Blood of the Sorceress

by Maggie Shayne

  “Lena!”

  Demetrius sent Lilia a quelling look that seemed to say Let her be, as Magdalena pummeled his chest, driving him backward across the porch. He let her keep hitting him until she’d spent herself, and then he put his hands on her shoulders and held her gently. Lilia saw his lips moving, knew he was whispering something, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  Then Ryan was there, pulling Lena gently away. Before she let him take her back inside she lifted her head, looked Demetrius in the eyes. “It’s you he wants,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he said.

  The young sheriff and the state police officer were looking at them oddly. “Bad blood between those two,” Tomas said. “It’s a family thing, you know how it is. It goes back a ways. A long ways.”

  The sheriff, whose name badge said “William Tucker,” shrugged and looked down at his notepad. “So you say you’re sure this Father Dominick is the one who snatched the baby?”

  “We’re sure,” Ryan said. “He’s the only one who would have reason.”

  “That reason being...?”

  Ryan looked blankly to Tomas for help, and Tomas took the hint. “I was once a priest. His protégé,” he said, not bothering with the details. They didn’t matter anyway. “He blames my wife for luring me away from the church, and he’s trying to hurt her by taking the baby he knows she loves more than life from the woman he knows she loves like a sister.”

  “That’s a bit of a leap, don’t you think?” asked the state trooper.

  “He’s sick,” Tomas went on. “Just awakened from a six-month coma, checked himself out of the hospital—”

  Stepping back into the house now that Lena had given up trying to kill him with her bare hands, Demetrius picked up from there. “Then tracked their other...friend—” he nodded toward Lilia “—to my home in Arizona and burned it to the ground with us inside,” he said. “We saw him running away from the scene. There’s no question.”

  “Good God, and you say this guy’s a feeble old man? And a priest, for God’s sake?” Sheriff Tucker asked.

  “Maybe he’s on something,” suggested the trooper. “Meth. PCP. Maybe bath salts.” The sheriff nodded his agreement with the theory, and the trooper went on. “Was anyone hurt in the fire?” he asked.

  Demetrius nodded. “A friend and employee was killed, a kid still in his twenties. And my best friend in the world remains in serious condition. You can verify all of this with the Sedona Police Department, or just call Ned Nelson. I have his private number.”

  “The Ned Nelson?” asked the trooper.

  Demetrius nodded, and the cops looked impressed.

  Lena turned her face into Ryan’s shirt and muttered, “Make them leave now. We have to go after Ellie.”

  He nodded, cradling her head. “I’d feel better if you were out looking for our daughter,” he told the police. “We’ve been over everything twice.”

  “We’ve got every resource already on it, sir,” said the trooper. “The New York State Troopers, the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Department, along with the sheriff’s departments from every nearby county, Cayuga, Cortland, Tioga, Chemung, Schuyler and Seneca. And we alerted the Ithaca PD first thing, in case he heads that way. An Amber Alert has gone out, as well.”

  “In fact,” Sheriff Tucker put in, “we’re about the only two cops not out looking for her. And we’re headed that way next. We’ll find your baby, folks. This guy’s crazy, yes, but at least he’s not a pedophile.”

  Lena released a horrified gasp, and the trooper elbowed the young sheriff, then tried to say something helpful. “Your friend, this—” he consulted his notepad “—Bay-roo—”

  “Bahru,” Indy corrected.

  “You say you believe he’s with the baby?”

  Ryan nodded firmly. “He never would have let anyone take Ellie, except over his dead body. And since we didn’t find that, I’m convinced he’s with her. Wherever she is.” His voice broke at the end.

  “That should give you comfort,” Sheriff Tucker said. “At least she’s with someone familiar.”

  “Yes, and from your description, he’s going to be easy to spot. The guy stands out, you know?” The trooper flipped his notebook shut. “You’ll want to call the press, get them to let you make an on-air appeal. Start recruiting locals to help in the search.”

  “Right,” said the sheriff. “My department will start organizing that at first light, downtown at the Milbury Town Hall.”

