Carnal Sin

by Allison Brennan

  Wendy collapsed with a scream, a hand on each calf. One of the bullets had skimmed her, but the other went in deep.

  “You fucking bitch!”

  The gunfire halted Rafe just as he was about to foolishly leap into the circle. He looked at Moira, as if seeing her for the first time.

  “Moira!”

  Whatever had gotten into him was gone. Thank God. She didn’t have time to ask him what his plan had been, because it simply couldn’t have been smart. Not if it involved rushing a demon. Moira raced to his side. “Are you okay? What were you doing?”

  He said, “Julie took—I’ll explain later, okay?” He glanced at the demon who was sliding up and down Grant’s agonized body. “Did you see how the demon used the chalice?”

  “Hell, yeah. We need to melt it immediately. We can’t use it as a trap. I have no idea how to contain the demon and it broke the spell Wendy had bound it with.”

  “Then what are we going to trap the demon with?”

  Anything holy and pure would slow it down.

  Suddenly, Moira had a thought. “I know. The baptismal font.”

  “This isn’t a Catholic church.”

  “But it was. Jackson is one of us; he’s going to keep tradition. In fact, Jackson kept everything in the original church, except the crucifix. The font has a cover. It’s in the sanctuary. Do you have holy water?”

  “About a quart.”

  “I need it.”

  He handed her a large water bottle. “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m kind of making it up as I go along. Do you have a better idea?”

  “No.” Rafe kissed her quickly. “Be careful.”

  “You, too.”

  But she wasn’t taking any chances. She took her dagger and cut her arm an inch, wincing at the sting of the blade as it reopened the wound Nicole had inflicted.

  He stared at her. “What are you doing?”

  “Rico wanted my blood, so there must be something to it—like when we slowed down the demon Envy.” She rubbed her blood on Rafe’s arm. “Sorry, this is kinda sick, but I can’t think of anything else.”

  A scream from the spirit trap had them jumping. Julie was regaining consciousness, and slowly rose from the ground.

  “No!” Rafe shouted. “Julie, what are you doing?”

  Moira ran to the sanctuary. The font was portable, but damn heavy. She was surprised to find Nina hiding in the corner.

  “Nina!”

  “Rafe told me to hide in here.”

  “I need your help moving this.”

  “Why?”

  “Questions later.”

  Together, they slid the baptismal font along the floor. When they reached the doorway, Moira told her, “Now, go back to hiding.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to try and trap that demon in here. But I have to force it out of its corporeal form to do it.” She bit her lip and glanced over at the spirit trap. Julie was stumbling, much like Nadine had after the demon left her body. Rafe was trying to help Julie, but she was shaking her head and fighting him.

  In the trap, Lust was touching Grant. His face, his hair, his chest. One hand went down to his erect penis and squeezed until Grant screamed.

  The chalice was next to Grant. Moira needed to get it out, but to do so she had to trick the demon.

  She swiped her finger over her still-bleeding cut and made the sign of the cross on Nina’s forehead.

  “I’m Jewish,” Nina said.

  “Good.”

  “But I don’t believe that—”

  “I don’t care. Do you believe in God?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Do you believe in demons?”

  Nina frowned, glancing over at the trap. “Today I do.”

  “Then push this font directly under the cross, take off the lid, and pour this holy water into the bowl.” She handed Nina Rafe’s container of holy water. “Then hide.”

  “You’ll save George’s soul, right?” she asked quietly.

  That had been the last thing on Moira’s mind but she remembered her promise. “I’ll try.”

  Rafe watched as Julie’s astral self fully reclaimed her body. She stumbled for a moment, weak on all accounts. When the demon first touched Grant, Julie had surprised Rafe and took over his consciousness. He’d fought her the entire time she had control, but she’d panicked. Now, she had little strength left.

  “Julie!” he yelled. “Get out of there! Please!”

  Julie ignored him. She staggered into the circle and grabbed the demon by its neck, trying to pull it off Grant’s body. “Leave him! Take my soul instead!”

