Original Sin (47 page)
Rafe
still
didn’t say anything. Damn, how annoying was that? He just pinned her with his sharp eyes, his unshaven square jaw locked, waiting for her to tell him the truth.
“I know it’s not possible,” she began—
hoping
it wasn’t possible, “I just—it felt—like the demon saw me. Or—” she hesitated, then said what she truly feared. “Or I was looking through the demon’s eyes. Then it turned and looked inside itself. At me. Knew me and that I was there. And it wasn’t one of
them
, not one of the Seven. But—I think—” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“Do you think that the Seven are somehow collecting demons who are already here? Like bodyguards. Or distractions.”
Rafe didn’t say anything. Why was he always so damn quiet? Why couldn’t he get angry like Anthony or frustrated like Skye? Instead, he was
calm
.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, demon or human.”
He barely whispered, but she heard every word as if it was etched onto her bones, and every hair on her skin rose. He appeared serene, but he was a tightly controlled bundle of energy. His words had movement to them. Weight. She wanted to believe him. He meant what he said, but he wasn’t strong enough to protect her or anyone. Neither was she. None of them were. She felt so much despair, and feared it was residual contact with the Seven. That their power was still present even though they had long left Santa Louisa.
All but the demon Envy, who was trapped in the tabernacle in the secure vault at St. Francis de Sales in downtown Santa Louisa—a vault that Moira commented was the supernatural equivalent to Fort Knox. Anthony hadn’t been amused. He never was.
But Rafe had smiled at her joke behind Anthony’s back, and winked at her, another reason why she was drawn to him. He liked her sarcasm, and he made her smile.
“I’m scared,” she now admitted. “I’ve been doing nothing for nearly two weeks. Nothing but waiting for something we can’t even identify. How can we stop the remaining Seven Deadly Sins if we don’t know where they are? Do we have to wait until someone drops dead? Do we have to wait until we hear on the news that Greed is working its evil magic on Wall Street or people die because they’re too lazy to eat? And dammit, where is Fiona? Where did she go? I can’t
feel
her magic anymore. They’re just gone and I’m waiting for them to come after me! And what if—”
She stopped. She was turning into a complainer. God, she hated herself right now. When had she become a sniveling brat? She had to put the fear aside or it would bite her in the ass. Yeah, she was worried—so was everyone else involved. She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself, accept her fate, and move forward. Maybe if she repeated the mantra enough it would come true.
“What?” he asked.
She gave voice to her hidden fear. Maybe if speaking it out loud she could stop it from seeming so real. “What if the Seven have infected me?”
He stared at her and shook his head. “They haven’t.”
“How do you know?”
“You
would know.”
“But I
don’t
know.”
He smiled. “This is a silly conversation, Moira.”
She shook her head, biting back a smile.
“I saw that,” he said and sat next to her. He took her hand and kissed it. “Come on, smile.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Think you’re up for a little wrestling match at the gym?”
“Why do you always do that?”
“Do what? Workout?”
“Every time I get close to you, you take me to the gym. Or for a run. Anything to avoid talking about what you feel when I touch you. What I feel when I think of you. Why I can’t get you out of my mind. I know you look at me when you think I’m sleeping. I know you’re worried. What are you worried about?”
“This isn’t the time—”
“It’s never the time for you.”
She jumped up and walked to the window, her heart racing. She couldn’t explain to Rafe what she was feeling, what she was thinking, when she couldn’t figure it out herself! But there was far more at stake than this
connection
she and Rafe had. She
was
worried about him. They still didn’t know what the coven had done to him at the hospital, and Dr. Bertrand had destroyed all of Rafe’s files. Destroyed or stolen. Rafe had secrets, secrets he was keeping from her and Anthony.
She had to be able to trust him, but didn’t know if she could. It hurt. Deep inside it hurt, but if she couldn’t learn to trust him—if he couldn’t tell her the truth he harbored deep inside—no matter how she felt about him, she couldn’t get too close. It would cloud her judgment, and right now she needed a straight head.
Rafe’s voice hardened. “Tell me what you saw.”
“It was more what
she
saw.”
“She? Demons aren’t male or female.”
“It
felt
feminine. She was flying. It felt like astral projection, but I know I was right here, all of me, mind and body and soul. But I was also with her, flying, looking for a vessel. A willing participant in whatever insanity she has planned. But—” she frowned. “She found someone. I saw her.”
“You saw the demon?”
“The person she was looking at. Brunette. Petite. Very pretty. I can see her as clearly as I can see you.”
“Do you know where she is?”
Moira concentrated but her head ached and she just didn’t know. She paced the small room, unable to sit still. “I hate this! If God wanted to help us in this battle, he’d give us clearer instructions.”
