"What now?" Ash asked.
"Now," Riley replied, "I try to do my job. Wait here, if you don't mind."
He didn't protest, just watched as she ducked under the tape and headed for the boulders at the center of the clearing. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Well, if my head starts to spin around and I spew pea soup all over the place, please drag my ass out of here."
"Please tell me you're kidding."
She looked back over her shoulder to smile at him. "Yeah. Just keep an eye out, okay? If anything looks weird or wrong to you, break the connection."
"What connection?"
"This one." Riley turned her gaze back to the boulders, drawing a deep breath and concentrating on opening every sense she possessed. Then she reached out and placed both hands firmly on the stone that might have helped make up an altar.
She had unconsciously closed her eyes the moment her hands touched the rough stone. Though the bloodstains had faded to rusty marks that might have been mistaken for natural color variations in the rock, she was all too aware of what they really were, and it took all her willpower to deliberately open herself to them.
She hadn't really expected anything to happen, not given the generally absent state of her senses.
Almost immediately, however, Riley knew that something had. As if a switch had been thrown or a lid closed, she found herself abruptly surrounded by utter silence.
No birds. No distant sounds of traffic and people.
All she heard was her own suddenly shallow breathing.
Riley forced herself to open her eyes and recoiled violently from the altar, stumbling back.
The acrid smoke from the fire stung her nostrils, sulfur making the stench worse. Beyond the firelit clearing, the dark woods might have been miles deep, and ancient, impenetrable guardians for the ceremony taking place here.
The robed figures dancing around the fire some feet away were familiar to Riley, but only in that she recognized the movements and gestures, the low chanting in a language most of the modern world had forgotten. She couldn't see any of their faces. None of them seemed to be aware of her presence.
In any case, it wasn't the robed celebrants that held her fascinated gaze but the open coffin placed upon the rock altar.
Riley's first thought was that it must have been a bitch to carry the obviously specially designed coffin all the way out here. And even more of a problem to hide from observers while it was being transported, large as it was. But then she realized that, ornate and gilded though it first appeared, the coffin was actually made of some kind of sturdy cardboard. It fit fairly well on the flat rock they had speculated might be used as an altar.
And it was occupied.
The woman wore a black hood, so it was impossible for Riley to see her face. She was otherwise naked, her arms folded across her breasts in the traditional death pose. But her knees were raised, her legs parted, in a clear if obscene invitation to a lover.
Standing at the foot of the coffin, on one of the smaller boulders, was another robed celebrant, this one wearing a death's-head mask rather than a hood. His arms were raised as he chanted a bit louder than the others, clearly leading them. His robe was open, and he was naked beneath.
He was also very aroused.
Riley took another step back, and then another, thoughts and questions clashing in her mind. This was wrong, and not just in the sense that most people would undoubtedly be horrified by the scene. It was wrong because the ceremony was wrong. There were familiar bits, things she recognized, the chanting, the candles and incense; even the coffin had a place in a satanic ceremony-but not like this.
It was supposed to be, above all, a celebration of life, of the strength and power of the human animal. And sexuality was a very large part of that, but…this was wrong.
Before she could make it all come clear in her mind, she raised her gaze for the first time and was stunned to see a naked man hanging over the coffin.
He appeared to be unconscious.
Riley tried to get a good look at his face, but when three of the celebrants moved out of the circle around the fire and went to the altar, she couldn't help but watch what they were doing.
In a weirdly graceful acrobatic movement, two helped the third one to climb to the top of the tallest boulder, so that he stood parallel to the hanging man.
There was a short sword in his hand, a kind of weapon Riley had never seen before, its sharp blade gleaming in the firelight.
The other two celebrants went to the hanging man, and each reached up to grasp one of his ankles. Then they moved slowly back toward the far side of the altar, pulling his feet back and holding them high until his upper body hung over the coffin and the woman waiting inside it.
Riley almost started forward instinctively when she realized what was going to happen, but that involuntary movement was halted when she reminded herself that this had already happened. Or it was a vision. Or even a figment of her Taser-disordered mind and imagination.
Bottom line, what she was seeing wasn't actually taking place before her.
There was nothing she could do except watch in horror.
The chanting became louder, the group around the fire danced more frenziedly-and then someone Riley couldn't see struck a bell sharply three times.
And everything stopped.
Only the snapping, popping fire offered any movement or life for what seemed an eternal moment. And then the man at the foot of the coffin spoke a phrase in Latin, sharply.
Blood is the power? That's what he said?
The man on the topmost boulder leaned forward, grasped the hanging man's head by the hair, and drew it back far enough so that he was able to place the sharp blade against that unprotected throat.
The man at the foot of the coffin spoke, again in Latin, a short phrase Riley tried to brand in her mind.
Blood is the life.
Then, her voice muffled and unidentifiable behind the hood covering her face, the woman in the coffin spoke. Her words were also in Latin, and her tone was eerily seductive.
I offer…this sacrifice…and draw from blood spilled…life spilled…the power of darkness…the power of evil…to do my bidding.
The bell was struck three more times, and on the third strike the hanging man's throat was cut.
Blood gushed out and down, splashing the coffin and the woman in it. She unfolded her arms, holding them out as though welcoming the blood or beckoning a lover. Her hips lifted and undulated. Scarlet coated her breasts and stomach and streamed down the insides of her thighs.
The robed celebrants grouped around the fire began their dancing and chanting again, this time more frantically, their voices rising as the hanging man's lifeblood was drained from his limp body.
The priest at the foot of the coffin chanted as well, his voice growing louder, more frenzied, until finally the woman convulsed and cried out in an orgasmic tone, and he cast off his robe and climbed into the coffin, mounting her writhing body.
Riley's stomach heaved. She wanted to close her eyes or look away, but she was helpless to do either. She could only stand there and watch the obscene copulation taking place, while the chanting of the other celebrants became shouts, and the dying man's blood continued to spatter the two in the coffin, and the smell of incense and blood stung her eyes and her nostrils.
This was wrong. Wrong in so many ways-
"Riley!"
She opened her eyes with a gasp, momentarily dizzy as she stared at the daylit clearing. No coffin. No robed celebrants. No victim hanging above the altar.
She could still smell the blood.
"Riley, what in God's name-"
Realizing only then that Ash's arms were around her, that he had undoubtedly pulled her away from the altar, she fought for the strength to get her feet under her and turn to face him. She was grateful when his hands continued to grip her arms.