Original Sin: The Seven Deadly Sins

by Allison Brennan

  After tonight, she needed it.

  She almost threw the Conoscenza across the room, but as if the book itself lived, as if sensing her intent, the ancient text became hot. Fiona dropped it on the table.

  She picked up another thick tome, Twilight, and threw it instead. Its spine cracked when it hit the wall and dropped to the floor. She grabbed another, and this time threw it at Richard. He ducked, but the book hit him in the head, and she smiled.

  “How did Cooper awaken? Tonight of all nights?”

  “I swear, Fiona, medea, I do not know! I did everything I could to keep him in sleep. When I left he was the same as always.”

  “Zaccardi?”

  “Nowhere. He came by the hospital this morning, like every morning, but didn’t stay longer than usual. Cooper was in the same condition. No one even called me to report he’d awakened. I swear—”

  “Go. Get back there right now. Find out what happened, if anyone helped him. If your magic is so weak that you can’t give me the answers I need, I will send Serena.”

  “I will, but—”

  “Richard, I just gave you simple orders. Find out how Raphael Cooper woke up and left the hospital.” Her voice was suddenly eerily calm, which might have been even more frightening.

  He left briskly. When she was alone, Fiona turned back to the Conoscenza.

  “Why am I not given the gift?” She slammed her hand down on the book, challenging it. A puff of smoke escaped, her palm burned, and she jerked it away.

  “It’s not fair,” Fiona whispered.

  She was the daughter of a witch, the granddaughter of a witch, and the great-granddaughter of one of the greatest magicians in Ireland. In the world. Her lineage went back to the beginning of magic itself, she’d learned after years of meditation and study. While anyone could practice witchcraft, Fiona had a natural talent, a skill and finesse and inner strength that put her head and shoulders above even the strongest magicians in the world. Few could compete with her. When some tried, she always won.

  Fiona fought fiercely when challenged, so most of her competitors were dead. Those who were not dead became her subordinates, but she watched them closely. She quelled potential mutinies long before they became cancerous.

  With all her strength, her heritage, her talent, she hadn’t been given the ability to read the old language. If she had the knowledge, she could have stopped Cooper. Serena had never been one to think on her feet; she was too rigid, too restrained. Fiona could have twisted the spells to battle Cooper. It was her destiny to unite the covens of the world, to stir the cauldron of human apathy and discontent into a frenzy. With her at the helm, they would quash St. Michael’s Order and the last remnants of the great witch hunt would die away.

  They would no longer need to practice in the dark of night, in the alleys and fields and hidden niches of the world. Fiona already had several high-placed witches in positions of power, elected officials and businessmen, the rich and the powerful, the leaders and the teachers. By controlling the Seven released at the cliffs, she would gather more support from the covens. Once she had them contained, once the covens united under her command, she would at long last be able to breach St. Michael’s sanctuary.

  The fools there did not know what they had. If they did, they would have destroyed it long ago.

  The library doors swung open and Fiona whirled around, furious that the intruder hadn’t knocked.

  It was Garrett, with Serena behind him.

  “We have a problem,” he said. “I had to leave her, there was—”

  “A problem? Where’s the vessel?” Fiona demanded. “You didn’t clean up?”

  “I began to, but the police came.”

  Fiona clenched her fists. Sparks of electricity snapped around her.

  “And Cooper?” she asked, her voice a mere whisper.

  “We searched at a distance after the police arrived, but we couldn’t pick up his path in the rocky soil. The police—”

  She put her hand up, not wanting another excuse from him. The electricity charges snapped on the ends of her fingers. She wanted to hurt him, but she was disciplined and caught herself. Instead, she flung her energy away from him and Serena, across the room, into the fish tank against the far wall. The water bubbled and boiled, steam rising as the fish floated to the top.

  “Fiona, we have a bigger problem,” Garrett said.

  Fiona’s eyes flashed. “There can be no bigger problem than the Seven out of my control!”

  “Moira.”

  “That name is forbidden.”

