Mark of the Witch (3 page)

Blinking, feeling a ridiculous burning sensation behind my
eyes, I nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

“I’m a high priestess. This is part of my job.” She twisted her
wrist to look at her watch. “My other job, that is, besides the one I’m late
getting back to. But before I do, I need your permission to share what you’ve
told me with one other person. Someone I trust more than anyone else in the
world. You can trust him, too. And he might have information we need. All
right?”

“Is he a shrink?” I asked, and when she frowned at me, I said,
“Yeah, permission granted. Go for it. Just try not to make me sound too
warped.”

She was already on her feet, using a napkin to pick up the
remaining half of her donut, hoisting her bag, which, I’d just noticed, matched
the shoes—same black leather, same silver zipper—higher onto her shoulder. “I’ve
gotta run, Indy. Take care of yourself, okay? And trust me, we’ll figure this
out.”

I tried to smile. “Okay.”

And then she was gone, clicking away in her fabulous shoes at
high speed. She’d left a half cup of caffeine-laden brew at her seat.
Reflexively, I started to reach for it, felt eyes on me, heard a throat clear,
and saw a waitress looking at me.

Sighing, I lowered my hand to my own cup of putrid tea. At
least I had my donut.

2

“F
ather Dominick. You asked for me?”

“In the office,” Dom called.

Tomas entered and closed the front door behind him. The old
priest’s entire house smelled like a combination of mothballs and muscle rub
that always made Tomas’s stomach clench and his nose wrinkle. He forced himself
not to allow the latter as he walked through the cluttered living room into what
had probably been a den or a library when the old Victorian was built and now
served as Dom’s office. Crucifix on the wall, books everywhere. Not just on the
shelves—and there were lots of those—but in stacks and standing upright along
the floor between every piece of furniture that could serve as a bookend. Old
books, their bindings and pages overwhelming the smells in the rest of the
house, much to Tomas’s relief. The smell of books was soothing. It was the smell
of knowledge, preserved and passed on.

Father Dom was sitting at his desk, facing his computer. “Come
around here, Tomas,” Dom said. “I have someone who wants to talk to you.”

Frowning, Tomas moved behind the desk. Dom nodded at the big
monitor, and when Tomas looked, he saw the girl from yesterday, sitting up in
her bed, smiling at them via Skype. “Hi, Father Thomas,” she said.

“It’s Toe-MAHS,” Father Dom pronounced. “Say hello to Dora,
Tomas.”

“Hello, Dora.” He couldn’t believe his eyes. The girl looked
fine. Oh, a little pale, a little tired, but her eyes were bright, and she
appeared perfectly healthy.

“You look much better,” he said.

“I know. I feel better. I just wanted to thank you for helping
me.”

Shame rose, and he bowed his head. “I didn’t really do
anything. It was all Father Dom.”

“No, you were there. I remember. I don’t blame you for leaving.
Mamma says it was awfully scary. But you came, and I’m better now.”

Tomas glanced at Dom, who smiled and nodded at the girl. “Well,
we’ll let your doctor be the judge of that,” he said. “You’re seeing him this
afternoon, aren’t you, Dora?”

“Yes, at two.”

“Let me know what he says, will you?”

“Of course. Bless you, Father Dom. Father Tomas.” She said it
correctly that time, and then the on-screen window with her face inside it
vanished.

Dom rolled his chair away from his desk but didn’t get up. “Her
doctor will give her a clean bill of health. Of course,
he
couldn’t find anything wrong with her to begin with.”

Tomas nodded. Doubted, but nodded. “I’m sorry I doubted you,
Father Dom. I just…in my experience…I’ve never seen anything like that
before.”

“I’ve seen it a hundred times. Exorcised more demons than any
priest in the church. Which is why I inherited this assignment of ours to begin
with. This quest.”

“And I’m humbled that you chose me to be your successor.” He
ought to tell him. He really ought to. But no, not yet. The wheels took time to
turn, and this was going to be a huge and painful discussion when it
happened.

Dom grunted as if he doubted it. “You’re the least humble man I
know, son. But you were chosen for this. Sent to me just for this. Sit, Tomas,”
he ordered. “I don’t like looking up at anyone.”

Tomas sat. The gruff old man was his mentor, his teacher and
the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. Yes, he believed in things Tomas
had come to consider unbelievable. But even
he
didn’t doubt the man with as much conviction as he used to. His doubts were
still strong enough for him to know this was not the life for him, however. So
he sat and tried to assume a humble demeanor. He loved the old priest, despite
the fact that he’d always considered him a little bit crazy.

