Moonrise (32 page)

Luke Bardell, the messiah of the Foundation of Being, was a very good-looking man indeed. And he’d been paid well for sleeping with a dying old lady.

If Rachel had been willing to accept defeat she would have refused their offer of hospitality. A sensible woman would have accepted the fact that the mother who’d abandoned her on almost every level had finally finished the job. She could find a new job, make a life for herself, choose not to be a victim of a distraught childhood.

Choice, again. There was that word. She could choose anger and revenge. Or she could choose to get on with her life.

At that point, anger and revenge were far more appealing, and they carried her straight to Santa Dolores, to the Foundation of Being. And to Luke Bardell.

“She’s here, Luke.”

He didn’t move. He’d heard them shuffle in, that odd group of middle-aged and elderly businessmen who’d found the answer to life’s questions with the Foundation of Being, and used their financial expertise to make it thrive. They were called The Grandfathers, even though there were several women in the group, and they ran the organization like a blue-chip company.

And Luke ran them. He lay flat on his back on the cool tile, arms outstretched, eyes closed, as he inhaled the sweet smell of burning sage. He could feel the energy
tingling, rushing, flowing through his body, every nerve taut, every vein pumping with blood, pulsing, throbbing. That energy was his power, his gift, and he used it carefully, never squandering it.

For a moment he wondered who they were talking about, and then he remembered. Stella’s daughter. The pale, sour-faced woman who’d had the astonishing gall to try to take his money away. She’d gotten nowhere, of course. The Grandfathers thought she should have been paid off. After all, lawsuits and accusations, no matter how far-fetched, were bad publicity. And the Foundation of Being preferred little or no publicity. They weren’t looking for converts. Those who needed what they offered would find their way to Santa Dolores. Sooner or later.

But Luke hadn’t wanted to pay her off. He’d watched her, with her patrician face and her fuck-you eyes, her designer clothes and her utter contempt, and that old feeling rose in him, one he thought he’d squashed down. Here was a challenge, when nothing had been a challenge for years. Here was a soul who would fight him, tooth and nail, before he could claim her. Here would be a battle that would test his rusty skills, prove that there was no one immune to the power he could exert, when he chose to focus it.

He would bring Rachel Connery to Santa Dolores and he would seduce her. Spiritually and emotionally, he would strip her, ravish her, drain her, and own her. As he did all the others.

He had no qualms about it. He could take that sour look on her pale face and turn it into the placid expression of bliss that surrounded him twenty-four hours a day. All without laying a hand on her.

He never slept with his followers. As far as they knew, he never slept with anyone at all. Luke Bardell was celibate, vegetarian, purity personified. It was all part of the tools of the trade. They all wanted him. He knew it, and he used it. He slept with no one, and they believed they could all have him, men and women, young and old. As long as he remained put of reach it kept them blind and focused and needy.

The way he liked them.

It would be interesting to see just how long it would take him to bring about that change in an angry disbeliever like Rachel Connery. He’d converted others before; it should be a simple matter.

Except that she was different; he’d felt it, even from a distance. Her anger ran deeper. And it called to him, a challenge that he had no intention of refusing.

He opened his eyes and sat up, fluidly, brushing his long hair behind him as he crossed his legs and stared back at the grandfathers. “Blessings,” he said.

“What do you want us to do with her, Luke?” Alfred Waterston had taken forced early retirement from IBM. Their loss had been Luke’s gain. Alfred’s attention to financial detail was impressive to the point of being frightening.

“Make her welcome,” he replied in his gentle voice, which he’d trained to carry to the farthest corner of any room. Another tool, one he used wisely.

“She’s expecting to see you. I told her you were meditating, and she just laughed. I’m afraid she’ll be a disrupting influence, Luke.”

Luke simply nodded. “Not for long, Alfred. See if she’ll submit to purification before she comes. What’s she wearing?”

“City clothes,” Alfred said with contempt.

“Bring her some of our things. She’ll be more comfortable in them.”

“And if she refuses?”

“Then I’ll deal with it, Alfred. I always do.”

