Blood of the Sorceress (12 page)

“I was in a way station, an in-between place,” Lilia corrected gently. “And I do not feel like an enlightened being. I still feel like...like your little sister. Too reckless, too passionate, too impulsive, and so vulnerable where love is concerned.”

“Your heart is breaking all over again, isn’t it, Lilia?” Lena asked softly.

“It never really stopped. But now, being this close to him, and with him looking exactly the same—Goddess, it’s so hard to be this close and not touch. Not hold. Not kiss.”

Her sisters made sounds of understanding. Then Indy said, “You say he looks exactly the same? How is that, when we don’t?”

“I’ve been mulling on that. I believe he regenerated his original body. I can’t explain it, but I’m sure it’s true.”

“Makes sense,” Indy said. “Our bodies were pitched from a cliff, destroyed, and our souls only left them when life did. His soul was stripped from his body by force. It wasn’t a natural death in any way. It was a violent separation, one without death included. Who knows what became of the body after he was separated from it? But when the pieces of his soul were returned and began to call it forth, it seems possible that it might have reconstituted itself. It can’t move on to its natural end—that of fertilizing the earth—unless the soul leaves it through death. His body, too, has probably been in limbo.”

“How did you get so smart, Indy?” Magdalena asked.

“I’m married to a scholar. You pick shit up.”

The three of them shared a soft laugh.

Then Lilia thought to ask, “Indy, how did you open the box? What combination did you touch?”

“The High Priestess,” she said. “Then the Lovers, and then the World.”

Lilia flipped the box over once again and touched the symbols in the order her sister had given her, but while they each lit up, the box did not unlock.

“That’s odd. It didn’t work for me.”

“Huh. Well, keep trying,” Indy said. “There must be a different combination for each of us. You’re bound to stumble onto yours eventually.”

But Lilia didn’t think she would. She had a feeling that when the time came that the knowledge the box held would be of help to her, she would simply know the combination. So perhaps she would set it aside until that time came.

“Maybe we should fly out there to help you,” Indy offered.

“I don’t want you here,” Lilia said quickly. “There’s evil in this house. A presence.”

“No shit,” Indy said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Lilia demanded.

It was Lena who answered her. “Remember, Lil, I had the same presence in my house. It was Demetrius himself, all dark and shadowy, like some kind of ghost demon.”

Of course that was what her sisters would have thought of first. “It’s not that. It’s not Demetrius, or any ghost or demon. It’s physical, I think. I feel someone else here. Someone bad, and I think it’s the same someone who filled his head with lies about me, about us. I can’t pinpoint it, but...I feel as if whoever it is, is watching me. As if he’s trying to ensure that Demetrius will never accept the final piece of his soul. So it must be someone who knows that if he refuses, he will die and so will I. It must be someone who wants that to happen. Someone who wants me to die.”

“But you can’t, can you, Lilia?” Lena asked. “Not until you’ve competed your task. You’re immortal, right?”

“As long as my body remains essentially intact, it will heal and I’ll live on. At least until Beltane. But if my body is destroyed and I expire before he takes his soul-piece back, then it dies with me. And he dies, too, and this time his soul dies with him, so he will simply cease to exist.”

“And if Beltane comes,” Indy said, “and Demetrius hasn’t accepted the final piece of his soul?”

“Then he dies at the moment of Beltane, but goes on into the afterlife, his soul reforming itself on the other side.”

“And so will you. You’ll die but your soul will still live on the other side. Right, sis?” Lena asked softly.

“Right.”

And so will they.

That voice had not come through the cell phone. It was a psychic whisper from deep within her own mind.

Lilia’s eyes widened, her heartbeat quickened. What did it mean? Her sisters...?

“Baby’s crying, hon. Time for her 1:00 a.m. feeding. I’ve got to go.”

“I love you, Lena. And you, too, Indy. Give our mother a kiss for me.”

“Stay in touch, Lil. Keep us posted,” Indy said.

