Original Sin (10 page)

Anthony saw her internal battle and smiled cruelly.

“I knew you’d never change. I warned Peter, but he trusted you. Now he’s dead.”

She decked him.

SEVEN

Fiona strode through the secluded mansion on the outskirts of Santa Louisa, her footfalls echoing through the cavernous halls, a virtual electric storm in her wake. Serena had rarely seen her mother so furious. Though she’d been equally upset—and shocked—when Rafe Cooper walked into the middle of their ritual, she couldn’t help but feel a little gleeful that her mother’s lack of foresight had bit her in the ass.

“Why didn’t you know?” Fiona turned on Dr. Richard Bertrand when they reached the towering library in the back of the house. The property was owned by Good Shepherd Church, and Serena was usually amused knowing that the contributions to Pastor Garrett Pennington’s ostensibly Christian church were used to allow her and her mother to live in luxury.

“Richard!” Fiona shouted when he didn’t immediately answer her. She sent a pulse of energy toward the double doors, forcing them to slam shut, to emphasize her anger. Richard winced as if physically assaulted.

The doctor groveled. Typical, Serena thought. Few people had the backbone to stand up to Fiona. But Rafe had been his resposibility. Richard had ensured everyone that Rafe Cooper would never awaken. Richard would be lucky if he was alive at dawn.

“He shouldn’t have woken up,” Richard whined.

“Shouldn’t have?
Richard, since when have you reduced yourself to ridiculous understatements?” Fiona turned to Serena. “And
you
were supposed to kill him months ago!”

Serena straightened her spine and kept her chin up. She wasn’t going to let her mother reinvent the past. “When Rafe Cooper went into the coma,
you
said he was more use to us alive than dead,” she retorted.

“He should have been dead that night!”

Fiona flung open the doors of her library with a flick of her wrist—a neat trick, but a parlor trick nonetheless. Serena had lived with her mother long enough to discern the difference between games and power. No doubt about it—Fiona controlled more otherworldly forces than any magician Serena had ever known, but she also enjoyed the bells and whistles that went along with power. There had been no need for half the games she’d played at the ruins. Had she forsaken the frills for expediency, they would have been done trapping the demons in the
arca
long before Rafe Cooper broke their circle.

Fiona whirled around and glared at her as if Serena had verbalized her criticisms. Her mother couldn’t read minds, but she had a sixth sense that had kept Serena in line. “When I find Raphael Cooper I will make him suffer,” Fiona said, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that she would torture and kill him with great pleasure.

“Serena, go! Check on the others. Make sure they understand the consequences of disobedience.”

“Mother, I think—”

Fiona stared at her daughter and raised her brow. “I didn’t ask you to think.” Serena knew better than to countermand Fiona’s orders, especially when others were present. When it was just the two of them, they often battled verbally, and sometimes with magic. Fiona always declared herself the victor.

But someday, Fiona would learn who had the real power in the family.

As she left the library, Serena whispered, “Your wish is my command.”

Fiona watched her daughter walk out, considering whether her sarcasm should be punished. But when Richard opened his mouth, Serena’s slight was forgotten.

“I don’t understand how Cooper could have walked out of the hospital,” Richard said, “not without help.”

“Of course he had help,” Fiona snapped. “I want to know if it was human or other.”

She paced the length of her expansive library, picking up the
Conoscenza
where Serena had placed it on the desk. She flipped pages rapidly, searching for answers. None came because she couldn’t read the damn book, only Serena could. Why was that? Why did her foolish daughter have the gift, and not she?

And how had Raphael Cooper known the language? Impossibly enough, he had saved the
arca and
cost Fiona her prize.

It was doubtful that Cooper even knew what he had done. She’d find him, put him in her own, special reverse devil’s trap, summoning spirits one by one to torture him. He would beg to die. He would kill himself and be dragged under, a special offering that would gain her much favor and more power.

After tonight, she needed it.

She almost threw the
Conoscenza
across the room, but as if the book itself lived, as if sensing her intent, the ancient text became hot. Fiona dropped it on the table.

