Original Sin sds-1 Read online

  Moira cast her light around the site. She hated being inside this spirit trap, even though it had been violently broken. A pile of incense was scattered across the linen. Dried candle wax mixed with dirt and rocks. Any vegetation or plants, here at the lot where the house had burned, were all dead. Nothing living could survive above a gateway to Hell.

  What had happened? The ritual circle was a mess. It was a big no-no in the occult world to leave behind signs of any rituals. Witches were hunted as fiercely as they themselves hunted. If demon hunters-like her, Moira acknowledged-could trace a coven’s symbols, they could better track and stop them.

  Leaving anything here, at the ruins on the cliffs, told her that Fiona and her minions had been stopped.

  Before or after they summoned the demons? Moira didn’t know for certain. But based on the earlier lightning and darkness flying over them, Moira suspected there was at least one more demon on earth tonight.

  Jared paced. “Where’s Lily? What happened to Abby? Why is she naked? What’s going on, Moira? You didn’t tell me anyone was going to die!”

  Moira countered his hysteria with a calm voice. “I don’t know where Lily is. She and Abby were playing with dangerous things. Where there’s danger, there can damn well be death.”

  Moira turned away from the dead teenager, deeply sad and angry at the loss of life. She said, “I don’t know what happened here, but there was a fight-and they left fast. Picked up most of their supplies, but there are two candles over there.” She gestured toward two black pillars on the edge of the circle. “And they didn’t completely eradicate the symbols. Very sloppy, and Fiona is not sloppy.”

  Leaving Abby here … that was plain stupid. They always disposed of their victims. They had to, or news of the crime would get out to the public and they would have to be even more cautious. Murder was a crime; occult worship was not.

  Ignoring her own advice to Jared, Moira squatted next to Abby and touched her body with two fingers. Her skin was cool and slick with moisture from the ocean fog. Moira was no cop, but she didn’t think the girl had been dead long. And the recent dead were ripe for the picking of demons. If Fiona had brought forth something, it would be around. Or coming back. Demons always returned to their origins-one of many truths Rico had pounded into Moira’s head during their lessons.

  She pulled out a container of salt from her pack and poured it in a circle around Abby’s body. She didn’t know whether it would do any good-if the demon was powerful enough, it could just lift her body out of the circle. But it would slow him enough to buy her time. Salt was a purifier and a preservative, a mineral that naturally repelled demons. But like virulent bacteria, the strongest demons built up resistance to any defenses, including ancient defenses like salt.

  “What are you doing?” Jared asked her, looking at Moira as if she were a nut job. She was used to it. She’d never been normal, and it seemed that now, at the ripe age of twenty-nine, normal wasn’t in her future, either.

  “The salt will stop a demon from snatching Abby’s body. She hasn’t been dead for long. After an hour or two”-Moira honestly didn’t know how long, Rico had only told her to guard the recent dead because they could be summoned-“it won’t matter, because the demons won’t be able to inhabit her. Sort of like animals who only eat fresh kills.” She guessed.

  Jared shivered.

  “What about Lily? Where is she?”

  Moira looked around the area. The ocean waves, less than a hundred yards west and a hundred yards down, crashed unseen against the rocks. In different circumstances they would have soothed her, reminded her of the west coast of Ireland, the only place she’d had peace.

  “I’m going to call someone to pick up Abby’s body,” she said. Damn, she dreaded making this call. The minute Father Philip had told her Anthony was in Santa Louisa, she knew she’d have to make contact eventually. She’d be lucky if he didn’t kill her. If he weren’t such a damn high-and-mighty ethical demonologist, he wouldn’t hesitate to slit her throat and blame it on her demonic soul.

  “My dad will have to come out,” Jared said, staring at Abby’s body. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “Your dad doesn’t understand what’s happened here.”

  “What does he need to understand? We found Abby dead! He’s a cop. He’ll call the crime scene people, find out who did this. Find Lily.”

  “Who did what? Come on, Jared! I told you how these people operate.”

