Blood of the Sorceress

by Maggie Shayne

  There was a flicker in Demetrius’s mind. He saw himself and this woman entwined amid sheer draping fabrics, naked among satin pillows. The feelings were so intense that they hurt.

  He pushed them away.

  “We split your soul among us, my sisters and I. Indira, whose lover you tried to kill, returned the first part to you, and with it the amulet that had been its home during the time in between. And the power it contains.” She nodded at the pendant he wore around his neck as she spoke. “She did so at the moment of Samhain, on a night when the stars were aligned precisely as they had been at the beginning. And her brave act set you free from the Underworld. Then Magdalena, whose child you tried to steal, used the chalice and the blade to return the second part of your soul to you, and those tools and their powers with it. Her act was at Imbolc, the precise moment halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, and that act restored your body.”

  She lowered her eyes. “We did take your powers, you see, with your soul. But only to keep them safe until we could set you free and return them to you. And now you’ve returned.”

  “It was as if I just suddenly existed,” he said softly, remembering. “It was freezing cold, and I was naked in the snow, shivering, and yet delighted that I could feel the cold. That I was...truly alive again.”

  “I know. I guided you to the empty house you found. I influenced the minds of the couple who lived there to go away and spend the weekend with their daughter. I ensured that they forgot to lock the door. I needed you to be safe. To be warm. To find your way.”

  “And the bus ticket?” he asked. “My trip to the city where I joined the ranks of the homeless? Were you behind that, as well?”

  “No.”

  He sighed, nodded. He didn’t suppose he could regret even that part of this wild journey, because it was there he had met Gus. And he loved the man like a brother.

  “I have the third and final piece of your soul, Demetrius.”

  He blinked, deciding he needed to hear the rest, and downed his juice. Then he took her glass and his own and, turning his back to her, placed them in the small sink. “Is it ensconced in yet another magical tool? A wand, perhaps, or a crystal of some sort?”

  “It’s in my heart, Demetrius. I hold it in my heart, where it has always lived.”

  He felt his back stiffen and couldn’t quite turn to face her, so he rinsed the glasses instead. She was getting to him. This was all too much. He had to keep a distance, however small, between them. So he parted the curtains on the windows behind the little sink and looked out over his miniature kingdom, or pretended to. In truth he saw nothing. Nothing but her. Even with his back to her, he could see her face. Those huge blue eyes, like sapphires glittering at him. Round and innocent. Too easy to believe.

  “And what power will this final piece of my soul return to me, witch?” He wondered if she would tell him the truth. It would be a good test, wouldn’t it? To see whether she would admit to him that he would lose his powers if he accepted this prize she offered?

  She came around the breakfast bar to stand very close behind him. He could feel her warm breath on his back, between his shoulder blades, and he shivered in a way he had seldom, if ever, shivered at the pleasure of any sensation. “This piece of your soul will restore your humanity. Your ability to feel the full range of human emotions. Your ability to live your life as it was meant to be lived, to relish the fullness of all your senses, to know absolute, exquisite pleasure and, yes, pain, too.”

  “I already have all of this,” he said. “The use of the senses comes with the body.”

  “No. It comes with the soul. You see, but you don’t bask in beauty. It’s as if you see things through a filter that dulls everything. You can smell the cactus blossoms with your nose, but the scent doesn’t make your heart sing. You hear, but you don’t thrill to the sound of music or birdsong. You hear it with your ears, not your soul.”

  As she spoke she moved closer to him, and he felt trapped. He couldn’t turn to face her without those eyes piercing his very core, but he couldn’t move away without making it obvious that he was trying to escape her.

  “You can taste food, but you don’t savor the burst of flavors on your tongue. You can feel the touch of a lover...” She slid her palms slowly up his back, and he closed his eyes. Then she took her hands away again, far too soon, and it was literally painful. “But not the ecstasy of release.”

