Allison Brennan - Original Sin

The Seven are not demons who can be exorcised using traditional ritual exorcisms, because they do not need to possess a body to survive. They are spirits. They laugh in the face of the Faithful and do not obey orders of those who summon them. They are the Tricksters of Hell, Fallen Angels, among the highest order of angels who plummeted during the Great Battle. Woe to the world who sees the Seven on earth .

Anthony learned two important things.

The first was why Fiona’s ritual had taken place at the ruins on the cliffs. In a handwritten diary of an Olivet graduate nearly three hundred years ago, shortly after the book was thought destroyed, he read:

Any place where the blood of the righteous is spilled in the battle of good and evil, heaven and hell, and where also a human being is sacrificed, weakens the protective barrier between earth and the netherworld. At such a place, with the proper ritual, training, desire, and power, a fearless magician can open a gate for demons to pass through. Some magicians believe that they can move freely between the demonic world and our own, a deadly proposition. Many things must align for all the elements to be in place for such a gate, and there are only a few known gateways over the last millennium, all of which have been sealed and consecrated. But there will be more. Magicians will continue to create these openings when possible, and the greater in number, the weaker the entire threshold. Some believe that a great battle on earth will ensue, spilling the blood of the righteous and leading to murder and desecration. The battle will weaken the barrier between earth and Hell until the End Times, allowing free movement of demons through the membrane. Chaos will reign. This will, some believe, be the signal of the Second Coming .

Some will wait and watch and not impede the successes of magicians .

Some, including this scholar, believe such a strategy sets up many for eternal death through inaction .

Though none of the scholars Anthony read had specific knowledge of how the ritual worked, they all were in agreement that to summon the Seven at one time there was the need for not only a powerful magician, but two sacrifices: a vessel and an arca .

The vessel, also called a “key” by Lieber, was a magician who used her powers combined with the others in the coven to draw out the Seven from Hell. Her death was a sacrifice necessary to bring them forth, as no one could survive such a violent spiritual assault. Her soul in exchange, according to Lieber, would have strength in the afterlife, which could be used by the coven as tenuous control over the Seven-in theory.

Was Abby Weatherby the key? The means to draw out the Seven? It would appear so, but Anthony didn’t know enough about what powers she may have had. Everything he knew and understood about the afterlife put souls in two places: purgatory en route to Heaven. or firmly in Hell. There were hierarchies of angels and hierarchies of demons, but human souls with power in Hell? He had never heard such a thing, and it greatly disturbed him.

If Abby was the key , that meant there had to be an arca .

The girl Moira spoke of, Lily. The teenager who went to the cliffs to save her cousin, Abby.

Anthony was poring over everything he could find about what the arca was-if in fact it was a person and not a thing-and how it was used. There were far fewer specifics about the arca than the key , but based on subtext he determined that the arca was a human ‘container’ that trapped the Seven.

The arca must have been consecrated for the purpose. Arcas, like other warriors for the underworld, are conceived during rituals. Some believe such individuals, whether they know of their purpose or not, must be sacrificed by the just or the end result will be devastating for many, many innocent souls. Others believe such individuals can be saved. But as I live and breathe today, it remains the truth that none have been saved; once told of their position and potential for power, they grow in darkness. The allure of evil is great, and the lies of demons many .

Moira O’Donnell .

Anthony slowly shut the heavy book.

None have been saved .

Father Philip must have known the truth about Moira before Peter died. Moira had sought him out; they all knew she was a witch.

Such individuals … must be sacrificed by the just …

Anthony couldn’t kill Moira without cause. He wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer, and one opinion in an old book didn’t provide adequate justification. There had to be another answer. He would find it. Not to save Moira, but to save them all.

He frowned, staring at the stacks of faded books and papers spread across his desk at the mission. He knew enough of Moira’s past, how her mother had conceived her to serve as a liaison between the covens and the underworld, but what of the arca last night on the cliffs? If Lily Ellis was the arca , she was one of the unsaved.

He refused to believe it. God didn’t work that way. Everyone could be saved.

None have been saved .

That didn’t mean they couldn’t be. He opened an old, thin tome about demon traps. The Seven were not traditional demons, and Anthony needed to better understand all types of spirit traps.

His phone vibrated and he grabbed it, startled. It was Skye.

“Working?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You have answers?”

“I’m getting there. It’ll take a little more time.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Skye? Are you there?”

“Rafe Cooper left the hospital last night. Walked out, just after midnight. No one has seen him since.”

Anthony rose from his chair. “You’re certain he left on his own? After ten weeks in a coma?”

“I saw him leave on the security tape. He’s gone. I put an APB out on him, and need to get him back in the hospital for tests, and I have to talk to him about the mission murders. He’s our only living witness.”

Anthony didn’t have to read between the lines. “And your only suspect.”

“I believe you,” she said to the question he did not ask.

“It does not sound that way.”

“Dammit, Anthony, I know that not everything in this world can be explained with scientific logic. But I’m also the sheriff and I need to follow through on the investigation. Rafe’s disappearing act isn’t going to help his cause.”

“I will look for him,” Anthony told Skye.

“I still need to talk to him,” Skye said warily.

“Of course.”

“Be careful.”

“You as well, mia amore.”

“I’m going over to the high school to talk to Abby’s fellow students. I’m hoping that one of them will feel so damn guilty that she’s dead that they’ll spill the beans as to what really happened on the cliffs last night.”

“We know what happened,” Anthony said.

“We think we know what happened, but someone-someone human-was also responsible for Abby’s death. I want that person-those people -in jail. Someone must be punished, Anthony. Someone here on earth. God can have them after I’m done.”

Even before the Santa Louisa sheriff spoke to the general assembly at the beginning of their lunch break, there wasn’t a person at Santa Louisa High School who didn’t know that Abby Weatherby had died at the ruins on the cliffs. Everyone had a theory. Some rumors were true-that Abby was naked, for example. Others were false-like one that she’d killed herself. But as Chris Kidd sat in the last row of chairs in the auditorium and rubbed his sore neck, he knew some of what had really happened.