Ritual Sins

by Anne Stuart

  His hands were still cradling her hips, and she could feel the strength in them, the tension of a fierce control that threatened to break free. He moved her hips, lifting them, then letting them sink back, so that she began to feel the rhythm of it, the sleek, sliding joy of it. “You can figure out the rest of it. Ride me, Rachel,” he whispered. “Make me come.”

  She moved carefully at first, afraid of pain, afraid of making a mistake. But she was wet, sleek, and even though he felt larger still as he filled her, she took him with an ease that made her tremble inside. As if she were made for him. Her movements were meek, tentative, but he made no effort to hurry her. In the flickering light of the television monitors he lay back with his eyes closed, absorbing the feel of her.

  He put his hands on her breasts, and she grew more adventurous, faster now, harder, trying to force a response from him. She couldn’t catch her breath, her skin was burning, and she leaned forward, bracing her hands on either side of him, pushing, taking him, needing more, always more.

  He slid his hands down her body, cupping her hips again, as if he could no longer restrain himself. He surged up into her, slamming against her, hard, and she welcomed it with a glad cry, needing him so desperately, meeting his thrust, enveloping him, again, and again, tiny strangled cries bubbling out of her throat as she began to shake. She wanted him to touch her, to put his hands between her legs, to help her, when suddenly there was no need. Her entire body convulsed—her breath caught, her heart stopped, her skin burst into flames, and all she could feel was the pulse of him, flowing into her, through her.

  He caught her hands in his, entwining her fingers with his long ones, braiding them together in a fierce, strong grip that couldn’t be broken. She cried out, but she didn’t know what she was saying. She didn’t care. It lasted forever, an endless spasm of lust that shattered into love, and when it was over she collapsed on his strong, sleek body, too lost this time to even weep.

  She slept. With his arms around her, she slept.

  * * *

  She was awake, and she didn’t want to be. The room was dark, only the flicker of the television monitors disturbing the darkness. She was alone.

  She rolled over on her back, slowly, taking stock. She felt achy. Sticky. Strange and sensuous. And then her eyes focused on the one screen that held any movement beyond the flickering of black and white.

  It took her a moment to recognize the front room, the room he’d dragged her through. With the sparse decorating most of the retreat tended to look the same. She could see Luke, dressed only in the white drawstring pants she’d taken off him ages ago, leaning over a bundle of clothing on the floor. There was a river of darkness around his feet, and her eyes narrowed as she sat up, focusing.

  On the black and white monitor the dark river was blood. And as Luke stepped back she could see the huddled figure of a body. A corpse—no one could live with so much blood flowing around them.

  She scrambled out of the bed, pulling the sheet around her body, and stumbled to the door. It was locked, and she had no idea what the electronic combination was. She punched at the buttons in hysteria, banging at them, and in the monitor she could see Luke lift his head, turning toward her. His face was absolutely expressionless. And there was blood on his hands.

  She had no choice but to watch. She was trapped in that room, imprisoned, with nowhere to look but the mesmerizing flicker of the television monitors. She watched in numb horror as Luke simply stood there. And then she began to hunt for her clothes, scrambling into them in desperate haste, ready to take the first chance for escape she could find.

  She was still struggling with the ties of her tunic when Luke came back into the room, the door skimming shut behind him before she could leap for it. In the dim light of the room she could see the deep red of blood on his hands, his feet, soaking into the hem of his pants. She could smell it.

  He looked at her, still that strange, expressionless caste to his beautiful face. “Dressed already?” he said calmly. “I thought we might manage a replay. Unless you have an aversion to blood.” He moved over to the bathroom and began to wash his hands, not bothering to shut the door. Not that she had any chance of escape.

  “What did you do?” she asked in a sick voice.

  He looked up at that, his eyes narrowing. “I didn’t kill him, Rachel. I was too busy being gloriously fucked by you. Someone else did it and left him as a little present for me.”

