"Would you?"

"Yes." She thought so. She hoped so. But a chill stole over her, and it had nothing to do with the crisp winter day.

Sounding a little frustrated, Sawyer said, "So I guess that means I can't talk you into leaving right now?"

"I can't leave yet. Do you have any idea how difficult it's been to get someone inside the Compound, let alone the church?"

"Does it have to be you?"

"I'm here. The universe opens doors for a reason."

Sawyer quite abruptly took her hand, his fingers twining with hers.

Surprised, Tessa said, "Why did you"

"You're not going through this door alone," he told her. "Whether you like it or not, I'm here too. That open door is as much mine as it is yours. And I'm a stubborn man."

She thought about protesting, but his hand was surprisingly warm, and surprisingly comforting. She liked it. She liked it too much. And all she could think of to say was, "Better be careful. One thing I've learned is that when two psychics make a connection, even a simple one odd things can happen."

"Odd things are already happening," Sawyer said, sounding calmer now. "For instance, have you noticed there's no livestock here in the Compound? No pets visible?"

Tessa followed his lead obediently, even as she wondered if he meant this as a distractionor if he was just able to keep his mind on business a lot easier than she could. "I noticed yesterday. Kept hoping today I'd see a few cows or horses, but no luck. There were once pets and livestock, I take it?"

"There were last fall."

"And they disappeared suddenly?"

"Well, sometime since late September. That was the last time I was up here until we pulled the first body from the river almost two weeks ago."

"What are you thinking?"

Sawyer didn't hesitate. "Sacrifice."

Tessa glanced at him, then allowed her gaze to roam around as they walked, for all the world as if she were mildly curious about her surroundings. Not that there was much to see except a large, unnervingly vacant pasture. She definitely had a sense of being watched but had to assume it was a camera somewhere nearby.

Needed to assume that.

Because the alternative was a lot more unnerving than the empty pasture. And, potentially, a lot more dangerous.

I see you.

Samuel reached out further, harder, irritated by his own weakness. He was tired, yes, but this should have been easy.

Relatively easy, at any rate. Because she was just a woman, and women were, after all, designed by nature to let men in.

This one was stubborn, though. Well guarded. He could sense an open door there but couldn't seem to find it. He forced himself to draw back a bit, to probe more delicately, even though it meant fighting his own instincts.

He always wanted to break them. To reach inside and crush, rewarded by the incredible burst of energy they released when death took them.

But that was for his enemies and for those who wanted to leave him and leave God's grace, not his Chosen.

And he wasn't yet sure which this one was.

So he used up precious energy by testing her defenses with all the delicacy of years of practice, probing, searching for the door he could sense was already opening for him

That simple statement again in her mind. Just thatand a sense of a presence that was incredibly strong but not threatening.

Still, Tessa felt a strong urge to shore up her shields, to protect herself. To close the door she had edged open in an effort to sense this place, to figure it out. Because she wasn't here to protect herself. She was here to gather information about the church and/or Samuel. And she was here to try to figure out who or what had made a connection with her yesterday.

I see you.

She looked down at their clasped hands and for just a moment wondered if Sawyer had made the connection. But almost immediately she knew it wasn't him. Hadn't been him yesterday, at any rate; she wasn't at all sure a connection of some kind wasn't being made right this moment. Because his hand was warm and she liked it. Because he smelled of some spicy soap or aftershave, and she liked that.

Tessa pushed that away, not ready to deal with either her own feelings or some very basic emotions she could feel in Sawyer.

Man, he has a lousy sense of timing.

Or maybe it was her timing that was off. Way off. Or was being affected?

Yesterday, and just nowwho or what had connected with her? Was even now there, as though waiting for something. And even though she was conscious of no threat from it, why was she still unsure whether that connection was a good thing or a bad one?

It brought you back here. And maybe not for a good reason.

Probably not for a good reason.

"Tessa?"

"Are you thinking ritual sacrifice?" she asked, trying to focus thoughts that were becoming more scattered.

"No. I'm thinking that maybe it was an unexpected or at least unintended consequence of something else. Is that possible?"

"I suppose so."

She felt an odd tugging, an almost physical sensation, as real as Sawyer's hand holding hers. But it wasn't him. Something else tugged, pulled as though to get her attention. Tessa looked around, and immediately a flash, as though from sunlight off something metallic, caught her eye. It had originated, she thought, from just inside the woods that edged this pasture to the west.

"What is it?"

"Over there." She had turned in that direction without even thinking about it. "I saw something flash."

Since he hadn't released her hand, Sawyer also turned, remaining by her side as he lowered his voice to say, "It might be another damn camera."

"I don't think so." Tessa realized they were following a very faint path through the pasture and had a sudden almost overpowering sense of many feet walking it before them.

Small feet.

Be careful He wants in. You mustn't let him.

"Tessa?"

She frowned but continued along the path. "This way."

"You're beginning to scare me," he said, following.

That was an odd thing to say. "I can't imagine why. I'm not very scary." She thought he swore beneath his breath, but her attention was fixed on the woods that lay just ahead.

Be careful Tessa.

It was only a patch of sparse woods, maybe an acre in size, and in the center was a clearing that probably occupied half of that acre. Tessa stopped only a few feet inside the clearing, staring down at a cross that had been roughly fashioned from two sticks, a little crooked because of the weight on one arm of the cross.

She bent down and then straightened, holding a leather collar in her free hand. It had a rabies tag and a second, bone-shaped tag with the name Buddy engraved on it. As she moved the collar, the silvery tag caught a glint of sunlight and flashed, as it must have done to catch her attention in the field.

Vaguely aware of Sawyer standing just behind her, Tessa looked across the clearing at countless small mounds of dirt, most of them with a pile of stones or a rough stick-cross at one end, and almost all of them boasting a collar of some kind, either on the ground or draped over crosses and stones. There were bright plastic flowers here and there, stuck down into chipped, handleless coffee cups or in the ground, some of them faded by time but quite a lot of them not. There were even bedraggled toys and rawhide chews.

"It's a pet cemetery," Sawyer said. "But an awful lot of graves for a community that didn't exist barely a decade ago. And a lot of them look to be fairly recent."