she took a cautious sip of the hot coffee. "You don't seem surprised," she said finally, slowly.

"Well, we had the suspicion it would work like that. Or that it could, at least. A brain apparently hardwired to steal psychic abilities is already stealing energy. Somewhere along the way, he must have realized he could steal enough to replenish whatever he expended."

Hollis sounded and looked wide awake, despite the fact that it was half past four in the morning and she was in a nightgown and robe, just as Tessa was.

Tessa stared at her. "Most people just rest when they've used up energy reserves."

Hollis shook her head. "Most people don't use energy the way psychics do. Even so, the majority of psychics probably do just rest, sleep. Hell, after one case, I slept for four days straight."

"Samuel can't do that?"

"Maybe he can. Maybe he can't. Maybe he can't afford the luxury of being that weak and vulnerable for that long."

"Because he has enemies?"

"Because he has to hold on to his flock."

Tessa thought about that for a moment. "If he weakens too much, or for too long, then his grip loosens. And theywhat? Wake up? Realize they've been held captive by a kind of power most of them would consider witchcraft?"

"If I were him, that's what I'd be afraid of. Especially if I'd risked a lot of power once, maybe even nearly all I hadand came home, weakened, to find my followers in the middle of a minor revolt."

"Did he?"

"According to some information Sarah found, it happened last October. A number of weird things happened last October. Just about the time we thought we were wrapping up a serial murder case in a little town outside Atlanta."

"Venture."

"Venture."

Tessa frowned. "You didn't mention that before."

"I didn't know." Hollis grimaced. "I talked to Bishop last night. He told me then. Apparently, Samuel was able to reestablish control over his people fairly quickly, but we're not really sure how he managed that."

"Psychically?"

"If that's the hold he has over them."

"You sound doubtful."

"Well I am. Controlling the mind and will of just one other person is an incredibly complex thing, beyond the limits of any psychic we've yet to encounter, no matter how powerful he or she was. The closest we've seen to any kind of mind control was between blood siblings, and even then the control was extremely erratic and uncertain. To control over a hundred people? All at once? All the time? Some of them outside the Compound, miles away in town? No. Samuel's not that powerful. He can't be."

Tessa accepted that, but more because she didn't want it to be true than because she was absolutely convinced. And she wasn't entirely sure that Hollis didn't feel exactly the same way "Okay. If he isn't controlling them psychically, then how?"

"I think he's using his abilities but in a far more limited and precise way. You read up on cult leaders; they all use a combination of techniques, from strictly controlled schedules and structures to sleep deprivation, social isolation, sexual or emotional domination, public confession of sins and supposed sins, and flat-out brainwashing. Indoctrination through hours and hours of sermons, the central theme of which is always a variation of Us Against Them. Us being the chosen ones, of course. Them being everybody else, all outsiders, who are collectively and individually a dire threat to Us."

"Yeah, I remember reading all that. But none of the cult leaders I read about was psychic."

"I imagine they would have loved to be, though. For one thing, the hours of sermons wouldn't be as necessary if you could make every single one pack a supercharged punch."

"Is that what Samuel does?"

"We think so. From Sarah's reports, 'services' aren't an everyday thing, much less an all-night thing. But he does appear to speak to and touch every one of his followers every single day, and they do appear to be, for want of a better word, mesmerized." Hollis shrugged. "Plus, just think about all the nice, convincing miracles you might be able to pull off in front of a highly suggestible audience more than willing to believe you're God's messenger on earth. We humans have a long and storied history of following prophets and messiahs."

"No matter where they lead us."

"No matter where they lead us," Hollis agreed.

Brooke knew her friends were right. She knew she couldn't get all the way to Texas all by herself. But knowing that didn't help. Knowing that she had friends who knew what she knew, who understood, didn't help.

She was afraid.

She didn't doubt Cody when he said something bad was going to happen, something even worse than the things that had already happened. She didn't doubt him because Cody was never wrong about stuff like that, and because she felt it too.

