Mark of the Witch (14 page)

“Maybe Dom’s right,” he whispered. “Maybe by keeping her from
helping the demon I might save her from this nightmare and make up for taking
her life. That has to be it.”

Then why did his theory feel so incomplete?

He lifted his head, opened his eyes, and then jerked backward
so fast he fell on his backside on the floor. Just beyond the glass a raven was
sitting on a tree limb, hunched against the rain and glaring in at him. Its eyes
were lifeless and cold, like black marbles, its feathers ruffled and beaded with
water. It didn’t look away. It just stared.

It wasn’t right. Wasn’t natural. Neither was the icy chill
dancing down his spine. His breath stuttered out of him, and he saw puffs of
steam as he shivered. With everything in him, he knew he was in the presence of
evil.

“Get thee behind me,” he whispered. Habit again. But it didn’t
work.

Forcing himself to his feet, he squared his shoulders and
yanked the window upward. Then he leaned outside into the pouring rain, waving
his arms at the thing. “Get away! Go on, get out of here. You’ve got no business
here!”

With a furious squawk and a flapping of huge wet wings, the
bird took off. Tomas drew back inside the room and reached up to close the
window. But as he grabbed hold of it, he glimpsed the lawn below.

A fox, its mouth open as if panting, tongue lolling out, eyes
fixed on him. Movement caught his eye, a furry white flash in the storm. A
whitetail buck a few yards to the fox’s right, standing there staring up at him,
angrily pawing at the earth, flicking his tail. Tomas forced himself to look
away. To scan farther. A raccoon, a coyote, three pigeons, a woodchuck, a
chipmunk. All scattered across the lawn, staring up at him in the moonlight with
lifeless eyes. He stood straighter, chills racking his entire body.

And then Dom’s voice boomed, “Thou art an offense unto me! In
the name of Jesus Christ, be gone!”

Tomas jerked his head around to see his friend standing in the
bedroom doorway, then quickly back again. The animals were scattering into the
trees. In seconds the lawn lay empty, raindrops pelleting the grass.

“You should’ve done that yourself, Tomas.”

Tomas turned again, stung by the disgust in Dom’s tone. The old
man was looking at him as if waiting for something.

As if he knew.

“Why didn’t you?” Father Dom asked softly. “Are you worried
that you’ve…lost favor with God?”

Tomas averted his eyes, refusing to answer Dom’s subtle charge.
He couldn’t answer to anyone but God Almighty. Not on this one. “Why would I
worry about that?”

Dom broke eye contact but seemed to be listening intently as he
paced a few steps one way, then the other, rubbing his chin as he spoke. “Well,
Indira, of course. Now that she’s got you believing you were lovers in another
lifetime I—”

“More important, that I killed her in that other lifetime,”
Tomas interrupted.

“Well, either way.” Father Dom nodded toward the window. “What
do you think you saw out there tonight?”

Tomas turned to gaze out into the pouring rain. “Animals.
Animals everywhere, staring up at me. It was…unnatural. And cold. I could see my
breath.” He frowned and blew into a cupped hand. “But I can’t now.”

“It was him,” Dom said. “He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken. He’s
found you.”

Tomas lifted his brows.

“He knows there will be a witch who’s meant to help him, and a
priest who’s sworn to stop her, in the vicinity of the Portal in the days before
he can cross. That’s why he attacked the conference.”

“I still don’t understand how he could have done that. He’s
still on the other side. A spirit being, not a physical one.”

Father Dom’s face softened. It always put him in a better mood
when he was asked his opinion, and he was never humble about giving it. He sank
onto a chair near the window. “He can’t do anything physical himself, of course.
But he can influence some minds. Only the weakest of humans are vulnerable. The
young, the mentally ill. But for a demon to exert influence over animals is
easy. Common. He can see through their eyes, hear through their ears, for brief
periods.” He nodded toward the lawn. “What you saw were his eyes and ears. He’s
watching us through them. He’s found us, Tomas. None of us are safe on our own.
Only God’s grace and protection are keeping him at bay right now.”

Tomas shivered and gave serious thought to bringing the shotgun
up to his room for the rest of the night. “But what about the conference?” he
asked. “No animal planted that bomb.”

