'Thank you, my dear,' said the Japanese, her voice suddenly warm, almost like that of a sister. Her finger slid deftly to the curve of Paula's abdomen, tracking, examining ... reading.
Still unable to look, Paula was surprised when she felt the mangled sheet being drawn across her hips and settled neatly over her pubis. The area of the sigil was still exposed, but, a second later, Michiko tweaked more folds of the torn sheet across Paula's breasts and upper body.
'I'm sorry I was so peremptory,' she whispered, leaning low and brushing her lips against Paula's temple, 'but I had to be sure ... I had to know.' Her breath was sweet and perfumed, slightly herbal, not unlike the apothecary -shop scent that Rafe favoured. 'And it's just as I feared.' She paused, her fingers stilling. 'Countess Isidora has left a marker on you.'
'I know that! What kind of marker? What does it do?'
'Hush, I'll explain it in a moment,' said Michiko softly. 'First I need to reveal it so we know what we're dealing with.'
Paula turned from the pillow, glanced at Michiko, whose dark eyes were grave, and then looked towards Rafe. His expression was stormy with anger and worry. He'd stopped actively fighting, but his naked body was still a pillar of tension.
'Look, set us free first,' she told the Japanese woman, finding confidence somehow from the expression in Rafe's eyes. He was here for her in a way that no other person had ever been in her life. Their ambiguous start had only strengthened the sudden bond they had now. 'I won't struggle. Hell, I want to know more than anybody what's going on. And so does Rafe.'
Michiko narrowed her eyes as she looked at Rafe, as if assessing the danger he might present. And when she cocked her dark head on one side, Paula had the distinct impression she was reading his thoughts.
Great, a mind-reader! Just what we need.
But then again, who better than a sorceress who could hear thoughts to detect the arrival of Isidora?
Eventually, and apparently satisfied, Michiko made a tiny, almost imperceptible hand gesture, and all the pressure on Paula's body disappeared. Rafe too visibly relaxed, then shook himself like a dog before heading for the bed. He snatched up their robes from the ottoman and slid onto the mattress beside her, wrapping hers carefully around her shoulders and then adjusting the sheet placed across her pelvis. As he shrugged into his own robe, Paula was aware that not once had he looked directly at Michiko.
'Thank you,' she whispered, reaching for his hand and squeezing it as he hunkered down beside her, like a concerned brother or parent about to support her through a nasty medical procedure. He gave her fingers a firm squeeze, then lifted them to his mouth and kissed them hard, his face frowning.
'Yes, that's good. You must support her,' said Michiko crisply. 'As I uncover the marker there may be some discomfort.'
Apprehension surged in Paula's chest as the other woman inclined over her, fingertips reaching for her belly. She shuddered, then stilled as Rafe's strong arm slid around her shoulders, exerting a steadying force. He still held her hand and she turned her face and buried it in the crook of his shoulder, her rock against this unknown ordeal.
Paula had never had a tattoo, but instantly she was unpleasantly reminded of needles, a thousand needles pricking at one tiny area of skin at once. Something radical was happening to the skin of her abdomen, but the feeling was so intense and uncomfortable that she simply couldn't look. She closed her eyes and pressed closer to Rafe.
She couldn't have said how long the strange, tormenting pain-not pain went on, but trying to ignore it induced a peculiar light stupor. Breathing in Rafe's body fragrance, she floated in a troubled dream of being with him. Blanking out the prick, prick, prick of the phantom needle, she imagined him touching and caressing her, kissing her face and throat and neck while his deft masseur's finger stroked her clit.
Still dimly aware that she had to stay still, she nevertheless felt a bright, kinetic energy building inside her. Bizarre as it seemed, she was aroused again, and her sex seemed to throb softly in time to the ersatz pulses of the psychic tattoo. She moaned against Rafe's throat, wondering if he knew that it wasn't the strange procedure that was bothering her, but a new desire.
Eventually, Michiko, who had been sitting on her heels on the bed, sat back, making the mattress rock. The burning on Paula's belly was already fading to the faintest prickle.
'Just as I thought. A Thousand Hour Marker ... and dangerously few hours still remaining. Look!'
