Mark of the Witch (17 page)

“Dammit, Indy, I don’t want to take an ice-water shower today!”
Rayne shouted from just beyond the falls.

“Just wait out there!” I called, turning back and becoming
momentarily transfixed by the sight of the waterfall from this perspective. It
was beautiful, like looking at the world through a crystal prism. I could see
her on the other side, a blurry form done in muted colors. She looked a lot like
the depiction of loved ones waiting to greet the newly dead at the far end of
the proverbial tunnel.

That thought gave me a shiver that was unrelated to the
cold.

“I won’t be five minutes, okay?”

“Fine. Whatever.” She sounded pissed, not like an angel guide
for the dear departed.

I turned away and started walking. The darkness was almost
heavy, closing up around me, enfolding me in arms of black. The perception of
“density” wasn’t so much due to the presence of anything but more to the absence
of everything. There was no light. The roar of the waterfall drowned out all
other sounds. There was no scent here. And the walls of the cave were beyond the
reach of my hands as I groped in the pitch-darkness. The air was so still I
couldn’t feel it on my skin. I felt cold, and I felt my feet pressing
soundlessly against the floor beneath me. Nothing else. There was just
nothingness. Even the sound of the rushing water faded behind me as I ventured
deeper.

I moved slowly, my hands out in front of me now, until I felt
the cold stone wall against them and wondered if I’d reached the back of the
cave. But then something caught my eye from the left, and I turned to see a
slightly lighter shade of black, as if there were some faint source of light in
that direction.

Keeping one hand on the wall, I moved that way, inching my feet
ahead of me, in case the ground fell away suddenly. But it didn’t. I kept going,
and then I was standing in front of the unimaginable, staring right at it and
still not believing it was real.

It was a little taller than I was, and oval in shape, widening
to about two feet in the middle. Its surface was watery, only not made of water.
It rippled with translucent strands of gray—pale gray, and paler gray, and
darker gray—and violet and blue, and seemed not to be backlit but lit from
within by its own swirling colors.

“What the hell is it?” I asked aloud.

It looked as if it was made of some combination of smoke and
water. It looked as if I could put my hand right through it if I wanted to.

And I wanted to.

I reached out. My fingertips inched closer and closer. I was
almost touching it, swallowing my fear and forcing myself onward.

And then a face appeared on the other side, and I screamed and
jerked my hand away, stumbling backward and falling on my ass on the hard stone
floor.

It stared at me. A shapeless, formless being whose only clear
feature was its eyes. And they were eyes I’d seen before, but I was damned if I
knew where. Human eyes, though. Very human. Very…beautiful. And roiling with
pain.

I saw them in my cauldron. And somewhere
else, too…

And then I heard a female voice, not from the thing on the
other side of the fog-and-water curtain—that thing was most certainly male—but
from above. And it, too, was familiar.

He needs your help, Indira. You must find
the amulet and return it to him.

I blinked, shaking my head and returning my gaze to the soulful
eyes gazing back at me. Tomas wanted me to find the amulet, too. To hand it over
to him so he could destroy it, preventing a demon from crossing through some
portal and—

I examined the misty, watery oval again.
This is it. This is the Portal.

And then I looked again at the being beyond it.
And this is the demon? This blob with eyes that look like
they belong in some rescue-the-kids commercial? This is the big bad threat
to mankind?

You must help him,
the woman told
me again, and knowledge washed over me.
My sister.
Lilia.

“I don’t fucking know how, and frankly, I’m getting sick of all
these mind games. If you can talk to me like this, why not just tell me how to
call forth the freaking amulet so I can get this the fuck over with?” Assuming I
wanted to, of course.

Don’t you think I would if I
could?

Her answer came in an angry shout that seemed to echo from the
walls of the cave like an explosion, deafening. I clasped my hands to my ears,
but it did nothing to dampen her volume. She was screaming at me now.
You hid the amulet in the astral plane! Only you can call it
forth! You have to remember!

And at that moment I felt as if a blade were being drawn across
my skin. And again, and then again. I felt hot blood seeping, and I screamed in
pain as I felt the shreds of my blood-soaked blouse falling away.