“I will. Good night.” She disconnected. Though it was only 10:00 p.m. local time, it felt like one in the morning to her, too, and she was barely keeping her eyes opened. She only had a week, and there was an unseen evil in this place that she had yet to locate and eliminate, and now something else, something in her head, was telling her that she and Demetrius would not be the only ones who would exit this lifetime, should she fail.

Goddess help her, she couldn’t let her sisters’ lives end, as well. And what about the baby?

6

F
ather Dom had known which room the witch would choose, the one closest to Demetrius, and so he’d set his enchanted projective stones at the cardinal points, then matched them with receptive stones in his own room high above. The projective stones worked much like a hidden microphone, transmitting energy, ideas and knowledge from one place to the other.

Demetrius had granted him use of the observatory for the length of his stay. Along with the giant telescope that was the room’s reason for being, the room held a twin-size bed and a matching dresser and nightstand. He had few belongings, the things he’d taken from the hospital and a few others he’d picked up along the way. Very few. As if he’d taken a vow of poverty.

Ironic, since he was living amid the most opulent wealth he’d seen since...well, since Babylon.

He wanted to go unnoticed. As far as Gus, or the ever-vigilant Sid knew, or could be allowed to know, the priest who’d paid their boss a visit had left immediately after.

It was good to stay under the radar, as the people of this time liked to say.

He had taken the liberty of visiting the kitchen after hours, as had become his habit, and had brought a small feast back to his room with him. Then he’d set it aside and ventured out again, sneaking into a storage room this time, where he’d found and retrieved a box of colorful fabric, curtains he supposed. He was so very tired of the dull black garments he was forced to wear while in this pale priest’s sagging body.

Besides, they no longer fit. The host body was changing already, beginning to regain its strength and muscle tone, and even beginning to take on a soft layer of fat that plumped his face and smoothed away some of its wrinkles. His hair was losing its gray caste with every strand that fell away. The new growth was dark as onyx, and shiny, just like before.

He was changing. The soul that lived in this body now—
his
soul—was rearranging its cells the way a new resident of a house might rearrange the furniture.

Yes, he was getting stronger. And his powers were returning, too, as he settled into this once-decrepit body.

He sat in the center of the observatory, directly beneath the dome that housed the powerful telescope. His black clothes lay in a heap on the floor nearby, while he was wearing bright purple curtains like robes and smiling at his pleasantly full belly as he sank into a trance, able to connect through the stones to the witch. He was able to watch and listen and feel her as clearly as if he were in the room with her while she spoke on the telephone to her sisters.

It was too bad that they’d discovered that Lilia had only until Beltane to convince Demetrius to accept her offer, but he could hold her off until then. One week. Just one week and it would be over.

And then they would all be dead, every single one of them: Demetrius the traitor, the three disloyal, demon-serving witches, their mates and their progeny.

All of them.

All Demetrius had to do was say “no.”

And if it looked as though Demetrius might fail to hold firm, he now had a backup plan, thanks to the conversation he’d overheard. Now he knew he could kill Lilia and destroy her body, and then Demetrius, too, would die. No afterlife. No heaven. No reincarnation. Actually, he would prefer it that way. Maybe his focus should be on killing the witch, destroying her body, and Demetrius in the process.

* * *

Demetrius opened his eyes and found the beautiful witch Lilia lying beside him in his bed. Her body was nestled close to his, her arms were wrapped around his waist and her head was resting on his chest. He was still half asleep, and realized he was caught in the throes of yet another dream about being with this woman, about writhing in exquisite passion with her and experiencing a release like nothing he’d ever imagined. Surrendering to the fantasy, he tightened his arms around her, bent his head to inhale the fragrance of her hair. Her leg slid up the front of him, her thigh brushing over his hardness and tripling his need.

And then he came fully awake, suddenly aware that his “dream” was reality. In a panic, he shoved her away so hard that she rolled off the bed. She landed on the floor amid a tangle of sheets and sat there, blond hair hanging in her eyes, blinking in sleepy confusion.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, sliding off the other side of the bed and pulling his robe from the corner of the headboard, then wrapping it tightly around him.

