Original Sin

by Allison Brennan

  NINE

  All hope abandon, ye who enter here!

  —DANTE ALIGHIERI

  Moira realized after hitting Anthony that she’d let her temper get the better of her, but connecting her hand with his arrogant face had been so damn satisfying that she gloated for the first five minutes she was locked behind bars. True, she probably couldn’t take Zaccardi out in a fair fight, but she didn’t care if she played fair, and she’d surprised him. Wham! Down on his knees. She wished she’d broken his nose, but no such luck. She rubbed her hand. Rico had taught her how to pull punches to minimize damage to herself, but damn, her palm was still sore.

  There were only four cells in the Santa Louisa County jail, plus a larger “drunk tank.” There were two men in the drunk tank—sleeping. Only one other cell was occupied, and that man was sleeping as well. Though the place was clean, she occasionally caught a whiff of stale urine or vomit underneath the antiseptic cleanser.

  Her cell, surrounded by three smooth, gray cinder-block walls, was on the opposite side of the wide walkway. Narrow steel bars and the three sleeping prisoners were her only view.

  Six minutes of incarceration and the walls began to shrink. Her heart raced as the floor seemed to rise. She knew she was panicking, but knowing it didn’t stop the pressure in her chest, or the sweat from breaking out on her neck, between her breasts, and on her palms.

  She’d been in prison before, only nothing as lavish as the Santa Louisa Sheriff’s Department.

  The first time Moira had run away she was sixteen. And because she’d been stupid and unskilled in survival, Fiona had found her. Punished her. Sent her underground, in a dungeon of an abandoned castle in Ireland. Dark. Cold. Damp. With the foul stench of mold and decay, of dead, rotting rodents. She heard the rats scurrying all around her, above her on the beams, in the corners, in and out of the bars of her cell. It could have been the seventeenth century as easily as the twenty-first.

  Fiona had left Moira for a week. Alone. With only enough food and water to ensure survival. Into her dreams, Fiona had sent monsters so real Moira didn’t know whether they were nightmares or reality. She hallucinated and had nearly been broken. Nearly. Except for the hard rock of hatred in the core of her heart, hatred of Fiona. It kept her alive, it kept her breathing, and when she was free she played Fiona’s game for months. When she ran again, Fiona didn’t find her for nearly five years.

  Moira’s breath caught and she stared at three barred, horizontal windows on the far wall. Tilting her head up, she stared greedily at the dark sky, a nearly full moon blurred by high clouds. She had to get hold of herself. She wasn’t underground, this wasn’t a dungeon, and Fiona didn’t know she was here. She focused on the red planet through a small opening in the clouds. Mars was so bright tonight! She watched it appear and disappear as the clouds and earth moved. Imagined being outside, beneath a vast array of stars, in an open field, physically free and emotionally calm. Without trouble, without the pain of regret, without the torture of memories that burned.

  It felt like hours, but it had only been ten minutes since she’d begun to panic. The terror subsided, but she felt … prickly, as if she were being watched. Tense, knowing that the panic of confinement was just beneath the surface, just waiting for something to draw it out.

  The deputy who had brought Moira in had left, but he had to be nearby, didn’t he? They wouldn’t leave her in a locked cell without being able to see or hear her. She called out, “Hey! Come on, let me out! Please! Find the sheriff—” What was her name? “Skye! Are you there?”

  “The courts open at nine a.m.,” the man alone in his cell said from across the corridor. “Shut up or you’ll wake the boys. They’ll puke up their rotgut dinner and we’ll be smelling that shit for hours.”

  Moira wasn’t getting into a conversation with anyone. Instead she focused on paying Anthony back. She’d deck him again—out of sight of his girlfriend the cop.

  “You’re too fresh-faced and pretty to be a hooker,” the prisoner said. “And you don’t look drunk. Drugs?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Come on, sweet thing, talk to me. I don’t bite, unless you want me to.” He laughed at his stupid joke.

  She glared at him and turned her back.

  “Bitch,” he mumbled. “Hope you go to State; the dykes would love to wipe the floor with your attitude.”

