Allison Brennan - Original Sin

Moira tossed him a notepad and pencil.

“Did you voluntarily cross into the circle?” she asked Lily.

“I don’t understand.”

“Did they drag you kicking and screaming to their altar, or did you walk into the circle of your own free will?”

“I-walked in, but I was worried-”

“What does that matter?” Jared interrupted.

Moira didn’t want to go into the nuances of human sacrifices and dark magic. She recited the CliffsNotes version. “Human beings have free will. We make our own decisions. Many rituals-especially the ancient rites-require a conscious choice.”

“I just wanted to help Abby. I didn’t know-”

“I told you!” Moira pressed her thumb in the center of her forehead. She’d warned her, she’d warned Jared-and she didn’t pull any punches. Maybe they hadn’t truly believed her because she was too blunt.

Moira needed a good twelve hours of sleep but doubted she’d get ten minutes before dark. She pulled the makeshift compress from her lower back, squeezed out the water from the melted ice, and added fresh ice. Her entire body ached; she needed an icy bath to numb the pain and stop the swelling. She put the compress on the back of her head now that her back was so cold she could barely feel the bruising.

“Something went wrong with the ritual and you ran away,” Moira prompted, wanting to get to the end of Lily’s story and figure out what to do with her while she called around to friends and “frenemies” to find out what arca meant. It was a container of some sort, but what could Lily have that was valuable to Fiona? “You’re certain you saw demons? What did they look like?”

“Dark. Smoke, but thicker, and they had shapes-faces, tails, not like us. They changed, looked more like animals-monsters-than people. But they looked human, too.” She choked back a sob and Jared sat next to her on the edge of the bed. He took her hand.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.

“I didn’t want to look, I closed my eyes, but then the stranger told me to run or I would die.”

Moira’s head snapped up. “Stranger? What stranger? Someone from the coven?”

“No-he came right after Abby died. Just walked up and started saying these things-I didn’t understand him. It was a foreign language, really weird, and then he looked at me, told me to run or I would die. I ran. Then there were the most inhuman screams I’ve ever heard and I glanced back and the sky was like on fire, with lightning, thunder, screams, all there around the circle, and then they were gone like the fluttering of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of birds. I thought he was behind me, and I was scared of him, but he’d saved my life. I thought he might be an angel, but he wasn’t. He was running, but then he wasn’t behind me and I was alone.”

“Describe the stranger,” Moira said, then added, “please.”

“He was wearing green hospital scrubs-you know, like what surgeons wear, or orderlies. He looked sick-pale. Dark hair. Black or dark brown. His eyes-I don’t know, they were … honest. Very-I can’t explain it, but when he told me to run, I ran. I trusted him. He stopped them, stopped them from killing me. But he was too late for Abby.” She was crying now, and Jared pulled her to his chest, rocking her.

Moira pulled out her iPhone and brought up the Santa Louisa newspaper. Her conversation with Father Philip had been running through her head, and then what Fiona had said in the jail-she knew something that they didn’t know, and Moira thought she’d figured out exactly what it was.

She retrieved articles about Santa Louisa de los Padres Mission. Skimmed them. Anthony Zaccardi, historical architect rebuilding … the fire … the murders …

Jared said, “What are you doing?”

“I have an idea about who that man was, I’m trying to find a picture.”

Moira touched article after article on the small screen until she found what she was looking for.

Raphael Cooper, psychologist and seminarian from St. John’s in Menlo Park, was assigned by the Vatican to Santa Louisa de los Padres Mission four months prior to the murders. A spokesman for the Vatican, Samuel Cardinal Benvenuti, declined to comment, releasing a written statement that briefly said, “The prayers of the Holy See are with the victims of this unconscionable attack, and with Mr. Cooper for a full recovery.” A spokesman from St. John’s Seminary said only that Cooper was abandoned by his parents as a young child and raised in an orphanage. He became a naturalized American citizen when he arrived in California twelve years ago .

An orphan? Friends with Anthony? He was one of them, Moira was certain-like Peter and Anthony and Rico and others, left on the doorstep of St. Michael’s.

A photo-tagged as from St. John’s Seminary five years earlier-showed Raphael Cooper in his late twenties. His dark hair was short and conservative; his eyes at first glance looked black, but Moira realized they were dark blue. He was handsome, broad-shouldered, with a strong, square jaw. On his neck was an inch-long scar. Pure Irish oozed from every pore. How had an Irish baby ended up at St. Michael’s? Moira knew not all of the infants left were Italian, but most of them were.

She skimmed the article. Cooper was thirty-two. Peter would have been thirty-two had he lived. Cooper hadn’t been at St. Michael’s during the time Moira lived there, but Peter must have known him.

“Is this the man?” She showed Lily the picture.

Lily nodded. “Yes-but his hair is longer and he’s lost weight. He has that scar, right there, on his neck.”

“And he just told you to run and he stayed behind?”

“I thought he followed me, but then there was an earthquake, and the screams-nothing I’ve heard before.”

“Fuck!”

Lily jumped at Moira’s language and Moira bit back the stream of profanity she wanted to spew. She’d bet her life that the screams were the demons’ call. When two or more demons were together, fighting being controlled by the witches who summoned them, they screamed a cackle unheard by most people.

“Did it sound like laughter?”

“No-well, maybe. Sick laughter. Like they were crazy.”

“They’re demons.”

Lily was shaking and Jared held her close, glaring at Moira. “I thought you could help. All you’re doing is hurting her.”

“No,” Lily said quietly. “She is helping.”

Lily stared at Moira with wide eyes. “They called me the arca , Abby the key . She never wanted to die. She wanted to live forever. She wanted-”

“Live forever?” Moira asked. “Damn, damn, damn!”

“What-” Jared began.

Moira cut him off. “Stay here. Do not call anyone. Do not leave this room. I have a stash of food and water. When I leave, seal the door with salt.” She tossed a bag of special salts at Jared; he caught it. “I don’t care who it is, do not let anyone in no matter what they say.”

She stuffed equipment in her backpack. Salt. Her backup knife-the sheriff hadn’t returned hers because it was a weapon-her cross, and holy water, and she pulled on her leather jacket.

“Where are you going?”

“Not to sleep,” she mumbled. “I have to find Rafe Cooper.”

“Not alone,” Jared said.

“Of course alone,” she snapped. “Lily has to be protected, and you’d damn well better do a better job of it this time. Lily, you said your minister was there. One of them.”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Garrett Pennington. From Good Shepherd Church.”

“Catholic?” Moira wouldn’t be surprised. The best-and the worst-in this battle were in the Church.

She shook her head. “Just, you know, regular Christian.”