Ritual Sins (25 page)

“What do you think? She was trying to find out some new way to destroy me.”

“Sounds like you gave her perfect ammunition.”

Luke stretched back and closed his eyes. “She would have found her own. Besides, you don’t seem to have much faith in me. Maybe I fucked her so well she’s now madly in love with me.”

“Maybe. If she were like most women. Knowing her, she probably still wants to kill you.”

Luke found he could manage a small, cold grin. “Probably,” he agreed.

“So where is she now? Telling the newspapers about it?”

Luke shook his head. “I doubt it. I expect she’ll be showing up here sooner or later.”

“The Grandfathers aren’t going to like hearing about this. Sometimes I think they’re just as in love with you as everyone else around here is.”

“Except you, Calvin.”

“Except me,” he said flatly. “We’ll have to do something about her. You know that, don’t you?”

“You tried before. You do anything again and I’ll break your scrawny little neck.”

“Isn’t that getting a little intimate? I thought you usually shot or stabbed your victims.”

“You’re annoying me, Calvin.”

Calvin snorted in profound disapproval. “What are you going to do about her? Are you going to let her destroy everything we’ve worked so hard for?”

“Maybe,” Luke said dreamily.

He could feel Calvin’s frozen fury. Calvin was the only one who dared get angry with him, but somehow the charm had begun to wear off.

“I won’t let you do that,” he said.

Luke looked at him, very calmly. “You can’t stop me,” he said. And he closed his eyes again.

He hadn’t wanted to return to Santa Dolores. It had taken him more than a week to make himself return, a week he’d spent bumming around the southern part of the country, drinking too much, smoking too much, too damned angry and horny to even bother jerking off. He had no idea where Rachel Connery had disappeared to, and he didn’t care.

At least, he didn’t think so.

He was so damned weary of the life he’d made for himself. He was sick and tired of saintliness and celibacy, he was sick and tired of feeling responsible for the hundred or so gullible souls who flocked to the meditation center and loaded the coffers with their disposable income. Siphoning off a generous proportion was too damned
easy, and now Calvin had started making demands as well. Demands he didn’t particularly feel like meeting.

He was going to disappear. He’d prefer to do it in full view of his faithful followers, vanishing in a puff of smoke, but unlike those deluded souls, he knew he didn’t have any supernatural powers, or any tricks other than his powerful charisma. He’d have to make plans, careful plans. And he’d have to include Calvin.

He opened his eyes again. Calvin hadn’t moved, perched at his feet like Satan’s altar boy. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Will you take me with you?” The question was simple and profound. Calvin had been by his side since Joliet; he’d been his confidant and his partner in crime for the last twelve years. Only Calvin knew the depths of Luke’s particular scam. All the others believed.

Calvin knew where Luke kept the money he’d siphoned off, even though he didn’t have access to it. Calvin had devised the original escape plan, when they’d been ready to ditch everything at a moment’s notice, never imagining that the hokey Foundation of Being would grow so powerful or so profitable. Calvin was the best friend Luke had ever had. And the one he most wanted to escape.

“No,” he said.

Calvin nodded, and his faint grin was lopsided. “I didn’t think so. That’s one thing I can always count on with you, Luke. You’ll be straight with me. No matter what. When are you going?”

“I’m not sure.” He leaned back, closing his eyes wearily. “When the time is right. I’ll see to it that you get your share, you know I will.”

“I’m not worried about that.” Calvin dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “But the people here aren’t going to just let you walk away. They don’t just love you, they think they own you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But they don’t. And they can’t stop me. They won’t even know I’m gone until it’s too late.”

“What about me? Do I get any warning, or are you just going to disappear on me as well?” He sounded no more than casually interested.

“You’ll have warning. It won’t take them long to start suspecting things aren’t quite what they seem, and you’ll need to be ready to make your move as well.”

“So this is gonna be the end of a beautiful friendship?”

Luke glanced down at him. As usual Calvin seemed remote and faintly cynical, accepting of what life had to offer him. “You know what they say about all good things,” Luke said gently.

“Do me a favor? Give me a couple of days to
get a few things in order, will you? Don’t just decide to walk out tonight.”

