Carnal Sin sds-2

by Allison Brennan

  “We must destroy the chalice, Moira,” Rafe said. “As soon as possible.”

  “I agree-but shouldn’t we talk to Anthony first? After all, the exorcism didn’t work. I don’t even think it was our exorcism that pulled the demon from that woman’s body. I think the demon did it on its own. If that’s true, how can we possibly trap it in the chalice?”

  “Perhaps we need to put the chalice inside the trap.”

  Moira frowned. This was getting dangerously close to magic. “Maybe. But I wouldn’t risk it without more information. Let’s call Anthony.”

  Rafe glanced at the clock. “I’ll call him.”

  An urgent knock on the door had Moira frowning. “A little early for housekeeping,” Rafe whispered, picking up his dagger.

  Moira walked to the door, with each step feeling a wave of magical energy on the other side. A witch. She looked through the peephole. A slender woman taller than Moira, with dark hair pulled haphazardly into a loose tie, fidgeted at the door. Her elegant features were tired and strained and she had a small, dark bruise on her cheek.

  “It’s a woman. She was in Jackson’s files. A witch. I feel it with every pore in my body.” She couldn’t remember her name, but knew this woman was bad news.

  Rafe had his dagger ready. Moira retrieved her own and held it out to ward off a spell. Then she relaxed, letting her senses absorb everything around her, every sound, every smell, every nearby emotion. Opening up her God-given senses without using magic to shield or protect her used to terrify her. Sometimes it still did. She felt the overwhelming sense of love and fear flowing off Rafe but consciously blocked him out, focusing on the other side of the door. There was fear there, too, but only one person.

  “She’s alone, and she’s scared,” Moira said and opened the door.

  TWENTY

  Ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.

  — MARQUIS DE SADE

  Moira let the witch into the hotel room and closed the door behind her. The brunette’s eyes went to the dagger in Moira’s hand, and Moira made no move to sheathe it.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Moira said.

  “My name is Julie Schroeder. Please, I have no one else to turn to. I need your help.”

  “I don’t know you, and you’re a witch. That’s two big fat negatives against you.” But the name sounded familiar-Jackson had mentioned her last night, as part of Wendy’s coven.

  Julie’s eyes darted from Moira to Rafe, who pulled a black T-shirt-identical to the one Moira had ruined the night before while cleaning his wound-over his head. The witch was nervous and scared, but damn bold to confront them here.

  “You’re Moira O’Donnell,” Julie said as if that revelation was an answer. “You’re the only one who can reverse the spell.”

  “Stop right there. I don’t deal with spells, period. How the hell did you find us?”

  “I tried to find you through a traditional spell, but that didn’t work.”

  “Magic doesn’t work on me,” Moira said. It wasn’t quite true-Fiona had nearly killed her with magic two weeks ago. Still, Fiona had never been able to find Moira using her very powerful dark magic, so she very much doubted a young witch like Julie could.

  “So I used old-fashioned methods. I went through my boyfriend’s notes.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Grant. Detective Nelson? We were together last night. After what happened to Nadine.”

  “You’re screwing the detective?” Moira asked, stunned and worried. She’d sensed no magic in Grant Nelson. Had she missed something? Had he figured out a way to block his aura from her?

  “Grant and I-we have a relationship.”

  “Terrific!” Moira brushed by Julie and crossed to the window. She looked down into the parking lot, expecting to see a legion of witches outside her window ready to burn her at the stake. Or worse, take her to her mother.

  She wasn’t 100 percent confident that her finely tuned senses always worked the way they were supposed to, but she had never once been wrong about a witch or a demon.

  There was always a first time.

  Taking a chance, she turned to Julie and said, “Nelson isn’t a magician.”

  “No, of course not. My coven is female only.”

  “Right. Because you sacrifice male souls to a succubus. Very liberating of you.”

  “Please! Grant’s life is in danger. I wouldn’t come to you if I had any other option. Moira, you’re my only hope!”

  “Do I look like Obi-Wan Kenobi to you?”

  Rafe put his hand on Moira’s shoulder and squeezed. He said, “Julie, start at the beginning.”