  Anthony wouldn’t let it go that far, would he? Send her to prison for years? No, he couldn’t. Father Philip would get her out. First call she made would be to Rico. He’d get here fast in his private plane. No way he’d let her stay in prison. And he’d beat the living daylights out of Anthony for putting her here. She hoped she could watch. No one fought better—meaner or dirtier—than Rico.

  The door opened at the guard station. Finally.

  Moira was about to rip Sheriff Skye McPherson a new one, but she bit her tongue.

  It wasn’t the sheriff coming through the door. Even before she saw the woman, she knew who it was.

  Fiona.

  An exotic, seductive scent—lavender and orchids and dark ocean breezes floating on a rich, musky base. Unique, enchanting, deadly.

  Moira quietly backed against the wall closest to the door, where Fiona wouldn’t first see her—not that it mattered. Fiona knew she was here; otherwise she wouldn’t have come, wouldn’t have risked exposing herself. But Moira needed a minute, a few seconds, to adjust to seeing her mother again for the first time in seven years, when she’d blindly caught up with Fiona after Peter’s death. Rico had risked his life to save her. She hadn’t deserved to be saved.

  Three primary emotions battled: pain, rage, and fear. Fiona had channeled dark powers for years, had become far more powerful than even when she’d summoned the demon that possessed Moira seven years ago. Fiona could easily kill her without a man-made weapon. And Moira couldn’t fight back. Even if she had kept her abilities sharp and honed, she couldn’t fight Fiona with magic without breaking her promise to Father Philip. She’d rather die than do that. Even magic with good intentions killed, because it all came from the same source of pure evil.

  It had killed Peter. It had almost killed her. Now, trapped in this prison—the physical jail cell and her own morality—she’d be dead before dawn.

  “Well, well, well, hell-lo, hot stuff.” The sober prisoner sat up on his cot and gave Fiona an appraising look.

  Both Fiona and Moira ignored him. Moira had no idea how Fiona had found her, how her mother knew she was in town and specifically in prison, but she damn well knew why she’d come. Seven years ago when Rico and Father Philip saved her, Fiona had said:

  “You are cursed, firstborn daughter. I will find you. I will hunt you down, I will destroy you inside and out. I will wring your soul dry until it’s begging for mercy, of which I have none to spare you.”

  Anthony wouldn’t have let it out that she was in jail. If he’d known where Fiona was, he’d have gone after her himself. And he still believed Moira was working either with her mother or another coven. But Sheriff Skye McPherson—was she part of the coven? Covens loved to recruit people in positions of power. Cops, teachers, ministers. Anyone with authority and trust.

  And then there was Jared, who’d disappeared to find his girlfriend right before the police came. Could he have alerted Fiona? Perhaps his original intent in bringing her to the cliffs was to lure Moira into a trap, but something went wrong and the coven had dispersed.

  “Cead inion.” First daughter. Some might think it was a term of endearment, but Moira knew better. To Fiona, it meant she was property.

  “Cailleach.”

  Fiona smiled at the insult—Moira didn’t know what offended her more, the “old” part or the “hag” part. Her red, glossy lips wide, teeth so white they seemed false. Some might have called her grin inviting. But Moira knew better. She was a shark, circling her prey.

  Fiona’s brilliant, dark blue eyes matched Moira’s; her hair, a shiny, golden red, was thick and curly and impossi
bly long. Moira had the same curls, but she kept her black hair up or braided and out of the way. Fiona’s skin was smooth and flawless, her cheekbones high and aristocratic. Her mother had always been a dramatically beautiful woman. She hadn’t changed. She hadn’t changed physically at all from when Moira had last seen her. Fiona was forty-eight. She looked … younger. Stunning. Twenty-eight, maybe, but not forty-eight.

  “Andra Moira.” Her full name rolled off Fiona’s tongue with the Irish lilt and the proper accent. An-drah Mor-rah. Moira hated it. She preferred the wrong way everyone else in the world pronounced her name, with three syllables instead of two. And she refused to use her first name, Andra, knowing whom she was named for and why. An ancient goddess who relished blood and human sacrifice …

  Moira stared at her, tense and watchful. Wishing the damn sheriff would get her ass in here. How had Fiona gotten in? Had she killed someone …

  “You’re weak.” Fiona walked to the center of the jail and stared at Moira with both shock and contempt. “You haven’t been practicing! Pathetic.”

