Mark of the Witch (29 page)

I made it to the car, diving behind the wheel and closing the
storm outside where it belonged. I didn’t even try to mute the slam of the car
door, knowing the storm itself would drown out any noise. I turned the key.

Nothing. Freakin’ nothing. I clenched my fist and shook it at
the sky. “A little fucking help here? I mean, come on. No phone. No cell signal.
Now no car?”

And then I stopped and blinked slowly. That was a hell of a lot
of failure in one fell swoop, wasn’t it? Yeah. Maybe a little bit too much.

I wanted to take a look under that Volvo’s hood, but I’ll tell
you what, I wouldn’t have known what the hell to look for. I eyed Father Dom’s
big brown car, though. It was parked around the side of the cabin, just its ass
end sticking out my way. I hadn’t seen his keys inside on the rack by the door.
He’d either left them in it or he had them on him. Or maybe they were in his
room.

I hoped they were in the car and, ducking, I ran that
direction, my feet making slapping sounds on the wet earth as the storm raged
on. The wind pushed me from behind now. I reached his car and yanked on the
driver’s door.

Locked. I cupped my hands and peered through the glass, but
there were no keys inside that car, and the other three doors were locked, as
well.

Hell.

I was out of options. Unless I wanted to walk out of here.

I thought maybe I should give one more look around for Dom’s
keys before I resorted to that, and knowing the men would be too busy with Rayne
to pay much attention, I thought I’d have a fairly good chance of finding them
so long as they weren’t actually on him.

God, I hated like hell to go back into that cabin. I’d been so
close to free. I wondered if Dom was crazy enough to try to stop me from
leaving, if he knew what I was up to. I wondered if Tomas was crazy enough to
let him. Or help him.

Dejected, I went back inside. I peeled off the raincoat, shook
it and hung it way in the back of the closet where I’d found it. I put Tomas’s
keys back on the rack, then took off my damp, muddy boots. My jeans were blotted
with rainwater, my hair and face damp. At least my shirt had stayed dry.

Not wanting to make it obvious that I was planning to get the
hell out of here and bring back help for Rayne, I set my hiking boots inside the
closet, as well, then closed it and eyeballed the stairs again. I’d have to walk
right past the two priests to get to Father Dom’s room. And past them again on
my way back to the stairs.

I swallowed hard.

Just do it, chicken shit.

Okay, okay.

I pulled my hoodie off and used it to wipe off my face and soak
some of the water from my hair. And then I stiffened my shoulders and strode up
the stairs, lifting my chin, and trying to keep my expression placid. Instead of
sneaking past them, which would have raised their suspicions if they’d seen me,
I walked right in on them, as if that had been my destination to begin with,
interrupting them in midspell. Er, prayer.

“This is insane,” I said. Both men went silent and swung
irritated gazes my way. “We should get her to a hospital. Right now. We should
take her and go.”

Dom puckered up like a prune.

“Look, you’re priests. They’ll let you pray over her there. But
they’ll also have her tested for other causes and hooked up to life-sustaining
fluids, maybe even put her on a heart monitor.”

“She does have a point,” Tomas said softly, shifting his eyes
to Dom.

“You told me yourself not an hour ago that the bridge had
certainly been washed out by this storm. Didn’t you, Tomas?”

Tomas blinked and lowered his head, but somehow I got the idea
that he hadn’t forgotten that for an instant.

“Is that true? Is the bridge underwater?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You’ve seen it?”

“It always is when it rains like this. It’ll be impassible for
at least a day. Maybe longer, depending on when the rain stops.”

Not to a determined witch with her foot to
the floor, it won’t.

“Your sister is dying due to the influence of the Demon,” Dom
scolded Tomas. “Yet you waste your time answering to his mistress.”

I bristled right up. “Fuck you, Dom. I know who that so-called
demon really is. And the high priest who cursed him was probably a guy a lot
like you.” I shot my eyes back to Tomas. “It’s your sister’s life we’re talking
about here. Don’t you want to at least cover all your bases?”