  “Who?”

  “Who did it? Probably Bobby Ray. He has a talent for such things, and I kept him from getting to you. He was waiting for you in the garden, and he was probably pissed as hell when you didn’t show. So he took it out on Calvin.”

  “Calvin?” she echoed, stunned.

  “I’m not sure I made the right choice between the two of you,” he said casually, stripping off his bloodstained pants. “Calvin was probably the best friend I ever had. He shouldn’t have had to die for me.”

  He yanked on a pair of black jeans that had been hanging in the bathroom, then came back into the room. “I’m getting the hell out of here,” he said. “I’ve got more than enough money to keep me happy, as long as no one catches up with me.” He pulled a black tank top over his head. The wreaths of thorns stood out clearly around his wrists, and his long hair flowed down his back. That quickly he’d gone from a saint to a devil, and Rachel could do nothing but stare at him in shock. He began to stuff clothes into a black leather duffel.

  “You can’t go,” she said finally.

  He paused, looking at her. “Why not?”

  “Because they weren’t going to stop with killing you. They’re going to kill everyone. It’s going to be a bloodbath, like Jonestown or that cult in Switzerland or Waco.”

  He didn’t look even vaguely curious. “How do they intend to do that? And who are they?”

  “Catherine. Bobby Ray. I don’t know who else. They’re going to put cyanide in the water system.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I saw it in the storage room. Canisters of the stuff. Why would a place that believes in organic gardening have high-powered, cyanide-based insecticides?”

  He didn’t move for a moment. And then he shrugged. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Stop them.”

  “Easier said than done. I suppose I can call the police and give them an anonymous tip once we’re out of the state.”

  “That will be too late.”

  “Maybe. But that’s not my problem, is it?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “If you’d paid any attention you’d know that everyone’s responsible for their own shit in the Foundation of Being. Their own life, their own karma. If they’re supposed to die from poison administered by a kindly old woman, then so be it. We can call the police once we’re out of here but that’s the end of it.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  She didn’t expect tears of disappointment, but the absolute blankness of his expression was somehow more devastating. “Suit yourself, sugar. You gonna stay here and fight the good fight?”

  “Yes.”

  He hoisted the leather duffel to his shoulder. “All right. I’m outta here. No one ever gave me a goddamned thing in this life, and I figure I don’t owe them anything in return.” He started past her, paused, and leaned toward her. She tried to jerk away, but he caught her arm in a grip that hurt.

  “You’re a monster,” she said.

  “So you’ve told me. Let me just give you a little hint.” He paused. “Don’t drink the water.”

  The door slid shut behind him, silently, and it took Rachel a moment to realize she was still trapped. She looked up at the television monitors, only to watch them flicker and then plunge into darkness. The room was inky black, with no light from any source.

  She wanted to scream, but she didn’t. Instead she sat down on the low bed, her fist in her mouth, trying to still her panic. She remembered the stori
es, the television reports, the newspaper accounts. She could see the pictures, the piles of bloated bodies, the flames destroying the buildings, the charred remains. She didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want to burn to death in this tomblike room that so recently had seemed like a haven.

  Don’t drink the water, he’d said, his voice light and mocking. If she could feel the flames coming to get her that was exactly what she would do. She had no idea whether death by cyanide was a gentle one or a painful one, but nothing could be worse than burning to death.

  She scooted up to the head of the bed, pulling a pillow against her for some sort of creature comfort. The bed smelled of sex. It should have made her sick. Instead it made her weep.

  How could he have left? How could he have turned his back on everyone? He would have taken her with him, and maybe the Rachel she used to be would have gone. She hadn’t considered that she owed much to the people around her—she’d felt just as used and abused as Luke did.

  But she couldn’t stand by and let them be murdered.

  She lost track of time. It was possible she slept, she wasn’t certain. In the pitch-darkness and unending silence she could feel death moving around her to swallow her in a black embrace, and she slowly came to the conclusion that her noble stance had been a waste of time. There was nothing she could do to stop what was happening. She had simply offered them another helpless victim.

