Ritual Sins Read Online Free PDF

He would do it again.
    Before Luke could make one mistake too many.
    Considering the fact that she was sick to her stomach by the time she finished the meal the Foundation provided for her, considering she was feeling restless, edgy, and resentful, it seemed odd to Rachel that she slept well in that narrow bed. Perhaps it was simple relief that she hadn’t had to deal with another confrontation with the leader of this odd group of people.
    Except that she had to admit they weren’t that odd. Alfred Waterston wasn’t that dissimilar from several of the wealthy men her mother had married, although he seemed kinder. And Catherine seemed unquestionably friendly, helpful, and even maternal, with a genuine warmth that was almostunsettling to someone of Rachel’s emotionally deprived background.
    The other Grandfathers were familiar as well—decent, stable, slightly stuffy men and women who seemed more at ease in a boardroom than seated around a table full of lentils and soy. They were the kind of people she’d worked with in New York, the kind of people whose greatest flights of spirituality usually concerned a bottom line. What they were doing dressed in matching cotton and following a charismatic con artist was beyond her comprehension.
    Because that was what Luke Bardell was. Everyone else in this place might be blinded by his otherworldly air, his aura of saintliness, but Rachel wasn’t other people. She had come for Luke Bardell’s head, and she wasn’t about to be blinded into thinking he was anything but evil incarnate.
    Everyone in that huge room had seemed equally, stupidly devoted to their leader, from the Grandfathers to Luke’s strange-looking companion, Calvin. If her secret cohort was there, she wasn’t able to hazard a guess as to which follower was really a pained disbeliever.
    She couldn’t remember her dreams, which was nothing new in itself. She wasn’t the sort who paid much attention to her dreams if she could help it—what she did remember of them was always unsettling.She knew by the way the sheets were twisted around her body that her dreams that night had been disturbing. It was little wonder. There was death here. She could smell it in the dryness of the air, feel it through her sweat-damp skin.
    There was a new set of cotton clothing for her, this time in a pale shade of blue that was slightly more flattering than the green they’d offered her before. She ignored them anyway, and by the time she emerged from her shower, dressed in jeans and a loose cotton shirt, they were gone from the foot of the bed and her door was ajar. Obviously the chair she’d wedged under the handle was useless.
    The hall was deserted. She was in desperate need of caffeine, and she would have sold her soul for one mug of it, strong and black. She wondered if Luke Bardell would consider that price too high.
    She was about to find out.
    “Looking for breakfast?”
    There was nothing sinister in the question, or the soft tone of Luke’s voice. She didn’t like the way he seemed to materialize in the empty corridor without any warning, but for the possibility of coffee she was willing to be pleasant.
    Rachel stopped, guarding her expression. “I suppose coffee might be too much to hope for?” she said. “Or do you allow caffeine in this place?”
    “We have a grain beverage that’s quite energizing.”
    “I should have known.” She didn’t bother to disguise the disgust in her voice. “You know that when people are deprived of caffeine they become irritable and unpleasant?”
    “That should be quite a change for you,” he murmured without blinking.
    “And they get terrible headaches,” she added, undeterred.
    “Let me know if you develop one and we’ll do a healing for you.”
    The very notion filled her with horror. “No, thank you. I can take care of myself.”
    “But isn’t it better to accept help from others?”
    “Not particularly,” Rachel said.
    He wasn’t that close to her. Luke Bardell