Mortal Sin (12 page)

“I believe her.”

He scowled. “Did she see another death imprint?”

“No. But she knew what happened, and it matches the evidence. The killer came in to steal the knife and Joe was in the wrong place.” She paused. “Moira said the overkill, the gutting, was because of the knife itself. That it made the killer do it.”

“The killer would have been pre-disposed to murder,” Anthony said. “But let me see the box.”

Skye led him to the storage room and stepped aside. Anthony’s skills were more cerebral than Moira’s—he relied on his training, knowledge and intelligence to solve problems. It’s why he spent so much time at the mission, she realized. Moira trusted her gut instincts, her psychic ability—even though she’d never admit to being psychic. But what else could it be? Skye wondered. She saw or felt things and had the confidence of her conviction. If that wasn’t being psychic, Skye didn’t know what was.

Moira’s theory made sense, far more sense than anything Skye had thought of. Even more sense than the idea that a demon had killed Joe Smith.

A human killer with a supernatural knife. Dagger, Moira had said. An evil dagger that compelled the killer to gut a troubled but innocent man. Skye hated when good people suffered. When the innocent died. And who was more innocent than a mentally imbalanced veteran? They deserved better, from everyone.

Of course, there were plenty of people in the world who killed for any number of reasons and didn’t need a supernatural knife to give them the courage.

She would find Joe’s killer and put him behind bars for the rest of his life. That was her promise to Joe. And to her dad, who’d taught her to be kind to people less fortunate, those who suffered their own anguish. Their personal demons.

Skye stayed back and watched Anthony work.

Anthony took a long look around the small storage room. Boxes and old furniture—dusty, musty, a distinct stench of mildew. The facility hadn’t been properly ventilated, and the damp Santa Louisa weather caused unseen damage.

The box in question was open. Moira had told him she’d found it like that and she hadn’t touched it. But he confirmed that with Skye.

“Neither of you touched this box, correct?”

“No,” Skye said. “Moira held her hands over it, but didn’t get closer than two feet.”

Anthony took a deep breath and stared at the box. He didn’t understand how Moira did what she did, and it still worried him that she might be using magic. Rico assured him she wasn’t, but Anthony had always wondered if Rico’s judgment was clouded, if Moira had put a spell over him. How could good men like Rico and Rafe fall for a former witch like Moira O’Donnell? Was he the only one who could see her clearly, for the untrustworthy killer she was?

He pushed back on his anger because that would not help him here, and he focused on the box. The box was very old, worn, and well-crafted. At first glance, he thought olive wood. Many ancient boxes were made from olive wood. It was a laborious process, but easy to carve. Olive wood was used in many religious artifacts. He knelt to inspect the corners carefully. They were perfect. The bottom of this box had been carved out of a single piece of wood. The lid appeared to match perfectly, also from the same wood.

Why would the killer take the dagger and not the box?

He took a photo of the box and immediately sent it to Bishop Pietro Aretino, the elderly vicar who handled the day-to-day spiritual matters of those at St. Michael’s. In the past, he would have sent the photo to Father Philip, and Father would have known what it was or who to show it to. But with Father gone, Anthony relied on the bishop.

Loss flowed through him. The loss of Peter. Of Father Philip. Of other good men at St. Michael’s who’d sacrificed their lives to save humanity. With the loss came anger because it was people like Moira O’Donnell who had started this battle thousands of years ago.

He took a deep breath, again, mindful that if this box was, in fact, evil, he might be affected by it. He closed his eyes, whispered a prayer, then crossed himself. Immediately, he felt calmer, and he focused on the task at hand.

Inside the box, the dark red velvet held the impression of the dagger. To make such a deep, permanent impression in velvet, the dagger must have been in the box for years. Anthony took out a tape measure. The double-sided blade was six inches long. The handle was six inches long. It fit perfectly in the box, leaving one inch around, as if the box were made just for the knife. The box itself was one inch thick, which seemed unusual to Anthony, and down the center of the sides, a section had been carved out and replaced with a darker wood or other material. Anthony would need to inspect it closer to know what it was.

He pulled on his gloves and closed the box. He stared at the carving on the top.