  He was torn, Moira saw the conflict and confusion in his pained expression, but she wasn’t about to sugarcoat the truth.

  “Yes, we need to find Lily,” she said. “I don’t know if they have her, but if they do we have to try and save her. If they don’t, we have to find and protect her. I’m with you on that, Jared. But this”-she gestured toward the partially obliterated occult symbols-“needs someone who specializes in … this,” she ended lamely.

  Moira no longer wanted Jared here because she feared Fiona’s minions would return. He could hardly be expected to defend himself against magic he didn’t understand, and she couldn’t protect both him and herself. Not against Fiona’s coven. If there was more than one magician, Moira would have her own battle to wage. And she could not let them take possession of Abby’s body. The girl deserved a proper burial-after she was cremated into three pounds of ash.

  But Moira also couldn’t let Jared search for Lily on his own … what if Fiona’s coven was watching? They didn’t have to be too close, there were other ways … She shivered. “Trust me.”

  Jared scowled. Trust her. Right. She barely knew him. He’d frequented an online message board about supernatural phenomena, but he was in no way prepared for this.

  Jared bent down and picked up two articles of female clothing. Jeans and a pale pink sweater. He looked ill. “Lily was wearing this sweater today.”

  A distant scream pierced the night. Moira jumped. It came from the woods, far on the other side of the road. Then there was silence, which sounded even worse.

  “Lily!” Jared exclaimed. “I have to find her. I’m sorry, Moira, I-she must be terrified.” He ran to his truck, ignoring her protests that he shouldn’t go off alone.

  His truck was driving away when she whispered, “Don’t leave me.”

  The wind whipped up from the ocean, salt air stinging her cheeks. She felt as though she was being watched, but there was no place nearby to hide … No one was watching, no one was here. But telling herself that did little to alleviate her rising panic.

  She shook her head, thinking herself foolish, and looked again at poor Abby. She wished she had Rico or Father Philip here to tell her what to do.

  Anthony. She had to bring him in. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Father Philip.

  She was surprised when he answered the phone himself after the first ring.

  “Father, it’s Moira.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. But it’s bad, Father. I think-I don’t know what to think. Something happened at the cliffs. There are signs of violence, a spirit trap, obscure symbols I’ve never seen before. And no one is here, except”-she glanced at Abby’s naked corpse-“a dead teenager.”

  “Holy Mother of God.”

  She smiled; otherwise she would cry at Father’s version of cussing.

  “I’m worried about Anthony,” Father continued. “He’s not answering his phone.”

  Bright lights shot out at her from the road and approached quickly. As soon as the spotlight hit her body, the red and blue rotating spheres clicked on.

  Fuck.

  “Father, I need to go.”

  “Moira, wait-what’s wrong?”

  “Keep trying Anthony, and hope that he has a get-out-of-jail-free card in his pocket. I think I’m going to need it.”

  She hung up and pocketed her cell phone.

  A voice said over a speaker: “This is the Santa Louisa County Sheriff’s Department. Stay where you are with your hands visible.”

  Moira kept
her hands in front of her, plainly in sight, and fought the urge to bolt.

  FIVE

  Moira had to come up with a plausible story as to why she was here in the middle of the night with a dead girl. Maybe … she’d been walking in the area and … right. Like anyone would believe she’d walked the ten miles from her motel to the cliffs. At two in the morning. And she was in the middle of friggin’ nowhere with three abandoned, boarded-up houses on an unpaved road next to a cursed lot. She got lost? Sure. She’d wandered aimlessly near the edge of dangerous cliffs in the fog, just happening to stumble across a corpse.

  But she certainly couldn’t say anything about what had happened-what she thought had happened. Moira had to carefully maneuver a tightrope. She wasn’t an American citizen. She could be deported, her student visa revoked. Father Philip had arranged with Rico to “enroll” her in Olivet, and no one in the States had yet questioned that Olivet was an all-male theology seminary. Yet. And she didn’t want to shine a light on them, because they weren’t really a seminary. Olivet was the western hemisphere university for demon hunters and not officially recognized by the Vatican or any quasi-legitimate authority, as opposed to St. Michael’s, which had some protection from the powers that be. If people sniffed around, they might discover that no priests actually graduated from Olivet.

