Original Sin

TWENTY-EIGHT

Moira fled the house, heart racing with the fear that not only had Fiona kidnapped Rafe but now she had Lily, too, and Moira had been responsible for both.

Anthony stood on the deck. “What happened?” he demanded, looking over her shoulder.

Maybe it was his tone, or her guilt, or her anger-but more likely her fear-that provoked her to push him. He barely budged.

“You left him alone? You left Rafe and now Fiona’s coven has him! How could you?”

Anthony brushed past her and into the house, his own dagger out, not that it would do any good. She raised her hand to Lily, to let her know that Anthony was a friend, and then Moira put her hands on the wood railing and breathed in the fresh, moist, early-morning air. So much like her homeland in Ireland, a much-loved place to which she would likely never return.

Rafe. They were kindred spirits, Moira and he, a little lost and a lot alone. Someone she could finally talk to about all this … and because of her, he had been taken by Fiona as a game piece.

Checkmate.

She couldn’t allow Fiona to win. She wasn’t turning Lily over to her, but she would trade herself for Rafe. Fiona would be hard pressed not to agree. Lily was an innocent, injured. She couldn’t even run if she needed to. And she would die if Fiona was successful.

Anthony stepped out of the house, furious. “Where does Fiona want to make the trade?”

Moira whirled around. “What? You can’t be seriously thinking of turning Lily over to them.”

He scowled at her. “Of course not. But she didn’t give any instructions.”

“She will. On her terms. And she won’t give us much time to prepare.” She looked at Anthony as she stuck her dagger back into its sheath. “It looks like it’s you and me, Anthony. That’s it.”

“And Father Philip when he arrives. I spoke with Bishop Aretino last night. Father Philip left before dawn, alone, and is on his way here.”

Fear clawed at her throat. “No, no, you have to stop him. Divert him. Call Rico, demand that he intercept him before he gets here. You know that Father is in great danger whenever he leaves the mission!”

Anthony nodded. “Because he is older, not physically able-”

She shook her head. “No! It’s because of me!”

He stared at her and she paced on Skye’s deck. “Fiona cursed him,” she said.

“That won’t work. His faith is too strong.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does. Moira, for all our differences, I know you care for Father. I appreciate your trepidation, and I don’t want him here any more than you do, but I will do everything in my power to protect him. Faith does matter. It saved me more than once.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. She stopped pacing, stunned by his showing of concern for her.

“Even without the curse, if Fiona knows he’s here, she will attack him with the same fierceness as she did me in jail, and Rafe here-” She gestured toward the house. “He can’t survive something like this.”

Anthony’s jaw tightened. “I will find him. I won’t let anything bad happen to Father.”

Moira wanted to believe him, but she also knew that Father Philip believed if he left the sanctuary he would die. “Why is he coming here instead of going to Olivet?”

“I don’t know.”

Moira was hardly comforted by Anthony’s words, “In the meantime, I’ll find Rafe.”

“How?”

That, she wasn’t as certain about. But she had a few ideas. “I would start with Garrett Pennington, the pastor of Good Shepherd or whatever church.” She waved her hand dismissively. “If he won’t tell us where Fiona is, he’ll lead us to her. One thing I’m very good at is following people. He won’t know I’m there.”

“What if he’s a magician?”

She thought about how she’d dissipated the psychic energy in Skye’s house. “I don’t think he can detect me.”

He seemed to take that as an answer, at least for now. “And what about Lily?”

“She can’t walk. Her feet are practically raw from running barefoot the other night, and-” She hesitated. “Getting her out this morning wasn’t easy.”

“How did you do it without magic?”

“My spidey sense. Good old-fashioned intuition, something Rico taught me to listen to.” She cracked a half-grin. “Look, Anthony, take Lily to the mission and work on finding out how to trap the Seven; I’ll track down Garrett Pennington and, hopefully, Fiona. I’ll call you when I learn something, and we can go from there.”

He was torn, but nodded. “I have another more immediate issue to research.”

“What could possibly be more important than reversing Fiona’s spell?”

“Nothing, but I’ve done all I can on that with what I have. I’m waiting on further information from a few people. But right now there’s a string of disconnected deaths that have one thing in common.”

“What?”

“The dead bodies each have some sort of identical birthmark, but it’s not on any of their medical records. The coroner says it’s not a tattoo.” He reached into his breast pocket and handed her a color print of a mark on a corpse.

Moira stared, her heart skipping a beat. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.” She didn’t realize she’d crossed herself until she’d already done it. “This is a demon’s mark.”

