Mark of the Witch (18 page)

But the old man was going to keel over if he didn’t ease off on
the pace.

Tomas stopped, pointing out a stump where Dom immediately sat.
Bracing his hands on his knees, the old priest leaned forward, panting. “I
should have stayed behind,” he admitted between gasps.

“Yeah, and going back up will be a lot worse, you know.” Tomas
looked back the way they had come. “Maybe you should just wait here.”

Dom lifted his head and probably saw the urgency in Tomas’s
eyes. “Yes. If you’ll leave me the gun. I don’t want any more demon-eyed
wildlife coming around.”

“Don’t kill anything unless you have to,” Tomas said, handing
him the weapon. “You know how to use it?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“There’s a bullet in the chamber. All you have to do is turn
off the safety—” he showed him the button with a forefinger “—aim and shoot. If
you need more than one, you’ll need to—”

“I saw what you did. I know what to do next.” Father Dom patted
his hand, which was still holding the weapon, then drew the gun closer to him.
“Go on.”

“I’ll be back for you soon. If you feel like heading back to
the cabin, just stay on the path. There are a couple of forks, but if you keep
going right, you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, Tomas. Be safe now. And keep your mission in mind
above all else. Your duty. Your calling. Remember that.”

“Always.” He said it, but he didn’t mean it. He was relieved to
leave Dom behind, relieved because it freed him to do whatever he had to do to
protect Indy and Rayne, without the old man’s watchful, judgmental eyes on
him.

He gave Dom a final nod, and continued down the steep and
twisting path. In a few minutes he could hear the waterfall in the distance.
Encouraged, he picked up his pace and finally emerged from the forested path
into the clearing at the edge of the cliffs. The gorgeous waterfall came into
view, taking his breath away—but only for an instant. He glimpsed Rayne sitting
on a boulder near the edge of the waterfall, staring at it as if trying to see
through it. He lifted his hand, about to call out to her, then froze when he
heard a scream.

Rayne heard it, too, and jumped off her makeshift seat. “Indy?”
she called.

Tomas ran the last dozen yards, grabbed his sister by the arm
and heard a second scream. “She’s in the cave?” he demanded.

“I couldn’t stop her. She said she had to go. Tomas, get her.
Help her!”

He nodded. “I left Dom halfway up the trail,” he said, yanking
off his jacket, then his shoes. “Go back for him, get him back to the cabin. And
for God’s sake, make some noise so he knows you’re coming. He’s got the shotgun,
and he’s spooked.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“I don’t want you here.” He clasped her neck, drew her closer
and kissed her forehead. “I love you, sis. But this is my mission.
My
problem. If anything happened to you—”

“Oh, go get Indy already.”

He did, wading into the water and hissing at the cold, then
pushing straight through the freezing cascade and into the darkness of the cave
beyond it.

About thirty feet in, he found her, his feet bumping against
the softness of her body on the cave floor. Quickly dropping to his knees, he
felt around to find which end of her was which, and immediately realized that
she was nearly naked from the waist up. His hands slid over the warm skin of her
belly, his knuckles grazing a rounded breast, before he drew them away and
reached for her arms.

He found them, along with the sticky blood that coated them. He
wiped his hands on his pant legs and touched her again, seeking her face this
time, and finding it.

“Indy?” he asked, cupping her cheeks, patting one of them.
“Indy, wake up now. Wake for me, okay?” He slid his fingers over her neck to
feel for a pulse and heard the whisper of her breath in the process. “Good.
You’re alive.”

“Tomas?”

“Yes, it’s me.” He shifted her up off the floor, holding her
against his chest to warm her. She was shivering.

“I…I found it, Tomas.”

He blinked in the darkness. “You found…”

“The Portal.”

He looked deeper into the cave but saw nothing. And yet he did
not doubt her. “I need to get you out of here, Indy. You’re hurt, and I can’t
even see how badly.”

“Okay,” she said.

He slid his arms beneath her and picked her up. Her body
nestled close to his, naked skin against his shirt, beneath his arms. Every part
of him was reacting, feeling her, wanting her, raging against whatever force had
caused her harm or pain. He was reacting to her like a lover, not like a priest,
and he knew it.

But if Father Dom could accuse her of manipulating him, of
casting spells that would cut her to ribbons just to elicit his protective
instincts, then he was a fool. This woman was an innocent. There wasn’t an evil
cell in her body.

