Original Sin sds-1

by Allison Brennan

  “Moira.”

  “That name is forbidden.”

  “I saw her,” Garrett said. “She showed up minutes after you and the others left. She didn’t see me, I stayed hidden among the cypress, and when the boy she was with left I was going to grab her, but then the police arrived.”

  “No!” Fiona was emphatic. “I would know if that traitor was near!”

  “She must have protection,” Serena mused.

  Fiona paced, furious. Even Serena didn’t know the extent of Moira’s betrayal. The suffering and sacrifice that Fiona had to endure to regain her lost power, all because of her ungrateful firstborn!

  She wanted Andra Moira to suffer for eternity. Fiona would bring this about with her own mind and hands, with her magic, her power, her demons. The traitor would be torn apart, put back together, torn apart … Moira would watch those she loved, those she cared about, clawed and eaten by the vilest of demons that feasted on human flesh; she would be subjected to a thousand lashings, over and over, until she bled from every inch of her flesh, bleeding but still alive; and Fiona would joyfully sic the leeches on her, to painfully suck her dry like dozens of small vampires.

  The last time Fiona sought to punish Moira, the girl had fought back and turned the effort against her. If her bratty spawn had been practicing all these years since, Fiona didn’t know if she could defeat her one-on-one.

  Fiona could turn the Seven on her traitorous daughter and, once and for all, pay back a debt long overdue. That is, once she trapped the demons again. Once she found the arca.

  “Serena! Get my map. I will find her.”

  “No need,” Garrett said. “I know where she is. Zaccardi had his bitch arrest her.”

  Fiona laughed. Oh, maybe the universe had sided with her tonight.

  “The traitor is in jail?”

  “Yes. I saw her in cuffs.”

  “Beautiful. Serena, continue researching our problem with the Seven.” Fiona walked across the library, her bright gown flowing behind her, her red hair bouncing luxuriously off her back. Regal and knowing exactly how she looked to those around her. Beautiful. She put on her cape and added, “I’m going to make you an only child tonight.”

  Serena nodded. She picked up the Conoscenza and hugged the book. “I’ll find the answers.”

  Fiona stopped next to her fish tank and frowned, suddenly sad. “Serena, fetch Margo. My poor fish. I can’t bear to see them dead.”

  Skye wasn’t happy about arresting Moira O’Donnell. She didn’t understand Anthony’s vicious reaction to the woman who obviously was in his same strange business, but when Moira slugged Anthony-catching him by surprise-Skye had reacted. The woman had committed assault, and no law officer could let that slide. She’d been armed with a dagger, but also with paraphernalia that Skye herself had around the house ever since Anthony had walked into her life and into her heart. When she put Moira in the back of Deputy Young’s car, she couldn’t help but think that maybe she was overreacting. Jared Santos was a good kid. If he could vouch that they were together when they found the body, Skye would release her-decking Anthony notwithstanding.

  Deep down, she realized she was jealous. She’d known Anthony for fewer than three months. They lived together, they loved each other, but Anthony had lived a long and strange life before he arrived in Santa Louisa. He’d brought the bizarre into her life.

  She’d seen things she couldn’t explain. She’d been drugged, attacked, kidnapped, restrained, and nearly died at the hands of her best friend and head detective, Juan Martinez, while he’d been possessed. She’d actually seen the demon when it had been exorcized from Juan’s body. Anthony had cut his leg with a special dagger-not unlike the one she had confiscated from Moira O’Donnell-to save Juan.

  So she believed Anthony when he said that the Seven Deadly Sins were more than a fable or religious fairy tale. If Anthony told her they were demons, then dammit, they were demons, and she had to find a way to save her town, the small piece of the world that Skye had sworn to protect and serve.

  But if anyone other than Anthony had told her that the Seven Deadly Sins were real, she would have laughed or committed him for seventy-two hours in the psych ward.