  It was the pounding that woke her from her nightmare-laden sleep. The splintering of wood, and suddenly she was blinded by a pure shaft of light, pinning her to the bed. She covered her eyes in an instinctively protective gesture.

  “There you are,” Catherine said in her elegant, motherly voice. “I’d wondered where you’d gotten to. I suppose Luke’s taken off?”

  There was no other answer. “Yes.”

  “Well, not to worry. It would have helped if he’d been around to cooperate, but we can always go on to plan B.”

  “Cooperate?” Rachel echoed. “Cooperate with his own murder?”

  “My, my, you have been a busy little girl, haven’t you? Bobby Ray said you’d overheard something, but the boy’s brain has been so addled by years of drugs that I’ve never been quite certain what to believe. Which makes things difficult when you’re planning something as complex as this.”

  Rachel’s eyes were slowly adjusting to the pool of light cast by the high-beam flashlight. She could see the gun in Catherine’s hand, and there was no comforting tremor.

  “I’m sure you could rise to the challenge,” Rachel said sarcastically.

  “That’s what I like about you, Rachel. You aren’t one to underestimate a woman’s ability. Though it does surprise me that you managed to crawl into bed with Luke. I thought you weren’t interested in sex. Of course, Luke could manage to seduce an eighty-year-old mother superior if he set his mind to it. Come along, Rachel. The others are waiting.”

  “The others?”

  Catherine sighed audibly. “The timing is off, of course. But it will have to do, I suppose. I had Bobby Ray dismantle the generator too soon. It’s still quite early and this place is damnably dark. I was almost going to leave you trapped in here but I couldn’t resist. I’m afraid I do like an audience. One of my little weaknesses.”

  “A minor failing,” Rachel said faintly.

  “I’m afraid I’m also troubled by an unhealthy addiction to money and power. Though that’s not that unusual. After all, aren’t they what rule the world?”

  “What about love?”

  Catherine’s laugh was bone-chilling. “You disappoint me, Rachel. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so foolish as to believe in love. Sex, perhaps. But that’s far less interesting than money and power.” She gestured with the gun. “Get up, dear. The others are waiting for you. Time to become one with the infinite. As the Native Americans say, it’s a good day to die.”

  Rachel’s muscles coiled in readiness, and her hand tightened around the heavy brass lamp that stood by the bed. “I don’t think so,” she said gently. And hurled it in the direction of the bright beam of light.

  23

  Rachel didn’t consider herself particularly gifted, but she had been good at softball. She could throw, and she could connect, and the heavy metal lamp slammed into Catherine with a satisfying clang.

  There was no way Rachel could tell if the gun went flying as well as the flashlight, but she had no choice. She dove for the opening of the door, trampling Catherine as she went, and took off into the murky darkness.

  Something was slippery beneath her feet, and she knew it was Calvin’s blood. She didn’t stop to think about it, she simply kept running, for the nearest escape she could think of. The garden.

  It was early morning when she stumbled into the fresh air. The magic hour, just past dawn, with a faint, damp breeze and the sound of birds overhead. The door slammed behind her, shutting out the evil, and she scrambled across the sparsely landscaped trail, slipping and scraping her knee through the wretched cotton trousers.

  She heard the metal door slam in the distance, and she knew she wasn’t alone. She could think of no place to hide in the Zen-like stillness of the place, and once more she cursed the static simplicity of the Foundation of Being. Someone was coming after her, someone intent on killing her. And she had no weapon, no defense left.

  She didn’t look where she was going, and she slammed into him, and not for one moment did she make the mistake of considering him safe. She looked into Bobby Ray’s empty eyes and knew that Luke had told her the truth. Here was evil of such monstrous proportions that it wiped everything else out.

