"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."

Maybe the creepiest thing yet, Sawyer thought. "And the men?"

"It's the same result; I'm just not sure how he does it. If he's drawing energy from the men, it isn't such an open, visible thing and not part of any kind of formal ceremony or pseudoreligious ritual. Not like the Testimony ritual, where one or more women are obviously stimulated to the brink of orgasm." His voice was matter-of-fact.

Tessa told them then about the "dream" she had had the night before. She kept her eyes on DeMarco the whole time, and when she finished he was nodding his head.

"Yeah, that happened last night. Exactly as you described itmy part of it, at least. I'm never present when he has one of the women in his office, but it always ends the same way. I'm called in, and I carry an unconscious woman back to her bed."

The Ritual Room was about twenty feet by twenty feet, Ruby guessed, though the size was deceptive because of the dark, floor-to-ceiling velvet draperies that hid the walls and the thick, dark carpet that cushioned underfoot. Though the ceiling of the room was far higher than was normal for a belowground level, the five pendant lights that were the room's only illumination hung low, no more than six feet or so above the floor, and each cast below it a perfect circle of light: one in the center and four encircling it.

About three feet out beyond the outer four circles stood a copper candle holder taller than Ruby, fashioned to hold a single candle. The copper gleamed even though it lay outside the light.

Ruby knew, because it had been explained to them, that each of the four outer lights and the tall candle holders were placed precisely to represent the four directionsnorth, south, east, and westwhile the light in the center represented just that.

The center. The center of everything.

That was where Father stood waiting for them.

Ruby had wondered more than once if there was another door hidden somewhere behind the draperies, because Ruth always unlocked the door to usher the girls in, and it didn't seem likely that Father would be waiting inside a locked room for his Chosen ones. But Ruby had never gotten the chance to look around; Ceremonies and Rituals were always carefully controlled, usually by Ruth, this one especially.

The four girls silently took their assigned places. Ruby was north; Mara was south; Theresa was east; and Amy was west. Each went to the circle of light and knelt on a little velvet pillow facing the center, heads bowed, flickering candles held steadily before them.