  Dr. Rod Fielding approached Skye with a nod as Young drove off with Moira O’Donnell. The head crime scene investigator was now the acting coroner, after Rich Willem surprised her by retiring at the end of the year. Skye had tried to convince Rod to take the appointment, but he declined, telling her it was just temporary while she searched for Willem’s replacement.

  Rod headed for the corpse, then stopped and looked around. “What happened here?” he asked. He saw Anthony standing on the far edge of the lot, talking on his cell. “This isn’t-” He saw the symbols, even though they had been partly concealed. He noticed the red silk linens, the naked body, the spilled candles.

  “Dear Lord.”

  “It’s Abby Weatherby,” Skye said.

  “I know Abby’s parents.” The pain in his voice was real.

  He rubbed his eyes, then pulled on gloves as he said, “What happened?”

  “Hope you can tell me.”

  They crossed over to the body and Rod frowned. “She’s naked. Any sign of sexual assault?”

  “Not that I could see externally-there’s no blood on her body, no visible bruising. There are no external wounds, I can’t see any obvious cause of death.”

  “Did anyone touch or move the body?”

  Skye hesitated. “Possibly. Jared Santos and a friend of his found her. I don’t think they disturbed her, but I can’t say for certain.”

  “Where is he? Can you ask him? Or his friend?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Jared yet. And I took Moira O’Donnell into custody. She-” Skye hesitated. Rod was one of the few people who knew what really happened last November, but Skye felt strange talking about supernatural events as if she were discussing common crime. “O’Donnell is from Anthony’s … group.” That sounded lame, but how else could she explain it?

  “Why’d you arrest her?”

  “She assaulted Anthony.”

  Rod grinned. “She hit him? Really.”

  “Don’t look so happy about it.” Skye changed the subject. “Anthony thinks there were other people here-a, um, coven.” She mumbled the last word.

  “He thinks what? Did you say coven? As in witches?” Rod looked around, taking in what she and Anthony had catalogued earlier. “It’s certainly freaky, but we’ve been having trouble keeping trespassers off this site ever since the fire. These kids are dumb-asses, you know that as well as I do. I’ll do a full tox screen of Abby, but I know you’re thinking exactly what I am. We’ve talked about it before.”

  “Kids partying, getting high, OD.”

  “Exactly. I’m not rushing to a conclusion, but honestly, this isn’t new. We’ve seen it time and time again, and you and I both know Abby was running wild this past year. Senior, about to leave home, breaking away from strict parents. We’ve seen it here and in every other town big and small in America. I’m just disheartened to see so much potential gone to shit.”

  Maybe Anthony was wrong, or the demonic symbols were a game, not truly meant to summon demons or anything else. Just kids messing around. Maybe there had been a supernatural ritual here, but before Abby arrived. Or she interrupted something …

  “I’ll track down her boyfriend if she has one, talk to her friends. Someone will crack.”

  Rod squatted next to Abby’s body and did a visual inspection, then pulled on gloves and touched the body in several areas. “When was she discovered?”

  “Approximately two a.m.”

  He glanced at his watch, made a note in his book. “About ninety minutes ago-take or leave. She hasn’t been dead much longer than that. She’s in the very early stages of rigor, which is likely with the low temperature-I’d put her death no more than two hours.”

  He looked in her mouth, eyes, nose, throat. He spread her legs to check for obvious sexual assault, found
none, and rolled her to check for injuries on her back.

  “Nothing physical. Honestly, this looks like her and her boyfriend came out here to screw and get high. She OD’d and he fled.”

  “He took off with her clothes?” Skye doubted it but didn’t say anything. Rod was a veteran, nearing retirement age but sharp as a tack. He was also the one who’d come up with the key to solving the murders of the priests at the mission last November. She trusted his judgment, but wondered if his knee-jerk response now was because he didn’t want to contemplate something … otherworldly.

  As Rod eased the victim’s body back into its original position, she saw something. “What’s that on the back of her neck? Move her hair.” Skye pulled on one latex glove and gently pushed the girl onto her side. “There.”

  She pointed to an elaborate and colorful tattoo on the back of her neck-right where the neck touched the shoulders.