He looked at me then, and I thought his eyes were not just
telling me to let it go but pleading with me to do so.

“Get out!” Dom shouted.

I damn near jumped out of my skin, because his tone was so
violent. I didn’t even stop to look at Tomas, I just left the room, giving the
door a good slam on the way out. I was shaking all over once I was in the
hallway again, but I reminded myself that this was exactly what I’d wanted. To
close the door, so I could go into the bastard priest’s room and—I hoped—find
his car keys.

I was no longer sure I wanted to leave Rayne behind when I left
this place, though. Maybe I should just wait until dark and sneak her out of
here in the dead of night.

Might be good. Might not. Better check the bridge first. See if
it’s even safe. But first, keys. I needed a vehicle.

I padded down the hall, tossing my hoodie into my own room and
slamming that door for good measure. Let them think I was in there stewing. Then
I ducked quickly into Father Dickwad’s room and quietly pushed his door closed
behind me.

The bed was neatly made, and there was not so much as a
paperback out of place. You wouldn’t have known anyone was even using the room,
except for the tiny black plastic comb on the dresser.

I paused over that comb, tempted to take a hair from its teeth,
hunt down some rusty nails and graveyard dirt, and cast a whopper of a curse on
that old son of a bitch. But that was not what I’d come here to do.

I didn’t see the keys anywhere. So I opened each of the four
dresser drawers and went through his neatly folded clothes. Since I’d seen his
suitcase by the door earlier, apparently he’d unpacked before starting the
exorcism. I opened the closet, and searched the pockets of his two shirts and
two jackets. Empty.

I knelt down and felt inside the only pair of shoes I saw
there. Nothing.

I checked out the adjoining bathroom, and found only a handful
of hotel-sized shampoos and conditioners, pilfered from a Holiday Inn.

What happened to “Thou shalt not steal”?

Medicine cabinet. Nothing. Antacids, individually wrapped
packets in a nearly empty box. They were the plop-plop, fizz-fizz variety.
Hardly any left. Lowering my head in defeat, I spotted lots of little wrappers
in the wastebasket.

Frowning, I bent down to pick one up. Same stuff. Plop-plop,
fizz-fizz.

Six wrappers. Why had he needed so many?

And weren’t you supposed to mix them with water and drink them
down? Where was his glass?

I supposed he could have taken it down to the kitchen. He was a
fastidious old goat, after all.

And then something jolted in my brain, like a tiny electrical
charge, and I was seeing the foam oozing from Rayne’s mouth.

Just for the hell of it, I unwrapped one of the tablets and put
in my own mouth, then just closed my lips and held it there as it began to
tingle and sort of sizzle on my tongue. In a few seconds I was foaming at the
mouth. Just a little. Not as much as Rayne had been doing earlier.

But then, I’d only used one. There were six wrappers in the
trash.

Six.

I couldn’t take it anymore and bent to spit the shit out,
cupping my hands under the tap and doing my best to rinse the residue of the
stuff out of my mouth. It took several big gulps. When I finished, I
straightened and met my own eyes in the mirror.

Okay, so maybe you manufactured that much,
you sly old bastard. But what about the rest? How the hell do you induce
convulsions and unconsciousness?

I looked around the bathroom much more thoroughly then, even
peeking beneath the lid into the toilet tank. Then I went back to the bedroom to
see where else I could search.

Under the bed.

I knelt down and lifted the comforter, which hung down to the
floor. Nothing under there but a plain dark blue suitcase, the old-fashioned
hard-shell kind. I pulled it out and flipped the latches—unlocked, good—lifted
the lid and stared at its utterly empty interior.

It’s not empty. I can feel it’s not empty.
Come on, Eyes of Spirit, don’t let me down now.