  He nodded slowly, wondering why he had felt a hint of that ecstasy at her touch, when he had never felt it with any other woman. Wiping the combination of surprise and horror from his face, he attempted a stern and distant expression, as if he’d been unmoved by her touch, as he asked, “And the price?”

  He turned then, facing her, needing to look her in the eye now that he’d schooled his own expression to reveal nothing. “I was told there was a price, a terrible price, for this gift you offer.”

  Her round blue eyes, swimming now with tears, held his, and she nodded once, then blinked and lowered her head, breaking the spell those glittering sapphires cast over him. “Your immortality, the way you heal more rapidly than others. Your powers, the ones that came to you with the magical tools, the chalice, the blade, the amulet. You would return to being...an ordinary man again. At least, as ordinary as you ever were.”

  He tilted his head, smiling a little bit, then paced away from her across the tiny kitchen. “So now we come to crux of it, don’t we? You have come here to offer me the ability to feel pain—”

  “And pleasure and so much more—”

  “—in exchange for giving up endless life, and the power to acquire anything I want, such as this very beauty you see around you.” He waved an arm to encompass his mansion. “Where would my powers go then, witch. To you and your sisters? And what would I do then? Return to the alley with Gus?”

  “Of course not. I’m here now. I would help you, and my sisters would, as well.”

  “Those same sisters I so wronged? The mother of the child I intended to use—”

  “That was not you.” She shook her head in denial. “Besides, you were going to stop yourself at the last minute.”

  “Was I?”

  “Yes! Yes, but you didn’t have to. Ryan and Lena figured out what to do and...”

  Her voice trailed off as he laughed softly, looking at his feet and shaking his head. “I can’t believe he was so sure that this was going to be a difficult offer for me to refuse.”

  “He?”

  “I don’t have to consider this long, pretty witch. And you are a very pretty witch. But my choice is clear. My answer is—”

  “No,” she said.

  He’d paced away, turned and was moving back to her now. “Very good. You guessed it before I even said it.”

  “The answer will be yes,” she told him with certainty. “I meant no, you don’t have to make your decision now. We have time.”

  “I don’t need time.”

  “Of course you do. If you didn’t, I would have come to you sooner. First I had to give you time to embrace what you have. Now you have to give me time to show you what your life could be. To convince you that being human is worth far more than these so-called powers of yours.”

  “So-called?”

  She shrugged, turning and walking a few steps away from him. “We’re all immortal. We all have the ability to create what we desire. Not in a blinding flash from a blade in a chalice, but still...”

  “I don’t want time, and I don’t need time, and do not have to give you time. I like my life just the way it is. And immortality certainly beats the alternative.”

  “The alternative is heaven, bliss, wholeness, oneness.”

  “Bullshit.” Another expression he’d picked up from Gus. “I’ve seen the alternative, and I’m not going back there.” He marched closer to her, gripped her shoulders and gazed down into her eyes so that could see how deadly serious he was about what he was saying. “Not ever, witch. Make no mistake.”

  She
was trembling. He felt it beneath his hands, and felt cruel for causing it. He eased his grip but did not let go.

  “You’ll change your mind,” she said, the brave words emerging in a determined whisper as she stared up into his angry eyes.

  “No, I won’t. And I’m not going to let you stay here to try to bewitch me into it, either. I’ve heard your offer. I’ve made my decision.” He’d done it, he thought, silently congratulating himself even while wondering if he had lost his mind. He must have, to say the words he spoke next. “And now I want you to go.”

  “Demetrius, please, I—”

  “Go.” He released her shoulders and pointed at the door through which she’d entered, which led downstairs to the second story and the rest of the sprawling mansion.

  She held his eyes. Hers seemed stunned. And then they changed. Her face went from wary and wounded to angry in the time it took him to fling his pointed finger toward the exit again for emphasis. And then she moved as fast as a cobra striking. Ducking beneath his raised arm, she yanked his precious dagger from the sheath at his hip and sliced the air twice.

