“Oh, well then, let me help.”
He heard the soft brush of fabric on skin and realized what she was doing too late to stop himself from turning around. She dropped the nightgown she had peeled over her head and stood there absolutely nude. His knees went liquid, and it felt as if a giant hollow had opened up in his belly.
* * *
He’d lost the power of speech. That was a good thing, Lilia thought. At least she hoped it was. She stood there naked and not a bit embarrassed, because he’d seen her naked a thousand times before. Not in this body, of course.
But if being formless for more than three thousand years had taught her anything, it was that the body was just an outfit one chose to wear. That it was the spirit that was the real self. Revealing the skin and bones she’d donned to walk this world in was no different than revealing the car she might choose to drive, the house she might choose to live in, the clothes she might decide to wear. It was meaningless, really. A reflection of the spirit it contained.
That thought made her frown and wonder if the change in her appearance might indicate some kind of change in her soul. Maybe her old body no longer reflected who she now was. Otherwise, why would this new one look so different? Maybe she really had changed and grown during her time in limbo, watching, waiting, longing for him. Aching for him. Loving him, even when he’d been a monster.
She’d experienced the height of loneliness. She’d been forced to learn to exercise seemingly endless patience. She’d been steadily attentive, watching over her sisters, guiding them, prodding them when necessary, protecting them always. And she’d been watching over him, too, frustrated at her inability to help him.
But right now she was wondering about something far more earthly and vain.
“Do you like it?” she asked Demetrius, looking up at him, watching as his gaze moved down the new body that was becoming familiar to her. She tried to see it through his eyes. It was small and slight, and the breasts seemed to her to be a bit too large in proportion to the rest of it. “It’s not the same one I had before. But I think I like it. I’m growing very comfortable in it.”
She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and turned in a slow circle in front of him, craning her neck to look at the back of her body in the mirror, glimpsing the tattoo that had somehow survived her transition, the Babylonian cuneiform symbols for Daughter of Ishtar on her lower back, as they had been before.
When she’d completed her circle, he was still staring, his mouth slightly open, though he snapped it shut when his eyes finally met hers again after their long and heated perusal.
“Did you like the old one better?”
“I don’t—” His voice was so hoarse he sounded like a crow. He cleared his throat, started again. “I don’t know. I don’t remember the old one.”
“Oh.” She lowered her eyelids halfway, so he wouldn’t see her disappointment. She’d been fishing for a compliment, and he hadn’t even nibbled at the bait.
Then he went on. “I don’t see how it could have been any more pleasing than this one, though.”
Her eyes opened wide, and she flashed him a big smile that could not be contained. She clapped her hands together in staccato applause. “You do like it! I’m so glad. I mean, it’s shallow of me, but it means a lot to me to know that you like the way I look.” He didn’t respond, perhaps didn’t even hear her. She stilled her giddiness and realized that he had gone somewhere—a mental journey, not a physical one. “Demetrius?”
Blinking twice, giving his head a brisk shake, he quickly picked up the nightgown and pressed it to her chest, carefully avoiding touching her breasts. “I can’t think straight with you standing there naked like this. Please put it back on.”
She was fairly certain that was a compliment, too. “Are you sure? I was hoping we could...you know...”
“No.” He turned away from her. “No, we definitely aren’t going to you know.”
“But it might trigger your memory.” She pulled the nightgown on again then padded toward him and slid her palms up his back, wishing his robe would vaporize. “Demetrius, if you could remember what we were to each other you would never believe I was out to trick you or steal anything from you.”
“It would cloud my judgment. If I’m to make a rational decision, I cannot allow sex to interfere with my reasoning. Can I?”
“It wouldn’t be sex. It would be lovemaking.” She leaned closer, resting her cheek on his back. “Oh, Demetrius, it was so good between us. We swore no two people had ever loved the way we did, and we knew they never would. It was...it was something...something beyond love. It was something...”
“Something like a spell?”