He lowered his head to kiss her forehead, but she tipped her
chin up, and he caught her lips instead. Her hands immediately dove into his
hair and held him to her as her lips parted. He tasted her with his tongue, and
the kiss heated, deepened, intensified, until he was feeding from her mouth and
she from his.

He was aroused—powerfully, almost painfully, aroused. And it
was wrong. Yet he couldn’t stop kissing her. And then a flash, an image—a
memory?—entered his mind. He was kissing her, and it was him, and it was her,
but it
wasn’t.
She had long dark hair and wore
flowing skirts below a tiny scrap of fabric that barely covered her breasts.
There was thick dark liner around her eyes. He wore a tunic of white, with a
gold sash. His hair was long, and his heart was damn near bursting with
emotion.

With love.

For her.

He broke the kiss, shaken, and certain that his vision was
true. They’d been together before. In that other lifetime. And he remembered it
now.

But given the intensity of the feeling that had just swept
through him, could he really have killed her?

He lifted his head and, saying nothing, strode forward. When he
carried her back out through the freezing waterfall it was a painful relief.

12

C
old water shocked me back to
consciousness, but consciousness brought pain. Hot, burning pain so bad I hissed
through my teeth before I even opened my eyes.

Tomas had me in his arms, carrying me. He was dripping wet, and
so was I, and we were moving toward the flat rock where Rayne and I had been
sitting before. Behind us, I saw the waterfall and realized he’d carried me
through it. He must have come into the cave after me. I was briefly amazed that
he would do that. And then I wondered how much farther he would have come to
rescue me. What if I’d gone through the Portal into the Underworld itself? Would
he have come after me then?

Reaching the big rock, he lowered me onto its cool surface. I
could feel mist from the waterfall hitting my skin, and though I was cold and
already wet, that soft shower felt soothing somehow. I tried to meet his
eyes.

He wasn’t looking at me, though. He’d spotted something to the
left and quickly grabbed it.

My cell phone. He pointed it at me, and I realized he was
snapping photos.

“What…are you doing…that for?” I could barely speak, the pain
was so intense.

“It’s happened again, Indy. Look at your arms.”

I did, only then remembering that my shirt was missing. I was
lying there in my demi-bra and cargo pants. And before I could object, he was
snapping more photos. Automatically, I crossed my arms over my chest—though I
was the furthest thing from shy, and my bra covered as much as a bikini would
have. It was more or less a reflex action. But as I moved, wincing at the new
pain the movement caused, I looked down and saw the reason for his urgent
picture taking. My arms were once again crisscrossed with cuts—the symbols of
some forgotten language. Blood trickled from them, and still he snapped
away.

“Do you give a shit that I’m bleeding to death down here?”

He lowered the phone, met my eyes at last. “You’re not. But one
of these days you will be if these episodes keep up, and the only way we can
stop them is to get the answers we need and end your involvement in this thing
for good.” His eyes softened as tears brimmed in mine, and he reached out to
touch my face.

That was when it came rushing back to me—kissing in the cave,
holding each other, and the feeling, just for an instant, that the two of us
were madly, deeply, in love. Not just the memory but the feeling itself returned
to me. In that moment I adored him, knew he was my soul mate, had no doubt he
loved me just as much. I would have died for him without a second thought.

His eyes met mine, and he whispered my name and leaned closer.
As our lips met again I was whisked back in time, until I was once again on that
cliff, and he was behind me, his hands on my back.

The reality of it was there and then gone, like the brief glow
of a lightning bug on a summer night. And then I was back in the present, lying
on the cool stone, feeling the autumn kiss on the air, and the pain on my arms
and back fading fast as his mouth possessed mine.

I twisted my head to the side. “Tomas, the marks are fading. I
feel it. Take your photos.”

He sat up, shifting away from me, blinking as if he, too, had
been momentarily transported to another place and time. Nodding, he lifted the
phone and took a few more pictures. I rolled onto my stomach, because I knew
there were already healing marks on my back, too. Almost as if his kiss held
some kind of magic.

I heard the phone clicking with each shot, heard him moving
around, and heard someone whisper,
Remember.

A flash. Symbols drawn on thick parchmentlike scrolls. My own
hand held the ink-reed. I wrote them—the same symbols that had carved themselves
into my flesh in the cave. What the hell did they say?

The clicking had stopped.

