Original Sin (24 page)

She chanted the name Prziel over and over and suddenly the shaking stopped; the potion settled and returned to its clear color. At the bottom of the bowl, the crystal, now red, glowed.

Serena removed the crystal with iron tongs to prevent the demon from escaping into her. She carried it over to a map of Santa Louisa County and put it down, spinning it gently with the tip of the tong.

“Find him, find this blood,” she commanded the demon.

The crystal moved across the map. It started lazily, then began to spin faster like a child’s top, all over the map. Faster, faster, faster, until it spun itself off the table and across the room, hitting the wall with enough force to embed it inside the wood.

Fiona ignored the trapped demon and looked at the map. “There!” she announced excitedly.

One blood-red drop told them that Raphael Cooper was at the Santa Louisa Coastal Inn.

Rafe pretended to be asleep when Anthony arrived in the two-room suite. Moira was arguing with Anthony.

“Don’t wake him. Give him an hour, at least, okay?”

Movement at the partially open door. Rafe felt it was Anthony, making sure he was both alive and present.

“Did you seal both rooms?” he whispered.

“Of course,” Moira snapped. “I’m not a complete novice.”

“No, you’re not.”

It wasn’t a friendly comment.

Rafe breathed a sigh of relief when Anthony didn’t try to wake him. It’s not that he didn’t want to talk to Anthony—he wanted to see his old friend. But he felt safe here, at least for the time being. Safe enough to try to organize his thoughts before Anthony bombarded him with questions. Moira already had many; Rafe had seen them in her brilliant blue eyes.

Moira had insisted he lie down while she sealed the rooms against demons and witchcraft, but he watched her. She was meticulous, pouring salt, reciting prayers as if they were spells, not leaving any edge unprotected. But while demons couldn’t come in, and spells couldn’t attack them, both he and Moira knew that the protections were mere stopgaps in the battle. A temporary fort that could be breached with time and strength.

He prayed silently in the dark, blocking out the loud whispers of Anthony and Moira in the room next door. A verse from the Book of Sirach came to him, and he shuddered:

there is anger and envy and trouble and unrest,
and fear of death, and fury and strife.
And when one rests upon his bed,
his sleep at night confuses his mind
.

Sleep … how could he sleep? He’d been in a state of sleep for ten weeks. Ten weeks of a coma? A drug-induced sleep? A spell-induced sleep? He didn’t know, but his thoughts were filled with confusion and sorrow.

I failed and they died
.

He’d not only been tempted, but he’d given in to his temptation. He’d lusted, and his weakness had brought death into the mission.

He closed his eyes and pictured
her
, the woman who had lied to him, had seduced him, had brought evil into the mission. Seduced him—he was a willing partner. He’d seen her as the sign he’d been waiting for that God wasn’t calling him, that He’d never called him into the priesthood. He’d been dangerously wrong.

He wanted to sleep, here, safe, knowing Anthony and Moira would be sentries against the evil that wanted him. But he couldn’t sleep. His mind was a mess; he could hardly keep his thoughts straight.

When he’d first seen Moira O’Donnell, he was certain they’d met before—talked before. He remembered her hair, her voice with her subtle Irish lilt, her long, elegant fingers … But they’d never met. He
knew
they’d never met.

It was as if she were meant to find him. But that scared him as well, because he was a pawn in a larger game.

And last night on the cliffs—the words he knew, the phrases, the commands. He didn’t question, just spoke—ordered—
commanded
—and the
arca
, Lily Ellis, was saved. As hard as he tried now, he couldn’t remember what he’d said.

He hadn’t been possessed, but nor was he quite himself. It was as if his brain had many rooms, and someone had unlocked a door he’d never known was there, then slammed it shut—and locked it—after he had a glimpse inside. Try as he might, he couldn’t open the door again. This wasn’t the first time, and he feared it wouldn’t be the last.