The sword of St. Michael the Archangel slaying the serpent, an elaborate triangle behind it to represent the Holy Trinity.

Anthony’s hand went to his chest, where he had a tattoo that matched the carving.

It was the mark of St. Michael’s Order.

He lifted the box and found it much heavier than it should have been. He put it back down, opened it, and felt the darker wood that had been embedded into the sides. Not wood. Lead.

And he knew what this was.

“This box was built to guard against something evil. An object that can’t be destroyed.”

“The dagger? How can a box protect anything?” Skye asked.

“It’s lined with lead to prevent the evil from leeching out. It’s warded with ancient symbols to prevent magicians from finding it. It’s very old, more than a thousand years. Maybe older.” He cleared his throat. “It was built at St. Michael’s.”

“Okay,” Skye said. “So one of your boxes from Sicily shows up in a storage unit in Santa Louisa. That can not be a coincidence.”

“I need to learn what this box protected. Where it came from. There may be something more dangerous out there than the Seven Deadly Sins.”

“So I guess there goes our date night.”

Anthony frowned. She was hurt and using sarcasm. He recognized it now when he hadn’t months ago. He stepped toward her, took her hand. “No. We will have our night. I will send pictures to St. Michael’s and to Rico. They will do the work for us.” He already knew he had no information at the mission about this box. But St. Michael’s would have everything about it in their archives.

She nodded and relaxed. He, too, relaxed. He couldn’t lose Skye. He’d already defied the Cardinal who wanted him back at St. Michael’s to take Father Philip’s place. Anthony couldn’t—not when he had the mission here, when he had Skye here. But Anthony never disobeyed orders, and his disobedience disturbed him. So he clung to Skye, praying he was doing the right thing. He needed her, craved her. Surely God would give him this one pleasure when he’d sacrificed so much for so long?

“Good,” she said. “I can’t find out who rented this unit until the bank opens in the morning, anyway. It’s already late. We deserve a few hours to ourselves after today.”

“Yes,
mi amore
, we do.”

The MRI took thirty minutes, which was thirty minutes longer than Rafe wanted to be there. Fortunately, Rod saved the results to a flash drive and they went back to the morgue to review them. It was late, after ten, and Rafe was beyond tired—and worried about Moira. She’d called him when she arrived at the airport, but they didn’t have time to talk because she’d barely made her flight.

“Rafe, are you with me?” Rod said.

“Sorry.” He shook his head to clear it, then said, “What?”

“You zoned out for a second.” Rod put the flash drive into the computer and pressed a few buttons.

“Just tired.”

“You look like shit.”

“Nice bedside manner, Doc.”

“My patients don’t usually require a bedside manner,” Rod countered.

A bunch of images popped on to the screen. Rafe had no idea what he was looking at, but Rod leaned forward, eyes wide, and almost fell out of his chair.

“Shit.”

Rafe waited for him to explain, but he didn’t. Rod continued to manipulate the 3-D image to view Rafe’s color-coded brain scan from different angles.

After several minutes, Rafe finally said, “Spill it, Doc.”

“I don’t know what I’m seeing.”

“What the hell does that mean? It’s my brain.”

Rod said, “There seems to be connections between different parts of your brain that shouldn’t be there, but there’s no way of knowing without seeing a scan from before your coma. Here”—he pointed to the screen—“are the primary memory centers of your brain. Humans have both short-term and long-term memory centers. There has been a lot of research into memory recently because of Alzheimer’s Disease, which affects short-term memory before it impacts long-term memory, but it’s not my area of expertise. What I think I’m seeing here is that your long-term memory centers are active—unusually so, especially considering you were in a state of rest during the MRI. But this”—he pointed to another portion of Rafe’s brain, in the center—“is odd. There appears to be an unusually large number of nerves connecting the amygdala to the cortex.” He peered closely, moved the image, zoomed in. “Hmm.”

Rafe didn’t want to know, but the doc said it anyway. “I think I know what’s causing your migraines.”

“Can you stop them?”

He turned off the computer and said, “The headaches are worse during these memories, correct?”

“Yes.”

“First, you have to understand that there are no pain receptors in your brain, so technically, your brain can’t hurt.”

