by Kay Hooper
“Then something was affecting you? Something that got through your shields?”
“Maybe.”
“Tessa.”
“All right, yes. I heard . . . That same presence as before was in my mind. Not the dark one; the one who said, I see you. Only this time, it was warning me. To be careful. To not let my feelings overwhelm me, because he—Samuel, I assume—gets in that way. He makes people feel and gets in that way.”
“How did you feel?”
It was Tessa’s turn to frown as she tried to sort through the fragments of memory and emotion. “It’s hard to separate things. At first I felt uneasy, as if someone was watching me. Sawyer felt the same thing.”
He nodded when Hollis looked at him. “Tessa said maybe it was the cameras, but . . . it didn’t feel like that.” He hesitated, then added, “Cameras pointed at me feel a certain way. This was something else.”
Tessa nodded. “I felt a tugging, a pull, and when I looked around, I saw something flash at the edge of the pet cemetery. Once we got there, the . . . pain and grief of the people, especially the children, started to overwhelm me. That’s when that voice in my mind warned me to shut the door before he got in. So I shut it. Too hard, I guess.”
Sawyer frowned at her. “That’s why you went out? You did it to yourself?”
“Well, self-preservation. You asked me if I’d know if I was under the sort of attack Samuel is capable of; the insistence in that voice told me I had to protect myself, and fast. So I did.”
“We’re in trouble,” Hollis said.
“Not necessarily.”
“Tessa, you were chosen for this assignment partly for the strength of your shields and the fact that you don’t read as psychic. No matter who that insistent voice belongs to, it shouldn’t have been able to reach you so clearly, not through what was in effect only a chink in your shields. And you shouldn’t have been overwhelmed by the emotions of those people, not with your shields up. At all. That’s new, we both know that, and the new stuff is the hardest to handle. We are definitely in trouble.”
“I was tired and distracted before I even went up there, Hollis, and you know it. I felt like I was being pulled long before I reached the Compound. You said I connected to someone or something up there yesterday, and I agree.” She reached for the piece of paper lying on the table in front of her and looked at it again, read it again.
Please, take care of Lexie.
I can’t protect her anymore.
Father’s started watching me.
“This was addressed to me. Even more, it was placed in Sawyer’s Jeep, not my car, when no one could have logically known I wouldn’t be leaving the Compound the same way I came.”
Hollis shook her head. “You didn’t mention meeting any of the kids yesterday, not by name.”
“I was introduced to a whole group of them pretty much at once. I barely spoke to them beyond saying hi. Until you told us about seeing Andrea’s spirit and what she said about Ruby, I didn’t remember picking up any names. But Ruby was there, a dark girl with really pale gray eyes. I think she’s the one who touched me, physically touched me, and I’m almost positive she was carrying this bag.”
“Almost?” Sawyer stared at her. “Wouldn’t it have been obvious?”
Tessa thought about it and frowned again. “Now that you mention it, it should have, shouldn’t it? A big bag for a little girl to be carrying, and unusual since they were all in that playground near the church. None of the other kids was carrying any sort of bag or backpack. But . . . Ruby was. I have to concentrate to remember actually seeing it, but when I concentrate, it’s there, clear as day.”
Softly, Hollis said, “You need her help to stop him.”
“Excuse me?” Sawyer said.
“It’s what Andrea said. ‘You need her help to stop him.’ And she was talking about Ruby.”
“How could a twelve-year-old girl help stop someone like Samuel?”
Tessa looked at him for a moment, then returned her gaze to Hollis. “Maybe that’s why Sarah was so convinced the children were important.”
“Who’s Sarah?” Sawyer asked.
Knowing that would be a long and probably difficult conversation, Tessa chose to postpone it. “I’ll tell you about Sarah later. Right now I’m more worried about Ruby. Hollis, you said Sarah had managed to get three of the kids out, right?”
Hollis nodded.
“Latents. But what if she was picking up the strength of an active psychic and didn’t know it, because Ruby has the ability to . . . obscure or disguise what’s real?”
“That would be a hell of an ability,” Hollis said slowly. “And one I’ve never heard of outside science fiction.”
“But possible?”
“Sure, anything’s possible. But how likely would it be that Samuel could miss something that unique?”
“Maybe because it’s unique. Or maybe because he hadn’t been paying attention. Until lately.” Tessa looked down at the note and read the last chilling phrase out loud. “Father’s started watching me.”
“Christ,” Sawyer said. “She’s twelve—she’s hitting puberty.”
Hollis drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Bastard. If he’s looking for another good source to tap, the chaos of adolescence also produces an enormous amount of energy. Sexually and otherwise. It’s when a high percentage of latents become active for the first time—usually because of some kind of trauma. Just guessing, I’d say the simultaneous death of almost all the pets and livestock in the Compound would be very traumatic for a little girl. Especially one who loved her dog.”
“She had to protect Lexie,” Tessa told them. “So, instinctively, she did. Some kind of energy shield, for sure. But more than that, she must have tapped in to her latent ability to hide or disguise an object. And she’s been able to continue hiding Lexie all this time, hiding her in plain sight, from everyone in that Compound, including Samuel. She must have thought they were safe. Until she realized he was beginning to look at her the way he looked at the older women. Until she understood.”