“Pull your chair around here,” Dom said. “We’re not through
with this machine yet.” He was clicking keys as he spoke—slowly. Hunting and
pecking with a single forefinger, knuckles swollen from arthritis.

Tomas nodded and moved his chair closer, turning it so he could
see the computer screen again. It showed a lengthy series of astrological terms,
symbols for the signs, abbreviations for alignments and conjunctions and
oppositions at varying degrees. It stood beside a map of the solar system with
lines and arrows and more symbols all over it. It looked like an NFL coach’s
playbook. Astrology had never been his strong suit.

“What am I looking at?”

“This configuration. Right here.” Dom pointed. “In a week it
will be exactly the same as it was in the beginning.”

“The beginning…” Tomas looked up from the screen, meeting Dom’s
aging but sharp cornflower-blue eyes as he finally got the old man’s meaning.
“The
beginning?
The
fifteen-hundred-BC
beginning?”

“More precisely, Samhain Eve, fifteen hundred and one BC. The
day a high priest of the cult of Marduk imprisoned
He Whose
Name Must Not Be Spoken
in the Underworld. If the demon is going to
try to escape into our world again, Tomas, it will be soon. Samhain Eve, in
fact. And I’m no longer strong enough to do what needs doing, though it pains me
to admit it.”

Tomas searched Dom’s face. “You’re not well?”

Dom shrugged. “I
feel
fine.” He
turned his head, gazing across the room at the oversize crucifix on the opposite
wall. “But the Lord has spoken to me, told me it has to be you. This is the
mission I’ve trained for all my life. Now it falls to my successor before his
time. But that’s the way it has to be. So sayeth the Lord.”

“All things happen for a reason, Father Dom.” But inside Tomas
was thinking this couldn’t be happening. Now not, not when he’d finally made the
decision to leave the priesthood and sent in the paperwork making the request
formal.

Thank God he hadn’t yet told the old man.

“Watch and wait for the signs, Tomas. Watch for the witches of
Babylon. The Demon’s whores. Each of them bound by oath and by blood to help
He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken
to escape. Stop
the first of them and you stop them all. You must do this, no matter how
difficult, in order to keep the demon from emerging and wreaking havoc on the
world of man. It is our calling.”

It is a fairy tale,
Tomas thought.
But I’ll humor you a bit longer.
“How will I
know—”

“It’s written, ‘the witch’s past sins will rise up to mark her
flesh and wake her memory.’ Watch, wait, listen, and take heed when you are
called. I’ll help you all I can, Tomas, but the task, for some reason, must be
yours.”

Tomas nodded solemnly. He wasn’t entirely sure Dom was 100
percent wrong about this, after all. The scrolls were real, and the tale was in
them. He had seen it. “And if I locate the first witch and stop her from helping
the demon—”

“Then the next will never be activated and our mission is done.
Theoretically the Portal won’t open again until the next alignment, another
three thousand five hundred years from now. But if you fail…”

“If I fail to stop the first witch, I have to try again with
the second. And if I fail to stop
her,
then I try
again with the third.”

“And if you fail
then…
the demon
walks among us and the world of man is doomed.” Father Dom gripped Tomas’s wrist
in his hand, squeezing so hard it hurt. “Do you believe me, Tomas? Have I shown
you enough proof of the existence of demons, of the power of them, of the danger
they pose, to make you a believer in the ancient prophecy?”

Tomas met the old man’s eyes. There was holy fire sparking from
their depths. “Yes,” he said at length. “Yes, Father Dom. I believe.” It was a
lie, and he felt guilty as hell for telling it, but what else could he do?

“Hold on to that faith, my son. You are going to need it.”

No harm in humoring him a bit longer, Tomas thought. He would
play along. But he knew there would be no signs. No witches. No marks. Samhain
would pass, and Dom would have to concede defeat. And then Tomas could leave
knowing he’d done the best he could for the old guy.

Then his sister called, and all that changed.

* * *

The occult shop in Greenwich Village had a minuscule
backyard enclosed by a vine-smothered stone wall and bathed in moonlight.
Fingers of dark cloud slithered over the face of the moon, only two days past
full. A true Halloween moon—perfect ambiance for a Halloween night gathering of
witches. There were fountains and statues marking the four directions. Venus in
the west, pouring water from a conch. Brigit—the Celtic goddess of the forge and
giver of creative fire to poets—in the south, holding a shallow basin where blue
flames floated. On the east wall, the beautiful Eostre—Germanic goddess of
spring and rebirth—a ring of wildflowers upon her head, incense wafting spirals
of fragrant smoke around her. The north boundary was the back of the brick
building, and in front of it stood a modern rendition of Gaia. She held a dish
of sea salt in her lap.

