Original Sin

by Allison Brennan

  A coven.

  Don’t think, just act, don’t think, do, quiet quiet quiet, they won’t see me, don’t let them see me …

  Rafe didn’t know how he knew what the coven was doing, but as he neared the assembled group he understood everything as if he’d known it all along. Yet when he tried to concentrate on individual thoughts they disappeared, like a partial recognition of an old friend, or a suspected enemy. You know you know them, but you don’t remember where or why or when.

  He didn’t need to know why or how he knew, he just needed to accept the truth: this coven was summoning demons and sacrificing the girls on the altar to do it.

  Neither girl would survive when it was over. That he knew with certainty.

  Rafe told himself this was foolish, one weak man against a dozen witches. How long had he been asleep? How long had he been in the hospital, knowing time passed but not knowing why?

  Painful memories cut into his thoughts. He pushed aside the blood-soaked helplessness of his past … He had been unable to stop the witches before, when he was physically and spiritually strong; how could he stop them tonight, when he was weak and doubting? He would die in such a confrontation.

  He deserved to die. Maybe this battle was meant to be. His death to save someone he didn’t know. Dying would give him peace, silence the constant pain and pressure and agonizing memories of his murdered friends. He was supposed to protect the priests who sought forgiveness and healing at Santa Louisa de los Padres Mission; instead, he’d allowed their slaughter through his own blindness.

  How do you know what they’re doing, Raphael?

  Rafe pushed the question aside, the overwhelming urge to hurry forcing him to walk faster until he was running, and before long he stood on the edge of their circle. Even though the demon trap was in the center of a clearing, the witches were so engrossed in their ritual that at first they didn’t notice him through the fog and smoke.

  The High Priestess, with dark red hair that shimmered in the light, held a bowl over a naked girl, and said:

  “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, as God in Heaven created the angels from nothing, so I command the Seven to rise through the gate which I have opened. In the name of Barbiel, Azza, and Mammon; in the name of Moloch, Olivier, and Sammael; in the name of Beelzebub and all the Fallen: come through the keyhole and submit to my command.”

  The body of the naked girl began to convulse, and a hooded woman next to the High Priestess held a dagger above her, as if to ward off an attack. The hooded woman was familiar … but Rafe couldn’t focus on her as the earth rumbled, a growl that shot primal fear directly to his heart, putting every one of his senses on high alert.

  The girl was lifted from the ground by unseen forces as she writhed. The gowned girl next to her was still, and at first Rafe thought she was dead. But then her eyes moved, her face twisting in panic. She was an unwilling sacrifice.

  Save the arca …

  A deafening roar filled the circle and the naked girl screamed and convulsed as around her black smoke rose from the ground, then swirled like a hurricane above the coven. Lightning flashed as unformed demons crashed and collided. As the six witches within the double circle, and the one in the center, chanted urgently, the demons were drawn against their will into the double ring, swirling, straining, screaming, until they were wrenched apart, separated, into seven distinct columns that rose from ceremonial bowls into the sky. The column in the middle grew bigger, wider, darker.

  Pride.

  Rafe was too late to stop the opening of the gates of Hell. The demons were here, and he didn’t know how to send them back.

  Save the arca …

  The arca? He laid eyes on the terrified, frozen girl on the altar. The naked girl was dead; Rafe knew it as certainly as he knew he was alive. But with the knowledge that he could—that he had to—save the other girl, the arca, he broke the circle.

  All eyes shot to him. Shock registered on the High Priestess’s face as he spoke.

  The words were foreign to his tongue; he’d never heard them before. But as soon as he spoke, his voice took on a deep, resonant command and the earth shook beneath him.

  “Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing!” the High Priestess screamed. “Raphael Cooper! Stop!”

  She countered him with a curse that he could almost see bounce off him. Sharp pain in his chest told him she’d hit close. He didn’t know who or what was protecting him, but he didn’t have time to figure that out, just like he couldn’t reflect on how the redheaded witch knew his name.

  Rafe walked to the altar and pulled the girl, the arca, to her unsteady feet.