Quentin Hayes had been a seer most of his life but preferred the official SCU designation of precog or precognitive instead, since the ability to actually see the future was very new to him. Until he had crossed paths with an extremely powerful medium in an extremely dangerous situation not so long ago, all he had been able to claim was an occasional precognitive awareness that something was about to happen.
All that changed when he met Diana Brisco.
So it was less than a year since he’d begun actually seeing visions, and since they were still comparatively rare, he hadn’t yet grown accustomed to the sheer power of them.
They still came out of nowhere with no warning, and they still brought him to his knees.
“Christ.”
“Quentin?”
He knew Bishop was there with him, in the same room—but after the blinding burst of pain, the room shimmered and then faded, and in its place was . . . hell.
Dark clouds rolled and banked heavily above, so dark they shut out the sunlight, and thunder boomed and echoed. The air above his head crackled and sparked with pure energy; acrid smoke stung his nostrils with a smell that turned his stomach and caused his soul to flinch, because it was a smell he recognized.
Burnt flesh.
He didn’t want to but forced himself to turn and look at what he only vaguely recognized as the outdoor amphitheater used by Samuel and his congregation. It was a charred and scorched place now, the large boulders intended to be seats blackened, stillsmoking. And among the rocks were other still-smoking shapes.
Human shapes.
They were twisted and contorted in mute agony, and it was obvious that many of the adults had tried in vain to protect children. But none of them had had a chance, Quentin realized sickly.
He heard a scream and pivoted sharply, finding himself looking up at the area of the granite “pulpit” where Samuel preached.
Samuel stood on the pulp
it, staring down at his dead followers, his expression chillingly serene. His hands were smoking.
At his feet, staring up at him, sat a dark-haired little girl, her expression every bit as serene as his.
“Ruby!”
It was Tessa who had screamed, who cried out the little girl’s name. She was . . . she was bound to a cross, one of four placed on either side of the pulpit. Ropes at her wrists and ankles would have held her securely; the monstrous iron spikes driven through her hands and feet were clearly intended to maim and torture. Two of the other three crosses held identically bound figures, but only Tessa was conscious; the others were unconscious—or dead. Hollis and Chief Cavenaugh hung motionless.
There was a lot of blood.
Samuel looked at the little girl, then smiled tenderly. He placed his left hand on the top of her head.
Before Quentin’s horrified eyes, she began to smolder and, without a sound, she burst into flames.
Tessa screamed again. Samuel turned his head to look at her, his smile fading, replaced by a slight frown, just barely this side of indifference. He looked at her, Quentin thought, as one would look at a fly that annoyed with its buzzing. Then, with his left hand still on the head of the burning child, he extended his right hand, and a jagged bolt of pure energy shot from his fingers toward Tessa.
“Quentin.”
Blinking, drawing in a gulp of blessedly normal air, Quentin looked down at the hand gripping his arm, then up to meet Bishop’s concerned gaze. “Jesus. How do you and Miranda stand this?” The hoarse sound of his own voice startled him.
“Practice.” Bishop helped him to his feet, and into a nearby chair. “What did you see?”
“I saw . . . hell. Listen, I need to get to the Gray house. Like ten minutes ago.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re about to make a very, very, very bad decision. Trust me on that. And I don’t think anything short of an unexpected visit will dissuade them.”
Bishop reached immediately for a phone. “The chopper can land in that clearing between the house and the road; that should get you close enough without alerting the farmhands.”
“Can he get away this time of day?”
“He’ll have to. I can’t risk getting that close to the Compound, and we don’t have another pilot available right now. Bring them back here.”
“Sure?”
“Quentin, you’re white as a sheet. I don’t need it described to me to know you saw something we do not want to happen. So it’s time we pool our resources. All of them.”
Thirteen
SAMUEL WAS ALWAYS careful, when he used Ruth, not to drain her to the point of unconsciousness. Partly because he preferred to take the energy of younger women, and partly because Ruth’s energy was . . . odd. He wasn’t sure what was different about her, but over the years had come to understand that her role in his life and his ministry was different from the role other women played.
Perhaps it was because she had been with him longest and had known him through all the stages of his journey. Or perhaps it was simply that God had decreed she would stand with him in order to remind him, again and again, of the devil who had borne him.
Because he could never draw Ruth’s energy without remembering—
He was nearly twenty before he truly began to master the gifts God had bestowed with that bolt of lightning years before. Until then, he was erratic, uncertain when he would be able to hold a congregation spellbound with his power and when he would be forced to rely on the knowledge and tricks he had gained when preaching had been merely a means to earn enough for a bed and a meal or two.
But that day, that particular day, had been one of the more frustrating he’d endured, with his gifts eluding his grasp, and in the dark night he had found himself walking the streets of a cold and dirty city a lot like the one in which he had last seen his mother alive.
Perhaps that was why.
