Washington, D.C.

He called in sick. Two days in a row. His boss wasn’t happy. Yesterday wasn’t much of a problem. Today meant canceling an account meeting in Saint Louis, which meant canceling a flight, maybe not getting back the full refund on the ticket. The cheap bastard would buy wing seats if he got a good enough discount. Last week’s trip to Florida he had even been on standby. Standby, for God’s sake. Was that any way to run a business? He didn’t care if he got fired. Right now he didn’t care about anything except the banging in his chest that had rapidly moved to include the back of his head. He worried that soon his entire body would become one throbbing ache.

He had ignored the blinking e-mail icon in the corner of his computer screen, but he knew he couldn’t ignore it forever. He felt it watching him, could feel it through the walls like some laser beam following him from room to room. It was ridiculous. Of course, The Sin Eater couldn’t see him, certainly couldn’t watch him. So how did he know?

He paced in front of the computer. Calling in sick wasn’t really a lie. He did feel sick, nauseated and feverish. When he glanced at himself in the mirror this morning he hardly recognized his image. His hair looked like it had thinned overnight and there seemed to be a sickly yellow tinge to his skin. His bloodshot eyes were swollen from little sleep. How could he sleep when Mrs. Sanchez kept waking him up, staring at him from the dark corner of his bedroom?

The nightmare had been so real he had forced himself to stay awake. If only she hadn’t been there at the rectory. How could he know she’d be there in the middle of the afternoon? The others were different, whores waiting to have the evil slit out of them. But Mrs. Sanchez…she shouldn’t have gotten in his way. It wasn’t his fault. But how did The Sin Eater know?

He stared at the computer screen from across the small room. When he was invited to play the game he had to submit a name and he did: Father Paul Conley. Terminating him in a make-believe computer game hadn’t been enough. He wanted him dead. He wanted to control Father Paul Conley’s last breath and he had.

He had to think about this. If The Sin Eater had heard or seen the news that the priest had really been murdered, would he automatically know it was him? The Sin Eater could go back to the original list, see who submitted Father Paul’s name and then know the priest’s killer. Would he feel the need to punish him? Would he turn him in to the police?

It didn’t matter. He had been especially careful, very careful…except for the fucking coffee mug. Jesus! He couldn’t believe he had forgotten it. Everything else he had wiped down or thrown into the garbage bags. Everything except the most obvious fucking thing. By the time he remembered, it was too late to go back. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t care. It was over and done, and Father Paul Conley couldn’t, wouldn’t, be able to hurt anyone else.

Pumped with a fresh wave of adrenaline he marched across the room to the computer and clicked on the e-mail waiting for him. He could handle whatever it was. There was only one e-mail message, and it was from The Sin Eater:

YOU BROKE THE RULES.