Mortal Sin (32 page)

Skye nodded, obviously relieved they had a game plan.

“All right. Make the call to Wicker. I’ll call Rod.”

Rod told Skye that Truxel was asking too many questions at the hospital about Rod’s authority to treat the victims and to take Anthony to her house; Dr. Wicker told Rafe he’d meet them at Skye’s house as soon as he could get there.

Ten minutes later, Rafe and Skye put Anthony and Juan into the backseat of Rafe’s truck. Skye followed them down the mountain. Anthony was still unconscious, and Juan was praying over him.

Rafe said, “Juan, I need more information about this man you’ve been following.”

Juan continued to pray.

“It’s important, Juan. You said Truxel killed Bertrand because he’d betrayed him.”

“Bertrand was working with the dark one.”

“A demon?”

“The dark man.”

“Dark because he’s black?”

“He has no soul.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I never saw him as anything but what he is inside, twisted and soulless, powerful and dark.”

Juan saw his aura. Rafe pushed. “Skye needs a physical description.”

“He’s gone. I followed him to Bertrand’s house. I planned to kill him. In my heart, I am guilty. But he tricked me, made me see something that wasn’t there. And then he was gone.”

“Why did Truxel let you leave after he killed Bertrand?”

“I was outside. I watched through the window. Truxel brought him to his knees with dark magic. Questionned him, but I could not hear everything. He wanted to know what he’d done with the
mors telum.
Bertrand wouldn’t tell him, and Truxel killed him. He searched the room, found something.”

Mors telum.
Death blade? Dagger? It sounded more like the name of the knife. Rafe had never heard of it before, but it had to be the dagger that was stolen nearly two weeks ago.

Juan had been following the dark man for two weeks.

“Do you know about this knife?”

Juan rambled in Aramaic, and Rafe couldn’t translate fast enough. He figured out it was a prayer, to protect them from a specific demon, but beyond that, Rafe didn’t know what he said.

Truxel wanted the knife; Bertrand either had it or knew where it was. Truxel thought Bertrand betrayed him by working with this other guy… did that mean that Bertrand was working for or against Fiona and her coven? Were there two factions at war here? If so, who and why?

“Why did you go into the house?” Rafe asked Juan. “Your prints were there.”

Juan didn’t answer. Rafe glanced into the backseat. Juan pulled something from his pocket and reached up to hand it to Rafe. He had no strength to lean forward. Rafe twisted in his seat and took the item.

It was a medallion on a chain, and Rafe knew exactly what it was.

The medallion was forged in gold, oblong and roughly the size of a half-dollar. On the front was an image of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of the Order, slaying Lucifer. There were symbols and images that Rafe had never deciphered. On the back were words in a language no one at St. Michael’s knew. They bordered on Hieroglyphics, but they weren’t Egyptian.

It had been Rafe’s as a child, from before he’d been left at St. Michael’s. He thought he’d lost it during the massacre, that it had fallen off and been burned in the fire. The Order allowed him to keep it, even though they didn’t know what exactly it was because of the image of St. Michael. But it had set Rafe apart from all the others.

“Bertrand had my medallion?”

No answer from the back. Rafe glanced in the mirror and Juan was as unconscious as Anthony.

Rafe put the medallion back on. Just having it made him feel complete, as if he’d been walking around half-naked for the last six months. He had a hundred more questions. Why did Juan risk himself to get this medallion? Why hadn’t Juan given it to Rafe when he first arrived at the mission? Why had Bertrand kept it? Did Bertrand—or Fiona’s coven—know what the medallion meant?

And how had Juan known that it was Rafe’s?

#

As soon as they were off the mountain and had good cellular reception, Rafe called Rico’s emergency phone. A strange voice answered.

“Hello?”

Rafe frowned. “Who’s this?”

“Um, Kyle. Who’s this?”

“I’m calling for Rico Cortese.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

Rafe’s stomach turned. “Sorry
what
?”

“He’s in surgery. He’ll be fine, though.”

“This is Raphael Cooper. Who exactly are you? Where are you?”

“I’m Kyle Callahan. Um, we’re in Victoria.”

