Original Sin sds-1

by Allison Brennan

  “She needs to be deported,” he finally said. It was the only way to get Moira out of Santa Louisa. Father Philip trusted her, but she wasn’t to be trusted. Guilt niggled in the back of his head. He felt as if he were somehow deceiving Father. Anthony couldn’t let her roam free. Even if she wasn’t working with Fiona, Moira O’Donnell was still a witch.

  “First you want me to arrest her. Then you want me to let her out. Now you want me to deport her. I suppose I could call Immigration, send them her credentials, see if they have a reason to deport her, but it’s not within my power to do so.”

  “We have a crisis on our hands, and Moira O’Donnell in the mix makes it more complex and dangerous.”

  She looked as confused and frustrated as he felt. “I want to believe you, but I don’t understand. I need to understand. You said the Seven Deadly Sins were released. What does that mean?”

  “The roots of the Seven go much deeper than two thousand years of Christianity. The sins have been written about, with different names, different ideas, from the beginning of humanity. Ancient people told stories of the sins in pictographs on the walls of caves and pyramids and in Roman architecture. Even further back in Mesopotamic time. Most people believe sins are internal, personal battles we all must face. In one sense, that is true. Since the fall of man, all humans are capable of great evil. We want, we envy, we lust-we battle every day to keep these feelings, these primal urges, in check.

  “But the Seven aren’t internal sins. They are supernatural. They are mutations. They are among the Fallen Ones.”

  “You’re getting woo-woo on me, Anthony. Just lay it out for me. Logically. I trust you; I need you to be straight with me.”

  Would she believe the truth? “Some of my people think that the Seven are fallen angels.”

  “Fallen angels,” she said flatly. “Like Lucifer.”

  “Yes.”

  He read in her eyes confusion, uncertainty. She bit her lip in an effort not to tell him she didn’t believe him, or questioned him. It upset Anthony, but he couldn’t entirely blame her.

  “What do you think?” she asked quietly.

  He touched her face. So beautiful, so strong, so full of justice that it ate her up inside and out. Her heart led her to truth, to righting wrongs, and he loved that about her. “I believe that they are here. I believe they are dangerous, that they are not like demons I know and understand, but far deadlier. I don’t know how to stop them, I don’t know how to send them back, but I will find out. I promise you, I’m not resting until I figure out how to send them back to Hell before more people die.”

  She reached out for him. “I trust you, Anthony. You do everything you can to find out what happened on the cliffs last night, and I’ll do everything I can to find the people involved. Whether or not something-demonic-is on the loose, you and I both know that a flesh-and-blood human being is ultimately responsible for Abby’s death. I want that person in jail.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Murder, of course! A teenager is dead.”

  It would be almost impossible to pin the girl’s death on a coven of witches without hard, physical evidence. And if Skye became troublesome to the group, to protect themselves they’d use their dark powers to hurt her, turn her, destroy her.

  A chill ran through Anthony. He had to find some way to protect Skye from their trickery. “I need to go to the mission.” He’d been rebuilding the library there, having books sent to him from his cottage in Italy. “But first-how do we deport O’Donnell?”

  “I’ll talk to the D.A. Are you still dropping charges?”

  “Yes-but I don’t want her to run. I need to know where she is at all times.”

  “I can keep her passport. She is a material witness. If you want to take my truck to the mission, I’ll be here awhile. Abby’s autopsy is in a few hours … I can grab a car from the pool if I need it.”

  He kissed her. He would do everything to protect Skye, whether she believed what he said or not. “I love you, Skye.”

  Her face softened and he touched her chin, her cheek, her soft blond hair. Love was not an adequate word for his feelings. “Be careful, mia amore.”

  “You too.” She kissed him lightly, then slid out the driver’s door and he moved into the driver’s seat.

  “I’ll return this afternoon,” he said.

