Blood Sins

'Ruby, you're one of the Chosen too. And we're not like the other girlswe know what's happening. What it's doing to us. Don't tell me you aren't scared.'

'We have shells.' Ruby was trying her best to pretend she wasn't scared.

'And how long are those shells going to protect us? Sarah had a shell, and she's gone. How many others have there been?'

'Brooke'

'How many? People who just go awayor at least that's what Father and the others tell us. And people who don't go away, except that they do because they're different. Because they change.'

'We won't change.'

'How do you know?'

Before Ruby could respond, Cody spoke up for the first time. Gravely, he said, 'I know Brooke can't get all the way to Texas, not without help. But I know something else too. Whatever it is Father's been waiting for, it's nearly here.'

They looked at one another in the dim light, and none of them pretended to not be scared. Not even Ruby.

* * * *

'She didn't drown?' Sawyer asked his medical examiner.

'No. No water in the lungs. No sign of a gunshot wound, or a knife wound, or any blunt force trauma to the skin or muscle that wasn't postmortem.'

'And her bones?'

'Just like it was with Ellen Hodges.'

'But you can't tell me how it happened.'

'Jesus, Sawyer, in my wildest imagination I can't think of any way it could have happened. I mean, it should be an impossibility. How do you pulverize bones without damaging the skin and other tissue those bones are surrounded by? I don't know. I don't believe the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill is going to know.'

'That's not a whole hell of a lot of help, Tom.'

'Sorry.'

'I don't suppose you were able to establish an I.D.?'

'On my end? No. There were no tattoos, no birthmarks, nothing especially distinctive. She was five-seven, probably slender, early thirties, brunette. My report's there on your desk.'

Sawyer opened the folder and scanned the forms it contained. 'You don't have eye color noted.' He didn't exactly ask, because he knew what the answer would be. Knew with a queasy certainty.

'Couldn't tell what that was before she died. Right now her eyes are white.'

Sawyer drew a breath and let it out slowly. He put a hand to the nape of his neck, realizing only as he did so that he was trying to ease the crawling sensation of his body to something beyond his understanding.

He hadn't wanted to be right.

'Like Ellen Hodges,' he said.

Macy nodded. 'Another thing that beats the hell out of me, because there's no medical explanation. No sign chemicals were used, no signs of trauma, just no color. Like the bones: Something that shouldn't be, is.'

'You have any theories?'

'About the eyes? No. In all the years I've been in medicine, I've never seen anything like it. And I hope I never see it again.'

'Amen to that.' Sawyer leaned back in his chair, scowling. 'I've managed to keep the oddities of the deaths quiet, but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep a lid on that. Once it gets out'

'Once it gets out,' Macy interrupted, 'most of the town will believe what you believe. That these deaths are connected to the church. Somehow.'

'Ellen Hodges was one of their members.'

'Yeah. Do we know the same about this woman?'

'According to them, nobody's missing.'

'And you're not buying it.'

'No. Not that it matters what I believe on that countunless you can give me something, some bit of evidence, to tie that woman to the church.'

'Wish I could. Sorry.'

'Goddammit.'

Macy frowned. 'Are you still getting pressure from Ellen's family?'

Sawyer reached over and tapped a stack of messages to the left of his blotter. 'Of this dozen messages, ten are from her father. Today.'

'But they aren't coming to Grace?'

'Pretty sure I talked him out of that.'

'What about their granddaughter?'

With a shrug, Sawyer said, 'I gather they buy the church's story there. That Kenley Hodges took Wendy and left the church, the Compoundand Grace. For all I know, he's been in touch with them; they've certainly stopped pushing for more searches of the Compound.'

'I'm a little surprised the judge granted you a warrant to search it in the first place.'

'Because he's a church member? Probably why he signed the warrant. Didn't want to be seen openly protecting the church or Samuel.'

'Yeah, you're probably right.' Macy shrugged. 'It also gave them the chance to publicly clear the good name of the church. You didn't find Hodges or his daughter, didn't find any evidence that Ellen was killed there, and everybody was extremely cooperative.'

'Oh, yeah,' Sawyer said. 'They were just cooperative as hell. They always are.'

'You know, it's just barely possible that they cooperate because they have nothing to hide.'

'You believe that if you want to, Tom.'

Almost apologetically, Macy said, 'It's just that I can't think of a reason why. Why kill these women? What would Samuel or his church have to gain by it?'

'I don't know,' Sawyer replied bluntly. 'And that's what's driving me nuts. Because every instinct I have is telling me that all the answers are inside that Compound. I just don't know where to look for them. And I'm not at all sure I'd recognize them if I found them.'

* * * *

For Samuel, meditation after services was even more necessary than it was before services; as well as becoming centered and calm, he needed the time to focus his mind, to assess his condition. And, of course, God required of him this self-examination.

It was never easy, reliving those early years, but he did so, again and again, because God commanded him to.

Reliving the hell of abuse, experiencing the pain as though it were happening all over again. And, always, the blackout he could never penetrate, that lost time during which horrible things had happened. Horrible things he never wanted to believe himself responsible for.

But you are, God insisted. You know what you did. You know what happened. You know you punished them.

In my name. With my strength, you punished them.

You were my justice.

You were my sword.

He accepted that, because God told him it was so. But no matter how many times he tried, he could never remember just what precisely had happened.

His life entered a new and in many ways equally painful phase after he turned his back on that burning motel