  “There you are,” he said, his fingers tight on her upper arms. He didn’t look that strong. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time. You knew that, didn’t you? Luke took you away from me. I don’t understand it.” There was a faint, fretful whine in his voice. “I’ve always done what I could to protect Luke. He knew I would do anything for him, and there wasn’t much I needed or asked in return. I just wanted to hurt you,” he said with a bewildered expression. “I wanted to make you bleed. I don’t see why it was any business of his.”

  “Because he was sleeping with her.” Catherine had appeared, breathless, her long gray hair falling loose from the bun at the back of the neck. In the early daylight she looked eerily normal—the gentle soul who comforted the afflicted.

  “No,” Bobby Ray said flatly. “Luke doesn’t do dirty things. Not like you and me.”

  “Of course he does,” Catherine said. She’d retrieved the gun, holding it loosely in one blue-veined hand. “He does just what you do to me, only he does it much, much better.” She smiled sweetly. “He knows just how much to hurt me. He never stops too soon.”

  Rachel took a tentative step away from them. Bobby Ray didn’t notice. Catherine was playing him like a master, and his once-expressionless face contorted with shock and rage. “No,” he screamed. “He wouldn’t …”

  “He’s your father, Bobby Ray,” Catherine said bluntly. “And I’m your mother. And he puts his hands on me, and he hurts me in ways you can’t even imagine, but the one thing he won’t do is hurt you the way you want it. Will he?”

  With a raging howl Bobby Ray leapt for Catherine. Only to be stopped, cold, as three successive bullets shattered his forehead.

  Catherine crossed the short distance to his body, nudging it with her sandaled feet. Then she looked up at Rachel and smiled. “A lesson for you, dear,” she murmured. “Choose your tools well, and be ready to dispense with them when they’re no longer needed.”

  “Why?” Rachel asked in sick horror.

  “Because I don’t like to share,” Catherine said simply. “Will you do me a favor, dear, and drag his body into the pool? I’m afraid he’ll draw buzzards if you don’t.”

  She made no move to comply. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the corpse with the shattered head, much less touch it. “What about me? Are you going to shoot me as well?”

  Catherine glanced at the heavy gun in her hand
, then back at Rachel. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I do like watching people die. It’s fascinating to see the moment of cross-over. I’m quite addicted to watching. Your mother fought it, of course. Despite the pain Alfred was manufacturing she didn’t want to choose the easy way out. She kept thinking something would save her. Some new treatment would be discovered in time to wipe the cancer from her body. Of course, dear, she never had cancer.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did Luke tell you she called for you as she was dying? Did he tell you she wanted you by her side in the last minutes of her life?” Catherine moved closer.

  “No.”

  Catherine’s smile was gentle. “Good. Because she didn’t. Trust Luke not to give the easy lies. She kept screeching about how unfair it was. I didn’t even know she had a daughter until Luke told me to call you. I should have realized any child of Stella’s would be a troublemaker.”

  “But you’re not going to shoot me?”

  “No, dear. I’d rather you drank some of our fresh spring water. Cyanide poisoning is fast but very painful. I expect the others have gone by now. Alfred will have seen to it.”

  “And then you and Alfred will run off with the money?”

  “Oh, no. Alfred thinks we’re all going to die. He’ll have had his glass of water as well. I imagine he’s sitting in Luke’s special chair like some tragic King Lear, a cup of poison clasped in his hand.”

  “You monster,” Rachel said.

  “Still fighting,” Catherine said, shaking her head in dismay. “Life is so much easier if you stop fighting, my dear.”

  “I don’t expect life to be easy.”

  “Then don’t expect your death to be easy. Are you going to dump Bobby Ray’s body in the pool?”

  “No.”

  Catherine shrugged. “I don’t suppose it matters. Come with me, dear. There’s a faucet by the door. You can get a little drink there. I think I’m being very kind, actually. It would be far nicer to die beneath the New Mexico sun than trapped in some room with a bunch of new age flakes.”