Original Sin

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?”