Mortal Sins Read Online Free PDF

a sudden. He was in a hospital gown—that’s where we took him, to the hospital—but he still had blood on him. He saw that blood and thought he’d been in a wreck or somethin’. Didn’t remember anything since breakfast.”
    “Did you go to the hospital with him?”
    “No. No, I went out to his place to see if that’s where the blood had come from, and found poor Bill Watkins out cold. Bingham—that’s one of my deputies—took Roy Don to the hospital.”
    She nodded. “So you didn’t actually see him when he, ah, came to.”
    “No, but Bingham told me about it. He’s a good man. Pays attention.”
    “He’s not an empath. Even with your Gift slicked over by that spell, you probably pick up more than an unGifted could. Your hunches about people would be good.” Which gave her an idea. “May not work with me, though. Maybe my Gift locks yours out.” Maybe that’s why he didn’t like or trust her.
    “I’m not used to talking about this stuff.”
    Tell me about it. Until her career change to the FBI, Lily never spoke of being a sensitive. Too often in the past, sensitives had been used to out the Gifted or those of the Blood, and she’d wanted no part of that. Being open about her ability had taken some getting used to. She figured she knew something of how a gay person felt, coming out of the closet. “Times are changing.”
    “I guess. Are you askin’ me what I felt about Roy Don when he stepped out of the truck? When he handed me the bat?”
    “What did you feel?”
    “Nothin’. Like there was no one home.”
    “You get that feeling with me?”
    “No, you’re there. Like a closed door, but you’re there. I’ve never had that feelin’ with a person before. Not with a person. Bethany White’s girl, now, she’s mentally handicapped. Pretty severe—she wears diapers, can’t feed herself, but she’s there. Roy Don wasn’t. He drove his truck into town, came to me, handed me that bat. And he wasn’t there at all.”
    Shit. Lily didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t be good. She glanced at Deacon. “Is he still absent?”
    “He’s not what I’d call sane, but he’s present. You got some idea what could do that to a man? I mean, you’re sure there was magic involved, so, well. . . .” He hesitated, his voice dropping as if he were embarrassed. “Could Roy Don have been possessed? I know that’s supposed to be an old wives’ tale, but—”
    “No, possession is real, and demons can cross if summoned, but it’s extremely rare. Almost all summoning spells were lost during the Purge.”
    “Almost all?”
    She waved that aside. “The point is, the magic I touched didn’t come from a demon.”
    “You said it was faint.”
    But not orange. For some reason, demons tripped a synesthetic switch in her Gift. They felt like a color, not a texture. “Demon magic is unique. Nothing else feels anything like it. And it’s been four days. If Meacham had been possessed and the demon left him for some reason, it would have found another host right away, or a series of hosts. And it would still be killing.”
    “If it couldn’t find a new host—”
    “It wouldn’t have left Meacham without having one to slip into. A raised demon needs a host to anchor it here.” It was more complicated than that, and Lily didn’t know all the complications. But she knew a demon. Well, a former demon. And Gan had told her that only a demon who’d come through a gate, or one like her, who could cross unsummoned, could stay in this world without a host.
    And Gan was, as she liked to point out, very, very special because of that ability. Lily’s lips curved in the ghost of a smile. “I can’t say it’s impossible,” she added. “But it’s unlikely enough to not even make the list right now.”
    “Guess you’ve had experience with that sort of thing,” Deacon said. “We nearly there?”
    She nodded. Rule was close now.
    “Who’d you leave on-scene? I don’t see anyone.”
    “You