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BLOOD SIN
By
Kimberly Zant
© copyright by Kimberly Zant
Cover Art by Eliza Black
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
Chapter One
I was on the most bizarre mission I had ever undertaken in my life. Adrenaline pumped through my blood as I cruised through the tiny southern town, searching for the sign that would point the way to me.
Part of what was pumping my drug of choice through my rapidly beating heart was fear. There was just no getting around that, because I wasn’t stupid and I knew the risk I was taking. Part of the rush was pure excitement because I was just plain crazy that way and I couldn’t help it, but part of it was also sexual.
I had a plan and if everything worked out just as I wanted it to, I was going to get the ride of my life tonight.
I braked when I at last spotted the sign: Holy Temple of the Warriors of God--15 miles.
My gut tightened. This was the place alright.
Flipping on my blinker, I made the turn and headed out of town, taking care to keep my lead foot from pressing the gas pedal to the floor. A lot of these little towns were notorious speed traps. It wasn’t part of my plan to get caught by Goober and risk a night in jail because I had a serious problem with my mouth and authority.
The only thing that actually worried me about my plan was that I didn’t have a clear mental picture of the layout of the Temple—hadn’t even been able to find a decent exterior view for that matter, although the newspaper clipping had shown a good view of the garish red doors that fronted the ‘Temple’.
It bothered me just a tiny bit that I hadn’t actually used my training in years. I’d served in the military fresh out of high school. Not that I was a zealous patriot, or a glutton for punishment, or out for adventure, or even to escape my fruitcake of a mother. I’d gone in thinking I could earn my college money and party at the same time.
I’d come out four years later with the certainty that I was not cut out for submission. I was a natural dominatrix, but the military hadn’t seemed to care for that particular talent since I was an enlisted stiff and supposed to follow orders, not give them.
Taking my college money, I’d headed off for my serving of education—no particular goal in mind. I just wanted the degree in whatever. It turned out there was a career just for me—management—and I’d enjoyed being the office bitch so well that I was damned near thirty before it finally dawned on me that I’d skipped something I didn’t want to skip.
In all honesty, I didn’t want to miss a damned thing. I knew it was unreasonable. Having your cake and eating it too just wasn’t done, but I suppose I inherited some of my mother’s unreasonableness. I’d decided early on that I was going to experience everything life had to offer, and taking half a slice wasn’t acceptable.
I’d almost missed the kid and family thing—actually, I didn’t particularly care whether I could rope a ring for my finger or not. I did want the kid, though.
Anybody that knew me well would have flatly vetoed the idea of me being a mom, but I figured dads didn’t have to be pansies to be dads. Who was to say I couldn’t be a hard ass and still be a good mom?
The trouble was, God—Fate—or Providence—was against me. I was outraged when I discovered I couldn’t conceive and the worst of it was that the moment I found out I couldn’t, I became obsessed with doing it.
Then I discovered that there were just some mountains that couldn’t be moved and I’d hit one like a bug at ninety miles an hour.
Depression wasn’t something I’d had much familiarity with before. I didn’t deal with it all that well.
It got me to thinking about my mother—the fruitcake. As my uncle was fond of saying, she was a few cards shy of a full deck—a total religious freak. I still couldn’t believe she hadn’t been nominated as a saint after she died. Of course, she hadn’t been Catholic, so I supposed that might have had something to do with it.
One of her weird religious experiences in particular popped into my head one day and since by that time I was really depressed and seriously obsessing over the ‘problem’ I began to wonder if there was anything to it. She’d always claimed she’d been visited by an angel and blessed with a child when she had been told she could never conceive.
Knowing my mother like I did, visited became raped and blessed—well, that was me and even I knew I wasn’t a blessing. I didn’t know who my father was, but I knew he wasn’t any where around. Uncle Bill hadn’t been too helpful. He’d just shrugged and said she’d gone off with some religious cult and came back knocked up.
I took an extended leave—maybe I’ll be back, maybe I won’t—from work. I’d been a workaholic for years and I didn’t have expensive tastes. I figured I had plenty of money stockpiled if I needed it and I could always go back to making other people’s lives miserable by making them work for their money if this didn’t pan out. I’d been tracking ‘sightings’ of angels for months and I was just about ready to give up when I ran across an article about the cult I was even now bearing down on.