  “I saw her,” Garrett said. “She showed up minutes after you and the others left. She didn’t see me, I stayed hidden among the cypress, and when the boy she was with left I was going to grab her, but then the police arrived.”

  “No!” Fiona was emphatic. “I would know if that traitor was near!”

  “She must have protection,” Serena mused.

  Fiona paced, furious. Even Serena didn’t know the extent of Moira’s betrayal. The suffering and sacrifice that Fiona had to endure to regain her lost power, all because of her ungrateful firstborn!

  She wanted Andra Moira to suffer for eternity. Fiona would bring this about with her own mind and hands, with her magic, her power, her demons. The traitor would be torn apart, put back together, torn apart … Moira would watch those she loved, those she cared about, clawed and eaten by the vilest of demons that feasted on human flesh; she would be subjected to a thousand lashings, over and over, until she bled from every inch of her flesh, bleeding but still alive; and Fiona would joyfully sic the leeches on her, to painfully suck her dry like dozens of small vampires.

  The last time Fiona sought to punish Moira, the girl had fought back and turned the effort against her. If her bratty spawn had been practicing all these years since, Fiona didn’t know if she could defeat her one-on-one.

  Fiona could turn the Seven on her traitorous daughter and, once and for all, pay back a debt long overdue. That is, once she trapped the demons again. Once she found the arca.

  “Serena! Get my map. I will find her.”

  “No need,” Garrett said. “I know where she is. Zaccardi had his bitch arrest her.”

  Fiona laughed. Oh, maybe the universe had sided with her tonight.

  “The traitor is in jail?”

  “Yes. I saw her in cuffs.”

  “Beautiful. Serena, continue researching our problem with the Seven.” Fiona walked across the library, her bright gown flowing behind her, her red hair bouncing luxuriously off her back. Regal and knowing exactly how she looked to those around her. Beautiful. She put on her cape and added, “I’m going to make you an only child tonight.”

  Serena nodded. She picked up the Conoscenza and hugged the book. “I’ll find the answers.”

  Fiona stopped next to her fish tank and frowned, suddenly sad. “Serena, fetch Margo. My poor fish. I can’t bear to see them dead.”

  Skye wasn’t happy about arresting Moira O’Donnell. She didn’t understand Anthony’s vicious reaction to the woman who obviously was in his same strange business, but when Moira slugged Anthony—catching him by surprise—Skye had reacted. The woman had committed assault, and no law officer could let that slide. She’d been armed with a dagger, but also with paraphernalia that Skye herself had around the house ever since Anthony had walked into her life and into her heart. When she put Moira in the back of Deputy Young’s car, she couldn’t help but think that maybe she was overreacting. Jared Santos was a good kid. If he could vouch that they were together when they found the body, Skye would release her—decking Anthony notwithstanding.

  Deep down, she realized she was jealous. She’d known Anthony for fewer than three months. They lived together, they loved each other, but Anthony had lived a long and strange life before he arrived in Santa Louisa. He’d brought the bizarre into her life.

  She’d seen things she couldn’t explain. She’d been drugged, attacked, kidnapped, restrained, and nearly died at the hands of her bes
t friend and head detective, Juan Martinez, while he’d been possessed. She’d actually seen the demon when it had been exorcized from Juan’s body. Anthony had cut his leg with a special dagger—not unlike the one she had confiscated from Moira O’Donnell—to save Juan.

  So she believed Anthony when he said that the Seven Deadly Sins were more than a fable or religious fairy tale. If Anthony told her they were demons, then dammit, they were demons, and she had to find a way to save her town, the small piece of the world that Skye had sworn to protect and serve.

  But if anyone other than Anthony had told her that the Seven Deadly Sins were real, she would have laughed or committed him for seventy-two hours in the psych ward.

  Dr. Rod Fielding approached Skye with a nod as Young drove off with Moira O’Donnell. The head crime scene investigator was now the acting coroner, after Rich Willem surprised her by retiring at the end of the year. Skye had tried to convince Rod to take the appointment, but he declined, telling her it was just temporary while she searched for Willem’s replacement.

