Mark of the Witch (4 page)

“Touches, changes, touches, changes, touches, changes,
toucheschangestoucheschangestoucheschanges…”

Then, like the crack of a starter’s pistol at the beginning of
a race, Lady Rayne pressed her palm flat to my chest and shouted,
“Release!”

And I swear to God, I was knocked backward, right off my feet.
A witch standing behind me caught me, though, so I never hit the ground as the
energy wave—or whatever it was—rushed over me. I sank to my knees in reaction.
As I lifted my head, blinking my eyes open once more to look around me, I was
not surprised to see several of the other witches sitting on the ground, where
they’d settled as they let the power surge from them. I could almost see the
result of the spell—the bubble of light around me. I could certainly feel
it.

I tended to be a skeptic about most things of a so-called
paranormal nature. But in witchcraft, I had believed—had really believed—and
moments like this were why.

The mind sure is a powerful thing, isn’t it?

“It is done,” Rayne said. “Now you’ll be safe, at least. And
pretty soon, I bet you’ll receive the information you’ve asked for. Watch for
signs, Indy.”

I nodded. “I was hoping some of that information might be
coming from you, Rayne.” I searched her eyes.

She averted them. “I have a call out. I might have something
for you by tomorrow.”

I guessed I would have to be satisfied with that for
tonight.

Rayne turned to her fellow priestesses. “Ladies, would you
kindly wrap things up for me? I’m drained.”

As Rayne took a seat on the cool ground beside me, the other
women took over. One thanked the Goddess for Her presence and aid, then each of
them bade a hail and farewell to the energies of the four directions. Finally
one woman took up the magic circle, the invisible space Rayne had cast. The
magic circle was the witches’ temple. Sacred space. Holy ground. I knew better
than to leave before all of that was complete, but I was eager to go once it was
finished, hoping to find a smoke on the way home. I was dying for a
cigarette.

Rayne put a hand on my arm and I jumped. “You need to eat
something, Indy. Ground yourself. I’ve got coffee and cake inside.”

“Right. Ground myself.” I’d forgotten the habitual post-ritual
snacking. Always seemed to me that the “grounding” thing was just a good excuse
for a pile of sugary carbs. “I know it’s rude of me to rush off, but I just
feel…compelled to get home.”

“Then that’s where you should be.”

“Thanks for understanding. And for all of this…”

“Text me in the morning, let me know how it goes tonight. I’ll
do the same as soon as I have any information for you. Blessed be, Indy.”

“Blessed be,” I replied automatically.

I headed for the subway stop on the corner, intending to catch
the next train to my Brooklyn neighborhood.

But there was something happening to me. A tingling, like an
itch I couldn’t reach way down deep in my psyche, and a slowly spreading
darkness that kept sucking my attention away from the here and now. Like a
person running on lack of sleep who almost drifts off, then shakes herself
awake, I fought against the somnambulant state trying to overtake me, went down
the stairs
(into the Underworld),
dropped a token
(paid the ferryman)
and pushed through the
turnstile
(entered through the first gate).
I found
a post to lean against on the nearly empty platform and waited for my train to
arrive.

A few other people wandered in, most not paying any attention
to me. There was an old man who made brief eye contact and smiled, breaking an
unspoken rule, probably because in his day it was rude to do otherwise. There
was a cluster of pants-hanging-off-the-ass punks, one of whom had a nice crisp
unlit Marlboro Light Menthol in his hand, and a nice-looking couple who were too
lost in each other to notice anyone else.

Off in the distance, I heard the train echoing closer.

I drifted, pulled myself back, drifted again. I kept almost
falling asleep and seeing myself in different clothing. Not quite like in the
dream, though. This time I wore a long cloak of black, with a hood pulled up
over my hair, bathing my face in shadows.

Stupid dream. Can’t you at least wait
until I get home?

I jerked myself back to the present. The train was closer. The
other people were beginning to edge nearer the tracks. The punks were
uncomfortably close to the old man. The lead one was about to light his smoke,
lighter in his other hand. But then he paused, pocketing the lighter, smiling at
the others, nodding the old man’s way. The intended victim seemed to realize it
about the same time I did. And just as the flash of alarm showed up in his kind
blue eyes, one of the underwear-showing assholes pulled a knife. I felt myself
lunging toward them even as I fell into the blackness of my dream world.