  Julie had no strength to move the demon. Lust slowly, sensually, rose from Grant’s trembling body and turned to face the witch, bemused.

  “You,” it said. “Where were you?”

  Julie took a step aside, not answering the demon, looking only at Grant.

  To distract the demon from Julie, Rafe crossed himself and began the Lord’s Prayer.

  The demon growled, then said, “Oh, you again.”

  Rafe felt his body twist as the demon pushed him with its will. He shouted a prayer he’d never heard before. It came from deep in his memory, a place he couldn’t access when he wanted to, a place that opened for him only when he wasn’t trying.

  He didn’t dwell long on the situation; it had disturbed him since the Seven Deadly Sins had been released in Santa Louisa. Now, however, he used the force of the prayer he barely understood to stop the demon from hurling him across the church the way it had Pamela Erickson. His feet came back to the floor and he crouched, bracing for another attack.

  But it didn’t come. The demon saw that Julie was untying Grant’s restraints and it grabbed her with hands that turned into talons. She screamed as two marks burned her flesh.

  “You displease me. You trapped me here, and now you won’t give me my due!”

  Rafe leapt into the spirit trap and kicked the demon in the stomach. It didn’t loosen its hold on Julie. Rafe jumped out again and started the exorcism. The demon hissed, throwing Julie to the ground. It kept rubbing its arm as if something burned. Rafe glanced down. A smear of blood—Moira’s blood—stained the demon’s forearm.

  Grant slowly rose from his chair, shaky and weak. “Leave me alone!” Grant cried at the demon. “I’m not yours!”

  The enraged demon howled and stepped toward Grant.

  Moira leapt into the circle and wrapped her cut arm around the demon’s neck.

  The demon became paralyzed. Its eyes bulged and then it lost shape and form, turning from a woman to a snake to a deformed centaur-like creature. Moira held on even though Rafe saw she was in agony, her grip on the demon slipping. The demon tried to shake her off but Moira clung, her blood forcing the demon back to its noncorporeal form.

  The demon turned to a thick black cloud and Moira fell to the ground.

  Rafe rushed to help her, but Moira screamed, “The exorcism! Keep going!”

  He did, stopping just short of the demon trap. The ancient words rolled off his tongue though he didn’t know exactly what he was saying—deep inside he knew, but as soon as he concentrated, all meaning was lost. He let the words flow from his lips without conscious thought, as if he were speaking in tongues.

  Grant was carrying Julie from the trap and Moira grabbed the chalice. “The kiln!” Rafe told her.

  She wasn’t listening. She had begun her own exorcism. She was trying to draw out George Erickson’s soul from the demon.

  “Moira, stop!”

  “I have to, Rafe! I promised!”

  Rafe wouldn’t let her. The danger was too great. And the only thing Rico had commanded him during their conversation was to keep Moira alive.

  “Or the world is over as we know it.”

  He stepped into the circle and commanded the demon, “By the power of St. Michael’s sword, a faithful servant to the Lord, release the souls you stole!”

  The demon took partial f
orm, the head of a snake, the body of smoke, and hissed in his ear, “Take them alllllll.”

  An inhuman screech had Rafe on his knees, his eardrums near bursting. Dozens of spirits whipped around him, trying to get inside, the demon hurling the souls at him one by one, pummeling him with the pain of their collective suffering.

  Rafe couldn’t think; he could scarcely breathe. The assault continued and he held up his hands to ward off the attack. He knew the exorcism, but he couldn’t get any words out.

  Moira screamed his name. The snake turned to her and she held up the chalice, then turned as if to leave.

  “Noooo,” the snake hissed and turned again into the smoky mist. It wrapped around Moira, then dove into the chalice, filling it. Just as Moira had hoped. The chalice was its escape route from the trap—she’d nabbed the demon’s portal.

  Moira ran from the trap to the baptismal font, hoping—praying—this would work. She had to get the demon to the font before it escaped the chalice. She glanced back at Rafe, who was on his knees, battling spirits she couldn’t see but felt with every cell in her body. These weren’t ghosts—they were raw spirits, human souls, released from bondage. The good, the bad, and the downright evil.

