Carnal Sin

by Allison Brennan

  “Agreed. If he goes there, we turn around and go to Wendy Donovan’s house.”

  “How about food? I haven’t eaten, and I doubt you have—since you never eat unless I tell you to. We could get a pizza.”

  “Whatever did I do before I saved your ass two weeks ago?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I didn’t starve, that’s for sure.” She pulled an energy bar from her pocket, opened it, and split it with Rafe.

  “I hate these things.”

  “They’ve kept me alive for years,” she teased. “In fact—” She whipped her head around, recognizing the brunette in the red dress walking leisurely down Wilshire Boulevard. “Stop! That’s Nadine! Rafe, stop!”

  Rafe braked, causing cars behind to honk.

  “She’s beginning to drive me crazy,” Rafe muttered to himself as Moira leapt from the car.

  Moira ran through traffic, eliciting more honking horns, but she barely noticed. Nadine Anson was easy to spot—tall, stately, gorgeous—but it was her darkly glowing aura that had caught Moira’s attention from more than a hundred feet away.

  Moira didn’t dwell on the fact that her instincts—her extra senses—had been growing since the Seven Deadly Sins had been released. She couldn’t think about how or why, only that she knew that brunette in the red dress across the street was Nadine Anson even though she’d seen only one photograph of the woman.

  One photograph and two visions.

  It was the height of the dinner hour, and pedestrians walked in singles, pairs, and groups down the street. Moira irritated more than a few of them as she brushed past. She didn’t quite see Nadine anymore through the people, but she saw the glow and kept focused on that.

  A thunderclap—though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky—jolted Moira. She kept moving forward, but no longer saw the glow. People around her were silent, looking at the sky.

  “It’d better not rain—I just had my hair done!” a woman next to her said.

  “I can’t believe this. They said no rain all weekend!”

  But raindrops didn’t fall. The night sky was clear, though with all the lights Moira could make out only one or two stars in the sky.

  Heart racing, Moira feared the demon that possessed Nadine was looking for more victims. She couldn’t imagine what it would do with all these people in the middle of a city street. Demons didn’t make grand statements; they preferred the small, quiet murders of the soul. Did they fear that if they acted too boldly they’d truly suffer the wrath of God? For a brief moment, Moira wished they would create some catastrophe so that the Big Guy would come down and banish them all forever; then guilt washed over her at the innocent lives that would be lost by such action.

  In all of history, demons themselves rarely, if ever, acted among the masses. They didn’t show themselves, or cause disasters. Whether by choice or design, Moira didn’t know. Maybe there were guardian angels preventing the major catastrophes. Demons still used humans to do their dirty work, picking up souls one by one.

  But thunder without clouds? A demon—it had to be the succubus possessing Nadine—had done something. Moira couldn’t even see Nadine with all the people.

  A nearby scream had Moira picking up the pace, sprinting toward a commotion on the corner of Wilshire and Westwood, an incredibly busy intersection. The lights were annoying enough, but the horns and people were making Moira claustrophobic.

  And there was Nadine, standing on the corner, screaming.

  “What happened to her?” Moira heard one woman asking her boyfriend as they passed Nadine in distaste.

  “Help me!” Nadine screamed.

  Nadine Anson screamed for help, pulling her hair so hard that clumps of golden brown came out in her hands. She definitely wasn’t glowing with the demonic aura, and Moira had no idea where the demon had gone. She whirled around, looking at everyone, looking above them, trying to spot the demon’s shadow, but there was none.

  The demon had disappeared.

  Moira realized she’d never before seen a glowing aura, that her senses had always been focused on her own physical reaction to things she couldn’t see. She’d experienced a heightened awareness of all her other senses, but not sight—until now. She pushed the new talent aside—not just because the idea scared her, but because right now Nadine’s life was in jeopardy as the woman stood too close to the curb. The honking cars didn’t faze the distraught witch, nor did she seem to notice that she’d drawn a crowd.

  “Where’s the camera?” a teenager next to Moira asked, eagerly looking around.