“I just heard it on the television. They’ve picked up an
escaped mental patient. This formerly docile inmate just up and walked out of
the hospital. He stole a truck, drove straight to a hardware store for
fertilizer, then to a gas station for diesel fuel, and from there—”

“Straight to Cornell.”

Father Dom nodded. “Weak mind.” He tapped his head.

Tomas tended to think some of the mentally ill had more
receptive minds than the supposedly sane people of the world. He believed it was
more about wavelength than illness, frequency on the proverbial dial. They were
simply more in tune with the spiritual realms than everyone else.

But of course, that theory could be taken wrong, like some sort
of blasphemy, so it was an opinion he seldom voiced.

“Where was the witch when the animals appeared?” Dom asked.

“In her room sleeping, as far as I know. But if you’re
suggesting she was behind this, forget it. Indy wouldn’t know how to control the
mind of a field mouse.” He smiled briefly as her face showed up in his mind’s
eye, and then he frowned as her expression turned from teasing to afraid. “As a
matter of fact, I think we shouldn’t even mention this to her. She’s scared
enough as it is.”

“I think it best we don’t tell Indy anything beyond what she
needs to know,” Father Dom said. “She’s not on our side in this, Tomas. Not
willingly. And you must not forget for one moment what she is.”

Tomas looked away.
Here we go
again.

“She’s a witch who made a pact with a demon over three thousand
years ago, and who has lived lifetime after lifetime with only one goal—to keep
that promise, fulfill that pact. She’s a powerful witch. She can seduce a man
without laying a hand on him. They all can. And she’s already trying to seduce
you. She’s homed in on your weakest point, your overly caring heart—made weaker,
I might add, by your long denied libido.”

Tomas averted his eyes.

“Don’t be ashamed. Desire weakens every man. It’s a test of
your faith, Tomas. It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“My faith is fine, Father.” But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been in a
long time.

Dom shook his head as if he knew better. “She’s convinced you
that you’ve wronged her, that you owe her, that you loved her once. For the love
of God, be strong, Tomas. Remember it’s all an act, a game. You’re nothing to
her! Nothing, that is, but the enemy.” He rose from his chair and clapped a hand
onto Tomas’s shoulder. “If it came down to you or the demon, she would think
nothing of killing you, you know.”

“I don’t believe that,” Tomas said.

“Well, you’d better believe it. If you hope to succeed in your
quest, you had better, by God, believe it.” He drew a deep breath, wheezing a
little as he exhaled, and turned to go. “I’ll pray for you. For all of us.”

But not for her, I’ll bet,
Tomas
thought. And he wondered again if he was on the right side in any of this, and
doubted it more than ever. Oh, sure, the side of the demon was the wrong one.
But was Dom really any better? Was there a third option no one had seen or even
bothered to look for?

* * *

After Tomas left the room, I slipped out of bed and
tiptoed to Rayne’s bedroom. After tapping softly on the door and getting no
reply, I opened it slightly. “Rayne? You in there?”

She wasn’t. But I heard her shower running, and I spotted her
laptop on the nightstand. Precisely what I needed. I slipped inside and picked
it up, scribbled a note promising to return it in a couple of hours, or sooner
if she needed it, and thanked her for the loan.

Then I took it back to my room. I emailed myself the photos I’d
snapped from Father Dom’s journal, then accessed my email account from Rayne’s
computer and opened them one by one.

The first photo showed a drawing marked “Amulet.” It was a
disk-shaped piece about two inches in diameter, with twin gemstones almost where
eyes would be, if it were a face. It wasn’t a face, though. There was a tiny
ring on the top with a chain through it.

Frowning, I opened the next image.

In order for He Whose Name Must Not Be
Spoken to escape from the Underworld, he must have the amulet. The witch who
served him long ago secreted something of his within it. We know not what.
Only that, without it, he cannot escape.

“But I don’t have any amulet,” I whispered. Maybe the priests
had the wrong witch, after all.

