Sacred Sins Read Free

the streetlight and gave up. Dark or not, she wasn't walking one step more than she had to.
    He'd been waiting a long time. But he'd known. The Voice had said one of the lost ones was being sent. Shewas coming quickly, as if eager to reach salvation. For days he had prayed for her, for the cleansing of her soul. Now the time of forgiveness was almost at hand. He was only an instrument.
    The turmoil began in his head and spiraled down. Power rolled into him. In the shadows he prayed until she passed by.
    He moved swiftly, as was merciful. When the amice was looped around her neck, she had only an instant to gasp before he pulled it taut. She let out a small liquid sound as her air was cut off. As terror rammed into her, she dropped her canvas bag and grabbed for the restriction with both hands.
    Sometimes, when his power was great, he could let them go quickly. But the evil in her was strong, challenging him. Her fingers pulled at the silk, then dug heavily into the gloves he wore. When she kicked back, he lifted her from her feet, but she continued to lash out. One of her feet connected with a can and sent it clattering. The noise echoed in his head until he nearly screamed with it.
    Then she was limp, and the tears on his face dried in the autumn air. He laid her gently on the concrete and absolved her in the old tongue. After pinning the note to her sweater, he blessed her.
    She was at peace. And for now, so was he.

    “T HERE'S no reason to kill us getting there.” Ed's tone of voice was serene as Ben took the Mustang around a corner at fifty. “She's already dead.”
    Ben downshifted and took the next right. “You're the one who totaled the last car.
My
last car,” he added without too much malice. “Only had seventy-five thousand miles on it.”
    “High-speed pursuit,” Ed mumbled.
    The Mustang shimmied over a bump, reminding Ben that he'd been meaning to check the shocks.
    “And I didn't kill you.”
    “Contusions and lacerations.” Sliding through an amber light, Ben drove it into third. “Multiple contusions and lacerations.”
    Reminiscently, Ed smiled. “We got them, didn't we?”
    “They were unconscious.” Ben squealed to a halt at the curb and pocketed the keys. “And I needed five stitches in my arm.”
    “Bitch, bitch, bitch.” With a yawn Ed unfolded himself from the car and stood on the sidewalk.
    It was barely dawn, and cool enough so you could see your breath, but a crowd was already forming. Hunched in his jacket and wishing for coffee, Ben worked his way through the curious onlookers to the roped-off alley.
    “Sly.” With a nod to the police photographer, Ben looked down on victim number three.
    He would put her age at twenty-six to twenty-eight. The sweater was a cheap polyester, and the soles of her sneakers were worn almost smooth. She wore dangling, gold-plated earrings. Her face was a mask of heavy makeup that didn't suit the department-store sweater and corduroys.
    Cupping his hands around his second cigarette of the day, he listened to the report of the uniformed cop beside him.
    “Vagrant found her. We got him in a squad car sobering up. Seems he was picking through the trash when he came across her. Put the fear of God into him, so he ran out of the alley and nearly into my cruiser.”
    Ben nodded, looking down at the neatly lettered note pinned to her sweater. Frustration and fury moved through him so swiftly that when acceptance settled in,they were hardly noticed. Bending down, Ed picked up the oversized canvas bag she'd dropped. A handful of bus tokens spilled out.
    It was going to be a long day.

    S IX hours later they walked into the precinct. Homicide didn't have the seamy glamor of Vice, but it was hardly as neat and tidy as the stations in the suburbs. Two years before, the walls had been painted in what Ben referred to as apartment-house beige. The floor tiles sweat in the summer and held the cold in the winter. No matter how diligent the janitorial service was with