  Only it wasn’t the air.

  It was his palm and her palm, and then she smashed the two together, closing her hand around his with a grip that was amazingly strong. “By soul and body, blood and bone, nevermore to walk alone!”

  His palm burned. It literally sizzled, and a tendril of smoke rose from their pressed hands. He jerked his free and, holding his wrist with his free hand, sucked air through his teeth.

  The witch held her own smoldering palm upright, blowing on the blackened center, and he watched as it began to heal. Quickly he turned his own palm up and gazed at it as it magically did the same. Ah, so she shared the ability to heal rapidly. What else? he wondered. What other powers did this beautiful witch possess? And what spell had she cast?

  “What the hell did you just do?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. I didn’t restore your soul, Demetrius. I can’t do that until you want it, until you ask for it. I can’t work against your will. This,” she said, turning her palm toward him, “was just a little binding spell. From now on, where you go, I go. There’s an invisible bond between us, pulling us together like a rubber band. Your soul was already doing that, calling the piece I hold back to the ones you possess, to unite them again. But the connection is even stronger now. You can’t get rid of me, my love.”

  “Not ever?” he asked, not even thinking to doubt that what she said was true.

  “Not until this is finished, one way or the other.” She tilted her head. “You haven’t said my name. Not once since I’ve been here. Do you even know what it is?”

  Feeling petulant, he lowered his eyes.

  “Say my name, love. Say my name.”

  She made the words a little song, gave them a melody, and before he knew what he was doing, he met her eyes and whispered, “Lilia.”

  Her smile was wide and as blinding as a sudden spotlight appearing in a darkened room. “You do remember.”

  “This isn’t fair, what you’ve done. Binding us together like this.”

  “Love did that long ago.”

  “Still, you said I had the freedom to make this choice. Now you’re using magic to—”

  “I can’t work against your will, Demetrius,” she said, moving closer, lifting a hand to his face and sliding it upward so her impossibly soft palm rasped over his whiskers. “That binding spell wouldn’t work unless some part of you, no matter how small, or how deeply buried, wanted it to. Magic cannot work on the unwilling.”

  She shrugged and turned toward the stair door. “I left my things down in that cozy living room off the foyer. I’ll go get them. Should I pick any bedroom I like? Or do you have a preference?”

  He blinked at her, wondering how a tiny thing like her had wrested control of this entire situation away from him. He said nothing, and she beamed back at him.

  “It’s going to be all right, Demetrius. I know it seems impossible now, but it truly is.” Then her smile widened and tears brimmed again. “Goddess, it’s so good to see you again.” She closed her eyes, exhaled hard, then hurried out of his suite.

  And even before she reached the bottom of the stairs, he knew her spell had worked, because he felt it: that rubber band stretching out between them, pulling at him.

  Dammit, no wonder the old priest had told him this was going to be difficult. It already was, far more difficult than he had ever expected it to be.

  * * *

  There was evil in this place. Lilia continued to sense it, almost smell it. She was going to have to find the source and eliminate it before she could hope to get through to Demetrius. Someone had poisoned his mind against her, someone who did not want her to succeed. And she had a feeling it was that same someone whose presence reeked so virulently. The man Demetrius had mentioned, then refused to identify.

  The notion of Tomas’s former mentor, Father Dom, whispered through her mind, but no. That made no sense. He was only just out of a coma, and that only days ago. He couldn’t have made such a long journey alone, and might not even remember the circumstances surrounding his accident, his past.

  But who else could it be? Who would want to thwart her efforts?

  She stopped at the first door she came to after reaching the second floor, because it was the bedroom closest to Demetrius. She’d wanted to stay on the same floor he was on, but his suite took up the entire floor and she didn’t think she would have much luck talking—or even enchanting—him into that. Not today, at least. She would just have to work on that tomorrow.

  For now, she needed to settle in and take some time to celebrate how far she’d managed to come. She was here, in his house, and she’d cast the binding spell. He remembered her name. It was a good start.

