Original Sin

“St. Michael’s,” a calm male voice answered.

“Father Philip, please,” she said, the Irish lilt all too obvious in her voice.

“He’s not available right now.”

“This is Moira O’Donnell. It’s extremely important.”

The monk didn’t comment or hang up. She heard the receiver being placed on the wood table.

The only phone at St. Michael’s Monastery was in the library. She pictured the tall, narrow windows with stained glass in the arches; the stone floor covered with a huge, impossibly old, faded Persian rug. The worn leather sofas, the reading lamps, the peace. This was a sanctuary for study and rest. The intensive, hands-on training-the physical training-was done far away in America, maybe to separate the violence from the research, but most likely to protect the Order from being annihilated in one attack.

Moira had spent countless hours in the library with Peter, studying the old texts. Many of the others were skeptical of her, but Father Philip had allowed her to stay. He’d saved her life and cared about her when she thought there was no hope left. He’d brought her to the sanctuary, taught her, encouraged Peter to help her. That the priest felt responsible for the tragedy that followed deeply pained her. It wasn’t his fault she’d disobeyed his command to steer clear of magic. She’d wanted to undo the damage her mother and the coven had done, and the only way she knew how to battle magic was with magic. But she and Peter had gone too far. She hadn’t realized the price would be so great, but learned the hard way that even with good intentions, sorcery begot only evil.

Father Philip broke her contemplation when he picked up the receiver, saying in his soft measured accent, “Moira. It’s been six months.”

She didn’t want to explain to Father why she hadn’t contacted him, or anyone, affiliated with St. Michael’s all these months. Her doubts? Fears? Or was it the loneliness of her solitary mission she wanted to keep hidden from the few people who cared enough about her to notice her pain.

But this vision was different and Father was the only one who might have answers. “I had another vision. I don’t remember much of it, but a gateway to Hell is opening.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know!” She bit her tongue. She wasn’t angry with the old priest, but frustrated with herself. Frustrated and alone. She desperately missed Peter, but every time she allowed herself to think of him, she remembered only his death.

“Where are you?”

“Upstate New York. I was looking into a ritualistic murder that occurred on Halloween. It was just a stupid serial killer, his sixth murder in two years. It had nothing to do with Fiona.” She was disgusted with herself for being drawn here just because the woman was killed at a graveyard. Fiona wasn’t that uncouth.

Moira’s mother killed with style.

She added, “My scar hurts. I’ve never felt it like this before.”

Father Philip didn’t answer. Her heart raced; what was he thinking? That she was going to be possessed again? That she was making it up? That she had truly lost her mind and was now seeing signs of demonic activity everywhere?

She fumbled around in her backpack for her aspirin bottle and shook four out, dry swallowing them. The bitter, chalky taste coated her tongue. She cupped water from the tap into her hands and drank, her shoulder holding the phone against her ear.

“Father?”

He cleared his throat. “It’s a sign.”

“I can’t go through that again.” Every time she had a vision, it ended poorly. She almost laughed at her thought-what an understatement!

“I didn’t say it was a bad sign. I need to research.”

What about “portal to Hell” wasn’t bad? But Moira swallowed her sarcasm and said, “Tell me the truth, Father, please.”

“I don’t know for certain; it’s a hunch. Let me-”

“Tell me,” she interrupted. “Father. I must know.”

He sighed, and she could picture him taking off his small, silver-framed glasses and polishing them absently with his handkerchief. Philip was not only “Father” as in priest, but also the only father figure-the only sane father figure-she’d ever had. But Moira had been unable to remain at St. Michael’s when the majority of its residents accused her with their silence. She couldn’t take fearful refuge in the monastery while Fiona was free, gaining power, forging alliances with the darkest souls on and beneath the earth.

So she’d left for Olivet, an abbey in Montana named after the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Olivet was the go-to place for intensive physical training to be a demon hunter and, Moira supposed, the place where those in the thick of it went afterward to lick their wounds and regroup. It was the only place she could learn to use skills other than witchcraft to find and stop her mother’s insane plans.

St. Michael’s Monastery was the academic branch of the Order. They studied, prayed, raised up the young warriors, and fully educated them-until their gifts were discerned and they were assigned elsewhere, or sent to Olivet for training.

It had been whispered that St. Michael’s hunted human evil, and Olivet hunted supernatural evil. Few acknowledged that they all were both predators and prey, hunting evil while trying to protect their Order from external-and internal-enemies.

The sole reason Moira was trained as a demon hunter was to battle demons Fiona put in her path. Rico, the head of Olivet and her trainer, had made it clear that she wasn’t truly one of them: a chosen warrior raised at St. Michael’s. Moira’s only purpose was to find, and stop, Fiona. Because dark covens used demons to defend them, learning to battle demons was essential to stopping witches.

Loneliness had been added to her guilt.

“A gateway to Hell is open?” Father Philip asked.

“Opening.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

She wasn’t sure. “When I had the vision, that’s what I thought. Something is beginning. I can’t explain it; it’s just what I felt.” Moira hated unclear visions, interpretations, vague ideas of what it all supposedly meant. She wanted-needed-a path to follow. Explicit instructions, a solid plan. Once again, God showed his dark cosmic humor in her life.

“Then there’s time,” Father Philip pronounced from across the ocean.

“What about the scar?”

“You’ve been having the visions since Peter died.”

Her heart twisted at the mere mention of his name. “Yes.”

“These visions involve the barrier between us and the underworld.”

“More or less.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve only had a few.” A dozen, more or less. “It’s not like I’m ready for the rubber room.”

“No, no you’re not.” It had been a joke, but he’d answered as if she’d been serious. “It’s a sign. You have a spiritual link to the underworld.”

“No, no, no! Absolutely not!” She was shaking. St. Michael’s newest demon hunter shaking in fear. What a world!

“Moira, I believe you do. And you’re going to have to learn to use your powers to our advantage. We must fight back. Too long we’ve been reactionaries, not acting until they brought forth evil spirits. The one right thing you and Peter did was to be proactive.”

“Father-please.” She could not talk about Peter.

“Peter made many mistakes.”

“I made the mistakes, Father.”

“But Peter knew better.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Daughter-” He sighed. Moira’s heart swelled. She loved to hear Father Philip call her daughter. It was an endearment that kept her grounded in love and hope. An assurance that even with everything she’d done, all the mistakes she-and Peter-had made, there was someone who cared about what happened to her. She was not alone, no matter how alone she felt.