She shoved him, and he stumbled two steps before stopping. “You’re cruel! How can you be so heartless to the woman you once swore you would die for?”
“If you’re innocent, then I’m sorry.”
“That’s what the priest said before he threw me from a cliff to my death,” she said, then turned and stomped across the room, flung open the door and took a step toward the stairs.
He caught her elbow before she took a second step. “What do you mean, priest? What priest?” he demanded.
She swung her head around, let him see the tears on her cheeks and the anger in her eyes. He needed to see them. Didn’t he realize what she’d done for him? She’d given up heaven, given up crossing over into the afterlife. She’d served three thousand years, plus five hundred more, in limbo. All for him. Didn’t he understand that?
No, she realized. He didn’t.
“Tell me, who is this priest you spoke of?”
Lilia tried to contain her anger. For someone who’d learned patience over such a long time, she was certainly being impatient with him now. “The most evil bastard who ever lived. Sindar. High Priest of the Temple of Marduk in Babylon. A fat pig with kohl-lined eyes and berry-stained lips. He was in love with the King. We all knew it. That’s why he took such horrible vengeance on me for betraying him. And on you for killing him.”
“What was his vengeance on me?” he asked.
“Why are you asking me that when you know the answer perfectly well? He took your soul, Demetrius, and then imprisoned what remained of you in a dark Underworld void, all alone.” She closed her eyes slowly, swallowed. “It was supposed to be for eternity.”
He was searching her eyes with an intensity that was almost palpable, watching every expression that crossed her face. “And why should I believe you? I have already told you,” he said slowly, “that I have it on very good authority that it was you and your sisters who were responsible for that.”
“In a way, I suppose that’s true. We were responsible. I was, at least. Your rage against the King was because you loved me beyond endurance. He sentenced me to death, and you had to defend me. Your heart gave you no choice. He was your friend, Demetrius, but your love for me was so powerful that you killed him to protect me. Just as I would have done for you. Only in that was I to blame.”
He stared at her in silence, and she knew he was looking for signs of dishonesty, trying to spot the lie in her eyes. Insulted, she tugged her arm free. “You don’t believe me. But it doesn’t matter, Demetrius. You’ll know the truth when you remember your past—our shared past.”
“And how do I go about getting those memories back? By having sex with you? Giving you the chance to use your powers to plant memories in my mind that aren’t real?”
She grabbed his shoulders, held him hard, digging her nails into his flesh as her eyes blazed into his. “What we had was the most real thing there ever was. The most real thing you’ve ever known. You’ll see that, once you remember.” Then she took her hands away and turned, looking at her own bare feet beneath the hem of her nightgown. “Your memory will return to you with the final piece of your soul. But since you won’t let me restore it, I guess we’re at an impasse.”
“I would get back the memories, yes. And lose my powers. My immortality.” He looked around the room. “Al
l of this.”
“Powers?” She faced him again, tired of his arguments. “What good are they, anyway? You have a blade that shoots bolts of energy.” She shoved his chest, so he stumbled backward as she advanced on him furiously. “Who cares? You could buy a gun that would do worse. You have a cup that allows you to see the future. So what?” She shrugged. “Anyone can learn to the see the future—in a cup, in a candle’s flame, in the ripples of a stone cast on the water. My sister Magdalena was doing it long before that cup came into her possession. Witches have been doing it since the dawn of time.”
She stopped, slightly out of breath and completely caught up in the white-water current of her emotions.
“Perhaps all of that is true. But the fact remains. I am immortal.”
“So is every being on this planet. Haven’t I proven that to you by returning to you after all this time? Haven’t my sisters proven it by finding the very same lovers they lost to Sindar’s rage and reuniting with them again? Lena was pregnant when we were shoved off that cliff. And now, today, even her baby has returned to her. There is no end, Demetrius. Death as humans perceive it is the biggest lie ever told. It simply doesn’t exist.”
