Blood of the Sorceress (5 page)

“I’ll bet.”

Lena had been silent during this entire exchange, but finally she spoke. “Lilia, what’s going to happen? You said it would be the toughest challenge yet, and you told us before we’d need to get our loved ones out of the way when the time comes, but why? What exactly are we fighting here? I mean, I thought this was as simple as Demetrius making a choice. Either he accepts his remaining soul-piece or he doesn’t, right? So what’s the big deal?”

Lilia licked her lips, trying to form an answer she didn’t really want to give, and then was saved by a soft
buzz-buzz
coming from Indy’s jeans pocket.

Indy quickly pulled out her cell phone. “Text from Tomas.” Then her expression changed. “Oh, my Goddess.” She looked from the screen to her sisters. “The hospital phoned him. Father Dom came out of his coma this morning. He’s awake and alert.”

“On this day of all days,” Lilia said, shaking her head. “The same day Demetrius first used the tools, the day he called me back into existence. This can’t be a coincidence.”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence,” Lena said softly. “We’d better get home.”

* * *

Lilia stopped shoving food into her mouth when she realized that everyone was looking at her. Of course, as soon as they saw her noticing, they all returned to their own lasagna dripping with cheeses and sauce and stuffed with mushrooms and vegetables. The bowl beside her plate, where a fresh green salad had been, was all but licked clean. She realized she had consumed about a square foot of the main course within the first three minutes of its arrival. And a couple of slices of warm, buttery garlic bread, too.

She laid her fork down, sipped from her water glass, then set it carefully on the table. “I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed food,” she said. “The sensual pleasure of eating is... I think when you do it every day you forget how incredible it is. All those flavors bursting on your tongue. The taste, the texture. Oh, it’s so good.”

Selma, Magdalena’s mother, smiled at her. She’d been smiling at her the entire evening, and it had been all Lilia could do not to fling herself into the older woman’s arms. But all in good time. “I think that’s the best compliment my cooking has ever received,” she said softly.

“Then,” Bahru said, “we’ve all been lax in our praise. Your culinary skills are unmatched, Selma.” He was a bronze-skinned Hindi who wore red-and-white robes, sandals, dreadlocks halfway down his back and a matted beard.

Lilia sighed. “It’s a shame Demetrius won’t be able to enjoy food like this.”

“He won’t?” Tomas asked. “Why not?”

“Well, he’s still missing a part of his soul. The part I carry with me. When Indy returned the amulet to him, he received the soul-piece it held, and that let him escape the Underworld through the Portal. And, Lena, when you relinquished the chalice and the blade, you gave him a body.”

“Not the body he thought I was going to give him, though,” Lena said, glancing at the wicker cradle in the living room with a combination of love and ferocity.

Lilia nodded. “He was imprisoned, inhuman, a soulless beast raging against his captivity for so long—it’s understandable he was mixed up. And I know you couldn’t see him at the end, my sister, but I could. He changed his mind. He wouldn’t have gone through with it. I know this. He was confused—”

“Confused is putting it mildly, Lilia,” Ryan said. He sat at the table’s head, Lena at its foot. “He used some kind of mind control on people. On me, even.”

She nodded. “I know. I saw it all. He’s powerful.”

“Still?” Ryan asked, pressing on. “I mean, now that he’s got a human body, is he human, or is he...something else?”

“And is he still dangerous?” Lena asked.

Lilia lowered her head, but it was Selma who answered. “Why don’t we let Lilia enjoy her first full-fledged meal in thirty-five-hundred years and discuss this later, over coffee and dessert?”

Everyone muttered, but they nodded all the same.

Lilia was grateful and sent Selma a loving look while deciding it was time to tell her the truth. “You are mothering all of us, Selma, even though you’re only Magdalena’s mother...in this lifetime.”

Selma stilled with her fork halfway to her lips and lifted her head. “In this lifetime?”

Lilia smiled warmly. “We didn’t get to stay with you for very long, Selma. Teenagers in those days were adult enough to leave home. But you taught your three daughters well. If you hadn’t, our powers then wouldn’t have enabled us all to be here now. Together. About to set things right after thirty-five centuries.”

“I was...” Selma’s voice broke.

