Part 2 (1/2)

ANTHONY CLOSED HIS CELL PHONE and stared at the fountain in the mission courtyard. He'd called the only person who might know which demon had been summoned, the only person who knew more about demons than he did.

And if Father Philip didn't know, they were in mortal danger.

He'd stepped out of the chapel as soon as he realized the tabernacle had been replaced. Without the ancient protection against evil, these men had been in jeopardy from the moment the tabernacle had been switched. For how long? Was this a slow-working insidious evil, or a sudden awakening? Anthony had specifically asked about the tabernacle, and Rafe hadn't seemed worried. Had it been switched before he arrived last month? Or more recently? The fake looked nearly identical to the original. Only someone with Anthony's expertise would be able to tell the difference.

How long had the demon been tormenting these men?

A silent cloak of frightened whispers wrapped around the former sanctuary, suffocating the mission. The vicious imprint of what had happened inside these walls could never be cleansed.

Help us help us help us.

The chant wrapped around him, invisible tentacles reaching for his soul, the pleas growing in urgency as a sharp sliver of icy fear rolled down his spine and his heartbeat doubled. Sweat broke out on his brow and he leaned forward, putting both hands on the fountain, the trickle of water soothing. Breathing deeply, eyes closed, he forced his heart rate to slow and regained his internal composure. He needed all his energy focused on learning who and what was responsible for these murders.

He opened his eyes. Blood poured from the statue of Saint Jude. He gasped, blinked, and the blood was gone.

Help us help us help me.

The keening of trapped souls, the souls of the men being carted out of the chapel in black plastic body bags, surrounded Anthony, deafening in their persistence. He'd heard the cries of the dead before, had saved countless souls before they were forever lost. But never like this, never this strong. Never this lost.

”What's wrong?”

He turned and faced Sheriff Skye McPherson.

Needful, he soaked in her raw beauty to clear his mind of all he'd seen. She did everything possible to diminish her sensuality, but nothing could destroy what lay beneath. Her creamy, clear skin. Her sharp, intelligent green eyes. Her full, red, unpainted lips. Makeup would only have destroyed what nature had created to be pleasing to a man.

Anthony desperately needed hope. Skye's presence strengthened him. It was as if she'd been conjured from his dreams. As if he'd seen her before. As if he was meant to be at her side, helping her. Watching her. Protecting her.

He turned from her, unsettled by the thought that there might be a bond with a woman he did not know, a woman who doubted him and everything he believed in.

He touched the statue, water-not blood-flowing over his hand. Certainly his mind was clouded and troubled by what had happened here. The bond with Sheriff Skye McPherson was only through death.

”Saint Jude,” he murmured, ”the patron saint of desperate causes. The men inside were desperate, Sheriff. Desperate because of what they had lived through. I put this statue here, personally selected and retrieved it from a monastery in France that had given sanctuary to other desperate people. Jews escaping the Holocaust. Desperation and hope. Without hope, we have nothing.”

Uncertainty flashed in her eyes, then the steady face of the cop he'd first met returned. She wouldn't understand, she hadn't believed him even when faced with the violence inside; why did he even try to explain?

Because of hope. He sensed the hope and goodness within Skye McPherson as strongly as he felt the evil that permeated the formerly hallowed grounds of Santa Louisa de Los Padres.

”All I feel,” she said, ”is that someone-most likely several someones-slaughtered twelve people. Considering they were priests and this is a place of wors.h.i.+p, it is being looked at as a possible hate crime.”

Anthony almost laughed, pulled his hand from the water and crossed himself. A faint scream from the trees taunted him. Skye didn't hear it.

”Hate crime?” he repeated. ”All violence comes from hate.”

She glanced at the doors of the chapel where another body bag was being removed, then looked at him. It was obvious to Anthony she had grave questions for him.

”Did you remove anything from the crime scene?” she finally asked.

”Other than Rafe, no. Why?”

She didn't answer, then suddenly it became clear. He pictured the destruction he'd walked into at dawn.

”There are no weapons.”

”Someone removed them. And if you were telling the truth about breaking into the kitchen-”

”I was.”

”Then they are in here, someplace.”

”The killer left. He could have taken them.”

”You said a demon killed these men.” She couldn't keep the derision from her voice.

He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. Patience, Anthony. ”Demons don't act on their own. They need human intervention. They need someone to bring them forth. Once here, they have more power, but in the netherworld, their power is only that which they are given by Satan himself. This is why demonolatry is so dangerous. It is humans who are giving these demons power, enabling them to walk on earth stealing souls.

”Yes, a demon was responsible, but only with the help of people.”

”Then how did the human being leave a locked mission?”

”You're the cop, you figure it out!” Anthony turned away from Skye, angry with himself for his temper. He couldn't allow himself to fall. He leaned into the fountain, put his hands in the water, seeking peace.

Help us help us help us ”You told my deputy that the mission was locked when you arrived.”

”Yes. The gate here”-he motioned to the courtyard fence-”had a padlock. I have a key to the mission, and went through to the kitchen door because it was closest. But the door was bolted from the inside. I broke in.”

It had been like an invisible hand, dark and twisted, holding him back. The sensation of evil slithering across his skin. Malevolence hung thick in the air, whipped his tongue, and he knew he was too late.

”The lights were out.”

”It was five in the morning,” Skye said, as if his comment were ridiculous.

”For some of these men, dark is as much an enemy as Satan himself. The wall sconces are always on, and in the event of a power outage, the mission has a generator.”

He saw Skye scribble a note. Of course, a sabotaged generator was tangible, something she could investigate. But who would know these men feared the night?

Anthony held the crucifix-dagger point out-in front of him as he ran down the hall toward the smell of death.

”I smelled fresh blood. The chapel doors were closed.”

Resisting the urge to call out, he pushed open the solid wood doors and stepped into the house of wors.h.i.+p. A rush of burning heat came at him, then the temperature dropped and he saw his own breath.

Anthony couldn't tell this cop about the demon he felt vacating the chapel. She wouldn't believe him.

”I checked for survivors, but it was clear they were butchered. I was too late.”

Eerily beautiful, the early morning sun filtered through the tall, narrow stained-gla.s.s windows bathing the dead in colorful rays of light. Body upon body filled the narrow chapel. Some decapitated, some without limbs, all murdered.

The crucifix hung upside down. It was a sign of demons, of Satanists, but this cross weighed too much for even a large group of men to invert and rehang. It had been carved from granite in Mexico and brought to the mission when it was first built in 1767.