Original Sin

THREE

“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 remember-knifelike pain sliced through his head, lights and shadows exploding, and he had to stop until the intensity subsided.

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 tick-tick of the engine told him that someone had stopped here recently, and he looked around, confused and curious. He seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but he wasn’t alone.

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.

How do you know that?

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.

Be quiet, be very quiet, don’t think, don’t think a word …

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.

Don’t think, just act, don’t think, do, quiet quiet quiet, they won’t see me, don’t let them see me …

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 know them, but you don’t remember where or why or when.

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.

How do you know what they’re doing, Raphael?

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.

Save the arca …

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.

Pride.

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.

Save the arca …

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.