  This girl thought Nadine was acting? Moira stepped in front of her, to a chorus of, “Hey! I can’t see!” from the girl and her friends.

  “Nadine,” Moira said. “Look at me!”

  “Help! Oh, God, oh, God, I’m sorry!”

  “Nadine, it’s over. It’s gone. Step away, you’re going to get hurt.”

  Nadine was sobbing without tears. She looked too thin, too weak, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Her eyes were hollow and her skin—which had seemed so smooth and lustrous in her photograph—was splotchy and stained dark. What had the demon left behind? What had it stolen from Nadine?

  Moira had been possessed once. She’d wanted to kill herself when it was over, because she’d killed the man she loved—the demon used her to kill the man she loved. Willing or not, Nadine couldn’t have known what the demon was going to use her for or how it would affect her.

  Or when the demon suddenly left, without the protection of the coven’s circle, how lost and terrified she would feel.

  Once the bystanders realized that this show wasn’t a movie, they moved away from Nadine as if she were a leper. Nadine flinched as Moira held her hands out, palms up. “Nadine, I’m a friend.”

  “Stay away! Get away from me! It’s your fault. You saw and didn’t do anything! You didn’t help me!”

  Nadine pulled more hair from her head, eyes wild and bloodshot. Moira stared at her eyes. They weren’t bloodshot—Nadine was crying tears of blood. Traffic sped by, causing Nadine to sway.

  “I need to get you home. Nadine, let me take you home, okay?”

  “I know you! I know you! Why didn’t you help me? You didn’t help me! Oh, God! What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nadine!” Moira shouted because the woman didn’t seem to hear anything she was saying. “I will help you.” She took another step closer and Nadine took a step back, off the curb. Another horn blared. Where was help?

  While most of the people stayed far from Nadine, Grant Nelson ran up. Shock crossed his face as he watched Nadine; then he turned to Moira and asked, “What happened?”

  “I saw her walking down the street and jumped out—”

  “I know. I saw you get out of the truck and cause a fucking traffic jam on Wilshire at the worst time of night.” Looking into Nadine’s dilated pupils, he made a quick assessment. “Damn drugs.”

  Moira couldn’t very well tell the guy Nadine had been possessed for a few days by a psycho demon who’d left her half crazy.

  “My partner’s calling an ambulance,” Grant told her, keeping his eyes on the hysterical woman. Someone took a picture with his iPhone, and Grant nearly decked him.

  “Watch it,” Moira warned. “Everyone has a fucking camera-phone.”

  Grant told the crowd to back off, then turned to Nadine. “Nadine, it’s me, Grant Nelson. You remember me, right? From Velocity?”

  “I hate you!” Nadine screamed.

  Moira didn’t know whether Nadine was talking to Grant or the crowd. She watched Grant closely. He had a familiarity with Nadine.

  “You know her?” she stated.

  “I go to the club a lot. I know most of the staff.” Grant stepped forward. “Nadine, I’m here to help you. I want to help. Step back from the curb.”

  “Get back! Get back!” Nadine screamed. “I can’t see!”

  If she couldn’t see, how did she know Grant was there? Moira wondered. Was she missing something?

&nbs
p; Nadine felt around wildly.

  Grant said, “Honey, it’s okay. You’ll be okay, I promise. Come here, I’ll take care of you.”

  “No! No! I killed them. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know it was going to be so awful, no, no, no! Don’t do this to me! Don’t!”

  Grant mumbled, “Shit.” He said to Moira out of the side of his mouth, “Circle around the other side; I’ll go this way.”

  “She’s going to get herself killed,” a bystander said.

  “Grab her,” Moira said. “Get her away from the traffic.”

  Grant moved away from Nadine’s line of vision and Moira distracted her by moving in the opposite direction. “Nadine, my name’s Moira. I can help you. You need to let me help you.”

  “I know you! I know you! No, no—” Her face twisted and she put her hands on both sides of her head, her fingernails clawing her skin, drawing blood.

  Grant ran toward Nadine, but she whirled around and screamed at him. “It’s your fault! Go away! Leave me! God, help me, I’m dying!”