He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep undisturbed by the nightmares—real and imagined—that had haunted him during the three months he was in a coma. He had to tell Anthony about the dreams, but would Anthony believe what Rafe had seen? The dreams felt so
real
that Rafe was certain they were memories, but that was ridiculous. It was more likely the work of one of the local witches—and there were many, as he knew from his time at the mission. They had blinded him to their evil intent, and when he finally learned the truth, it had been too late. They’d planted dreams and nightmares in his mind during his coma to torment him.

He moaned out loud, his chest tight with emotional pain, as images of the vivid, blood-soaked chapel snapped into his head. He’d been blinded, true, but not just because of the witches. What if he couldn’t stop the evil that threatened them? What if he’d unknowingly unleashed the
arca
when he saved Lily Ellis? He’d saved one, but many more were in jeopardy.

He slipped into an uneasy sleep … And the dreams returned. And try as he did to wake himself, he couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t awaken for the last ten weeks, though he’d desperately tried.

The priest prepared the homily as he always did, after prayer and fasting
.

The African villagers Isa served had nothing. Some went days without food. Water was scarce. Children were starving
.

What could he say to them tomorrow? They stared at him with blank expressions, sitting in the tent church, converting to Christianity because they received a small wafer of bread. The bread of life …

“Give me faith, Lord.”

He had great faith, which was why he’d been sent to Kenya. Missionaries died here. They were tortured and murdered for giving hope to a hopeless people. Death didn’t scare him. He believed in Paradise
.

“Abba! Abba!” The boy, ten, ran into the small hut Father Isa Tucci lived in behind the tent church. He grinned, carrying a long animal in his bony black arms. “I hunt him.”

At first, Isa panicked. He had a great fear of snakes. But this snake was dead, a nonpoisonous boa
.

Isa smiled at the boy. “Let’s prepare a fire.”

How could he feed two hundred people with one snake? He would make a stew. And he prayed for a miracle akin to the loaves and fishes. These children of God needed a miracle
.

They needed food
.

The potatoes he grew were small, but they would make a good starch. He used the last of the beans, only three handfuls now, feeling a bit like the foolish boy who bought magic beans hoping to grow a beanstalk to the heavens. Everyone in the village contributed something. There was laughter and talk
.

Father Isa looked on in approval, humbled. “Thank you, Lord.”

Hours later, they went to sleep with full stomachs and hope. There were leftovers—enough for a small bowl tomorrow for every man, woman, and child
.

In the middle of the night Isa woke to the familiar sound of many Jeeps. Fear clutched his heart. Evil lived in darkness
.

He emerged from his hut and saw that the tribal chief had also stepped out. “We must hide,” Isa told him
.

He shook his head. “It’s too late.”

“No—”

“Save the children.” Children were being brought from their huts as gunfire rang out nearby
.

There were thirty-six children under age thirteen in the tribe, but he could find only fifteen of them. They silently followed Isa to their hiding spot in the ground. They hid for hours. Through gunfire. Screams. Cries for mercy that did not come. Isa prayed. The gunmen were above them but did not see their camouflaged entry
.

When the silence outside matched the silence of the children inside the cramped shelter, Isa stepped out
.

The stench of blood filled his senses
.

Winged predators—vultures—were already feasting on the remains. There would be more predators soon. He walked slowly through the village
.

The women had been butchered, the men tortured and killed. The children that had been left behind were no longer there. They’d been taken for slaves
.

He turned, saw one boy who’d been left. The boy who had hunted the snake. His hands were cut off. His feet. His tongue. Isa realized then that the child had stolen, not hunted, the snake
.

As he watched, baby snakes poured out of the boy’s body, from every limb that had been severed. Isa screamed and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the snakes were gone. But the boy was still butchered
.

The slaughter was for revenge. One theft and nearly two hundred innocent people were dead
.

Isa fell to his knees and cursed God
.

Rafe sat upright in bed, the scent of blood wafting through the motel room, the air so hot his tongue was dusty and dry. For a split second he saw snakes, hundreds of them, slithering around the room, and he stifled a cry while praying for deliverance.

Then the snakes were gone, and the reality of his nightmare hit him.