  “Grant came to the club after Nadine died. I was supposed to take him to his place, but we went to my apartment instead. I told Wendy he insisted, but I really just wanted to save him. Wendy will kill me if she finds this out.”

  “And I care, why?” Moira asked.

  Rafe said, “Wait-why were you supposed to take him to his house?”

  “Because Wendy was going to send the succubus there. Wendy didn’t want any more problems at the club. We don’t have much time. The succubus can go after Grant anytime after sunset. I don’t want to lose him.”

  “Tell him,” Moira said. “Tell him he’s the target of a demon and see what he does.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Pot, meet kettle.”

  Rafe squeezed Moira’s shoulder again. Damn, that hurt.

  “Julie,” he said, using his calm, cool, collected-and very sexy-shrink voice, “we can protect Grant, but we need to know everything about the ritual Wendy used to summon the succubus.”

  Moira bit back an argument. She wasn’t going to help a witch, not unless Julie gave up using magic. But she couldn’t let Grant Nelson die because this witch had cursed him.

  Julie frowned. “I planned on sticking by him all day-but something has happened to him. I don’t know what … he’s not himself. I’m scared.”

  “Is he possessed?” Rafe asked.

  “No. Not like that. But he’s different. Last night we screwed like rabbits. That’s common, but Grant wasn’t the same. I don’t know how to explain it, but he was rough. Cruel and crude. Then this morning I saw a mark on his back and it scared me.”

  Moira felt sick to her stomach. She found her phone and scrolled through her photographs. “Did it look like that?” She showed Craig Monroe’s demon mark to Julie.

  “Y-yes,” Julie said. “That’s it. So you know what it is?”

  “Yes,” Moira said. She stared at Julie, trying to figure out whether she was telling the truth. “Don’t you?”

  She shook her head. “What is it?”

  “It’s a demon mark. You’re familiar with those, I assume.”

  Julie shrugged. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one.”

  “Haven’t been a witch long, have you?”

  “What do you want from me? Are you going to reverse the spell and save Grant or not?”

  “Reverse what spell?”

  “Wendy’s. Our coven’s spell. I think when we brought Kali into our world, we must have done something wrong. Wendy wanted to strengthen the ritual, called on Kali to claim three men we’d cursed, and I think the changes she made did something. Nadine died. That shouldn’t happen!”

  Every vein in Moira’s body froze. Kali. She knew that demon-knew of it, at any rate. Old, evil, powerful. The ancient Jewish people had many nightmarish stories about Kali, under a variety of different names. Az, Lilith, you name it-this badass demon went back to the fall of Lucifer. The stories Moira had heard made the Brothers Grimm appear downright cheerful.

  If they summoned Kali, how did the demon Lust get into the mix?

  “You’re messing around with the darkest of supernatural forces. No wonder you lost control!”

  Julie recoiled from Moira’s outburst. Rafe grabbed her arm and pulled her to his side.

  “When did you perform the ritual?” Rafe asked. Moira t
ried to pull her arm loose from him, but he held on tight.

  “Tuesday night.”

  “Tuesday?” Rafe said. “Are you certain?”

  “Of course-Kali claimed Monroe on Wednesday, Erickson on Thursday, and Grant was supposed to be last night, but-”

  “Wait,” Moira said. She mentally ran through the timeline of what she knew. “Kent Galion died Friday.”

  “That had nothing to do with us. I swear to you, the ritual was Tuesday night. It’s a special feast for Kali; we do it the same feast day every year.”

  It didn’t make sense to Moira. Kent Galion died on Friday-and four days later the succubus was summoned? Yet Galion, Monroe, and Erickson all had the same demon mark.

  Julie continued. “We tried the men who’d betrayed us, and gave Kali a taste of their blood so she would know them.”

  Moira snapped, “You tried them? You’re the judge and jury and use a demon to execute them? You think you and your coven are demi-gods picking and choosing who should lose their soul?”

