“Do you have an iron dagger?”
He looked sheepish. “Rafe told me to get my weapons-they’re in the old sanctuary behind the altar. But the only way you can get to the room is through a door on the altar. That’s where I put the kiln as well to melt the chalice-it’s on, but it hasn’t had time to heat to the required temperature.”
“Is the sanctuary locked?”
“No, but the door is one of the wood panels and the handle is camouflaged. On the left side, facing the altar.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She had her jacket back, but that wouldn’t do her much good if Wendy started zapping her with magical jolts.
She slid back through the window. Like Jackson, she had gotten wet sliding along the muddy grass outside, but the basement itself was dry. A dim bulb in the middle of the small room showed that this was used for storage-several pews, extra chairs, Christmas and Easter decorations. It certainly wasn’t a full basement, as the church above was at least ten times bigger than this room.
She found the door Jackson had indicated and went up the narrow stairs. As she ascended, she smelled the sulphur of Hell, stronger here than outside. Dark energy slithered over her skin, making her hair rise. She forced her heart rate to slow, focused on her senses. Where was everyone? If they were going with the plan, then Grant should be in a spirit trap on the altar.
Her hand began to throb where yesterday Nadine had clawed the healing wound from her battle with the demon Envy. Moira continued up the stairs, hearing voices now. It was an incantation, Wendy and Pam reciting a vaguely familiar spell. It wasn’t exactly a summoning ritual, but …
She took a chance and skirted around the edge of the back of the altar, trying to see what was happening. Wendy, Pam, and Julie-or rather the demon possessing Julie-were standing around Grant, who was protected by the reverse spirit trap. What were they doing? She glanced down: the salt had been disturbed, but the sacred oil was doing its job for the moment, soaking through the red carpet in a wide circle.
Grant was writhing in pain, his body twisting in the seat. He was trying to talk, but couldn’t. Trying futilely to break his bonds.
She looked around the unlit church for Rafe. Thirty rows of twenty-foot-long oak pews framed either side of a wide aisle. The rapidly descending darkness made it more difficult to see, except where swatches of light were coming in from the streetlights.
Her eyes narrowed when she saw Rafe suspended against the far wall. Nina was pinned beside him.
He appeared unharmed, anger and concern clouding his expression. She wanted to get him down but couldn’t yet risk exposing her presence.
The group of witches in front of her was only ten feet from the door to the sanctuary. The altar table had been moved to the side so that the reverse trap could be laid out to protect Grant. There was nothing for her to hide behind, nothing to shield her from being seen. But she couldn’t wait for a distraction; Grant might not live long enough.
As she watched, Julie’s body collapsed. Her body lay motionless in front of Grant, outside the circle. A revolting stench filled the church-fouler than anything Moira had smelled before. She looked everywhere, at Wendy and Pam, Rafe and Nina-who had the demon entered? Dammit, where was it?
Moira’s heart skipped a beat when she saw the chalice was on the floor in front of Grant. Wendy stared at it, excitement brightening her face.
“Pamela! It worked!”
Worked? What the-Moira bit back a scream. The glass ball at the top of the chalice had turned dark gray and smoky. Then the smoke began to leach from the glass into the cup below. It flowed out of the cup and filled the space within the trap.
Wendy had used the chalice as a portal-not to Hell, but into the trap-in order to fulfill the agreement she’d made with Lust for Grant’s soul. Now the demon was contained in the spirit trap, but so was Grant.
While Wendy was enraptured by the transforming demon, Moira ran across the altar, searching for the door. No, no, no-shit!
“Wendy!” Pam shouted. “It’s O’Donnell!”
Wendy first glanced behind her toward Rafe, not knowing where Moira was. Moira sprung the latch and jumped inside the sanctuary. It was a long, narrow room filled with boxes, crosses, some chairs, and several remnants from the previous church, including an old baptismal font. She found a whole array of weapons on the shelf next to the door and grabbed two knives similar to her own. Now wasn’t the time to try something new.
She also saw a Glock and briefly wondered whether it was Grant Nelson’s. She grabbed that, too, and stuffed it in her pocket.
The sanctuary shook violently. Supplies crashed down around her and she fled.
Wendy grabbed her as soon as she emerged, but Moira was prepared. She elbowed Wendy, then spun around and kicked her in the stomach, propelling herself with her momentum until she was several feet out of Wendy’s reach.
Grant cried out in pained surprise, and Moira glanced at the trap. She needed to get him out of there, but the demon was swirling around, beginning to take form.
Pam stood outside the circle, staring at the darkly glowing clouds. A deep rumbling built within the church, growing louder until it sounded like a thousand bats in flight. The thick mist took shape and solidified into the form of a stunning woman.
“Wendy-what’s happening?” Pam asked.
Wendy stared at the demon, an odd smile on her face. “We did it!”
“Did what?” Moira shouted. “You don’t understand what this thing is!” Moira saw the demon beneath the skin; in its shiny eyes she saw the fires of Hell.
Wendy looked almost giddy. “Yes! I do! I gave the demon life! It doesn’t need a human body anymore.”
Moira wanted to smack the witch. “You did nothing! That’s what it is-that is the demon Lust!”
Wendy turned to her, eyes narrow. “You’re jealous because I have far more power than you and your pathetic mother!”
Pam was staring, unable to take her eyes away from the beautiful creature walking slowly around the circle.
The demon stopped and looked at Pam, who was only a couple of feet from the edge. In a seductive voice, she asked, “Are you scared of me?”
Pam said nothing.
“Pamela, tell me the truth, do I scare you?”