It was like a weight she couldn't escape, that feeling. She lay in her bed for hours feeling it on her, heavy and dark. She tried hard to make her shell even stronger, even thicker, but that didn't seem to make any difference at all. The weight remained. And it was getting heavier by the minute.

She wanted to cry out, to run to her parents' bedroom, as she had once done when a nightmare woke her, seeking comfort. And seeking reassurance that nothing was going to hurt her, that nothing lurked in the darkness of night that she need be afraid of.

Once, that had been true. But not anymore.

In the darkness of her bedroom, lying very still in her bed, Brooke began to cry.

On the other side of the Compound, in her own bed, Ruby lay awake. She, too, had been working to strengthen her shell, but even as she did so she had the guilty awareness of hiding at least one truth from her friends. Not because she didn't trust them, of course, it was just It was just that she had only one thing left in the whole world that truly belonged to her, one thing Father hadn't been able to take away.

One thing she had to protect.

Ruby turned on her side in bed and cuddled Lexie close.

"It's all right," she whispered. "I won't let anything hurt you. No matter what."

Tessa frowned. "So Samuel could be precognitive, with a history of visions that came true. Telekinetic, with the ability to move things, maybe even levitate his own body. Telepathic, with the ability to read minds."

Hollis was nodding. "Any of which could get their attention, convince them to listen to him, believe him. Follow himeven off a cliff. Maybe help keep the men in line by convincing them he's the alpha, the natural leader chosen by God, that they're destined to follow him. Especially if he added his own unique twist to the whole control issue."

Tessa was still struggling with the idea that left her more than a little queasy. "The women. He found a way to give them something better than a drug."

Grim, Hollis said, "They don't call it 'the little death' for nothing. An orgasm can produce an extraordinary amount of sheer energy. If he's found a way to psychically trigger that, and then"

"Steal the energy for himself?"

"Why not? As long as he has the control to stop pulling energy before he takes too much, it's pretty much a renewable energy source. Especially if it affects them like a drug and makes them more than willing to submit to him again and again. It could affect him like a drug. Hell, they could all be addicted to it."

Tessa set her coffee cup down on the kitchen island and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "I might be sick," she muttered.

"Yeah, me too. A kind of sexual domination for the books, that's for sure."

"And the men, the husbands? They just allow it?"

"Probably aren't quite willing to believe what they may suspect. Maybe can't believe it. From all accounts, he's not causing women to climax in public, in the church during services, at least not fully. Though Sarah said there were at least a few women who seemed to go right to the brink. But a total orgasm, what you saw in your dream? If what you saw is true, he's keeping that part of it very private. A little one-on-one with Father, the results of which are known only by a handful of his retinue. Maybe just the guy you saw."

"DeMarco? Chief Cavenaugh thinks of him as a ghoul."

"He sounds like one. Especially if he's carrying Samuel's drained victims back to their beds in the dead of night. No way to know what his motivation is; maybe he genuinely believes in Samuel. Or maybe he's just a hired gun."

Tessa's frown deepened. "I didn't get anything from him. And his face sure as hell didn't give his thoughts or emotions away."

"If he's Samuel's closest adviser, bodyguard, lieutenant, whatever the hell he calls himself, he may be the only one who knows the truth, knows what goes on in private. In public, during services, the other men may well see in the women what a lot of true believers see and feel in churcha kind of rapture. Not quite orgasmic, but close to it. A spiritual experience tying them with even stronger bonds to their father."

Sawyer woke so abruptly he was already sitting up on the couch when his eyes opened. He looked around his dim office for a moment, his heartbeat thudding in his chest, then swung his feet to the floor and ran his fingers through his hair.

Just a dream.

Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.

Ignoring that sarcastic inner voice, he checked his watch and grimaced when he saw that it was barely five a.m. He had slept four hours, if that. And, tired as he was, he knew it would be useless to try to go back to sleep.

Because he never could. And because the dream nagged at him.

It always did.

But even more now. Especially now. And you know why. You just won't admit it.

Still ignoring the inner voice, he rose from the leather couch, stretching to ease the kinks and stiffness, and crossed the small room to his desk. He had left the work lamp on, and in the pool of light the folders and maps and other papers covering the blotter looked like chaos.

