Original Sin

auditory or silent alarm system. Nothing.

The church was one large room. There was definitely magic in here. Not a lot, and she suspected that none had occurred since Sunday, but it felt strong enough that Moira knew spells had been cast here. Something retained magical energy. She looked quickly around, taking in the simple room instantly.

It appared that this building used to be a business of some sort. Multiple outlets along the floorboard, for plugs and phones, indicated there were probably twenty desks or cubicles. Real estate was Moira’s guess. Now the room was filled with padded folding chairs; the carpet was new and lush, and the altar was a simple polished wood table with a gold cross hung on the wall above it. Moira didn’t want to stay here too long-though the sky was darkening as the sun rapidly set, the front of the “church” was all glass. But she took a moment and looked under the table with her flashlight.

Just as she thought: a sigil. The sigil-a demonlike creature in a hexagram-was unique and likely the patron “demon” of Pennington’s order. Whether it was Fiona’s or a special mark just for Pennington, she didn’t know. She looked around and saw protections over every doorway-herbs disguised as decorative flowers, or framed posters with sayings like “With God, nothing is impossible.” She’d bet there were occult symbols on the flip side of the paintings. Maybe that was the magic she felt, the simple protective spells cast to keep demons and spirits at bay.

There were four smaller rooms off the main room, all on the northern side of the building. The front room- with all the window exposure-was a classroom and day-care center. The next looked to be a meeting room. The rear two were offices. Moira searched both of them, not certain what she was looking for but hoping she’d recognize a clue if she saw it.

Since Pennington was one of the twelve at the ritual, he had to be in Fiona’s inner circle. He’d know where she was living. It wasn’t a hotel, not here in Santa Louisa, where the choices were sparse with no five-star hotels in sight. And Fiona had been here awhile-months. She may have arrived after the murders at the mission, but Moira would bet her money that Fiona had been here for much, much longer. Fiona wouldn’t have trusted even her most trusted circle with every detail of her plans. She would want to be nearby. To watch, supervise, and criticize.

Pennington had arrived in August. The priests died in November. Was he part of it? Directly, or on the periphery? She hadn’t pressed Rafe on the details of the murders, but maybe she should have. She had her theories based on what she did know, what Anthony and Rafe said, and what had been written about the murders in the papers. But she didn’t have details, and if she was missing something …

She searched both offices. The computers were passcode protected, and while Moira could pick any lock and hot-wire almost any car, she knew next to nothing about technology or code breaking. The file cabinets were locked, and those she easily picked. She found little inside-though a printed copy of the membership directory might come in handy. She snatched it, glancing through what looked like over three hundred names. She prayed they weren’t all witches. Chances were only a few of them were practitioners. People like Elizabeth Ellis.

The desk in Pennington’s office drew her in particular. There was magic here, strong and powerful, and for one fear-filled moment she thought she was being watched. It took all her willpower not to cast a shield around herself, knowing that the shield might protect her for that moment, but the magic it generated would alert Fiona to her location.

She shook off the feeling, searched the office, and found a hex bag meant to curse any who entered without permission. She dumped out the bag and said a prayer, then left.

Pennington lived upstairs. Another door, another lock, and she was inside.

He didn’t actually live here-she knew that as soon as she stepped into the stale rooms. These, too, had once been offices and converted into an apartment. It was clean, smelling antiseptic, and furnished with cheap but trendy furniture. The door opened into the living room-two couches and a couple of chairs. The kitchen was in the middle and windowless, the bedroom in the rear. Again, windows faced the street. She kept the lights off; it was not completely dark yet and a few cars had driven by. The church and apartment were on a side street that dead- ended into a park. There were only a handful of businesses here, and most were closed at five. A small cafe on the corner, which she could barely see from the bedroom window, appeared to be the only place still open, and it wasn’t doing a brisk business.

Still, she wasn’t going to take chances. She walked through the kitchen, looked in the refrigerator: sparse. Cans of soda, water bottles, and expired orange juice. The freezer had more food, probably used if he had to stay for a reason.

One of the two bedrooms had been converted into an office. Unlike Pennington’s official office downstairs, this space looked well-used. She searched the desk first. There was no computer, but there was a cord to connect a laptop to a nearby printer. Nothing of interest in the desk, except the bottom drawer, which was locked.

From that drawer something magical pulsated with dark energy. She hesitated, then picked its lock. Sliding open the drawer, a wave of heat washed over her, brushing by her on a stench of evil. She shook involuntarily and barely resisted slamming the drawer shut.

Inside was an old wooden box as thick as a ream of paper, but half the size. Carved on the outside was a sigil similar-possibly identical-to the one under the altar in the main room. The wood was dark and aged, the corners worn and black. Two dark orange eyes looked in opposite directions yet seemed to look right at her-through her-like twin flames. She stifled a scream, as if the demon on the box were alive.

The box was locked and required a number code. Seven wheels-old and worn so dark she could barely make out the numbers-would need to be set exactly right to open it. She considered taking it, but as her hand neared the thing, every instinct inside her told her not to touch it. She wished Anthony were there. He’d know exactly what this was and how to handle it.

Instead, she took a picture of it with her cell phone and emailed it to Anthony with the message:

This scares me to death; I don’t want to touch it. Dark magic-the blackest-is coming off it in waves. But if you want me to grab it, I will.

She clicked Send, pocketed her phone, and turned her attention to the file cabinets. She was looking through the paper documents for property-where did Pennington really live? She’d bet her last dollar that he stayed with Fiona. Fiona liked her inner circle close.

Good Shepherd owned a lot of property, not only in Santa Louisa but all over the country. She wanted to grab everything but couldn’t carry it all, so focused on places in or around Santa Louisa.

Fiona would live somewhere private. Preferably near the ocean, but that wasn’t a requirement for her mother. Size-it had to be big. Opulent. Fiona liked to live well, and she was good at manipulating people into giving her things. Anything she wanted, including money. Moira wondered how wealthy Good Shepherd was-with three hundred church members, it was neither large nor small.

It took her several minutes, but she found three properties in Santa Louisa that seemed to fit Fiona’s criteria, at least on paper. Moira pulled up Google Earth on her iPhone and looked at the property images. The first was a Victorian house in downtown Santa Louisa. Large, on half an acre, but on a busy corner. The second was promising-in the mountains, in fact off the same road that led to Santa Louisa Mission. Fiona would appreciate that irony.

But when Moira pulled up the last property, she instantly knew this was the one. Just south of the county line, no one lived a mile in any direction. The highway was close, but no other residences were. Fiona could see the ocean, and the place had three separate buildings aside from the main house, which had six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. This was it.

If Fiona was there, so was Rafe. There had to be some way she could pinpoint where he was being held without sending out her own magical feelers.

“Use all your senses, but focus on feeling. You are empathic when you allow yourself to be,” Rico had told her more than once. “Drop the shields and feel the emotions. Search for the emotions.”

Rafe would be scared. Hurting. She could do it. She didn’t want to-she’d spent years building up her shields so she didn’t feel the emotions of others-but to save Rafe she would.

Just in case she was wrong, she grabbed the files for all three properties before leaving the room.

Back downstairs, she realized at once something was very wrong.

Magic, active magic, vibrated off the walls. Moira could practically see the energy building in the room. Where was it coming from? It wasn’t directed at her, and it was coming from all around.