  “Call everyone you know, and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as well.” The trooper handed Lena a card he’d fished from his wallet while speaking. “They can be a huge help at a time like this.”

  “We’re very sorry for your trouble, folks,” Sheriff Tucker said. “I promise you, we are going to do everything in our power to bring your baby home safe.”

  “And we’ll do everything in ours,” Indy said softly. And there was blood in her eyes.

  As soon as the door closed on the cops, Lilia yanked her pendulum from around her neck and raced for the kitchen table. “Map!” she said, snapping her fingers repeatedly.

  “Right here.” Indira snatched a street atlas from a shelf and opened it to the page that included Havenwood, then slapped it onto the table. Magdalena leaned closer as Lilia held up the pendulum. It was hard for her to keep it still, because her hands were shaking.

  “I’m the one with the supercharged scrying skills, sister. Let me.” Magdalena held out her hand.

  “I figured you’d be too distracted.” But Lilia handed her the pendulum.

  “What the hell does Sindar want with my baby?” Lena whispered, dangling the stone over the map with surprising stillness.

  “I don’t know,” Lilia said. She tried to quell the horror of knowing that the man who had had the three of them brutally murdered now had his filthy, bloodstained hands on Eleanora. She could only imagine how much worse the knowledge felt to Magdalena. They had to get the baby back—and soon.

  “I think we need a bigger map,” Indira said with a nod at the pendulum, which wasn’t even wiggling.

  “Sweet Mother, how far can he have gone?” Lena asked. “It’s only been...” She looked at the clock. “Over an hour. It’s been over an hour.” The pendulum fell from her hand, and she sank toward the floor. Lilia scrambled to grab her, but Ryan beat her to it.

  “I’m calling Doc. She needs something,” Indira said.

  “I won’t take it. I want to be awake and alert enough to kill that bastard when we find him.”

  Demetrius met Lilia’s eyes, and she knew he was recalling their recent conversation in which he’d said that he wanted to kill Sindar for murdering Sid and nearly killing Gus. She’d talked him down. Explained that death wasn’t really a punishment. But she wasn’t even trying now. Not this time. Death could be paradise with whipped cream on top for all she cared. If she got the chance to kill Sindar, she was damn well going to send him there.

  * * *

  Demetrius observed the pain in the eyes of the three women, especially the mother of the missing child, with a mixture of wonder, fear and something that felt like sympathy. The idea that he could ever find himself willing to ask for the ability to feel that much pain was almost unimaginable to him. The thought of never being able to feel it, however, was just as unimaginable. And the guilt...God, the guilt over the soulless monster he had been, a being intent on taking this very same infant from its mother, thinking to somehow expel it from its body and take that body over as his own...how could he? How could he ever have been that vile creature?

  Seeing the women hurting hurt him. And he was afraid of that, because it might mean the missing part of his soul was starting to seep back into him a little bit at a time. He didn’t recall feeling this sort of empathy for anyone before, hurting because they hurt. Not in this lifetime, at least. So that must be the explanation. He was changing, the remainder of his soul finding its way back to him, even though he hadn’t asked, as Lilia said he must. If
that happened, there would be no going back. No more powers.

  Hell, he needed his powers now more than ever. He needed them to help get the child away from Sindar, back into the loving arms of her parents, where she belonged.

  He needed his powers to put a smile back on the face of his beautiful Lilia.

  And he needed them, too, to rid the world of Sindar and his evil, once and for all.

  * * *

  Bahru held Ellie close to him, walking along in front of the man he knew was not Father Dom but someone—no, something—else, something evil, wearing the old priest’s former body and stretching it out of proportion. Bahru had never met the old priest, Tomas’s former mentor, but he’d seen photographs, and had heard Tomas and Indira tell stories of the good priest gone bad. Those stories had troubled him greatly, because he knew the true power of the forces working against them. He knew, because he, too, considered himself a holy man. And he, too, had fallen prey to the spell of darkness.

