Original Sin

“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 best 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?”