But Sawyer knew where everything was, and when he sat down, his fingers reached unerringly for a folder underneath two others. It contained summarized reports of half a dozen suspected homicides, all bodies found in the riverbut all so far downstream they were well out of his jurisdiction.

Hell, two of them had washed up in a different state.

The victims had been and continued to be unidentified, so were listed as John and Jane Does. Four women, two men.

Sawyer had not requested autopsy photos, but attached to each report was a single photo of each victim as he or she had been found. Stark black-and-white, cold, clinical, ugly.

As were the reports themselves, just clinical facts couched in unemotional medical terms. All the victims had been young, in their twenties or thirties. None had shown signs of disease or conventional antemortem injuries, and no cause of death had been determined.

No conventional antemortem injuries. No bullet wounds, or stab wounds, no strangulation or blunt force trauma, and no signs of drowning. No evidence of poison, and the toxicology screen on each victim had come back negative for drugs or alcohol.

The only thing these victims had in common was that they should not have died.

According to all the reports, at least. But when Ellen Hodges's body turned up in his own bailiwick, Sawyer looked more closely at what had, until then, been a nagging but unofficial worry. He had requested and studied all the reports, and then he had personally called each of the M.E.s or coroners involved and asked a few direct questions.

People in the investigative fields, he had found, did not in general have lively imaginations. They dealt in facts, usually ugly facts, and if something fit outside the box of an individual's knowledge and experience, it was usually given short shrift, overlooked at best and actively ignored at worst. So it hadn't been easy to get the answers he sought without also tainting the information by asking leading questions.

But patience and tenacity served him well, and he had eventually learned details that were not included in these reports.

Such as the fact that the bodies of every single one of these victims had possessed at least one internal oddity the investigating officers and medical personnel had not been able to explain.

Bruised and even burst organs. Crushed bones.

White eyes.

"Jesus, what's going on up there," he muttered, rubbing the nape of his neck with one hand as he sifted through the reports, reading again and again what he had already memorized. And recalling conversations that had, in the end, sounded eerily the same.

"I wish I could help you, Chief. Wish I had an explanation for how that man's heart was bruised and damaged with no external injury to account for it. I don't know how it happened. I don't know how it could have happened. It's almost as ifas if an incredibly powerful hand reached inside his body andBut that's nonsense, of course."

Of course. Of course it was.

Nonsense. Impossible.

Sawyer leaned back in his chair until it creaked in protest, his gaze fixed across the room but focused on something much, much farther away. Focused on another brief and seemingly casual conversation on a downtown street corner five years in the past, a conversation that had baffled and unsettled him then and disturbed him deeply now.

"You'll make a good police chief, Sawyer."

"What? Reverend Samuel I have no intention of"

"I only hope that, when the time comes, you'll know who your friends are. Who you can trust."

"Reverend"

"I know you aren't a member of my church, but people like us we should stick together. Don't you agree, Sawyer?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Reverend."

"No? Well, perhaps not." He smiled, nodded politely, and continued on his way, leaving Sawyer staring after him.

Sawyer pulled his thoughts from the past with an effort and realized he was looking at the television set on the other side of the room. He didn't intend to focus on it but found himself thinking that it was still too early to watch what passed for "local" news on the Asheville station

The lamp on his desk flickered, and then the TV came to life, muted as he had left it the day before and showing an infomercial.

"Shit." He checked quickly to make sure the blinds were still closed, relaxing only a little when he was certain none of the third-shift officers in the bullpen could see into his office.

Good.

He looked down to see that his watch had stopped, and he swore again, this time half under his breath.

Not good. But not at all unusual.

You should have bought stock in a major watch company years ago. Or just give it up and buy yourself a sundial____________________

A sundial. And a cell phone that lasted more than a week before dying. And he should have bought stock in whoever sold lightbulbs, because he tended to blow those completely when he was very tired and very worried and not paying attention.