Aha!
Nothing really sinister, like
a false bottom. Just a panel to keep things separate, like lots of older
suitcases had. I unsnapped it, lifted it, and there underneath were three brown
plastic bottles. The kind prescriptions came in. But I knew the pills and labels
didn’t match as soon as I twisted the cover off one, because there were numerous
shapes, sizes and colors of drugs inside. Not just one.

And I knew right then, even though I didn’t have proof—yet. I
knew that bastard had drugged Rayne. If these drugs were innocent, then why
would they be hidden here, instead of sitting in the medicine cabinet next to
the antacids?

I poured a handful of pills into my palm, then pocketed them to
take to the hospital with me later. The doctors would need to know what she’d
been given. Then I put the cap back on the bottle, lowered the panel, closed the
lid and slid the suitcase back underneath the bed.

Rayne wasn’t safe here. I was going to have to wait and find a
way to take her with me when I left. But where the hell were the keys to the old
bastard’s car?

I was still on my knees beside the bed when I heard them
talking in the hallway. Footsteps—coming this way. The doorknob twisting.

I flattened my body facedown on the floor and scrambled
sideways like a crab on crack, slipping under the bed. Quickly I reached out and
yanked the comforter back down. In the nick of time, too, because the door
opened just as I snatched my hand back out of sight.

Had they seen it?

“In here,” Father Dom said softly. “I don’t want to risk her
listening in.”

“She’s not going to listen in. She thinks we’ve lost our minds,
Dom. And I’m not entirely sure she’s wrong. We really ought to take Rayne to a
hospital. It’s clear our efforts aren’t working.”

Good job, Tomas. Now just get a tiny bit
saner. Come to the light, jackass.

“No, our efforts aren’t working. Do I really need to tell you
why?”

The old priest’s shoes came into view in the inch of space
between the bedspread and the carpeted floor. He was walking away from Tomas,
pausing to stare out the window into the rain. “You betrayed your God. You broke
your vows. You caved in to temptation.” The black shoes turned around, pointing
back toward Tomas again. “You slept with the Demon’s whore.”

“Don’t call her that.” Tomas’s tone was low and dangerous.

“You gave up the protection God had granted you, and your
sister because of you. You made her vulnerable to attack by the very Demon your
girlfriend serves.”

“I’ve repented, Dom. Surely God will forgive me.”

“You’ve repented by word alone. But not by deed. I’m afraid
your sister’s condition is going to get worse.”

Tomas’s voice was low, emotionless, when he said, “Tell me what
I have to do to save Rayne.”

Father Dom was still for a moment. Then he said, “Your Indira
is going to help the Demon. You know that. She’s going to slip away from us.
She’s going to go down to the cave, to the Portal, and utter the words that will
return the amulet to him. And then he’ll be able to pass through. And you know
there’s only one way to stop her.”

Tomas faltered, his voice even softer than before. “I can…lock
her in her room, stand guard over her, keep her here until Samhain has passed
and the veil—”

“And in three thousand five hundred years, it will all happen
again. There’s only one way to stop her, Tomas. We must destroy the amulet just
as we’ve planned to do all along.”

My throat tightened as I listened to them.

“And there’s only one way to destroy the amulet.” The shiny
black shoes moved closer as the old priest stood toe to toe with Tomas. “You
have to kill her, my son. You made the right decision once—the only decision you
could make at the time. Maybe now you’re starting to understand why. You have to
do it again, just as you did before. You have to kill her to save the world. To
save your sister. You have to kill the witch.”

19

I
pressed a hand over my mouth to silence
the gasp that tried to erupt from the core of me. My God, had that been his plan
all along? Not just Father Dom’s but Tomas’s, too? And what about last night?
Had it meant anything to him, or was it just a slip, a weakness? Did he honestly
believe he had fallen prey to the spell of a witch? To the temptation of a
demon’s whore?

I wasn’t going to wait around this loony bin to find out. I was
out of here just as soon as I had an opportunity. And somehow I had to find a
way to take Rayne with me.