  Fortunately, she’d wisely left her gun back at the motel, but the dagger wouldn’t go over too well with the sheriff. And who would believe her that there had been an occult ritual here? Exactly-no one.

  An officer shined a light in her face. Moira couldn’t see beyond the brightness, could barely make out the two shadowy figures when she squinted. Suddenly the idea that Fiona’s coven was bigger than her mother traditionally maintained-Fiona plus twelve in the inner court, and a few strays used for muscle and eyes and grunt work-terrified her. What if someone in the police department was part of it? What if Fiona controlled the town? This had happened before in small towns, and Santa Louisa had only thirty thousand residents. Moira should have put her own pride aside and contacted Anthony when she’d first discovered he was in town. At least she’d then have someone on her side who understood what they were up against, and maybe he’d know whom to trust.

  “Always have backup,” Rico had said during their training. “Never go blind into a situation, even if you think there’s nothing going on.”

  “I don’t have a partner,” she’d said. “And I don’t want one.”

  “What are you doing out here?” a female voice asked, jolting Moira from her memory.

  “Are you the sheriff?”

  “Sheriff Skye McPherson. And you are?”

  “Moira O’Donnell. I was with Jared Santos, but he ran off after-”

  A man in plainclothes stepped forward from behind the sheriff. Moira shielded her eyes from the light and squinted. She could see no details, but the way he moved was familiar, like a big, caged cat.

  The sheriff reached out to grab him. “Wait, Anthony-”

  Anthony brushed off her hand and quickly approached Moira, stopping only a foot from her. Disbelief and anger rolled off him in palpable waves.

  Anthony Zaccardi. Though she knew he was in town, she was still stunned to see him again after all this time. The towering demonologist’s middle name could have been Intimidation.

  “Moira O’Donnell.” He spoke the name as if it were a curse. “I should have known where there is trouble from the underworld, you would be nearby, puttana.”

  “Prick.”

  She held her ground, though Anthony’s hostility put her on edge. He hadn’t liked her even before she’d killed Peter. If Father Philip hadn’t been there, Moira was absolutely certain Anthony would have killed her that same night.

  “What did you do?” Anthony glanced briefly at Abby’s body, then his gaze focused on her.

  Sheriff McPherson walked over to the body and, careful not to disturb anything or turn her back to Moira, bent down to feel for a pulse. “Shit,” she mumbled. “You said you were here with Jared Santos? Where is he? I want the God’s honest truth. What happened here? Were you drinking? Getting high?”

  “Summoning demons?” Anthony whispered.

  Moira said, “We thought Jared’s girlfriend, Lily Ellis, was coming here. We found Abby instead of Lily.”

  “You know Abby Weatherby?” Skye asked as she approached, standing beside Anthony.

  “Not personally.”

  “Anthony?” Skye asked. “Do you know this woman? Can you vouch for her?”

  “Vouch? I can vouch that she’s a killer.”

  “Fuck off,” Moira snapped. “Look around, Zaccardi. I didn’t do this, and you damn well know it. And Sheriff, this has nothing to do with kids getting high or drunk; Abby died because she was sacrificed. Lily Ellis is missing. We think she came here to try and talk Abby out of the coven, but-”

  “Coven?” Anthony shook his head. “That sounds familiar-something you know really well. What was your part in it? Or are you going to pretend you were possessed again?”

  “Pretend? You bastard!” She swung her arm out to slap him. He grabbed her wrist and squeezed so tightly she thought her bone would snap. She kicked him in the shin and he let go, wincing. She turned and walked several feet away. She had to control her temper around Anthony. It would get her in trouble.

  “That’s enough!” Skye said. “Anthony, let me ask the questions, okay?”

  Anthony backed off.

  Skye radioed for the coroner, crime scene unit, and backup. She glanced at Moira, then added into her mic, “Call Deputy Santos. He’s off-duty. Patch him through to me when you reach him. Over.”

