Blood Sins

there.

If any of her was left.

Ruby fixed her gaze on the flame of her candle and, along with the other girls, murmured, 'Yes, Ruth.'

Ruth led them single file down the hallway. Unlike the level above, this one was thickly carpeted, the plush wool soft against their bare feet. The walls were covered with fabric rather than paint or wallpaper, and the wall sconces were alight with dripping beads of crystal.

For the first time, it occurred to Ruby that the room they were nearing, the Ritual Room, was directly beneath the pulpit area of the church. She wondered why she had never realized that before, and even as she did, she understood.

Because her shell was stronger. She'd been making it stronger, concentrating harderand without Lexie to protect, without Lexie needing to be unseen, all Ruby's energy had been able to focus on protecting herself.

And inside her shell, she was able to think clearly now, more clearly than she had ever been able to before. To wonder about things. She didn't have to see the faces of the girls ahead of her to know that they were becoming slack and expressionless, that their eyes were going dark and dazed.

Because it was always like that.

They didn't have shells. They couldn't protect themselves.

She felt a jab of guilt that she could protect herself and they couldn't, but she pushed that aside because she had to. She could only do so much; even protecting just Lexie had taken nearly everything she had, so she couldn't help her friends.

At least, she couldn't help them right now. She couldn't fold them inside her shell with her. But maybe she could do something else. Maybe she could bring help to them.

Maybe.

She wasn't sure how she could do that, not exactly. She wasn't even sure If she could. But she knew she was still connected to Tessa Gray. Not as strongly as she had been before she drew Tessa back here to the Compound so she could rescue Lexie, not as strong as she had been when she had warned Tessa not to feel so much out at the pet cemetery, but the tie was still there.

She could feel it.

And maybe maybe she could use it.

Ruth paused outside the door of the Ritual Room and looked at the four girls in turn, making sure each still held their candle correctly, that each was still properly solemn.

Ruby wondered if she even noticed that Amy swayed slightly, her eyes wide and almost unseeing.

No. Because Ruth nodded in satisfaction, then used yet another key to unlock the door and lead the way inside.

Ruby drew a deep breath and followed the others.

* * * *

'All,' Sawyer muttered. 'That's all he saw.'

Tessa said to Quentin, 'What about that vision told you that you were seeing what would happen if we tried to help Ruby?'

'It wasn't anything I saw. But it was a certainty. I knew you guys would try to get Ruby out of the Compound today. And I knew that if you tried, what I saw would happen.'

'No question? No doubt?'

Quentin shook his head. 'Not a single one. I knew. And I've learned that I can trust that kind of certainty, because it's as rare as hen's teeth.'

Hollis looked at Bishop. 'You've dealt with visions longer, you and Miranda. Did Quentin see a possible future we've avoided because you guys chose to act? Or was it a prophecy we've only temporarily averted?'

Sawyer all but groaned. 'A prophecy like Samuel's Prophecy? End-of-the-world stuff?'

Bishop said, 'Only in the sense of being ultimate. Unchangeable in its inevitability. We've come to realize over the years that some things we see, some visions of the future, can be changedif we act at the right time and in the right way. But sometimes our interference is exactly the catalyst necessary to bring about the very events we try to stop. Some things have to happen just the way they happen. And they will happen. No matter what we do or try to do. So we tend to be very, very cautious in acting on a vision.'

'And as far as we've been able to tell,' Quentin added, 'there's no good, consistently reliable way to determine whether one of is us looking at a possible futureor an inevitable one. There's always a choice of whether we try to change what we see or just work to try and minimize the train wreck heading our way. Quite often, the precog who has the vision isn't certain whether to act. Sometimes, on the other hand, we feel quite strongly about it. Though I've never been sure whether it's gut instinct or, hell, just a guess.'

'Cosmic Russian roulette?' Sawyer looked around the table, hoping somebody would offer a less deadly analogy.

Nobody did.

Tessa said to Quentin, 'But you're sure this time that by stopping vis, you prevented the events in your vision?'

Quentin frowned slightly and his eyes went a bit distant, as though he was listening to some sound only he could hear. Then he blinked, shook his head, and replied, 'I'm sure what I saw won't happen. Not the way I saw it happen, at least. But every instinct I can claim is telling me that Reese is right. Samuel intends to bring about whatever prophesy he saw, his version of an apocalypse. I don't know when it will happen, and I don't know why he needs it to happen, but I know that's his plan. And I know it's going to be soon. Very soon.'

'How?' Sawyer asked finally. 'How could he hope to have enough power to do anything on a scale like that? And don't anybody say lightning. I mean besides lightning.'

'His army,' DeMarco said. 'Somehow, he means to use his followers to bring about his vision.'

'In what way?' Sawyer demanded. 'I mean, how could those ordinary people become a a power source for a megalomaniac?'

It was Bishop who replied. 'Psychics. We're virtually certain that in recent years Samuel's focused his recruitment efforts on active and latent psychics. Even aside from the abilities themselves, we always have a higher-than-normal amount of electrical energy in our brains.'

'Maybe a fun bonus for Samuel,' Quentin suggested. 'Abilities he wants to steal and more energy to help fuel his efforts.'

DeMarco said, 'He's already stolen abilities from some of the latents, I think. People who likely never had a clue that a vital part of themselves was taken away. But the fact that he hasn't gone after the abilities of a few psychics in the church I know are active tells me that he has something else in mind for them. Maybe it has to do with his growing need for energy, or maybe he does intend to use them to bring about his Prophesy. I don't know.'

'What about the people whose abilities he went after?' Sawyer was bewildered. 'Were they destroyed in the process?'

'Some simply disappear. One of the reasons law enforcementincluding you, Chiefhasn't had to deal with missing persons is because those who disappear tend to be new recruits, from outside this area. When they vanish, nobody outside the Compound knows or cares. And those inside are told and believe that whoever it was just didn't fit in and chose to leave. There's never any proof otherwise.'

'But some are known,' Sawyer insisted. 'Some who go missing are either from this area or else have family and friends who notice they're missing. Like Ellen Hodges.'

'Yes.'

'If he's killed so many, why have we found so few bodies?'

'I don't know. The bodies you have found, most of them, were people that appeared to me to be killed in haste, without much if any forethought. They posed some kind of threat to Samuel, and so he acted. Each murder was less about stealing abilities than it was about protecting himself. Unfortunately, I was never able to see just how he acted, how he was able to do what he did; I only saw the results, and only on some occasions, not all of them. A body, virtually always with no visible wound. Each time, I was merely informed