  Rod headed for the corpse, then stopped and looked around. “What happened here?” he asked. He saw Anthony standing on the far edge of the lot, talking on his cell. “This isn’t—” He saw the symbols, even though they had been partly concealed. He noticed the red silk linens, the naked body, the spilled candles.

  “Dear Lord.”

  “It’s Abby Weatherby,” Skye said.

  “I know Abby’s parents.” The pain in his voice was real.

  He rubbed his eyes, then pulled on gloves as he said, “What happened?”

  “Hope you can tell me.”

  They crossed over to the body and Rod frowned. “She’s naked. Any sign of sexual assault?”

  “Not that I could see externally—there’s no blood on her body, no visible bruising. There are no external wounds, I can’t see any obvious cause of death.”

  “Did anyone touch or move the body?”

  Skye hesitated. “Possibly. Jared Santos and a friend of his found her. I don’t think they disturbed her, but I can’t say for certain.”

  “Where is he? Can you ask him? Or his friend?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Jared yet. And I took Moira O’Donnell into custody. She—” Skye hesitated. Rod was one of the few people who knew what really happened last November, but Skye felt strange talking about supernatural events as if she were discussing common crime. “O’Donnell is from Anthony’s … group.” That sounded lame, but how else could she explain it?

  “Why’d you arrest her?”

  “She assaulted Anthony.”

  Rod grinned. “She hit him? Really.”

  “Don’t look so happy about it.” Skye changed the subject. “Anthony thinks there were other people here—a, um, coven.” She mumbled the last word.

  “He thinks what? Did you say coven? As in witches?” Rod looked around, taking in what she and Anthony had catalogued earlier. “It’s certainly freaky, but we’ve been having trouble keeping trespassers off this site ever since the fire. These kids are dumb-asses, you know that as well as I do. I’ll do a full tox screen of Abby, but I know you’re thinking exactly what I am. We’ve talked about it before.”

  “Kids partying, getting high, OD.”

  “Exactly. I’m not rushing to a conclusion, but honestly, this isn’t new. We’ve seen it time and time again, and you and I both know Abby was running wild this past year. Senior, about to leave home, breaking away from strict parents. We’ve seen it here and in every other town big and small in America. I’m just disheartened to see so much potential gone to shit.”

  Maybe Anthony was wrong, or the demonic symbols were a game, not truly meant to summon demons or anything else. Just kids messing around. Maybe there had been a supernatural ritual here, but before Abby arrived. Or she interrupted something …

  “I’ll track down her boyfriend if she has one, talk to her friends. Someone will crack.”

  Rod squatted next to Abby’s body and did a visual inspection, then pulled on gloves and touched the body in several areas. “When was she discovered?”

  “Approximately two a.m.”

  He glanced at his watch, made a note in his book. “About ninety minutes ago—take or leave. She hasn’t been dead much longer than that. She’s in the very early stages of rigor, which is likely with the low temperature—I’d put her death no more than two hours.”

  He looked in her mouth, eyes, nose, throat. He spread her legs to check for obvious sexual assault, found none, and rolled her to check for injuries on her back.

  “Nothing physical. Honestly, this looks like her and her boyfriend came out here to screw and get high. She OD’d and he fled.”

  “He took off with her clothes?” Skye doubted it but didn’t say anything. Rod was a veteran, nearing retirement age but sharp as a tack. He was also the one who’d come up with the key to solving the murders of the priests at the mission last November. She trusted his judgment, but wondered if his knee-jerk response now was because he didn’t want to contemplate something … otherworldly.

  As Rod eased the victim’s body back into its original position, she saw something. “What’s that on the back of her neck? Move her hair.” Skye pulled on one latex glove and gently pushed the girl onto her side. “There.”

  She pointed to an elaborate and colorful tattoo on the back of her neck—right where the neck touched the shoulders.

