Page 90 of He Who Sleeps

He walked back in with the second of the two journals. “Blood!” he said with a triumphant glare.

“Whose?”

“Ours,” he offered and looked to them. “Journal said it was through blood it was transferred. Here...” As pleasure and pain are two sides of a coin for him, with one should come the other to be whole. Francine has me paint my blood over her heart. It works when I haven’t christened her with my essence.” He looked up. “I’ma say that means when he didn’t come inside her?”

"So it's some kind of feedback loop?" Leo queried. "We build the pleasure, take it from her, and then somehow giving it back takes it from her and gives it to the God?"

"Then why did we need the wells at all?" Finn asked. "Is it less potent to cover her in blood or something?"

“I don’t see anything in here about a well, at least outside of the main devotions of the festival weekend,” he offered. “It is possible that we don’t need it if it’s a full circuit. I’m also working off the information given...and both participants were of the blood.” He looked to her. “We don’t know if she is.”

"So basically you don't know anything," Easton snorted, going back to searching shelves. "Maybe it's a way to test it," Leo said, with a look in her direction that she didn't know how to interpret. "Maybe if it works, we can confirm that the orphanage is a secret Order facility?"

"But how are we going to know it works?" Carter spoke up for the first time. "Even if the God does give us some sort of signal, there's no way of knowing if it's because of something we did or if He's pissed that we're fucking about instead of looking."

“We aren’t fucking about,” Rix said. “And Leo’s suggestion bear’s weight. What do you propose?”

"I'm not proposing anything," Carter shrugged. "It was Emerson's idea. I'm just testing his hypothesis with reasonable questions.

“No, I meant Leo... You think there’s a way to test it?”

"I'm the fabulous of this sorry outfit," Leo laughed, "not the brains. I just thought that if it worked we'd know she's Order, but Carter has a point. I don't fucking know how we test if it worked or if He Who Sleeps is just fed up of waiting."

Sitting there, she smiled. Seeing them interact, even if it was arguing...

“Pet? Baby, answer us something...”

“Okay?” she said to Jack.

“When you found us, how did that happen? Like, what was going through your head?”

She cocked her head, thinking. “I... Well, I was walking home from work, and changed my direction, going down the street you guys were on.”

“Is that something you normally do?” Emerson asked. “Take different routes?”

She shook her head. “Now, sometimes, but then? No. I was literally just here in the city for a short amount of time, less than two months.”

“Interesting. And why did you move here?”

She shrugged. “Philly seemed interesting. Small city feel but big city opportunities. It has a huge art scene, but less competition than New York, but also...it felt right to move here.” She chuckled. “I remember trying to figure out where I was going to move to and Philly just popped into my head.”

They all looked at each other, before Jack spoke again. “And you finding us...”

“Right...so, I changed direction, thinking it would be a better route. I mean it was...”

“Depending on your view...”

“Well, yeah. So, when I saw you guys carrying the girl in, something pushed me to follow.” She swallowed, thinking back and then frowned. “Seeing her there, I...I didn’t like seeing her there.”

“Because you are a good person,” Emerson added.

She shook her head. “No, it felt wrong...like it wasn’t supposed to beher. Not jealousy, because what kinda lunatic...but it felt wrong.”

"So now we get to the deeply philosophical questions," Carter said. "Does the God speak to people outside The Order?'

“It’s possible? I mean isn’t it bloodlines that matter, not the fact that they are in an organization? Blood remembers, blood transcends,” Rix said.

"I've never really understood any of this," Leo admitted. "I know there are the seven legacy families, but why are we more important than the others if it's all about blood? I'm sure there must be other bloodlines as old as ours in The Order."

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