Tomas said nothing. Not a word in my defense. Not a denial. Not
an argument.

And then Dom went on. “We’d best keep a close eye on her in the
meantime—if she gets down there without us, she’ll return the amulet before we
have the chance to stop her. Where is she now, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Tomas said softly. “I don’t know.”

The two of them left the room, presumably to go looking for me.
I figured they’d start in my bedroom, which gave me time, I hoped. I slid out
from underneath the bed and glanced up at the clock on the nightstand. And an
idea began to take form in my mind. I grabbed the clock, set it ahead an hour,
replaced it on the stand, then hurried to the door to peer out. They were in the
hallway outside my bedroom door, tapping it and calling out my name.

I quickly yanked the suitcase out from under the bed, dug out
those three pill bottles and jammed them under my blouse. Closed the case,
shoved it back under the bed. No way was I risking him carrying out his threats
against Rayne.

And that was exactly what it was, I realized. A threat. He
might as well have said, “Either you kill the witch or I kill your sister.” Only
he was disguising it as, “Either you kill the witch or God is going to kill your
sister.”

Was Tomas really buying into such bullshit? Did he really think
that was the nature of God? Blackmail? Murder?

I was back in the doorway again five seconds later, trying to
figure out how the hell to get ahead of them and downstairs without them
knowing. They opened my bedroom door and stepped inside. I took that moment to
dart out of the old priest’s room and down the hall, ducking into Rayne’s room
before they came out again. I sat in the chair beside her bed, reaching out to
take hold of her hand, and wondered what on earth I could do to help get the
poison out of her system.

At least the old bastard wouldn’t be giving her any more.

Unless he’s got another stash somewhere.
Like in the car.

Damn, but I need those keys.

I heard them calling for me but stayed right where I was,
saying nothing.
Let ’em search, let ’em get the idea that
I’m not gonna answer even if they yell till they’re hoarse. Let ’em wonder
where I am and go down the mountainside in the rain looking for me. Let ’em
fall off the face of the motherfucking earth, over the cliff, and let the
lake swallow them whole. Both of them. Bastards.

I’d been betrayed by the man I loved for the second time. He
wasn’t going to get a third chance. I noticed there was a clock in Rayne’s room,
too, and I quickly set it ahead an hour, replacing it on the nightstand just
before the door opened and Tomas stood there looking at me. I noticed he wasn’t
wearing his clerical collar.

“Didn’t you hear us calling?”

I shrugged. “Heard. Didn’t give a shit.”

He couldn’t hold my eyes, looking instead at his sister. I
wanted to tell him that she’d been poisoned, show him the evidence, but I was
too afraid he wouldn’t believe me. Or that his mission, his faith, would be more
important to him than the truth. Besides, Father Dom would just come up with
some lame explanation, and he had Tomas so twisted up inside that he’d probably
believe him. And I would have given myself away before I’d even had a chance to
flush the drugs. So I said nothing, got slowly to my feet and moved past him
into the hallway.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Indy—”

“Don’t touch me.” I stood motionless, waiting.

He lowered his hand. “It’s going to be all right,” he told
me.

“You’re damned straight it is.”

He glanced toward the stairs. Father Dom was on his way up. “We
need to talk. Alone,” he said.

“Right.” So he could kill me. “I’ve got nothing to say to you,
Tomas.” And yet my throat was tight with tears I refused to shed. I walked away,
into my room, slamming the door behind me, then leaning back against it and
blinking away the tears in my eyes. A couple of gulps of air, though, and I beat
them into submission. I had work to do. Moving to my nightstand, I quickly reset
the clock.

By my count there were two more downstairs, and one in Tomas’s
room. Neither man wore a watch. I was lucky there.