  She sounded disappointed, as if she’d wanted some sort of supernatural battle between them. But Moira had learned the hard way that all supernatural power came from the wrong side of the tracks, and payment for borrowing it was steep.

  “I know what you did on the cliffs,” said Moira. “I know what you’re up to.”

  “You can’t possibly imagine in your small mind what I am doing.” Her eyes glowed with excitement—from Moira’s entrapment or her own plans, Moira didn’t know. Probably both. “You are fortunate that I am forgiving.”

  “As forgiving as the devil himself,” Moira snapped. “Oh, wait, he’s one of your friends.”

  Fiona’s throat tensed, revealing delicate bones under flawless skin. “You should be more respectful of your father.”

  “Bullshit.” A chill started in the center of her bones, hardening her gut, bringing the panic on, but she stood perfectly still. Moira had never known her father. For all she knew, her mother had slit his throat after mating. Moira’s bravado was a farce, and she damn well knew that if Fiona smelled fear, she would pounce. She crossed herself more to goad her mother than to proclaim faith.

  Fiona murmured a spell aimed at Moira, but at the last minute tossed it toward the drunk cell with a flip of her wrist. Moira could almost see the gray smoke, even though she knew it wasn’t physically there, but merely an illusion.

  The drunks both groaned in their stupor, the nightmare Fiona had thrown into their minds taking hold.

  Fiona paced the length of the walk. The velvety blue gown swirling around her gave the illusion that she was floating. Wisely, the man in the far cell said nothing.

  “What did you do to the guards?” Moira asked.

  “They’re sleeping.”

  Fiona stopped dead center in front of Moira’s cell. “Andra Moira, I am granting you a choice.” She raised her left hand with flair, her jewels sparkling in the artificial light. “On the one hand, I will let you out. You come with me and fulfill your role as it was decided before your conception. You, the first daughter of a virgin womb, sacrificed to be the goddess of the underworld. Such a high status for doing nothing but being born. You are of the chosen, for I am of the chosen. I gave my body to the gods so you could exist.

  “On the other hand,” she waved her right hand as if swatting away a fly, “you will die now, and I will rip your soul from your body and send it into the pit to be tortured forever. She who gives life can also take it away.”

  Fiona held her palms up, as if in a peace offering. Moira stared, feeling an unspoken spell building. On Fiona’s open palms, two worlds balanced: one of fire, the other identical but with Moira in the middle, her face melting to bone, the bones turning to ash.

  Another illusion. Moira willed her mind to see only what was in front of her, to repel the telepathy that her mother was using to send images into her mind.

  She blinked and it worked. She saw only her mother. Rico had trained her well.

  “Free will conquers magic. Use your mind, your thoughts, your free will in battle. Turn not to external forces, but to the strength that God gave you.”

  An irritated scowl crossed Fiona’s face and she dropped her hands.

  “You released the Seven Deadly Sins from Hell,” Moira said, emboldened by her small victory. “There’s no reason—”

  “I didn’t free them! They were to be mine. It was that—” She stopped, straightened, and glared at Moira. “Your decision. Now! Come with me or die.”

  They were to be mine. Fiona did nothing without a reason, but Moira couldn’t come up with even one idea as to why Fiona wanted to claim, or keep, the Seven.

  Moira’s words were clear. “I am not yours. I refuse to be sacrificed to any of your demons. Go ahead and try to send me to Hell; if you succeed, I know ways to come back and thwart every one of your plans.”

  Fiona laughed.

  “You fool,” she said between bouts of laughter. “You know nothing. Those pathetic men on that ridiculous island have no idea of the power to be had. The wall separating the worlds is so thin, it is close to crumbling. Between the here and now, the underworld and time; I am the weakest link, where the membrane between humans and the supernatural universe is thinnest. You will never defeat me.”

  In ancient Latin she spoke a spell that Moira had never heard before. The words seemed to be aimed at her through a fast-moving tunnel. Moira’s vision faded. She put her hands out and screamed, but felt no vibration in her throat. She was falling, falling, deeper and deeper into her mind.