She picked up another thick tome,
Twilight
, and threw it instead. Its spine cracked when it hit the wall and dropped to the floor. She grabbed another, and this time threw it at Richard. He ducked, but the book hit him in the head, and she smiled.

“How did Cooper awaken? Tonight of all nights?”

“I swear, Fiona,
medea
, I do not know! I did everything I could to keep him in sleep. When I left he was the same as always.”

“Zaccardi?”

“Nowhere. He came by the hospital this morning, like every morning, but didn’t stay longer than usual. Cooper was in the same condition. No one even called me to report he’d awakened. I swear—”

“Go. Get back there right now. Find out what happened, if anyone helped him. If your magic is so weak that you can’t give me the answers I need, I will send Serena.”

“I will, but—”

“Richard, I just gave you simple orders. Find out how Raphael Cooper woke up and left the hospital.” Her voice was suddenly eerily calm, which might have been even more frightening.

He left briskly. When she was alone, Fiona turned back to the
Conoscenza
.

“Why am I not given the gift?” She slammed her hand down on the book, challenging it. A puff of smoke escaped, her palm burned, and she jerked it away.

“It’s not fair,” Fiona whispered.

She was the daughter of a witch, the granddaughter of a witch, and the great-granddaughter of one of the greatest magicians in Ireland. In the world. Her lineage went back to the beginning of magic itself, she’d learned after years of meditation and study. While anyone could practice witchcraft, Fiona had a natural talent, a skill and finesse and inner strength that put her head and shoulders above even the strongest magicians in the world. Few could compete with her. When some tried, she always won.

Fiona fought fiercely when challenged, so most of her competitors were dead. Those who were not dead became her subordinates, but she watched them closely. She quelled potential mutinies long before they became cancerous.

With all her strength, her heritage, her talent, she hadn’t been given the ability to read the old language. If
she
had the knowledge, she could have stopped Cooper. Serena had never been one to think on her feet; she was too rigid, too restrained. Fiona could have twisted the spells to battle Cooper. It was her destiny to unite the covens of the world, to stir the cauldron of human apathy and discontent into a frenzy. With her at the helm, they would quash St. Michael’s Order and the last remnants of the great witch hunt would die away.

They would no longer need to practice in the dark of night, in the alleys and fields and hidden niches of the world. Fiona already had several high-placed witches in positions of power, elected officials and businessmen, the rich and the powerful, the leaders and the teachers. By controlling the Seven released at the cliffs, she would gather more support from the covens. Once she had them contained, once the covens united under her command, she would at long last be able to breach St. Michael’s sanctuary.

The fools there did not know what they had. If they did, they would have destroyed it long ago.

The library doors swung open and Fiona whirled around, furious that the intruder hadn’t knocked.

It was Garrett, with Serena behind him.

“We have a problem,” he said. “I had to leave her, there was—”

“A problem? Where’s the vessel?” Fiona demanded. “You didn’t clean up?”

“I began to, but the police came.”

Fiona clenched her fists. Sparks of electricity snapped around her.

“And Cooper?” she asked, her voice a mere whisper.

“We searched at a distance after the police arrived, but we couldn’t pick up his path in the rocky soil. The police—”

She put her hand up, not wanting another excuse from him. The electricity charges snapped on the ends of her fingers. She wanted to hurt him, but she was disciplined and caught herself. Instead, she flung her energy away from him and Serena, across the room, into the fish tank against the far wall. The water bubbled and boiled, steam rising as the fish floated to the top.

“Fiona, we have a bigger problem,” Garrett said.

Fiona’s eyes flashed. “There can be no bigger problem than the Seven out of my control!”

“Moira.”

“That name is forbidden.”

“I saw her,” Garrett said. “She showed up minutes after you and the others left. She didn’t see me, I stayed hidden among the cypress, and when the boy she was with left I was going to grab her, but then the police arrived.”

“No!” Fiona was emphatic. “I would know if that traitor was near!”

“She must have protection,” Serena mused.

Fiona paced, furious. Even Serena didn’t know the extent of Moira’s betrayal. The suffering and sacrifice that Fiona had to endure to regain her lost power, all because of her ungrateful firstborn!