I rolled onto my back, blinking up at Tomas. His intense brown
eyes, deep-set and mesmerizing, stared into my very soul. “They’re gone,” he
said softly. He slid the phone into a pocket, then offered me his hands. I took
them and let him help me to my feet, then immediately rocked sideways, dizzy as
a drunk, and swore under my breath.

“It’s all right. I’ve got you.” He picked me up again, and
then, turning, began striding back the way I had come what seemed—and in a way
had been—a lifetime ago.

“You can’t carry me all the way back to the cabin, Tomas. It’s
not only uphill, it’s steep.”

“Watch me.” He looked down and tried a gentle smile, but it
died quickly. “You were right about our shared past, Indy. I…I’ve been having
flashes of memory, too.”

“You have?”

He nodded, his eyes shifting away from mine again. “I
remember....a love more powerful than I knew anything could be. And I remember
being there with you on that cliff.” His brows crunched together as if he were
in pain. “And I don’t know how I can ever make up for what I…now believe I did
to you in that lifetime.”

“I’m not sure it matters,” I whispered. Lifting my arm,
surprised at how much effort that took, I pressed my palm to his cheek, drawing
his eyes back to mine. “I’m here. I’m alive. We’re together. Doesn’t that seem
to you to sort of…mean something?”

He nodded. “It means God wants us to finish what we started
back then.”

“Yes, that’s what I think, too. I mean, I know you’re a priest
and all, but maybe that was just the path you had to walk to find me again, and
now that you have, you can—”

“Indy, stop.”

I bit my lip, realizing by the look on his face that I had
jumped the track—his track, at least—and landed on my own.

“The mission God wants us to complete is the vanquishing of a
demon that threatens us all.”

“Oh.”
Why do I have the feeling he doesn’t
believe that any more than I do? Wishful thinking?

He looked into my eyes.

Does he see the disappointment, the
heartbreak, I’m feeling right now? Probably. And he probably finds it as
stupid as I do. I mean, okay, I’m changing my mind about not believing in
anything woo-woo, because clearly there’s some major woo-woo shit going on
here. And reincarnation is a huge part of it, a part I can’t justify
doubting any longer.

But in this lifetime, we barely know each
other. Even if it feels like we do.

“What happened in that cave, Indy?” he asked.

“Change the subject much?” I was being petulant, and I knew it.
So I heaved a sigh, pressed my hands against his chest and said, “Put me down. I
can walk from here.”

“You’re still too weak. I can—”

“Put me the fuck down, Tomas.”

Startled, he stopped walking and gently lowered me to my feet.
Yeah, I was furious with him. As furious as if we’d been married this whole
thirty-five-hundred years and he’d just forgotten our anniversary. I wanted to
smack him. Kick him. But I strode uphill instead, head down, eyes on my
feet.

“I found the Portal. It’s in the cave. And I saw him. And I’ll
tell you right now, Tomas, what I saw was no demon. It was more like a…a wounded
animal pleading for help. For mercy. Mercy, isn’t that right up your priestly
alley?”

“He’s a child of Satan, a demon, Indy. He’s one of the great
deceivers.”

“Yeah? Then why do you sound like you’re trying to convince
yourself as much as me?”

“He wants your help.”

“And I swore I would give it to him. All those years ago I made
a vow to help him, and you knew it and didn’t even tell me.”

He couldn’t even hold my accusing eyes. “I was going to. I
just—”

“And this amulet I somehow magically hid in some other plane?
The one I’m supposed to retrieve and give to him? Were you going to tell me
about that, too?”

He lifted his chin. “Of course I was. Because if we can find it
and destroy it, it ends his chances of ever escaping.”

“And what if I decide that’s not what I want to do, Tomas? What
if I decide to keep my promise and help this being who looks so freaking sad and
tormented to me?”

“Indy, you can’t mean that.”

He stared at me. I stared back. We didn’t speak. And then he
said, “I should have told you everything. I know that. But you can’t believe
what you saw in that cave, Indy. Naturally he’s not going to appear to you as he
truly is. He’s trying to elicit your sympathy, make you doubt your true role in
all this.”

“Naturally.” I rolled my eyes. “You act like this is everyday
shit to you, when you know, and I know you know, that you’re as lost as I am.
You’ve never dealt with a demon before, have you?”

He shook his head. “No. But Dom has. And I’ve been studying,
preparing for this my entire lifetime.”