He nodded slowly, then turned, paced across his bedroom and came back to her again. “I can manifest my desires by using the chalice and the blade. That’s how I got this mansion and all the money that goes with it.”
“So can everyone else. And they don’t even need any special tools.”
“Now I know you’re lying. People suffer all the time. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t have to.”
“The only thing that causes suffering is a person’s focus on unhappiness. Expectation of suffering. Belief in suffering. The only thing preventing every living human from having everything their heart desires is that they don’t believe they can. They’re too busy ‘facing reality,’ not realizing that their attention to the things they don’t want is the glue that keeps those things stuck in their experience.”
She moved closer and put her hand calmingly on his upper arm, feeling the muscles flex beneath her touch. “Life isn’t what we think it is, Demetrius. It’s truly what we make of it.”
His lips twitched a little at the outer corners. She was getting to him; she knew it.
“And what about all this? The riches? The mansion?”
She shrugged. “If you decide it’s what you want, you’ll find a way to keep it. But do you really think it’s important, Demetrius? If I were in your arms I could be happier in a tent, or in that alley where I found you, than I could ever be in a golden palace without you.”
He blinked rapidly, turning quickly away, and just kept walking, all the way into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. She went after him, gripping the knob just in time to hear the lock turn. “As if that can keep me out,” she called. “Demetrius, please, you have to listen to me.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t.” Then sound of the shower running came through the door, and she lowered her forehead to the cool wood in defeat.
Who was poisoning his mind against her? It was going to be a hard enough task convincing him to give up all his powers and possessions, which were the only things he thought he had, without some stranger filling his head with lies. Who would want to do that? Who would want to see her fail? See him die? Besides, they would be in bliss, and together—as long as she didn’t die first and take his soul with her. Maybe her enemy was ignorant of that. Maybe it was someone who still believed that death was an ending and wanted to see her life over with.
She returned to her own room, showered and dressed in a sundress of white muslin with embroidered daisies all over it. Sundresses made up the bulk of her wardrobe, all of them white or a pastel hue. Her sisters kept telling her she would need jeans, sweaters, heavier footwear, by the time winter came, but she couldn’t see spending their money on those things when she might very well be dead by the first snowfall.
She swept her hair to one side, using tortoiseshell combs to hold it there. Stepping into a pair of white sandals, she silently thanked her stars for Selma’s love of shopping and Indira’s sense of style. Though Indy had balked at Lilia’s tunnel vision when it came to choosing clothes, she’d helped her find matching shoes and bags so she would look her best.
When she finished dressing, she went downstairs in search of something to eat. Often, when she felt that odd gnawing pang in her stomach, it took her a minute to process it in her mind as a sign of hunger. Feeding her body was not something she’d had to worry about on the other side.
As she passed through the massive great room with its deep-hued, rich wood floor, the walls all swirls and knots of gleaming fox-red and dark cherry, she glimpsed Gus sitting outside with a young man with red curls and seaweed-green eyes. She hadn’t met him before. They were on one of the countless patios, sitting at an umbrella-shaded table that was loaded down with food.
Gus glanced up and met her eyes, then flashed her an adoring smile that made her feel a little guilty about enchanting him the way she had at the front gate when she’d first met him. But it had been necessary. Her sisters were not with her. She needed allies.
He waved a hand to beckon her, and she smiled back at him and started forward. She noticed the younger man looking at her with a hint of suspicion, a touch of wariness. She looked him right in the eyes and read him instantly. Devoted to Demetrius, half in love with him, uberprotective and loyal to a fault.
Good. So was she.
You love me on sight, friend to be, she sang softly. You see the light that shines from me. Her voice dropped to the deep, mesmerizing tone she thought of as her magical voice, and the tune that came to her naturally was a slow, haunting one. Help me do what’s right, friend to be. We’ll save him together, you and me.
She watched his dark green eyes change, pupils expanding. His freckled face relaxed, and he smiled a warm welcome as she made her way onto the patio.
