Mark of the Witch

We were at the cliff’s edge.

Wakeupwakeupwakeup!

I felt those warm, familiar hands at my back. And again I had that totally fucked-up feeling of liking his touch. His palms warm on my skin, carefully not touching the raw ruin of my flesh. My toes curled instinctively to grip the smooth stone beneath my feet, trying to hang on.

I was going to die on those rocks down there. With my sisters.

Again.

4

Tomas had parked his Volvo across the street from Indira Simon’s apartment building, where he had a beautiful view of her windows, and spent the entire night there, trying to keep watch, hoping he would know if something went wrong. He saw other tenants come and go, and at one point, while out stretching his legs, he caught the door before it swung closed and jammed the latch, so he could get in if necessary.

Yes, he’d thought Father Dom was two-thirds of the way to insanity with his obsessive predictions about this demon and its witches. Until he’d seen that subway video. And met her. That woman was something else. He could feel it just by looking into her eyes. And when she’d swung her arm in anger, a burst of genuine power had erupted from her.

She’d been as surprised by that as he had.

And now everything he’d been so sure was just the outrageous exaggerations of an aging priest with delusions of grandeur seemed like it just might be real, after all. Which threw everything else he thought he’d known into question.

His crisis of faith, his decision to leave the church, all of that, he’d decided, had to be put aside until this was finished. Because if he’d been wrong—well, he couldn’t undo that. But he could carry out this mission for Dom, at least far enough to make sure it really was just part of an old man’s ramblings. Maybe generations of old men. The rest … the rest could wait.

He knew already that some things Dom had told him were utterly false. Things about her. She was not evil. No demon’s whore. Not that one. She hadn’t tried to seduce him or ensorcell him as Dom had predicted she would. She’d run from him instead.

But he’d followed. Because he had a feeling that just wouldn’t leave him alone. Clearly some of the things Dom had believed in for so long were true. Were, perhaps, unfolding as had been predicted. And the most important thing that meant to Tomas was that she might be in danger. So while this would be his final mission as a priest, it was still his mission—and he was still a priest. And he intended to do it right. Maybe that would assuage his guilt over leaving the collar behind, and for not believing in Dom’s obsession until now.

He had expected that he might catch a glimpse of Indy moving around behind her apartment windows, though the drapes were drawn. He had not expected to see her on the building’s rooftop just before dawn.

When he caught sight of her up there his heart almost stopped. She was standing near the brick safety wall, which reached almost to her bare shoulders, her hands along the top of it, the wind blowing through her hair. It looked as if she was getting ready to climb up.

“God, save her,” he whispered.

He was out of the car instantly, racing to the building’s door and yanking it open, glad he’d thought far enough ahead to disable the lock. He took the stairs two at a time all the way to the roof. Then he slid to a stop. She was standing on the wall now, completely naked. Wobbling dangerously, she held her arms behind her back as if they were tied there, even though they weren’t. It was still dark, but there was something staining her back—crisscrossing stripes with scarlet rivulets running from them. And something else, a tattoo on her lower back. Three rows of symbols.

Was that cuneiform?

God, what had happened to her? And what was he supposed to do?

Waking a sleepwalker was a bad idea—especially when they were standing seventy feet off the ground. But he couldn’t just let this play out and hope she didn’t plummet to her death.

Quietly, he approached from behind. She was standing still, her short hair riffled by the wind, her skin pebbling with goose bumps in the cold. She had to be freezing. It was the second of November, for crying out loud. As he crept slowly nearer, she leaned forward, arching her back. No more time. Tomas lunged, snapping his arms around her just above hip level, which was as high as he could reach. The momentum of her body tried to pull him over with her, but he braced one foot against the brick wall and jerked her backward, hard. He landed on his back on the rooftop with her butt on his chest and her lower back against his face. No sooner had he begun to release his pent-up breath in a sigh of relief than she was scrambling off him and onto her feet, turning to look down at him, stark accusation in her huge black eyes.

“Atta bal

ata u anaku mut amât!” she shouted.

Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed straight down, as if her legs had dissolved beneath her.

Tomas got onto his feet. She’d bled on his clothes. On his face. Her back was cut to ribbons. Bending, he gathered her carefully into his arms, then turned to carry her back down to her apartment.

“Owwwww.”

I was facedown on my bed and hurting like hell, and when I tried to roll over, a strong male hand on my shoulder kept me lying where I was.

Who the hell is that, and what is he doing in my apartment?

I twisted my head to see. It was him. Of course it was him. Hunky Father Tomas was sitting on the edge of my bed. His face was twisted with what looked like worry, and his hands held gauze and a bottle of something aromatic.

“Father Tomas? What happened? Why are you here? And why the hell am I hurting so bad?” I craned my neck a little farther and got a nice clear view of my own bare ass. “I’m naked!” I tried to roll over again, but his hand held me still.

“It’s all right, I’m a priest.” He wasn’t trying to be funny. He tugged the bedsheet up a little to cover my cheeks. “Lie very still or it’ll hurt even more. If you’ll stop trying to roll, I’ll show you what’s hurting in the mirror.” The bed moved as he got up and walked to my dresser. I tried to remember whether I’d left anything embarrassing on it. Tampons, undies. I wasn’t exactly an immaculate housekeeper. He was back in seconds, holding my silver hand mirror at an angle that allowed me to see my back. And when I did, my stomach heaved and I closed my eyes. My back was covered with deep, long cuts. Stripes. Like a whip would leave behind if—

A whip.

“Shit.”

The nightmare or memory or hallucination or whatever the hell it was came back to me so hard and fast I had to jam my face into the pillow to muffle the sob that lurched inside my chest. I was pretty sure he heard it anyway.

“What happened last night?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I turned far enough so my words could emerge unmuffled. “I was … I was trying to work a spell. You must have seen the living room.”

“I saw the circle. The candles. Figured that much out.”

Frowning, I twisted my head a little farther. “The circle. The candles … that’s all?” He hadn’t mentioned the shattered window, broken glass, toppled lamp, tangled curtains.

“Furniture piled in the kitchen?”

I blinked. “There was a storm. It smashed the window to hell and gone.”

He was staring at me, silent.

“Didn’t it?”

He shook his head slowly. “It must have been part of another nightmare,” he said. “I spotted you on the roof. You damn near went over the side, but …”

“But you saved me.” I no longer cared if he saw my tears. He’d seen my bare ass and my living nightmare. What were a few tears?

“I was across the street in my car. I saw you up there and—They’re going away.”

“What?” I was confused by the sudden change of subject.

“The wounds, they’re … they’re going away.” He held up the mirror again.

I ignored it. Pushing past him and his mirror to get to my feet, dragging the sheet with me and holding it in front of my body, I turned my back toward the large mirror on my dresser and looked over my shoulder at my reflection.

The stripes across my back were closing up, forming small pink lines, like battle scars, but then they started fading, too. There was a tattoo, as well, on my lower back, and I knew damn well I’d never had a tattoo in my life. Odd little symbols in neat rows. But they, too, were fading fast. Ten seconds, I stood there. Tomas came and stood right beside me, staring into that mirror. I didn’t even care that my ass was exposed again. Ten seconds, and at the end of them nothing remained of those ghastly wounds except for a few smears of blood Tomas must have missed in his ministrations.

I looked at the floor, belatedly pulling the sheet the rest of the way around me.