  Skye watched Anthony pull out of the parking lot, driving too fast. She cringed. She probably shouldn’t have let him drive her official vehicle, but Santa Louisa had always been more laid-back than most counties in California. With fewer than twenty-nine thousand residents, it landed near the bottom of the population list, so small by West Coast standards that most California residents couldn’t pinpoint it on a map.

  She walked in through the main doors and heard the phone ringing. It was barely daybreak and the phone was ringing? She smelled something odd-but couldn’t identify it.

  The desk sergeant was asleep, the phone ringing next to him having no effect.

  Asleep or …

  She drew her firearm and looked cautiously as she approached Deputy Jorgenson to see if he was injured. The phone stopped ringing; the silence made her heart race. She felt his pulse. Strong.

  “Deputy Jorgenson!” Skye shook him by the shoulders. “Are you sick? Bruce!”

  Jorgenson wasn’t yet fully alert, but he struggled to speak and stand. She caught a whiff of something that smelled like rosemary and … something like baking. Food poisoning?

  “I-don’t know.”

  A fine, off-white powder covered his dark hair and shoulders, some falling on his desk.

  “Have you been drinking?” She touched the powder, sniffed it. Definitely a hint of rosemary, and lavender, and other herbs.

  “No!” He coughed.

  “Sit tight, be alert.”

  She didn’t know if he’d been drugged or not, but she didn’t want him covering her back if he wasn’t one hundred percent alert. She spoke into her lapel mic, “All available units, 10–34. I repeat, officer needs assistance at headquarters.”

  Another phone rang, but there were no voices. They had a minimum of four officers at headquarters during graveyard shift, more if the four jail cells were full. Where was everyone?

  The phone stopped ringing and Skye heard the faint sound of the television in the break room. The twenty-four-hour sports channel. Then steady banging, coming from the jail.

  She had no intention of walking into the jail cell without backup, but when she saw two more deputies sleeping at their desks, one right outside the holding pen, she feared for the lives of her men.

  Damn, damn, damn! She glanced at the log, noted that there were four prisoners, two drunk and disorderly, one grand-theft auto, and Moira O’Donnell.

  Just as she was about to enter the holding pen, Young walked in. “What happened, Sheriff?”

  “I don’t know. Jorgenson, the others appear to have been drugged. Did you see anything when you brought O’Donnell in?”

  “No, I booked her, then went on break across the street at the coffee shop.”

  “We’re going in. Ready?”

  He took out his sidearm and nodded.

  “On three.” She held up her fingers. One, two, three.”

  She opened the door with her key, slowly and quietly. She smelled blood and her heart skipped a beat, her mind transported back to the slaughter at the mission ten weeks ago. The murders had been human, but the cause was supernatural.

  She glanced around and noted the banging was Mr. Grand Theft Auto pounding the heel of his sneaker on the bars.

  “It’s about fucking time!” he yelled when he saw her.

  Skye saw Moira O’Donnell, sprawled on the cement floor, blood pooled around her and smears on the wall. Her first thought was murder. Skye had Young cover the door while she quickly searched-there were no hiding spaces in the jail.

  She opened the cell and checked Moira’s pulse. Strong. Her eyes opened, then closed again.

  “Moira!”
Skye exclaimed. “What happened?”

  The auto thief said, “She’s bleeding to death, what do you think?”

  “Shut up,” Skye ordered.

  He continued. “This crazy dame walked in, some kind of psychic or something, and the babe just flopped against the wall like some big beefy guy was holding her up, and then her nose started bleeding like a fucking waterfall.”

  Moira groaned and tried to get up. “Relax,” Skye told her. Protocols would demand that Skye wait for additional backup, secure the prisoner, and arrange for transport to the hospital. But Anthony had dropped the charges, Moira wasn’t a threat to her. Could a demon have done this?

  She said, “Anthony dropped the charges against you, Ms. O’Donnell. You’re free to go. I’ll call a medic, get you to the hospital.”

  Moira rolled over onto her back, wiping the blood from her face with her stained shirt. She began to laugh, borderline hysterical, and Skye tensed. “She found me. Seven years and she never found me until now.”