* * *

It was getting dark. I was antsy and wanted only to slip
away from the two lunatics and try to find a way out of here. All day I’d been
reading and rereading the words I’d written so long ago, the words of the tragic
story of Demetrius, the man who’d made the mistake of falling in love with the
king’s favorite harem slave. And who’d paid a price far more dear than his life
for his crime. He’d paid with his soul.

A piece of that soul lived inside me now, in the amulet I had
absorbed into my body in order to protect it from the two priests. I felt it
there. I felt his pain when I read about what had been done to him. I felt his
torment, and his rage.

I didn’t blame him for it.

Rayne still slept. There had been no more convulsions. I’d
flushed the pills, all but one of each variety, which I held on to for the E.R.
staff. Those were in my pocket. No more foaming at the mouth, either. Maybe once
was enough with that particular special effect. But she was still unconscious. I
didn’t know if Dom had more pills on him and was keeping her drugged or not. I
tried to be in her room every time he looked in, but I had to go to the bathroom
every now and then.

Mostly they’d left me alone with her. And I’d read from the
scrolls mostly in private, though they kept watching me, and I noticed Dom was
trying real hard not to leave Tomas alone with me even for a minute.

I wondered if Tomas had told him about the scrolls. And if not,
why not? I didn’t suppose there was any hurry. I’d be dead soon, according to
their plan.

I’d found that if I focused on the story and on Demetrius,
holding his name in the forefront of my mind, I could feel him so clearly that I
could almost talk to him. And I thought maybe if I kept trying, I’d manage to
actually do so.

He was not a nice guy. Not even human anymore. All I sensed of
him was pain, confusion, rage, fury.

And grief, though it was buried way down deep.

Maybe returning the piece of his soul I now held would assuage
that, restore a little bit of humanity to him. I hoped so. Because right now
there wasn’t anything human about Demetrius. Maybe releasing him from his
Underworld prison truly would be a mistake. But it was the only right and just
thing to do. And it was, I knew now, my mission. My reason for being. My
calling. It was more important than anything else. More important than Tomas,
and more important than my own life.

And it was time. I was sitting on the sofa in the living room,
where I’d been for the past hour, pretending to read a book while they hovered
over me like vultures. Tomas was wearing his collar again, his all-black
clothes. They even
looked like
vultures, I
thought.

They were watching me. I knew they were. I’d managed, though,
to set every clock in the house ahead by an hour. It was a quarter to midnight
now, at least as far as they knew. Fifteen more minutes and they would believe
my opportunity was gone. Even now they undoubtedly thought it was too late.
Fifteen minutes wasn’t even enough time for me to make it down the path to the
cave—especially in the dark—much less perform the ritual.

I lowered my eyes. “Are you happy now? You’ve won. You’ve
sentenced an innocent being to God only knows how many more years in an
unbearable prison. Your God must be so proud of you.” I sent them hateful looks.
“I’m going to bed.”

Tomas nodded. “All right.” His eyes held mine for a long
moment, and I could have sworn I saw something in them. Longing? No. It couldn’t
be. He believed I was the enemy, had let himself be brainwashed by the old
priest.

I couldn’t afford to trust him. He wanted me dead. That would
end only when I returned the amulet to Demetrius. And I still had a little over
an hour to make that happen. I went upstairs and looked in on Rayne, who was
sleeping soundly. Still no more thrashing or foaming. Thank Goddess.

Dom doesn’t have to torture her anymore.
He thinks he’s won. That he’s convinced Tomas to kill me. As long as Tomas
doesn’t balk, he’ll leave her alone. I hope.

Could I even blame Tomas all that much for doing whatever it
took to save his sister?

Yeah. Because there has to be a better way
than murder. My murder. Not that I’m biased or anything.

I went into my room, closed and locked the door, opened my
bedroom window and climbed out into the rain. The wind had let up. The rain
still fell steadily, but it wasn’t pouring like it had been before. Dangling
from my fingertips, I whispered a spell, and then let go.

