Original Sin
( Seven deadly sins - 1 )
Allison Brennan
Allison Brennan
Original Sin
and desire what is denied us.
— Francois Rabelais (1494–1553)
PROLOGUE
Ten Weeks Ago
No one could hear Moira’s piercing screams; they were in her head, as trapped as she was by the ancient demon who was luring the man she loved to his death.
Peter, her lover, her life, the reason she wanted to survive, held out the cross and chanted an ancient exorcism.
Her palms went up, facing him. The demonic energy building within pulsated outward and grabbed her lover by his throat. Squeezed. It was as if her own hands were tightening around Peter’s neck with inhuman strength. But Moira was many feet away from him, the demon using her body to channel his satanic energy. Peter was dying, struggling for breath as he collapsed to the floor, scratching at invisible hands around his neck, drawing his own blood.
Moira witnessed the shock on Peter’s face. The pain. The disbelief. With a flick of her wrist, the malevolent demon hurled him across the room with enough force to crack the stone wall. Peter dropped twelve feet to the ground, dead …
Moira O’Donnell jolted awake, her breath coming in gasps, the cheap, scratchy motel sheets damp from perspiration, her skin slick and hot to the touch. As always, after this nightmare came a vision, hitting so hard and fast and fading so rapidly that every time she tried to focus on a detail, it would disappear like a wisp of smoke. But fear still clung tenaciously to every cell in her body, squeezing her tight until she was nearly blind with panic.
She’d been having nightmares every night. And just as the nightmares were the real past, the visions that invariably followed were the real present. They were far from useful: even as Moira witnessed events happening right now, she was powerless to stop the endless cycle of destruction. How could she balance the scales if evil kept winning?
It didn’t help that her visions were difficult to decipher, snippets of startling images and intense feelings, strangers’ faces and places she’d never been. She suffered with people she didn’t know, feeling their pain, sharing their terror, and was unable to do a damn thing to stop it. Father Philip explained to her there was a deeper meaning, to be patient, but Moira was tired of waiting for answers that never came. She was exhausted from watching the underworld win yet another battle, and seeing countless more innocent people suffer.
Moira was tired of living when she had nothing to live for.
She sat up, head in her hands, doing what Father Philip told her to do after a vision. Try to remember. Search for clues.
You are seeing these things for a reason. Ask questions, listen for answers. They will be there when you need them, but you must be alert.
Sure, rip open my soul to be tortured again and again, always searching for answers when I don’t even know the damn questions!
She heard the crashing of waves against cliffs far beneath her.
Moira could practically smell the salt air. Salt air tinged with smoke, ash, sulphur. She focused on remembering the images she didn’t want to see.
A demon. The stench of burning sulphur, so thick her tongue was coated with it, mixed with the sick, sweet, metallic taste of blood. A burning house. Screams of agony. Not only from those trapped inside, but all around her. All around, and down below …
Moira jumped out of bed, unsteady. It was a portal. A gateway to Hell, a place where the supernatural barrier between this world and the underworld was so thin and weak that it took little effort to bring forth evil, or send souls into the fiery pit.
Joyous laughter cackled loudly as evil watched death win a victory for its master. The house collapsed into itself, down, down into the molten pit far, far below … the gate was opening …
Fiona.
Fiona was responsible. Moira knew it as certainly as she knew that she was just as responsible as her mother for Peter’s death.
Once again, Moira was too late to stop Fiona-a witch, a magician, an evil bitch, any of the names worked-from unleashing darkness into the world. Her laugh, her scent of lavender and musk, filled the air but disappeared as soon as Moira concentrated on the details of the vision, something, anything that might tell Moira where Fiona was right now. As soon as she focused, the sights and sounds faded away.
Would she ever figure this vision thing out? Would it ever help her find her mother, or would it only continue to taunt her, tease her, haunt her?
Moira sat back on the bed and stared at the long, unblinking cat’s eye where the depressing yellow streetlight cast shadows through the slit where the curtains didn’t quite meet. It was late November and the bitter cold would most certainly bring snow to this small, depressed town in upstate New York. The blustery weather reminded Moira of her childhood in Ireland, but here there was no green, not even a hint of spring, no salty air or the sweet warmth of burning peat.
A glance at the puke-green digital numbers on the old alarm clock had her swearing under her breath. Three fucking a.m. Ninety minutes of sleep. No way was she getting any more downtime tonight. She got up, switched on the desk lamp, pulled off her damp T-shirt, and walked over to the sink in an alcove. Even the shower wasn’t private, simply a cheap plastic curtain hiding stained green tiles. Only the toilet was behind a door in a closet barely wide enough to turn around in. She splashed water on her face and under her arms and efficiently brushed her thick, black hair into a long, wavy ponytail.
The scar on the left side of her neck caught her attention. She tilted her head to view the odd-shaped discoloration that could be mistaken for a strawberry birthmark if anyone else actually saw it. Though barely noticeable after seven years, the scar was forever imprinted in her mind. If only having the memories-and nightmares-removed could be as easy as removing the demon’s mark her mother had branded on her.
