“Fear?”
“Rafe didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“They couldn’t sleep. They could barely eat. They were jumping at shadows. They got to sleeping in the chapel during adoration, the only time they felt safe. But after a while, even adoration terrified them.”
The tabernacle had been replaced.
“Thank you.” Anthony hung up.
“What?” Skye asked.
He told her about the abnormal fear, but refrained from explaining the significance of the fake tabernacle. She wouldn’t believe him anyway, not with her focus on finding Detective Martinez.
“If they were drugged long-term with what I consumed only once, it’s no wonder they freaked out.” Skye’s voice was laced with sympathy.
When Skye pulled up in front of a small cottage near the cliffs outside Santa Louisa, Anthony’s instincts hummed.
“Something is wrong,” he said.
“What?”
“I can’t explain.”
“Or won’t?”
He took a leap of faith. “You know I’m a historical architect, but you seem to have forgotten I’m also a demonologist. I study demons. I also have a certain—empathy—where demons are concerned. I sense evil. This house is evil.”
“Houses can’t be evil. The people inside, maybe, but houses are wood, nails, and glass.”
“Demons can be trapped in inanimate objects,” Anthony tried to explain further, but Skye’s eyes darted away. She was letting him help—but she refused to listen to the truth.
As they approached the house, Anthony’s body grew cold and his head throbbed painfully. A spell. He reached the path leading to the porch and his heart felt like it was being shredded. He could go no farther.
Skye didn’t have a problem crossing the threshold. As his fear for her grew, he stepped forward and fell to his knees.
She knocked on the door, and when no one answered, walked around the perimeter, finally declaring, “No one’s home, the house is locked up tight.” She frowned at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
He’d been sitting at the edge of the path, physically unable to cross the spell’s threshold. He slowly rose to his feet and said, “They cast a powerful spell around that house to stop me. Don’t come here without me, not until I find a way to reverse it. You’re in danger.”
“Stop.” She spoke softly and held up her hand.
“Skye, listen—”
“No more talk of demons and spells. That’s a load of crap. You’ve distracted me enough from this investigation. I have a missing cop, a friend. I have evidence that points to the priests being poisoned to the point that they committed murder and suicide. When I get those responsible into interrogation I will damn sure find out why. I want whoever drugged those men to go to prison for a long, long time. That’s my job. Those are the facts.”
She rubbed her eyes and sighed. Anthony’s heart fell. He knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.
“I wasn’t myself this morning.” Skye averted her eyes. “You saved my life and I jumped you. It didn’t mean anything, but I’ve felt guilty enough about it that I let you come with me to the morgue, to come here. That was not only wrong, it’s against protocol. I’m going to take you to your car. You’re not a suspect, and you can pick up your passport at the station.”
“Your life is in danger!” Why couldn’t she see what he so clearly saw?
“I can take care of myself, Mr. Zaccardi. I’ve been doing it for a long, long time.”
He touched her cheek softly. As if his touch could convince her that he was right, could show her that he spoke the truth. That there were things in this world that people didn’t understand, but it was his job to convince them. To convince Skye.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You are a civilian and you will not be part of this investigation.”
She said the words, and her body language told him she was serious, but her eyes—they were confused.
“You don’t mean that, Skye.”
She straightened. “Yes I do. Juan is missing. I have twelve victims. How do I know that Rafe Cooper wasn’t involved? Because you’ve told me he’s this noble guy? I need to ask the hard questions, and every time I do you throw out crap about demons!” She gestured toward the house. “Like a house can be evil? That some sort of spell is protecting it, against what? Burglars? You?
“I have a serious crime on my hands, and you’re steering me in the wrong direction. I’m neglecting logic and reason for supernatural excuses. No more.”
Anthony’s anger built. He tried to tamp it down, but it came out in a rush.
“What about the fire last night?” he demanded. “The flames that almost killed both of us?”
“The arson investigator will have a scientific explanation for it,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Can’t you look beyond what your eyes tell you? Into what your heart sees?”
“I’m a cop, Anthony! What am I supposed to tell the jury? A demon made him do it? Give him five-to-ten, call an exorcist, and with some counseling he’ll be okay? I deal with human beings, who are just as bad and rotten as the demons in your imagination.”
That stung. This woman hadn’t seen what he’d seen. She hadn’t watched friends die horribly in the grips of Satan’s fire, or watched an entire evil building disappear into the ground with people trapped inside. She couldn’t see what was right in front of her—the fire, the visions of her father on the cliff, the evil emanating from the house in front of them.
“You would deny what you feel?” Anthony said. “What you know to be true?”
“Feelings aren’t fact.” Skye held fast to that truth.
Arguing with Anthony was delaying her. Just being around him was clouding her judgment. How could she find Juan, investigate these murders, when she was being diverted by a dark fairy tale of good versus evil?
Anthony grabbed her, pulled her close, his face tight with anger. “Would you deny what happened between us?”
She shook her head. “That was a mistake. The drugs—”
“It was not a mistake! I will not deny how I feel.”