  It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.

  She lay naked on a bed of feathers, the sunlight streaming through the high windows of the retreat on the far side of the island off Sicily. This was her cottage, where the priests had hidden her while she, Peter, and the others tried to find a way to save her and defeat Fiona.

  Peter came to her, glorious with his olive complexion, broad chest, long sun-streaked brown hair. They were in love, had fought their feelings for months, knowing that giving in to the desire building inside of them would be violating everything that Peter held dear.

  “Loving you isn’t wrong,” Peter told her as he slid into bed with her. “Loving you is heaven on earth.”

  She felt his hands, his lips, his breath on her neck. So tender but determined; confident but timid. The conflict was in both of them. Guilt battled need, pleasure battled duty. He skimmed her breasts, her stomach; his hands were between her legs, then he was sliding inside her, filling her, loving her …

  “Loving me is deadly.” Her hands went up around his neck and squeezed him. “Your fall from grace was of your own accord. You will burn in Hell!”

  No, no, this never happened! But Moira couldn’t push the vision from her mind. She tried to fight it, and as she fought she heard distant laughter. Her mother.

  See him now, see him now, see him now.

  Suddenly, she was free-falling and floating, as if having an out-of-body experience. She saw Peter.

  Peter! My love, I miss you, I love you, I’m so sorry …

  He was in the middle of an Irish meadow, the grassy knoll outside her grandmother’s cottage. She wanted to run to him, fly to him, but she was trapped, held back by invisible hands. The meadow turned to fire. Peter stood on an island in the middle of lava, whips of flame slicing his back, leaving red welts. Over and over and over …

  “You bitch!”

  Moira pulled herself from the spell …

  … use your mind, look inside …

  … Rico was talking. Focus, focus, focus. She built the wall around her mind, like a caterpillar built a cocoon, fighting back as best she could.

  Your will is powerful. Focus.

  The laughter rang louder. “Poor girl,” Fiona said, mocking.

  Moira was pushed by an unseen force against the back wall. The wind was violently knocked out of her and she couldn’t draw in another breath. She was suffocating. She woul
d die in this cell, not a mark on her, and Fiona would win. She’d take the Seven Deadly Sins and complete whatever fearsome plan she had.

  Fiona released her and Moira fell to the cement floor, gasping for air. She had nothing to protect her. The sheriff had confiscated her knives, her cross, her holy water, her medallion, the medal that Rico had told her never to remove.

  “You were chosen, and you rejected the greatest gift in the universe!” Fiona said. “You damaged me. But I fought for what was mine and I’m stronger now. More powerful than you or any of your kind.”

  Moira’s head ached and she mentally pushed back, fighting whatever images Fiona tried to plant inside her. Her head felt as if it would explode.

  She felt something wet and sticky on the ground; she touched her face and came away with blood. Her nose was bleeding like a waterfall. She would bleed to death. Here. It would be called natural causes. A fluke. And no one would believe the prisoner in the far cell, that a beautiful woman had killed Moira without touching her. Who would?

  “I wish I had time to toy with you, fealltóir. But I have work to do.”

  Moira looked up from where she bled on the floor. Fiona sounded irritated, and her brow was wrinkled, showing frustration.

  “If I want it done right,” Fiona murmured, then turned her attention back to Moira. She stepped as close to the bars as she could without touching and smiled.

  Fiona’s lips moved, but Moira couldn’t hear what she said, or read her lips. Her lungs grew heavy, as if filling with water, and Moira felt as though she were drowning. She couldn’t breathe. She grabbed her throat, the sensation of choking so real—suddenly, she coughed up water, a half cup, then more.

  Fiona watched. “It would be such fun practicing on you, but I don’t have time. I’m going to share something with you before you die, though. Something to take with you.”

  Moira screamed as if a knife had pierced her brain. The pain was so excruciating that Moira prayed to God to just kill her now. The invisible knife twisted, twisted, her skull pounding in agony. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she curled up in a fetal position, wanting to pound her head into the cement because anything would feel better than this.