herself more to goad her mother than to proclaim faith.
Fiona murmured a spell aimed at Moira, but at the last minute tossed it toward the drunk cell with a flip of her wrist. Moira could almost see the gray smoke, even though she knew it wasn’t physically there, but merely an illusion.
The drunks both groaned in their stupor, the nightmare Fiona had thrown into their minds taking hold.
Fiona paced the length of the walk. The velvety blue gown swirling around her gave the illusion that she was floating. Wisely, the man in the far cell said nothing.
“What did you do to the guards?” Moira asked.
“They’re sleeping.”
Fiona stopped dead center in front of Moira’s cell. “Andra Moira, I am granting you a choice.” She raised her left hand with flair, her jewels sparkling in the artificial light. “On the one hand, I will let you out. You come with me and fulfill your role as it was decided before your conception. You, the first daughter of a virgin womb, sacrificed to be the goddess of the underworld. Such a high status for doing nothing but being born. You are of the chosen, for I am of the chosen. I gave my body to the gods so you could exist.
“On the other hand,” she waved her right hand as if swatting away a fly, “you will die now, and I will rip your soul from your body and send it into the pit to be tortured forever. She who gives life can also take it away.”
Fiona held her palms up, as if in a peace offering. Moira stared, feeling an unspoken spell building. On Fiona’s open palms, two worlds balanced: one of fire, the other identical but with Moira in the middle, her face melting to bone, the bones turning to ash.
Another illusion. Moira willed her mind to see only what was in front of her, to repel the telepathy that her mother was using to send images into her mind.
She blinked and it worked. She saw only her mother. Rico had trained her well.
An irritated scowl crossed Fiona’s face and she dropped her hands.
“You released the Seven Deadly Sins from Hell,” Moira said, emboldened by her small victory. “There’s no reason-”
“I didn’t free them! They were to be mine. It was that-” She stopped, straightened, and glared at Moira. “Your decision. Now! Come with me or die.”
Moira’s words were clear. “I am not yours. I refuse to be sacrificed to any of your demons. Go ahead and try to send me to Hell; if you succeed, I know ways to come back and thwart every one of your plans.”
Fiona laughed.
“You fool,” she said between bouts of laughter. “You know nothing. Those pathetic men on that ridiculous island have no idea of the power to be had. The wall separating the worlds is so thin, it is close to crumbling. Between the here and now, the underworld and time; I am the weakest link, where the membrane between humans and the supernatural universe is thinnest. You will never defeat me.”
In ancient Latin she spoke a spell that Moira had never heard before. The words seemed to be aimed at her through a fast-moving tunnel. Moira’s vision faded. She put her hands out and screamed, but felt no vibration in her throat. She was falling, falling, deeper and deeper into her mind.
She lay naked on a bed of feathers, the sunlight streaming through the high windows of the retreat on the far side of the island off Sicily. This was her cottage, where the priests had hidden her while she, Peter, and the others tried to find a way to save her and defeat Fiona.
Peter came to her, glorious with his olive complexion, broad chest, long sun-streaked brown hair. They were in love, had fought their feelings for months, knowing that giving in to the desire building inside of them would be violating everything that Peter held dear.
“Loving you isn’t wrong,” Peter told her as he slid into bed with her. “Loving you is heaven on earth.”
She felt his hands, his lips, his breath on her neck. So tender but determined; confident but timid. The conflict was in both of them. Guilt battled need, pleasure battled duty. He skimmed her breasts, her stomach; his hands were between her legs, then he was sliding inside her, filling her, loving her …
“Loving me is deadly.” Her hands went up around his neck and squeezed him. “Your fall from grace was of your own accord. You will burn in Hell!”
Suddenly, she was free-falling and floating, as if having an out-of-body experience. She saw Peter.
He was in the middle of an Irish meadow, the grassy knoll outside her grandmother’s cottage. She wanted to run to him, fly to him, but she was trapped, held back by invisible hands. The meadow turned to fire. Peter stood on an island in the middle of lava, whips of flame slicing his back, leaving red welts. Over and over and over …
“You
Moira pulled herself from the spell …
… Rico was talking.
The laughter rang louder. “Poor girl,” Fiona said, mocking.
Moira was pushed by an unseen force against the back wall. The wind was violently knocked out of her and she couldn’t draw in another breath. She was suffocating. She would die in this cell, not a mark on her, and Fiona would win. She’d take the Seven Deadly Sins and complete whatever fearsome plan she had.
Fiona released her and Moira fell to the cement floor, gasping for air. She had nothing to protect her. The sheriff had confiscated her knives, her cross, her holy water, her medallion, the medal that Rico had told her never to remove.
“You were chosen, and you rejected the greatest gift in the universe!” Fiona said. “You damaged me. But I fought for what was mine and I’m stronger now. More powerful than you or any of your kind.”
Moira’s head ached and she mentally pushed back, fighting whatever images Fiona tried to plant inside her. Her head felt as if it would explode.
She felt something wet and sticky on the ground; she touched her face and came away with blood. Her nose was bleeding like a waterfall. She would bleed to death. Here. It would be called natural causes. A fluke. And no one would believe the prisoner in the far cell, that a beautiful woman had killed Moira without touching her. Who would?
“I wish I had time to toy with you,
Moira looked up from where she bled on the floor. Fiona sounded irritated, and her brow was wrinkled, showing frustration.
“If I want it done right,” Fiona murmured, then turned her attention back to Moira. She stepped as close to the bars as she could without touching and smiled.
Fiona’s lips moved, but Moira couldn’t hear what she said, or read her lips. Her lungs grew heavy, as if filling with water, and Moira felt as though she were drowning. She couldn’t breathe. She grabbed her throat, the sensation of choking so real-suddenly, she coughed up water, a half cup, then more.
Fiona watched. “It would be such fun practicing on you, but I don’t have time. I’m going to share something with you before you die, though. Something to take with you.”
Moira screamed as if a knife had pierced her brain. The pain was so excruciating that Moira prayed to God to just kill her now. The invisible knife twisted, twisted, her skull pounding in agony. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she curled up in a fetal position, wanting to pound her head into the cement because anything would feel better than this.
She tried but failed to use her will to hold back the pain, to stop the inevitable. Fiona was too strong, too powerful. Rico had been wrong. Moira’s will was far too weak to fight. She’d told him before that she couldn’t battle
