"Convenient," Hollis remarked.

"Useful," Quentin corrected. "Any psychic who manages to get through his top shield isn't likely to look for a secondary one, especially when they discover that manufactured personain this case, the bitter ex-military guy entirely willing to kill for, or possibly die for, a charismatic pseudoreligious leader."

THE "ROBE" WAS actually more like a dressor a nightgown. It was long, so thin it was nearly transparent, and sleeveless. It was white. "The color of purity," Emma Campbell said softly as she stood back and smiled at Ruby.

Ruby shivered, wondering again if she would ever feel warm. "I can wear your cloak to the church, can't I, Mama? It's getting colder outside."

"I suppose so. But you be sure to take it off once you're inside."

"Yes, Mama." Ruby was grateful for the warmth of the ankle-length stark black cloak and even more grateful that it covered the thin robe, but despite that she always felt uneasy wearing it. She didn't know for sure, but something told her that her mama had been wearing the cloak when she finally just went away.

Smiling, Emma Campbell said, "You do as Ruth tells you, just like before. And do as Father tells you, of course. I'm so proud of you. Your daddy and I are both so proud of you."

The painful lump rose in Ruby's throat again, so she merely nodded and tried not to think about her daddy. Or about her mama. Instead, she walked through the house and to the front door beside the shell named Emma Campbell.

"Be good. Remember."

"Yes, Mama." She went out into the chilly afternoon, walking steadily toward the church, concentrating hard on making her protective shell so strong even Father wouldn't be able to touch her through it.

Not the real her, at least.

And she didn't look back because she knew Emma Campbell had already returned to her sewing room.

It's needlework for her. And sewing for Amy's mom. Theresa's mom does quilts. Brooke's mom has all those jigsaw puzzles I know it all means something. Maybe he gives them things to do. So they don't have time to think.

So they don't want to think.

Maybe he found out what they like to do best and let them keep that.

Only that.

Ruby walked steadily to the church, seeing the other girls waiting on the steps for her. Seeing, with a catch inside, that Father had already replaced Brooke, as easily as though she had never existed.

Mara. Little Mara, only eleven, and visibly nervous at this, her first Ritual. And unlike the other two, she was wearing a long sweater over her robe.

Amy and Theresa, both thirteen, wore only the thin robes despite the cold.

They felt grown up in the robes, Ruby knew. They felt grown up, and special, and important to Father.

They felt Chosen.

"Hurry up, Ruby," Amy called out to her impatiently.

"I'm coming," Ruby responded, hearing the bright sparkle in her own voice, the sound of eagerness that was every bit as fake as the smile that curved her lips. She began to climb the steps to join her friends.

But she didn't hurry.

"Sure that's just a persona?" Hollis muttered. "Because the way I hear it, people who stay undercover for too long can get really lost in their role-playing."

DeMarco glanced at her, then looked at Sawyer. "That ability plus a few other characteristics make me an ideal candidate for undercover work. As Bishop discovered a few years ago."

"So you're SCU?"

It was Bishop who replied. "He's not FBI. But we realized early on that having operatives off the books would be helpful if not necessary in some situations."

"I thought that's why you helped found Haven," Tessa said, speaking up finally. She looked at Bishop. "As a civilian offshoot of the SCU," she added.

"A sister organization," Bishop said. "But Haven was set up primarily to provide short-term support, with operatives called in for specific, usually brief periods of time, to assist in criminal investigations. Most lead perfectly ordinary, normal lives the majority of the time, with their Haven work more like a series of temp jobs than anything else."

"True enough," Tessa agreed. "On my last assignment, I didn't even have to unpack. And in my normal life, I design Web sites. Easy to set my own hours, work from home or on the road with a laptop, and take time 'off whenever I need to. Tailor-made for someone with a whole other life."

Bishop nodded. "It's different for those of us inside the FBI, and not just because it's a full-time job. Being an SCU agent means we're employees of the federal government all the time, with laws, rules, and regulations we're duty-bound to uphold."

"Which can sometimes present problems," Quentin murmured. "For some of us."

Sawyer wondered if he was talking about himself but didn't ask. On his long list of questions, that one seemed relatively unimportant.

Bishop didn't comment on Quentin's aside but continued, "It became obvious that we needed operatives able to bridge the gap between cop and civilian. Operatives trained in both law enforcement and military tactics, with strong investigative instincts and abilitiesand with some kind of psychic edge. People capable of going undercover, possibly long term, with little or no backup, and not necessarily with government sanction."

Hollis let out an odd little sound and said, "You do like to walk the edge, don't you?"

"I have to sometimes. Whether I like it or not." Bishop shrugged. "Reese, like a number of our civilian operatives, is a licensed private investigatorand his military background is legit."

"And I like working alone," DeMarco said.

"What about your normal life?" Hollis asked.

"Don't really have one."

Hollis looked curious, but before she could ask the obvious question, Tessa lost patience with the lot of them.

"Ruby," she said in the tone of one who was not going to be ignored. "That little girl is in trouble."

"Ruby isn't in immediate danger," DeMarco told her.

"But you know she is in danger?"

He looked at her, those pale blue eyes not warming at all. "They're all in danger. Samuel's Prophecy, remember?"

"Armageddon." Quentin's voice was wry. "All the best prophecies seem to predict Armageddon."

"Yes," DeMarco said. "But the difference is that Samuel, unlike all the prophets of the past, might actually have a shot at seeing his vision, his Prophecy, come true. Even if he has to light the conflagration with his own hands. Or his own mind."

"You don't mean literally?" Sawyer said. "That he could createwith his minddestruction on a scale that could be even loosely termed apocalyptic?"

"Afraid so."

"But you saidWait. The lightning?"

"Why not? He's used it to kill on a small scale. Who's to say he can't eventually gain or channel enough energy to be able to destroy on a truly massive scale?"

Quentin murmured, "Welcome to our world."

"Shit," Sawyer said. "No offense, but I'm finding it very difficult to think in apocalyptic terms. That was never a brand of religion I bought into."

"Perfectly understandable," Quentin told him. "I've been having trouble with it myself. And I saw it. I think."

"That was your vision?" Tessa stared at him. "That Samuel destroyed the world?"

"Well, a goodly piece of this part of the world. All his followers. And Ruby. You, the chief, Hollis. Maybe only the beginning of his apocalypse, because my sense was that he was just getting started. There was sure as hell nobody stopping him."

Bishop spoke suddenly. "And Ruby."

Quentin lifted a brow at his boss. "Yeah. So?"