Mortal Sin (49 page)

“So he wrote what he saw,” Skye said. “The words.”

Anthony nodded. “Exactly.”

Skye pulled out the notebook Juan had given her. “He told me to give this to Rafe. But maybe you should have it.”

Anthony shook his head. “I won’t be able to read it. Rafe will. Give it to him, like Juan said.

“I have a question,” Jared said, speaking up for the first time from where he watched in the corner of the room. “If this coven is going to unleash the Seven Deadly Sins, what does that mean for the two that are trapped at Olivet?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not good enough for me. Lily is there. She’s in danger if those things escape.”

Anthony looked perplexed. “I must talk to Rico.”

“Good luck with that,” Skye said. “They’ve all been off the grid. I have no idea how to reach them.”

“Call those people at Olivet and warn them!” Jared said. “Send Lily back here. Do
something.
We can’t just wait.”

“I agree,” Anthony said. “We act. I have calls to make.”

Skye glanced at her watch. “Shit.” She looked at Rod. “It’s after nine. I missed the board of supervisors meeting.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Anthony said.

“It means if Truxel wasn’t lying to me, I’m no longer the sheriff and Rafe will be arrested the minute he comes back to town.”

“Then we bring him in quietly,” Anthony said.

“First,” Skye said, “we have to find him. And if they’re not answering their phone or returning calls, what the hell is going on?”

Rafe redressed the bandage on Rico’s leg while Rico gave Nikolas explicit orders on how to create the demon trap as Nikolas began to carve into the wood floor. Phineas assisted him, wisely staying away from Rico and Rafe.

“The bullet wound was healing just fine until you decided to run a marathon,” Rafe grumbled. “You popped all the stitches.”

“Just stitch me up again,” Rico said.

Rafe complied. It had to hurt, but Rico didn’t complain. When Rafe was done, he doused the area liberally with both holy water and alcohol. “Hopefully, you’re good until we get you back to Olivet.”

“Is this going to be big enough?” Nikolas asked as he connected the lines.

“It’ll have to be,” Rico said. He pulled a small prayer book out of his back pocket. Rafe recognized it—it had been Father Lucca Zaccardi’s, the priest who had raised Father Philip. Who had been like a grandfather to Anthony and Peter until he died a violent death during a horrific exorcism when Anthony was young.

“Take this,” Rico told Nikolas. “The last few pages have the symbols you need to carve within each point. What we are doing is dangerous, not only because of the demons we’re calling to this point, but because it is easy to take it too far. God forbade witchcraft for a reason: once the doors open, it’s nearly impossible to close them. Carve them exactly, and then we must pour the oil.” He looked at Phineas. “How much do you have?”

Phineas walked to a safe and opened it. It took out a gallon-sized glass bottle. It was two-thirds full. On the bottle was etched the seal of St. Michael’s Order. “I’ve had this since I left.”

Rico stared at it. He didn’t say another word, and Rafe was unsure what had happened when Phineas left.

The house shook again, but stopped abruptly as screams echoed from the front yard. It took all of Rafe’s willpower not to follow Moira. He reached for his medallion, the special medallion he’d had from his forgotten year when he was a child. Behind it was the small vial of Moira’s blood. He prayed for her, for her safety, for her soul.

Savannah and Jonah stepped inside the room. “We’re leaving,” Savannah said. “Are you sure?”

Rafe looked at the three young people behind them. Two men, not more than twenty-five, and a girl who was younger. They were pale, their eyes black, and hardly ready to fight a person, let alone a demon.

“Tell Reverend Younger the code, and he will protect you,” Rafe said. “It’s a two-mile hike from the compound entrance. Follow the markings we left.”

Savannah looked to Phineas. “Go,” he told her.

“But—everything you’ve said about St. Michael’s. How can we trust them?”

“Because Rico gave me his word.” Phineas looked at Rico. “Rico is a lot of things; dishonorable is not one of them.”

Thunder echoed outside, but unlike any thunder Rafe had heard. This was thunder from the Underworld, not the sky. Suddenly, without warning, a thick tree branch broke through the window, bending the metal frames, shattering glass across the floor. The pine tree leaned into house, held up only by the wall.