Unwillingly, Paula unwound herself from Rafe, her eyes still closed. He squeezed her hand again and she opened them – and looked down.
In the centre of her belly, an inch or so above her pubes, there was etched an ornate and very complicated design. A collection of symbols and stylised curlicues, interwoven like strange tiny vines, with the suggestion here and there of planets and stars. Its colour was a pale, faintly reddish brown, almost the colour of a freckle or a very light birthmark.
It would have been pretty if it weren't so ominous.
'What does it mean?' Rafe's voice came as a shock. He hadn't spoken since Michiko had bound him, but he sound tense and serious, as if he were fighting hard to suppress his emotions.
He's trying not to frighten me, thought Paula, frightened anyway.
Michiko leapt lightly off the bed, her leather clothing gleaming as she moved.
'I believe we need a council of war. This concerns us all and I will explain everything, to the best of my ability, when I've had a chance to review what I've discovered.' She sounded brisk and businesslike, and the strength and focus she exuded was reassuring. Paula found herself smiling, despite the peculiar ordeal she'd just suffered. It seemed that the cavalry had finally come over the hill.
'Shall we convene in the library in, say, around forty-five minutes?' The sorceress glanced at the rather complicated chronometer strapped to her wrist, then strode to the door. When she turned, she looked intently at Rafe, her dark brows lowered in a frown, her head cocked as if she were reading him. 'A heavy responsibility falls to you now.' Her near-black eyes burnt with power, as if she were compelling him to do her will by sheer force of personality. Paula wondered if this was the way she looked and acted herself when she was under Isidora's sway.
'If the marker begins to darken, even in the slightest,' Michiko went on, 'you must ensure that Paula stays in this room. Bind her, secure her, lock the door ... but don't allow her to get away from you.' She paused, lifting her hand in a gesture of emphasis, fingers curved into a fist. 'Because if the sigil goes black, the creature you're dealing with will no longer be your lover. She'll be Isidora, who I suspect will try to get away from Sedgewick if there's no one here who'll aid her.' Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out a glittering metal bundle and tossed it onto the bed. A second later another object, tiny and also metal, landed next to it. 'You'll probably need those.'
With no further glance backwards, the Japanese woman left the room.
Leaving a stunned silence in her wake.
Without pause for thought, Paula coiled her arms around Rafe again, letting out the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding when his arms folded protectively around her.
'Are you all right, love?' he murmured into her hair, and she was struck again at how completely she trusted him all of a sudden. It had happened somewhere along the line in the beat of a heart, but she couldn't for the life of her pinpoint the moment or explain why she felt so completely sure of him. She only knew that the familiar man-smell of his body meant safety for her.
'Yes, I'm OK. Just a bit stunned. It's not every day a woman you've never set eyes on before comes stomping into your bedroom, with an entourage, and proceeds to rip the covers off you and give you a tattoo or something on your bare belly.'
Rafe laughed, although there was little humour in it. Paula felt his entire body tense up. 'So that's the famous Michiko, the white sorceress?' When she pulled back a little and looked up at him he was scowling at the closed door. 'As they say in the movies, she's a real piece of work.'
'And how!' Paula reached up, touched his face, smoothing her fingertips over his frown lines. 'But at least she seems to be on our side, and she's obviously very powerful.'
Rafe smiled, and some of the taut anger ebbed from him. 'Fucking hell! You can say that again.' He gave Paula a quick hug then scooted away down the bed, picking up the gifts they'd been left. 'Handcuffs, for Christ's sake.' Dangling the shiny metal restraints from one finger, he stared at their key in the palm of his other hand.
They were in peril. She could lose her body, her mind, her life, and Rafe too had a death sentence hanging over him. But still, the sight of the shiny metal cuffs produced a kick of erotic excitement in her belly. And a smile on her lips. Even in the direst straits, the sweet, horny sex urge couldn't be kept down. Even with only 45 minutes left to them before a war council, she suddenly wanted to play again with Rafe.
'I know, I know...' Rafe chuckled, and she could see the same lights twinkling in his eyes as she knew were in hers. Warmth bubbled in her heart at their closeness. 'But if we get into anything, she'll only come and fetch us, won't she?'
