Original Sin (21 page)

Nor did she care that she wasn’t dressed for the weather, wearing the thin wool sweater she kept at the library to stave off the chill. Her graying hair first frizzed in the moisture and wind, then the wavy strands hung heavy with the weight of the rainwater. Her thick makeup ran down her face, turning her from a moderately attractive, overweight middle-aged librarian into a sad clown—or to some she might appear deranged, her wild eyes giving light to something far more sinister and feral than anyone at the school expected from sweet Bea Peterson.

Bea drove, without thought, without regret. Carefree and single-minded, she laughed out loud as she sped around the bends of the cliff-side highway too fast. When she skidded, or spun the wheels in the narrow sandy shoulder, she whooped and hollered, as if she were on an amusement-park roller coaster. In the rain, this road was used only by necessity. The few drivers Bea passed honked at her reckless driving, but she laughed. They didn’t know what freedom felt like. They didn’t know how much pleasure there was to be had driving a classic car like this. It was hers!

Just before she crossed the Santa Louisa County line into San Luis Obispo, Bea stopped the Mustang in the middle of her lane. She stared toward the ocean, except the fog was so thick and wet she couldn’t see the water. Her heart raced. She didn’t want to give
her car
back to Frank, but she’d have to if she went back to the school. And he’d be angry with her for getting the interior wet and for the scratch on the door when she went around a corner too fast.

She’d seen his face in the rearview mirror when she drove away, running after his car. It pleased her that he was shocked and angry and sad that he’d lost it. She frowned. Why? Why was she so happy that Frank was miserable?

Her breaths came sharp and quick as she replayed the last hour, from seeing Frank drive into the parking lot to her grabbing his keys and driving away in his car.
Her car
. From sideswiping a car taking the turn out of town to taking the top down to hitting nearly one hundred on her drive. Reckless. Foolish.

She didn’t understand why she’d done it. Except that she wanted
this
car. This Mustang. It had to be hers. The urge had been so powerful, so overwhelming, that she couldn’t see anything but the need to have it.

She needed to go back. To apologize. Maybe he’d understand. Maybe Frank would forgive her.

No
.

She cried. The car reminded her of what could have been, of the choices and decisions she’d made—right and wrong.

It’s your car now
.

Go back
.

Go forward
.

The bend in the road up ahead was so sharp that directly forward led into the ocean. Straight down to the rocky coastline below.

They won’t let you keep the car. They’ll give it back to Frank and you’ll be arrested. Lose your job. Maybe go to jail
.

They’re not going to let you keep the car
.

They’re going to take your car
.

Bea put the car in drive and pressed the accelerator, turned the wheel sharply to the left, and she was flying … flying off the cliff. She held on to the steering wheel as her body pulled from the seat—the old Mustang didn’t have seat belts. Then she was flying. Flying, falling, hearing but not seeing the crashing waves, the salty mist reaching up to catch her.

She hit a protruding rock, her body bouncing off and into the water, where it was tossed onto more rocks.

By then she was dead.

SEVENTEEN

Lonely, lonely, lonely—your spirits sinkin’ down
You find you’re not the only stranger in this town

—BILLY SQUIRE, “Lonely Is the Night”

Moira slowed Jared’s truck to a crawl as she neared the end of the narrow road, the windshield wipers moving intermittently back and forth, visibility so poor she was unsure she was even going in the right direction anymore.

Then she saw the broken sign, so weathered from age it was colorless.

LCOME TO P AC    GE RESO
O ETS

Her heart raced as she realized this was an abandoned motel or lodge of some sort, with separate cabins all boarded up. She released the brake just enough that the truck moved forward, the road turning to gravel overgrown with small shrubs. A sign posted on the first cabin read:

Property of the State of California
Trespassers will be prosecuted

Each abandoned cabin appeared to be a large, single room facing the ocean, far off the main road and obscured by trees. In the dark, Lily could have easily passed by and not known they were here. A perfect hiding place.

She stopped the truck, turned off the ignition, and walked cautiously through the weed-strewn central courtyard. The cabins were about twenty, perhaps thirty feet apart. Cypress and eucalyptus trees shielded the area from view. Only a few hundred yards away was the main access road into the mountains—the access road Lily had found—but unless you knew these cabins were here, you wouldn’t find them.

