Mortal Sin by Allison Brennan Page A

For her, he responded truthfully. “I pushed the memory.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    He sighed, rubbed his head. The headache was still there, but it was dull, throbbing. “Sometimes, the memories come, but I don’t consciously do anything. Meaning, I get information, I know things. Like a prayer. Or an ancient exorcism in a language I don’t know. Or information about a demon. Things I know I didn’t learn, but came from somewhere else. It’s tiring, and I’m left with a dull headache. Yet, every time I try to focus, every time I consciously attempt to remember something that I know isn’t my memory, my head hurts, like the worst migraine you’ve ever had.” That was an understatement. “When a flood of information comes all at once, it’s like I’m in the past, seeing and thinking and feeling what the priest felt.”
    “The priest? Which priest?”
    He hesitated. “All of them.”
    They sat for a minute before Rod slowly said, as if he’d just stumbled upon an unbelievable truth, “You have the memories of the twelve priests who were massacred at the mission six months ago.”
    Rafe sighed. He wasn’t surprised that the scientist was unconvinced. “It sounds incredible.”
    “Nothing sounds incredible anymore. Just unfamiliar.” He paused. “I’m new to this. Are you sure this isn’t a ghost or something?”
    “I know it’s not a ghost.” He didn’t want to go into the details on how he knew that. Ghosts seemed to be able to contact him, talk to him, easier than most people. Because of the memories? Because he’d nearly died? Rafe had no idea, and he didn’t want to explore that path yet. All he knew was before the massacre he’d had no sensitivity to spirits; now, he did, and then some.
    “I don’t know that it’s all the priests,” he said. “I’ve only remembered the flashbacks of four, specifically. But other snippets of information come and go, and I don’t know where the knowledge came from.”
    Rafe rose, even though he still felt light-headed, but didn’t want to sit anymore. “The flashbacks are different than a brief memory. Like today, while Moira and I were in the garden at the mission, a brief prayer came to me, part of an exorcism that I had never heard of, but I knew that’s what it was. I had the overwhelming need to share the information with Moira because it’s going to help her. She doesn’t trust it, but I do, and I can’t explain why. ” He frowned, but continued. “The flashbacks are intense. It’s usually a traumatic event, the kind of things that happened that sent the priests to the mission in the first place. Until the one today about Jeremiah Hatch.” He shook his head. “You can’t help me, Doc.”
    Rod didn’t comment on that, but said instead, “This last memory was different, wasn’t it?”
    “I told you, I pushed it. I had a sense of déjà vu, so I forced the memory to the surface. That’s what made my nose bleed.”
    “You lost a shitload of blood for a nose bleed, Rafe.”
    “I’m okay.”
    “Hardly. Let me see what’s going on in your head, okay? I’ve been doing a lot of research on the brains of the victims—”
    “I haven’t been infected by the Seven.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    “I know.”
    “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”
    “You’re not going to learn anything.”
    There were things Rafe wanted to know… and things he feared to learn. There was a memory barely buried, and it was there today. Something he should know… but hadn’t quite remembered.
    But it was his memory that was missing. Something in his past that was important.
    Something that Jeremiah Hatch had known that was just out of Rafe’s reach. A tidbit that was slipping in and out that related to Hatch and the murders at the mission. Something that might help them send the Seven back… or help Rafe understand what had happened to him at the mission, and why he was spared.
    Which meant he needed to get into this head