“Go!” Phineas ordered his people. “Now!”

They obeyed, and Rico shouted, “Nikolas! Faster!”

Phineas grabbed the book, looked at the symbols, and helped Nikolas.

Rafe took the holy oil and dribbled it carefully into the external circle of the trap while Phineas and Nikolas finished the symbols inside. “Where’s the final seal?” Rico asked Phineas.

“The attic. Nikolas, show him.”

“But I can’t leave you alone without protection.”

Phineas caught Rafe’s eye. “My brother is here.”

“I am not your brother,” Rafe said. “Moira may have forgiven you, but you betrayed all of us when you took her. You are selfish and prideful.”

Rico said, “Raphael, we must be united now, more than ever.”

Coming from Rico, the man who wanted to imprison every last member of Gabriel’s Sword, the unity speech was hard to hear. But Rafe understood. There would be time to fight Phineas later. Tonight, they had to battle together.

He nodded. “Tonight, the past is in the past.”

Rico looked at his watch. “Three minutes. I hope we have that long. We need to channel them through the attic into the trap.”

“When do we light the oil?” Phineas asked.

Rico looked at Rafe. “Raphael will know the right moment.”

Rafe said, “Rico, as soon as you break the seal, leave the house. It will fall.”

“God willing, Nikolas and I will meet you at the rendevouz.”

Nikolas led Rico out of the room and up the stairs.

Rafe checked his watch, then continued to fill the carvings with oil.

“Rafe—”

“We’re not talking,” Rafe said. “Are you done with the symbols?”

“Yes.”

“Then give me the book.”

Phineas hesitated, then handed it to Rafe. He put it in his back pocket and continued dribbling the oil into the lines.

“I would have protected her,” Phineas said.

“You took her against her will. You stole her blood. No one can protect her if she’s weak.”

“It never would have come to that.”

Rafe bristled. “Did you see her? Did you see her stumble? Did you see her skin? She’s pale and shaking and letting her leave this house alone was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Phineas stared at him. “You’ve changed.”

“I’m not the indecisive boy you tried to recruit from my home.”

“St. Michael’s was never a home. They lied to us.”

“Don’t—”

“Haven’t you ever wondered what happened to you the year we were separated?”

“I was three. They didn’t separate us; I got lost.”

“How did you survive? I don’t buy their lies. That it was a miracle.”

“It was.”

“There’s more to it.”

“Stop.”

“You’re my twin brother. Rafe, I want us to work together.”

“You blew that chance twelve years ago when you joined the Sword and took a dozen men with you. St. Michael’s has never recovered.”

“Because they were already dying!”

The tree in the window fell several feet, making Rafe jump. He looked at his watch. “One minute.” He finished pouring the oil. There was a small amount left, which he poured into an empty glass vial and put in his pocket. “Phineas, get in the center.”

Rafe didn’t want to fight with his brother. The chances of survival were slim. Phineas had targeted this demon Set, the same demon that had been written about in Juan Martinez’s cryptic messages. That was not a coincidence, but Rafe didn’t know what it meant. He wanted to forgive him, but it was so hard to put the past behind him. The things Phineas had done. His actions had torn apart the order, not just in recruiting others, but leaving those who remained weaker. United, they had been strong. Separate, they were struggling.

When St. Michael the Archangel had Gabriel’s Sword in hand, Lucifer was defeated and peace reigned in the Heavens.

Rafe looked around. He’d heard the voice. This was different than the others, different from the memories. A cold, icy fear shot through him. Not from the words, but what they might mean.

“Rafe, it’s almost time,” Phineas said stepping into the demon trap.

“You must survive,” Rafe said. “It’s imperative.”

“I plan to, but we both know this isn’t going to be—”

The house shook and Rafe fell to the floor.

#

Moira was bleeding. Though the wounds were superficial, they stung like a thousand pin pricks.

But the demons who touched her died on contact. What was giving up a little bit of blood if they died?

Except she was tired, and she didn’t know if it was from the battle or because she’d lost nearly two pints of blood over the last three days.