  “Looks like a professional tattoo,” Rod said after inspecting it. “I’ll take photos at the morgue.”

  She glanced at Anthony and saw that he was talking on the phone. She bit her lip and hated that she wanted to eavesdrop.

  “I’m going to collect her with this linen,” Rod said, “to preserve trace evidence. But I’ve done all I can do here. I’ll tag and bag her and transport her to the morgue.”

  “What time can you do the autopsy?”

  “Right away. I’ll prep her, then begin at eight a.m. You coming?”

  “Absolutely.” She looked over at Anthony, who was still deep in conversation and worried. He caught her eye, then turned his back to her. Something was up, Skye thought as she went to help catalogue the rest of the crime scene.

  Anthony listened intently to Father Philip, disliking the direction of the conversation.

  “You need to help her,” Father said after telling Anthony that he’d known all along that Moira O’Donnell was in the States—even before Anthony had left the island for Santa Louisa last November.

  “You knew that witch was here?”

  “Now is not the time for this argument.”

  “She is a Jezebel, she has deceived you.” Anthony’s stomach turned. He and the Father had had this argument many times, and neither could convince the other of the rightness of his position. There was nothing Father Philip, or Rico, or any of the others who held Moira blameless could say to convince Anthony that she was not a threat to St. Michael’s Order, and nothing he said nor the facts he presented about her culpability in Peter’s death swayed them either. She had brought the demon into St. Michael’s. She was responsible for its crimes.

  Father Philip ignored his comment and said, “She called me tonight when she found out about the ritual on the cliffs. I told her to call you, but as there has been considerable animosity between you two, I’m not surprised she didn’t. But you knew—”

  He didn’t want to discuss his strange connection to the ruins, so he interrupted. “I check the cliffs every night because of the darkness that surrounds the place.” It was like a black hole, with mass and depth, as if the laws of physics didn’t apply. Not now, not tonight—whatever the coven did here changed the place. “There have been some signs of occult activity over the last two months, but nothing like what I found tonight.”

  “What happened? I’ve been trying to reach Moira, but she’s not answering her phone.”

  “According to the signs, the Seven have been released. A teenager died in the process—possibly a sacrifice. Moira O’Donnell was in the mi
ddle of it. She claims she found the body, but I don’t buy it. Why can’t you see that she’s the problem? She’s been part of the underworld uprising from the beginning—she started with her mother, and while she may not be working with Fiona anymore, she had her own brand of magic, and it got Peter killed. I called Olivet tonight and learned that she was supposed to arrive there months ago but never showed. She’s a loose cannon—and I honestly don’t care what her motives are. You—”

  “Anthony,” Father snapped, interrupting him. “You’re wrong about Moira, and while she was supposed to return to Olivet, Rico knew her plans. But we haven’t time for this discussion now. Are you certain about the Seven?”

  Anthony hesitated, feeling like an admonished child. “Yes,” he replied. “I’m certain that’s who they were summoning, but I can’t say whether it worked, or why they need the Seven, or who specifically is behind it. This is bigger than anything I’ve dealt with. I need my books, I need to research.” He felt far more confident poring over ancient texts than battling demons face-to-face. He’d done it once to save Skye—he didn’t want to go through that horrible experience again.

  “Good, I’ll send you anything you need. But please, let Moira do her job.”

  “Job? What job?”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone.”

  Anthony froze. Father Philip was his mentor, had been since he was a small boy. They shared the same last name, because that was the way it was at the monastery with the orphans—one of the priests or monks “adopted” the child and was his primary caregiver. Father Philip had taken him … and Peter. Which was why Anthony didn’t understand Father’s acceptance of that witch, Moira O’Donnell.

  “Has this job been going on while she was supposed to be at Olivet?”

  “Longer. Anthony—I will explain when we are face-to-face. Or you can ask Moira herself.”

  “Neither will happen soon.”

  “It may be time for a council at Olivet.”

  Anthony couldn’t control the hurt he felt deep inside that Father had kept something as important as this from him for so long. But he said, “I understand.”