Mark of the Witch

by Maggie Shayne

  “Wow.”

  “You wouldn’t believe my surprise when I found out my sister was a witch.” He smiled when he said it. Like it was a term of endearment.

  “Or hers, I’ll bet, when she found out you were a priest.”

  He lowered his eyes. “You know, she never passed judgment. Never condemned me. I even started reading books on the Craft so I could understand her better. And she started sitting in on mass to learn more about me. He sighed, shaking his head slowly. “She’s not your average witch, Indy.”

  “And you’re not the average priest. Not even…the average man,” I whispered before I could stop myself.

  I love him.

  Shut up.

  He was staring at me as if I’d just revealed more than I ought to. Was my voice all raspy when I said that? Were my eyes all dreamy? I thought so. Was it possible all my casting and conjuring had finally paid off? My soul mate had finally shown up, only—surprise, surprise—it turns out he’s a priest. Not only that, but apparently, my sworn enemy and former murderer. Nice.

  If the Goddess is real, She’s a total bitch. Sorry. A total Bitch. Capital B. Out of respect. And why the hell am I feeling like crying again?

  “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be down in twenty minutes for that breakfast you promised me,” I told him. “French toast sounds perfect.”

  I left him there staring after me, and I took the journal with me when I went to take my shower.

  10

  I sat on the deck in the sunshine, my belly pleasantly full, embracing a warm coffee mug, watching Tomas flip pages in my journal, which I’d been discussing with him. I would never know if I could trust him or not unless I gave it a try. Besides, he knew things. He was the kind of man I had aspired to be with one day, back when I believed in gods and goddesses and magic. A spiritual man, deeply intelligent, curious, open-minded, apart from his rather blind devotion to Father Dom. And now that I knew how much the old man had been to him, I couldn’t even hold that against him, could I?

  Maybe I was starting to believe again. A little bit.

  He flipped another page and paused. “What’s this?”

  I reached for the book, turning it to face me. “Just a drawing of a tree. I keep seeing it in the dreams. Over and over. And it always feels…important. Like it means something. But so far, I don’t know what.”

  I studied the image of the gnarled old tree, but it didn’t mean anything more to me now than when I’d drawn it.

  “What kind of thoughts or feelings come to you when you see it?” he asked.

  I sighed, shaking my head. “Excitement. And fear. And a kind of…knowing, except I don’t know what it is I’m knowing.”

  He pulled the book back to him, staring down at the picture. “It looks kind of like an old man, doesn’t it?”

  “I thought that, too,” I said, glad he was seeing what I had. Maybe that meant I wasn’t completely insane. “There’s his head, that big knot near the top.” I pointed to the spot. “The swirls in the bark there look like wrinkles, and you can even pick out eyes.”

  “Yes, I see them. And that root almost looks like a crooked foot.”

  “Yeah. And this one limb is like an outstretched arm. Even has a finger at the end. That sharp twig. Like it’s pointing at something.”

  “What is he pointing at, Indy?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  He sighed. “It’s a good start. Keep doing this, keep drawing what you see, writing about those dreams. It’s bound to help.”

  “Oh, I will. I am. There are several other things that make me feel the same way the tree does. A boulder with writing on it. A medallion on a floor. A dark doorway underneath a statue. Oh! And a castle with spires. Look at it.” I flipped pages, showing him my drawings as I listed them, glad to have someone to share things with.

  Glad to have him to share it with was what I really meant. And I wanted to share a lot more with this man. I looked up then, caught him staring at me instead of the journal, and I could have sworn his eyes reflected the same senseless longing.

  And then I looked away, because what the hell else could I do? “I just wish I knew where all this was going to end up.”

  “Well, that much I can tell you, Indy. You’ll help me. The demon won’t be able to come through. Samhain will come and go, and the Portal will close. And the world will be safe for another three thousand years.” He touched my hand sending shivers up my spine. “If Father Dom is right about this, your dreams and flashbacks will go away, and you can get right back to living your life the way you want to.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “And what if he’s wrong?”