  Skye shot Anthony a glare, then asked Moira, “Do you have some identification?”

  Moira pulled out her wallet from the inside pocket of her leather jacket and held it out. Skye retrieved it, opened the flap, and saw her passport. “You’re from Ireland.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve traveled a lot.”

  She shrugged.

  “Student visa. Olivet in Pinesdale? Where’s that?”

  “Montana,” Moira said.

  Anthony grabbed the passport and took a close look at her entry date. “You’ve been here for six months!”

  “I’ve been in Santa Louisa for a week, but yeah, in America for six months.” This time.

  Skye retrieved the passport from Anthony. There was an ease and familiarity between the two. Why was he with Skye in the middle of the night? Interesting.

  She raised an eyebrow and gave Anthony a cocky half-smile. “So Santa Louisa has a demonologist on the payroll?”

  “No one has to answer to you,” Anthony snapped.

  “Excuse me.” Skye motioned for Anthony to follow her. Moira couldn’t help but grin. She had to like anyone who stood up to the arrogant demonologist. Peter had done it, often. Her smile faltered. Maybe if Peter had listened to Anthony’s warnings, he’d still be alive.

  A car pulled onto the road and they all turned to look at it. It wasn’t Jared’s truck, it was another cop.

  As Skye walked over to the new arrival, Anthony approached Moira. “Don’t even think of running. I will hunt you down like a dog.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  She glared at him and he turned away, flashlight in hand, and began to walk the perimeter. She took an uneasy breath. If she gave any hint of how much he was upsetting her, he’d continue poking with a sharp stick until she was a basket case.

  The fog was thin and low, obscuring the symbols and signs on the ground, but Moira recognized the remnants of witchcraft. Black candles, the foul stench of herbs used for protection and control and warding off evil spirits. Moira could laugh at the thought-they were summoning demons, but used herbs and spells to keep themselves from being possessed.

  If they only knew …

  Of course, Fiona did know. Her mother knew exactly what she was doing, and she didn’t need the candles or herbs or red silk sheets laid on a makeshift altar. All she neede
d were the right incantations, the proper demon trap, the will to call forth evil, and the strength to control it. When you were a magician for as long as Fiona had been, when you trained and practiced day in and day out and didn’t care who you hurt or what you did, power became both addictive and easy.

  For years, Moira had studied witchcraft with no idea why, other than to please her mother. From the beginning, it terrified her, but she did it because she knew no other way to gain Fiona’s favor. She’d continued until she was sixteen and unwittingly participated in a human sacrifice-a sacrifice that dedicated her to the underworld, as the “Mediator.” It was during that ceremony that she was branded, the scar still on her neck. It was then that she learned Fiona’s plans not only for youth and beauty and finding the Book of Knowledge, but for Moira’s future.

  To be sacrificed on her twenty-first birthday to serve as Mediator between Hell and the Magicians.

  It was the highest honor, Fiona had told her. “You have no idea what goes into creating a Mediator, to properly conceive, train, and place one. We haven’t had a good Mediator in generations; they’ve all managed to self-destruct or be killed by an order.” An “order,” in Fiona-speak, was a group of people, generally worshipping God and affiliated with a church, fanatics who were devoted to the repression of the transformative knowledge and cathartic oneness gained from magic and working with the underworld.

  “We are the trees of knowledge,” Fiona often said. “The reason God forbade His people from practicing sorcery is because He wanted to deny us. He wanted to keep us from knowing the truth, the true power, of the universe. But with magic, we gain. We become more powerful, more beautiful, live longer, gain wisdom that was wrongfully reserved only for the angels above and below.”

  And Moira was a believer for years. She had done everything Fiona wanted. Learned everything she taught, and more. Moira desperately wanted to please her.

  Then, on her sixteenth birthday, she went to her dedication ritual. They’d traveled for two days, but Moira wasn’t sure where they were-someplace in Europe. It marked the beginning of the five-year journey where she would learn spells and protections that few witches knew. At first she was as excited as she was nervous.