Anthony’s mouth claimed hers, hard and passionate. Skye would have collapsed had he not been holding her up. He poured his anger, his frustration, his emotions into her, making her tremble.
She pushed him away, stumbled backward, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Stop.”
“You cannot deny us. The power between us.”
She steeled herself against Anthony’s growing intensity. “I’ll take you to your car—”
His entire body seemed on the verge of exploding, then he tightened his jaw and stated, “I’ll walk.”
She watched him leave, afraid to let him go—but knowing if she was going to get to the bottom of these murders, she needed logic and reason over supernatural delusions.
Why did she suddenly feel so cold?
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
ANTHONY BOWED OUT OF RESPECT when he was escorted into Bishop Carlin’s office and kissed his hand. “Thank you for seeing me, Bishop.”
“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Zaccardi.” The bishop’s tone was neither awestruck nor cynical.
“Rafe Cooper is a friend of mine.”
“And you came out here when you heard about the murders. Tragic.” He crossed himself.
“I found the bodies, sir.”
Surprise crossed the bishop’s face, in addition to concern. “The police didn’t tell me that.”
“They didn’t like what I had to say.”
“Which was?”
“A demon is at work here.”
The bishop didn’t say anything for a long time. “Demons cannot kill unless they possess someone. You know that.”
“I do.”
“So what is your theory?”
“First, did Rafe come to you recently about the missing tabernacle?”
“I to
ld the sheriff that Mr. Cooper and I were not on very good terms, Mr. Zaccardi.”
“Why is that?”
“He’s a difficult man.”
“He can be.” Rafe was stubborn—sometimes to a fault—but he was intensely loyal.
“The tabernacle isn’t missing,” Bishop Carlin said. “I gave the mission a replacement.”
Anthony couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “You have the original tabernacle? Why?”
“It’s very old, as I’m sure you know. Several of the stones had fallen off and needed to be replaced. Father Hatch brought it to me nearly two weeks ago.”
“Father Hatch?” Anthony didn’t know him.
“He arrived at the mission a year ago. He’s one of the few who leave the property. I’m sure you know that the mission had, frankly, become an asylum of sorts. The men are mentally ill.”
Anthony’s jaw clenched. “They witnessed evil, Bishop.”
“We’ve all witnessed evil.”
“Have we?” Anthony countered.
“Look around you, young man.”
“I have faced demons. I have freed souls.”
“You are not a priest.”
“I am not.”
“I know exactly who you are, Mr. Zaccardi. And you are given a lot of latitude because of your friends in the Vatican.”
“I am given latitude because I can see demons. Where is the tabernacle now?”
“In storage awaiting shipment to Rome. Perhaps you’d like to take it back with you?”
Anthony bit back his first, angry remark.
“Perhaps I would,” he said.
“I will ready it for you immediately.”
• • •
The demon looked at his minions through his new human eyes, relishing with hubris the worship in their expressions. He craved adoration.
“Is it done?” he asked.
“Yes. We have the records.”
“Have? Why didn’t you destroy them?”
“We thought the information would be valuable,” the older woman said. “The doctor was very detailed in his comments. There are prayers and protections that may help us grow stronger.”
She was right. He’d been in a destructive mood ever since the journal disintegrated and Zaccardi saved Skye McPherson. That soul should have been his!
“You—” He pointed to the older woman. “Drive.” He stared at the younger woman. “You, in back with me.”
“I—”
His eyes glowed. “I have lusted for nine hundred years since I last possessed a human body. You will serve me.”
She nodded, fear and excitement in her eyes, unable and unwilling to deny his lust.
He roared his satisfaction and ripped off her clothes.
• • •
Anthony sat in the Santa Louisa Public Library, his knees hitting the low table, hunched over a computer. He typed into the Google search engine: “Jeremiah Hatch”
He’d already woken Father Philip in Italy who was covertly looking into the mission records. The mentally disturbed priests were given necessary compassion by the church and cared for, but no one wanted to admit to the public that the presence of evil could break the strongest of the faithful. What hope could there be for regular people if devout priests crumbled within Satan’s grasp?
There were far too many hits on the name, so Anthony narrowed the search to “Jeremiah Hatch + priest.”
Fewer than a hundred sites came up and Anthony began clicking through.
He found an article published four years ago in a national newspaper about a group of missionaries, led by Monsignor Jeremiah Hatch, gone missing in Guatemala. When representatives from the Teach the Poor project had visited the site, they found it completely empty. Six missionaries gone, as if vanishing into thin air. The local villagers refused to talk, but by all accounts they knew what had happened. They’d been scared silent.
There was a bio on each missionary, including Hatch.
Monsignor Jeremiah Hatch, 43, was born in Denver, Colorado. Orphaned at the age of twelve, he was taken in by the Sisters of Mercy. A graduate of Notre Dame University, he entered St. John’s Seminary in California at the age of twenty-seven. Ordained three years later, he served as a priest in the Los Angeles Diocese, the Portland Diocese, and most recently in the Washington, DC Diocese. He’d been an advisor to Teach the Poor for the past ten years.