  Pushing open the bedroom door, she saw that it was apparently vacant, done in pale blue, with vivid white window casings and closet doors.

  The carpet was white, too, and the bedspread a deep sapphire that looked as shiny as satin. There was a tiny balcony beyond French doors she had at first mistaken for tall windows. It was just big enough for the small, round wrought-iron table and two chairs that occupied it.

  Sighing in absolute pleasure, she slipped off her shoes and stepped inside, her feet sinking into the pristine carpet. “Oh, this is paradise,” she whispered. And then she passed the white dresser and the matching white bed and nightstands into the bathroom. It was a beautiful room, all porcelain and stainless steel, very modern, with an oversize Jacuzzi and a shower with three heads.

  “Angel?” Gus called from the hallway.

  She came out of the bathroom and saw him peeking in at her. “It’s Lilia.”

  “Still look like an angel to me,” he said. “I got worried when I couldn’t find you.”

  “I’m so sorry I worried you, Gus. I found Demetrius, and I just couldn’t wait to see him again. It’s been...a very long time.”

  He smiled, nodding as if he understood perfectly. “So how did it go?”

  She tilted her head. “I think it went well. He didn’t send me packing, at least.”

  His eyes crinkled in delight. “So you’re staying, then?”

  “Yes, right here in this room, if it’s okay with everyone.”

  “It’s the room I’d have picked for you. The colors suit you, and it’s as beautiful as you are.”

  She had to lower her head, because her cheeks were heating. “Thank you, Gus.”

  “I brought your bag,” he said, setting it just inside the door. He hadn’t yet crossed the threshold, maybe old-fashioned enough to think it wasn’t appropriate for a man to be inside a woman’s bedroom unless they were intimate. “I was hoping he’d let you stay.”

  “And he did. We both got our wish.”

  He extended an elbow her way. “Would you like the grand tour now?”

  “Absolutely,” she told him, as, stepping into the hallway, she hooked her arm through his. He patted her hand, gazed at her adoringl
y, and something familiar lit and then vanished in his eyes, like a lightning bug on a hot July night.

  * * *

  Hours later Lilia was back in her room, exhausted and ready for a solid night’s sleep. Being human had its downfalls, though she thought her state had more to do with emotional turmoil than physical exertion. The long trip out here, worrying all the way, the fear that he would reject her, send her away before she could even make her case. The excitement of seeing him again, touching him again. Oh, she wanted so much more of that touching.

  She had showered after her tour of the mansion and grounds, then changed into a soft white linen night shift that Selma had chosen for her. Everything she owned had been a gift.

  “Just like life itself. It’s a gift, too,” she said as she clambered onto the huge bed. The mattress topper was a foot thick and down-filled, and she sank into it like sinking into a cloud.

  She was holding the ancient treasure chest that had survived these past thirty-five-hundred years along with her and her sisters. She’d brought it with her, the witches’ box that had been kept down through the centuries. Before their deaths so long ago, Indira had entrusted it to the little girl who’d been their servant in the harem. Slave girl to the slave girls, she’d called herself, and proudly. Her name had been Amarrah.

  Under the unseen guidance of Lilia’s own spirit, Amarrah had seen to the box’s safety, which had been left in the possession of generations upon generations of her own descendants, until Indira had managed to locate it again. It had an enchanted lock that only the three sisters could open.

  Indy thought she’d read all of the scrolls. But Lilia knew better. She’d only seen what she had needed to see to get her through her part of this journey, to complete her sacred mission, to set Demetrius free.

  Now the scrolls would reveal more. They would tell Lilia what she herself needed to know. The chest’s black iron padlock had no keyhole, serving only as a distraction. Lilia turned the box over and looked at the bottom, where there was a brightly painted grid with symbols of the Tarot painted in the boxes.

  To open the box, she needed to touch the squares in the right order.