Blood Sins

Had taken advantage.

Bambi had gone home that day nearly in tears to find yet another 'uncle' laughing and drinking with her mother, and when the man had turned his hot-eyed gaze on the daughter as soon as the mother passed out, the lesson had been reinforced.

Bambi fended him off with an empty whiskey bottle, then packed her few things and left. She hadn't seen her mother since.

How she had wound up, finally, at the Church of the Everlasting Sin was a tale of a rough and sinful life on the streets, doing what she had to do in order to survive.

'We understand, child,' Father told her, his voice deep and warm and inexpressibly comforting. 'You had no choice.'

'Yes, Father. I hated myself, but it was the only way I knew to make enough money to eat.' She kept her gaze on his kind face, oblivious, as she always was when giving Testimony, to the other church members watching and listening from the pews.

As long as Father heard, as long as he understood, she didn't care about anyone else.

'Go on, child.' He put his hand on her shoulder, and Bambi could feel the warmth of that touch spreading all through her body.

'It was harder to earn money sometimes,' she said obediently. 'No matter what II was willing to do. So sometimes I got a meal and a cot at some mission or soup kitchen or church. I'm sure plenty of the people there tried to help me. To talk to me. But I wasn't ready to listen.'

'Until?' Father prompted gently.

'Until I met someone at a soup kitchen in Asheville back around Thanksgiving. Someone who told me about the Church of the Everlasting Sin. She said I'd be welcome here. She said I'd find peace here. She said I'd find God here.'

'And have you, child?'

'Oh, yes, Father. I've found everything here.' Bambi sank to her knees before him, her head bowed. 'Bless me, Father.'

'God blesses you, child.' He lay both his hands, one over the other, on her bowed head and began to pray out loud.

The church was dim, the lights down low, except for the very bright spotlight focused on the two who were on theSawyer could only think of it as a stage. The whole thing struck him as a kind of performance, as it had the other dozen or so times he had 'visited' here during services.

As he watched intently, paying little attention to the prayers Reverend Samuel was intoning, he saw the man change, saw his rather ordinary face grow pale for a few secondsand then regain its former color and more, becoming flushed in the cheeks. He lifted his face toward the heaven to which he was praying, and there was an expression of exaltation on his regular features.

That look transformed him from any manevery manto a man touched by a divine presence.

Or so it seemed.

As for Bambi, when the prayer concluded, to an echoed 'Amen' from the congregation, and she was helped to her feet by Reverend Samuel, her legs appeared wobbly and her face, like his, was transformed. It glowed. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth half open, lips glistening, and her breasts rose and fell visibly as she breathed in jerky little pants.

For all the world as though she had just had an orgasmor at the very least soared right to the brink.

Even from where they were standing at the rear of the church, Sawyer could see all that, and it creeped him out as it had every time he had seen it happen. Which was every time he had watched and listened to one of the female members of the church give their 'Testimony.'

'Is it just me,' Robin whispered from the corner of her mouth, 'or do you feel like we've been looking into somebody's bedroom?'

Sawyer indicated the door with a jerk of his head, and they both slipped out of the church. He didn't speak until they were at the top of the steps with the doors closed behind them. From inside they could hear the congregation singing a hymn with a fervor and volume that made it sound as if they numbered several hundred voices rather than barely one hundred.

'Was it just me?' Robin demanded.

Sawyer zipped his jacket against the cold of the evening and jammed his hands in the pockets. His sigh misted in the air. 'No, it wasn't just you. That's the way it always looks.'

'Always?'

'Always when the women give Testimony.'

'But not the men?'

'No.'

'So there is something sexual about it?'

'You saw what I saw,' Sawyer reminded her. 'He touched her shoulder and her head, nothing more until he helped her to her feet after it was all over with. He prayed over her for about a minute. He called on God to bless her. Whatever happened to her then Hell, I don't know. I've never been able to figure it out.'

Though it does keep his female followers completely devoted to him, doesn't it? Blindly devoted.

'Doesn't look like any church I've ever been to,' Robin said. 'And in addition to the more traditional versions, my parents tried out every Bible-thumping, singing-for-salvation, speaking-in-tongues, snake-handling, out-of- the-mainstream church you could name.'

Sawyer frowned. 'Aren't they Baptists?'

'Yeah. But they wanted me to experience religion in every possible form so I could make up my own mind. We even drove to Asheville to try out Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues. I'm sure if they could have found a Buddhist temple or an Islamic mosque, we would have gone there too.'

He shook off various peculiar mental images with an effort and said, 'Well, then you know that offering testimony isn't that uncommon, though it's not a regular thing with most of the churches I know of. Here, it is. At every service, at least one member goes forward to tell their story.'

'Is it always that depressing? I mean, I had no idea what all Bambi had been through.'

'Well, that's the thing about this church. Everybody has a sad story. Everybody was lost, alone, and at the end of their respective ropes when they found the churchor the church found them. Very convenient, isn't it?'

'So it's true. They do target vulnerable people.'

'I believe so.'

'What's in it for the church?' Robin asked, always practical. 'I mean, collecting lost souls should be enough for any religion, but a church usually needs stuff in return. Like money.'

'Members are expected to tithe.'

'That's it?'

'Well, the church doesn't officially accept land or the titles to businesses or other properties directly from their members. But they do have a habit of offering up help to members' businesses, they do gain goods and services from members, and they do buy up, with their surplus funds, parcels of land all over the place.'

'Why?'

'I have no idea. Useless land, mostly, often with abandoned buildings falling to ruin.'

'They hoping for a real estate boom?'

'Beats the hell out of me.'

Robin turned her head to look out on the peaceful, well-lit square, the neat little houses all around, each with lighted windows even though virtually every soul in the Compound was inside the church. She shivered visibly and zipped her own jacket closed.

'Spooked?' Sawyer asked.

'I have to say I am. I'd heard stuffplenty of stuff. But actually being inside there and watching I dunno. Nothing obviously weird happened in there, and yet'

'And yet it felt wrong.'

'Totally wrong. Can we leave now, please?'

'Might as well.' Because you know damn well DeMarco will make sure you don't see Samuel