She leaned over, holding the stained porcelain with white-knuckled fingers, drinking water from the faucet, the St. Michael’s medallion she never removed clattering against the sink. Her face flushed with fear and the urge to run; she splashed icy water over her skin. Panic would get her and others killed. Too many people counted on her to find Fiona.
How do you kill your own mother?
She looked at the scar again. It burned beneath her skin as it had thirteen years ago, when Fiona had marked her on her sixteenth birthday. A memory of the pain …
It was no memory. The scar was burning.
Moira checked the salt seals on the windows and door. There was little that could stop demons, but she could slow them down, weaken them. It had saved her more than once, giving her time to disappear.
The time for hiding is over.
She picked up her cell phone. It was noon in Italy. Father Philip would be meditating in prayer. He was not to be disturbed during this hour, except in an emergency like this.
“St. Michael’s,” a calm male voice answered.
“Father Philip, please,” she said, the Irish lilt all too obvious in her voice.
“He’s not available right now.”
“This is Moira O’Donnell. It’s extremely important.”
The monk didn’t comment or hang up. She heard the receiver being placed on the wood table.
The only phone at St. Michael’s Monastery was in the library. She pictured the tall, narrow windows with stained glass in the arches; the stone floor covered with a huge, impossibly old, faded Persian rug. The worn leather sofas, the reading lamps, the peace. This was a sanctuary for study and rest. The intensive, hands-on training-the physical training-was done far away in America, maybe to separate the violence from the research, but most likely to protect the Order from being annihilated
in one attack.
Moira had spent countless hours in the library with Peter, studying the old texts. Many of the others were skeptical of her, but Father Philip had allowed her to stay. He’d saved her life and cared about her when she thought there was no hope left. He’d brought her to the sanctuary, taught her, encouraged Peter to help her. That the priest felt responsible for the tragedy that followed deeply pained her. It wasn’t his fault she’d disobeyed his command to steer clear of magic. She’d wanted to undo the damage her mother and the coven had done, and the only way she knew how to battle magic was with magic. But she and Peter had gone too far. She hadn’t realized the price would be so great, but learned the hard way that even with good intentions, sorcery begot only evil.
Father Philip broke her contemplation when he picked up the receiver, saying in his soft measured accent, “Moira. It’s been six months.”
She didn’t want to explain to Father why she hadn’t contacted him, or anyone, affiliated with St. Michael’s all these months. Her doubts? Fears? Or was it the loneliness of her solitary mission she wanted to keep hidden from the few people who cared enough about her to notice her pain.
But this vision was different and Father was the only one who might have answers. “I had another vision. I don’t remember much of it, but a gateway to Hell is opening.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!” She bit her tongue. She wasn’t angry with the old priest, but frustrated with herself. Frustrated and alone. She desperately missed Peter, but every time she allowed herself to think of him, she remembered only his death.
“Where are you?”
“Upstate New York. I was looking into a ritualistic murder that occurred on Halloween. It was just a stupid serial killer, his sixth murder in two years. It had nothing to do with Fiona.” She was disgusted with herself for being drawn here just because the woman was killed at a graveyard. Fiona wasn’t that uncouth.
Moira’s mother killed with style.
She added, “My scar hurts. I’ve never felt it like this before.”
Father Philip didn’t answer. Her heart raced; what was he thinking? That she was going to be possessed again? That she was making it up? That she had truly lost her mind and was now seeing signs of demonic activity everywhere?
She fumbled around in her backpack for her aspirin bottle and shook four out, dry swallowing them. The bitter, chalky taste coated her tongue. She cupped water from the tap into her hands and drank, her shoulder holding the phone against her ear.
“Father?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s a sign.”
“I can’t go through that again.” Every time she had a vision, it ended poorly. She almost laughed at her thought-what an understatement!
“I didn’t say it was a bad sign. I need to research.”
What about “portal to Hell” wasn’t bad? But Moira swallowed her sarcasm and said, “Tell me the truth, Father, please.”
“I don’t know for certain; it’s a hunch. Let me-”
“Tell me,” she interrupted. “Father. I must know.”
He sighed, and she could picture him taking off his small, silver-framed glasses and polishing them absently with his handkerchief. Philip was not only “Father” as in priest, but also the only father figure-the only sane father figure-she’d ever had. But Moira had been unable to remain at St. Michael’s when the majority of its residents accused her with their silence. She couldn’t take fearful refuge in the monastery while Fiona was free, gaining power, forging alliances with the darkest souls on and beneath the earth.
So she’d left for Olivet, an abbey in Montana named after the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Olivet was the go-to place for intensive physical training to be a demon hunter and, Moira supposed, the place where those in the thick of it went afterward to lick their wounds and regroup. It was the only place she could learn to use skills other than witchcraft to find and stop her mother’s insane plans.