“Where’s Moira O’Donnell?”

“I really think you should talk to my uncle.”

“Who’s your uncle? What’s going on?”

But the kid wasn’t there. Rafe stared at the phone, his mind unable to even speculate as to what might have happened, when an older voice said, “This is Monsignor Brody Callahan. Who is this?”

“Raphael Cooper. St. Michael’s.” He paused, then said in Latin, “
Non est ad astra mollis e terris via
.”

Brody responded, “
Tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu vivas
.”

He knew St. Michael’s code, which changed periodically. At least for now, Rafe trusted him. “What happened to Rico and Moira?” Rafe asked.

“There was a battle in the abandoned hotel where Brother John died. According to my nephew Kyle, Moira saw a death imprint and determined that a demon controlled by a woman named Serena killed John. But before they could leave, a rogue demon hunter group attacked them and shot Rico.”

There was a muffled sound, then the kid came back on the phone. “Raphael?”

“Tell me what happened to Moira.” She could not be dead. She could
not
be dead!

“Um, these people came in and wanted her to go with them. They fought, but then a whole slew of vengeful spirits came in through the tunnels. Moira said that one of them in the group had triggered a trap or something. I don’t know how she knew or what she meant, just that we had to battle like fifty ghosts, but they weren’t like any ghosts I’d ever seen.”

“You’ve seen ghosts?”

“They seem to find me,” the kid said with a shrug in his voice. “These were different. Very old. They’d been imprisoned. We fought and won because Moira closed the portal. Wow, she can really kick ass, you know? But then the head of the rogue group shot Rico and took Moira.”

Rafe was trying to control his emotions, but it was becoming more difficult. “Who took Moira?”

“Rico knew him. The leader of Gabriel’s Sword. A guy named Phineas. He shot Rico in the leg and if Moira hadn’t gone with him, he would have killed Rico and me. I’m sorry—I don’t know where they are. My Uncle Brody and I are trying to track them down, but we haven’t had any luck yet.”

Phineas
.

Rafe pulled over by the side of the road. He couldn’t drive; he could barely see or think. He confused and angry and very, very worried.

Rafe hadn’t seen Phineas in years. Phineas had Moira. Why in the world would he shoot Rico and kidnap Moira?

You know why. It’s her blood. He wants her blood to fight.

No one understood Phineas better than Rafe. There had been a time when Rafe thought Phineas had all the answers. He would have followed Phineas to the ends of the Earth. Sometimes, he still missed him. When Phineas was on your side, you could do anything.

But in the end, it came down to morality.

They lived in a world of gray, but there were a few absolute rights and absolute wrongs. Not as many as people might think, but a few that could not be crossed without losing your way. Without losing your soul.

Phineas had lost his way long ago, and Rafe did not follow. Phineas had never forgiven him, or St. Michael’s. Rafe didn’t blame him—Phineas had nearly been imprisoned for life at Olivet because Rafe walked away, revealing Phineas’s hideout. But Rafe had never regretted his decision because it had been right.

Now, Rafe feared for Moira. Phineas would drain every last drop of her blood if he thought she could be of use to them. She was a tool to Phineas—a weapon—and nothing more.

“Kyle, listen to me closely. Get me everything you can on where Gabriel’s Sword may be holding Moira. And I need people I can trust. If Rico trusted you, I’m going to have to. I’ll be there tonight.”

Rafe had left an hour ago with the promise to bring Moira back. He was moody and worried, but didn’t tell Skye why.

Rod had put Anthony into an induced coma in her bedroom. Anthony had never looked so small and helpless. Rod promised to return to check on him, and showed Skye how to care for him in his absence. Skye had to get back to work, so called Jared to keep watch. She just had to wait for him to arrive.

Dr. Wicker arrived to take Juan to a facility where he could be given proper medical care, and where Skye could interview him—officially—in the morning. Juan didn’t say anything else about Martin Truxel or the mysterious man involved with Richard Bertrand. Instead, he’d gone into a half-trance, compliant but uncommunicative.

