Original Sin by Allison Brennan

which is likely with the low temperature—I’d put her death no more than two hours.”
    He looked in her mouth, eyes, nose, throat. He spread her legs to check for obvious sexual assault, found none, and rolled her to check for injuries on her back.
    “Nothing physical. Honestly, this looks like her and her boyfriend came out here to screw and get high. She OD’d and he fled.”
    “He took off with her clothes?” Skye doubted it but didn’t say anything. Rod was a veteran, nearing retirement age but sharp as a tack. He was also the one who’d come up with the key to solving the murders of the priests at the mission last November. She trusted his judgment, but wondered if his knee-jerk response now was because he didn’t want to contemplate something … otherworldly .
    As Rod eased the victim’s body back into its original position, she saw something. “What’s that on the back of her neck? Move her hair.” Skye pulled on one latex glove and gently pushed the girl onto her side. “There.”
    She pointed to an elaborate and colorful tattoo on the back of her neck—right where the neck touched the shoulders.
    “Looks like a professional tattoo,” Rod said after inspecting it. “I’ll take photos at the morgue.”
    She glanced at Anthony and saw that he was talking on the phone. She bit her lip and hated that she wanted to eavesdrop.
    “I’m going to collect her with this linen,” Rod said, “to preserve trace evidence. But I’ve done all I can do here. I’ll tag and bag her and transport her to the morgue.”
    “What time can you do the autopsy?”
    “Right away. I’ll prep her, then begin at eight a.m. You coming?”
    “Absolutely.” She looked over at Anthony, who was still deep in conversation and worried. He caught her eye, then turned his back to her. Something was up, Skye thought as she went to help catalogue the rest of the crime scene.
    Anthony listened intently to Father Philip, disliking the direction of the conversation.
    “You need to help her,” Father said after telling Anthony that he’d known all along that Moira O’Donnell was in the States—even before Anthony had left the island for Santa Louisa last November.
    “You knew that witch was here?”
    “Now is not the time for this argument.”
    “She is a Jezebel, she has deceived you.” Anthony’s stomach turned. He and the Father had had this argument many times, and neither could convince the other of the rightness of his position. There was nothing Father Philip, or Rico, or any of the others who held Moira blameless could say to convince Anthony that she was not a threat to St. Michael’s Order, and nothing he said nor the facts he presented about her culpability in Peter’s death swayed them either. She had brought the demon into St. Michael’s. She was responsible for its crimes.
    Father Philip ignored his comment and said, “She called me tonight when she found out about the ritual on the cliffs. I told her to call you, but as there has been considerable animosity between you two, I’m not surprised she didn’t. But you knew—”
    He didn’t want to discuss his strange connection to the ruins, so he interrupted. “I check the cliffs every night because of the darkness that surrounds the place.” It was like a black hole, with mass and depth, as if the laws of physics didn’t apply. Not now, not tonight—whatever the coven did here changed the place. “There have been some signs of occult activity over the last two months, but nothing like what I found tonight.”
    “What happened? I’ve been trying to reach Moira, but she’s not answering her phone.”
    “According to the signs, the Seven have been released. A teenager died in the process—possibly a sacrifice. Moira O’Donnell was in the middle of it. She claims she found the body, but I don’t buy it. Why can’t you see that she’s the problem? She’s been part of the underworld uprising from the beginning—she started with her mother, and