“We just need to figure them out,” Rafe said.
“I’d rather have a rule book, thank you very much.”
Anthony stopped in the doorway. With bags under his bloodshot eyes, he looked like he hadn’t slept the night before. “Rico’s plane just landed. He’s on his way for the meeting. Twenty minutes.” He glanced at Rafe. “I need to talk to you.”
She raised an eyebrow at Anthony. “Secrets already?”
He didn’t answer her, didn’t even look at her.
She pushed by him. “Whatever. I’m going for a run.”
“Twenty minutes,” he repeated as she walked by.
Rafe had grown beyond annoyed at how Anthony treated Moira. When he heard the front door slam shut, he said, “Hasn’t she proven herself to you? She nearly
died
at the warehouse to save everyone inside. If it wasn’t for her,
you
would have died at Good Shepherd.”
He didn’t mention that she’d also saved Rafe’s own life, not once but twice. Anthony was still skeptical about how—or if—Moira had killed the Cerberbus-type demon. Even Rafe wasn’t certain about what happened in Fiona’s library, or how Moira had been bitten by the demon and survived with only a small scar, yet he’d witnessed the entire thing. He knew what he’d seen. He knew what Moira had suffered. And he’d
seen
the demon, been attacked by it and still had the scars.
Anthony was struggling with a response, and Rafe pushed. “You stood by me. You believed in my innocence, that I had nothing to do with the murders at the mission. Why can’t you give Moira the benefit of the doubt?”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Rafe—I don’t want to go into it.”
“It’s because Moira was a witch? Because she made mistakes?”
“She’s
still
a witch! You know it, I know it. I don’t want to hear how she’s not using magic, she has witch blood and there’s nothing that can change that. What do you want from me, Rafe? I’m trying to accept her because of her value to our mission, but you weren’t there when Peter died. You didn’t see what happened. You didn’t bury his broken body. She was responsible, and it still hurts. Peter was my brother.”
“You think I don’t understand the pain? I was just as responsible for the murders at the mission, yet you aren’t blaming me.”
“You weren’t—”
“I was. In the same way Moira was.”
“It was completely different. You weren’t using magic, you didn’t open the door for a demon to breach the sanctuary.”
“I was blind. I was ignorant. I didn’t see the clues.”
“They were powerful witches. We don’t know what spells they cast. And even though you didn’t know about the spells, you were suspect enough to send them away.”
“But I didn’t know Jeremiah Hatch was one of them,” Rafe said quietly.
“Rafe—it’s not the same thing and you know it.”
“No I don’t.”
Anthony rubbed his eyes. “I can’t argue this now. Father Issa is bringing the Bishop to the meeting.”
Rafe frowned.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I met Bishop Carlin when I first arrived in Santa Louisa. You’re thinking that because he was friendly with Corrine Davies he is one of them, but he could have been under a spell or simply overworked and didn’t see the signs. He’s not part of St. Michael’s Order, he doesn’t know what to look for. It’s important that we keep him close. Friend or enemy, he’s our connection to the hierarchy here in the United States. We need his tacit agreement. Any opposition from Carlin creates problems for us.”
Rafe understood that intuitively, but he’d been the one to confront Carlin last fall when he fired Corinne Davies. Carlin had been livid—and that was an understatement. If Carlin was under a spell, that made him weak; if he had been involved on a more personal level with Davies, that made him part of Fiona O’Donnell’s coven, and that made him culpable in mass murder, not to mention crimes against his vows and God.
“Moira would be able to tell,” Rafe said.
Anthony hesitated.
“Dammit, Anthony! You didn’t hesitate to use her before, when her life was on the line, you think she’s going to deceive us?” Anthony still didn’t say anything. “I can tell if she’s lying,” Rafe added. It ached that Anthony was putting him in an adversarial position with Moira, even if she didn’t know. He didn’t want to have to scrutinize her. He didn’t want to think of her as a potential enemy.
Anthony said, “Don’t tell her.”
Rafe understood his meaning. “You’re still testing her. When will it stop?”
“Knowing what we want may cloud her judgment.”
Rafe disagreed, but said. “Whatever you want. I’m going for a walk.”
“Rico—”
“Is coming. I know.” Saint Rico. With Father Philip gone, he was essentially their leader here in America. None of the others in the Order would leave the sanctuary in Italy to lead them. And there were so many battles in so many parts of the world, they could count on no one but one another.
It didn’t give them a lot of hope to find, trap, and send back to hell the Seven Deadly Sins.
Original Sin
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2010 by Allison Brennan
Excerpt from
Carnal Sin
copyright © 2010 by Allison Brennan
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
Carnal Sin
by Allison Brennan. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51916-0
v3.0