* * *

I woke groggy, rolled over in bed and pried one eye open
to look at the clock. There was a cigarette, a white filtered Marlboro Light
Menthol, lying in front of my little alarm clock, pristine, unsmoked, waiting
for me. Had the nicotine fairy visited last night?

Then my foggy eyes focused on the illuminated red digits.
11:11. I’d slept way late, which was totally unlike me. My brain reminded me
that my shift at Pink Petals, the flower shop sixteen blocks from my apartment,
started at noon today, and
that,
more than anything,
set a fire under my ass. I bounded out of bed, took a record-speed shower and
toweled down in front of the mirror. A handful of mousse and a quick finger
comb, and my hair was done. Easy breezy. I was still tugging its natural
crimp-curls into shape as I gave my mirror image the once-over, but I stopped
moving with one hand still tangled in my hair. My forearm was sporting a
black-and-blue mark the size of a pizza slice.

Frowning, I lowered my arm and looked down at my body. Small
boobs, still hanging where they ought to, no marks on what I’d always considered
a rather boyish figure. I was kind of straight—slender, but straight—long waist
that was nice and lean, but no flaring out at the hips. No booty in the back. I
was small everywhere. Delicate and slight. I turned and looked back over my
shoulder, spotting a good-sized slate-colored blob on one shoulder blade and a
maroon one on my butt cheek. Legs looked okay in back. I looked down and cringed
at the way the second littlest toe on my right foot was all bent out of shape
and discolored. Looked broken. Felt it, too.

I turned back and met my own eyes in the mirror. “What the hell
happened last night?” Damn. I was a mess. And that was about the time it hit me
that I didn’t remember how I got home. In fact, I didn’t remember anything
except standing in the subway, trying to hold on to the here and now, while
something else was trying to suck me in. I remembered the punks and the old guy.
I remembered one of them with a knife, and another with a mouthwateringly
good-looking smoke in his hands. I remember lunging toward them.

And then…nothing.

And now there’s a mouthwateringly good-looking smoke on my
nightstand. Coincidence? Or not…

I went back to the bedroom, picked up the cig, looked it over.
I wanted to smoke it almost more than I wanted to know how I’d gotten home and
into bed last night, but I couldn’t. God only knew what might be in it. Punks
like that, you just couldn’t tell—assuming that was where I got it, which was
impossible to know.

I picked it up, drummed up every ounce of will in my entire
body, took it to the bathroom, dropped it in the toilet and flushed it away.

I almost cried.

I grabbed my towel off the floor, hung it up to dry and rubbed
some witch hazel on my bruises. Then I dressed—leggings and a pretty little
white camisole with lacy straps, long minty-green sweater over that, with a wide
enough neck that it could hang off one shoulder. I added a wide pale brown
leather belt that matched my short, kick-ass boots right down to the big gold
buckles.

Then I wielded my makeup brushes like magic wands, and in
another five minutes I was ready to face the day. Heavy eyeliner, dark shadow,
luscious long lashes. I was still wearing my pentacle from the night before, and
I decided to keep it on. Hell, it couldn’t hurt. And it might help. It had my
birthstone, an amethyst, in its center, and ivy vines made of silver twisting
around the circle that enclosed it. Each leg of the star was made of a tiny
broomstick. I liked it, lapsed Wiccan or not.

Giving one final glance in the mirror, I headed out of my
apartment. My boots protected my sore toe so I didn’t even limp. None of my
bruises showed. No one would ever know what had happened last night.

Apparently not even me.

Sixteen blocks was a good brisk walk, and I loved it. I walked
to work most of the winter. I walked it in the rain, when it wasn’t torrential.
Today was gorgeous. Cool but sunny, and it smelled good outside for a change. I
liked the neighborhood, the people I passed on the way, the excuse to get my
heart and lungs working a little bit harder than normal. It was all good.