  “Looks like a professional tattoo,” Rod said after inspecting it. “I’ll take photos at the morgue.”

  She glanced at Anthony and saw that he was talking on the phone. She bit her lip and hated that she wanted to eavesdrop.

  “I’m going to collect her with this linen,” Rod said, “to preserve trace evidence. But I’ve done all I can do here. I’ll tag and bag her and transport her to the morgue.”

  “What time can you do the autopsy?”

  “Right away. I’ll prep her, then begin at eight a.m. You coming?”

  “Absolutely.” She looked over at Anthony, who was still deep in conversation and worried. He caught her eye, then turned his back to her. Something was up, Skye thought as she went to help catalogue the rest of the crime scene.

  Anthony listened intently to Father Philip, disliking the direction of the conversation.

  “You need to help her,” Father said after telling Anthony that he’d known all along that Moira O’Donnell was in the States-even before Anthony had left the island for Santa Louisa last November.

  “You knew that witch was here?”

  “Now is not the time for this argument.”

  “She is a Jezebel, she has deceived you.” Anthony’s stomach turned. He and the Father had had this argument many times, and neither could convince the other of the rightness of his position. There was nothing Father Philip, or Rico, or any of the others who held Moira blameless could say to convince Anthony that she was not a threat to St. Michael’s Order, and nothing he said nor the facts he presented about her culpability in Peter’s death swayed them either. She had brought the demon into St. Michael’s. She was responsible for its crimes.

  Father Philip ignored his comment and said, “She called me tonight when she found out about the ritual on the cliffs. I told her to call you, but as there has been considerable animosity between you two, I’m not surprised she didn’t. But you knew-”

  He didn’t want to discuss his strange connection to the ruins, so he interrupted. “I check the cliffs every night because of the darkness that surrounds the place.” It was like a black hole, with mass and depth, as if the laws of physics didn’t apply. Not now, not tonight-whatever the coven did here changed the place. “There have been some signs of occult activity over the last two months, but nothing like what I found tonight.”

  “What happened? I’ve been trying to reach Moira, but she’s not answering her phone.”

  “According to the signs, the Seven have been released. A teenager died in the process-possibly a sacrifice. Moira O’Donnell was in the middle of it. She claims she found the body, but I don’t buy it. Why can’t you see that she’s the problem? She’s been part of the underworld uprising from the beginning-she started with her mother, and while she may not be working with Fiona anymore, she had her own brand of magic, and it got Peter killed. I called Olivet tonight and learned that she was supposed to arrive there months ago but never showed. She’s a loose cannon-and I honestly don’t care what her motives are. You-”

  “Anthony,” Father snapped, interrupting him. “You’re wrong about Moira, and while she was supposed to return to Olivet, Rico knew her plans. But we haven’t time for this discussion now. Are you certain about the Seven?”

  Anthony hesitated, feeling like an admonished child. “Yes,” he replied. “I’m certain that’s who they were summoning, but I can’t say whether it worked, or why they need the Seven, or who specifically is behind it. This is bigger than anything I’ve dealt with. I need my books, I need to research.” He felt far more confident poring over ancient texts than battling demons face-to-face. He’d done it once to save Skye-he didn’t want to go through that horrible experience again.

  “Good, I’ll send you anything you need. But please, let Moira do her job.”

  “Job? What job?”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone.”

  Anthony froze. Father Philip was his mentor, had been since he was a small boy. They shared the same last name, because that was the way it was at the monastery with the orphans-one of the priests or monks “adopted” the child and was his primary caregiver. Father Philip had taken him … and Peter. Which was why Anthony didn’t understand Father’s acceptance of that witch, Moira O’Donnell.

  “Has this job been going on while she was supposed to be at Olivet?”

  “Longer. Anthony-I will explain when we are face-to-face. Or you can ask Moira herself.”

  “Neither will happen soon.”

  “It may be time for a council at Olivet.”

  Anthony couldn’t control the hurt he felt deep inside that Father had kept something as important as this from him for so long. But he said, “I understand.”