“Our mother. You were our mother in Babylon.”

Selma dropped her fork to her plate with a clatter and looked at each of the women in turn, her eyes beginning to shimmer. “I knew it. I felt it.”

Sitting beside her, Bahru put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Lilia sighed and set her napkin down. “It seems odd, me being the youngest but knowing more of what’s going on than the rest of you. It’s unfair to make you wait any longer for the answers you’ve been looking for all this time. And I’ve eaten so much already that my belly is straining to hold it. So I will tell you what I know.”

“It’s about time,” Indy muttered, but she gave Lilia a wink to temper the words. “I thought we might have to stick bamboo shoots under your nails to get you to talk.”

Lilia frowned—even though Indy’s grin said she was kidding—failing to see the humor in such a notion. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and then she began.

“Demetrius came into humanity with the knowledge that he was human once, but no real memory of what that means. He doesn’t know of our history. Didn’t even—” Her throat tightened. She loosened it with another sip of water. “He didn’t even recognize me when I first appeared in physical form.” It hurt to admit that. But there it was.

“He came forth with the intention to experience every human pleasure. But without the final piece of his soul, his senses are dulled. He can’t taste the deliciousness of food or see the beauty of nature. He won’t understand why people take pleasure from music or a warm, soft pillow. He won’t realize what he’s missing, of course, having no basis for comparison.”

“But he is human?” Tomas asked.

“He is. Sort of. He’s also immortal—for the moment, anyway. His injuries will heal rapidly. Nothing will kill him. And he can’t become ill.” She went silent, rubbing her hands together in her lap.

“And what else?” Indy asked. “C’mon, spill it. I can see there’s more.”

Lilia looked up at the sister who sat beside her. “He has the same powers you received from the amulet, Indira.”

“Telekinesis,” Indy whispered.

Nodding, Lilia looked to Magdalena. “And he has the powers you received from the chalice, Lena. The ability to scry and find any knowledge he seeks.”

“And he has the dagger,” Ryan said softly. “That thing’s like an unregistered WMD.”

Lilia didn’t understand the reference, and it must have shown on her face.

“Weapon of mass destruction,” Ryan said.

She nodded in agreement. “Also, using the two together, he can manifest anything he desires. Turn any wish into physical reality.”

The baby fussed, and Bahru was on his feet before any of them, hurrying to the cradle in the next room. Lena had started to get up, but she relaxed into her chair again with a grateful look the guru’s way. Then she faced Lilia again. “What special power did you bring back with you, Lilia?”

“I hold a piece of my love’s soul,” Lilia said, lowering her head to hide the wave of longing that rose in her when she acknowledged that tiny part of him that remained in her possession.

“Is it embedded in some magical tool?” Tomas asked.

“No. It’s in my heart. Where it’s always been. I’m bound to him through it. I can find him anywhere he goes. The rest of his soul cries out for it, the way the moon pulls at the Earth. It’s a constant effort to resist. But as I said at the hospital, I must give him some time.”

“And what else?” Indy asked, getting up from the table and beginning to gather the plates, since everyone had finished eating. Selma got up to help, as did Bahru, who handed Ellie to her mother first.

“I’m immortal, impervious to illness or injury—as long as my body isn’t destroyed—just as he is.”

Everyone went silent and just stared at her. It was Indy who finally spoke. “Uh, in case you’ve forgotten, baby sis, your impervious immortal is in the hospital right now.”

“He’s most likely fully healed by now. I imagine this was the Gods’ way of making sure he and I have time enough here in the physical realm to fulfill our destiny. If one of us were to be killed before Demetrius has the opportunity to make the decision he must make, it would be a terrible waste of all our efforts.”

She pressed a hand to her throat. “If I die before Beltane, in a way that prevents me from reviving, with his soul-piece still inside me, it will die forever. The rest of his soul-pieces will die slowly without it, and he will expire into a death from which there is no return. He will simply cease to exist.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Ryan said, getting up to help with the cleanup. Lilia did likewise, but as she passed her sister’s chair carrying the lasagna tray, Lena gripped her arm.

“What about the baby?” Magdalena asked. “Demetrius wouldn’t have any reason to want to hurt her, would he, Lil?”