I hit the ground hard, driving a grunt from my chest and
creating a splat when I landed that I was sure must have been audible
inside.

Apparently not in the rain. I got up onto my feet from the
mud-slick ground and looked back at the house. If they were still in the living
room, they wouldn’t see me, because my bedroom window was on the opposite side
of the house. I didn’t see any faces peering out.

Good.

I headed into the woods and then kept just inside the tree line
until I found the path down toward the lake.

I felt eyes on me and, startled to hell and gone, spun around,
half expecting to find those dark-suited hypocrites following me. But no. It was
just the animals. A squirrel and a raccoon, standing in the rain and staring at
me with huge, hypnotized eyes.

And then I heard a deep tormented voice echoing inside my head.
His voice.

Hurry.

I picked up my pace.

* * *

“It’s time,” Dom said softly, looking at his cell
phone.

Tomas lowered his head.

“The time for hesitation is over, Tomas. If you needed proof
she was on the Demon’s side, intending to help him, rather than us—rather than
your sister, a fellow witch she claims to love—you have that proof now. She set
all the clocks ahead to give herself time. We’re supposed to believe it’s
midnight, but it’s only eleven. And she’s gone, right on schedule. While Samhain
still holds open the Veil.”

Tomas nodded. “I’d hoped she wouldn’t go.”

“But she did. At your request, Tomas, we’ve given her every
chance to redeem herself, but she has not. This is the moment when you must
choose between good and evil. This is the moment when you, like Adam of Genesis,
must decide whether to obey God Almighty or turn away from Him in favor of the
forbidden fruit offered by the temptress. This is the deciding moment of your
entire life, Tomas. And the only chance you will ever have to save your sister,
not just from death, but from eternal damnation. From the very jaws of the mouth
of hell. Go. Go down the mountain and do what must be done.”

Nodding, Tomas rose from the sofa and, with a heavy sigh, went
to the closet for his raincoat. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Dom. And I’m grateful
you waited, that you gave her the chance to change her mind. I won’t let you
down again.”

Pulling on the slicker, he went to the back door, slid it open
and stepped out onto the deck in the steadily falling rain.

* * *

The path was steep and slick with mud, and not even my
heightened senses could make passage easy. My feet slipped and slid, and I fell
on my ass more than once as I moved way faster than I should have. I didn’t know
exactly what I was supposed to do when I got there. I didn’t have words or a
spell to chant. It would just be me, my own will and my power as a witch. But
those were things I had confidence in now. I’d been given the power of a long
line of traditional witches, passed down through centuries of practice. From
teacher to student, from old priestess to young, from woman to woman, from Rayne
to me.

It wasn’t my power alone. Not anymore. There were covens of
witches behind me, living and dead, bound by spirit.

I would never be alone again.

I’d used that power to cast a spell of protection around Rayne
before I’d left her room tonight, quietly, silently, unnoticed by the
priests.

I hoped it was enough.

I slipped once more as the rain came down harder again and a
gust of wind seemed to push my feet out from under me. My shoes were coated in a
thin layer of brown that had spattered onto the legs of my jeans, and the seat
of my pants was wet from my repeated stumbles. I gripped a low tree limb to pull
myself up and pressed on.

It seemed to take forever. Like one of those dreams where you
run and run, but can’t get anywhere. But finally—finally—I emerged from the
woods and found myself staring at the waterfall and the pool that spread out
below it. Rain hit the surface of the pool so hard that the drops appeared to be
dancing. It was dark as hell outside, the sky blanketed in clouds, no light. And
yet I saw everything clearly. I wondered why for a second, then I realized there
was a glow, soft, but persistent, coming from behind the cascade. Coming from
the cave.

Coming, I realized, from the Portal.

Come to me. Bring me that which is
mine!

“I’m coming,” I replied, speaking aloud, as if it—he—could hear
me that way. Maybe he could. I started forward, then spun around when I heard
footsteps behind me.