Truth be told, she was surprised there weren’t more creatures coming at her. They surrounded the house. A few attacked—and died—but they were more focused on the house. Phineas must have really pissed them off or maybe the spell directed them to the people in the house.

Moira couldn’t lower her shields or pause to figure it out; instead, she ran toward the first light she saw.

She didn’t want to confront her mother first, so hesitated next to the barn to get the lay of the land. She reached out and let the spells wash over her. She’d been right—the demons had been summoned to shatter the protections and steal the souls of everyone inside.

Phineas, Phineas, Phineas.

Not everyone, only Phineas. That he was their bait was going to work well. Or he’d be dead.

The demons were small, young. They didn’t feel dangerous—at least not as dangerous as the Seven. They chattered amongst each other, howling and screeching and laughing. Yes, laughter.

There was more than one spell at work. In fact, each witch in the circle was working their own spell, entwining each like a braid, creating a far more deadly spell that Moira couldn’t make out. There was an undercurrent through the air, darker and more ominous than these annoying demons. They were preparing the way—the spells, the demons, the large circle—it was all in preparation for complete annihilation.

Not because of Phineas killing the demons in Anacortes. Certainly not for the burning of the five witches, considering that most certainly had been on the order of Fiona.

But because of
her.
Moira. Fiona was working a complex spell in order to destroy Moira.

The urge to bolt nearly overwhelmed Moira. For a minute, she couldn’t move.

For years she’d run from her mother out of fear and the knowledge that when Fiona found her, she would torture and kill her. Moira almost welcomed death because then she’d be free of the pressures of her life. Free from the responsibilities, from caring, from loss.

From heartache.

But Fiona was powerful because Moira had been weak, and Moira couldn’t allow her mother to claim a victory. This wasn’t a competition between mother and daughter, but a battle against evil. Moira wasn’t so vain to think that she was on the side of righteousness, but Fiona’s plans for immortality would sever the wall that separated the Underworld from Earth. Chaos would be the result.

Some in St. Michael’s Order believed that whatever happened was the will of God because in the end, God promised paradise. Suffering, dying as a martyr, prayer was all that was needed. If the world burned, so what?

Others at St. Michael’s believed in balance, that Fiona and her ilk aimed to disrupt the balance on Earth, and God would want them as good warriors to fight for the souls of the many.

Ultimately, that’s how Gabriel’s Sword formed. Because those who sought inaction had once ruled at St. Michael’s. And wasn’t Moira truly a weapon? Her mother might have conceived her and dedicated her to serve the Underworld, but Moira had turned her back on her fate. She’d denied her mother the one thing she needed—a human liaison with the Underworld.

For years, Moira had hidden and feared; what made her stronger now? How could she fight Fiona when she’d nearly died at her mother’s hands many times? Most recently, her mother had tortured her while Moira had been locked in jail. Before that, when Moira had rashly struck out because of the demon Fiona had sent to possess her. Before that, a dungeon. Nightmares. Emotional wasteland.

And yet… through it all… Moira had found love. More than love. A soulmate. She’d always thought such soulmate talk was nonsense, but with Rafe… they were bound and connected through more than lust and love. Maybe, her relationships… her love… made her stronger. Because Moira had something to fight
for
. Someone she believed
in.

She had to put her fear aside. Confronting her mother had always been in the cards. Before, Moira had never embraced this newfound ability to detect, discern, and diffuse magic. Now? She had to try.

To save herself, to save all of them.

She left the safety of the barn and approached the lone witch at one of the key points of the circle. The girl, dressed in a filmy black gown, was so wrapped up in her spell, that she didn’t see—or sense—Moira approach.

Moira had her dagger in hand and when she was a mere twenty feet away said, “If my mother knew how pathetically incompetent you were, she’d knock you down herself.”

The girl looked up, surprised. She was young, not much older than twenty, with light red hair. She looked so innocent, but Moira knew better than to let her guard down. Though Moira didn’t recognize her, the girl knew who Moira was.

“Mother Supreme said you would run out of fear,” the girl said.

“Mother Supreme? She’s actually having you call her that?” Moira laughed, but didn’t take her eyes off the girl’s hands. A knife could be thrown at this distance, accurate with a little magic behind it. “Leave now, and I will spare you.”