Carnal Sin

to do with his death. I-” She stopped and frowned.

“Nina?” Moira asked.

“I’m thinking.” She paused. “You said that Nadine stole his soul. What exactly does that mean?”

Rafe was torn, but Moira wasn’t going to lie to the woman who was about to help them put together pieces of a puzzle they couldn’t complete on their own. “When a demon steals a soul-meaning, not a soul the owner promised in exchange for favors, but an innocent or cursed soul-they suck it into their body, trapping it. The person dies, because without a soul you have nothing keeping you alive. Your heart just stops. That’s why his death is being ruled cardiac arrest, though he didn’t have a heart attack.”

Tears leaked from Nina’s eyes. “George wasn’t a religious man, but … does the soul have feelings?”

“No,” Rafe said as Moira said, “Yes.”

Moira glanced sideways at Rafe and frowned. He was as angry with her as she was at him for sugarcoating the truth. Did he think that ignorance was bliss? Ignorance was right up there with lying to yourself. Nina asked for the truth, and she was going to tell it to her.

Nina said to Moira, “I believe you. Is he hurting?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to; Nina was smart enough to figure it out. If she believed that a demon could steal a soul, she had to believe in Heaven and Hell. Demons didn’t go on the “up” escalator in the afterlife.

Rafe said, “We really don’t know what happens to stolen souls.” Moira was about to argue, but Rafe turned to her. “You know we don’t. I do not believe that God allows innocent people to go to Hell.”

This was a point Moira took no comfort in arguing, so she remained silent.

“Where’s this damn demon now, and can I get George’s soul back?”

“You can’t bring George back to life,” Moira said.

“That’s not what I mean. I want to put his soul someplace safe. To rest. I don’t want him suffering for eternity!” Nina shook her head. “I can’t believe I said that. But that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“His soul is with the demon who took it,” Moira said. “And until it goes back to Hell, it’ll still be trapped there. It’s feeding her, keeping her strong.”

“Can you get it back?”

“I don’t know,” Moira said.

“George didn’t do anything wrong!”

Rafe said, “We have to believe that God will protect innocents who die.”

“Believe. Faith. Bullshit,” Nina said. “I want to know that George is safe. I want to give his soul a proper burial, and if you want my help, you’ll tell me how to do that.”

Nina was right. George deserved a level playing field for the Powers That Be to decide on the merits of his life whether he should get a shot at Paradise. In St. Michael’s world, George was collateral damage, a sad case that they would pray for but not do anything else to help.

Moira couldn’t live like that. She couldn’t stand back and do nothing, not if there was something she could do. She didn’t believe her prayers were going to do squat, though she prayed in her own way every day. She had been around demons; when they got a soul, they never let go. And she’d never heard of an avenging angel swooping down and reclaiming an innocent victim. If it happened, Rico would have told her, because this was one of the subjects they argued about the most.

What upset her more than that, however, was that Rafe wasn’t automatically on her side. What did she expect? He’d been raised at St. Michael’s; he had faith on his side. Faith that the innocent would be saved at the end-time.

But what about the decade, the century, the millennia between then and now?

Moira said, “There’s a way, but it’s dangerous.”

“Tell me,” Nina said. “I don’t care how dangerous; I will do anything.”

“Moira, no-” Rafe began.

“I can’t let George Erickson suffer any more than you can,” Moira told Rafe. “He had nothing to do with this, and damn I’m not going to wait around for the end of the world before he’s saved. We know how to get his soul back.”

Rafe abruptly stood, knocking over Moira’s near-empty cup, his jaw tight. Through clenched teeth he said, “I won’t let you. You’ll get yourself killed.”

“You won’t let me? Since when did you become my guardian angel?”

Rafe was furious and deeply hurt. From the minute he’d seen Moira two weeks ago, he knew she’d been sent to save him. She was his angel, and he was hers. It came to him as clearly as she sat in front of him: he had to protect her. Every day, every minute. She cared too deeply for everyone but herself, and she was going to die if she didn’t accept that she couldn’t save everyone.

The only way to take back a soul that had been stolen by a demon was to exorcise the soul from the demon while the demon was contained in a spirit trap. But that entailed great risk to the exorcist, who had to get far too close to the demon to ensure that the soul had an escape route, as well as the very real possibility that the soul- disembodied from its own physical self-would claim the exorcist’s body as its own, resulting in a possession. Then a second exorcist would have to convince the soul that it was dead, and to willingly leave. There was also the risk of the soul being forever lost, stuck between this world and the afterlife, becoming a ghost or vengeful spirit.

It was physically and emotionally treacherous for everyone involved, but the risks to the exorcist were the greatest. Too many of Rafe’s friends at St. Michael’s Order had died performing just this type of ritual to save one of their fallen brothers.

“Moira, it’s too dangerous,” he said quietly, sitting back down.

“I’ll do it,” Nina interjected. “I don’t care what the risks are; I want to help George.”

Rafe turned to Nina. She was sincere. “Why?” he asked.

“I love him. I would do anything for him, even die. I couldn’t live with myself if his soul was lost forever and I could have prevented it.” She grabbed each of their hands. “Please.”

“All right,” Moira said. “Get the information Rafe needs about the Donovans. We’ll get what we need for the exorcism.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll get right on it.” She slid over her card and took down Moira’s cell phone number.

“If you can’t reach me, call Jackson Moreno at Grace Harvest.”

Nina looked at her, surprised. “Pastor Moreno?”

“You know him?”

“Everyone knows him. He’s the dot-com genius who made a fortune, sold his company, then became a minister and lives very modestly. An enigma in this town.”

“He’s a friend,” Moira said. “Give him the information if you can’t find me; he’ll know what to do with it.”

Nina stood to leave, took both their hands, and said, “Thank you. I really mean that.”

When Nina had left, Rafe turned to Moira. “You lied to her. She can’t do it!”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“You’re not going to.”

“Of course I am.”

“I will not let you! You could die.”

“I can die every day. Our lives aren’t exactly safe. But if we can’t help people like George Erickson, why are we doing this? Revenge? Fuck that. George was imperfect, like the rest of us, and we both know there is a limited window of time to reclaim his soul and give it proper last rites. We know the demon is possessing someone. I hope Julie figures it out fast, and I hope she’s not lying, or we’re really screwed.”

“Moira-”

She interrupted. “We take back George’s soul first. Then we trap the damn demon Lust and put it up with her evil brother Envy at Olivet.”

“Don’t you understand that I can’t lose you?”

A flash of Moira dying in his arms came and went so suddenly, Rafe would have missed it if it weren’t so vivid that it etched itself in his mind. Fear gripped his throat, then an overwhelming sense of loss, of Moira being physically torn from his hands.

“I’m good at this,” Moira said, reaching for him. “Trust me.”