She’d refuse, of course, even though the ritual bath was simply the private use of a hot spring that was wonderfully relaxing. She’d probably insist on cold showers during her stay. She’d refuse the loose cotton clothing they all wore as well, but he’d see to that in good time. The phrase rang in his head,
Strip her, bathe her, and bring her to my tent
, and he smiled serenely.

“Blessings,” Alfred mumbled, with no idea what his saintly leader was thinking.

“Blessings to you all,” Luke replied, lying back down again.

It had been three months since he’d been laid. He’d
grown used to the long periods of celibacy—if he were to keep up the image of purity, then he had to be very careful how and when he took care of his needs when they became overwhelming.

But he’d learned to channel that sexual energy into a kind of burning power that reached out to everyone. And he lived inside that volcano, inviolate.

Santa Dolores was a safe haven for all, based upon trust and love and freedom. It also worked extremely well due to an advanced security system that gave Luke visual access to every room on the compound. He sat up again, alone in the pale, cavernous room, and rose. He would retire to his meditation chamber, the one place where no one, not even Calvin, would disturb him. He would draw aside the thick black curtain and stare at the banks of television monitors. And maybe he might get a chance to see whether Rachel Connery was as much of a challenge without her clothes on.

The first thing she noticed was that there were no children around. Apparently this cult catered to the unencumbered. The better to extort their money, Rachel thought angrily. The main house of Santa Dolores was built along fittingly Southwestern lines—cool tile floors, adobe walls, plain dark wood on the windows and ceiling.

They’d put her in a room at the far end of one hallway. The woman who’d shown her there was pleasant enough, and to Rachel’s annoyance she didn’t appear to be particularly brainwashed, despite the loose cotton outfit she wore, which resembled a cross between men’s pajamas and a karate
gi
. She’d tried to press one on Rachel, which she flatly refused, and tried to lure her to a hot springs for purification.

“Not in the mood,” Rachel had drawled. “I took a shower this morning.”

“You’ll feel wonderful. Like a new person,” the woman, who’d identified herself as Leaf, said.

“I like the old person just fine,” Rachel said. “When do I see Luke?”

“When he’s ready. He spends most of the day in prayer and meditation. I’m certain he’ll grant you an
audience as soon as he’s able. In the meantime he would want us to make you welcome at Santa Dolores.”

Rachel looked around her, at the plain walls, the kiva fireplace, the twin bed with the white cotton coverlet. “Not very sybaritic, is it?” she observed.

“We aren’t here to indulge our senses,” Leaf replied. “We’re here to fine-tune them. To open ourselves to everything.”

“You can’t do that on a twin bed.”

Leaf smiled at her. “We do not indulge in drugs, alcohol, sex, or any toxins. This is a place for purification and learning.”

“No sex?” Rachel echoed. “What about husbands and wives?”

“They welcome the chance to concentrate on their spiritual rather than their physical needs.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said. “My mother never spent a celibate week in her life.”

“Celibacy is not a requirement,” Leaf said. “It’s merely a suggestion. If we wish to follow the master then we should emulate him.”

It took a second for this to sink in. “You’re telling me Luke Bardell is celibate?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” Rachel echoed in disbelief. “You know, there’s a problem with celibate religions. No little followers to keep the faith going. The Shakers found that out.”

“We aren’t a religion; we’re a philosophy. And children aren’t allowed here. They’re too young to understand our teachings. Luke says we must take care of our worldly responsibilities before we nurture ourselves.”

“A cult leader with a republican conscience,” Rachel muttered. “What next?”

“It’s not a cult.”

“Yeah, I know. Not a religion, not a cult, just a way of life,” Rachel said, tossing herself down on the bed. It was narrow and hard, like a bed of nails. It suited her mood.

“Dinner will be at six o’clock. We’re all vegans here, but our cooks are very skillful. I know you won’t mind.”

The only thing worse than a vegetarian diet was its stricter form, vegan. Rachel sighed. “It will be lovely, I’m sure. In the meantime I think I’ll take a little rest.”

“Perfect,” Leaf said. “I’ll come back for you at supper time.”

