He ran out to confront the beast.
“In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave!”
The boy flinched, as if stung by a bee.
Gino, emboldened by the power in his voice, began the rite of exorcism.
“In the name of the Father, and of the …
The boy slit the throat of a woman who knelt in prayer. Her dying eyes accused Gino.
… you told me God was loving and merciful … you lied to me … you brought death to our peace …
And Gino knew then that her unspoken words were true. It was his fault; he’d brought evil with him. He must destroy the damn book!
“Gino,” the demon mocked, and he saw the true face of evil slithering beneath the boy’s skin.
He called upon St. Michael the Archangel.
The demon laughed. “Geeeeennnoooooooooo …
His head hurt and blood dripped from his nose. Still he continued the exorcism. He threw holy water on the boy’s body. Steam rose from his skin as the beast cried out in pain, a demonic scream that seemed to come from under the earth as the child fell to his knees.
Gino’s strength grew.
Then the demon rose, laughing, and lightning struck a hut, trapping the family inside the blazing room.
Gino spoke the words that had been so effective before. Why didn’t they work now? Where was God? Where was St. Michael?
Or was it him? He’d opened the book, but he hadn’t read. Had the demon been inside, waiting for his weakness to crack a seal he didn’t know was there?
“Leave the boy, Satan!”
He felt his feet rising from the ground.
I am dying.
He hovered two feet off the ground, trapped and helpless as the demon set another hut on fire. And another.
In the demon’s excitement over the fires, he dropped the knife.
Gino continued the exorcism ritual even while levitated; the demon faltered, but never stopped. Gino, however, fell to the ground and the knife was within his reach.
He clenched it. It was infused with evil, but he held on. It burned his flesh, but he held on.
The next hut went up in flames. If anyone ran, they were thrown through the air as if by magic.
As if by magic. The book!
Gino rose to his feet, knife dripping innocent blood, and with strength he prayed for, he cut the demon’s hand off. Small snakes slithered out of its body, spreading the darkness, the evil, coming for him. He stabbed the demon once, twice, three times …
The boy fell to his feet. Smoke filled the air, whirled around him; he felt the demon touch his soul, then scream as he disappeared into the earth, and the ground was scorched.
“F-Father.”
The boy’s eyes were dying. Dying. Gone. He died. Innocent. At Gino’s hand. He dropped the knife and prayed for death, but God wasn’t merciful.
Gino searched his hut for the book he’d found last week in an abandoned, crumbling structure that at first he’d believed was a church hundreds of years old. He should have known from the arcane and profane symbols on the remaining walls and floor that the church wasn’t dedicated to God. If he’d never gone inside he would never have found the book.
He searched the entire village three times before collapsing in exhaustion.
The book was gone.
His penance, it seemed, was purgatory on earth. Reliving the nightmare, the fear, the suffering, the murder of an innocent boy. The endless searching for a book that seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Gino woke from the violent memories every night these last few weeks. So often, in fact, that he feared the dark and dreaded sleep. He took to walking the halls alone, praying for peace, praying to be free.
For two decades he’d fought the memories, beaten them back, and they were finally gone. For years they were gone. His penance had been paid. He had been healed in the loving presence of God, his faith restored … but then the memories had returned, worse than before. Vivid. The taste and scent and feel of blood on his hands, in his nose, twisting him in knots so tight he couldn’t eat or sleep or think.
Repent. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Chants from the chapel drew him out of his bed and he stood, feet bare, his sleep shirt brushing against his old, gnarled knees.
He looked down and saw snakes. Small, baby snakes, slithering. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move. He squeezed his eyes closed.
“Gino, come to us, as it is above, it is below.
“Robert, come to us, as it is above, it is below.
“Lorenzo, come to us, as it is above, it is below.”
They were all being summoned to the chapel, every one of them. They were sinners; they needed to repent and be cleansed. Be punished.
You have been forgiven. Stay.
He opened his eyes. The snakes were gone.
“Gino, come to us, as it is above, it is below.”
Gino didn’t notice the tears streaming down his face as he turned the knob and left his room. He walked down the hall, heard other doors opening, heard the chanting in the chapel.
He needed the pain to stop.
He stepped into the chapel and smelled blood. It was his own.
Rafe’s chest burned as if he’d been stabbed with a knife. He reached down to pull the knife out …
“Rafe-”
He opened his eyes and saw Father Isa Tucci, a knife in his hand, blood spatter on his face.
“No!” He struck out. Hit flesh.
A grunt-female-registered. He sat up, didn’t know where he was.
“Rafe! It’s me, Moira. Rafe, please, you’re having a nightmare.”
Moira. She stood next to him, her hand rubbing her jaw.
Oh, God, I hit her. I hit her.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m tough.”
She sat next to him. Took his hands in hers. He looked at her. Her jaw was red, on top of the assorted cuts and bruises from the earlier assault. She wore a black tank top, the bandage Anthony had dressed earlier was clean and startling white. She wasn’t bleeding anymore.
He pulled one hand from hers, gently touched the tender spot where he’d lashed out in his sleep.
“What was it?”