Desire for Rafe and the desire to know what the hell had really happened to her and how to deal with it warred in Paula. He was right though. First things first. A shower, and then the powwow. And then afterwards, who knew? Maybe there'd be time for something sweet and naughty?
As long as the sigil on her belly didn't go black.
'Don't worry, love. If she comes, I'll do my best to hypnotise her. I'll do better now I'm alert to her wiles.' Still clutching the cuffs, Rafe enveloped her in his arms. 'We'll keep her under control until our Japanese friend works out how to get her to fuck off completely.'
Oh, how I want to believe you, love! I really do ...
But as she clung on to his warmth for a few moments more, the feel of metal against her back was cold warning.
The atmosphere was strange when they walked into the library, edgy and mildly aggressive. At her side, Rafe was tense and watchful, and she seemed to feel his protective instincts billow around her as they moved forwards into the room. Squeezing hard on his fingers, she flashed him a glance, hoping he'd cool it. They needed Michiko. They all had to get on and work together.
The Japanese woman stood in front of the fireplace, still in her leathers. She looked commanding, focused, yet troubled. Which was worrying. The others – Belinda, Jonathan and the young Oriental man – were sitting on the edge of their deep chairs, looking equally uneasy. And sitting at the back of the room, on a row of elegant ladderback chairs against the wall, sat the giant Oren and two very pretty young blonde women who were astonishingly alike. Who were they? Staff? Friends? Lovers?
There was breakfast on the sideboard – coffee, croissants, brioches – but nobody was eating. Was it even dawn yet?
Despite the presence of the commanding portrait of Count André Von Kastel hanging over the fireplace, the focus of all attention in the room was the low coffee table. On which lay open the great damaged book. The ragged edges were a mute accusation. Paula couldn't take her eyes off the wounded pages as she and Rafe took their seats on one of the spacious chesterfields.
'So ... what did I destroy?' Lifting her chin, she met the dark gaze of the sorceress.
'You? You didn't destroy anything,' Michiko said firmly, stepping forwards and staring down at the book. Her smooth brow crumpled and she looked faintly sad. 'But unsurprisingly, as far as I can see, Isidora burnt the pages containing the spell to banish her completely from your body and send her where she deserves to be, for all eternity.' She crouched down and flipped the venerable pages of the grimoire. It fell open at another place, where there also seemed to have been damage. 'There are other pages missing too, containing the enchantment that would allow her to take over your body completely.' She pursed her cherry-tinted lips. 'But I suspect she took that and hid it for her own use later. Although she needs to act quickly. Less than a hundred hours of the thousand still remain ... and she needs to act in that time, just as much as we do.'
'What do you mean?' Panic surged through Paula, but Rafe's hand on her arm steadied her.
'Yes, what do you mean? This is Paula's life we're talking about, not some abstract, Harry Potter concept.' He didn't shout, but his voice sounded deadly. The room's fraught atmosphere ramped up a notch. Paula glanced from side to side at the worried faces of her friends, then turned to find the silent but reassuring Oren at her side, offering coffee. She gave him a grateful smile and took it.
'The Thousand Hour limit cuts both ways.' Michiko waved away the cup that Oren offered her. 'If Isidora doesn't banish you from your own body and take it over as her own, she'll never be able to do it. And likewise, if we don't banish her from your body within the allotted time, we'll never get her out.' She fixed Paula with a not unsympathetic look. 'And if neither spell is cast, well, the two of you will be trapped in a turf war for the same mortal shell for the rest of your days. The only way you'll get rid of her is to die. You'll never get any peace from her and she'll only grow stronger. As well as angrier and angrier because she's trapped.'
Paula took a long sip of her coffee then set the cup down by her feet, trying to imagine a life where the bitch kept grabbing chunks of her consciousness. And doing God knows what. How could anyone live like that for any length of time?
'What if I just died anyway?'
'What do you mean, love? What are you talking about?' Rafe's voice was raw and anguished, and when she turned to him his eyes were filled with horror.
'I can't go on the way I am.'
'You can. I'll be with you. I can suppress her. Put her under whenever she appears.'