“Doc, my head hurts. I’m not kidding you.”

“I know—it’s everything else—the blood vessels, the muscles, and your brain processes the pain. The nerves in your brain are connected to different parts of your body. The terminal nerve—which, though proven to exist, is still controversial in the medical community. Many think it was a nerve that evolved—meaning it was more important for humans thousands of years ago than it is now. Sort of like the tailbone, the appendix, other things that we needed when we lived differently or ate differently, that our bodies simply don’t need anymore. Your terminal nerve appears to be thicker than I would expect. Only—I really don’t know what I’m looking at. I’m not a brain expert.”

Rafe didn’t really care either way, but said, “And this nerve is causing the migraines.”

“It goes through your amygdala, which we know is the most primative part of our brains. It connects to the hippocampus, which is involved in long-term memory. The memories are irritating the nerve and causing pain. It’s overloading your nerves. You can’t process everything at once. We generally only use a very small portion of our brains. More of your brain appears to be active, which may simply be the other memories you’ve retained.”

“So I’m not dying.”

“Not dying, no…  but I don’t think you should push these memories. You may be causing damage to your brain. Your nose bleed doesn’t make any sense.”

“I have to push them. There are answers we need.” This wasn’t up for debate. Rafe
knew
he could stop the Seven Deadly Sins if he could just access these memories at will.

“I suspected you’d say that. Next time—we do it under a controlled circumstance.”

“How?”

“At the hospital. So I can scan you as it happens or as soon as possible after.”

Rafe shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. I get a tickle of a memory, something I’m not trying to do, and that’s when I can push it. I’m done with this, Doc. Moira was worried, so I let you do all this, but I’m not dying, I’m not using magic, and you can tell her that. That’s all she needs to know.”

“You’re not dying now, Rafe. But I don’t know how much more you can take. You lost a lot of blood. You fainted. What if this happens when you’re driving? When you’re battling one of those, those… 
demons.
What if this isn’t a memory, but something else—like what happened in Los Angeles?”

He was referring to demonic possession. But Rafe hadn’t been possessed by a demon.

It wasn’t that.

Ghosts.

Rafe would know if he were possessed by a ghost. It wasn’t a ghost; it wasn’t a demon. It had to be something divine, because these memories
helped.
The information gave them the tools to fight demons. He would know if he was being used by evil—he’d been trained to know. Moira would sense it. There had to be an explanation that made sense—maybe there was some bigger plan and God knew he needed the memories of the murdered priests to stop the Seven. Every time they battled one, the memory he needed was just there. Without the pain. Without pushing it out.

Maybe that was the lesson here. The pain was about faith. He had to have the faith that the memories would come when he needed them to battle evil. Could he do that? Could he stop pushing for more? Was this a divine test to his loyalty, his faith?

Evil had to be defeated. Too many lives, too many souls, were at stake. Rafe had accepted the sacrifice when he left St. Michael’s. There were no old demon hunters.

“Doc, I appreciate your help. Really. But I need these memories, and I have to find a way to control them.”

“Even if it kills you.”

“Maybe that’s part of the bigger plan.”

“I call your bullshit, Rafe.” Rod shut off the computer and pushed back from his desk. “I believe in God. I believe in Heaven and Hell and demons. I believed in God before the massacre at the mission, and now? Well, I just can’t see that his bigger plan is to kill people who are trying to rid the world of evil.”

“We are sometimes called to sacrifice—”

“Bullshit, Rafe. Don’t tell me you were put here to martyr yourself. Is that what you want me to tell Moira? That you plan to martyr yourself for this cause? Because I don’t buy it. I don’t think God works that way. And if you don’t believe me, fine. But Moira will damn well not let you put yourself on the chopping block because you think this is the only way to stop the bad guys.”

“I don’t intend to martyr myself, but I’m ready to die if that’s what it takes. We all are.”

“I’m a scientist. I can believe in God because He has never been disproven to my satisfaction. I can believe in demons because I’ve seen the aftermath. But scientists investigate. We question. We find answers and I have to believe that those answers are part of the bigger plan. Your girlfriend trusts me, and I don’t think she trusts many people.”