It ran through her ears, through the spirals, like the blood, going whoosh-around, whoosh-around, whoosh-around inside the larger noise that was a continual dull thrum: thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum.

The sound thundered through her being like that of a roller coaster at top speed. It rang in her ears.

And then she heard no more.

Nor did she feel the incision made across her eyelids after he closed them, first a slit down and then across, leaving a bloody cross at each eye. Another cut was made at the nose, same configuration, drawing more blood but not enough. He dipped his brush into a cup of his own blood, which had been brought to him, and added a bit more here.

With the scalpel he next cut a twisting, curling line on each cheek. Satisfied, he cocked his head to one side, felt the approval well up from deep within him and all around him, and then plunged the scalpel into the throat, severing the jugular.

A crooked, roving tear was made across the throat, radiating from the jugular on each side. Once more there was not enough blood, so he used a brush, a larger one this time, tamping at the line of the wound with it, watching it drop, slowly dry and coagulate along the line, sending rivulets all about.

He was done.

The others could do what they wished with her now, but his work was finished, save for disposing of the remains.

The details for disposal evolved with each of the girls, the third now on the table in the clinic. The sound of the machine she'd been hooked up to fell silent, and the feeling inside him was like that of a lover sated.

Voices in the room told him the others were anxious to put a mark on their dead member. He backed away. They moved in with crude knives, razors, scissors, whatever they'd found or brought. In the meantime, he saw to the preparation of the girl's blood in properly measured units, with the approximate mix of plasma, knowing he must stretch it as far as possible. It was a very rich and heady mixture, both pure and exact, to be fed on later, privately.

There was some commotion among the others. One of the boys didn't want to mark the dead girl. The others, including the girls, goaded him into it and when he did they all laughed good-naturedly, dazedly. And stupidly they went off to the sex room adjoining the clinic to lay naked with one another, please one another without fear of harm. The sacrifice was over.

He owned the body now, as he owned the blood. With the blood he controlled his life and the lives of others. With the sacrifices he measured out life and death. It was a god-like feeling he would never tire of. He wanted to shout it to the world, but for now at least, it must remain his secret, and any member of the sect who showed signs of weakness, overt moral compunction against his wishes, any who refused the simple taking of a few pints of their own rich blood when he called for it, then they must be terminated--but not before the blood was strained, purified and packaged.

He began the pleasant task of packaging it now, taking each pliable bag into the storage locker off the clinic, filling his blood bank to overflowing. Soon he would have to get workmen to come in to install a new freezer, make more room for the blood.