She lifted her head toward him, then blew her hair out of her eyes. She looked so bedraggled and confused that he almost grinned. His heart clenched, and he clung to his anger by sheer force. She had invaded his private domain. His haven. His dreams.

And yet she had also
been
his dream.

“I guess I must have sleepwalked.”

“You guess?”

“I haven’t been human very long, Demetrius. Not even as long as you have.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Your body is pulling me all the time. It wants the missing piece of its soul back. The binding spell makes it pull harder. And just the sheer power of how much I want you in my arms again, in my bed again, is more potent than you can even imagine. It’s not my fault I lose the ability to resist while I’m sleeping.” She sighed. “Frankly, it’s pretty exhausting fighting it all the time.”

He was struck silent for a long moment by her honest admission. She wanted him. It was that simple. She wasn’t even pretending otherwise.

He wasn’t prepared to deal with this. He couldn’t say he didn’t want her, too. She would know it to be a lie. Eventually he found something to say that was true. “I don’t want to be human again. I don’t want to lose my powers and my immortality. You might as well give up.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I will. But not today. Who else is in this house with you, Demetrius? Besides Gus, I mean?”

“Sid. The limo driver and right-hand man. He came with the place. I honestly don’t know how we’d ever get by without him.”

“And no one else?” she asked.

His eyes shifted toward the spiral staircase that led up to the observatory, but he jerked them right back again. “No. There used to be some live-in staff, but I didn’t like that. So they come in as needed, by day, when I can tolerate them, and then they leave.”

“You don’t like people,” she said softly, her eyes moving over his face.

He couldn’t tell her that he was jealous of them. Jealous of the way even the most miserable of them seemed able to extract more of the juiciness of being human from their lives than he could. Eating a chocolate bar or a slice of pizza or an ice-cream sundae. Moving their bodies to the music as if they were feeling it in every part of themselves. Laughing with real joy crinkling the corners of their eyes. He didn’t understand laughter, but it looked so delicious that he wanted to.

He wanted all of it. One day he’d caught the gardener, Jimmy, leaning close to sniff a flower and closing his eyes in bliss. After Jimmy had moved on, Demetrius had sniffed at the very same blossom after first making sure no one was around to observe him. But aside from a tickle that made him sneeze, he felt nothing. He had certainly extracted no pleasure from it.

Being around people made him jealous of what they had.

It also frustrated him, because apparently he couldn’t have what they had without giving up what he had now. And he liked what he had now better.

“How do you know for sure, unless you can experience what they’re experiencing?” Lilia asked softly.

Her smile had died, and she was staring into his eyes.

“So, you can spy on my thoughts, as well?” He sighed, and strode across the bedroom. “That’s good to know, I suppose.”

“I can’t read your thoughts. Not really. Those were not thoughts, those were longings of your soul. And since I hold a piece of it, I felt them.”

“Why would my soul long for physical senses?” he asked.

“Why do you think souls incarnate into physical bodies in the first place, Demetrius? It’s to experience the very things you are denying yourself.”

“We’re talking about my soul, not me.”

“Your soul is you.” She sighed. “It’s the true you, your higher self, the part of you that is Divine. Now tell me, who else lives here?”

“No one,” he lied, and hoped she wouldn’t know.

“And this dislike of people, why doesn’t it extend to all of those jiggling, giggling future skin cancer patients constantly frolicking about in your pool and fountain?”

His back was toward her, so she couldn’t see the slow, pleased smile that spread across his face. He even felt a hint of pleasure—something he rarely felt at all—at her obvious jealousy. “They are here for entertainment purposes. Every man enjoys looking at a beautiful female body. Even one as soul-deprived as I am.”

“Oh, well then, let me help.”

He heard the soft brush of fabric on skin and realized what she was doing too late to stop himself from turning around. She dropped the nightgown she had peeled over her head and stood there absolutely nude. His knees went liquid, and it felt as if a giant hollow had opened up in his belly.

* * *

He’d lost the power of speech. That was a good thing, Lilia thought. At least she hoped it was. She stood there naked and not a bit embarrassed, because he’d seen her naked a thousand times before. Not in this body, of course.