They claimed they’d captured a demon from hell and they were going to offer him up to God on the next full moon. They wouldn’t let anyone see the demon—said it would get them and carry them to hell—but they were so excited about it I figured it was worth the drive down to Hicksville to check it out.
I didn’t believe in angels, mind you. I believed in what I could see and hear, but something really freaky had happened to my mother. I’d tracked her medical records down and, sure enough, she had been diagnosed as ‘unable to conceive’ which was why her husband had dumped her and she’d joined the cult to start with.
I’m not sure exactly what I did think had happened, but I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking aliens—which I had no problem believing in. I didn’t particularly care if it was either as long as it could do the deed.
Hell, at this point, I’d have taken a demon. I was part ‘whatever’ myself, according to my mother, which might explain why I was such a cream puff of a gal that I could wither a strong man’s cock at twenty paces just by giving him the ‘look’ if he annoyed me.
I drove by the Temple, slowing so that I could get a look at it. Unfortunately, it was already starting to get dark and it wasn’t easy to see since the building sat a good distance from the road. I drove a half a mile without seeing a road or driveway I could use to turn around and finally, after glancing at the road ahead and behind me, whipped the SUV I was driving around in a U turn and headed back.
It probably wasn’t the best part of my plan to leave the vehicle so close to the Temple, but I wasn’t a spring chicken anymore and I had no desire to try to outrun a pack of religious maniacs on foot when I could use a vehicle and make tracks faster. I’d had the foresight to rent a good all terrain vehicle, though, and I pulled off the road and into the brush. The brush was so thick I had a hell of a time getting out the driver’s door. Making a mental note of ‘will take time to reenter vehicle’, I went to the back and opened it, dragging out a utility belt that I’d outfitted with every conceivable tool I might need to crash the party. Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed the nylon rope I’d brought and hooked it on the belt, hoping I wasn’t going to need it.
When I’d fastened the belt around my waist, I debated whether I’d make more noise thrashing through the underbrush or skirting it. I opted for skirting it, mostly because I didn’t relish the idea of stumbling along through the woods.
It was almost dark anyway, and I’d had the brilliant idea of buying myself a really cool black jumpsuit. I figured I needed to look hot to turn the guy/alien on and the best part was the thing had zippers from hell. I could slip out of it in no time at all. Getting back in wasn’t as easy, but I figured if I didn’t have time, I’d just leave it.
I studied the Temple as I skirted the edge of the woods, stopping now and then for reconnaissance. I knew there were bound to be cult members guarding place. The full moon wasn’t due till the following night and, from what I’d been able to discover about the freaks, they were purifying themselves for the ritual, but I figured they’d still have guards. It didn’t hurt to hope they were stupid and wouldn’t, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
I could hear the cult chanting from somewhere close by. It made the hair on the back of my neck prickle.
As I neared the Temple, however, I discovered there was another building behind it. The chanting was coming from the other building. Pausing in the shadows, I considered the situation. The building in the back must be like a dormitory, I finally decided. It seemed a little odd that they’d hold purification in the dorm instead of the Temple, but then they were pretty damned weird anyway.
The demon, I felt sure, was in the Temple.
There were two guards posted at the front and two more at the back. I’d have cussed a blue streak except that I was afraid they’d hear me. Sighing, I settled to think again. I was pretty sure I could handle one. I was also pretty convinced I couldn’t handle two and certainly not if it meant taking them both down soundlessly to keep from alerting the two at the back of the building. There were windows all the way around the building, but from what I could see they were the kind that didn’t open, just glass set into a window frame.
I looked up at the strange steeple that topped the building—strange because it wasn’t actually a spire. Instead, it was more like a square tower. At the top was a real honest-to-God bell, which meant they would have a way of ringing it.
After a few moments, I realized why it was square.
There was a guard posted at the top. I hadn’t noticed him at first because he had stopped, watching something at the rear of the building. I watched him for nearly fifteen minutes, realizing that he was bored stiff. He’d pace for a while, and then he’d stop and gaze off into dreamland for several minutes before he remembered he was supposed to be watching.
Did I want it that bad, I asked myself?