“Several of them, as a matter of fact.” I was being sarcastic
and snotty, and I couldn’t seem to help it. “Look, holy man, hasn’t it even
occurred to you that I was the
victim
thirty-five
centuries ago? I was murdered, thrown off a freakin’ cliff, for ‘communing with
demons’ or practicing magic without a license, or being too sexy for my own
good. And you were apparently on the side of the guys who ordered it.” I stopped
and turned to stare up into his eyes, and I saw him flinch. “I mean, doesn’t
that give you a little pause? A little doubt about who’s on the right side
here?”

He looked away, said nothing.

“You do have doubts! I saw them in your eyes just now.”
Turning, I continued stomping uphill. “At least that’s something.”

“You’ve found the Portal,” he said. “That’s something, too. I
intend to return here and close it permanently.”

I blinked. “You know how to do that?”

“Yes, I know how to do that.”

“And what happens to…him…when you do?”

“He stays where he is. Where he belongs.”

“Suffering in Hell?” I asked. “Is that where he is?”

“Demons have no souls, Indy. Only souls can suffer in
Hell.”

I kept going, kept walking, mulling that over for a while, and
finally I shook my head firmly. “No. I may have changed my mind about
reincarnation, but wherever that de—wherever that being I saw is, it’s not Hell.
Because I still don’t believe in Hell. It’s never made sense to me.”

He muttered something under his breath. It sounded like “me
neither,” but when I called him on it, he said he’d only been clearing his
throat. Right.

“Did you get the photos this time? The writing on my body?”

“Yes. I think so.”

I nodded. “I think we need to get it translated, Tomas. I need
to know what those words are. I’m compelled to know what I died for. I mean,
what the hell could possibly be more important than....than a love like we must
have had? Because it felt…it felt…” I stopped. I couldn’t say more, because I
was choking back tears.

“I know. I felt it, too.”

I braced my hand against the smooth white trunk of a young
poplar tree, my head hanging. “I wonder if we could feel it again? When all this
is over, I mean, and your mission for God is accomplished.”

He touched me. It was just a hand on my shoulder, but it was
enough. I turned suddenly, and the act brought my body flush against his. My
hand curled around his nape as if of its own volition, and I gazed into his
eyes, willing him to want me as hard as I could and forgetting all about the
fact that I had given up the practice of witchcraft. And that he was a priest.
“Why would we feel this way if we weren’t supposed to do something about it,
Tomas?”

He stared at me. I could see the war going on inside him. And I
didn’t care. He belonged to me, I knew it suddenly, fiercely and surely. He was
mine. His eyes darkened with desire. His lips parted, and he stared at my
mouth.

I rose onto my toes and pressed my mouth to his, but only
briefly. He shivered in reaction as I lowered myself again. And then his arms
snapped around me, one hand cupping my backside, and jerked me hard against him
as his head came down and his mouth took mine.

We were mashed together, body to body, mouth to mouth, tasting,
devouring each other, our pulses pounding in sync, when voices on the wind
reached us and a twig snapped like an exclamation point.

We pulled apart, both of us looking up the trail toward the
sound.

Rayne was standing in the path, blinking at us as if she’d just
spotted a unicorn. And as I met her eyes, wide with confusion and surprise,
Father Dominick appeared just behind her.

I took a guilty step away from Tomas. “I’m sorry,” I said,
keeping my voice low, for his ears alone. “I didn’t mean to push you like that.
It’s powerful, whatever’s there between us. It’s ancient, and it’s powerful, and
I honestly don’t know if I can resist it much longer.”

“I don’t know if I can, either.”

I shot him a look. It was so good to hear him say those words.
But I wanted more. So much more. Then he put a hand at the small of my back…

I feel his hands on my back.

…urging me forward to meet the others.

* * *

I slept. I slept out the remainder of the day and
straight through the night. It was morning again when I blinked my eyes open and
slowly focused away the blurriness of the clock on the nightstand. Glowing red
characters. 8:45 a.m.

I closed my eyes.

“So…you gonna tell me what the hell is going on between you and
my brother?” Rayne asked me.

She was sitting on a padded stool that had been over by the
window last time I checked.

I wonder how long she’s been there? She
couldn’t have sat there all night, could she?

I thought back to the day before. I’d gone straight to my room
to collapse facedown on my bed and try to recover from the…the attack. Or
whatever the hell it had been.

It was an attack. No other word for it.
And I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this yet—hell, I’m only just
figuring it out myself—but every single one leaves me feeling weaker,
sicker. I’m starting to think this shit could kill me.