Original Sin

around her, above her on the beams, in the corners, in and out of the bars of her cell. It could have been the seventeenth century as easily as the twenty-first.

Fiona had left Moira for a week. Alone. With only enough food and water to ensure survival. Into her dreams, Fiona had sent monsters so real Moira didn’t know whether they were nightmares or reality. She hallucinated and had nearly been broken. Nearly. Except for the hard rock of hatred in the core of her heart, hatred of Fiona. It kept her alive, it kept her breathing, and when she was free she played Fiona’s game for months. When she ran again, Fiona didn’t find her for nearly five years.

Moira’s breath caught and she stared at three barred, horizontal windows on the far wall. Tilting her head up, she stared greedily at the dark sky, a nearly full moon blurred by high clouds. She had to get hold of herself. She wasn’t underground, this wasn’t a dungeon, and Fiona didn’t know she was here. She focused on the red planet through a small opening in the clouds. Mars was so bright tonight! She watched it appear and disappear as the clouds and earth moved. Imagined being outside, beneath a vast array of stars, in an open field, physically free and emotionally calm. Without trouble, without the pain of regret, without the torture of memories that burned.

It felt like hours, but it had only been ten minutes since she’d begun to panic. The terror subsided, but she felt … prickly, as if she were being watched. Tense, knowing that the panic of confinement was just beneath the surface, just waiting for something to draw it out.

The deputy who had brought Moira in had left, but he had to be nearby, didn’t he? They wouldn’t leave her in a locked cell without being able to see or hear her. She called out, “Hey! Come on, let me out! Please! Find the sheriff-” What was her name? “Skye! Are you there?”

“The courts open at nine a.m.,” the man alone in his cell said from across the corridor. “Shut up or you’ll wake the boys. They’ll puke up their rotgut dinner and we’ll be smelling that shit for hours.”

Moira wasn’t getting into a conversation with anyone. Instead she focused on paying Anthony back. She’d deck him again-out of sight of his girlfriend the cop.

“You’re too fresh-faced and pretty to be a hooker,” the prisoner said. “And you don’t look drunk. Drugs?”

She didn’t respond.

“Come on, sweet thing, talk to me. I don’t bite, unless you want me to.” He laughed at his stupid joke.

She glared at him and turned her back.

“Bitch,” he mumbled. “Hope you go to State; the dykes would love to wipe the floor with your attitude.”

Anthony wouldn’t let it go that far, would he? Send her to prison for years? No, he couldn’t. Father Philip would get her out. First call she made would be to Rico. He’d get here fast in his private plane. No way he’d let her stay in prison. And he’d beat the living daylights out of Anthony for putting her here. She hoped she could watch. No one fought better-meaner or dirtier-than Rico.

The door opened at the guard station. Finally.

Moira was about to rip Sheriff Skye McPherson a new one, but she bit her tongue.

It wasn’t the sheriff coming through the door. Even before she saw the woman, she knew who it was.

Fiona.

An exotic, seductive scent-lavender and orchids and dark ocean breezes floating on a rich, musky base. Unique, enchanting, deadly.

Moira quietly backed against the wall closest to the door, where Fiona wouldn’t first see her-not that it mattered. Fiona knew she was here; otherwise she wouldn’t have come, wouldn’t have risked exposing herself. But Moira needed a minute, a few seconds, to adjust to seeing her mother again for the first time in seven years, when she’d blindly caught up with Fiona after Peter’s death. Rico had risked his life to save her. She hadn’t deserved to be saved.

Three primary emotions battled: pain, rage, and fear. Fiona had channeled dark powers for years, had become far more powerful than even when she’d summoned the demon that possessed Moira seven years ago. Fiona could easily kill her without a man-made weapon. And Moira couldn’t fight back. Even if she had kept her abilities sharp and honed, she couldn’t fight Fiona with magic without breaking her promise to Father Philip. She’d rather die than do that. Even magic with good intentions killed, because it all came from the same source of pure evil.

It had killed Peter. It had almost killed her. Now, trapped in this prison-the physical jail cell and her own morality-she’d be dead before dawn.

“Well, well, well, hell-lo, hot stuff.” The sober prisoner sat up on his cot and gave Fiona an appraising look.

Both Fiona and Moira ignored him. Moira had no idea how Fiona had found her, how her mother knew she was in town and specifically in prison, but she damn well knew why she’d come. Seven years ago when Rico and Father Philip saved her, Fiona had said:

“You are cursed, firstborn daughter. I will find you. I will hunt you down, I will destroy you inside and out. I will wring your soul dry until it’s begging for mercy, of which I have none to spare you.”

Anthony wouldn’t have let it out that she was in jail. If he’d known where Fiona was, he’d have gone after her himself. And he still believed Moira was working either with her mother or another coven. But Sheriff Skye McPherson-was she part of the coven? Covens loved to recruit people in positions of power. Cops, teachers, ministers. Anyone with authority and trust.

And then there was Jared, who’d disappeared to find his girlfriend right before the police came. Could he have alerted Fiona? Perhaps his original intent in bringing her to the cliffs was to lure Moira into a trap, but something went wrong and the coven had dispersed.

“Cead inion.” First daughter. Some might think it was a term of endearment, but Moira knew better. To Fiona, it meant she was property.

“Cailleach.”

Fiona smiled at the insult-Moira didn’t know what offended her more, the “old” part or the “hag” part. Her red, glossy lips wide, teeth so white they seemed false. Some might have called her grin inviting. But Moira knew better. She was a shark, circling her prey.

Fiona’s brilliant, dark blue eyes matched Moira’s; her hair, a shiny, golden red, was thick and curly and impossibly long. Moira had the same curls, but she kept her black hair up or braided and out of the way. Fiona’s skin was smooth and flawless, her cheekbones high and aristocratic. Her mother had always been a dramatically beautiful woman. She hadn’t changed. She hadn’t changed physically at all from when Moira had last seen her. Fiona was forty-eight. She looked … younger. Stunning. Twenty-eight, maybe, but not forty-eight.

“Andra Moira.” Her full name rolled off Fiona’s tongue with the Irish lilt and the proper accent. An-drah Mor-rah. Moira hated it. She preferred the wrong way everyone else in the world pronounced her name, with three syllables instead of two. And she refused to use her first name, Andra, knowing whom she was named for and why. An ancient goddess who relished blood and human sacrifice …

Moira stared at her, tense and watchful. Wishing the damn sheriff would get her ass in here. How had Fiona gotten in? Had she killed someone …

“You’re weak.” Fiona walked to the center of the jail and stared at Moira with both shock and contempt. “You haven’t been practicing! Pathetic.”

She sounded disappointed, as if she’d wanted some sort of supernatural battle between them. But Moira had learned the hard way that all supernatural power came from the wrong side of the tracks, and payment for borrowing it was steep.

“I know what you did on the cliffs,” said Moira. “I know what you’re up to.”

“You can’t possibly imagine in your small mind what I am doing.” Her eyes glowed with excitement-from Moira’s entrapment or her own plans, Moira didn’t know. Probably both. “You are fortunate that I am forgiving.”

“As forgiving as the devil himself,” Moira snapped. “Oh, wait, he’s one of your friends.”

Fiona’s throat tensed, revealing delicate bones under flawless skin. “You should be more respectful of your father.”

“Bullshit.” A chill started in the center of her bones, hardening her gut, bringing the panic on, but she stood perfectly still. Moira had never known her father. For all she knew, her mother had slit his throat after mating. Moira’s bravado was a farce, and she damn well knew that if Fiona smelled fear, she would pounce. She crossed