She wanted Andra Moira to suffer for eternity. Fiona would bring this about with her own mind and hands, with her magic, her power, her demons. The traitor would be torn apart, put back together, torn apart … Moira would watch those she loved, those she cared about, clawed and eaten by the vilest of demons that feasted on human flesh; she would be subjected to a thousand lashings, over and over, until she bled from every inch of her flesh, bleeding but still alive; and Fiona would joyfully sic the leeches on her, to painfully suck her dry like dozens of small vampires.

The last time Fiona sought to punish Moira, the girl had fought back and turned the effort against her. If her bratty spawn had been practicing all these years since, Fiona didn’t know if she could defeat her one-on-one.

Fiona could turn the Seven on her traitorous daughter and, once and for all, pay back a debt long overdue. That is, once she trapped the demons again. Once she found the
arca
.

“Serena! Get my map. I will find her.”

“No need,” Garrett said. “I know where she is. Zaccardi had his bitch arrest her.”

Fiona laughed. Oh, maybe the universe had sided with her tonight.

“The traitor is in jail?”

“Yes. I saw her in cuffs.”

“Beautiful. Serena, continue researching our problem with the Seven.” Fiona walked across the library, her bright gown flowing behind her, her red hair bouncing luxuriously off her back. Regal and knowing exactly how she looked to those around her. Beautiful. She put on her cape and added, “I’m going to make you an only child tonight.”

Serena nodded. She picked up the
Conoscenza
and hugged the book. “I’ll find the answers.”

Fiona stopped next to her fish tank and frowned, suddenly sad. “Serena, fetch Margo. My poor fish. I can’t bear to see them dead.”

Skye wasn’t happy about arresting Moira O’Donnell. She didn’t understand Anthony’s vicious reaction to the woman who obviously was in his same strange business, but when Moira slugged Anthony—catching him by surprise—Skye had reacted. The woman had committed assault, and no law officer could let that slide. She’d been armed with a dagger, but also with paraphernalia that Skye herself had around the house ever since Anthony had walked into her life and into her heart. When she put Moira in the back of Deputy Young’s car, she couldn’t help but think that maybe she was overreacting. Jared Santos was a good kid. If he could vouch that they were together when they found the body, Skye would release her—decking Anthony notwithstanding.

Deep down, she realized she was jealous. She’d known Anthony for fewer than three months. They lived together, they loved each other, but Anthony had lived a long and strange life before he arrived in Santa Louisa. He’d brought the bizarre into her life.

She’d seen things she couldn’t explain. She’d been drugged, attacked, kidnapped, restrained, and nearly died at the hands of her best friend and head detective, Juan Martinez, while he’d been possessed. She’d actually seen the demon when it had been exorcized from Juan’s body. Anthony had cut his leg with a special dagger—not unlike the one she had confiscated from Moira O’Donnell—to save Juan.

So she believed Anthony when he said that the Seven Deadly Sins were more than a fable or religious fairy tale. If Anthony told her they were demons, then dammit, they were demons, and she had to find a way to save her town, the small piece of the world that Skye had sworn to protect and serve.

But if anyone other than Anthony had told her that the Seven Deadly Sins were real, she would have laughed or committed him for seventy-two hours in the psych ward.

Dr. Rod Fielding approached Skye with a nod as Young drove off with Moira O’Donnell. The head crime scene investigator was now the acting coroner, after Rich Willem surprised her by retiring at the end of the year. Skye had tried to convince Rod to take the appointment, but he declined, telling her it was just temporary while she searched for Willem’s replacement.

Rod headed for the corpse, then stopped and looked around. “What happened here?” he asked. He saw Anthony standing on the far edge of the lot, talking on his cell. “This isn’t—” He saw the symbols, even though they had been partly concealed. He noticed the red silk linens, the naked body, the spilled candles.

“Dear Lord.”

“It’s Abby Weatherby,” Skye said.

“I know Abby’s parents.” The pain in his voice was real.

He rubbed his eyes, then pulled on gloves as he said, “What happened?”