The fires were gone, but she’d seen them. She’d
“What the fuck? You scared the he-”
“Didn’t you see it? The fire? The …
He frowned. “I-it was just birds. It’s the middle of the night; they got startled or something.”
“Denial will get you killed.”
“What do you think that was?”
She swallowed. She didn’t know, but whatever it was, it wasn’t supposed to be
THREE
Lonely is the night when you find yourself alone
Your demons come to light and your mind is not your own
“Dear God, why are you doing this to me?”
Biting back a curse, Rafe Cooper stumbled along the rocky cliffs that, to him, marked the edge of the world. It was a long, long way from his youthful island home in the blissful isolation of Sicily’s St. Michael’s.
Earlier tonight, he’d been in a hospital bed. He’d opened his eyes with the overwhelming, undeniable compulsion to leave. How he got from there to here he didn’t know, only snippets of his two-hour journey remaining.
When he tried to think-to
He knew who he was-Raphael Cooper-and he knew why he’d been in the hospital-the attack at the mission. He’d been the sole survivor. Uninjured while the others had been butchered. Comatose, according to the doctors, but that couldn’t be right. He’d been unable to see or speak, but he heard everything. He heard far too much, so why couldn’t he remember now?
Again, pain sliced through his skull as he tried to recall what had happened during the months he’d been in the hospital.
A grove of cypress trees provided a canopy and a place of rest. He sat on a lightning-split trunk and let out a long breath. Every limb shook, his feet were numb, and his mind raced faster than he could think. He didn’t know why he’d come here, why he was compelled as if he had no control over his actions.
A car was parked on the north side of the cypress grove, but no one was inside. The
South of the grove he saw light within the thickening fog. Flickering light, from candles, a mere football-field length from him. Shadows of people-a dozen or more blurry figures-moved within the fog, among the flames. Fear clawed at the base of his skull; his blood alternated between hot and icy cold. Something evil was at hand.
He considered, and shards of pain stabbed his head again, blinding him, bringing him to his knees in supplication, until his mind again went blank. He screamed, but no sound came from his lungs.
He refocused on the scene, the still, low fog casting an ethereal glow in the vicinity.
Salt air rising from the inky depths of the ocean mingled with the pungent fragrance of myrrh and musk and other scents he couldn’t identify. The candle-holding figures wore white, their gowns shimmering in the quickly disappearing moonlight.
A coven.
Rafe didn’t know how he knew what the coven was doing, but as he neared the assembled group he understood everything as if he’d known it all along. Yet when he tried to concentrate on individual thoughts they disappeared, like a partial recognition of an old friend, or a suspected enemy. You know you
He didn’t need to know why or how he knew, he just needed to accept the truth: this coven was summoning demons and sacrificing the girls on the altar to do it.
Neither girl would survive when it was over. That he knew with certainty.
Rafe told himself this was foolish, one weak man against a dozen witches. How long had he been asleep? How long had he been in the hospital, knowing time passed but not knowing why?
Painful memories cut into his thoughts. He pushed aside the blood-soaked helplessness of his past … He had been unable to stop the witches before, when he was physically and spiritually strong; how could he stop them tonight, when he was weak and doubting? He would die in such a confrontation.
He deserved to die. Maybe this battle was meant to be. His death to save someone he didn’t know. Dying would give him peace, silence the constant pain and pressure and agonizing memories of his murdered friends. He was supposed to protect the priests who sought forgiveness and healing at Santa Louisa de los Padres Mission; instead, he’d allowed their slaughter through his own blindness.
Rafe pushed the question aside, the overwhelming urge to hurry forcing him to walk faster until he was running, and before long he stood on the edge of their circle. Even though the demon trap was in the center of a clearing, the witches were so engrossed in their ritual that at first they didn’t notice him through the fog and smoke.
The High Priestess, with dark red hair that shimmered in the light, held a bowl over a naked girl, and said:
“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, as God in Heaven created the angels from nothing, so I command the Seven to rise through the gate which I have opened. In the name of Barbiel, Azza, and Mammon; in the name of Moloch, Olivier, and Sammael; in the name of Beelzebub and all the Fallen: come through the keyhole and submit to my command.”
The body of the naked girl began to convulse, and a hooded woman next to the High Priestess held a dagger above her, as if to ward off an attack. The hooded woman was familiar … but Rafe couldn’t focus on her as the earth rumbled, a growl that shot primal fear directly to his heart, putting every one of his senses on high alert.
The girl was lifted from the ground by unseen forces as she writhed. The gowned girl next to her was still, and at first Rafe thought she was dead. But then her eyes moved, her face twisting in panic. She was an unwilling sacrifice.
A deafening roar filled the circle and the naked girl screamed and convulsed as around her black smoke rose from the ground, then swirled like a hurricane above the coven. Lightning flashed as unformed demons crashed and collided. As the six witches within the double circle, and the one in the center, chanted urgently, the demons were drawn against their will into the double ring, swirling, straining, screaming, until they were wrenched apart, separated, into seven distinct columns that rose from ceremonial bowls into the sky. The column in the middle grew bigger, wider, darker.
Rafe was too late to stop the opening of the gates of Hell. The demons were here, and he didn’t know how to send them back.
