Blood Sins by Kay Hooper Page A

unable to think like soldiers.
    It was what happened when amateurs tried to make war.
    Things got sloppy.
    With a shrug, he slipped over the fence and into the Com pound. There was virtually no moonlight tonight, with the full moon ten days in the past and overcast skies to boot. He didn't mind. He adapted easily to the night and preferred darkness. He worked his way across the fields and through the woods and the undergrowth that also provided something of a barrier, at least for a casual intruder: big, prickly holly bushes.
    Not fun, but also not unbreachable.
    Within minutes, he was through the woods and into the clear fields on the other side, in the central area of the Compound.
    Where all the homes lay.
    Where the church lay.
    He had a set pattern in mind, a definite plan, and followed it methodically, moving from house to house in utter silence. At each small, neat cottage, he probed the exterior of the building, pinpointing every piece of electronic security and then tagging it with a very tiny electronic device of his own. An electronics expert would have been hard-pressed to spot it; he didn't expect any of these amateurs to.
    No one would discover his handiwork.
    He began at the outer edges of the Compound and circled his way in, moving house to house, toward the church itself, keeping an eye to that direction all the way. But the church was still and silent. No one came or went; only a few lights on the upper floors illuminated two or three of the stained-glass windows.
    There was an almost eerie quiet out here, he acknowledged. In January there weren't even crickets, or bullfrogs calling from the river, and without summer sounds or dogs barking, it was . . .silent.
    Strange and uncomfortable, that realization. He who enjoyed silence had finally found a place where it screamed at him.
    Shaking off the decidedly unpleasant sensation, he went on, keeping to his schedule. By the time he reached the main building, even the few lights on the upper floors had gone out, and the interior was dark and silent. It would have been a peaceful sight, if not for the security lights casting pools of bright, harsh light around each entrance.
    He didn't worry about those.
    It took him more than half an hour to slowly work his way around the very large church. He was more careful now, efficient, less inclined to assume he was dealing with amateurs.
    Because not all of them were.
    He found and tagged more than two dozen cameras and an equal number of motion detectors, and by the time he reached that point, he was grimly certain there were experts involved in protecting at least this building. And they were very, very good.
    Almost too good.
    But he was good himself, and though it required that he spend at least two more hours than he'd planned in the Compound, he was reasonably sure he had found everything of interest. Not absolutely positive but reasonably sure, which was all he had been aiming for on this trip.
    He glanced toward the eastern sky and saw the first gray beginnings of dawn but lingered another few minutes to check some of the locked doors. Then he planted just a few more of his own devices and retreated toward the fence, leaving as silently unobserved as he had come.
    Or so he thought.

    ----

    T essa didn't sleep well, which was hardly surprising. It took a lot out of her to open herself up like that, especially in a place that literally radiated negative energy.
    Negative energy in a church.
    A giant red warning flag from the universe, that.
    She had gone over everything with Hollis but hadn't been able to offer a decent interpretation to the federal agent. Because the truth was, Tessa had never experienced anything quite like that.
    "Cases almost always affect our abilities, usually in unexpected and unpredictable ways," Hollis had told her, more resigned than anything else. "Considering what we know about Samuel, that he's probably one of the most powerful psychics we've ever encountered, it stands to reason the