  He looked at me. “You know something you’re not telling me?”

  I wasn’t quite ready to admit to him that I had snuck a peek at another journal last night. Father Dom’s. But I did want to see his reaction to what I had learned—to test him a little, I guess. “Tomas, what if it turns out that I’m supposed to help the demon, not you and Dom?”

  He frowned, and looked away from me. “Dom would see that as validation of his own prejudice. To him, witches are all in league with demons.”

  “I guess.” I swallowed hard. He already knew all this, and he hadn’t told me. Why? I wondered. Why would he lie to me? I stared at him, willing him to open up and tell me the truth.

  Finally he tipped his head and said, “You know, even if you were on Team Demon in that past lifetime, it’s not like you still would be now. You’re a good witch. You would never want to help some demon take over the world.”

  I sighed, disappointed that he hadn’t revealed more. “I guess you’re right. I just can’t help wondering… If that’s true and Dom knows it but hasn’t said anything, then what else might he—or even both of you—be keeping from me? I don’t like being lied to.”

  “I don’t blame you.” He reached across the table, clasping my hand in both of his. “Keep listening to your dreams, Indy. I think they’re pointing the way, I really do.”

  “Something else has been niggling at me,” I said. “That tattoo. ‘Daughter of Ishtar.’ If we were harem slaves, it stands to reason the king would have had plenty of chances to see it. Wouldn’t it have given us away as witches?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Ishtar was one of the goddesses of the Babylonian pantheon. Today, only witches and Pagans worship her. But back then, everyone did.”

  I nodded. “I should have known that. I just didn’t think that—” I heard a car pull up out front. Our respite was over. And I regretted it to my toes.

  * * *

  Later that morning Tomas sat in Jon’s office, uncomfortably aware of Dom standing judgmentally off to the side, fighting to keep his own face impassive as Jon did his bit with the subway video. He’d asked Indira for it, but she’d claimed to have deleted it from her phone. Which had him worried. Because he hadn’t believed her. She’d seemed off this morning. All through breakfast. Quiet, watchful. He kept getting the feeling she was trying to see through his skull into his brain, trying to get him to tell her the things he hadn’t yet revealed. Because she was right—she was supposed to be helping the demon. At least according to the legend. But she couldn’t know that.

  Unless she’d remembered.

  No. She would have said so. Besides, she’d just learned that he had probably been the guy who’d pushed her off that cliff thirty-five-hundred years ago. He supposed that might have something to do with her wary demeanor.

  Fortunately Rayne had saved a copy of the video on her hard drive at home, then accessed it from her phone and emailed him a copy, which he had in turn emailed to Jon Yates.

  Jon was just as theatrical as ever, he thought. The guy could have just typed up the translation and sent him a copy. But no, it was considerably more dramatic to play a little bit of the video and then interpret Indy’s foreign words, and then play a little more. He had the giant monitor turned toward them so they could follow along, and he stood, as if he were the star of some a.m.
newscast, pacing as it played, then pausing it, and standing beside the screen to recite the lines in modern English.

  “As you can see, she’s just repeating the same phrase over and over again. ‘Where is the Portal?’” He leaned over and tapped the mouse, and Indy started moving again. She spun in a beautiful martial arts move, threw her hand out in a punch at the end of it, then spun back the other way and did it again, followed by a flip. She thrust both hands out as she landed. Each time she punched the air, men went flying, but it was obvious she never touched them. She was throwing them around with some unseen power.

  Then, just before the thugs ran off, she spun around to face the leader and shouted something else. Again Jon paused the recording.

  “Here she says, ‘Attacker of innocents! Just like the priest who killed us. Where is the Portal, damn you?’”

  He hit a button and the images ran forward. This time he let the video play out almost to the end, where she was panting in exhaustion. Everyone else had fled the scene except the man recording it, who had finally gotten around to asking Indy if she was okay. She lay on the concrete, looking at the thugs as they ran off, and she spat out a sentence with so much hatred that Tomas almost felt it burn. Jon paused the video and said, “‘I will find that priest. I will kill him.’”