  The High Priestess began another chant, aided by the familiar witch in a different language. A language he almost knew. She was finishing the invocation that would make this girl her weapon. His head ached as he looked into the girl’s wide pupils. She was drugged, her eyes darting and unfocused, her face flushed. The incense burned low to the ground where the girls had lain, making her drunk with the poisonous, hallucinatory fumes. They would soon affect Rafe. If this girl didn’t escape, he would have to kill her to stop the ritual—a ritual that would have far more deadly results than the loss of one innocent life.

  He didn’t want to kill her. But if the ritual was complete, not only would she die anyway, but the coven would be impossible to stop.

  “Run,” he commanded the girl. “Run or you’ll die.”

  A low rumble and an overwhelming feeling of unbalance ripped Anthony Zaccardi out of a restless sleep at two that morning. He sat up, the sheet, damp from his perspiration, falling off his chest. It took a moment for him to recognize the cluttered room he’d been sleeping in for the past ten weeks, the lacey femininity of Skye McPherson’s bedroom so different than the no-nonsense cop she was outside of her home.

  He swung his legs off the side of the bed, squeezed his temples, and prayed for answers to questions he didn’t know.

  “What’s wrong?” Skye asked, putting a cool hand on his bare back.

  “Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Your thousand-degree body woke me. I swear, I’ll save a fortune on heating bills with you in my bed.”

  He stared at Skye in her gray cotton tank top, her long, blond hair tangled and damp from sleep. It took a moment for his head to clear, then he touched her beautiful face. “I am sorry, mia amore.”

  He’d heard something but couldn’t remember what had awakened him. A deep sense of foreboding filled him. It was the same fear that had built in him more than ten weeks ago when he’d first arrived in Santa Louisa from St. Michael’s in Italy. The closer he’d gotten to the mission, the more apprehensive he’d become. For good reason. He’d been able to save only one man from the horrors at Santa Louisa de los Padres: Rafe. The others, all twelve priests, had died.

  Could he have saved them if he’d arrived earlier? He studied demons, he didn’t hunt them; he could exorcize weak demons from inanimate objects like buildings and artifacts, but he was ill prepared to battle demons who had a plan.

  Skye frowned, her brows knit with worry, her cop eyes sharp and focused in the dark. “It was a joke, Anthony. What’s going on?”

  “You’ll think I’m being foolish.”

  “Never.” She sat up next to him, her bare thigh pressing against his shorts.

  He touched her again, needing to ground himself. Despite being together a short time her love gave him great strength. He soaked in her presence and said, “I want to go to the house again.”

  They both knew he meant the empty lot on the cliffs where once a house had been, before it burned and tumbled into the pits of Hell, just three days after the slaughter at the mission. Skye thought he was obsessed with the ruins, but he still went out there several times a week. He’d tried every trick in the book to figure out what bothered him about the place, other than the fact that both he and Skye almost died that fiery night on the cliffs in November. He’d even performed an exorcism a couple of week
s ago and felt absolutely ridiculous, because of course there was nothing there to be possessed. He’d tested for sulphur, for blood, for anything that would signal to the demonologist that an evil spirit was in the soil itself. All negative.

  “First thing in the morning,” Skye said, putting a hand on his arm. “You haven’t been sleeping well for weeks, you’re exhausted. Between rebuilding the mission and sitting with Rafe at the hospital, you haven’t had time to yourself.”

  “Or for you.” He kissed her. She was his lifeline in these troubled times. She had faith in him, and even when he did things she didn’t understand, she stood by him. “I love you.”

  She smiled and put her hand on the back of his neck. “Lie down,” she whispered and kissed him lightly. “I know how to get rid of that headache.”

  He took her hand into his and kissed it. “I want to go to the house now.”

  She silently stared at him, trying to hide her concern, but he saw the worry in her green eyes, in the way she tried to shield them when he frowned.

  She relented. “All right, we’ll go.”

  “I can do it alone.”

  “No.”

  “Skye—”

  “You’re not going alone. If something is going on, I need to be there.”