Remember! Remember, damn you!

Why would my one-time sister attack me this way?

But I knew, didn’t I? Yes, I knew on some level that she had no
choice, that she had to make me remember. That it was vital somehow. And that
she wouldn’t go too far…

Or maybe that last part was wishful thinking. I
hoped
she wouldn’t go too far.

If you kill me, I’ll never be able to help
anyone.

I clutched my arm and, turning, stumbled back the way I had
come, only belatedly thinking to press one hand to the wall so I wouldn’t get
lost. I made my way to the place where I thought I should turn right and head
toward the entrance again, but I couldn’t see the falls or even hear their roar.
The slashing continued, and the pain was excruciating. I fell to my knees,
crying out for help.

And then I fell forward, my cheek slamming into the cool,
unforgiving stone floor. It was so dark, so utterly devoid of any sensual
stimulation, in the cave that I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed,
whether I was conscious or unconscious. Whether I was still alive or finally,
mercifully, dead.

Maybe she’d gone too far, after all.

* * *

Tomas broke every speed limit getting back to the cabin,
which was completely unlike him and clearly made Dom nervous. To his credit,
though, Father Dom never once told him to slow down, at least not in so many
words.

Once he made it there, his relief was short-lived. The second
he burst through the front door and called Indy’s name, he knew the place was
empty.

Father Dom was still making his way up the front stairs when
Tomas found the note on the refrigerator.

Taking the scenic route down to the lake, with a stop at the
waterfall. Back soon.

Rayne & Indy

“Well, son? Where have they gone?” Dom asked.

“Down to the lake.” He paced nervously to the sliding patio
doors and looked out over the lake below. “They’re probably all right.”

“I’ve no doubt they’re all right. Demon’s not likely to do harm
to his own servants, now, is he? But if the witch figures out how to get her
hands on that amulet, and he convinces her to give it to him instead of you,
well…that’s a whole other matter. That puts us all in danger. Her included.”

Tomas was irritated with Father Dom for being more concerned
over the amulet than the safety of Indy and Rayne. But he let it pass for the
moment—partly because he knew that was exactly the way Dom expected
his
priorities to fall, too. The way they would fall
if he were putting the mission first. But they didn’t fall that way. Never
had.

Rayne was his sister, and he loved her. He was already
regretting that she’d become entangled in this dangerous situation. And Indy
was…Indy was…amazing. And not the devil’s mistress Father Dom was so damned
determined to make him believe she was. Not even close to that.

“She’s getting to you, isn’t she, Tomas? The witch?”

He shot a look at Father Dom but didn’t answer. “I’m heading
down to find them.”

“I’m coming, too.”

Tomas almost snapped at him to stay behind, then caught
himself. What the hell was happening to him? Dom might be a few bubbles off the
beam about the demon and his plans for world domination, but he was his
friend—family, really. “Best grab a jacket,” he said instead. And then he
crossed the room, opened a closet door and took one for himself. It was big and
made of faded denim, just heavy enough to keep out the chill. As he pulled it
from the hanger, he spotted the old shotgun leaning against the rear corner of
the closet. It had come with the house, and he’d had it inspected and repaired,
and kept it around for emergencies. Rabid raccoons, or wounded animals in need
of putting down.

He’d never had to use it. Had often wondered if he had it in
him to do so. Impulsively, he reached in and pulled it out.

Father Dom raised his brows. “I didn’t know you owned a
gun.”

“There was a rabies scare a few years back,” he said.

“Ah.”

“Forgot I had it, to tell you the truth.”

“You have…bullets?”

“Yeah.” He handed the shotgun, a twenty-gauge pump action with
a long barrel and open sights, to Father Dom, then turned back to the closet,
reaching onto the overhead shelf and digging through piles of winter hats and
various other items. Eventually he felt the heavy, cardboard box and pulled it
down. “Just five slugs.”

“We shouldn’t need more than that,” Father Dom said.

