Blood Sins

'Delving? Into my mind? Jesus.'

'Well, if it makes you feel any better, we aren't sure he can do that. Delve, I mean.'

'It doesn't make me feel any better.'

'Sorry. But, look, we're all in that boat, more or less. We don't know how powerful he is. Even worse, we don't know for certain what abilities he has. Is he telepathic? Is he precognitive? Empathic? What's his range? What are his limitations? He can suck up energy from other sources to recharge his own, even from other people, but can he channel that energy? Literally? Make it a weapon? Or has he found some other way of killing with his mind?'

'Jesus,' Sawyer repeated.

She nodded. 'Scary, isn't it? The law doesn't cover what he is, what he can do. He doesn't use a knife or a gun or a garrote, or even a big stick. As far as we can tell, he doesn't have to be anywhere near his victims. He certainly doesn't have to touch them. And yet, somehow, he murders them. He steals their very life energy, and in a way that has to be unimaginably painful and terrifying.'

'Why? Why is he killing?'

'I don't know. But I believe he won't stop. I believe every one of his followers is at risk.'

'Nearly a hundred people live in this Compound.'

'Yes.'

'People who practically worship him.'

'Don't kid yourselfthey do worship him. He's spent a lot of time and expended a great deal of energy to make certain of it.'

'Then why the hell isn't that enough for him? What more could he want than to be considered a god by his followers?'

'Maybe to be considered a god by the world.'

Sawyer drew a breath and let it out slowly. 'I really, really hope you're wrong about that.'

'So do I. But if you want to consider the textbook definition of a cult leader, he pretty much fits, and for a cult leader it's always, at the end of the day, about power. About controlling his followers. And about convincing them that only he can lead them to peace, or heaven, or some version of Utopia, of the promised land, whatever it is they want to believe in. I haven't heard his sermons yet, but I'm told they can turn on a dime from God Loves You to Those Who Don't Understand Will Try to Destroy Us.'

'I've been told the same thing, though I've personally only heard the God Loves You version.'

'And have you seen his effect on his female followers?'

'I've seen it. Creepy as hell. Whatever he's doing to them if it isn't a crime, it's sure to God a sin.'

'It's worse than a sin.' She told him their theory.

Though it pretty much confirmed his own suspicions, Sawyer nevertheless felt queasy. 'Christ. So he's killing some of them and regularly feeding off others? Off the sexual pleasure of the women?'

'We think so.'

'For energy? Literally?'

Tessa nodded.

'Why does he need so much energy?'

'We don't know. Maybe because he's using so much to control his followers. Maybe he's stockpiling for some future need.'

'What kind of need?'

'If he's paranoid, and cult leaders mostly are, he has to be afraid someone really will try to stop him. In his mind, that would be an ultimate battle. An apocalypse. Armageddon. He may be trying to build up his power, strengthen his abilities, for that last stand against whoever is perceived to be attacking him. Most cults either explode or implode, sooner or later, and it's virtually always because the cult leader has lost it.'

'If he's using so much energy, even if he's just storing it, won't that have an effect on his brain?'

'Probably. And we're pretty sure he was twisted to begin with. There's no telling what's happening inside his head, but I can pretty much guarantee you it isn't good.'

'Maybe his own ambition will destroy him,' Sawyer said. 'I don't have to be a doctor to know that the human body was never intended to contain too much electrical energy. Whatever's building up inside him, sooner or later, it's gotta blow.'

* * * *

The morning meditations were always the most difficult for Samuel, at least these days. He thought it was because there was seldom an opportunity to recharge his energies so early in the day, but he also felt certain it was part of God's plan.

To keep him humble.

On this morning, however, he'd been forced to deal with the small problem of Brookepoor child, to believe she could escape God's plans for herand while he was saddened by her loss, her energy had certainly made his early meditations much easier on him than usual.

So it wasn't quite so difficult to work his way through the memories one more time, to relive his childhood. His slow, hesitant acceptance of God into his life. Until

On a scorching hot July day when he was thirteen years old, God reached down and touched him.

It happened more or less in the middle of nowhere, in an area so rural the cows by far outnumbered the people. It happened at a summer tent revival being run by an older preacher, a thin, unshaven, intense-eyed man named Maddox who had long ago fallen out of the mainstream but felt compelled to preach his radical version of God's word to anyone who would listen.

Samuel had intended to pass through the tiny excuse for a town the day before, but a flyer tacked to a power pole had drawn his attention, and he had decided rather idly to stay for the revival. In his experience, the ladies of the town often brought cakes or cookies along, and sometimes casseroles, turning the event into a sort of family picnic.

There wasn't much entertainment in such isolated areas, and a good preacher could brighten up an otherwise dull Saturday. And if he was really good, the crowd would return, possibly larger, on Sunday, choosing him as a onetime alternative to their more traditional churches.

So Samuel hung around the town, earning a few bucks sweeping out a couple of downtown stores forgotten by time and then hitching a ride out to the big pasture where a worn tent had been pitched, all the flaps pinned open because it was a sweltering day.

Inside were a few dozen folding chairs and benches, sitting unevenly on the harsh stubble of recently harvested hay. Someone had taken the trouble to rake up whatever manure had been on the ground beneath the tent, but there was nevertheless a pervasive odor of cow hanging heavily in the still, hot air.

Maddox passed out badly printed 'programs' that consisted of a single sheet of cheap paper, folded once and filled with tiny, smudged type. His sermon, more or less. The highlights, at least. It was barely literate but filled with passionate belief.

Samuel settled onto a rickety chair at the back, happy that there had been a chicken and two beef casseroles but disgruntled because nobody had brought cookies. He listened to Maddox build slowly to a rant against government officials and established religions and anybody other than himself who believed they had the Answer.

Maddox alone had the Answer.

The Answer he cannily hinted at but never actually provided. Only the godly, he assured them, could hear the Answer.

He was good theater, Samuel thought. The couple dozen townsfolk who had come out to listen fanned themselves with his program and nodded and occasionally threw in an amen to keep the show going.

Thunder began to rumble distantly, then closer, and a hot breeze blew through the tent.

Samuel saw a few people consulting watches and beginning to grow restless, and he saw that Maddox had also noticed. The old man's words began to tumble and fall over one another as he rushed to get his sermon finished and reach the all-important ritual of passing the collection plates, which were, Samuel had noticed, old