Rachel lay very still on the bed, listening as Leafs sandaled feet disappeared into the thick silence. She’d left the damned uniform behind, and Rachel stared at it, wondering if she had the energy and the anger to dump it in the trash. She didn’t.

She looked at the wood-paneled ceiling overhead. She’d done her research well—this facility was less than four years old, built with the best that money could buy. It was worth millions, all thanks to the spiritual leadership of a man who’d spent three years in prison for manslaughter after killing a man during an armed robbery.

Luke Bardell had risen far and fast in the last seven years since he’d walked out of Joliet Prison on parole. And now no one could touch him, no one would even dare try, including the parole board who should have thrown him back in jail for violating the rules of his parole long ago.

No one would dare try to touch him but Rachel Connery. And she was going to bring him down.

She’d worn high heels as a stupid little act of defiance. She wasn’t going to go exploring in them, she wasn’t going to put on those damnable sandals that Leaf had left behind either, even though they looked like they might fit. She would go in her stocking feet, roaming the empty halls of Santa Dolores, and see whether she would come across the elusive Luke Bardell. She wasn’t going to await his summons for a papal audience. She was going to find him—now. And remind herself just how human he was.

She should have known it would be a stupid waste of time. She passed a good half dozen of the brainwashed—people who looked at her and smiled and murmured some crap about “blessings.” But Luke Bardell was nowhere to be found. No one stopped her from going into any room, including the large, stark room that looked designed for large meetings or human sacrifices.
But there was no sign of their mysterious, illustrious “master.”

By the time she gave up and headed back for her room her mood had not improved. She was hungry, she was hot and tired, and whether she liked it or not she was going to change out of her city clothes into something more comfortable. She wasn’t certain that she’d brought anything suitable, and she’d go around stark naked before she’d dress up like the karate kid, but a shower would remind her that she was here on a quest—one she had no intention of failing.

It was winter, and her room was already dark when she reached it. There was no light switch on the wall, and she cursed beneath her breath as she stumbled into the darkness, the door swinging shut behind her, sealing her in.

“Goddamn place,” she muttered. “No goddamn light switches, no goddamn meat, no goddamn messiah when you go looking for him,” she grumbled, flailing around for a lamp on the bedside table. She found one, only to discover that it was an oil lamp.

“Shit,” she said out loud. “And no goddamn electricity.”

The flare of the match was dazzling in the inky darkness, and Rachel uttered a little shriek, mesmerized by the light as it traveled toward a lamp. A moment later a dim illumination filled the room, growing brighter by the moment, and a man shook the match out and tossed it in the kiva.

“You were looking for me?” Luke Bardell said.

She would never forget nor forgive her initial moment of panic. She’d gone in search of him, to face the lion in his den. And instead he’d invaded hers.

He was as mesmerizing close up as he was from a distance. It wasn’t something as simple as physical beauty, though he had that in abundance. An elegant, narrow face, wide gray-blue eyes that looked at her with astonishing compassion, a nose and chin strong enough to give his angelic face character, and a mouth that could seduce a saint.

He sat on her bed, the only place to sit in the room, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was
wearing one of those baggy cotton outfits, though his was pure white instead of the pale colors the others wore. He had one of those tall, lean bodies that looked almost gaunt, and yet only a fool would underestimate the strength and power beneath the loose fitting white tunic. His hair was very dark and very long, and it flowed down his back, and he watched her with his big, elegant hands folded quietly in his lap, watched her with faint curiosity and not the slightest hint of apprehension.

“How’d you get in here?” she demanded, not caring how hostile she sounded. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“We have no locks at Santa Dolores,” he said in a tranquil voice. “We don’t use harsh or profane language. It’s an infectious poison, just as surely as drugs and alcohol and animal flesh are.”

She resisted the impulse to tell him to fuck himself, she wasn’t sure why. “Sticks and stones may break my bones,” she murmured.

He raised his eyes to look at her, and she met his gaze with complete self-control. No wonder he was able to have otherwise intelligent adults eating out of his hand. Those eyes of his could make an iceberg melt.