Allison Brennan - Original Sin

But if anyone other than Anthony had told her that the Seven Deadly Sins were real, she would have laughed or committed him for seventy-two hours in the psych ward.

Dr. Rod Fielding approached Skye with a nod as Young drove off with Moira O’Donnell. The head crime scene investigator was now the acting coroner, after Rich Willem surprised her by retiring at the end of the year. Skye had tried to convince Rod to take the appointment, but he declined, telling her it was just temporary while she searched for Willem’s replacement.

Rod headed for the corpse, then stopped and looked around. “What happened here?” he asked. He saw Anthony standing on the far edge of the lot, talking on his cell. “This isn’t-” He saw the symbols, even though they had been partly concealed. He noticed the red silk linens, the naked body, the spilled candles.

“Dear Lord.”

“It’s Abby Weatherby,” Skye said.

“I know Abby’s parents.” The pain in his voice was real.

He rubbed his eyes, then pulled on gloves as he said, “What happened?”

“Hope you can tell me .”

They crossed over to the body and Rod frowned. “She’s naked. Any sign of sexual assault?”

“Not that I could see externally-there’s no blood on her body, no visible bruising. There are no external wounds, I can’t see any obvious cause of death.”

“Did anyone touch or move the body?”

Skye hesitated. “Possibly. Jared Santos and a friend of his found her. I don’t think they disturbed her, but I can’t say for certain.”

“Where is he? Can you ask him? Or his friend?”

“I haven’t spoken to Jared yet. And I took Moira O’Donnell into custody. She-” Skye hesitated. Rod was one of the few people who knew what really happened last November, but Skye felt strange talking about supernatural events as if she were discussing common crime. “O’Donnell is from Anthony’s … group.” That sounded lame, but how else could she explain it?

“Why’d you arrest her?”

“She assaulted Anthony.”

Rod grinned. “She hit him? Really.”

“Don’t look so happy about it.” Skye changed the subject. “Anthony thinks there were other people here-a, um, coven.” She mumbled the last word.

“He thinks what? Did you say coven? As in witches?” Rod looked around, taking in what she and Anthony had catalogued earlier. “It’s certainly freaky, but we’ve been having trouble keeping trespassers off this site ever since the fire. These kids are dumb-asses, you know that as well as I do. I’ll do a full tox screen of Abby, but I know you’re thinking exactly what I am. We’ve talked about it before.”

“Kids partying, getting high, OD.”

“Exactly. I’m not rushing to a conclusion, but honestly, this isn’t new. We’ve seen it time and time again, and you and I both know Abby was running wild this past year. Senior, about to leave home, breaking away from strict parents. We’ve seen it here and in every other town big and small in America. I’m just disheartened to see so much potential gone to shit.”

Maybe Anthony was wrong, or the demonic symbols were a game, not truly meant to summon demons or anything else. Just kids messing around. Maybe there had been a supernatural ritual here, but before Abby arrived. Or she interrupted something …

“I’ll track down her boyfriend if she has one, talk to her friends. Someone will crack.”

Rod squatted next to Abby’s body and did a visual inspection, then pulled on gloves and touched the body in several areas. “When was she discovered?”

“Approximately two a.m.”

He glanced at his watch, made a note in his book. “About ninety minutes ago-take or leave. She hasn’t been dead much longer than that. She’s in the very early stages of rigor, which is likely with the low temperature-I’d put her death no more than two hours.”

He looked in her mouth, eyes, nose, throat. He spread her legs to check for obvious sexual assault, found none, and rolled her to check for injuries on her back.

“Nothing physical. Honestly, this looks like her and her boyfriend came out here to screw and get high. She OD’d and he fled.”

“He took off with her clothes?” Skye doubted it but didn’t say anything. Rod was a veteran, nearing retirement age but sharp as a tack. He was also the one who’d come up with the key to solving the murders of the priests at the mission last November. She trusted his judgment, but wondered if his knee-jerk response now was because he didn’t want to contemplate something … otherworldly .

As Rod eased the victim’s body back into its original position, she saw something. “What’s that on the back of her neck? Move her hair.” Skye pulled on one latex glove and gently pushed the girl onto her side. “There.”

She pointed to an elaborate and colorful tattoo on the back of her neck-right where the neck touched the shoulders.

“Looks like a professional tattoo,” Rod said after inspecting it. “I’ll take photos at the morgue.”

She glanced at Anthony and saw that he was talking on the phone. She bit her lip and hated that she wanted to eavesdrop.

“I’m going to collect her with this linen,” Rod said, “to preserve trace evidence. But I’ve done all I can do here. I’ll tag and bag her and transport her to the morgue.”

“What time can you do the autopsy?”

“Right away. I’ll prep her, then begin at eight a.m. You coming?”

“Absolutely.” She looked over at Anthony, who was still deep in conversation and worried. He caught her eye, then turned his back to her. Something was up, Skye thought as she went to help catalogue the rest of the crime scene.

Anthony listened intently to Father Philip, disliking the direction of the conversation.

“You need to help her,” Father said after telling Anthony that he’d known all along that Moira O’Donnell was in the States-even before Anthony had left the island for Santa Louisa last November.

“You knew that witch was here?”

“Now is not the time for this argument.”

“She is a Jezebel, she has deceived you.” Anthony’s stomach turned. He and the Father had had this argument many times, and neither could convince the other of the rightness of his position. There was nothing Father Philip, or Rico, or any of the others who held Moira blameless could say to convince Anthony that she was not a threat to St. Michael’s Order, and nothing he said nor the facts he presented about her culpability in Peter’s death swayed them either. She had brought the demon into St. Michael’s. She was responsible for its crimes.

Father Philip ignored his comment and said, “She called me tonight when she found out about the ritual on the cliffs. I told her to call you, but as there has been considerable animosity between you two, I’m not surprised she didn’t. But you knew-”

He didn’t want to discuss his strange connection to the ruins, so he interrupted. “I check the cliffs every night because of the darkness that surrounds the place.” It was like a black hole, with mass and depth, as if the laws of physics didn’t apply. Not now, not tonight-whatever the coven did here changed the place. “There have been some signs of occult activity over the last two months, but nothing like what I found tonight.”

“What happened? I’ve been trying to reach Moira, but she’s not answering her phone.”

“According to the signs, the Seven have been released. A teenager died in the process-possibly a sacrifice. Moira O’Donnell was in the middle of it. She claims she found the body, but I don’t buy it. Why can’t you see that she’s the problem? She’s been part of the underworld uprising from the beginning-she started with her mother, and while she may not be working with Fiona anymore, she had her own brand of magic, and it got Peter killed. I called Olivet tonight and learned that she was supposed to arrive there months ago but never showed. She’s a loose cannon-and I honestly don’t care what her motives are. You-”