I passed the little convenience store where I used to buy my
smokes and almost went inside. I even slowed my steps as I went by the door and,
glancing in, saw my beloved Marlboro Light Menthols in their pretty
white-and-green boxes, stacked inside a locked, clear plastic case. And the
little lighters on the counter. I’d need one of those, too. Maybe just for
today…

I stopped. I took one step into the doorway, and then I closed
my eyes. It’s been three weeks. Three hellish, miserable weeks that I never want
to go through again.
If I buy a pack now, I’m going to have
to go back to Day One. Start over. No. It’s got to get easier
soon.

“Lucy?” said someone from inside the store.

My eyes popped open. A man stood just inside the entrance,
facing me. And for a long moment I sort of locked onto his eyes and couldn’t
look away. There was some kind of buzzing in my head, and my skin was cold and
prickly.

“Hello,” he said.

His voice felt like warm fingers on my skin.

I feel his hands on my back.

I blinked myself out of whatever sort of idiot-haze I’d fallen
into and tried to look at him the way I would normally look at any stranger who
called me by the wrong name. He was gorgeous, that was for sure. Italian, or
maybe Spanish. Sun-kissed bronze skin, hot Hershey Bar eyes, wide,
kissable-looking lips, and a bod to die for underneath an all-black getup
with—oh, shit, I was going straight to hell—a white tab at the front and center
of his collar.

“I’m sorry, Father. I’m not Lucy. You must have me mixed up
with someone—”

“Not Lucy,” he said, “Loosie.” As he said it the second time,
he pointed to the counter, where another clear plastic container held loose
cigarettes. The sign above them said, Loosies, $1 ea.

“Is that even legal?”

“I have no idea. If not, it won’t last long.”

“Still, a buck for a smoke? That’s effing highway robbery. Uh,
sorry about the effing part. Habit.”

“When you’re trying to quit, you’d pay five bucks for just one,
and you know it,” he said, a little humor in his tone and in his eyes.

My knees wobbled. I locked them.

“It’s effective, too. You give in to temptation once, but you
do it without buying a whole pack and then feeling justified in smoking all
twenty. Perfect solution. Weak moment, give in, and you’re still okay.
Right?”

He made perfect sense. But I couldn’t tell him so, because my
eyes were on the smooth skin of his neck above the forbidden collar, and the
tiny bits of whisker he’d missed shaving this morning. I wanted to rub my cheeks
against them.

“So? Loosie? It’ll be on me.” He pulled a cigarette from the
pocket of his clerical black shirt and held it up, much the way I envisioned Eve
holding that glossy red apple or pomegranate or whatever it had been, up to
Adam.

I took it with a quick snatch. “Imagine a priest counseling me
to give in to temptation.”
Especially one who looks like he
does. ’Cause…damn.

Smiling a little, he pulled out a lighter, and I took a step
backward so I could make immediate use of it. I flicked his Bic, smiling at the
evil rhyme scheme that brought to mind. The flame rose up and danced like a tiny
reminder of hellfire, and there wasn’t even a breeze to interfere. I held it to
the tip of the slender white confection and drew in my first breath of
carcinogenic smoke in three long weeks. Closing my eyes, I let my lips pull up
at the corners in sheer bliss and blew the smoke slowly from them.

“Oh, that’s good,” I whispered. Then I opened my eyes and met
the priest’s. “Thank you, Father.”

“You can call me Tomas.”

He pronounced it Toe-MAHS, with the accent on the “mahs.”
Italian? Spanish? A priest, either way. As in forbidden. Hands off. Don’t even
think about it.

“Thanks.” I took another puff, saluted him with the cigarette
between my fingers, and turned to continue my walk to work, smoking all the way
and pointedly ignoring the people who waved their hands in front of their faces
and coughed big fake coughs when I passed them, even though they had plenty of
room to give me a wider berth. “It’s still legal on the sidewalk, dumb-ass.”

“That’s quite a temper you have there.”

I frowned, turning around. That gorgeous priest was following
me, just a couple of steps behind.

“I’m sorry. Was this your only one? Did you want to share?”
No effing way.
I looked at him, and my eyes
tripped over the dimple in his cheek when he smiled.
Okay,
I’ll share.

“I have another. Just waiting to get to a spot with a little
more room around it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the fake-coughers?”