He rose from the bed and looked around. Skye’s guest room. Moira had insisted on taking the couch, but he’d wanted her to have the bed. She’d refused. She was stubborn. He faced her. That stubborn expression was still on her face when she stood, only inches from him, and asked, “Rafe, was it another memory?”
“It wasn’t mine. What did they do to me? Why did they do this to me?”
She hugged him close to her. She smelled fresh, of soap and water. Fresh and alive and so beautiful it made him ache.
“I promise you, Rafe, we will find out exactly what they did.”
He liked the way she felt, the way she smelled. She was solid, whole, real … just what he needed. “I–I don’t understand anything. But I feel everything, like I was right there. The smells, the pain, the fear.”
She repeated, “We will find out what they did and reverse it.”
“You were a witch, why don’t you know?”
The pain on her face came and went so fast Rafe almost missed it. But it was there, and it lingered in her eyes before she shielded them.
“I didn’t mean-”
She cut him off. “Anthony and Skye are still sleeping. I’m going for Lily now, before dawn.”
“You can’t do it alone.”
“You can’t come with me. They want you-I told you what I overheard last night.”
“But they want to kill you.”
“My mother has wanted to kill me for a long time. But they want you for something else, and until we know exactly what they did to you in the hospital and what they need you for now, you have to keep a very low profile.”
He wanted to explain his comment, that it came from frustration and fear, not because he thought she was one of them. She’d taken
off the bandage from her neck; the welt was still red. She’d braided her hair loosely down her back, making her look almost vulnerable.
He’d hurt her. He ached inside and wished he could take the words back.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply.
“It’s okay.”
But she didn’t look at him, and then she walked out.
TWENTY-FIVE
As Moira neared the Ellis home, she felt the magic at work even before she saw the Victorian house at the crossroads. The spells were so potent that she feared she’d be discovered before she even crossed the threshold.
She drove past the house without slowing, continued around the block, and parked far down the street behind it. Dawn had just started to bleed over the mountains, and dark shadows shielded her as she walked along the tree-lined street in the early morning fog.
She circled the house, careful to stay off the property, using all her senses in search of a weak spot.
You’re a witch, reverse the spell.
She could. She still felt the power inside her, the evil she’d been born with. She could unleash it. She’d find Fiona, if Fiona didn’t find her first. If she planned it, she could stop the coven.
And people would die.
The knowledge that Moira could do something didn’t mean it was right or safe. She and Peter had planned for months before she started using magic to thwart her mother. They’d done everything they could to protect her, everything to keep her safe.
And that plan had ended in death.
Enough, Moira. Do your job.
She stared at the dark Ellis house. There was magic at work here, but she discerned that any spells were to protect against evil spirits only. The herbs growing in the garden, the plants under the windows, the talismans above each door-they wouldn’t stop a person from walking in, or alert the witch that there was an intruder. Maybe Moira had a shot after all.
She picked the narrow side yard, next to the attached garage, because there was a door that couldn’t be seen from the main house. It provided her with a natural barrier from both neighbors and Lily’s mother spotting her.
She stepped into the yard, her senses on high alert. A television was on two houses over, a news program, but Moira couldn’t hear distinct words. Birds tweeted, high and low, building in sound as dawn grew. She was calm but alert, and had no sensation that the spell cast here was turning on her, signaling the witch.
Emboldened, she approached the door. Locked.
There were no locked doors when you were a witch, but you didn’t need to be a witch to use a pick. She pulled her small set from her pocket and three seconds later she was in, mentally thanking Rico for teaching her not only how to kill demons but to break and enter the old-fashioned way.
The garage housed a compact car and shelf upon shelf of dried herbs and canning jars. At first glance it appeared to be the craft shop for a creative sort, but Moira knew what these herbs and plants were used for, and none of it was good. A dried flower arrangement hung above the door. Decorative on the surface, but the herbs were to banish spirits, further protecting those inside.
She hesitated, unsure how to proceed. She didn’t know the layout of the house, and here in the garage she was fully exposed if anyone came in.
She tried the door that led to the house, slowly, carefully. It was unlocked. She listened for movement inside. Nothing.
Moira was about to step in when the hot-water heater behind her turned on. She jumped, swore, then waited. The floor creaked upstairs, reminding her that this was an old house and she needed to be mindful of the sounds her footfalls would make, no matter how carefully she stepped. She itched to rush in and snatch Lily, but Moira resisted the impulse, counting slowly to twenty, forcing herself to be cautious. She crossed the threshold into the small laundry room that separated the garage from the kitchen. The scent of freshly brewing coffee filled the air. She closed her eyes for a moment to focus on movement, however slight. She’d spent months training in what Rico, in his rare moments of humor, called her “spidey sense.” Full concentration, releasing fear, slowing heart rate. Listening. Sensing. Being.
Someone in the shower upstairs, the fall of fat drops of fast-running water. Moira almost felt the steam, the air in the house becoming warmer, moister, the longer the shower ran. A shuffling gait-someone larger than petite Lily Ellis. The steady drip-drip-drip of water into the coffeepot. The warm air pushing through the floor heating vents, rising.