  Julie’s lip quivered, but she tilted her chin up and justified their actions. “Craig cheated on his girlfriend repeatedly. He was an asshole. Belinda worked at Velocity and found out she was pregnant. Craig dumped her and told her to get an abortion. She dropped out of college and quit her job. She wasn’t a witch! She was just a sweet girl who got used by a douche bag. He deserved it! I loved Belinda like a little sister and he destroyed her. She went home and her father kicked her out of the house. She was so upset, she felt so alone-” Julie looked at the ceiling and blinked back tears. “She died in a car accident. I don’t know if it was suicide or not. So yes, I picked Craig because of that.”

  Rafe pulled Moira back and asked, “What about George Erickson? From all accounts, he was a good guy.”

  “That was Pamela’s pick. Pam was furious because he was sleeping around.”

  “But they supposedly had an open marriage,” Moira said.

  Julie raised her eyebrow. “Open? You don’t know Pam. Pam gets what she wants, but George wasn’t allowed the same privileges. I felt bad about him because I liked him, but those are the rules. And Grant-” Her face clouded.

  “You wanted Grant dead,” Moira said flatly.

  “No! He was Wendy’s pick. I–I went along, because I was mad. I didn’t know he’d slept with Wendy during one of our off-again times. Grant sleeps around, I know that, but he wasn’t supposed to go after the girls I work with! Talk about humiliating … I found out he’d slept with four of them, and once back when we were still together. But …”

  “You think you love him,” Moira said. “You bitch. You’re jealous and you sold his soul to a demon? Do you know what happens when a demon claims a soul? Do you know the pain, the emptiness, that the victim feels as his soul is ripped from his body? Skinning him alive would have been more humane!”

  “Kent Galion died Friday,” Rafe said quietly.

  Moira took a deep breath. “I was thinking about that-but can we even believe her?”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Rafe said. He stared at Julie.

  “I swear to you,” Julie said, “it was Tuesday. We had nothing to do with Kent. Wendy did not want him dead-Marcus is hugely suspicious of how she got half of Kent’s business without paying for it. When he gets back into town Wendy knows she’s gonna be on the hot seat.”

  “And,” Rafe continued, “Skye told us there was a dead woman found frozen in his house, who’d been missing since last Wednesday night.”

  Julie said, “Stephanie. She was a waitress at Velocity. But those deaths aren’t connected.”

  “They are,” Rafe said. “Galion had the same mark on his back that Monroe and Erickson had. The same mark that Detective Nelson has.”

  “It’s connected to Fiona,” Moira said. “Not Wendy’s ritual. It goes back to the Seven.” She asked Julie, “When did Nicole Donovan arrive?”

  Julie frowned. “Why does that matter?”

  Moira snapped, “Answer the question.”

  “Two weeks ago. It was late Saturday night; she showed up at Velocity. Surprised Wendy. They don’t get along, but Nicole moved in with her.”

  Moira said to Rafe, “What if she brought the demon Lust with her to Los Angeles? It’s the psychic leash-maybe the Seven are connected to the coven members. And the witches are immune because they were in the protective circle when the Seven Deadly Sins were released. That’s how Nicole could affect Hank Santos, but not be affected herself.”

  “A catalyst,” Rafe murmured. “Like Typhoid Mary.”

  Julie interrupted. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nicole didn’t tell you? She was part of Fiona O’Donnell’s coven that released the Seven Deadly Sins from hell. They’re not your friendly neighborhood demons; they’re big, bad, bold, and brazen.”

  “So Galion was affected before the ritual,” Rafe said. “Because he spent time at Velocity. The demon Lust would feed on a place like that-the sexual tension, the physical attractions. And the connection to Nicole Donovan keeps Lust in the vicinity.”

  Rafe turned to Julie. “You said that Wendy changed the ritual on Tuesday?”

  Julie nodded. “We wanted to give Kali more power so she wouldn’t leave after one, um, soul. I thought that if she didn’t get Grant last night she’d go back to the underworld, but Wendy said she’s still here and stronger than before. She nearly broke out of the spirit trap last night!”

  “Don’t we know it,” Moira murmured. “Rafe, they had to have trapped the demon Lust. We knew it was Lust, but didn’t know how or why it was here. Now we do.”

