Blood Sins

still be able to walk and talk and be almost human.'

'Stepford people,' Tessa murmured. 'Going through the motions, all scrubbed and nice. But empty inside.'

She was wearing a slight frown, and Sawyer could still feel her impatience; in fact, he could feel it growing. She had Ruby's bag on her lap, open wide enough so that the tiny white poodle's head was visible as Tessa petted her gently.

Odd, Sawyer thought for the first time. Nobody's said a word about the dog. Or even seemed to notice her.

'Pretty much,' DeMarco said, agreeing with Tessa. 'They smile and talk to you, and they're almost the people they used to be. Only not quite.'

'All of them?' Sawyer asked, distracted by this new horror.

'No. But a majority of them now. Including the non-psychics.' He shook his head. 'The women can maybe be explained by the way Samuel sucks energy from them. Maybe there's a point of no return. Maybe they can only lose so much energy, so much of the essence of what makes them unique, before the person they were just dissolves.'

Maybe the creepiest thing yet, Sawyer thought. 'And the men?'

'It's the same result; I'm just not sure how he does it. If he's drawing energy from the men, it isn't such an open, visible thing and not part of any kind of formal ceremony or pseudoreligious ritual. Not like the Testimony ritual, where one or more women are obviously stimulated to the brink of orgasm.' His voice was matter-of- fact.

Tessa told them then about the 'dream' she had had the night before. She kept her eyes on DeMarco the whole time, and when she finished he was nodding his head.

'Yeah, that happened last night. Exactly as you described itmy part of it, at least. I'm never present when he has one of the women in his office, but it always ends the same way. I'm called in, and I carry an unconscious woman back to her bed.'

* * * *

The Ritual Room was about twenty feet by twenty feet, Ruby guessed, though the size was deceptive because of the dark, floor-to-ceiling velvet draperies that hid the walls and the thick, dark carpet that cushioned underfoot. Though the ceiling of the room was far higher than was normal for a belowground level, the five pendant lights that were the room's only illumination hung low, no more than six feet or so above the floor, and each cast below it a perfect circle of light: one in the center and four encircling it.

About three feet out beyond the outer four circles stood a copper candle holder taller than Ruby, fashioned to hold a single candle. The copper gleamed even though it lay outside the light.

Ruby knew, because it had been explained to them, that each of the four outer lights and the tall candle holders were placed precisely to represent the four directionsnorth, south, east, and westwhile the light in the center represented just that.

The center. The center of everything.

That was where Father stood waiting for them.

Ruby had wondered more than once if there was another door hidden somewhere behind the draperies, because Ruth always unlocked the door to usher the girls in, and it didn't seem likely that Father would be waiting inside a locked room for his Chosen ones. But Ruby had never gotten the chance to look around; Ceremonies and Rituals were always carefully controlled, usually by Ruth, this one especially.

The four girls silently took their assigned places. Ruby was north; Mara was south; Theresa was east; and Amy was west. Each went to the circle of light and knelt on a little velvet pillow facing the center, heads bowed, flickering candles held steadily before them.

With hardly a sound, Ruth left the room, drawing the long draperies across to hide the door and then disappearing behind them.

Ruby didn't have to look up to know that Father was smiling, that his face wore the serene expression it always wore.

His outer face, at least.

She didn't want to think about his other face, and she most certainly didn't want to see it again.

It terrified her.

'You are the Chosen,' Father said, his voice unutterably loving as he spoke steadily while he turned in a slow circle.

'We are the Chosen,' Ruby heard herself repeat, as the other three girls did. Ruby fought the strange, wordless urge to give in to him, no matter what he asked of her, no matter what he did to her.

It was always so hard to fight him.

'Loved by God.'

The girls repeated the words.

'Given by Him to bless this world.'

Again, they repeated the words after him.

'Given by Him to serve this world.'

Ruby was trying not to think about anything except making her shell harder, repeating the familiar words and phrases without even listening to them.

'Given by Him to save this world.'

The last sentence was repeated, over and over, a mantra or a prayer or an offering, spoken in low voices but faster and faster until the words seemed to blur together, until the sound was almost a moan.

And as she repeated it, Ruby kept her eyes half closed. She refused to watch what she knew was happening.

He always began with Amy, in the west, though Ruby had no idea why. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the direction and was only because Amy was oldest.

But I can't look. It makes me weak when I look. It scares me so much that I forget to keep my shell wrapped around me.

Above the steady chanting came a sudden loud moan, and the sound made her look despite herself.

He was standing behind Amy, both hands folded on top of her head. His eyes were closed, and he continued to chant, his face lifted toward the ceilingor toward heaven.

No, not toward heaven. God didn't choose him. God wouldn't want this, I'm sure of it.

Amy knelt, her head bowed. Eyes closed. She had stopped chanting; her mouth was open, slack, wet. She moaned again, her body visibly shivering, jerking.

Ruby knew what was happening to her friend. Ruth and Father and her mother might call it something holy, but she knew better. It wasn't holy at all. It was obscene. And the fact that Amy remained a virgin and that she felt nothing but pleasure during the act didn't change the fact that it was rape.

Nobody needed to explain that to Ruby.

And nobody needed to explain to her the terrifying fact that Father stole more than just his Chosen ones' innocence. Every time she looked at her mother's face, or Ruth's face, or the face of so many of the women of the church, the women who had once been Chosen themselves, Ruby was offered a stark reminder.

Father stole life.

Father stole self.

A little bit at a time. A ceremony. A youth ritual. A testimony. Whatever he chose to call it, the end result was the same.

He destroyed.

* * * *

'So Bambi is okay?' Tessa asked.

'She was at breakfast this morning and seemed the same as always.'