It was a small enough request from a partner he was about to abandon, and Luke had no intention of denying it, no matter how much he wanted to. No matter how much he wanted to turn around and walk right back out of the meditation center, find himself a six-pack and a willing blonde and see if he could screw Rachel Connery out of his brain.

But he knew, at least for now, it was a lost cause. She’d taken possession of him, body and soul, and it was going to take more than one night to exorcise her.

“Sure, Calvin. I won’t make any move for the time being. Everything else going okay? Apart from Alfred and Catherine trying to beat down the door?”

“Everyone’s trying to get to you, but you’ve gone off on these meditation retreats before, so they don’t suspect anything. As for everything being okay, I don’t know. Something funny’s going on, but the Grandfathers haven’t felt like confiding in me,” he said. He’d risen to his feet and moved away, busying himself with disposing of the empty beer bottle he’d taken from Luke’s hand.

“Surprises?”

Calvin’s face was impassive. “God, I hope not. I hate surprises.”

Luke waited until Calvin left him before he moved, erupting out of his seat with a sudden excess of nervous energy that would have amazed his placid followers. The security monitors flashed on empty corridors, empty rooms. Everyone was asleep in their own beds, and the room where he’d put Rachel was still and dark. Empty.

His own quarters were carefully divided into private and public areas. To his followers and their benevolent Grandfathers, Luke lived in a large, barren room, sleeping on a pallet on the floor. He had a narrow, metal shower stall, a stone fireplace for heat, and absolutely nothing to distract him from his communion with the wisdom of the ages.

And if he needed even more privacy, his meditation chamber, off-limits to everyone, lay beyond.

Of course, that room came equipped with the security monitors, the beer-filled refrigerator, the king-sized bed, and the sybaritic bathroom. That was where he lived his life, where no one could see.

For some reason the self-indulgent luxury of that secret room rankled. He didn’t want clandestine opulence. For the first time in his life his soul craved simplicity.

He banged his elbow in the narrow shower stall in the front room. The water was lukewarm, but he didn’t care. He brushed the taste of beer
and cigarettes from his mouth, finger-combed his long wet hair back from his face, and dressed himself in his white cotton clothes. He shaved without a mirror, and he told himself a few more days of sainthood might be good for him. And then walked out into the main room, in time to see a slender female in the pale yellow clothes of a penitent setting a tray on the low table for him.

The breach of privacy startled him. “I didn’t ask for any food,” he said.

She hadn’t heard him come in. She dropped the tray with a noisy clatter, then slowly turned around to face him. “Catherine sent it,” she said. “Catherine sent me.”

It was Rachel.

He was so shocked he could do nothing but stare at her. He knew his automatic protective instincts would come into play—his face would be wearing no expression at all, and she’d be at a loss to guess his reaction to her presence.

“Does Calvin know you’re here?” he said after a long moment, his voice even.

“No, but I think he suspects. Catherine thinks he might be dangerous. That he might still want to hurt me.”

He moved into the room, slowly, seemingly at ease. She was watching him with a nervous intensity, the kind that might suddenly explode into full-scale panic, and he didn’t want to frighten her
away. Not until he found out what in hell had made her come after him. To this place, of all places.

“Whereas you think you’re safe from me?” he asked idly, sinking down on the floor in front of the food tray. Lentils. When he left this place for good he would never let a lentil past his lips again.

She’d been avoiding his gaze. Now she looked at him, a certain amount of courage in her eyes. “Not particularly.”

He nodded, picking up a piece of whole-meal bread and ripping it apart. “So why are you here? I assume you must have a good reason—I didn’t expect you to ever willingly get within a hundred miles of me again. Are you planning to kill me?” He glanced down at the lentils. “Poison?”

She stiffened. “If I were going to kill you I wouldn’t use something devious like poison. I’d probably stab you.”

“In the back or in the heart?” He sounded no more than faintly curious.

“In the heart. So I could watch your expression.”