Irritated because I knew the answer—I’d come this far, I was damn well going to give it a good try—I began to work my way around the building, looking for some way to climb up.
Either the guy in the tower had had to climb up from the outside, or some dear soul had been working on the roof. I found a ladder just waiting for me. If was full dark by then. I checked to make certain I was out of the line of vision of the guards at the front and the rear, peered at the guy in the tower to make sure he was turned the other way, and then darted across the open lawn.
I was breathing like an asthmatic horse by the time I got to the top of the ladder. I couldn’t wait to rest, however. I had to make it across the roof until I was under the tower and out of sight.
Pardonably pleased when I managed the short run without slipping and busting my ass, I settled at the bottom of the tower and waited until I didn’t sound like an obscene phone caller before I moved to the rungs embedded in the tower itself.
Vertical climb. That was going to be hellish, but at least the watch at the top couldn’t see me unless he decided to look straight down. I climbed slowly to keep from overexerting my heart and lungs. When I was near the top, I paused to listen. Step, step, step, pause. Step, step, step, pause. At the second pause, I went over the top, landing cat- like on the tower floor—which meant I sounded like a thundering herd of elephants and everything on the fucking belt rattled.
The guy whirled, but I already had my taser out. I hit him with a few thousand volts and released, leaping toward him as his knees wobbled and gave way. It was a near thing, but I managed to lower him to the floor without pitching either of us over the side.
When I’d settled him, I whipped my trusty roll of duct tape from the pocket of my utility belt and trussed him like a yearling calf. He came to just about the time I wrapped a strip of tape around his head and immediately began wiggling frantically. Glancing around, I saw there was nothing to tie him to. Finally, I hauled him to his feet and tied him to the corner of the tower, figuring the other guards would at least see that he was still at his post if they looked, and he couldn’t do anything I’d regret.
Tucking the tape in the belt again, I pulled out a small flashlight and examined the floor. Sure enough, there was a trap door. My heart was pounding with excitement when I pulled it open and looked down into the belly of the building.
Burning candles were all over the place. The smell of candle wax was almost enough to overwhelm me.
I was a lot more overwhelmed, though, when I discovered there was no ladder leading down from the tower.
What kind of morons built a tower that was only accessible from the outside?
Dropping to my belly, I hung over the drop for a better look. To my relief, I spied rungs running down the inside of the tower similar to those on the outside. The catch was that they ended at roughly the same place, and there was no ladder under the tower.
Shrugging, I reversed positions and put my legs through the opening, feeling around with one foot until I found a rung. I left nail prints in the wood when I finally came to the point of no return. My arm was just long enough I could brush the nearest frigging rung and not quite grasp it.
Taking a couple of deep breaths for courage, I lowered myself until I was hanging by both arms and made a dive for the rung I hadn’t been able to reach. I caught it, but my palms were so sweaty with fear by that time I almost lost my grip. Slipping an arm through the rung to steady myself, I wiped my sweaty palms, blew on them until they were dryish and started down. When I reached the last rung, I turned to look down and gauge the distance.
There was a podium about ten feet below me. I didn’t especially want to land on it and the idea of swinging to miss it didn’t appeal to me a lot more. Sighing in irritation that nothing so far had been easy, I unhooked the rope from my belt. I’d brought it to tie up cult members if the need arose, not for climbing. I decided it ought to be long enough though.
It took me a good ten minutes to work knots into it to have something to hold onto and another five to tie it off to my satisfaction. By the time I had, I was sweating, partly from nerves and partly from the fucking candles.
Jeeze! Were they trying to roast the guy? Or just trying to make him feel at home?
My palms were wet again. I dried them and started down. It was hellish. I didn’t remember having nearly this much trouble when I went through boot camp, but then again it had been a few years. The rope didn’t quite reach. I dropped the last few feet before I’d had the chance to consider how I was going to get back up the frigging thing.
Not that it mattered. I doubted very seriously that I could climb up it. It had taken all I could do to climb down with gravity helping me.
I saw him/it as soon as I took my first look around. My stomach clenched in empathy. The bloodthirsty freaks had staked him to a cross and then hauled the cross up—to display him I supposed. Wings covered in feathers that were the inky, iridescent black of a raven’s wings were spread on either side of him and staked or nailed in place.
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