  She turned to Julie. “Get out. I don’t trust you, and we have to figure out how to save the man you claim to love so much you planned to kill him.”

  Rafe pulled Moira out to the balcony and whispered, “We can fight this thing. Especially since it’s trapped in a body.”

  “We tried it last night, but it didn’t work. We’re not dealing with a succubus-we’re facing one of the Seven. I think it’s too powerful to be trapped in the chalice-remember what Jackson said? The demon goes back through the portal it came from. Lust has no connection to the chalice. I think it’s like a, a-” She couldn’t think of the word.

  “A red herring.”

  “Yeah. Maybe Lust got trapped because of the spell, and is required to fulfill the terms of the agreement in order to be free.” Moira blanched. “When that happens, it’s loose.”

  “We have to find it before sunset.”

  “If we can believe her.” She glanced through the half-closed door at Julie. She sat slumped in a chair, head in her hands. She looked beaten and defeated. But Moira didn’t feel an ounce of pity. She had brought it on herself.

  Rafe said, “You know as well as I do that most rituals are most effective at night.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “She wants to save Grant Nelson. Moira-I don’t trust her completely either, but she can find out who the demon is possessing. If we have that information, we can set a trap. We can control where Grant Nelson is at sunset.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we need to weaken it, just like we did with Envy.”

  “How?”

  Rafe shuddered. “We’ll find out from Anthony.”

  “And Rico. He’ll have some tricks up his sleeve, I’m sure.”

  Rafe didn’t want to call Rico, because he feared that it was Moira’s life that Rico would put on the line. But Rafe had no choice. Especially if he couldn’t get ahold of Anthony. “Does this sound like a workable plan?” he asked Moira.

  She nodded.

  They stepped back into the room.

  “I don’t understand,” Julie lamented. “For five years we’ve been prosperous, we’ve never had any problems, no one ever died, but then Nadine-”

  “No one died? What about the men you killed?”

  “I mean, nobody who didn’t deserve it.”

  “Get out.”

  “No! Please, you must help
me. Help me save Grant!”

  Moira felt Julie silently working a spell. She held out her dagger to reflect any energy sent her way. “Don’t even try it, or I’ll slit your throat.”

  Julie looked stunned. “How’d you know?”

  “Like I’m going to tell you that.” She said to Rafe, “We need to find Nelson.”

  “Oh, thank you! I can help reverse the spell. We can do it right now-”

  “No. I’m not a witch.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to call me a liar.”

  “But everyone says you’re one of the most powerful magicians in the world.”

  “That would be my mother.” Moira tensed. “Who’s everyone?”

  “It’s well known. It’s why-”

  “Why what?”

  “Wendy has been trying to get into Fiona’s good favor. When Nicole was invited into her coven and not Wendy, Wendy went a little crazy. She thought if she delivered you, it would give her the in.”

  Rafe stepped toward Julie, his gaze narrowed, and said in a low voice, “Are you setting up Moira now?”

  “I swear I’m not. In fact, I’ll tell you exactly how Wendy is going to do it.”

  “I’m not concerned about Wendy,” Moira said.

  Rafe raised his voice. “Moira, you need to be concerned!”

  He was worried, and Moira didn’t want to worry Rafe. If he changed his focus from fighting the demon to protecting her, they’d lose. Of course this relationship of theirs, or whatever it was, was a terrible idea. She couldn’t afford to lose Rafe as her partner. Together, they had a chance. Apart? They’d both end up dead.

  She said, “Okay, I’ll watch out for Wendy. Happy? Right now, we’re late for our meeting with Detective Nelson, and now that we know he has a demon’s mark, we’re also running out of time. We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Rafe said.

  “Grant was cursed by Wendy’s coven, but the demon’s mark is on him because he’s susceptible to lust. Julie said it herself-Grant played the field, slept around. That means he’s prone to attack and go postal like Kent Galion-or, if he fights it, he might end up like the basketball player in Santa Louisa, dead of an aneurism. If he can fight it until sunset, great. After that, his soul is demon food.”