  “What’s happening?” Nina cried. “Is that George?”

  “It’s all the souls the demon stole!” Moira had to help Rafe. Tears streamed down her face as she knew exactly what he was facing, trying to keep his own soul intact as the spirits fought to get inside. Why had he done it? Why had he risked himself? The demon had been busy this week—or were these all the souls who’d died since it was released from Hell two weeks ago? How many had died that they didn’t know about?

  Moira placed the base of the chalice in the baptismal font. The holy water steamed, and the chalice became so hot it burned Moira’s hands. At this rate, the water would dissipate in minutes! What else could she do?

  She grabbed the small vial of holy water from her pocket. It was nearly gone. She poured it over the glass. It steamed, and the ground shook beneath her. She and Nina held on to the edge of the font to keep from falling over.

  The lid wouldn’t fit over the font with the chalice inside. “Nina—go to the sanctuary and look for bottles of holy water.”

  “How will I know?”

  “Jackson said he put his supplies in there; he has to have some!”

  The ground shaking, Nina did as Moira commanded.

  Moira’s cut had started to clot. She squeezed her skin and drew out more blood, which she smeared on the top of the glass ball. The shaking stopped. She didn’t know what to believe, but right now she didn’t care—saving Rafe was the only thing that mattered. She’d figure everything else out later.

  The spirits had beaten Rafe into a fetal ball. He was praying fervently, but Moira couldn’t hear him over a rumble she couldn’t identify.

  She began her own exorcism and saw from the corner of her eye Jackson run into the church. “The doors are open,” he said.

  “Help me!” she cried.

  “What’s happening?”

  “They’re souls trying to possess Rafe. Give them last rites.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Are you a man of God or not? What do you do when someone dies? Do it!”

  Jackson raised his hands and began a prayer.

  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.”

  Good enough, Moira thought as she stepped forward.

  “What are you doing?” Jackson asked.

  “Keep praying, dammit!”

  She feared opening her senses would give the souls a way to enter her body, but she needed to discern how many they were dealing with. As Jackson prayed, Rafe gained strength. He rose to his knees. She was about to step into the trap when he ordered, “Stand back, Moira!”

  She hesitated, not wanting to obey, but she had to trust Rafe.

  Rafe rose from the floor. He saw the souls moving around him, confused, suffering, none of them knowing where to go. None were pure, but many had color, some light, some dark. Some black as night.

  “Dear Lord, help me help them,” he whispered in Aramaic.

  The ground violently shook. Moira almost ran into the trap again, but Rafe couldn’t risk it, so he put up his hand to ward her off. She stumbled back as if hit, but he barely noticed. One by one, each soul spun away as he spoke, finally disappearing. He didn’t know where they were going, but they were gone from here. Rafe had opened a gateway to the astral plane, where all souls go on their way to Heaven or Hell.

  Their passage through him to reach the astral plane weakened him. Pain tore at his mind, pain so great that he thought he would die. As they pushed through him, they deposited their shackles in his mind, leaving with him their last wish. He couldn’t do this. He was going to die. And still they came through him and departed, a never-ending line of souls searching for peace.

  A crash sounded outside the trap, though it sounded far, far away. Rafe forced his eyes open, and through blurred vision saw that Wendy had knocked over the baptismal font. The chalice crashed to the ground, the glass ball splitting clean in half.

  Moira ran toward the font. The demon rose from the broken glass.

  “Moira!” Rafe cried out, sounding as though he were far down a tunnel.

  Rafe flexed his mind—he couldn’t explain it any other way—and pushed every soul through to the astral plane. As he crawled from the spirit trap, he said the closing prayer, sealing the split between their world and the spirit world.

  Jackson helped him up. “What the hell was that?”

  Rafe shook his head and stumbled toward Moira as she righted the font.

