“Oh, blessed Tiamat, Guardian of the Darkness, hear our plea. Help us to find the Lost Children of the Blood.”
As one, the rest of the assemblage chanted, “Goddess, hear our prayer.”
“Help us find the path to immortality and reclaim the spirit of our ancestors, the Nephilim of the Annunaki.”
“Goddess, hear our prayer.”
“Lead us not unto the wicked ways of the pretender, the Killer of the Spirit, the cursed Nazarene, the Perverter of Souls.”
“Goddess, hear our prayer.”
“Please accept our sacrifice-”
Loving’s head jerked up.
“-as a token of our fealty, our unyielding devotion to your psychic strength. Hear me, the Sire of the Circle, and all your servants in the Inner Circle as we ask your blessing. Offer unto us your greater glory and our nourishment.”
“Goddess, hear our prayer.”
The room fell deadly silent. The leader-the Sire-reached up and removed the cowl from his head.
Just as Loving had thought. It was Daily-or rather, the man who pretended to be Daily. The man who killed Daily, and Amber. He was the Sire!
His spine tingling, Loving watched as the man slowly drew back the sheet from the sacrifice upon the table. It was a woman, very young, blond, and medium weight. Even with her face silent and ashen, Loving recognized her from the picture Shalimar had shown him. It was Beatrice.
She was not moving, hadn’t moved since the ceremony had begun, which meant she was either sleeping, drugged-or worse.
There were too many of them for Loving to try a frontal assault. Even assuming he was the best fighter in the room, he was massively outnumbered. A failed attempt could leave him dead, or Beatrice, or both. The smartest thing would be to get back outside, call in the cops, then create some kind of disturbance-something to interrupt the ceremony and prevent them from sacrificing Beatrice before the police arrived.
He turned and started for the door-
Someone was standing in his way.
The cultist obstructing his passage was wearing a brown hood, but it did not entirely conceal his face. Even in the darkness, his visage was hideous. Gold fangs descended from his mouth. His eyes glowed red. His face was scarred, apparently by design.
“Why are you here?” the voice within the cowl hissed. “You are not of the Circle.”
Loving bolted. His best hope now was to outrun them. But just as he was hitting his stride, someone tripped him, causing him to tumble to the floor. He pulled himself up as quickly as he could, but by that time he was surrounded.
“Look,” Loving said, “I can explain. I was lookin’ for the Presbyterian church and I got lost and-”
He never got to finish his sentence. He heard the whistle of something swinging around in the darkness, something solid, moving fast. For an instant he felt the impact upon the back of his skull. And then the world was consumed by blackness.
22
N o one who hasn’t done it can understand what it is to try a case, Ben thought as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on the witness outline he held in his hands. Civil or criminal, it was all the same, at least from one standpoint-the enormous all-consuming immersive nature of the experience. Once the trial began, the rest of the world disappeared. There were no more lunches with friends, no phone calls to Mom, no trips to the local cineplex. During a trial, Ben usually existed on four hours of sleep a night, and he sometimes suspected Christina never slept at all. Despite the pressure, the exhaustion, and the sleep deprivation, he had to keep himself in peak condition and clearheaded. The key to success was to always remain one step ahead-not only planning his case but also anticipating its flaws and preparing for the responses of his opponents. It was a daunting, hellishly difficult task. Even still, he had often thought that trial practice wouldn’t be so bad if you could just eliminate one element.
Clients.
“Congratulations, Kincaid. You’ve really screwed things up now.”
Amanda, naturally. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have I? I thought yesterday went rather well.”
“Shows what you know. You’ve fucked us royally, and we’re going to sit down right now and figure out how to fix it.”
Ben pushed away from the table. There was no point in explaining to this woman that he had gotten up three hours before court began so he could prepare his defense, not so he could talk about its PR ramifications.
“We did a lot of overnight polling, after the evening news reports. The results were not good.”
“I thought Marie did the prosecution serious damage on motive, and also gave us back a feasible alibi. Our jury has a lot more reasonable doubt running through their brains now than they had before.”
“I wasn’t polling the jury,” Amanda said curtly. “I was polling the voters. The men and women who put Todd Glancy into office.”
“I’m not concerned about them.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
Ben felt his neck stiffening. “If we lose this trial, what your voters think isn’t going to matter anymore.”
“What do you mean, if we lose. You’ve been hired to win, you schmuck. And we expect you to deliver. My job is to make sure Todd still has a career after the trial. And that’s not going to happen if you keep painting him as some depraved sex pervert!”
“That part wasn’t my idea. Marie put that in on her own.”
“You should’ve stopped it.”
“I tried.”
“Don’t give me try!” The woman was almost shouting. “This isn’t the 4-H Club, farm boy. I don’t care about try. I care about results. That testimony should never have come in.”
“I agree. But it did, so now we have to live with it.”
She sat on the edge of the table, flipped her hair back, and extended her chest. “We’re going to do a lot more than that. We’re going to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?”
“Easy. I want you to kill the private investigator.”
Ben assumed that by kill she meant “don’t call him to the stand,” but given who was speaking, he wondered if he should check. “You must be kidding.”
“I’m not. If you put him on the stand, Padolino will spend all of cross quizzing him on everything he knows about Todd’s sexual practices and preferences.”
“Very likely.”
“And given that he was apparently following that bimbo intern around for months, he’s probably going to have a lot to tell.”
“That’s the price we pay to get his testimony about Veronica Cooper.”
She shook her head emphatically. “The price is too high.”
Ben was just as resolute. “We have no choice.”
“Of course we do. And I just made it.”
Ben’s face crinkled together like aluminum foil. “Do you want to destroy Todd’s case? We have to use the investigator.”
“We should just go with Todd.”
“Just go with the defendant? His own self-serving testimony? When we have someone who can corroborate it? You’re out of your blinking mind!”
Amanda leaned in so close Ben could feel the darts of her blouse pressing against his shirt. “I can assure you I’m perfectly sane. I can also assure you that I know what’s best for Todd, and if you don’t listen to me, I’ll string you up feetfirst from the Washington Monument.”
“Lady, how can I say this nicely? Buzz off.” He returned his attention to his outline.
She grabbed his collar. “Don’t you turn away from me. Don’t you dare turn away from me! I’ve taken down bigger men than you, Okie. Much bigger. All it would take is a few phone calls and you’ll never practice law again!”
“Amanda?”
Both heads whipped around to see Marshall Bressler wheeling himself into the room. He was holding a bottle of blue-colored pills. “Anyone got a bottle of water? I’m a wreck without my morning medication.” He looked up. “Oh. Is this a bad time?”