“Let’s hope we don’t need
any.
”
Tomas put the slugs in the breast pocket of his jacket, held the gun in one
hand, barrel tilted downward, and headed out the back door and onto the
trail.

“Don’t you think you ought to load it?” Dom asked a few yards
later.

He was already breathless, and while Tomas felt sorry for the
pace he was setting, he was also feeling more worried by the minute.

“Like I said, I hope we don’t need it.”

“But if we do, it would be more helpful loaded than empty.”

Tomas just kept walking. The trees were nearly all bare, but
the sunlight was warm for this late in the season. The light breeze carried the
scent of apples from the cluster of trees in the tiny orchard off to the right
of the cabin.

“And given that thirteen priests were murdered by this demon
only two days ago, I would think—”

“Thirteen clerics,” Tomas corrected. They’d just heard the
numbers that day: thirteen dead, twenty-three injured. It would have been much
higher, but a number of attendees had been at an off-site function when the bomb
went off. “They weren’t all priests.” He crossed himself and thanked God again
that the death toll hadn’t been higher.

“Load the gun, please, Tomas.”

Dom was looking at him as if he’d noticed Tomas’s burgeoning
tendency to argue with his every suggestion, so he nodded. But even as he
reached into his pocket for the slugs, he caught movement from the corner of his
eye, and when he turned, he saw the wolf.

It was crouched low, its teeth bared in a menacing snarl. A low
growl emanated from it as it kneaded the earth.

“Tomas—”

“I see it.” He flipped the gun in his hand, then fished a slug
from the box in his pocket and slid it into place, but there was no time to pump
the slug into the chamber before the animal sprang at him. Its forefeet hit him
square in the chest, knocking him onto his back—hard—and the gun flew from his
hand. With snarling, growling jaws snapping at his neck, he buried his hands in
the beast’s fur to hold it away.

Dom was scrambling, panicked, snatching up the gun, trying to
work the pump action.

Hot saliva, hotter breath on his face. The wolf pushed so hard
that Tomas’s elbows bent, allowing it closer. Teeth scraped his neck. And then,
with one massive, all-out effort, he straightened his arms again and sent the
wolf flying off him and into a tree. It yelped in pain.

He jumped to his feet, crouched and ready, as he watched the
wolf regain its footing.

It stared right back into his eyes, looking confused. Dom
rushed to Tomas’s side, shouldering the gun.

Tomas put a hand on the barrel, pushing it down, and the wolf
turned and ran off into the forest.

They stood there, both panting, Tomas from the battle, Dom from
excitement. “Should have let me kill it,” the old man said.

“Why? It wasn’t the wolf’s fault.” Tomas shook his head. “Hell,
I didn’t even think there were wolves anywhere near here.”

“Not just wolves, either.” Dom looked around, and Tomas
followed his gaze. The older priest was looking into the trees to the left of
the trail, where a coyote, smaller than the wolf, scrawnier, but just as
dangerous, stood with his tongue lolling, staring intently at them.

“They’re flanking us,” Dom said, nodding toward the other
side.

Tomas turned to look, and sure enough, there was a second
coyote, powerful and potentially deadly, on the opposite side of the trail.

He quickly took the gun from Dom and shoved in three more
rounds, then pumped one into the chamber, making room for one more. The box in
his pocket was empty. All five slugs were in the gun. That was not only all he
had, it was all it would hold.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

He jumped, startled by the nearness of the crow’s throaty call,
then spotted it sitting on a limb only a few feet above his head. Staring at
him. He stared back. “You’re one of God’s creatures, crow. Don’t let a demon use
you. You’re too good for that.”

He glanced left and right. “That goes for you two, as well,” he
told the coyotes. “Go on, get out of here before I change my mind and shoot you
all.” He waved his arms, one of them still holding the shotgun, and the coyotes
scurried away as the crow left in a heavy flapping of black wings. Tomas angled
the gun downward again. It was growing heavy as he kept on going.

A half hour later Dom was puffing like a steam engine and Tomas
was feeling more worried by the second. Dom was slowing him down, and his gut
was telling him to get to Indy and get to her now.