  “It may not be a crime in your jurisdiction, Sheriff.” He tried to keep his voice light, but the seriousness of the matter overshadowed his attempt.

  “You’re not going alone,” she repeated. “We’re in this together.”

  As they dressed, Skye asked, “Why tonight?”

  “I heard something.”

  “The ruins are miles away.”

  He didn’t respond. “The earth shook. It woke me.”

  She cocked her head. “Earthquakes are common in California.”

  “I told you you’d think I was foolish.”

  She crossed the room and grabbed his shoulders. “And I said I’ll never think you’re foolish.” She was angry with him. “I don’t understand everything you do; I don’t have your faith or your experience. But I love you, and I have faith in you. That’s all I need. If you heard something, if you felt something, then we’ll go to the ruins and make sure no one is messing around. I don’t want that—that thing back in my town.”

  He touched her face. “Mia amore.”

  “Let’s do this fast so I can bring you back to bed.” She smiled and nipped his ear playfully.

  He returned her kiss, but when she turned to check her gun and holster it, his smile disappeared. He’d like nothing more than to make love to Skye and fall back to sleep until dawn, but he wasn’t wrong about the ruins. There would be no more rest tonight.

  FOUR

  Fiona’s temper flared as Raphael Cooper—who shouldn’t even be here, let alone awake!—repelled her energy right back at her.

  She diverted the cosmic electricity into the ground, making the earth shiver. The trapped demons growled as they began to take form. She had to complete the ritual before they regained their strength.

  She’d wanted Cooper dead from the beginning because he represented the only true threat to her plans. However, others in her coven believed he’d gleaned important information from the priests at the mission—knowledge that would be valuable to them in their quest. In addition, Cooper was of St. Michael’s Order and therefore knew many of their secrets. That had been the turning point for Fiona. She wanted to crush the Order for what they’d done to her and her ancestors. So she agreed to allow him to live on the condition that he was kept under the coven’s control in order to extract what he’d learned.

  But they hadn’t pulled out a fraction of the information in his head, and now—somehow—he’d awakened from the coma they’d put him in.

  “You have no idea what you are doing, you fool!” she screamed at Cooper. Lily broke through the circle, causing a psychic fissure. The trapped demons growled, sensing the deterioration of the invisible chains that kept them imprisoned. Fiona couldn’t send any of her coven after Lily without further weakening the traps and risking their lives. She used all her power to fortify the double circle that kept the demons under her control. Over the increasing rumble above and below the earth, Serena began the final spell from the Conoscenza that would bind the Seven to the arca.

  But it was too late. The arca was running away.

  “Sancte Michaël Archangele, defende nos in prælio et colluctatione,” Cooper began.

  “Stop him!” Fiona realized he was attempting to send the Seven back through the gateway! It would not work. He spoke in Latin, an exorcism rite, but there were no demonic possessions here. Not yet. And the arca was getting away.

  The rage she felt was immeasurable. For decades, she’d sought the Conoscenza. She’d believed in it when others—some who perceived they were wiser and more powerful than she—insisted it had been destroyed. She’d proven them wrong! She’d embarrassed St. Michael’s Order because they’d emphatically stated that the book had been destroyed. Now, Fiona commanded respect from covens across the world. And this man, this diolain, was not only jeopardizing decades of her work, but centuries of preparation by her ancestors.

  She raised her hand. “In the name of Belial, I command thee to thy knees!”

  The layers between Hell and earth were thin here, and the simple demand shook the ground. Cooper paused, pain crossing his gaunt face, before he continued his verbal assault.

  She turned to Garrett. “Take him down.”

  Garrett rushed the intruder, but Cooper held out his hand and spoke in a language even more ancient than Latin. Garrett bounced off an invisible shield and dropped to the ground.

  “Fiona,” Serena exclaimed, eyes wide, “that’s the language of the Conoscenza!”

  Fiona couldn’t think now of how Cooper knew the book, as the demons roared from their traps, shaking the foundation of her control. They could not be contained in the bowls forever, and with Cooper trying to reverse the ritual, she was losing them.