  The demon grew into a monstrous-sized creature. Wendy laughed hysterically as she crawled away, insane or in shock. The demon took its claws and picked her up, squeezing her body until Rafe heard her back break.

  Nina rushed from the sanctuary with two bottles of holy water. She screamed at the sight of the huge demon that continued to grow.

  Rafe ordered Jackson, “Grab the chalice! Melt it! I’ll distract the demon.”

  Jackson didn’t argue. Rafe, still weak from his ordeal with the spirits, stumbled over to Moira’s side.

  She stared at the creature. “What’s Plan B?” she asked with a nervous laugh.

  “I didn’t know we had a Plan A,” Rafe countered. He took her arm; she was bleeding profusely. “You’re losing blood.”

  “I might have cut too deep.”

  “Dammit, Moira.” He ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around Moira’s arm.

  “No—” she said, pulling the shirt off.

  “I’m not letting you bleed to death!”

  “We have a bigger problem here,” she said. She stared at his black shirt as her blood darkened the fabric. “Take the shirt—hit the demon with it.”

  Rafe unwrapped the shirt, wet with Moira’s blood, and rushed the demon. Its claws reached for him, and he dodged.

  Moira ran in the other direction to distract the creature. She shouted an exorcism and the demon laughed, a low, sick rumble that terrified Rafe. The demon Envy was bad; this demon seemed to have even more power. A thought dawned on him: all those souls—what if the Seven grew more powerful the longer they were on Earth? A pit formed in his stomach. If they got any stronger, they’d never defeat all of them.

  He slapped the demon with the bloody shirt. It hit and the demon cried out as if shot, shrinking away from Rafe. He slapped it again and again. The demon bellowed and reached out for Jackson, who had picked up the chalice.

  Nina grabbed one of the bottles of holy water, took off the cap, and threw it at the demon. The demon flinched, but it was enough time for Jackson to get into the sanctuary with the chalice, pulling Nina with him.

  Hurry up, Pastor! Rafe rushed toward the demon, and it grabbed him with its huge hands.

  “You will suffer, Raphael. You will know the truth and you will die forever
!”

  Moira watched in horror as Rafe was lifted off the ground by the demon, who’d grown to over twelve feet tall with snakes in its hair and black wings growing out of its back. Its clawlike hands were more like talons on a bird. It moved as if walking on air, the lower body still smoke, as if it couldn’t completely take shape. If this was its weakened state, they were as good as dead.

  She ran to the two perfect halves of the glass ball. She picked them up and dropped them into the baptismal font. The demon flinched. This was its connection to the underworld. Wendy’s spell had bound it somehow to the chalice, and because it couldn’t fulfill its mission—Grant’s soul was still intact—it wasn’t completely free. Even though it had gained power, it was still tethered to the chalice.

  Nina had dropped the other bottle of holy water. Moira grabbed it and poured the water into the font. The demon cried out and dropped Rafe.

  Suddenly, the room became hot. So hot Moira felt her skin burn.

  Rafe ran over and grabbed her. “Run!”

  They ran into the sanctuary and Jackson closed the door. The heat in there was nearly unbearable, the oxygen being depleted.

  The demon thundered and screamed shrilly. They covered their ears with their hands. It swirled around the church like a tornado, the eye drawing it back into the glass now sitting in the baptismal font.

  And then, as fast as the air had heated, it cooled. The demon was gone, trapped in the font.

  They didn’t move for several minutes.

  Jackson opened the kiln. Inside, the fire had gone out. The chalice had melted completely into the mold. With gloved hands, he removed it.

  He’d picked an appropriate mold. The chalice had become a cross.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “What happened to the glass ball from the chalice?” Jackson asked.

  “It’s in the baptismal font,” Moira said, her voice fading as she leaned against Rafe. He wrapped his arm around her. “Trapped in something pure and innocent. We’ll have to be careful transporting it—I don’t know how secure it is.”

  Rafe frowned as he felt Moira’s arm, slick with blood. “Moira—you’re still bleeding.” There was only dim light in the sanctuary. “Dear God, you’re covered in blood.”