He closed his eyes briefly, making the necessary mental effort to gather in straying thoughts and energies. It wasn't difficult, after all these years of determined concentration and practice, but it was a control that tended to slip when he was weary or distracted.

And that was not good.

"people like us"

That was really not good.

Tessa was shaking her head in response to Hollis's theory about physical pleasure being taken for spiritual rapture. "Okay, explain the women. Tell me how a womana grown, sexually active womancould not know she's having an orgasm. And how any woman could explain that away as a religious experience."

"Some do, I'm told."

"Hollis."

"Okay, okay. I'm betting it's another aspect of Samuel's abilities. He can't control their minds psychically, but I'll bet he can plant the certaintylike a posthypnotic suggestionthat what they're experiencing is a spiritual rather than a physical rapture. I even bet that those he calls into the inner sanctum most likely wake up the next morning convinced they only had an erotic dream."

Tessa shivered. "That's twisted."

"And then some."

"But he can't be drawing all the energy he needs just from the women, can he?"

"Doubtful. Now and then for a fix or in an emergency, yeah, but they can't be his primary source. Not if he's expending an unusual amount of energy."

"Do we know he's doing that?"

"No. We know he has in the past, but we have no idea how much of his energy he has to expendin controlling his flock and in order to reach his other goals. Whatever those are."

"We don't know a whole hell of a lot," Tessa observed.

"Yeah, welcome to our world. That's par for the course."

Tessa picked up her cup and took a swallow of her cooling coffee, giving herself a moment to think. "So, if we're assuming he's using more energy than he possessesfor whatever reasonwe also have to assume he has to replenish that energy somehow."

"Every psychic I know has to. And while rest is the most natural way, it isn't the quickest; quite a few of us also can draw energy from external sources. Electrical storms and strong magnetic fields, for instance. Don't storms bother you? They make me feel like one giant exposed nerve."

"They make me feel edgy," Tessa acknowledged, and then stopped, frowning. "Wait. When I was reading up on Grace, on the area, one of the things I remember reading is that the weather here from spring to fall is unusually violent. Something about the granite in the mountains, the shape of this valley, and the way weather fronts move through. Lots of storms, especially electrical ones. Is that why Samuel based his church here?"

"We think so. Also why he's so interested in the Florida property you supposedly own. Last time I checked, Florida held the record in the US for most lightning strikes within a given period. Summer storms can be vicious. Just like here."

"But almost always spring to fall here. Winter storms are really rare."

Hollis nodded. "Which means that during the winter months, like now, there's rarely a handy supercharged electrical or magnetic field available from which to draw or replenish his energy. But he's using energy, and probably at a high rate. The negative vibes you picked up, possibly even the pain, are probably no more than a discharge: unfocused remnants of energy left over after he's used his abilities."

"Which means"

"Which means he has to need something a lot more powerful to recharge, to restore his own energy balance. Assuming there's anything balanced about him, which I take leave to doubt."

Tessa ignored the muttered aside. "Then what does he do? You said the women couldn't be his primary source. For part of the year, neither can the weather. So?"

Reluctant, Hollis said, "The body produces a great deal of energy during orgasm. It also produces an extreme amount of energy during the dying processespecially a terrifying or agonizing traumatic death. Believe me, I know."

"Are you saying he's killing in order to feed?"

"I'm saying it's possible. It could explain those inexplicable deaths. And it's that possibility, that suspicion, that brought us here."

"Doesn't the FBI have to wait to be invited?"

"In a conventional homicide investigation, sure. We're very careful to respect state and local jurisdictions. But for some crimes, FBI involvement is automaticand that includes a serial killer who's crossed state lines in his rampage."

"But didn't that part of the official investigation end in Venture? I thought there was no solid proof linking Reverend Samuel with that killer."

"The evidence was tentative," Hollis admitted.

"Meaning it was gained through psychic abilities?"

"Let's just say we have more than one reason to keep a low profile here in Grace."

"I see. And we have no hard evidence linking the reverend to the bodies pulled out of that river either."

"Tessa"

"Do we?"

After a long moment, Hollis said, "No. We don't. We have no hard evidence against him at all."