  “Anthony, I need to talk to Moira, where is she?”

  “Jail.”

  “You need to get her out as soon as possible! Anthony, she needs your protection.”

  “Protection?” He rubbed his jaw. “Hardly.”

  “Fiona will find her in jail! The police wouldn’t allow her to have any of her protective gear. You know that!”

  For a moment, Anthony felt a twinge of guilt.

  Father said quietly, “You and Peter were close. I understand. I loved Peter deeply. What happened was a grave mistake; it was hard on all of us. But you must forgive Moira. Both she and Peter were culpable, but in the end, it was Fiona and her demon who killed Peter, not Moira, and not Peter himself.” Father Philip’s voice deepened. “Anthony, you are very special. Exceptional and gifted by God. You are vital to our calling. But your weakness will be your destruction. If the Seven have been released, your anger will be used against you. You must pray for the strength to forgive.”

  Anthony felt the reprimand from thousands of miles away, even though Father hadn’t raised his voice. “Now, tell me, how long has she been unprotected?”

  Anthony swallowed a retort and said, “An hour.”

  “Don’t let Fiona find Moira. I will leave for Olivet tomorrow.”

  “You’re coming to America?”

  “I must. Promise me you will get Moira out of jail.”

  Anthony struggled, not wanting to obey. “Yes, Father, I will.”

  EIGHT

  Philip Zaccardi packed light-he didn’t need much.

  The priest despised travel. He rarely left St. Michael’s. His fellow monks, the young men he trained, thought it was because he was fearful of flying. They were right about one thing: he was afraid. But it had nothing to do with airplanes.

  If Anthony knew the private revelation Philip had been entrusted with years ago, the young demonologist would insist he never leave the island. But Philip had told no one; it was a revelation meant only for him.

  The time had come. If he was right-and he believed he was-people would die. If his interpretation was wrong? He’d set into motion a chain of events where far more would suffer and die, including those he deeply cared for. But inaction, doing nothing in the face of evil, was a sin, and to many-including himself-inaction was an even greater sin than being wrong. No one could sit on the fence in the battle of good versus evil.
The line had been drawn eons ago, when the serpent first lied to Eve. Sides were still being chosen. Only God knew the outcome, and He wasn’t sharing.

  Philip sought out Bishop Pietro Aretino, the elderly vicar who handled the day-to-day spiritual needs of the priests and monks. It was time for confession.

  One might think the sins of a devout priest were few, but Philip’s mind was a maze of conflict and doubt. Doubt showed lack of faith, which increased fear, endangering him and others both physically and spiritually.

  Philip’s entire life had been filled with doubt and questions. And yet, he persevered. Still, he stood against evil.

  After he received dispensation, the bishop took him on a walk through the garden. The garden that he’d at one time cherished was going the way of weeds. Such was the reality of the twenty-first century: fewer young priests with strong backs, more elderly priests with weak bones. At one time, decades in the past, when Philip had been new to St. Michael’s, it was common to have three, four, or even five infants left on the island each year. These young ones were to be raised and trained in the battle against evil. Now? Four in the last twenty years. Did that mean the final battle was near? Would ten-year-old James Parisi be the last warrior in an order that had been founded hundreds of years before?

  “You’re leaving,” Pietro said.

  Philip had said nothing of his journey during confession, but the bishop was astute, even in his advanced age. “Yes.”

  They walked in silence. It was midday, the clouds obscuring the descending sun. Philip paused to pull weeds that surrounded the tree they’d planted after Peter’s death. So many trees in this row … too many trees. Peter. Lorenzo. Elijah. And more.

  “Take Gideon with you.”

  Philip hesitated, then slowly rose and faced Pietro. “I thought we’d decided Gideon would stay another year.”

  “We haven’t the luxury of time.”

  Philip didn’t want to disobey orders, but he wanted to keep Gideon safe. His mentor had died last year, and Gideon’s training here was complete. His calling was still obscure, but his gifts were many. Dangerous gifts, and easy for misinterpretation by the young man.