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Автор Эллисон Бреннан

Allison Brennan

Original Sin

and desire what is denied us.

— Francois Rabelais (1494–1553)

PROLOGUE

Ten Weeks Ago

No one could hear Moira’s piercing screams; they were in her head, as trapped as she was by the ancient demon who was luring the man she loved to his death.

Peter, her lover, her life, the reason she wanted to survive, held out the cross and chanted an ancient exorcism.

Her palms went up, facing him. The demonic energy building within pulsated outward and grabbed her lover by his throat. Squeezed. It was as if her own hands were tightening around Peter’s neck with inhuman strength. But Moira was many feet away from him, the demon using her body to channel his satanic energy. Peter was dying, struggling for breath as he collapsed to the floor, scratching at invisible hands around his neck, drawing his own blood.

Moira witnessed the shock on Peter’s face. The pain. The disbelief. With a flick of her wrist, the malevolent demon hurled him across the room with enough force to crack the stone wall. Peter dropped twelve feet to the ground, dead …

Moira O’Donnell jolted awake, her breath coming in gasps, the cheap, scratchy motel sheets damp from perspiration, her skin slick and hot to the touch. As always, after this nightmare came a vision, hitting so hard and fast and fading so rapidly that every time she tried to focus on a detail, it would disappear like a wisp of smoke. But fear still clung tenaciously to every cell in her body, squeezing her tight until she was nearly blind with panic.

She’d been having nightmares every night. And just as the nightmares were the real past, the visions that invariably followed were the real present.

They were far from useful: even as Moira witnessed events happening right now, she was powerless to stop the endless cycle of destruction. How could she balance the scales if evil kept winning?

It didn’t help that her visions were difficult to decipher, snippets of startling images and intense feelings, strangers’ faces and places she’d never been. She suffered with people she didn’t know, feeling their pain, sharing their terror, and was unable to do a damn thing to stop it. Father Philip explained to her there was a deeper meaning, to be patient, but Moira was tired of waiting for answers that never came. She was exhausted from watching the underworld win yet another battle, and seeing countless more innocent people suffer.

Moira was tired of living when she had nothing to live for.

She sat up, head in her hands, doing what Father Philip told her to do after a vision. Try to remember. Search for clues.

You are seeing these things for a reason. Ask questions, listen for answers. They will be there when you need them, but you must be alert.

Sure, rip open my soul to be tortured again and again, always searching for answers when I don’t even know the damn questions!

She heard the crashing of waves against cliffs far beneath her.

Moira could practically smell the salt air. Salt air tinged with smoke, ash, sulphur. She focused on remembering the images she didn’t want to see.