'It's a solution of sorts, but it's not ideal,' observed Michiko, drawing closer and sitting on the arm of the chesterfield.
'You shut the fuck up,' hissed Rafe to the sorceress. Grabbing Paula's hand, he folded it in his again. 'I'll always be here for you, love. Always.'
A great rush of emotion, of hope, surged up in Paula's heart. Yes, with Rafe at her side, she could do it. They'd fight the bitch together. She smiled at him, loving the dear, determined look in his face and in his eyes. Then suddenly the warm sensation of renewed hope died as quickly as it had been born.
'But Rafe ... what if...'
Realisation dawned in his face. Agony filled his fine brown eyes. Pain not for himself, she realised, but because he might not be around long to protect her. She surged forwards, enfolding him in her arms, oblivious of the watching eyes of the others.
'Just protect me as long as you can, sweetheart,' she whispered, her hand on his back, feeling the heat of his skin through his T-shirt. He felt so alive, it seemed impossible that in a year he might be gone. 'Then I'll take my chances.'
'What's going on, Paula, love?' asked Belinda, her voice suggesting somehow that she sensed the answer.
Paula drew back from Rafe, still looking into his face, but aware of the others in the room – even Oren and the two pretty girls, and Michiko's Hiro – hanging on her next words. Silently, she asked Rafe's permission to elucidate and he nodded sharply, his lips pursed.
A second later, it seemed he'd changed his mind. He'd tell the sorry tale himself.
'There's a strong possibility that I'll be dead within two years. It's likely I've got an inherited genetic disease. My father lost all his faculties and then died in agony when he was only two years older than I am now.'
His voice was flat, unemotional, but gasps of sympathy rippled around the room.
'I accept it now. Those are the breaks. It's not going to be fun, but I don't care about that. I'm only sorry that I'll not be here to help Paula fight her fight. That's my only concern.'
There was a moment of shocked silence, then Jonathan spoke up.
'I'm sorry, man. I had no idea. I wouldn't have gone for you if I'd known.'
The two men looked at each other. Eyes level, each gauging the other's reaction.
'No, you were right to,' answered Rafe, shrugging. 'I was tempted. I pu
t others at risk from that bitch. You should have kicked my arse.'
'Yeah, like you'd have let me.' Jonathan's voice was rueful, but he smiled and, after a moment, Rafe smiled back.
'But maybe Michiko can help Rafe?' suggested Belinda, leaning forwards. 'Do some magic to banish whatever it is that's wrong with him?'
They all looked towards the white sorceress.
'Alas, it's unlikely I can help. Hermetic magic is problematical in matters of genetics.' Her expression was complex, both exasperated and compassionate. 'The only way would be to cast a longevity spell similar to my own or Isidora's. But it might not work. You might end up living for centuries in the same condition your poor father endured in his last days. So whatever promises Isidora made to you, they are most likely empty.'
The mood in the room was suddenly sombre and horrified. Silence reigned again until Rafe seemed to lose patience and rose to his feet, striding to the fireplace and the place of precedence that Michiko had quit. Paula looked up at him, struck by the accidental resemblance between him and Count André, in the portrait behind him. She glanced quickly at the Japanese woman and saw her brow was puckered as if she too saw the likeness.
'So, assuming I'm not going to be around, what can be done for Paula?' Rafe demanded, cracking his knuckles as if to instigate creative thought. 'Is there another book somewhere? With the same spells?'
Suddenly, Paula remembered and felt like kicking herself. She reached into the deep front pocket of the soft hooded top she was wearing. The torn-out but undamaged pages she'd hidden under the mattress. Dragging out her prize, she held it out to Michiko.
'I found these in my pocket. I think she was going to hide them to use herself. I think it's the spell to banish me, not her.' She paused. 'I mean, she'd only burn the ones to banish her, wouldn't she?'
The Japanese woman scrutinised the yellowing pages.
'Correctly deduced, Paula, and we're lucky that she lost control again before she had the chance to do any more than tear these from the book.' She reached out and pressed her hand reassuringly on Paula's shoulder. 'The kami have smiled on us in this at least.'
Gothic Heat Page 17