Moira stumbled over tree roots and caught herself on the leaves of a prickly shrub.

“Damn.”
She pulled two thin, sharp thorns from her right palm as she righted herself. She shivered uncontrollably, her wet clothes plastered to her skin, her hair heavy with the weight of rainwater down her back. She wanted nothing more than to get back into the warm truck and return to her miserable motel and sleep.

She didn’t believe in luck, but a spike of adrenaline hit her bloodstream as she thought of her
luck
in finding this place. If, in fact, Rafe Cooper was here. Could it be logic? Maybe. But still … the whole thing felt oddly fortuitous to her. She didn’t like being manipulated, by either humans or supernatural beings.

“There are always signs, there is always a helping hand. It’s understanding the signs, accepting the help, which is difficult for everyone—and you. That’s where your bias, your fear, your arrogance, and your ignorance will get you killed if you can’t see the truth.”

“Shut up, Rico,” she muttered again. She wished she’d never trained with him, because she couldn’t get his damn lectures out of her head. She pushed aside her concerns—the idea that this place was a
sign
she’d somehow unknowingly followed—and walked among the cabins.

Each cabin was locked tight, windows boarded up, locks on the doors, all in disrepair, abandoned for many years. But there was something different about the third cabin from the end. She stared, tilted her head, and squinted through the still fog.

She approached the house cautiously, walked the perimeter slowly.

Then she saw what had caught her eye.

The front door was splintered just a bit, the freshly split wood bright against the weathered door frame.

The lock was still on the knob, but the doorjamb had been broken. Moira hesitated. Human or possessed? She didn’t know what was going on with Raphael Cooper, but she couldn’t take chances. She pulled out a large crucifix on a chain from a deep pocket inside her jacket and put it around her neck, then pulled the Beretta out of her concealed pocket holster.

No movement, no sign of anyone watching. She opened all her senses, listened,
felt
the atmosphere around her. No electrical charge in the air. No smell of sulphur or rotting meat. No extreme heat from one of Hell’s gateways, nor the ice-cold sensation of ghosts. Nothing. Still, that didn’t mean that her truck hadn’t drawn attention, or that there wasn’t a way for Cooper to see out a crack in the barricaded windows—if it was Cooper inside. She didn’t think he was dangerous—he’d saved Lily and stopped Fiona—but Moira couldn’t afford to be wrong.

She pushed on the door firmly and it opened, a thick sliver of wood falling to the ground.

In the darkness, Moira caught sight of a gutted kitchenette to the right and a door in the rear. As her eyes adjusted to the near black, the only light coming from the diminishing gray day behind her, she saw a man in hospital scrubs huddled in the far corner of the empty room.

She approached cautiously and said, “Cooper? Raphael Cooper?”

He didn’t move. She squatted, the crucifix swinging on her chain between them, and checked his pulse. It was strong. She let out a long breath.

“What happened to you last night?” she whispered.

She pulled out a flashlight, turned it on, and popped out the bottom to rest on the wood floor. The glow lit the entire room like a lantern. The scrubs Cooper wore were torn. His skin was cold, and he was huddled tightly for warmth, though sweat and a day’s growth of beard covered his face. His hair was longer than in his picture, damp and curling at the ends from the moisture. As she watched, his body began to shake and he shouted out a command of sorts.

It was in Spanish, a language Moira recognized but didn’t understand beyond the basics. He continued, his voice fearful and commanding at the same time. She touched his sweating forehead, smoothed back his hair, and murmured, “Shh, you’re having a bad dream.”

Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, eyes frightened and lost. He pulled himself into the corner, shaking.

“Raphael, my name is Moira O’Donnell. I’m a friend of Father Philip.”

He stared at her and she wasn’t sure he’d understood her.

“Do you remember what happened last night? On the cliffs? The coven?” She paused. “The Seven Deadly Sins?”

Slowly, he shook his head. His voice was rough and low when he said, “She’s dead.” He coughed to clear his voice.

“No, she’s not. You saved her. You saved Lily.” Moira took his hands, squeezed them. “Lily wore the white dress. You told her to run and not look back.” She pulled a water bottle from her jacket and handed it to him.

He looked at the water, then at her, then took the bottle.

“It’s okay,” she said, reassuring both him and herself.