St. Michael’s Monastery was the academic branch of the Order. They studied, prayed, raised up the young warriors, and fully educated them-until their gifts were discerned and they were assigned elsewhere, or sent to Olivet for training.
It had been whispered that St. Michael’s hunted human evil, and Olivet hunted supernatural evil. Few acknowledged that they all were both predators and prey, hunting evil while trying to protect their Order from external-and internal-enemies.
The sole reason Moira was trained as a demon hunter was to battle demons Fiona put in her path. Rico, the head of Olivet and her trainer, had made it clear that she wasn’t truly one of them: a chosen warrior raised at St. Michael’s. Moira’s only purpose was to find, and stop, Fiona. Because dark covens used demons to defend them, learning to battle demons was essential to stopping witches.
Loneliness had been added to her guilt.
“A gateway to Hell is open?” Father Philip asked.
“Opening.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
She wasn’t sure. “When I had the vision, that’s what I thought. Something is beginning. I can’t explain it; it’s just what I felt.” Moira hated unclear visions, interpretations, vague ideas of what it all supposedly meant. She wanted-needed-a path to follow. Explicit instructions, a solid plan. Once again, God showed his dark cosmic humor in her life.
“Then there’s time,” Father Philip pronounced from across the ocean.
“What about the scar?”
“You’ve been having the visions since Peter died.”
Her heart twisted at the mere mention of his name. “Yes.”
“These visions involve the barrier between us and the underworld.”
“More or less.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve only had a few.” A dozen, more or less. “It’s not like I’m ready for the rubber room.”
“No, no you’re not.” It had been a joke, but he’d answered as if she’d been serious. “It’s a sign. You have a spiritual link to the underworld.”
“No, no, no! Absolutely not!” She was shaking. St. Michael’s newest demon hunter shaking in fear. What a world!
“Moira, I believe you do. And you’re going to have to learn to use your powers to our advantage. We must fight back. Too long we’ve been reactionaries, not acting until they brought forth evil spirits. The one right thing you and Peter did was to be proactive.”
“Father-please.” She could not talk about Peter.
“Peter made many mistakes.”
“I made the mistakes, Father.”
“But Peter knew better.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Daughter-” He sighed. Moira’s heart swelled. She loved to hear Father Philip call her daughter. It was an endearment that kept her grounded in love and hope. An assurance that even with everything she’d done, all the mistakes she-and Peter-had made, there was someone who cared about what happened to her. She was not alone, no matter how alone she felt.
Father said, “We absolutely cannot afford to be reactive. The signs have been many, and after the tragedy at the mission-”
“What mission? What happened?”
“At Santa Louisa de Los Padres. There was a demonic ritual there that led to the murders of twelve priests.”
Her stomach rose to her throat. “Father-”
“I knew many of them.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“We were too late. Perhaps that was your vision. It happened three days ago.”
Though she couldn’t remember her vision image by image, only the overall feeling, she still recalled snapshots. “It happened tonight. A great fire, complete destruction.”
“Moira, you must open yourself to the visions. Learn to read them.”
“What if they’re from Hell? What if I’m being misled?”
“Every vision you’ve had has been of an event that is happening, not a deception.”
“That can change. They can use me to hurt people.” To hurt you.
“I will continue to
research. Consult Rico, others. We can be proactive. With you, we have foreknowledge.”
“Foreknowledge? If it’s happening now, how can that help us?”
“You said that the portal was opening-which means we can stop it or close it. This is our advantage, and the only way to stop them.”
Rico had taught her everything he could during her time at Olivet, including his creed: gather intelligence, create a plan, execute the plan. It worked, and she liked the structure and preparation that went with being a demon hunter. But being given inside information? That scared her. What if Father Philip was wrong? What if Fiona and the demons were trying to deceive her? Trap her? What if Moira misinterpreted the visions? What if her mistakes cost more innocent souls their lives?
She just wanted to stop Fiona. She didn’t want-couldn’t bear-the fate of mankind on her shoulders.
Reluctantly, she asked, “What do I need to do?”
“Find where the gateway is opening. Go there.”
“How?”
“Meditate. Pray.”
Never. But Moira didn’t tell him that. She’d use more contemporary methods, starting with the Internet.
“And how do I close it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Terrific. I’ll just throw my body into the pit and battle it out to the death.”
“Do not be flippant.” Father sounded irritated. “I will find out how to close it. Let me know as soon as you locate it. I will need the specifics of how it was created and why. That might be harder to discover than its location.”
Moira closed her eyes. Everything was spiraling out of control. She didn’t want this responsibility. When she’d first accepted this mission, it was to locate Fiona, not a gateway to Hell.
But she had no choice. Fiona was somehow involved, and Fiona was her responsibility. “Fine, I’ll do it. But Father, I feel out of balance.”
“You need assistance.”
“No.” She wasn’t about to work with a partner. She wasn’t going to kill anyone again. Except Fiona, of course.
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