Kay Hooper - Blood Sins

Galen spoke up for the first time to say, "You showed up within minutes of Sarah being killed." It wasn't an accusation, merely a comment.

"Sarah?" Sawyer looked around the table. "Are you talking about the most recent Jane Doe in my morgue?"

Hollis drew a breath. "Sarah Warren. A Haven operative." Her voice was toneless. "Until today nobody could really come forward and ID her for you. The fact that she was undercover there can't come out until this is over. Sorry."

Sawyer decided not to get angry about that. Yet. "Okay. I trust this woman's family has been notified?"

"Yes," Bishop said. "And they understand why they can't claim her body yet or even publicly mourn her."

"Do they?"

Bishop looked at him steadily. "They understand, Chief."

Sawyer nodded. "Okay," he repeated, then said to DeMarco, "So how come you were able to show up within minutes of her death, as Agent Galen says?"

"Because Sarah made a mistake," DeMarco replied, something bleak in his tone. "She was spotted on one of the security cameras at the outer perimeter of the Compound, carrying one of the children. It was the middle of the night, and she was obviously leaving with the child. A child who didn't belong to her. Security alerted me. I had no intention of alerting Samuel, but a guard had already done so. He didn't come out but called me into his private quarters. And he was angry. He rarely shows anger, but that night it was clear he was furious."

"Why?" Sawyer asked.

"Because Sarah was taking Wendy Hodges."

"HODGES? ELLEN'S DAUGHTER?You told me her father had taken her from the Compound."

Rather dryly, DeMarco said, "You might want to take anything I told you inside the Compound with a grain of skepticism, Chief."

"You're a great liar," Sawyer said finally. "One of the best attributes of a deep-cover operative. Although I do think it was unfair of you to call me a ghoul."

"I never called you that."

"Not out loud."

Sawyer scowled at him. "That really doesn't help your case, you know. Just tell me I haven't had your voice in my head during the last few days."

"Excuse me?"

Either he's really a hell of a liar or he doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about.

It was Tessa who said, "He's asking if you're telepathic both ways."

DeMarco shook his head. "I just read. Can't send."

"Technically" Bishop said, "Tessa is the only one here who can send as well as read."

"Technically?" Sawyer asked.

"My wife and I are telepathic both ways, but only with each other. Sending is generally much more difficult even for powerful telepaths, though sometimes we can manage it in extreme situations."

"Like death," Hollis murmured. She looked up to find Bishop staring at her and added hastily, "Sorry. Justthinking out loud. I mean, with so many telepaths around most of the time, what's the use of keeping things to myself?"

Sawyer didn't want to add another question to those still rattling around in his mind, so he decided to ignore the byplay. "Getting back to Ellen Hodges's daughter," he prompted DeMarco.

"Sorry. As I was saying, the little girl Sarah took that nightWendywas a very special child, highly valued by Samuel. A born, active psychic. Telekinetic. Far as I know, the only telekinetic he's ever found."

"They're rare," Bishop said. "Extremely rare."

DeMarco nodded. "And he was losing the only one he'd found, before she was old enough to come fully into her abilities. Before she could play whatever part Samuel intended her to play in his end game."

"So hewhat? Sent you after the child?"

"He told me to take a security detail and cut through the woods, try to get to Sarah before she could take Wendy out of the Compound. I honestly believed he meant that we were to bring them both back to the church. But I think he knew she already had Wendy safe. That's why he was so enraged. I think he knew even as he was issuing those orders to me that he was going to kill Sarah. But I still don't know how he was able to do it. He never left the church. Never left his quarters. Sarah was two miles from the church when she died. We heard her scream."

"Yes," Galen said. "So did I. Her body was still warm when I got to her. And all I can tell you about how she died is that she died terrified and in agony."

Sawyer remembered the body he had found in the river, remembered the ME's report that the dead woman's bones had been virtually crushed, and he couldn't even begin to imagine how painful and terrifying that must have been. And he couldn't begin to imagine how Samuel had done that to her.

"You're sure Samuel killed her?"

"I'm sure," DeMarco said bluntly. "Nobody else up there has anything like enough power to kill, let alone do it at such a distance. But I believe Samuel can. And he's getting better at it. Faster. More brutal. I believe he kills them and then draws every bit of energy from them."

DeMarco paused, then said deliberately, "Hell, for all I know, he takes their souls." His gaze was on Hollis. "We haven't had a medium close enough to tell us that for sure."

"He didn't take Ellen Hodge's soul."

"You saw her?"

"Yes. And a long way from here. That took amazing determination and made what she had to tell me more than usually worth paying attention to."

"What did she tell you?"

"That I needed to be here in order to help stop Samuel."

With a glance at Bishop, DeMarco said, "I wondered. Having a medium even this close is dicey. It's the one ability he does not want."

"Yeah," Hollis said. "I know. It's why he tried to feed me to his pet monster. He really, really doesn't want to be able to tap into the spirit world. Which means he knows he doesn't get their soulsor he believes there's something else on the other side that could destroy him."

"Something else he's afraid of," Tessa said. "Bishop, the SCU, and, specifically, mediums. Weaknesses we can exploit?"

"Let's hope so," Bishop said.

Sawyer looked around the table. "You got a plan?"

Quentin said, "We're working on one."

Sawyer wanted to say that it was a little late in the day to only be "working" on a plan but instead directed his attention back to DeMarco. "You said some of the psychics whose abilities he steals turn up dead or go missing. But not all of them?"

"No. Some are still there, part of his congregation."

Tessa said, "But changed. Right? Different from the way they used to be."

DeMarco looked at her. "Yeah."

"Changed how?" Sawyer wanted to know.

"Hard to say precisely. They no longer read as psychic, but It's more than that. If I had to guess, I'd say that they lost more than their psychic abilities to Samuel. Maybe a lot more. Maybe as much as a person could lose and 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."