Original Sin

The arca? He laid eyes on the terrified, frozen girl on the altar. The naked girl was dead; Rafe knew it as certainly as he knew he was alive. But with the knowledge that he could-that he had to-save the other girl, the arca, he broke the circle.

All eyes shot to him. Shock registered on the High Priestess’s face as he spoke.

The words were foreign to his tongue; he’d never heard them before. But as soon as he spoke, his voice took on a deep, resonant command and the earth shook beneath him.

“Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing!” the High Priestess screamed. “Raphael Cooper! Stop!”

She countered him with a curse that he could almost see bounce off him. Sharp pain in his chest told him she’d hit close. He didn’t know who or what was protecting him, but he didn’t have time to figure that out, just like he couldn’t reflect on how the redheaded witch knew his name.

Rafe walked to the altar and pulled the girl, the arca, to her unsteady feet.

The High Priestess began another chant, aided by the familiar witch in a different language. A language he almost knew. She was finishing the invocation that would make this girl her weapon. His head ached as he looked into the girl’s wide pupils. She was drugged, her eyes darting and unfocused, her face flushed. The incense burned low to the ground where the girls had lain, making her drunk with the poisonous, hallucinatory fumes. They would soon affect Rafe. If this girl didn’t escape, he would have to kill her to stop the ritual-a ritual that would have far more deadly results than the loss of one innocent life.

He didn’t want to kill her. But if the ritual was complete, not only would she die anyway, but the coven would be impossible to stop.

“Run,” he commanded the girl. “Run or you’ll die.”

A low rumble and an overwhelming feeling of unbalance ripped Anthony Zaccardi out of a restless sleep at two that morning. He sat up, the sheet, damp from his perspiration, falling off his chest. It took a moment for him to recognize the cluttered room he’d been sleeping in for the past ten weeks, the lacey femininity of Skye McPherson’s bedroom so different than the no-nonsense cop she was outside of her home.

He swung his legs off the side of the bed, squeezed his temples, and prayed for answers to questions he didn’t know.

“What’s wrong?” Skye asked, putting a cool hand on his bare back.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Your thousand-degree body woke me. I swear, I’ll save a fortune on heating bills with you in my bed.”

He stared at Skye in her gray cotton tank top, her long, blond hair tangled and damp from sleep. It took a moment for his head to clear, then he touched her beautiful face. “I am sorry, mia amore.”

He’d heard something but couldn’t remember what had awakened him. A deep sense of foreboding filled him. It was the same fear that had built in him more than ten weeks ago when he’d first arrived in Santa Louisa from St. Michael’s in Italy. The closer he’d gotten to the mission, the more apprehensive he’d become. For good reason. He’d been able to save only one man from the horrors at Santa Louisa de los Padres: Rafe. The others, all twelve priests, had died.

Could he have saved them if he’d arrived earlier? He studied demons, he didn’t hunt them; he could exorcize weak demons from inanimate objects like buildings and artifacts, but he was ill prepared to battle demons who had a plan.

Skye frowned, her brows knit with worry, her cop eyes sharp and focused in the dark. “It was a joke, Anthony. What’s going on?”

“You’ll think I’m being foolish.”

“Never.” She sat up next to him, her bare thigh pressing against his shorts.

He touched her again, needing to ground himself. Despite being together a short time her love gave him great strength. He soaked in her presence and said, “I want to go to the house again.”

They both knew he meant the empty lot on the cliffs where once a house had been, before it burned and tumbled into the pits of Hell, just three days after the slaughter at the mission. Skye thought he was obsessed with the ruins, but he still went out there several times a week. He’d tried every trick in the book to figure out what bothered him about the place, other than the fact that both he and Skye almost died that fiery night on the cliffs in November. He’d even performed an exorcism a couple of weeks ago and felt absolutely ridiculous, because of course there was nothing there to be possessed. He’d tested for sulphur, for blood, for anything that would signal to the demonologist that an evil spirit was in the soil itself. All negative.

“First thing in the morning,” Skye said, putting a hand on his arm. “You haven’t been sleeping well for weeks, you’re exhausted. Between rebuilding the mission and sitting with Rafe at the hospital, you haven’t had time to yourself.”

“Or for you.” He kissed her. She was his lifeline in these troubled times. She had faith in him, and even when he did things she didn’t understand, she stood by him. “I love you.”

She smiled and put her hand on the back of his neck. “Lie down,” she whispered and kissed him lightly. “I know how to get rid of that headache.”

He took her hand into his and kissed it. “I want to go to the house now.”

She silently stared at him, trying to hide her concern, but he saw the worry in her green eyes, in the way she tried to shield them when he frowned.

She relented. “All right, we’ll go.”

“I can do it alone.”

“No.”

“Skye-”

“You’re not going alone. If something is going on, I need to be there.”

“It may not be a crime in your jurisdiction, Sheriff.” He tried to keep his voice light, but the seriousness of the matter overshadowed his attempt.

“You’re not going alone,” she repeated. “We’re in this together.”

As they dressed, Skye asked, “Why tonight?”

“I heard something.”

“The ruins are miles away.”

He didn’t respond. “The earth shook. It woke me.”

She cocked her head. “Earthquakes are common in California.”

“I told you you’d think I was foolish.”

She crossed the room and grabbed his shoulders. “And I said I’ll never think you’re foolish.” She was angry with him. “I don’t understand everything you do; I don’t have your faith or your experience. But I love you, and I have faith in you. That’s all I need. If you heard something, if you felt something, then we’ll go to the ruins and make sure no one is messing around. I don’t want that-that thing back in my town.”

He touched her face. “Mia amore.”

“Let’s do this fast so I can bring you back to bed.” She smiled and nipped his ear playfully.

He returned her kiss, but when she turned to check her gun and holster it, his smile disappeared. He’d like nothing more than to make love to Skye and fall back to sleep until dawn, but he wasn’t wrong about the ruins. There would be no more rest tonight.

FOUR

Fiona’s temper flared as Raphael Cooper-who shouldn’t even be here, let alone awake! — repelled her energy right back at her.

She diverted the cosmic electricity into the ground, making the earth shiver. The trapped demons growled as they began to take form. She had to complete the ritual before they regained their strength.

She’d wanted Cooper dead from the beginning because he represented the only true threat to her plans. However, others in her coven believed he’d gleaned important information from the priests at the mission-