“She’s dead,” he repeated. He sipped the water, then coughed.

“Yes, Abby died,” Moira said. “Abby was also there. But you saved Lily. The girl in the white gown. She’s alive and well and safe.” At least she hoped Anthony had been able to find and protect her.

As Rafe remembered the night before, relief crossed his face. “Lily?” he asked. He sipped more water, then drank fully.

“I need to get you out of here,” she said.

“No. No. Give me a minute.”

“Excuse me, but you look like death warmed over. Anthony has a place for you—”

“Anthony. He’s here.” A statement, not a question.

“Has been the whole time. Raphael, I’m—”

“Rafe. My friends call me Rafe.”

“I’m Moira.”

“Moi-rah,” he whispered, smiling. He pronounced her name right, and she liked the way he said it.

He took a deep breath and straightened his legs, leaning against the wall. “Thank you.” He finished the water. “I’m not usually this out of sorts.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I think I can forgive you, considering.”

“Considering.” He gave her a half-smile. “I’m getting my strength back.”

“A miracle,” she said, not realizing until the words were out that she sounded sarcastic.

“You don’t believe in miracles.”

“Sure I do. I just haven’t seen any lately.”

He looked beyond her, at what she didn’t want to think about. He was a seminarian; of course he had stronger faith than she did. So had Peter, and look where it got him.

He shook his head. “I didn’t stop them. They’re out there. They’re everywhere …”

Moira wasn’t certain whether he was talking about the demons or Fiona’s coven.

“We’ll get them back.”

“Oo’la te-ellan l’niss-yoona: il-la paç-çan min beesha.”

Moira wasn’t sure what language he was speaking, but it sounded familiar. “What did you say?”

He stared at her. “Aramaic.” That didn’t answer her question, but he continued, frowning. “The
Conoscenza
was stolen. My fault.”

Moira sat next to him in the dark, dank cabin, her back against the wall, facing the door. Though he’d lost too much weight since he’d had his picture taken for the paper, he was a tall man, with broad shoulders. She felt small sitting next to him, even though she wasn’t short.

He touched her shoulder, her damp hair, and said, “You seem … familiar.”

He was changing the subject. For now, she could play along, but Rafe would need to answer the hard questions. “I lived at St. Michael’s seven years ago,” she told him.

He shook his head. “I left twelve years ago and never returned.”

“Never?”

He finished the water and put the bottle next to him, his index finger fingering the top. “I’ve had some things to work out. It took longer than I thought.”

She shifted uncomfortably. The way Rafe spoke, the way he looked off but didn’t see anything in front of him—it made her think he was listening to something else, seeing something that wasn’t there.

The rain pounded on the roof; the wind rattled the sides of the cabin. The weather was getting worse. “We have to leave,” she said. “There’s a lot to do.”

“Do?”

“To stop Fiona.” Rafe closed his eyes. Damn, she needed a little help getting him to the truck. “Rafe—please, the high priestess of the coven is furious with you.”

“She’s mortal. There are seven demons out there. Immortal, powerful demons.”

“What do you know about the Seven?”

She didn’t want to go back into the foul weather, but she didn’t want to stay here, either, and listen to someone who sounded far too much like Peter. It made her extremely uncomfortable.

Rafe said, “The fallen angels were banished to the underworld for disobedience and pride. They envied God; they envied humans. They hated us because we were chosen, yet we were corporeal. Not spirits. They wanted everything, to be favored, to be chosen.

“As there is a hierarchy of angels, there is a hierarchy of demons. The Seven have been around since the first angels. They know everything there is to know about Heaven and Hell. They know everything there is to know about human beings, intimate knowledge of our weaknesses. Our foolishness. Our desires and our fears. They have control over their spirit. They don’t need to possess a human body, though they can when it suits them. Instead, they roam free, feeding on sin. They strip out our God-given conscience and feed on our darkest desires. Lust becomes uncontrollable, and in our need they feed. Greed turns insatiable, and they feed. They will never be satisfied, they seek
more …
more sex, more money, more food, more time. They become stronger, more destructive, deadlier, as they spread their virus. They’re like legendary vampires, but instead of sucking blood they crave our greatest weaknesses, drawing them to the surface, pushing us to act on sins that hurt not only us, but others. And the more we give in, the more we want. The more we
need.”