Gus got up and pulled out a chair for her. “See, Sid? I told you the D-man let her stay.”
“I didn’t give him much of a choice, to be perfectly honest,” she said, sinking into the seat, beaming at the other man. “I haven’t met you before. I’m Lilia.”
“Sidney,” he said, “But everyone calls me Sid.” He clasped her hand in his cool, very tenuous grip for a fraction of a beat. “I’m Demetrius’s driver and all-around gofer.”
“Oh, you’re more than that. Demetrius thinks the world of you.”
Sid’s smile went up a notch. He handed her a plate. “Please help yourself. We always breakfast out here, and the cook always makes enough for any guests who might stop by.”
“You do seem to have a lot of them.” She accepted the plate, and helped herself to some luscious-looking blueberry muffins and fresh melon and pineapple wedges as she looked toward the grotto, the pool and fountain, and the gardens where she’d seen so many frolicking females the day before. “Though there are none here now.”
“The women who come around here are not exactly...early risers,” Sid said. His voice held a touch of disapproval.
She was glad. “I don’t like them, either.”
His brows rose in surprise. “Am I that obvious?”
She beamed at him. “I know a kindred spirit when I see one,” she said, and his cheeks went pink with pleasure. Then she turned to the man who was his opposite in almost every way. “You like them, though, Gus, yes?”
“What’s not to like?” Gus asked, sounding a little defensive. “Gorgeous females, half-dressed, giggling and splashing and paying me all sorts of attention.”
“Hmm. I wonder.”
“What do you wonder, Lilia?” Gus asked, hanging on her every word.
“Well, it’s probably not my place to say. But I do wonder, if you were still in that alley, hungry and dirty, maybe sick or injured and bleeding on the pavement, do you think any one of those giggling, half-dressed females, should she happen to be walking past, would stop to offer you aid?”
He blink
ed at her, mischief in his pale gray eyes. “I didn’t say they were nice.”
“You asked what’s not to like. I’m just telling you.”
“She’s right,” Sid said, as he got up to angle the umbrella to shade her face from the sun. “None of those bimbos would give you the time of day if not for the mansion, the pool, the free food and drinks, and the notion that they might get to meet the big guy by hanging around here.”
Gus shrugged, pushed out his lower lip in a petulant pout and pretended great interest in his breakfast wrap.
“How long have you known Demetrius?” Sid asked her, filling a coffee cup from a silver pot.
“It seems like forever. We were so in love once. So in love.” She closed her eyes, remembering his passionate kisses and heart-wrenching declarations of undying devotion. “But we were torn apart by...outside forces. Evil ones. And now he doesn’t really remember me.”
“Really.” Sid bent close, and he was clearly curious. “I don’t understand that. How can he not remember?”
She shrugged and sipped the coffee he offered her, not knowing how to answer that question and deciding it was better not to answer it at all. “And what’s worse,” she went on, “someone’s been telling him things about our history that simply aren’t true. Trying to turn him against me. And I’m afraid it might be working.”
Gus smacked his wrap down on his plate so hard a green pepper popped out of it. “Who?” he demanded. “Just tell me who it is and I’ll put a stop to that nonsense right here and now, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Easy, Gus.” But Sid looked just as angry. “Why would anyone want to keep you apart?”
“Yeah, and why would D-dog be dumb enough to believe ’em? I mean, just one look at you ought to tell him you wouldn’t lie. You couldn’t lie.”
She lowered her head, wondering if she’d done too thorough a job of making the men adore her. “I don’t know why he’s choosing to believe this person. Much less why anyone would want to mislead him that way. If I knew who was doing it, I might be able to figure out why. But I don’t know. I have a feeling it was someone he’s seen recently, though. And I keep getting the feeling there’s...someone else in the house. Someone whose only goal is to hurt me and hurt Demetrius.”
Blood of the Sorceress Page 12
