Allison Brennan - Original Sin

“Yes, we need to find Lily,” she said. “I don’t know if they have her, but if they do we have to try and save her. If they don’t, we have to find and protect her. I’m with you on that, Jared. But this”-she gestured toward the partially obliterated occult symbols-“needs someone who specializes in … this,” she ended lamely.

Moira no longer wanted Jared here because she feared Fiona’s minions would return. He could hardly be expected to defend himself against magic he didn’t understand, and she couldn’t protect both him and herself. Not against Fiona’s coven. If there was more than one magician, Moira would have her own battle to wage. And she could not let them take possession of Abby’s body. The girl deserved a proper burial- after she was cremated into three pounds of ash.

But Moira also couldn’t let Jared search for Lily on his own … what if Fiona’s coven was watching? They didn’t have to be too close, there were other ways … She shivered. “Trust me.”

Jared scowled. Trust her. Right . She barely knew him. He’d frequented an online message board about supernatural phenomena, but he was in no way prepared for this.

Jared bent down and picked up two articles of female clothing. Jeans and a pale pink sweater. He looked ill. “Lily was wearing this sweater today.”

A distant scream pierced the night. Moira jumped. It came from the woods, far on the other side of the road. Then there was silence, which sounded even worse.

“Lily!” Jared exclaimed. “I have to find her. I’m sorry, Moira, I-she must be terrified.” He ran to his truck, ignoring her protests that he shouldn’t go off alone.

His truck was driving away when she whispered, “Don’t leave me.”

The wind whipped up from the ocean, salt air stinging her cheeks. She felt as though she was being watched, but there was no place nearby to hide … No one was watching, no one was here. But telling herself that did little to alleviate her rising panic.

She shook her head, thinking herself foolish, and looked again at poor Abby. She wished she had Rico or Father Philip here to tell her what to do.

Anthony . She had to bring him in. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Father Philip.

She was surprised when he answered the phone himself after the first ring.

“Father, it’s Moira.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. But it’s bad, Father. I think-I don’t know what to think. Something happened at the cliffs. There are signs of violence, a spirit trap, obscure symbols I’ve never seen before. And no one is here, except”-she glanced at Abby’s naked corpse-“a dead teenager.”

“Holy Mother of God.”

She smiled; otherwise she would cry at Father’s version of cussing.

“I’m worried about Anthony,” Father continued. “He’s not answering his phone.”

Bright lights shot out at her from the road and approached quickly. As soon as the spotlight hit her body, the red and blue rotating spheres clicked on.

Fuck .

“Father, I need to go.”

“Moira, wait-what’s wrong?”

“Keep trying Anthony, and hope that he has a get-out-of-jail-free card in his pocket. I think I’m going to need it.”

She hung up and pocketed her cell phone.

A voice said over a speaker: “This is the Santa Louisa County Sheriff’s Department. Stay where you are with your hands visible.”

Moira kept her hands in front of her, plainly in sight, and fought the urge to bolt.

Moira had to come up with a plausible story as to why she was here in the middle of the night with a dead girl. Maybe … she’d been walking in the area and … right . Like anyone would believe she’d walked the ten miles from her motel to the cliffs. At two in the morning . And she was in the middle of friggin’ nowhere with three abandoned, boarded-up houses on an unpaved road next to a cursed lot. She got lost? Sure . She’d wandered aimlessly near the edge of dangerous cliffs in the fog, just happening to stumble across a corpse.

But she certainly couldn’t say anything about what had happened-what she thought had happened. Moira had to carefully maneuver a tightrope. She wasn’t an American citizen. She could be deported, her student visa revoked. Father Philip had arranged with Rico to “enroll” her in Olivet, and no one in the States had yet questioned that Olivet was an all-male theology seminary. Yet . And she didn’t want to shine a light on them, because they weren’t really a seminary. Olivet was the western hemisphere university for demon hunters and not officially recognized by the Vatican or any quasi-legitimate authority, as opposed to St. Michael’s, which had some protection from the powers that be. If people sniffed around, they might discover that no priests actually graduated from Olivet.

Fortunately, she’d wisely left her gun back at the motel, but the dagger wouldn’t go over too well with the sheriff. And who would believe her that there had been an occult ritual here? Exactly -no one.

An officer shined a light in her face. Moira couldn’t see beyond the brightness, could barely make out the two shadowy figures when she squinted. Suddenly the idea that Fiona’s coven was bigger than her mother traditionally maintained-Fiona plus twelve in the inner court, and a few strays used for muscle and eyes and grunt work-terrified her. What if someone in the police department was part of it? What if Fiona controlled the town? This had happened before in small towns, and Santa Louisa had only thirty thousand residents. Moira should have put her own pride aside and contacted Anthony when she’d first discovered he was in town. At least she’d then have someone on her side who understood what they were up against, and maybe he’d know whom to trust.

“Always have backup,” Rico had said during their training. “Never go blind into a situation, even if you think there’s nothing going on.”

“I don’t have a partner,” she’d said. “And I don’t want one.”

“What are you doing out here?” a female voice asked, jolting Moira from her memory.

“Are you the sheriff?”

“Sheriff Skye McPherson. And you are?”

“Moira O’Donnell. I was with Jared Santos, but he ran off after-”

A man in plainclothes stepped forward from behind the sheriff. Moira shielded her eyes from the light and squinted. She could see no details, but the way he moved was familiar, like a big, caged cat.

The sheriff reached out to grab him. “Wait, Anthony-”

Anthony brushed off her hand and quickly approached Moira, stopping only a foot from her. Disbelief and anger rolled off him in palpable waves.

Anthony Zaccardi. Though she knew he was in town, she was still stunned to see him again after all this time. The towering demonologist’s middle name could have been Intimidation .

“Moira O’Donnell.” He spoke the name as if it were a curse. “I should have known where there is trouble from the underworld, you would be nearby, puttana.”

“Prick.”

She held her ground, though Anthony’s hostility put her on edge. He hadn’t liked her even before she’d killed Peter. If Father Philip hadn’t been there, Moira was absolutely certain Anthony would have killed her that same night.

“What did you do?” Anthony glanced briefly at Abby’s body, then his gaze focused on her.

Sheriff McPherson walked over to the body and, careful not to disturb anything or turn her back to Moira, bent down to feel for a pulse. “Shit,” she mumbled. “You said you were here with Jared Santos? Where is he? I want the God’s honest truth. What happened here? Were you drinking? Getting high?”