  Tomas got to his feet. “That’s enough.”

  “There’s one more line. ‘Who can know the minds of the Underworld Gods?’ It’s right—” He was fast-forwarding as he spoke, but Tomas reached past him and stopped the playback.

  “Enough, it doesn’t mean anything.” And yet, he was remembering that she’d recited that same line when he’d shown her the video for the first time. So she knew what she’d been saying....

  “Considering that a hotel full of clergy got blown to hell and gone yesterday, Tomas, I beg to differ,” Jon said. “Was this woman out of your sight at all that day?”

  “No, she was not. And I don’t even see how that’s relevant, since the police have already arrested the bomber.”

  “A young man without so much as a speeding ticket—”

  “A mental patient,” Tomas inserted.

  “He was there for depression.”

  “I don’t care if he was there to quit smoking. He did it. There’s no doubt about that, is there?”

  Jon sighed. “The only question is whether he acted alone. The police can’t find a motive, and he claims not to know why, either. Kid’s back in the hospital and on suicide watch now.” He looked from Tomas to Dom and back again. “If you two know anything about this, or if your…friend is involved in any way—”

  “We don’t and she’s not,” Tomas interrupted.

  “Then why are you here in town? And why is she with you? And how the hell did she do all that stuff in the video. And—”

  Dom held up a hand for silence. He had stayed in the back of the room, saying not a single word the entire time. Tomas thought he was trying to let him take the lead, to make him feel as if he were the one in charge of the mission. But he knew that would only last until he disagreed with the old man.

  “Could you get anything else from the tape?” Father Dom asked.

  “Tape?”

  Dom waved a hand at the computer. “Pardon. Digital-whatever-it-is.”

  Sighing and, Tomas thought, finally seeing he would get no answers from them, Jon returned to the desk and hit the mouse. Tomas watched as, on the screen, Indy crawled into a corner and huddled there. Tears streaming, she moved her lips, but if she said anything, it was inaudible. He had totally missed that before.

  “What was that?” Father Dom asked.

  Jon held up a hand, clicked a few buttons. “Let me enhance the sound. I think I can get it.” The video playback screen was reduced to a small box in the corner, and an audio box came up. As Jon clicked the Play arrow, vertical lines appeared, spiking and dipping as Indy’s voice rose and fell.

  Jon looked at the other men. “‘Where is my beloved? How much longer must I wait to feel his touch again?’”

  Tomas closed his eyes. God, could she be talking about him? The man who’d pushed her from the cliff all those lifetimes ago? And yet hadn’t she just promised to kill him if she found him? It made no sense.

  Despite that threat, the anguish in her voice, in her face, as she expressed her longing for his return was real. And heartbreaking.

  And it got to him.

  When he opened his eyes again, Father Dom was shaking Jon’s hand. “Thank you. We’ll be in touch if we get any more…anything.” He glanced at Tomas, and his eyes said, I told you so.

  As they walked across the beautiful campus, far from the area that was still barricaded with crime scene tape, and crawling with investigators and journalists, Dom put a heavy hand on Tomas’s shoulder. “At least now you have no doubt whose side she’s on. Do you?”

  “She didn’t know what she was saying.”

  “Part of her did, son. The part of her that lived then.”

  “But that’s not who she is now. No more than I am the same man who pushed her from that cliff three thousand years ago.”

  “But you are that man. And just as you did what you had to do then—what God demanded you do then—you will do what He demands of you now.”

  Tomas stopped walking and lifted his eyes to meet those of his mentor. “Did you know, when you chose me for this task, about my past-life involvement in all this?”

  “No, Tomas. I didn’t know. I chose you because God told me to choose you. He led me to you. He knew. He knows all.”

  Tomas’s heart twisted into a knot of pain. “I want to remember.”

  “What?”