Anthony wondered what Hatch had done between the time he graduated college and joined the seminary. Was it just a coincidence that he’d attended the same seminary where Rafe was studying?
Another article published just a year ago mentioned Hatch again.
Three years after he went missing and was presumed dead while a missionary in Guatemala, Monsignor Jeremiah Hatch walked into a hospital in Belize. Though physically healthy, he had no recollection of the last three years.
Representatives from the United States Bishops came to bring Msgr. Hatch back to the States, but one unidentified nurse said, “He kept repeating, ‘They’re dead. They’re all dead.’ ”
That would explain why he was sent to the Santa Louisa Mission, Anthony surmised.
Curious about Hatch’s childhood, Anthony tried other search terms, focusing on Denver.
Nothing. The bad thing about the Internet was that while information over the last decade was easily searchable, the further back you went the harder it was to find anything. Archives often didn’t make it online.
Why would Monsignor Hatch bring the tabernacle to the bishop? Anthony had inspected the damage, and it was minimal—a few missing stones, a few more loose. The stones themselves were replaceable.
The importance of the tabernacle was that it protected the priests against evil. Its removal put them all in jeopardy. If Davies was responsible for summoning the demon, she may have been poisoning the priests to make it easier for the demon to gain a foothold. And if Hatch was one of the three humans needed to extract Ianax from Hell, he would know to remove the tabernacle.
It didn’t make sense unless Hatch knew of the protective qualities of the tabernacle. And wanted it gone.
And the only reason he’d want it gone would be because he knew what was coming. Who was coming.
Which meant he had betrayed everyone at Santa Louisa de Los Padres Mission. Just like Charles Wicker said.
But Hatch was dead. Had someone betrayed him? Or . . .
Anthony ran from the library. He opened the trunk of his rental—he’d taken a taxi to retrieve his car after leaving Skye—and inspected the tabernacle more closely.
He crossed himself. “Please forgive me, Father.”
On the bottom panel an ancient Hebrew incantation was stamped in the metal. Anthony had to take apart the tabernacle to remove the inscribed prayer. This would help him break the spell surrounding the evil house on the coast. Skye would return, and if he couldn’t get past the invisible barrier, she would most certainly die.
He slid into the driver’s seat and picked up his cell phone. He had to get Rod Fielding to talk to him. Then he would know for sure whether Monsignor Hatch had worshipped demons.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
FEELING ALONE WASN’T UNUSUAL, but when Skye watched Anthony walk away that morning, she felt lost. Almost as lost as when her mother deserted the family. When her father died.
She shook her head. Ridiculous. It was the remnants of the drugs, the long day and lack of sleep. That’s why her mother and father were in her thoughts. That’s why she couldn’t get Anthony out of her mind. She wanted to trust him, but how could she?
He walked through fire.
The arson investigator told her over the phone it might have appeared as if he walked in the fire, but no one could survive unscathed. He explained the concept of backdraft, and how fire seemed to disappear, then could return more powerful and destructive, consuming everything in its path.
Skye suppressed what had happened at the mission. Her mind must have tricked her eyes, just like
when she thought she saw her father on the cliffs.
She was a cop in the U.S.A. Anthony Zaccardi worked for the Vatican. A religious cult, as far as she was concerned. It wasn’t as if he would stick around once the killers were in custody. He’d go back to Italy—Rome, Florence, Sicily, wherever—and that would be that.
She rubbed her face, missing him. What had gotten into her? She wanted to place her trust in a man she’d just met, a man who had an illogical but quick answer to every one of her problems? The fact that she missed him proved her judgment was damaged, as least as far as Anthony Zaccardi was concerned.
After checking with Rod and learning it would be another day before the autopsies were complete, she checked in with dispatch. No word yet on Juan Martinez. Guilt twisted her heart. She should know where her people were at all times. Instead, when Juan went missing, she was screwing a European hottie on the cliffs.
She rubbed her face. In her heart she knew it wasn’t like that, but in the end she was responsible for the destruction of Rafe Cooper’s journal, for Juan’s disappearance, for sending Anthony away.
She went by the hospital, ostensibly to check on the status of her main suspect, but in her heart she knew it was to see Anthony. He wasn’t there, nor had he been.
She drove by the inn. He wasn’t there, either. She called dispatch and he hadn’t picked up his passport.
Her instincts overrode her personal wishes. What was he up to?
She’d already put a BOLO on Corinne Davies and her daughter, Lisa. If anyone saw them, they were to call her. She wanted to talk to them, not scare them or send them into hiding.
Running through her mental checklist, she called Brian Adamson, the delivery driver whom Juan had spoken to the morning of the murders, asking if Juan had spoken with him since yesterday morning. He hadn’t.
What Skye didn’t understand was if Ms. Davies was poisoning the priests, why would the grocery records matter to Rafe Cooper? Why couldn’t she have brought her own poison to the mission? Using the grocery would only heighten suspicion and leave a trail. She could easily have brought hemlock or whatever from her own garden. Unless, maybe, he first suspected the produce from the grocery was tainted.
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