  He continued to speak in the most ancient of languages and Serena murmured spells to counter him.

  “Turn the bowls,” Fiona commanded her coven. “Release the Seven.”

  Her followers stared at her, surprised. They were not allowed to question her.

  “Do it! Or my wrath will be greater than any demon on earth! Turn the bowls and protect yourselves!”

  The women turned the bowls that contained the demons and, while chanting protective spells, stepped into the inner circle. The demons roared, now free from the chains of Hell. They swirled within the trap, frenzied by their freedom. If the arca were here, the ritual would be near complete. The next step was for the arca to draw them inside herself.

  If not for Raphael Cooper! He had sent her off, and now the demons had nowhere to go. Nowhere but freedom to roam the earth.

  “You are to blame!” she pointed her finger at him. “You take responsibility for the deaths and souls the Seven will claim!”

  She turned her face to the heavens and chanted, “Belial, Hecate, Sammael, and all the named and nameless fallen ones, I command thee to shield thy servants, protect the sanctified, and mark the one who thwarted my will!”

  The demons broke through their traps, swirling within the double circle, faster and faster, a tornado of smoke and fire, as the Seven lost their growing physical forms and melded within each other, in and out, gaining strength and speed and volume as they rose like a column and surrounded the coven.

  Cooper was brought to his knees by a screeching tumult of such intensity that it vibrated within the circle. All dropped to the ground, unable to stand, holding their ears. The candles were snuffed out all at once, and blackness fell. It was chaos as the light vanished—no moon, no stars, no flame. The gut-wrenching sound of demonic screams filled the void.

  With an invisible explosion, the Seven burst through the double circle, up and out, into the world.

  “Get him,” Fiona told Garrett as she rose from the ground. “Now I will learn his secrets.” She would tak
e deep pleasure in torturing Raphael Cooper. He would tell all he knew before she was through. He would renounce all he believed in and swear allegiance to Fiona!

  She would make Cooper suffer. Suffer for as long as it took her to hunt down each and every one of the Seven, even to the ends of the earth. He would pay dearly for his interference.

  “He’s gone,” Garrett said.

  “He’s not gone. Serena! Light!” Cooper could not have fled so quickly.

  Serena fumbled in the dark and came up with a flashlight. She cast its beam around the circle.

  The coven members were rising from the ground, the stench of fear rising from their skin. Pitiful.

  Cooper was nowhere to be seen.

  “How did he breach the circle?” Fiona demanded.

  “How did he know the language?” Serena countered.

  “Garrett, you and Ian stay and destroy the circle and bring the vessel.” She waved irritably toward Abby’s dead body. “Then find him. I want Raphael Cooper in front of me before sunrise.”

  She looked at the others. “Disperse! Quickly! Speak to no one of this. Punishments you could never even imagine await anyone who betrays me.”

  “Dammit!”

  Moira slammed her fist on Jared’s dashboard as he stopped his pickup truck at the end of the short road that led to ruins along the cliffs.

  “They’re gone,” she lamented. And for a split second, she was relieved. She wasn’t ready for this confrontation; she wasn’t ready to die. Guilt washed over her—she needed to prepare herself for the inevitable. She’d been trained for this moment, and now she wanted to run? She could never live with herself if she did.

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” Jared said. “Maybe this isn’t what you thought.”

  For a split second Moira hoped she had been wrong. It had been a mistake to come here, and she’d misread the vision. The feeling she had ten days ago when she walked across the scarred foundation and saw a burning river of tortured souls beneath the earth’s surface. No, she knew she was right about Santa Louisa, but that didn’t mean she knew what she was doing. What made her think she could beat her mother at her own evil game? Fiona had a lifetime of experience and a passionate—obsessive—desire to control the underworld. The power of Hell was on her side. Moira had fear, revenge, and a couple of years’ training with the top demon hunter in the world. That made her little better than a novice. An amateur. And amateurs died while masters prospered. Fiona, most certainly, was a master.