It startled a laugh out of him. “Naaah,” he said, leaning back on the thin cushions and staring up at her. “You’d use poison. They call it a woman’s weapon. And whether you like it or not, sweetheart, you’re very much a woman. No matter how hard you try to fight it.” He let his eyes roam
down her body. There was something different about her, though he couldn’t quite figure out what. She looked stronger, more alive, than she’d ever looked before. Still frightened of him, but less fragile.

She took an instinctive step backward at his blatant surveillance. “Maybe I didn’t come to destroy you,” she said. “Maybe I came panting after you, maybe I can’t get enough of you. Maybe I’ve become as hopelessly besotted as all the other people here, and I’m hoping so desperately that you’ll make love to me again that I’m willing to endure any humiliation, just to be near you.”

He had to laugh. “I may have underestimated your courage, Rachel, but I never thought you were less than brilliant.”

“You wanted a challenge. You wanted to take a woman who hates you, your worst enemy, and turn her into your love slave. You’ve succeeded. Voilà.”

He shook his head. “So you’re my love slave, are you?”

“Of course.”

“Why?” It was fascinating to see how far he could push her. He couldn’t even begin to imagine why she was here, waiting for him, any more than he could guess why Catherine had let her back in. Then again, as far as Catherine knew he’d been holed up in his meditation room, accepting
no visitors. Calvin said she’d been trying to see him. Maybe to explain her reasons for letting Rachel back.

Rachel stared at him. Her hair was different, and she looked less like a boy than the last time she came here. “Maybe you’re irresistible,” she said finally.

He didn’t believe that for one minute. At least not where she was concerned. “Come here and show me,” he said in a soft, taunting voice. “Show me how irresistible I am.”

The panic was there, stronger than ever. For a moment it surprised him, but then it made sense. Before, she’d been frightened of the unknown. Now she knew for sure just how much power he could have over her.

“Catherine should be here any minute.”

“I don’t mind the risk,” he said, his eyes daring her. “Come over here and put your mouth on me.”

She stood there staring at him, and it was a battle of wills. One he would win, because there was no other choice. She was strong, and she could fight him. But she couldn’t fight herself. She would come to him, and she would touch him, and he would make her remember what it had been like.

She had already taken one tentative step toward him when the quiet knock heralded Catherine’s arrival. Luke didn’t say a word, didn’t even blink
as rage and frustration rushed through his body. He quickly stilled his unruly response. Rachel was here. For whatever obscure reason, she was already back in his territory, of her own accord. Sooner or later he would have her.

“Blessings, Luke,” Catherine murmured, poking her head through the doorway.

“Blessings,” he said in response, watching the tension drain from Rachel’s tight shoulders. He planned to make certain it was back the first chance he got.

Catherine stepped into the room, the dove-gray clothes of the Grandfathers draped comfortably around her compact body. She looked the same, elegant, mothering. Not the sort to have any unpleasant surprises in store for him. “You may leave us, Rachel,” she said, taking a seat opposite Luke, the untouched food between them.

Luke gave her an inquiring look. It was unlike Catherine to give such a blatant order, and he was about to countermand it when he saw Rachel’s lower lip tremble. She needed time alone to recoup her defenses. And he wanted her armed and ready for battle.

He nodded his approval in a deliberately gracious manner, enough to jar Rachel out of her distraction. If she were free she would have stuck her tongue out at him. But she wasn’t free, she
was wrapped so tightly in fear and uncertainty that all she could do was escape.

“What’s she doing here?” Luke asked when the door had shut behind her.

“I tried to talk to you about it, but you weren’t seeing anyone.” There was no defensiveness in Catherine’s voice. A woman with her background had no use for defensiveness. “It seemed a wise idea. She showed up here a few days ago, and I really had no choice. She looked shell-shocked.”

“Did she tell you where she’d been?” He wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about any possible confessions she might have made. He was more interested in Catherine’s observations.

“No. And I didn’t ask. She just said she needed to be here, and I accepted that. I decided it would be wiser if Calvin wasn’t aware of her presence. He doesn’t trust her.”

“Do you?”

Catherine’s smile was tranquil. “She’s a troubled young woman who’s recently lost her mother, and she’s looking for answers, for someone to blame. I have complete faith in you, Luke. You can bring her the peace of mind she needs, no matter how hard she fights it.”