Original Sin

Courage is not the absence of fear,

but rather the judgment that something else

is more important than fear.

— AMBROSE REDMOON

Moira jolted upright, her breath coming in gasps, her heart racing. The nightmare rapidly faded, but the terror that clutched her held on tight.

It wasn’t a nightmare, it was a vision, just like the terrible one she’d had ten weeks before. But this was far more vivid than any she’d ever experienced.

For a long moment, she forgot where she was. She willed her heart to slow, trying to gain mastery over her fear. This morning’s motel room was the same as so many before it. The stale smells, the strange thumps, the yellow lights and thin sheets. Days had rolled into weeks with Moira barely acknowledging the passage of time, blending together Ft. Lauderdale and Ocean City, Astoria and Santa Louisa, and in between dozens of towns, big and small. At last Moira was in the right place.

“Santa Louisa,” she whispered in the dark. The town wasn’t far from the mission massacre Father Philip had told her about. She realized now that she should have headed here directly after that phone conversation. If only she’d known the mountains in eastern Santa Louisa were a mere thirty miles from the Pacific Ocean!

She’d arrived in the picturesque central California town nearly a week ago, remaining after sensing this was the right place. Her research and her finely tuned instincts told her the gateway to Hell was here in Santa Louisa.

On the Internet message board she frequented that discussed supernatural phenomena, she’d encountered a teenager who described cliffs in the area that seemed strikingly similar to those in her vision. He’d been concerned because a mysterious fire had destroyed a local house and there’d been other odd occurances. His name was Jared Santos and everything he told her confirmed that these were the cliffs of her vision. She’d immediately headed to Santa Louisa.

The cliffs-the ruins of the destroyed house-terrified Moira even in daylight. Frightening images and thoughts flooded her mind whenever she went near the place.

She’d stood where evil radiated from the ground like heat from a furnace set on high.

Evil surrounded her. Evil didn’t float in the air, it was the air. The earth didn’t smell like earth, it reeked of the dead, of terror, of lost souls clawing through moldy dirt, desperate to escape their fate. She’d passed dead birds, rodents, a mutilated dog as she neared the center of the ruins on the cliffs. Her heart strained, told her to leave, but she looked down, and for a second that seemed to last forever, Moira saw a river of fire beneath the surface. She felt the heat rising. The soles of her feet burning, she ran.

That first night, in the dark, she’d hid among the cypress, waiting, the fear gnawing at her. She’d forced herself to stay, hoping-and fearing-her mother would appear.

Fiona hadn’t come. No one had. The following day, Moira had contacted Father Philip and told him what she’d learned. About the fire and the two deaths inside the house. That the house had been completely destroyed was frightening enough. Worse, Moira knew that portals like this could be opened only through human sacrifice.

Father asked her to stay on site and watch, to be diligent, and she had been. Or so she’d thought.

Fiona spoke, surrounded by energy so evil Moira began to shake. She could see nothing else, nothing but her mother’s flaming red hair, everything obscured by a smoky curtain that Moira couldn’t penetrate. Dark shapes took form within the curtain, whether human or demon she didn’t know. The gates of hell were open and Moira was too late.

Dammit, no! She couldn’t be too late. Father was certain Fiona wouldn’t act until the first of February, when the worlds were naturally closer. Moira had agreed, but they were wrong. It was happening now. How could she face her mother and whatever evil she had summoned and defeat it? Alone?

Yet how could she not?

She sensed beyond a shadow of a doubt that right now-at this very moment-Fiona was on those cliffs finishing what she’d started more than two months before. Two months? Fiona had been seeking immortality her entire forty-eight years, continuing the journey that started with the first covens assembled in ancient times. But Fiona was the first witch to come this close.

“Shit,” Moira muttered, “that’s going to go straight to her head.” She couldn’t let her succeed.

She slid from between the worn sheets, clothed in a blue T-shirt and black panties. She switched on the desk lamp, pulled on her jeans, then tossed her sweat-soaked T-shirt into a plastic bag.

How the fuck was she going to stop her mother? She had no backup, few tools, and too little information to go head to head against Fiona. Father Philip hadn’t figured out what the gateway would bring forth, and without that knowledge Moira might as well be sprinkling holy water on Satan himself. A mere sizzle within an apocalyptic inferno.

She couldn’t let Fiona go through with the ritual. It would end in murder. It always did.

The mark on her neck burned.

Moira snapped on a bra and pulled a black turtleneck over her head, then slid into the custom-made leather jacket Rico had given her. With special pockets for special things.

“I’m not a hunter,” she’d told him, holding the jacket as if it were on fire.

“No, you’re a huntress,” her trainer said. Rico pushed her chin up. “Despero caveat, mei amica. Despair lets them in. Despair means no hope, and there’s always hope.”

Anger fueled her fear, both volatile emotions that could be used against her. She didn’t know how to control them. That lack of control had screwed her big-time in the past, often enough to force her to pause now and breathe deeply. She remembered that there was more at stake tonight than her life.

If she failed, the covens would grow even stronger, more powerful, aided by demons at their side. St. Michael’s Order would be in great peril. One by one, Peter’s brothers-in-arms would die. Horribly. Violently. Painfully.

Move it, Moira. Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself.

She grabbed her bag and opened the door.

Outside something-someone-moved.

She quickly stepped back into the shadows of her room as she sensed before she saw a person approaching through the dense fog. Her knife was in her hand before she knew it, sweat on her brow. Though she’d yet to do it alone, she knew how to stop a demon. It was extremely difficult outside of a controlled environment-like the monastery-to banish the demon and not kill the human being it possessed. And even then, survival of the victim or the exorcist was not assured. She wanted no more deaths on her conscience.

There was only so much that intensive training could do, even with Rico-the best instructor the Order had-in her corner. Experience trumped the classroom every time. But she had no choice at this point. Fiona was here because Moira had made a deadly mistake. A mistake she couldn’t make again.

She recognized the visitor. Jared Santos, eighteen, her sole friend in this country.

Shocked, Jared’s dark eyes went to her knife and she quickly pocketed it. “I didn’t know who you were.”

“So you pull a knife? This is Santa Louisa, not Detroit.”

She ignored his comment. He still didn’t understand what they were up against, but she’d needed someone who knew the locals and the area. Jared had been her lifeline for the last week, providing her with information and transportation. He didn’t completely believe what she told him, but he’d seen and heard enough that he hadn’t turned her in to the police. And considering his father was a deputy sheriff, that was a real good thing.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “You’re supposed to be watching Lily.”

“She’s gone.”

Moira’s nagging fear deepened. She knew where the girl had gone, but she didn’t know why. She had come to Santa Louisa because Jared had told her on the message board about several odd incidents he and his girlfriend Lily had uncovered about her cousin Abby’s new group of friends. The fire on the cliffs-occurring the same night as her vision more than two months before-sealed the deal. Everything Moira heard was stamped with the M.O. of an