  It was Ryan, who’d never liked or trusted him, who’d saved him. Saved them all. And Bahru would spend the rest of his life trying to make up for his own role in the near disaster.

  Besides, little Ellie had won his heart. She was special. She was his life’s calling. He’d known that the first time he’d looked into her newborn eyes.

  “It’ll be all right, little one,” he whispered, holding her close, letting her tug his beard as much as she liked. Not even three months old yet. And already a beauty, with bright knowing eyes of chocolate-bar brown. She smiled and burbled at the sound of his voice. The man behind them gave him a shove to get him moving faster, and Bahru picked up the pace. So far he’d offered nothing but compliance. He didn’t want to give the lunatic reason to send him away—or kill him—leaving Ellie all alone.

  They’d exited the car and entered what had at first appeared to be a cave in the side of a mountain. He’d quickly realized that it was man-made, perfectly arched overhead, lined in brick. The railroad track that remained in places showed him what it was. A tunnel through the mountain, long since abandoned and left to fall into disrepair. It didn’t feel safe, and it was damp, dripping. Their footsteps echoed in the emptiness.

  “Stop,” said the priest.

  Bahru watched the man move past him and over to one side of the tunnel, where a metal door was built into the brick. He opened it and beckoned Bahru closer. “This way. Hurry.” He flicked a switch, and lights came on beyond the door.

  Nodding, Bahru obeyed, and he was soon carrying the baby down a flight of steel stairs that creaked and groaned and rattled under his feet. Their green paint had mostly flecked off, and rust was feeding on them. They shuddered with every step, and he clung to the baby with one arm, gripping the rail with his free hand and praying the stairway would hold out.

  “It’s fine. They won’t give way. Go down.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m going.” He tried to hurry enough to please his captor while moving slowly enough to keep the baby safe, and blessedly soon they were at the bottom, standing in a huge concrete room. There were twin pillars every twenty feet or so, with arched concrete supports on top, holding up the mountain above. There were swirls in the footers, grooves in the pillars. They’d been made in an era long past, when things were built to be beautiful as well as functional.

  “What is this place?” Bahru asked.

  “It’s where I’m going to keep you and, soon, the witch until I can end all this, once and for all, at the moment of Beltane.” The man nodded at a deep niche in one wall. “That’s where you’re to stay. There are shelves, with some blankets stacked up on them. Keep the child quiet, or you will have outlived your usefulness to me, Bahru.”

  “Babies cry from time to time. It’s their nature. But I’ll do the best I can.” Bahru moved quickly to the “room” and found the shelves lined with canned food, and plastic bags of salt and sugar that looked to belong to an era long gone by.

  The place must have been some sort of bomb shelter, forgotten and abandoned to time, he realized. He located the blankets, also plastic-wrapped and therefore clean, or so he hoped. Then, even better, he noticed a cot, folded in half and standing against the back wall. The mattress was ancient, but there was nothing nesting in it that he could see. Anchoring the baby on one hip, he managed to unfold the thing and spread several blankets on top. He laid Ellie down on the mattress and sat on the floor close beside her.

  Something metallic scraped loudly behind him, and he turned to see a barred door sliding closed. It hit with a bang that startled the infant. She went stiff and wide-eyed, then began to wail.

  “No, no, no,” Bahru cooed. “It’s all right, little one. It’s all right.” He gathered her close and jounced her gently. She stilled again, and he realized she’d fallen asleep. Good. The more of this nightmare she could sleep through, the better. He laid her on the cot again, tucking a blanket securely around her, and then relaxed on the floor, his back against the cot, turning his attention to the room beyond the bars of his cell. The barred door must have been someone’s notion of keeping what might be a crucial supply of food safe from anyone who might try to take more than his share.

  He was glad society’s notion that such places as this were necessary had fallen out of fashion. The world had gotten better.

  Meanwhile, though, there was magic afoot in this bomb shelter. Dark magic.