But if being formless for more than three thousand years had taught her anything, it was that the body was just an outfit one chose to wear. That it was the spirit that was the real self. Revealing the skin and bones she’d donned to walk this world in was no different than revealing the car she might choose to drive, the house she might choose to live in, the clothes she might decide to wear. It was meaningless, really. A reflection of the spirit it contained.

That thought made her frown and wonder if the change in her appearance might indicate some kind of change in her soul. Maybe her old body no longer reflected who she now was. Otherwise, why would this new one look so different? Maybe she really had changed and grown during her time in limbo, watching, waiting, longing for him. Aching for him. Loving him, even when he’d been a monster.

She’d experienced the height of loneliness. She’d been forced to learn to exercise seemingly endless patience. She’d been steadily attentive, watching over her sisters, guiding them, prodding them when necessary, protecting them always. And she’d been watching over him, too, frustrated at her inability to help him.

But right now she was wondering about something far more earthly and vain.

“Do you like it?” she asked Demetrius, looking up at him, watching as his gaze moved down the new body that was becoming familiar to her. She tried to see it through his eyes. It was small and slight, and the breasts seemed to her to be a bit too large in proportion to the rest of it. “It’s not the same one I had before. But I think I like it. I’m growing very comfortable in it.”

She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and turned in a slow circle in front of him, craning her neck to look at the back of her body in the mirror, glimpsing the tattoo that had somehow survived her transition, the Babylonian cuneiform symbols for Daughter of Ishtar on her lower back, as they had been before.

When she’d completed her circle, he was still staring, his mouth slightly open, though he snapped it shut when his eyes finally met hers again after their long and heated perusal.

“Did you like the old one better?”

“I don’t—” His voice was so hoarse he sounded like a crow. He cleared his throat, started again. “I don’t know. I don’t remember the old one.”

“Oh.” She lowered her eyelids halfway, so he wouldn’t see her disappointment. She’d been fishing for a compliment, and he hadn’t even nibbled at the bait.

Then he went on. “I don’t see how it could have been any more pleasing than this one, though.”

Her eyes opened wide, and she flashed him a big smile that could not be contained. She clapped her hands together in staccato applause. “You do like it! I’m so glad. I mean, it’s shallow of me, but it means a lot to me to know that you like the way I look.” He didn’t respond, perhaps didn’t even hear her. She stilled her giddiness and realized that he had gone somewhere—a mental journey, not a physical one. “Demetrius?”

Blinking twice, giving his head a brisk shake, he quickly picked up the nightgown and pressed it to her chest, carefully avoiding touching her breasts. “I can’t think straight with you standing there naked like this. Please put it back on.”

She was fairly certain that was a compliment, too. “Are you sure? I was hoping we could...you know...”

“No.” He turned away from her. “No, we definitely aren’t going to
you know.
”

“But it might trigger your memory.” She pulled the nightgown on again then padded toward him and slid her palms up his back, wishing his robe would vaporize. “Demetrius, if you could remember what we were to each other you would never believe I was out to trick you or steal anything from you.”

“It would cloud my judgment. If I’m to make a rational decision, I cannot allow sex to interfere with my reasoning. Can I?”

“It wouldn’t be sex. It would be lovemaking.” She leaned closer, resting her cheek on his back. “Oh, Demetrius, it was so good between us. We swore no two people had ever loved the way we did, and we knew they never would. It was...it was something...something beyond love. It was something...”

“Something like a spell?”

She shoved him, and he stumbled two steps before stopping. “You’re cruel! How can you be so heartless to the woman you once swore you would die for?”

“If you’re innocent, then I’m sorry.”

“That’s what the priest said before he threw me from a cliff to my death,” she said, then turned and stomped across the room, flung open the door and took a step toward the stairs.

He caught her elbow before she took a second step. “What do you mean, priest? What priest?” he demanded.

She swung her head around, let him see the tears on her cheeks and the anger in her eyes. He needed to see them. Didn’t he realize what she’d done for him? She’d given up heaven, given up crossing over into the afterlife. She’d served three thousand years, plus five hundred more, in limbo. All for him. Didn’t he understand that?