Rafe told Skye what Juan had said in the car, but it still didn’t make any sense. Juan was following some guy around for two weeks, a man who he couldn’t or wouldn’t describe, who had no soul. Bertrand may or may not have been the one to steal the dagger, but it appeared that Truxel wanted it, and when Bertrand didn’t hand it over, Truxel killed him.

Truxel was the District Attorney and Juan was in no condition to give a statement. But if he was the only witness, Skye had to do everything she could to protect him.

Skye’s life was completely out of control.

She stared at the ocean, the wind whipping around her, ignoring the chill of the spring evening. They were fighting a losing battle. For three months—no, for
six
months, ever since the massacre at the mission—they had been losing ground and there appeared no hope of victory. Two steps forward and twenty-nine steps back.

Once, she’d nearly died on these cliffs. Anthony had saved her life. She’d fallen in love when she didn’t believe she had love to give.

At one time, she had the job, only the job, and she’d been good at it. Being a cop in her beloved hometown had fulfilled her for a long time. She didn’t need the big city or lots of money. She had friends, an important job, a sense of community here in Santa Louisa that few places had anymore.

Until the massacre at the mission. Everything she loved was being destroyed. Wiped out like a nuclear weapon. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was relying on people who saw things she didn’t see, who had introduced her to a world where the natural laws she’d had faith in no longer worked.

As Anthony had brought her into this supernatural world, she’d brought others into it as well. People she liked and respected were in danger because she’d shared with them the truth about the battle they were smack dab in the middle of. People like Rod and Jorgenson and Hank, who were on her side even when none of them really understood what they were up against. Innocent people were dying. Good people.

All because the Seven Deadly Sins made them crazy.

Didn’t they all have weaknesses? Wasn’t life really about overcoming weakness? To live a life with others, with people, in a community, in a family? To help when you could? For her, she’d devoted her life to helping the people in town. She’d become a cop because she liked rules and order. She liked the peace of Santa Louisa, where the worst crimes used to be the occasional sexual assault or theft. When people didn’t kill out of envy or anger, when little old women didn’t kill their husbands with ceramic baking dishes.

And the demons come in here and turn a switch, and the weaknesses humans battle and win every single day turn to evil. Maybe the weakness was there all along, but they were doing just find combating personal vices without having some supernatural virus erode individual conscience.

That District Attorney Martin Truxel might be behind it all angered her, but she feared the rage because she didn’t want to be infected with it. She didn’t want the anger to control her, to turn her into a weapon instead of a cop.

Skye sat on a chair and squeezed her eyes shut, holding back tears. She wasn’t a crying woman. She never cried. She just felt so lost, so out of sorts.

She heard a car turn down her gravel driveway. She rose and peered around the corner of her deck, thinking it was Jared. It was Bruce Jorgenson.

She walked over and met him before he knocked on her door. The less he knew about Anthony the better. “I was just taking an hour down time,” she said by way of excuse for being at home in the middle of the day.

He waved it away. “I went home for a couple hours this morning, once the crime scene techs took over the bar. But I have something for you.”

He handed her a file. She opened it. Photos of the three girls, the “triad” as Moira had called them. Brianne Graves, Kimberly Halverson and Laura Corrigan.

“What do you know?”

“First, they were enrolled in UCSB, which is a ninety-minute drive from town. They didn’t live on campus, but shared an apartment. Their records show they rarely went to class, but all had straight-As. They are inseparable according to their neighbors.”

She frowned. “How does this help us?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m just putting together the pieces. But I have a few more. For example, they share a house here in Santa Louisa as well. It belonged to Brianne Graves’ parents, who died in a car accident last year a week before her eighteenth birthday.”

“That’s tragic.” She vaguely remembered the incident. They hadn’t died in Santa Louisa. They’d been on vacation somewhere. But she didn’t know the family, so hadn’t thought about it.

“Their daughter, Brianne, inherited the house, money, and they had a large life insurance policy. Five million.”

“It was an accident though, right?”

Bruce nodded. “The couple were on vacation in Napa. They died in a pile-up on highway 101 in San Benito County. Brake failure.”

“And what did the police report say?”

“Mechanical failure combined with adverse road conditions. Ten cars in the pile-up, but it was the Graves’ car that started it.”