When the first witch is activated and her
memories of that long ago lifetime are stirred anew, she will recall how to
attain the amulet, which she herself hid in the astral plane. Only she can
retrieve it. And once she has it, she will attempt to pass it on to the
demon. She is bound to help him, by word and by vow, and nothing will stop
her. Besides, stopping her would only keep him imprisoned until conditions
are right for him to make another attempt. Instead, the priest in charge
must allow—even encourage—her in her efforts. Bring her to the Portal.
Assist her in remembering. Allow her to retrieve the amulet from the astral
plane.

As soon as she does, it must be destroyed,
no matter the cost. If this is done, the demon will be doomed to remain in
the Underworld for all eternity.

The remaining pages were filled with things I already knew or
rambling sermonettes in Father Dom’s shaky hand. I deleted all the images and
returned to Rayne’s room. I peeked in and saw that she was sound asleep, so I
just left the laptop on the floor inside her bedroom door and tiptoed back to my
own room.

I was beyond disillusioned. Tomas had lied to me. He’d told me
that my destiny was to help him. But the truth was, I was supposed to help the
demon.

And what kind of a woman did that make me, anyway? What kind of
witch had I been back in Babylon? Had I
deserved
to
be pushed off that cliff?

Hell, I didn’t know. I couldn’t sleep, though. I sat up in bed
for a long time before I finally decided to make use of the gorgeous
leather-bound journal Tomas had brought me, and then I wrote and wrote and wrote
until my eyes were drooping and my vision swimming.

* * *

The sun rose hot and unforgiving, slanting in through my
bedroom window and burning my eyes. I looked up from the journal, still open on
my lap, with one hand at my forehead, like a military salute, and squinted
against the light. It didn’t do any good, though, so I set the embossed journal
on the nightstand beside me and slid out of bed to close the curtains. Then I
looked back at my rumpled covers and the clock beside the bed. 9:15 a.m.

“Dammit, how do I keep losing so many hours?”

Someone tapped on my bedroom door, and then it opened. Tomas
peeked in at the empty bed, and then at me. “Damn,” he said. “You look
rough.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Oh, come on. Even rough, you’re beautiful, and I think you
know it.”

I almost gaped at the unexpected compliment. He seemed
embarrassed by it, too. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Up all night,” I said. “But I guess that’s because I slept the
day through yesterday.”

“Probably.” He nodded at the journal. Lilies were cut into the
leather, a dragonfly landing on one of them. “Writing?” he asked.

“After a while.”

“Anything you want to share—in the journal, I mean?”

“Not with
him.
” I didn’t mean it to
sound as nasty as it did, and I wished I could take it back, but it was too
late.

“And you think anything you say to me is going to go straight
to Father Dom, is that it?”

I met his gorgeous brown eyes. He had been on my side, or at
least I’d thought he was. “Wouldn’t it?” I asked, watching his face.

“No. If you want to talk confidentially, I promise I’ll keep it
to myself.” He sat on the edge of my bed. “You can trust me, Indira.”

Could I? I really did want to talk about some of the things
from the dreams. More and more had come back to me as I’d been writing, almost
as if the act itself was a form of hypnotic regression or some shit like
that.

Walking toward the bed, I picked up the journal and closed it,
running my hand over its tooled leather cover. “It’s a beautiful book.”

“Rayne thought I should have gone with a black one, with a
pentacle cut-out. But I thought you’d prefer this one.”

“You were right.” Did he know me that well so soon, or was it
more? Or maybe it was just a lucky guess. My stomach growled out loud.

“You’re starving,” he said. “Dom and Rayne have already eaten,
but I waited for you, so I’m starved, too.”

“You waited for me?”

He nodded, averting his eyes.

“Where are they now?” I asked. Behind him, beyond the
still-open bedroom door, the house had an empty feeling to it that I was only
just now noticing.

“Rayne wanted to make a grocery run, and she somehow managed to
talk Dom into going with her. I think she wanted to give us a break.”

I smiled as my face got warm. “She’s an even better friend than
I realized.”

“So it’s just two of us for the next couple of hours. In a
well-stocked kitchen, on an utterly gorgeous morning. I say we enjoy a big fat
breakfast on the deck.”

I waited for him to say more. He didn’t, so
I
did. “And talk about the demon?”

“Not unless you want to.” He got up and started for the door.
“So what’ll it be? Eggs? French toast? I make a mean French toast. Or another
Belgian waffle?”