Father Isa Tucci was one of the priests who’d been murdered at the mission. For months Rafe had encouraged Father Tucci to talk about the demon he’d confronted in Africa, but he’d refused. What he’d suffered then, the choice he’d had to make, had tormented him for more than a decade. Rafe understood now, understood as he never had while Father Tucci was alive.

“You had no choice, Father,” Rafe whispered. “God forgives you; you must forgive yourself.”

The room grew cold and the door between the rooms slowly shut without sound.

A flutter of wings sounded, but Rafe saw nothing.

Cold … a ghost? Father Tucci?

Rafe rose from the bed. He heard Anthony and Moira talking in hushed but firm voices. He shouldn’t have feigned sleep earlier; the relaxation had led to real sleep and the nightmare about Father Tucci. He checked the seals at the doors, the windows, the corners, the vents. Moira had been meticulous, ingenious even in sealing the hotel vents with salt and sticking a crucifix above the opening. She was exceptional in her complexity, and anyone who went head to head against Anthony had courage. Anthony was the golden child of St. Michael’s, an empath of sorts and a demonologist of the highest order, but he was also vulnerable in that he wasn’t a trained hunter.

Rafe had been at Olivet for a year after walking away from his ordination the first time. Rico had wanted him to study hunting, to discern whether they’d missed his calling on the island.

But after completing the training, he still wasn’t a hunter. He couldn’t make the commitment and walked away. As with music, some could play the notes perfectly but couldn’t make music. And some musicians made errors, but their songs were infinitely sweet. Rafe could hunt demons, but he didn’t have the core instinct that made him a demon hunter.

He’d failed at St. John’s, failed at Olivet, and failed at Santa Louisa. And now he was jeopardizing his friends, new friends and old, and risking the lives of innocent people.

He frowned. How could he know that? How could he know what had happened to Father Tucci? There was no one here—no ghost—yet why was it so cold?

He breathed deeply, realized that the chill was gone, and wondered whether the sensation had been his imagination. Or residual nightmares that clouded his physical perceptions.

He had to face Moira and Anthony. He had to take responsibility.

TWENTY

you envy and you fear, so have no envy, no fear

—JOSHUA RADIN

Moira squeezed her eyes shut. She and Anthony had been going round and round about their next step and Moira was fed up with inaction.

“Lily will die if we wait around here much longer,” Moira said to Anthony, glancing anxiously around the hotel room. “Her mother is a witch, and if she was out on the cliffs last night she knows exactly what will happen to Lily. If you’re not going to help me rescue her, I’ll do it myself.”

“What about Rafe?” Anthony asked, his voice low and harsh as he glanced toward the adjoining door. “If he wasn’t in a coma, but under a spell—” He frowned. “I protected his room from demons.”

“Protection isn’t foolproof,” Moira said, feeling a smidgen of sympathy for the demonologist. He cared about his friend, and the idea that Rafe had suffered for weeks in a magic-induced limbo disturbed both of them. “And spells are like bacteria. They adapt, become stronger, defeat the standard protection the way bacteria can sometimes survive even with antibiotics. I don’t know what they did, but they could have moved him from his room, removed any amulet you had on his body. We don’t know, but we have to assume that they did something to him. But why?”

Anthony stared at the door. “I wish I knew. He’s not possessed, but he’s not himself.”

“He’s not under a spell,” she said quietly.

Anthony turned his attention from Rafe’s door to her. She felt uneasy under his silent scrutiny, his face hard and disapproving. She knew exactly what he was thinking, and her heart twisted.

“I’ll get Lily,” she said quietly. “If she’s not at her house, I’ll track her down.”

“How?”

“Her boyfriend. Jared knows more than he realizes. But I’ll need a safe house to take her to.”

“Bring her to Skye’s place.”

“The sheriff? Aren’t you putting her in a difficult position? I’m talking about
kidnapping
a minor. Lily is seventeen. Her mother is a witch, but she’ll use the law when it suits her. Even if Lily wants to come with me, you’re risking your girlfriend’s career.”