The whores were easy to find, as they always were, and he chose one with little thought beyond the knowledge that she was cleaner than most and promised him a room.
The room turned out to be at a rundown motel that brought back too many ugly memories, and in a rage, in the middle of the furtive act for which he’d paid, Samuel put his hands on her throat and began to strangle her.
He probably wasn’t the first john to like his sex rough, but she must have seen something on his face or in his eyes, because she choked out a quick protest before he could cut off her breath completely.
“Wait—don’t! I can—do something for you. Something better—”
“You can die,” he grunted, fingers tightening.
“No! I can—show you death.”
That got his attention. And earned her a reprieve. But he finished with her first, his hands still at her throat, just tight enough so that the sight of her red, sweating face and panicked eyes brought him to orgasm.
He got off her once he was done, stripping the condom off and tossing it into a corner, then using his own handkerchief to clean himself. He straightened his clothing, then sat on the bed beside her and stared down at her. She was no longer gasping, but watched him warily, as if afraid to even move.
“What did you mean? That you could show me death?”
She licked her lips nervously. “It’s just . . . my grandma could see spirits. So can I. Is there anybody you want to talk to, honey? Anybody from the other side? Because I can make it so’s you can talk to them.”
Disgusted, he said, “You really think I’m going to fall for that bullshit? Where do you keep your crystal ball?”
“It ain’t like that, honey, I swear! I’m no phony. I think about it, about opening a door to the other side, and the spirits almost always come through. I can see them and hear them.”
“Can you?” He laughed and, obeying an impulse, lunged to once again grip her throat. “I think I want to be able to do that, honey. I think you’re going to give me that. Aren’t you?”
This time, she couldn’t answer, because he was strangling her in earnest. And as he choked the life out of her, he reached. Reached with his mind, thrusting into her as his body had thrust into her just minutes before. Thrust and thrust and thrust . . .
“Sammy! What’re you up to now, you little bastard?”
He jerked his hands away from the whore, staring at her. But it wasn’t she who had spoken. She was never going to speak again. Her face was so mottled it was almost blackened, her swollen tongue protruding between her lips, her eyes wide and so red they looked bloody.
Her body was stiff. Cold.
Time had passed. A lot of time.
Samuel pushed himself off the bed and scrambled to his feet. And it was only then that he saw her.
His mother.
She stood near the door, her smile the cruel one he remembered so well, looking every bit as real and alive as she had looked all those years before.
“You’re still a bastard, Sammy,” she said mockingly. “No matter how old you get, no matter how many people are stupid enough to believe you’re God’s little soldier, we both know the truth, don’t we? We both know what you really are.”
He stared at her, his head pounding, hands curling into fists at his sides. He wasn’t . . . couldn’t . . . let her destroy what he was building. He couldn’t.
“I’ll tell you a little secret, Sammy.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “God knows too. And the devil’s waiting, with a seat for you that’s right in the fire—”
“No. Noooo!” Terror shot through him, and with all his will, with every last ounce of strength and determination he could muster, Samuel slammed the door he had opened.
The spirit of his mother vanished, popping like a soap bubble.
He stood there for an endless time, swaying, exhausted, mumbling over and over, “I can’t see spirits. I can’t see spirits. I can’t see spirits.”
Ruth came when he called. She never told a soul about the dead whore. And he refused to see spirits. Ever again.
“How do you propose we get her out of there?” Sawyer demanded. “I’m game to try something, but what? According to your list, Ruby Campbell has parents, both followers of Samuel, both living in the Compound. They’re her legal guardians, and since we have squat in the way of evidence that she’s at risk, no judge is going to issue an order allowing us to remove that child from her home and parents. I doubt very much the parents will consent. And taking her out of there any other way is kidnapping.”
“I don’t care,” Tessa said. “That little girl reached out to me. I can’t just stand by and do nothing.”
“I know that. All I’m saying is that we need a plan. A reasonable plan with at least a reasonable chance of succeeding.”
Hollis said, “I know someone who can get into the Compound at night, without being seen or detected by any of the monitors. And into any of the buildings, locked or not. But Sawyer has a good point, Tessa. We can’t just go in there and snatch the girl.” “We can’t wait until night.”
“Tessa—”
Somebody banged on the front door, making them all jump.
Sawyer had his weapon in his hand and was at the diningroom window before either of the women could move. “No car. I can’t see the porch from here, let alone the door.”
Tessa frowned, closed her eyes for only a moment, then said, “Dammit,” and headed for the foyer.
“Tessa—”
“It’s okay. I know who’s here.” She pulled the front door open, aware as the others joined her that Sawyer still held his weapon and that Hollis had one hand behind her, undoubtedly holding her own gun.
“Quentin, what’re you doing here?” Tessa demanded.
“Saving your ass,” he responded politely. “Believe me. And not just yours.”
Hollis said, “You do love to make an entrance, don’t you?”
“Always. Chief Cavenaugh, I’m Special Agent Quentin Hayes. I know all this seems very abrupt, but if you wouldn’t mind, my boss thinks it’s time we all met up and talked about things.”
