“I am.”

“Is it your devout desire to become one with the Sire? To enter into Holy Communion with him?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, yes.”

“Very well, Beatrice. You may now disrobe.”

Without apparent thought or reservation, she shook the robe off her shoulders. She was wearing nothing beneath. The folds of the robe gathered around her knees, leaving her entirely naked and exposed.

With such speed that it took everyone in the room by surprise, the man raised his hand and struck her face with the back of his fist. She tumbled sideways, halting her fall with an outstretched arm. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her upright, then hit her again, even harder than before. A trickle of blood spilled from her mouth. A blue-black bruise began to swell. And then he hit her again.

“You are not ready,” the man intoned, still clutching her hair. He hit her again, and her eyes fluttered closed. He threw her backward and she fell in a heap on the tile floor, her legs askew, her bloody face turned to one side.

“Leave her,” the man said bitterly. “When she wakes, I will talk with her further. She can still be of service to us.”

He left the room, and a moment later the others followed, leaving behind the young woman, her beautiful blond hair now sullied by the caked and sticky blood streaming from her broken nose.

“Bit rough on her, weren’t you?” He removed his robe and carefully placed it on a coat hanger.

“For a reason,” the man with the piercing eyes replied.

“But we need her to talk.”

“Yes. But we also need to know that what she tells us is true.”

“Naturally. But-”

“Complete subjugation of the will requires time. We must strip away her attachments to her former existence. Her world must become me. Her purpose for living must be to serve me, and me alone.”

“How can you know she’ll-”

“I know.” The man had exchanged his dark hooded robe for a jet-black cloak. In the low lighting, he was almost invisible.

“That sounds good, in theory. But this is getting out of control. If she got away and talked to-”

“She will not. Never fear, my friend. Everything is completely in control.”

“You’re sure about that.”

“I am.” He turned, easing out of his chair as if his body had no solidity at all, as if it were pure liquid. “The sanctity of the Inner Circle will be preserved.”

“You can’t know that. What if she refuses to talk?”

He stepped closer to his companion, near enough that the much shorter man imagined he could feel heat emanating from those relentless black eyes. “I am the Sire, my friend. No one refuses to talk to me. No one refuses me anything.”

14

B en ducked into a side room, hoping to escape the throng of reporters in the corridor begging for a quote, wanting to know if the testimony of the distinguished congressman from Arkansas was “the final nail in Glancy’s coffin.” Ben didn’t like to talk to the press before or during a trial, and he knew he couldn’t come up with any answer that could give the situation a positive “spin.”

He closed the door behind him, dropped into the nearest chair, took a deep breath-and realized he was not alone.

“Like vultures, aren’t they?”

Ben was startled to see his opponent, Paul Padolino, sitting on the other side of the conference table, leaning back in one chair, his feet propped up on another.

“They are when you’re a defense attorney. What are you doing in here?”

“Same as you. Hiding.”

“Don’t you have an office in this building?”

“Yes. Alas, the minions of the Franken-fifth estate know where it is. And by the way, the press doesn’t just hassle defense attorneys. We get our fair share of grief on the prosecution side, too.”

“It isn’t the same. Defense lawyers are treated like pariahs. People assume anyone accused of a crime is guilty-especially if they’re prominent. Which makes us the slime trying to get the guilty people off.”

“Defensive, much?” Padolino asked, smiling slightly.

“Yes. And if you knew how many times I’ve seen the district attorney get it wrong, or take the easy way out, you would be, too.”

Padolino shrugged. “Perhaps. But of course, you come from Oklahoma, where district attorneys hold press conferences to brag about how many people they’ve put on death row and forensic scientists falsify evidence to help them do it.”

Ben cringed and quickly changed the subject. “I’ve noticed that you aren’t going for the press conference routine much. Even though God has given you an incredibly high-profile case and public sympathy-and my informants tell me you have political aspirations.”

Padolino smiled. “Whether I do or I don’t, I believe criminal cases should be tried in the courtroom, not on the evening news. Besides, I could never compete with your boy’s PR machine. Best to just stay out of its way.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels. “Care for a smoke?”

Ben blinked. “I thought all federal courthouses prohibited-”

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

“No thanks. I don’t smoke.”

“A little snort, then?” From the other side of his coat, Padolino produced a silver flask.

“Uh, no. I don’t really drink much, either. Certainly not when-”

Padolino tossed his head toward the kitchenette in the corner. “Cup of jamoke?”

“Ohhh…”

“You’re telling me you don’t even drink coffee?”

“Well, the rumor is, it isn’t actually good for you.”

“Hell, Bressler was right. You are a saint.” His smile made it come off funny, not mean-spirited. “But I don’t think you’re nearly as naïve or as gormless as you seem sometimes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ben insisted, then added, “but just for the record, I don’t think you’re the politically ambitious anything-for-a-conviction prosecutor you sometimes seem, either.”

“Hey, have I treated you badly?”

Ben shrugged. In truth, he had not. He’d produced everything as required, at least so far as Ben knew, and had done so in a timely fashion. He’d given Ben access to all his witnesses. He hadn’t engaged in ad hominem character attacks-well, not on Ben’s character, anyway. Despite being given a case with numerous exploitable possibilities and public opinion vastly in his favor, Padolino had played it pretty straight. “No. You’ve been a model prosecutor, far as I’m concerned.”

“I’ve had no reason not to be. Don’t misunderstand-I’m not saying I don’t want to nail your client. But I haven’t got any grudge against you, so there haven’t been any sneaky courtroom tricks, leaks to the press, any of that rot. And I plan to keep it that way.” He pointed a finger. “I do intend to win this case. But I’m going to do it the right way.”

“Fair enough.”

“We’re opponents. We don’t have to be enemies.”

Could I possibly clone this guy, Ben wondered, or take him home with me?

“You’re wrong about the reporters, though. They really don’t have it in for defense attorneys. Despite all the babble about the ‘liberal media,’ I’m not even sure reporters have opinions of their own anymore. All today’s journalists care about is ratings. Circulation numbers. Popularity quotients. Nielsens. It’s ironic, really. They criticize politicians for making decisions based upon poll results. But they do exactly the same thing.”

“That’s a rather heterodox viewpoint. Especially coming from a Republican.”

“Answer me this: who did the press come down harder on? Reagan, during the Iran-Contra scandal, or Clinton, during the Lewinsky affair?”

“Clinton. By a mile.”

“Right. Now let’s weigh their relative importance. The Clinton scandal was about a man cheating on his wife. The Reagan scandal was, well, treason. Conducting secret foreign policy in direct contravention of Congress. And remember, you’re talking to a very right-wing guy here. But the fact remains-the press didn’t batter Reagan one one-hundredth as much as they did Clinton. Why? Because Reagan’s popularity ratings were huge. Everyone loved the man. He was sweet and slightly doddering, like everyone’s favorite grandfather. And everyone was overwhelmed with intaxication.”