Blood Sins

What have I done?

'Ruby??'

All she could do was concentrate harder, to try her best to make the protective shell she had fashioned for herself even stronger. Stronger than it had ever needed to be before, even when she watched Brooke die. Her head began to pound, to throb, and she could feel her own heartbeat, first racing and then gradually slowing, growing more steady as she regained control over herself.

He can't know where I've sent Lexie. He can't.

'Ruby!'

Her fingers felt a little numb as she hurriedly finished drying herself and wrapped the damp towel around her. She went out into the bedroom, her parents' bedroom, where Emma Campbell waited.

'Here, sweetie, come sit down at my dressing table while I do your hair.'

Ruby obeyed, keeping her gaze fixed on her own reflection in the oval mirror. Still her face, thank goodness, with nothing dark and empty underneath. She checked every day, always worried that it could happen at night, when she slept. When she couldn't concentrate to keep her shell around her for protection. She dreaded looking into the mirror every single morning.

She didn't know what she would do if she saw beneath her own skin what she saw beneath the skin of so many of those around her.

Except that I wouldn't be here to see that. I'd be gone. Only my empty shell would be left.

She glanced up at Emma Campbell's reflection, then just as swiftly returned her gaze to the reflection of her own face. She didn't know where they went, the people who'd once lived inside their skins. She wished she could believe they'd gone to heaven but knew that wasn't the case. People went to heaven when their bodies died naturally; their souls went to heaven. That was what Ruby believed.

But what Father didwhat Father tookthat was something else.

Something horribly unnatural.

He took it, Ruby was sure, from the people who no longer believed, the people who just went away.

And he took it from his Chosen ones.

Emma Campbell had been a Chosen one.

And now Ruby was Becoming. Almost ready. Almost old enough to endure the True Ritual. That was when she would lose herself. Give herself, Father said, to God.

That was when she would stop being Ruby Campbell and become just an empty shell with a pretend person inside.

'I believe I'll put your hair up this time, Ruby. You look so pretty when your hair is up.'

She braced herself and looked steadily at the reflection of Emma Campbell's face. The face that her mother had worn and that the pretend person wore now. The face that was so familiar, and yet so alien.

This isn't my mother. Not anymore.

* * * *

'You can't read him because he has a shield?' Sawyer asked.

DeMarco shrugged. 'Maybe. Though I've come to think of it more like a black hole. He draws energy in, constantly It seemed a fairly minor characteristic at first, possibly an interesting variation on a shield, negative energy, but over time it's grown stronger, to the point that if you're within ten or twelve feet of him it's an actual physical sensation of being pulled toward him.'

Hollis muttered, 'Bet his congregation calls that charisma.'

'They call it part of his divine gift,' DeMarco said calmly. 'And either he's hardwired for it or else he has amazing concentration and focus, because while he's pulling energy in, nothing of himself escapes. Nothing of his personality. None of his thoughts or emotions. Even when he's stimulating female members of his flock in order to feed off their energy, he still reads as a null field. As if there's no person, no mind, no soul there.'

'How is that even possible?'

'I don't know.'

Sawyer said, 'But you do know that's one thing Samuel is doing? Feeding off those women?'

'I believe he's been doing that for a long time. But it wasn't so obvious at first, and I doubt he was pulling much of their energy then. I think he was doing more giving than taking, at least in the beginning, with the members of his congregation, whether that was building their trust or somehow making them dependent on him. Maybe even addicted to him.'

'I spent a lot of time trying to understand how he was able to control them so thoroughly. There were none of the typical signs or methods of a cult leader brainwashing his followers. And yet those followers were devoted to him, and way beyond any normal sort of devotion. That was obvious. That was why I was sent in twenty-six months ago.'

Bishop said, 'As a group, they had become even more isolated, more reclusive. We try to learn from history, Chief, and from our mistakes. We needed to know what was going on inside the church.'

'To avoid another Waco. Another Jonestown.'

'Exactly. But cults are, by nature, isolationist, highly suspicious of outsiders, so the only way to really know what goes on inside is to get someone inside. Not an easy thing to do, especially with a paranoid leader already warning his congregation about enemies everywhere and a looming apocalypse.'

Sawyer looked back at DeMarco. 'So how did you get in?'

'The same way most of his followers did. I hung around church shelters and halfway houses in Asheville for weeks, obviously one of the castoffs of society, homeless and unemployed. I was a loner, bitter, openly disenchanted with our government, and though I didn't have property to tempt the church, I made sure what I had to offer Samuel was visible to all.'

'Which was?'

'My army jacket, bearing the kind of service patches and insignia you don't find in pawnshops. I'm ex-military We had a hunch Samuel might be interested in building himself an army.'

'And?'

'And he was.'

Sawyer said, 'An army? He's building an army up there?'

DeMarco shook his head. 'Not the way you think. Not the way we expected. There are a few handguns in the Compound, a few shotguns. Nothing more than that. He's convinced his followersmost of themthat they won't need weapons to defeat their enemies. Not man-made weapons, at any rate. His followers are his army, and he's been building that army carefully for at least the last few years.'

Sawyer thought about that and decided it needed to sink in a bit more before he tried to do something with that particular puzzle piece. 'But you were still valuable to him. Your non-psychic skills were valuable.' He realized suddenly that he had no idea what, if any, psychic skills DeMarco could boast, and the realization made him acutely uncomfortable.

'He had no one with any experience to run his security. Until recently, it hadn't been a concern, but by the time I was recruited, he was growing more and more security-conscious.'

'Paranoid.'

DeMarco nodded. 'I gather he felt he'd been making enemies, but whether he had already focused on the SCU then, I have no way of knowing.'

Hollis glanced at Bishop, then said, 'We're pretty sure he was focused on at least one of us as long as eighteen months ago.'

'He let us find those photographs with his pet monster,' Bishop said. 'In fact, I believe he made sure we'd find them. He wanted us to know he'd been watching. Following. My bet is that the reason there were only pictures of you was because he wanted us to wonder just exactly what we are wondering. Was he tracking you as a potential victim or because you're SCU?'

'And it could be either,' she agreed. 'Considering where I wound up.'

'Which is?' Sawyer asked.

'Let's just say that I got to meet the pet monster up close and personal.' Before anyone could comment, she