Obviously terrified, Pam shook her head no.
The demon raised her elegant hands, palms up and out, and released a wave of unseen energy that pushed Pam across the church with such force that her body slammed the building’s far corner, a hundred feet away, causing the plaster to crack. Pam’s body hung there for just a second, embedded in the wall, before it dropped unmoving to the floor.
Wendy stared, wide-eyed and stunned.
Moira assessed the situation. Wendy wasn’t surprised at the demon taking corporeal form, but she hadn’t expected the demon to kill Pam. Why had she thought they were safe?
Moira remembered Nicole’s comments about paying back her sister. Being used and manipulated. She pushed that with Wendy.
“Nicole betrayed you,” Moira told her, knife out. “She’s safe from this demon. She was in the protective circle two weeks ago when Lust was summoned. Nicole wants you dead. You have to help stop this insanity!”
Wendy laughed, her eyes wild. “I’m not falling for your tricks. That’s an old one, divide and conquer.”
Moira glanced over to where Rafe had been trapped against the wall-but he was gone. Where was he? Then she caught a glimpse of movement, low, between the pews.
She had to neutralize Wendy or she could do nothing to help Grant. She glanced over and saw that the demon was looking at Grant with pure lust-lust to kill.
“You’re mine, darling,” it said to him.
“Julie,” Grant moaned. “Where’s Julie?”
The demon grew frustrated. “I’m far more beautiful. Far more powerful than her.”
Lust sounded jealous. Did Lust need Grant to want her? Craig Monroe, George Erickson-they had acted on their lust, and she’d stolen their souls
.
But how had the demon changed the game? It was trapped-Moira shot a glance to the chalice in front of Grant. The demon could use the portal to possess any of them, or escape the trap. And if the demon succeeded in killing Grant, it would be freed.
Keep fighting, Grant. It’ll buy us time.
The demon grabbed him by the throat and kissed him as her body slowly moved up and down in a seductive lap dance. Its shimmering golden hair moved as if on its own. A scream from deep in Grant’s chest sent chills up Moira’s spine.
Grant turned his head away and the demon growled. It turned toward Julie’s body and made the unconscious woman stand.
“You want her? This weak vessel? This human? You are a pathetic man.”
Moira couldn’t let Julie die the way Pam just had. She began an exorcism that Rafe had been teaching her-the one he’d used in Santa Louisa on the demon Envy. It hadn’t stopped Envy, but it had slowed it down. She prayed it would work on Lust.
“Avertet mala inimicis meis in veritate tua-”
At the sound of her voice, the demon turned to her with a scowl. “It is you. You are a problem.”
She felt her body rise from the floor. She shouted, “Avertet mala inimicis meis in veritate tua disperde illos! Voluntarie sacrificabo tibi confitebor nomini tuo Domine quoniam bonum!”
Fury twisted Lust’s expression as Moira broke the demon’s hold on her, just for a moment. But that was enough time to pull the holy water from her pocket and squirt it at the demon.
Steam rose from its skin where the droplets of blessed water hit. Lust hissed in annoyance more than agony. From past experience, Moira knew it wouldn’t stop the demon, but anything holy and pure would weaken it. With its full power, she’d never be able to stop it.
She glanced around the church but didn’t see Rafe or Nina. Jeff Johnston had regained consciousness and had crawled weakly to hide between the pews.
The demon’s voice had Moira focusing on the danger at hand. It said to Grant, “You are mine. I broke the spell; I will break you all!” Lust sat on his lap.
What did Lust mean about the spell being broken? The demon had to be talking about the ritual where Wendy and Pam sent it into the chalice so it could breach the reverse spirit trap.
She whirled around and shouted to Wendy, “Who gave you that ritual? Who taught you how to use the chalice to violate the trap?”
Wendy had regained her feet after Moira knocked her down. She was holding her stomach, and Moira suspected she’d cracked a rib.
“Dammit, Wendy! This is important or you’re going to die.”
“I’m not going to die!”
“Who gave you the fucking spell?”
Wendy refused to answer, but her eyes flickered toward the trap. Dammit, the demon had used the witch and Wendy hadn’t even suspected it.
But her sister Nicole had.
Moira had no idea how they were going to trap the demon, but she knew she had to get that chalice-the portal-out of the trap or the demon would be able to move freely back and forth. Out of the trap, it would be unstoppable, but its lust for Grant-its craving for his soul-would keep the damned creature occupied. And she also needed to get Grant out of harm’s way before Lust finished with him.
Wendy rushed toward her as she moved to the trap. At the same time, from the corner of her eye she saw Rafe, an odd look on his face, jump up from behind the first pew and run up the aisle, leaping up the five stairs to the altar with one stride.
No! No! She pictured the demon throwing him across the church, just as had happened to Peter, her first love. The lover she’d killed when a demon possessed her seven years ago. She would not lose Rafe that way. She wouldn’t lose Rafe!
But he didn’t even acknowledge or look at her. He was focused solely on Grant. What was wrong with him?
In Moira’s hesitation, Wendy hit her hard in the lower back. The excruciating pain brought her to her knees.
“I will not let you ruin this for me!”
“The demon”-Moira took a deep breath, blinking back tears while pushing the pain from intolerable to barely manageable-“will kill you.”
“You know nothing about the underworld!”
“I know more than you.”
Moira pulled the gun from her waistband and rolled over. Wendy held a knife above her chest. Moira lowered the barrel and shot Wendy in first one calf, then the other. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but she had to get Wendy out of the picture.
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.”
“B
ut 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.
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