“They were possessed when they died? But-”

She shook her head rapidly back and forth. “No, no, not that. Let me think.” She whirled around and stared at the odd-shaped red demon’s mark in the photograph. “This only happens when someone goes through a demonic baptism.”

“I know a lot about demon worship, but I’ve never heard of demonic baptisms. It’s sacrilegious.”

Moira managed a harsh laugh. “Everything they do is sacrilegious! I had one of these.” She pulled down her turtleneck to reveal the faint scar where her demon’s mark had been. “Father removed it.” The procedure had been emotionally and physically exhausting, but it had been successful.

No one but Father Philip and Peter had known about the mark, until now.

“I was marked on my thirteenth birthday,” she continued. “When I came of age, I was baptized and marked. A demon-my so-called guardian devil, I suppose-was summoned to mark me. It’s rare, I’ll admit, because most witches aren’t strong enough to control the ritual and the demon possesses the person he’s supposed to mark, and it becomes a bloodbath. But Fiona is not a weak witch, and frankly neither was I. I was marked … but I didn’t know what it was for until later …”

Her voice trailed off and she looked over at Lily still sitting in the passenger seat of the truck. Did the girl have a mark on her?

“Moira,” Anthony prompted.

“These people had to have been marked by a demon, but I couldn’t tell you when. It could have been the other night, during the ritual Rafe interrupted, or today, or ten years ago. I don’t know!”

“Skye is investigating their last few days; would that help narrow it down? Abby had a similar, not identical, mark on her. I don’t have a picture.”

Moira didn’t know how so many dead people could have gone through the ritual if they weren’t on the cliffs. It wasn’t fun, and took years of preparation to accomplish. If Lily was marked unknowingly, it had to have been when she was a young child and something she didn’t remember.

“Was there anything else weird besides the marks?”

“They all died under odd or unusual circumstances. Three of the four victims worked at or went to Santa Louisa High School.”

“That’s no coincidence.”

Anthony asked the question she’d been thinking but couldn’t quite put into words. “Can someone be marked by a demon if they didn’t know anything about it? What if they were minding their own business, but somehow were touched-not possessed-by one of the Seven?”

“I didn’t think so,” she said, “but theoretically it could happen, I suppose.” Moira stared at the photo.

She shook her head, handed it back to him. “I’ve seen something like it before, but can’t remember where.” She took a deep breath. “Don’t let Lily out of your sight. I’m going to stop by Santa Louisa High School before I go to Pastor Garrett’s church. If I get arrested for breaking and entering, I hope you’ll convince your girlfriend to keep me out of jail.”

Jared hadn’t wanted to come to school, but his father drove him on his way to work this morning and said he’d be calling in to make sure he was in every class.

He wanted to leave for good. Walk out of the school, pack his stuff at his dad’s house, get Lily, and leave. His father had called him an idiot for giving his truck to a stranger, though Jared didn’t consider Moira O’Donnell a stranger. Not after what they’d seen … Still, maybe he had been stupid to loan Moira his truck. He hadn’t talked to her since yesterday morning, and he hadn’t spoken to or seen Lily; he felt like he was in the middle of a dream. A nightmare. He couldn’t talk to his father, and Mrs. Ellis hung up the phone when he called and asked to talk to Lily.

He considered skipping out second period-by that time, Mrs. Ellis would be at work and he could go see Lily.

He crossed the parking lot when he heard someone call his name.

He turned and saw Ari Blair motioning to him from the driver’s seat of a small car, looking like she was waiting for someone. For him? He’d known her most of his life, but they never really moved in the same social circles.

He walked over to her. She looked like crap-no makeup, her hair pulled haphazardly back in a lopsided ponytail, pale as a ghost. “Hey.”

“Get in.”

He frowned.

“Please, Jared. It’s about Lily.”

He hesitated. After what he’d seen these last two days …

Ari pleaded with him. “I know what happened on the cliffs when Abby died. I was there. I need to fix it. It’s the only way, or Lily will die. Please, Jared, I need your help. I can’t do this all by myself.”

“I’ll listen.”

“Listen in the car, okay? We’ll just drive around. I’ll tell you everything; I just really need your help. Or it won’t just be Abby or Chris-”

“Chris? Chris Kidd? What happened to him?”

“He died last night. He was killed, I’m sure of it, to keep me from doing what I’m going to do. I can’t let anyone else die.”

Jared walked around to the passenger door and got in. “Tell me everything, Ari, and don’t lie. That’s the only way I’ll help.” He only hoped he could tell if she were lying, he thought, as she drove out of the parking lot and onto the main road.