  “Who?”

  She continued to laugh. “You-you think you can arrest Fiona O’Donnell? For what?” She sat up. Skye offered her hand, but Moira ignored it, crawling over to the bars and pulling herself up onto unsteady legs. Skye was stunned at the huge amount of blood left behind on the floor. It had presumably come from her nose, but Moira also had scrapes on her face and arms, and a nasty bruise on the side of her head, partly obscured by her hair.

  “Let’s get you to the hospital-” Skye said.

  “No. No. I just need a bathroom for a few minutes.”

  “You lost a lot of blood.”

  “I just need a few minutes,” Moira repeated. “And orange juice. If you have any. Or water.”

  Skye was inclined to take the woman back into custody and force her to go to the hospital, but what would she tell the ER doc? That no one touched her? She stared into Moira’s eyes, so incredibly blue-both dark and bright-that Skye felt entranced.

  “All right,” she reluctantly agreed. “Then I’ll drive you back to your motel.”

  She planned to argue, Skye could tell from her posture. Then she relented. “Thank you.”

  ELEVEN

  During the fifteen-minute drive from the jail to the motel on the edge of town, Moira didn’t speak unless the sheriff asked her a direct question. She was numb from both physical and emotional pain. All she wanted was to return to the Italian sanctuary of St. Michael’s and lick her wounds.

  But of course she couldn’t run away, and not just because the sheriff had kept her passport. The time for running was over. Her mother was here in Santa Louisa, and she had to be stopped. Fiona had done awful things in her life-kidnapping, torture, murder, a seemingly endless spree all done for power. Power begets power-the more control Fiona exercised over dark forces, the more power she craved.

  But it wasn’t simply the lust for power that drove Fiona and other magicians. It was the thirst for knowledge that could never be satisfied. One taste of the infinite possibilities and the need for more grew, all-consuming, never ending until death. And for Fiona, death was merely an obstacle that could be avoided, within reach was the golden trophy: becoming a demigod.

  Moira had to stand in Fiona’s way. She accepted that she would die-she deserved to-but Fiona would as well. Pure justice.

  Yet if Moira was caught again by surprise, trapped, there was no way she’d survive long enough to stop her mother. She could protect herself if she were free, but locked up-she was a sitting duck. She’d make sure that never happened again.

  Skye pulled into the motel parking lot. “Thanks for the lift,” Moira said as she reached for the door handle.

  “You didn’t listen to anything I said.”

  “I have a headache, it’s been a shitty day. I promise, I’m not going anywhere. Besides, you have my passport.”

  “What did she do to you?” Skye asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe it. Best thing you can do is stay out of my way.”

  Skye turned off the ignition and bristled. “I don’t like threats.”

  “I’m trying to save your ass. Fiona won’t go after you unless you try to stop her from getting what she wants. She doesn’t know what tricks Anthony has up his sleeve, but you can bet she knows you’re screwing him and she’ll use that against you if she can.”

  Skye blanched. “I’m not-I mean, it’s-”

  “Save it.”

  “I’m not going to let anyone hurt Anthony, or get away with murder.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Shit, I hate it when Anthony says that and I really hate it when you say it.”

  Moira asked, “How’d you and Anthony hook up?”

  “You know about what happened at the mission?”

  “Santa Louisa de los Padres? Of course. A demon-driven murder-suicide.”

  “More like drug-induced murder-suicide. The priests were poisoned. There was one survivor, Anthony’s friend Rafe Cooper. Know him?”

  Rafe Cooper. Raphael Cooper?

  She shrugged, disguising her interest. “Not personally.” Of course she’d heard of him. He was from St. Michael’s. Moira glanced toward her motel room. No light.

  She’d left a light on.

  She discreetly looked around the parking lot. Jared. His truck was parked on the far side. Had he found Lily? Moira hoped so … and that he’d actually listened to her and brought his girlfriend here.

