Ritual Sins Read Online Free Page B

The more you killed, the more you wanted to repeat the act. Again and again. You could even grow to love it.
    He didn’t want to find out. He preferred his nightmares, the haunting that never quite left him. It was his own penitence, and the people around him recognized it without words, strengthening his hold over them.
    But he would have to do something about Bobby Ray Shatney and the others before he left.
    Rachel was seated between Catherine and AlfredWaterston, and the two of them were exerting their usual well-bred charm. Catherine came from mainline Philadelphia, one of the oldest families in the country. She carried herself with patrician good cheer, the last of a line of harmless dilettantes whose unspoken breeding instilled awe in most of his nouveau riche followers. Alfred was just as impressive, combining the stuffy bedside manner of a cancer specialist with the sharp-brained diligence of a financial wizard.
    Rachel was succumbing to Catherine quite nicely, coming dangerously close to smiling. He suspected a smile would transform that pale, unhappy face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to discover just how much. A challenge was one thing. A weakness was another. Not that he counted much in this life as a weakness. A good steak, maybe. A plump, tender woman who asked him no questions and made no demands. And they weren’t weaknesses, merely some of the things he occasionally allowed himself. When no one was looking.
    She turned in his direction, but he’d already looked away, guided by that preternatural instinct that had saved his ass on more than one occasion. He smiled benevolently at Bobby Ray, mentally calibrating the dose he’d need to keep him peaceful. Maybe just a simple overdose when the time came. Murder by remote control. He could do it if he had to.
    The time was coming closer, and Luke knew it. Stella Connery had been a herald, and Luke had always been a man to pay attention to signs and omens.
    Her daughter’s arrival was the beginning of the end. The end of the soft, cushy life he’d been living. And it wasn’t coming a minute too soon.
    The Grandfathers wouldn’t like it. He didn’t make the mistake of underestimating them—at least Alfred would have noticed his restlessness. They’d be making contingency plans, to keep the Foundation going, to keep the money rolling in, keep the faith alive without their charismatic messiah.
    He wondered what they had planned for him.
    Evil was all around, in this large, peaceful room, full of gentle, passive people. Evil was an old enemy, a close companion.
    Maybe it was time he introduced spoiled, angry Rachel Connery to its hungry grip as well.
    Georgia Reginald closed her eyes, smiled, and slipped peacefully closer to death. It had been a long wait, it seemed, since she was first diagnosed with that particularly virulent form of cancer. Thank God she’d already been a follower. Luke had shown her the way, and when the doctors at the Foundation hospice had made theirdevastating discovery she found she’d almost welcomed the news.
    She’d never been in any pain, and she knew she could thank her newfound faith for that. She never would have guessed that cancer had invaded and spread throughout her seemingly healthy, sixty-year-old body. After all, there was no cancer on either side of her family, and she’d always prided herself on how well she took care of her health.
    Ah, but fate had been a trickster, as Luke and his disciples had warned her. The cancer had come with no sign, no warning, as it had to so many of her friends. They’d done everything they could, the poison, slash and burn of cancer treatment, and nothing had helped. She was weak now, and ready to go, but she wanted to see Luke one last time.
    They’d sent for him. If she could just hold out for a little while longer, she could look at him and dream that she was young again. That those eyes were looking only at her.
    She wanted to be the one to tell him about the money. The Grandfathers