Blood Dreams

Yes, Gabriel.

'The meekness does not become you. It's also a rotten lie,' he said, moving the map slightly and leaning closer to the Jeep's hood to get a better look. He frowned, then bent to get a laptop out of his backpack and opened it up on top of the map. 'You know, this is sort of a weird little place.'

Why do you say that? I mean, aside from the obvious serial-killer thing, it seems a perfectly normal small town to me.

'With an awful lot of churches.'

Small towns in the South usually do have a lot of churches.

'Uh-huh. With names like Church of the Everlasting Sin?'

You're kidding.

'No.'

Hmmm. Maybe that's just the Baptist version of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows, something like that.

'I don't think so.'

Why not?

He typed rapidly, having no problem carrying on a conversation at the same time. 'Every Baptist church I've ever seen has been nice, with polished pews and thick carpet and lots of flowers, and even stained glass. I don't think the Church of the Everlasting Sin is going to have any of that.'

Because?

'Because,' Gabriel said, 'according to this most recent map, the church is presently housed in what used to he an old grain-storage facility, and according to the database we're still compiling on the town, the pastor of the Church of the Everlasting Sin, one Reverend Jedidiah Butler, has locked horns with the town council for the last couple of months. He insists on holding services in the place as it is, and the town wants him to either rehab or rebuild.'

Never bet against a town. Unless you have God on your side.

'Yeah, well, I'm not so sure this guy does.' Gabriel scowled down at the laptop's screen. 'Fifteen years ago, the cops were dogging him out in California. And it wasn't for staging a protest for freedom of religion.'

Don't tell me.

'Yep. Seems the good pastor was suspected of killing his wife.'

* * * *

'Last night was… strange,' Dani said, keeping her voice low as she watched people in special protective gear working carefully in and around the roped-off pool.

'Tell me about it,' Paris said. 'My head is still killing me. Hollis?'

'Yeah, me too.' Hollis was frowning. 'Is my memory off, or did I hear another voice in there with ours?'

Paris said, 'Hard to tell with all the screaming.'

'You're clairvoyant and didn't pick it up?'

Paris hesitated, looking at Dani. 'Well…'

'It was there.' Dani looked at the other two women and managed a smile. 'Yeah, same voice. His. I've been thinking about that. That… junction of hallways in the dream walk? A bit like the center of a web.'

'Another trap,' Hollis said.

Dani nodded. 'I think about all those women in Boston, the women here-it's like he lays his trap and waits for them walk into it.'

'That's what you feel the symbolism means?' Hollis asked.

'I don't know what I feel, except… that something's missing. Something important.'

Marc joined them in time to hear what Dani said, but instead of commenting on that, he looked at them one by one and said, 'So, is somebody going to tell me what happened last night with the three of you? I can't say for sure about Hollis, but I've never known either Dani or Paris to drink enough to be hungover the next day-and that's what you all look like.'

'I'd love to work up some righteous indignation,' Paris told him, 'but I see them, and I saw me in the mirror this morning, and I couldn't agree more.'

'It was a dream walk,' Dani said briefly.

'All three of you?'

Dani refused to look at him. 'Yes. We thought there was a chance we might find out something.'

'Did you?'

It was Hollis who replied, 'Another symbolic trap, this one filled with endless hallways and screams. And maybe the voice Dani heard before.'

'It was him,' Dani said. 'But just saying my name, right at the end, before we all came out.'

'I don't like that,' Hollis said. 'I haven't been psychic my whole life, but it doesn't take an expert to know that an evil voice in your mind is not a good thing.'

'Maybe I'm just nuts,' Dani suggested, not entirely kidding.

Before anyone could respond to that, Shorty joined them to say, 'Good news, bad news, and weird news. Good news is, we don't have a body in the pool, the drains, or any of the equipment.'

'The bad news?' Marc asked.

'Bad news is, what we do have is more of what we found here on Wednesday. Body parts, mostly unidentifiable by sight. We won't know for sure until lab results are in, but I'm guessing there isn't a new victim here.'

'And the weird news?' Hollis asked.

Shorty held up a clear plastic bag, and they could all see the silver bracelet it contained. 'The weird news is that we have another piece of jewelry, and this one has a name on it. Only the name doesn't seem to belong to any of our victims or to anybody reported missing-as far as I know, anyway.'

'What's the name?'

'Audrey.'

Marc took the bag and studied the contents for a moment, then passed it on to Dani. 'Doesn't mean a thing to me. Any of the rest of you?'

Dani looked at the delicate bracelet, the name of its presumed owner spelled out in pretty, flowing letters. She had never been especially sensitive to objects, and this one told her nothing. 'Sorry, I'm drawing a blank.' She passed it on to Paris.

And knew immediately that Paris felt something. But her twin merely turned the bagged bracelet in her hands for a moment, then handed it off to Hollis with a shrug.

Dani didn't comment. She waited for Hollis to return the bag to Marc with a shrug of her own and watched him give it back to Shorty.

'Maybe it'll mean something to the lab,' Marc said. 'Thanks, Shorty.' He watched his technician return to the roped-off area around the pool, adding, ' Paris, what did you pickup?'

'I'm not so sure I like that you can read me so well,' she told him with a frown.

'I'm not reading you. I'm reading Dani-so to speak.' He looked at her. 'You went tense as soon as Paris touched the bag.'

Dani met his gaze briefly, then asked her sister, 'What did you pickup?'

Still frowning, Paris said, 'My abilities seem to be changing too. Instead of a feeling that amounts to little more than a hunch, I saw something this time. I got a weird little flash image of a guy buying flowers. Roses. I think it was at that shop up near the old railroad depot.'

'Could you recognize him if you saw him again?' Hollis asked.

'No, I didn't see enough of him. Just his hands reaching for the flowers, and a glimpse of an older lady behind the counter, smiling at him.'

'Let's go,' Marc said.

It wasn't until they were about halfway to their destination that Hollis spoke from the backseat.

'Look for her in the water. Maybe it's as simple as that. A bracelet with a woman's name on it.'