  The man in the purple robes stood in the center of the room, arms extended, chin up, chanting in some foreign language that Bahru had never heard before. It sounded not just old but ancient. His voice grew, echoed, took on a resonance that was unnatural. Otherworldly. And his eyes rolled back in his head as a dark column that looked like smoke, but wasn’t, began to spiral around him.

  “Come to me,” he said, speaking in English now. “Come to me, all of you whose minds I can and do command. Come to me, as many as are close enough to hear my call. In black shall you dress. And your faces shall be covered, the better to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies. Come to me, and I will give you everything you have ever desired. I shall smite your enemies with vengeance, and shower you in riches and glory. Come to me. Come to me, my minions. Come.”

  Then he dropped to the floor, just as if his legs had turned to water, and at that same instant the black smoky ribbon shot upward, hit the ceiling and vanished as if it had gone straight through.

  An hour later they started arriving, a few at a time.

  They were all dressed in black, some in jeans, some in sweatpants, some in dress pants, others in monks’ robes. And their faces were covered. Ski masks. Halloween masks. Surgical masks. They gathered around the old priest and said nothing, clearly waiting for his command.

  The sense of evil was overwhelming as the one who’d taken them, a man whose body was becoming more grotesquely swollen by the minute, moved among them. He welcomed them, patted their shoulders and backs, spoke softly to them, probably reiterating the promises he would surely never keep.

  Eventually he moved to stand on a slightly raised platform between the two pillars on the far end of the room.

  “Welcome, new followers of Marduk,” he said. “I am the one who called you here, the one who will reward you so richly for your loyalty to me and to the chief god of all Gods. I am the high priest Sindar.”

  Sindar!

  Bahru felt his heart begin to pound in alarm. Sindar was the name of the high priest who’d murdered Magdalena, Indira and Lilia so long ago. But how could that be?

  “I have a plan, my friends,” Sindar continued. “Tomorrow we will spill the blood of the most powerful witch of a witches’ triune, for her heart holds a piece of her demon lover’s soul and her blood holds power untold. We will not kill her until the moment of Beltane, so that when she dies the piece of the demon’s soul she holds will die with her. And then he will cease to exist, her sisters will die, and their progeny will die. At last this curse will end, and my King, Balthazorus, will at last be avenged.”

  No. Bahru looked at the sleeping infa
nt and thought of her mother, and his heart clenched tight in his chest. He closed his eyes, sinking into a meditative state while keeping an ear attuned to Ellie. And he whispered, “Magdalena, if you can hear me, listen well. There is evil afoot. You must not allow Lilia to come here.”

  * * *

  “It’s no use.” Lilia dropped the dangling amethyst pendulum onto the map and tipped her head back in frustration. “Sindar must be blocking us somehow. His magic is just too strong.”

  “No, it’s not too strong, not for us,” Indy said.

  Magdalena said nothing. Her eyes were vacant, her soul bleeding. Her body still moved, but it was acting on autopilot, Lilia thought. “He’ll contact us,” she promised her sister. “He took the baby for a reason. To force us to do what he wants. He’s going to have to tell us what that is, sooner or later.”

  Indy nodded. “I agree.”

  Magdalena looked around, blinking her swollen eyes. “Where are the men?”

  “Upstairs in the temple room,” Indy said. “Tomas is trying to translate a journal written in Akkadian.”

  “Journal?” Lena looked from one sister to the other.

  “We found it in Sindar’s room before he set the house on fire,” Lilia said.

  “It belonged to Father Dom,” Indy said. “He’d been studying our history for years, so I suspect it’s some warped version of our past.”

  “Sindar. That bastard. He killed my baby then, and now he has her again.”

  All eyes shot to Magdalena.

  “I was pregnant then, too,” she told them. “Don’t you remember? When he had us thrown from that cliff, he killed my child with me. And now he has her again. My Ellie...” Turning, she ran out the front door, nearly knocking over a chair in the process.

  “Let’s leave her alone for a moment,” Lilia said, when Indy moved as if to go after her. “Let her cry in private. Why don’t we go upstairs and see how Tomas is coming with that old journal and give her a little time to process all this?”