  Grant got ahold of her wrist, but she scratched his face with sharp nails and he stumbled backward, unable to keep his grip.

  Moira grabbed Nadine from the other side and held her tightly around the waist. Nadine threw her head back once, twice, into Moira’s face and she tripped, trying to pull Nadine back with her, away from traffic, but Nadine dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand, which was still healing from the deep cut two weeks ago.

  Moira saw black. Blood poured from her nose as Nadine wrenched herself from Moira’s hold and ran off the curb. Grant reached for Nadine, but the crazed woman turned and lurched headlong into the traffic, slamming against a car. Brakes squealed, but not before Nadine fell onto the pavement and was run over by a bus trying in vain to stop.

  Moira screamed, her hands on her face, shaky from Nadine’s quick and surprisingly violent assault. Grant wore a bewildered expression, his face bleeding from where Nadine scratched him. Bystanders shouted, some woman cried hysterically, but Moira stood stock-still. She was stunned, shaken to her core.

  Strong hands from behind pulled her back. She turned and found herself in Rafe’s tight embrace. She held on as if he were her lifeline, and then the tears fell.

  FIFTEEN

  When the irritated and extremely exhausted Grant Nelson left Moira and Rafe in their hotel room after confirming that they would be at the police station at eight the next morning, Moira turned to Rafe. “If he thinks I’m going to hole up in some stupid hotel while those witches who killed Nadine set up another victim, he’s delusional.”

  “I expected you’d come to that conclusion,” Rafe said.

  She frowned. “You agree, right?”

  “One hundred percent. But we need a plan.”

  “We read Jackson’s notes; we know most of the players. I understand generally how these rituals operate.” She wished she knew more about them. Her mother had never called on a succubus, though Moira had heard of the rituals. Would her limited knowledge be enough? She wished she had more time.

  She crossed to the window and looked out at the lights in the parking lot below. She didn’t like being this high up—she’d requested a ground-floor room, but there were none available. They were on the fourth floor. She supposed if she had to jump she might survive, but she didn’t want to test the theory.

  They were in a hotel, not a motel, and it was damn expensive. Moira would never have stayed here in a million years, but when Nelson gave them the ultimatum of hotel or jail, Rafe said they were planning on staying at the Palomar. It was sleek and contemporary, and Moira felt that she didn’t belong. She was used to sleeping in rooms that rented by the hour, places where she could dump salt across every opening and no one would say anything. She didn’t fit in this high-class environment, but surprisingly, Rafe seemed comfortable and at ease.

  Moira couldn’t explain Nadine’s bizarre behavior, but she wasn’t wholly surprised. The demon had had complete control over Nadine, but Nadine was awake during the entire possession. Demons don’t eat or sleep; they feed on human souls. What could that do to a human being for a week?

  Rafe had given Nadine last rites and anointed her with oil to prevent her spirit from wandering the earth lost and vengeful, but neither he nor Moira knew if it would work, or where her soul might be trapped.

  Moira’s cell phone rang. “It’s Jackson. Finally,” she said and answered it, putting it on speaker so Rafe could hear.

  “Hey, Jackson, Rafe and I are both here.”

  “I have some information that might help,” he said. “I found the chalice that Wendy’s coven is using.”

  “You have it?”

  “A photograph. I’d rather discuss this in person; it’s rather complex and we need a plan.”

  “We need a plan,” Moira said, “Rafe and me. You’re not joining this expedition to Wendy’s house. You have a daughter, someone who relies on you. I’m not risking your life, too. Besides, Rafe and I are trained—”

  Jackson cut her off. “I sent Caroline out of the area to stay with her grandmother. You need my help. Let me show you everything I’ve found and we can figure out what to do. But I think we can get rid of this thing tonight.”

  “Halleluia,” Moira said. “We’re at the Palomar. How fast can you get here?”

  “Thirty minutes.”

  She glanced at the clock. It was just after ten p.m. It had already been a long day, and promised to be even longer.

  “Hurry,” she said and hung up.

  “I’m confused on one point,” Rafe said.