“No. None. And you needn’t worry about his powers, either. Once he receives the final part of his soul he’ll return to being an ordinary mortal again, to live out an ordinary lifetime without any extraordinary abilities. And so will I. And so, I imagine, will each of you.”

“Right,” Indy said. “So what’s the catch?”

“I don’t—”

“She means it sounds too easy,” Lena said as Bahru returned to the table. “There’s more to it, isn’t there? Otherwise you’d have given him back the final piece already.”

Lilia lowered her head, nodded once. “Yes. First he has to be given time to experience life, as he is now. And then I have to offer him his soul-piece back, explaining that he must give up his powers and immortality if he accepts it.”

“You mean he gets a choice?” Ryan asked.

Lilia nodded. “Yes. The choice has to be his.”

Everyone looked at each other, and then Indy said, “Who in their right mind would accept if it means giving up immortality, immunity to illness, rapid healing and superpowers, sis? I mean, what’s the upside for him?”

“Oh, so much,” Lilia said softly. “He’ll be able to experience being human—fully. His senses will no longer be dulled. Being human is a highly sensual experience—we don’t get that when we’re in spirit form. The tastes and smells, the sounds and visual beauty. The sense of touch, of physical pleasure, none of that exists where there’s no body, and for him, they’re mere shadows compared to the fullness and richness he’ll experience with his soul intact.”

Tomas set his napkin on the table, chewed his lip for a moment, and then said softly, “What if he chooses not to accept?”

Of them all, Lilia knew, he was most familiar with their story, with the curse, the legends and mistaken interpretations, the history. Clearly he understood that all of it, the entire three-thousand, five-hundred-year cycle, was coming to an end with her arrival and Demetrius’s decision.

“If he chooses not to accept his soul-piece, then at the precise moment of Beltane, he will die. He’ll be released into the afterlife, and it will go there to join him. There he’ll process all he’s learned, rest and understand, and reincarnate again if he so desires.” She lowered her head, not wanting to finish, but knowing they had a right to know the whole of it. “And so will I.”

Her sisters shot to their feet, shouting denials, but Lilia held up her hands. “I’ve been allowed to linger all this time to right the wrong that was done so many years ago. The Gods allowed that as a way of correcting the imbalance, righting the dreadful wrong committed against us. But you all know it’s not the natural order. We’re supposed to live, to die, to rest, to live again. We’ve been allowed to circumvent the natural order. For three-thousand, five-hundred years, you have reincarnated lifetime after lifetime with the same names, with the memories ready to return to you—with the same loves you lost then reincarnating with you to give you a chance to find each other again.

“And I’ve been allowed to linger between life and death, to watch over you, to call you to action when the time was right. None of that is natural. And it all comes to an end now, with me. But we must not—
cannot
—tell Demetrius that part of it. He has to make his decision out of the desire to be fully human, to embrace life and love again, not out of fear of death. We all know death is nothing to fear, anyway.”

Selma was using her napkin to dab a tear from the corner of her eye, and the others were looking shocked and afraid.

Lilia realized she’d risen to her feet in the fervor of her speech. She got hold of herself, took a deep breath and sat down again. “I will know when the time is right to go to him,” she said softly. “I’ll feel it. But until then, I’m here. We’re all here, together. Let’s enjoy this time while we have it.”

Tomas looked troubled but nodded in agreement. “She’s right.”

“I know that look,” Indy said, staring at her husband. “What are you thinking, hon?”

“That Father Dom waking up from a coma on the same day your sister arrived is...too unlikely to have happened by chance,” he said. “Lilia, do you think there’s a connection?”

“I’m certain of it.”

Tomas lowered his eyes, and Lilia realized he’d been hoping she would give a different answer. “I’ll go see him,” he said. “I had no intention of ever talking to him again, not that I expected it to be an option. When the hospital called to tell me he was awake and asking for me, I—” He broke off, then took a breath, cleared his throat and went on. “But maybe I need to see what I can find out.”

“It wasn’t his fault, what he did,” Lilia told him, watching his face, knowing this was a sore subject. Father Dominick had been like a father to him and then betrayed him bitterly.

Anger rose in Tomas’s dark eyes. “He tried to kill the woman I love. He drugged my sister. He lied to me about who and what I was. He—”