I sat in the center of it, and five witches stood around me in
a circle. They had already performed all the preliminaries and had gone silent
now to listen to Rayne as she led the rite.

“We come to weave a web of protection around the solitary witch
Indira,” she said, her voice deep and compelling.

I wanted to correct her—
former solitary
witch.
The words rose in my throat, but I bit my tongue to hold them
in.

Rayne wore her long black robes tonight, her vivid red hair
loose and moving in the slight breeze, her eyeliner exaggerated, and every limb
dripping with sacred jewelry. The other women were dressed much the same way.
Everyone jingled when they moved. Even me. I’d dug through my closets and pulled
out my old witchy wardrobe. I had chosen white, since this was a spell of
protection. A white one-shoulder dress with gold trim that could have been
Grecian. But it reminded me, too, of the clothes I wore in that powerful,
terrifying dream.

I’d donned my pentacle again. I told myself it didn’t mean I
was returning to the fold or had started believing again. I
didn’t
believe. There was no magic in the world. I’d proven that to
myself. I’d cast and cast and cast my spells, but my soul mate hadn’t appeared.
And I’d been so damned sure he would—so certain he was real. All my life I’d
felt this unnamed, unknowable longing gaping like a great big giant hole in my
gut. A yearning for the man who was supposed to be by my side, whose absence I
felt keenly, even though we had never met. It was real, that feeling. Which
meant
he
had to be real, too.

I ached for him. Sometimes even cried for him. Like a real
lover I’d had and lost. That’s how vivid the feeling was.

Sort of like those damned dreams.

Hey, that was encouraging. Maybe they were as flimsy and
imaginary as he was.

Anyway, he hadn’t come, so I’d stopped believing. Magic either
worked or it didn’t. Black and white. Scientific method. Test the theory, prove
it right or wrong. I’d tested it. It hadn’t worked. Ergo, no magic. Period.

And yet, when I’d pulled out my pretty mini-treasure chest from
the back of my closet and opened it, and the smells of sandalwood and dragon’s
blood resin had enveloped me like a puff of magic from a genie’s lamp, I’d felt
it all coming back to me. Witchcraft might be all bullshit, but it had felt very
real from time to time.

It felt real now.

Rayne was still talking. Her voice was different during a
ritual. Deeper. More powerful. “Together with the powers of Earth, Air, Fire,
Water and Spirit, and by the unyielding power of the Goddess Herself, we weave
this web so that nothing, be it from this world or any other, may harm this
woman.” Facing me, she said, “Do you have any requests of the Goddess before we
raise the cone of power, Indira Simon?”

I nodded and, rising to my feet, lifted my eyes and arms
skyward. I felt a tingle flowing through me from the tips of my fingers down my
arms, into my spine, and another upward from the ground, through my feet, up my
legs and into my spine, until the two energies met and exploded. I pulsed with
it and reminded myself it was just a trick of the mind.

“Show me what I need to know,” I said, though I was sure no one
was listening. I was playing along because Rayne knew something and I wanted her
to tell me what it was. “Show me what these dreams mean, what you want of me.
More than anything right now, I need clarity. Wisdom. And information.”

And while you’re at it, that soul mate
I’ve been longing for, forever and a day, would be a really nice bonus. You
know, on the off chance you’re real.

Stupid. You gave up on that,
remember?

“So mote it be,” Lady Rayne said.

“So mote it be,” the others all repeated in unison.

“So mote it be,” I whispered softly. I don’t have any idea why
there were tears rolling down my cheeks. Maybe my eyes were just reacting to the
smoke from the incense that hung in the air. It didn’t dissipate like you’d
expect it to do, outside like this. And even though it was the end of October,
it was warm within the circle, as if it were physically holding our body heat
and the fragrant smoke within it, just like it would supposedly hold the energy
we raised until Rayne sent it forth to become the magical goal.

One woman hit her
djembe
drum,
beginning a slow, steady beat. Another joined in, adding an accent, and then
another brought a flourish of her own. A fourth woman shook a rattle in time,
and then Rayne began a chant that echoed the heady music.

“She changes everything She touches. Everything She touches
changes.”

On and on the chant went, and it grew louder, its pace picking
up. The witches joined hands, began walking in a circle, spiraling inward until
the first of them reached me in the center, then turning to spiral outward
again, forming a human snake with no end and no beginning. The drums kept up or
led the way, it was impossible to tell which, but everything increased in both
volume and tempo until the entire area was vibrating with energy. I felt it in
my chest, in the pit of my stomach, all around and within me, until it reached a
fever pitch and the chant evolved into a simple, rapid repetition.