  “Only one?”

  “Wendy’s coven uses a succubus. How would they know how to trap one of the Seven when even Fiona couldn’t do it?”

  Good point. Moira considered. “Fiona thought she knew how to trap the Seven one at a time. She had Lily on the altar, was going to give her body to Envy until we stopped her. Nicole Donovan was there—she must have learned the ritual. Shared it with her psycho sister Wendy.”

  “But the demon left Nadine’s body when you were chasing her, so it wasn’t trapped. Why did it allow itself to be contained at all? After facing down Envy two weeks ago, I don’t think any of those bastards are going to willingly be controlled by a mortal.”

  Moira frowned and turned from the window. “I don’t know—but since a succubus is all about sex and stealing the souls of men, maybe the demon Lust is playing the game because it amuses her. Or—” She hesitated.

  “Or what?”

  “In my vision she said she had to find another vessel.”

  “You mean, that vision that threw you against the alley wall.” He stepped over so he could touch her face. She knew she must look like death warmed over after the attack in the alley and Nadine head-butting her. Her hand still stung, though Rafe had bandaged it—and kissed it—for her.

  She swallowed nervously, the proximity to Rafe clouding her thoughts, and said, “She may have been drawn out and contained in another vessel.”

  “Spontaneously?”

  “I don’t know! Demons are like yo-yos. They can sometimes be pulled back to the point where they entered the earth. Like they’re attached to an invisible umbilical cord that leads right back to whichever Hell’s gateway they walked through.”

  “If that’s the case, why can’t we draw all of them back to the cliffs in Santa Louisa and send them back from there?”

  She considered. “We may have to do just that. But Anthony is certain that if the Seven are brought together we won’t be able to defeat them. There’s so much we don’t know!”

  “I hope Dr. Lieber has the answers we need,” Rafe said quietly. “We should seal the room.”

  “He’s still there.”

  “Who?”

  She nodded toward the parking lot before closing the curtains. “Grant Nelson. He’s sitting in his car looking at this window.” She accepted the bag of salt that Rafe handed her. “I’d hate to imagine what housekeeping will think when they come in tomorrow morning
.” She smiled wistfully at the thought. She’d accepted that she wasn’t like most people—she was strange and peculiar. Usually she didn’t care what anyone thought because she’d always been alone, cut off from normal people, if not physically, then emotionally. Yet now, thanks to Rafe, she felt almost like part of society … almost. Would this invisible barrier ever disappear?

  She focused on the task at hand. “You put up the crucifixes; don’t forget the vents.”

  “You okay, Moira?” Rafe asked, concern in his tone.

  “Just peachy.”

  They worked in silence for several tense minutes. Moira fidgeted, uncomfortable and tired and hating this feeling that she didn’t fit.

  “Did Nadine see you?” Rafe asked quietly.

  “See me? She said she couldn’t see, but it was obvious that she—”

  “No, before the demon disappeared. Before the thunder.”

  Moira paused. “I think she saw me as I was crossing the street.”

  “What if the demon didn’t want a confrontation with you?”

  “Me? Why the hell not? I didn’t stop Envy from attacking you, me, Father—” She coughed as emotion thickened her voice.

  “But it could have a plan, and we weakened Envy enough for Anthony to draw it into the trap. If it thought you could do it damage—” He cut himself off.

  “What? Spill it, Rafe. What are you thinking?”

  “Rico wanted your blood for something. Aren’t you curious why?”

  “No,” she lied.

  Rafe just stared at her, obviously not believing her.

  “One thing at a time, Rafe! I don’t want to put my thoughts back there and think what might be wrong with me—”

  “Why would you think anything’s wrong with you?”

  “My blood? It’s just sick. I don’t want to think about what he’s doing.” But of course she couldn’t stop thinking about it now that Rafe brought up the subject. She looked down at her hand where Rafe had sliced it open and stuck it in the burning guts of the demon Envy. It hurt from Nadine’s attack earlier, but nothing she’d ever experienced had been as shockingly painful as sticking her hand inside the demon.