  “I want to remember that past lifetime. I want to know what I knew then, to understand what brought me to the decision I made.” He didn’t know if he could bear it, but he knew he was on the right track. “I need to know, Dom. Is there a way?”

  Dom’s expression was like a door slamming. “No, Tomas. The past is gone. Only the future remains, and that’s where you need to keep your focus. On the future. And your part in ensuring that there is one.” He sighed, then strode onward. “We’re going to have to come back here. We can’t let your friend Jon keep any of his notes, much less that video. We should have taken it with us today.”

  “He won’t share it. I’ve already told him to keep this between us.”

  “And you trust him to do that? With something this explosive?”

  “I do,” Tomas said.

  Dom lowered his head. “Then you’re a fool. Come on. I think it would be a good idea for us to have a talk with that bomb-making mental patient, don’t you?”

  * * *

  I recounted the entire breakfast discussion to Rayne, only I told her the truth about having had a look at Dom’s journal, and what it had to say about me being on the demon’s side and having to find some kind of amulet Past Me had hidden in the astral plane in order to set him free.

  I told her, too, while letting her flip through my journal, that I thought Tomas knew all that and was keeping it from me. And she insisted that if that were true, he must have a damn good reason. But I knew she loved her brother. She wasn’t exactly unbiased here.

  And yet I wanted so much to believe in him, too.

  Heaving a heavy sigh, I said, “I need to stop thinking about this for a while.” I took my journal from her and closed the cover.

  She smiled and jumped to her feet, not even seeming regretful at the change of subject, and I felt an immense surge of relief and gratitude for that. “I have just the thing to perk you up. How about we take a gorgeous, refreshing walk to the lake?”

  My head came up. “That sounds really good right now.”

  “Oh, it will be. Better put your journal away first. Tomas wouldn’t snoop, but that Father Dom—”

  “Is a total asshole.”

  She laughed softly. “Bring your phone. You’re going to want to take pictures of this.”

  “Okay.” I clutched the journal close, and jogged back in
side and up the stairs to tuck it away beneath my mattress. Then I rejoined Rayne, who was by then in the kitchen sticking a note to the fridge with a hawk-shaped magnet. The note told the others where we’d gone, in case they returned before we did. She had filled two water bottles, which were now dangling from her shoulder on long straps. “Ready?”

  “Is it far?” I asked with a nod at the water as I took one bottle from her.

  “The direct route isn’t. But there’s a more meandering path through the woods with a waterfall on the way. You’ll love it. We’ll bask in the sunshine and what’s left of the autumn leaves, and have nature all around us. Not a word about demons or amulets the entire trip, I promise. Perfect, right?”

  “If I had a smoke it would be,” I said.

  I almost jumped up and down at the look that crossed Rayne’s face then. Her brows went up high, then she quickly lowered them again, avoiding my eyes.

  “Rayne?” I said in a slightly menacing tone.

  She sighed. “Oh, all right. I suppose you’ve earned it.” She pulled a stool away from the breakfast bar and climbed up to reach on top of the kitchen cabinets, coming down with a pack of cigarettes—menthol, too. She took one out and tossed it at me.

  I caught it, feeling better by the minute, and rummaged in the drawers until I found a lighter. “You do know your brother well.”

  “That I do. He keeps telling me he’s quit. But he always has a stash.” She replaced the pack, got down and put the stool back where it belonged. And then we headed out for a leisurely, blissful morning hike.

  At least, that was what we intended it to be.

  11

  Tomas stood outside Marty Swenson’s room at Tompkins County Mental Health, looking at the nineteen-year-old through the slightly open door. His stomach knotted with pity for the poor kid. He looked haggard, obviously laboring under the influence of whatever anti-psychotics had been pumped into him. His eyes were circled in more rings than Saturn, puffy, and so blue they looked bruised. The whites were bloodshot and dry. He was in restraints, though he didn’t seem to notice. He just lay there, very still, staring at the ceiling, no expression in his lifeless gray eyes.