  Moira itched to get inside, but she also didn’t know if she could trust the sheriff completely. Yet based on the phone conversation Fiona had while torturing Moira, someone had tipped her off that the sheriff was coming in. Who? A cop?

  “So, where’s Anthony now?” she asked Skye.

  “Researching.”

  Moira couldn’t help but smile. Some things never changed. “I hope he finds something useful. I don’t know how much time we have, but Fiona will be working all hours of the day and night to finish what she started.”

  “And exactly just what did she start?”

  “You heard Anthony. He told you about the Seven. And-” She hesitated.

  “And what?”

  “Fiona said something that had me thinking her ritual went wrong. I don’t think she has the Seven Deadly Sins under her control. Not yet.”

  “Then where are they? Still in Hell?”

  Moira glanced at Skye, impressed that the cop was thinking like a paranormal investigator. “Possibly. Either there, or out and about, and wreaking havoc in the world.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because she was frustrated about it. Also, if she had them under her control, she wouldn’t have time to spend trying to kill me. It’s not like she can put them in a cage and walk away. She would need to maintain a demon trap, which is difficult in the short term and nearly impossible in the long term. Either way, she’d need to focus all her psychic magic on the trap, not walking away and playing games with her traitorous daughter.”

  “And why aren’t they still in Hell?”

  “They could be, but …” But what? “It’s just a feeling. And what I saw out there.” Moira didn’t want to explain her vision standing at the ruins, which would inevitably open the door to more questions that she didn’t have the time for. She itched to get inside and talk to Jared.

  Skye had more questions, but Moira cut her off with, “I’m really tired. Can I go in?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

  “I’m fine.” She held up the quart of orange juice Skye had bought her at the mini-mart near the jail. “This helped, and with a few hours’ sleep I’ll be good.” She didn’t plan on sleeping.

  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’ll try to be smart.” She put her hand on the door, then asked, “What’s going to happen with Abby’s body?”

  “Why?”

  “You absolutely must convince the family to cremate her body.”

  “It’s not my place.”

  “You don’
t underst-”

  “Stop!” Skye ran a hand through her hastily pinned-back hair. “You and Anthony-I swear, I understand a hell of a lot more than either of you give me credit for. Why, dammit, is her body so important?”

  She wanted honesty? “The human remains from a sacrifice are divided up for use in a variety of divinations. Her heart. Her liver. Her ovaries. Her eyes. Her organs have value. They’ll cut her up and use her for years. It’s sick, but it’s very effective. And it traps her soul. She’ll wander, restless, divided. Evil spirits are truly dangerous, because they usually can’t be destroyed until all their remains are destroyed. As soon as her remains are divided, she’ll be nearly unstoppable.”

  Skye looked ill. “I’m going to get some sleep,” Moira said. “Do what you can.” She wasn’t holding her breath. Moira herself would have to find the body and destroy it. There was no other option. Unless she could convince Anthony to do it. He would understand the dangers.

  She started to get out of the truck, but Skye grabbed her arm. “If you’re right, they’ve done this before. So why isn’t the world overrun with evil spirits?”

  Moira stared at her, a half-smile on her face. “Who says it isn’t?”

  Skye downed her third cup of foul-tasting sweetened black coffee and still felt fuzzy after two hours’ sleep and eight hours of investigation.

  She watched the medical examiner, her longtime colleague Dr. Rod Fielding, cut into the body of seventeen-year-old Abigail Weatherby.

  She had to admit that she was unnerved by the conversation she’d had with Moira O’Donnell on the way from the jail to the motel. She caught herself biting her thumbnail, and pulled out a pair of latex gloves from the box on Rod’s workbench to stop the nervous habit.

  Anthony didn’t like Moira because he thought she was a witch responsible for the death of one of his “brothers”-the boys he’d grown up with at the orphanage. She supposed it wasn’t technically an orphanage-Anthony had never referred to St. Michael’s as such-but Skye didn’t know how else to think about it. None of the boys there had parents, and they’d all taken the last name of one of the priests or monks in residence.