Heather. The distinct herb faintly tickled her nose. Henbane, a common ingredient for a multitude of spells and incantations, most with nefarious ends. Wormwood, another herb used in witchcraft, primarily as a protection for the home.
She heard a thunk from below. Downstairs? Was there a basement? Rats? She shivered. She despised rodents of all kinds. There was nothing redeeming about them.
The movement had sounded too big for a rat. Then, a faint sob, so faint she wouldn’t have heard it if she wasn’t listening with every cell in her body.
The door to the basement would probably be off the kitchen or under the staircase.
In the kitchen, she opened the only door. Without turning on a light, the smell of bread and cans told her that this was the pantry.
She closed the pantry door without making a sound, then moved through the room to the hall. Above, the shower still ran.
In the short hallway leading to the front of the house, there were two doors. To the right, and to the left, under the staircase. The floors creaked. Though Moira trod with exceptional care, if the water went off, Lily’s mother would surely hear the squeaky hardwood floors.
The door under the stairs was locked.
Moira took out her pick. This lock was newer, but she popped it quickly.
As soon as she opened the door, a potent aroma of powder-wormwood, blue cohosh, and something Moira couldn’t immediately identify-rushed into her senses. They were herbs used to create a dust to protect against maleficent spirits and opposing witches. To keep a person safe from possession, as well as compliant. Lily wouldn’t fight, scream, or try to escape. She’d be calm …
A tearful voice came from below. “Mama? Can I come out now?”
And terrified.
Moira crossed herself and whispered her own special prayer. “St. Michael, you’d better be watching my back this time, and don’t let any of our enemies stop me.” As an afterthought, she added, “Please.”
She walked down the wood steps. A wall was on one side; the other was open, without a railing. The stairs creaked worse than the floor above. The basement was damp and moldy.
“Lily,” she whispered in the pitch black. “It’s Moira.”
“Go! It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“It’s too late. My mother-”
“Tell me later. Move. Now.”
Lily shuffled over to her.
“Faster.”
Upstairs, the shower shut off.
Moira pushed the teenager ahead of her up the stairs, a faint light coming from the hall as the sun continued to rise and break through the early morning fog.
Lily stumbled, but Moira kept her moving forward. Lily didn’t know the meaning of the word quiet, but fortunately she was small and her movements reflected that. They rounded the corner and Moira knew that Elizabeth Ellis was standing on the second floor at the top of the stairs, listening. Lily’s mother was smelling the mixture of herbs that Moira had unintentionally released when she’d opened the basement door.
Moira pushed Lily into the kitchen.
Someone ran down the stairs.
Moira said to Lily, “Move it, now, out the door.”
“Hecate, Beliel, and Achiel …” Elizabeth Ellis began when she saw them.
Not about to let her finish the incantation, Moira whirled around and kicked Ellis in the stomach, almost surprising herself that her aim was dead accurate and Ellis was standing exactly where Moira had sensed. Her mental muscle had kicked in. Than
ks, Rico!
Without hesitating, she kicked again. The white towel wrapped around Lily’s mother fell off. Moira almost laughed as she slammed the palm of her right hand in the woman’s face, pushing the naked woman to the floor.
Lily screamed.
“Run!” Moira commanded.
“You’ll never make it, bitch!” Elizabeth Ellis cried at Moira as she got to her feet. “I call all the spirits, seize-”
“Shut. Up!” Moira backhanded her twice. Her left shoulder throbbed and she began to bleed again. The warmth seeped through her bandage. Dammit, it hurt.
She knocked over the kitchen table on the way out, to impede the woman’s pursuit, then pushed Lily through both doors and outside.
Lily limped toward the street, but Moira shoved her in the other direction, into the backyard. “This way. Over the back fence.”
Lily obeyed, though she was hampered by the long, thin nightgown she wore. She shivered, but Moira couldn’t concern herself with the girl’s comfort.
“Faster!”
Moira cupped her hands for Lily to step in and she boosted the girl over the fence. Her arm ached and the bruises from her mother’s attack yesterday made her want to scream, but instead she bit her tongue.
The side door burst open.
Lily was over the fence and Moira grabbed hold of the top and pulled herself up, favoring her right arm. Elizabeth Ellis began an incantation that Moira knew well. Simple and effective.
Dogs all over the neighborhood began to bark. They barked because there was a demon.
“Fuck,” she muttered. “Earthquake.”
The ground shook as an earth demon rose from the soil in front of her. It was generally harmless because the incantation itself was weak, summoning latent demons out of living, nonhuman organisms. But it would delay Moira-she couldn’t let the demon wander and hurt someone.
Lily stumbled and fell. Moira pulled her up and said, “Jared’s truck, around the corner! Now!”
Elizabeth Ellis wasn’t strong enough to summon a more powerful demon at will-the ritual would take either more time or more witches-but the command of environmental demons was an easier trick to learn. Moira longed to create a short bolt of lightning to zap her. The desire, deep and unbidden, unnerved her and she touched the medallion around her neck, the one that had been Peter’s.
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