Mark of the Witch

“Thank you. But I assume my shoes are not the reason you emailed me. And since I’m on my lunch break, and hence my time is limited, it might be best to skip straight to your problem.”

Nodding rapidly, I pulled my head back into the game. I was way too easily distracted. And this was important. But, damn, I had to remember to find out where Rayne had bought those shoes.

Stay on topic, Indy.

I sat up straighter, focused. “I’m sorry I waited for a problem to force me to call. That’s pretty rotten of me. I just felt—”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“And I appreciate you giving up your lunch hour to help me out. And I’m buying, by the way.”

“Damn right you are.” Rayne winked, and sipped, and the waitress came back with the biggest glazed donuts I’d ever seen.

I took a small bite, followed by a sip of my herbal tea, secretly longing for the caffeine in the cup across the table. Maybe I should give up one vice at a time. Tea and a donut just wasn’t the same. Then I swallowed and looked my friend in the eye. “I’ve been having a recurring dream. Nightmare, really.”

“Ahh. All right. Well, I’m pretty good at dream interpretation.” She shifted in her seat, crossing one gorgeous leg over the other, settling in to listen. “It’s not surprising. I mean, you know the veil between the worlds is thin this time of year.”

“Yeah, I know.” Samhain, the actual holiday on which Halloween was based, was still a week away. Meaning my problem could only get worse.

“Go ahead, tell me about it.”

I nodded and tried to believe that it could get better, too. “I don’t think it’s actually a dream at all.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Rayne tilted her head, taking that in, her eyes going serious and contemplative. The effect was ruined when she took a giant bite of the huge donut right after her sincere, “Go on.”

“Okay. In the dream, or whatever, I’m standing on the edge of a rocky cliff, wearing clothes from some other era, but not many of them. There’s a man that I know is a high priest—not a Wiccan one, mind you—speaking some language that I’ve never heard before. Two other women stand on either side of me, dressed pretty much the same way I am. We’re very close. We love each other—”

“Love each other? Is this dream heading for a lesbian three-way?”

I stared at her blankly.

“Sorry. Trying to make you smile. I’m not used to seeing you so freaking intense, Indy.”

“This is intense. Whatever it is, it’s … Just let me finish, okay?”

She made a zipper motion over her lips.

“We have some kind of a plan, but I don’t know what it is. I mean, in the dream I do, but I don’t remember when I wake up. Our hands are tied behind our backs. Three men stand right behind us. I feel one of them—his hands are on my back, and it kind of turns me on, which is really fucked up, since I think he’s about to shove me off the freaking cliff.”

Rayne had resumed eating her donut, but she stopped in midbite, her eyes going wider as I went on.

“The next thing I know, we’re falling. Hitting the ground. Dying on the bloody rocks at the bottom, except things always fade to black before that part.”

Rayne lifted her head, met my eyes. I saw rapt interest in hers.

“It’s always the same,” I said. “We all have black hair, dark eyes, the kind of naturally tanned skin that suggests we’re Mediterranean or Middle Eastern or something. I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of a ritual sacrifice. And there’s always another man, a soldier, being held nearby. He’s been badly beaten, and he’s being forced to watch.”

Rayne blinked. “Any names floating around in your head? Any of the words spoken by the high priest, maybe?”

I nodded hard. “The high priest’s name is Sindar. He serves a Sun God, Marduk. I keep getting the feeling I was caught practicing magic and that it was forbidden.”

She was nodding. “Any clues in your clothing or the geography?”

“My clothes look like they were lifted from the wardrobe room for Aladdin. From the cliff, we’re looking out over a vast desert. I can see the shadowy outline of what I think of as my city in the distance.”

“Anything else?” she asked, as if fascinated by the story.

“Why? Is this ringing any bells for you?”

“Just tell me the rest.”

It was. I could see that it was. “I woke up referring to the city as Bumfuck, Egypt, and I heard a voice in my head say Babylon.”

Her eyes flared a little. “And that’s all?”

“No. There’s this.” I held up my hands, pushed back the draping sleeves of my paisley smock top and revealed the rope burns on my wrists.

“Holy shit.” Rayne grabbed my hands, turned them over.

“Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”

Her gaze remained riveted on my reddened wrists until I lowered them to my lap and let my sleeves fall back in place.

“So? What do you think?”

Rayne shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t get those marks some other way? Some ordinary way?”

“Kinky sex with a bondage freak, you mean?”

“Indy …”

“There were no marks when I went to bed. They were there when I got up. There’s not a rope in my entire apartment. No one broke in, drugged me, bound me, raped me, untied me and left again, unless they managed to get into a locked apartment and lock it again on the way out, chain and all. I’m telling you, this is … it’s something else. It’s something … not natural.”

“Supernatural.”

“Yes. That.” Which means I was wrong to stop believing, doesn’t it?

Rayne nodded. “All right.”

“All right? What do you mean, all right? You look like there’s more. Do you know what this is about?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I’m going to do some research, and I’ll get in touch, okay?”

She knew something. I could see she did. But she wanted to make sure. Fine. “I can’t wait long.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. Meanwhile, maybe we should try a protection spell. Would you be willing to let me do that for you?”

By “we” I was sure she meant the full coven. I would have to look all those witches in the eyes knowing that they knew I had turned my back on their faith. On my faith. On the Goddess.

And yet, I needed something. I needed Rayne’s cooperation, if nothing else, and sure as shit I would offend and wound her if I didn’t agree. Besides, I’d asked for her help. I couldn’t very well refuse it when she offered, could I?

Was there some little part of me that had missed this kind of hocus-pocus bull, too? Yeah, probably, way down deep.

“When?”

“Tonight,” she said. “The sooner the better.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I felt better for having my insane experience validated, or whether that just made it more frightening. “Where? In the park where you usually hold your open circles?”

“No. No, this needs to be private. There’s an occult shop in the Village. They have a tiny backyard.” She dug in her handbag, pulled out a pen and a business card, flipped the card over and wrote on the back. “I’ll get the coven together. Not all of them, just the Seconds and Thirds. If this is what I think it is, it’s serious stuff.” She slid the card across the table so I could see the address she’d written. “Be there by 10:00 p.m., okay?”

Blinking, feeling a ridiculous burning sensation behind my eyes, I nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

“I’m a high priestess. This is part of my job.” She twisted her wrist to look at her watch. “My other job, that is, besides the one I’m late getting back to. But before I do, I need your permission to share what you’ve told me with one other person. Someone I trust more than anyone else in the world. You can trust him, too. And he might have information we need. All right?”

“Is he a shrink?” I asked, and when she frowned at me, I said, “Yeah, permission granted. Go for it. Just try not to make me sound too warped.”

She was already on her feet, using a napkin to pick up the remaining half of her donut, hoisting her bag, which, I’d just noticed, matched the shoes—same black leather, same silver zipper—higher onto her shoulder. “I’ve gotta run, Indy. Take care of yourself, okay? And trust me, we’ll figure this out.”

I tried to smile. “Okay.”

And then she was gone, clicking away in her fabulous shoes at high speed. She’d left a half cup of caffeine-laden brew at her seat. Reflexively, I started to reach for it, felt eyes on me, heard a throat clear, and saw a waitress looking at me.

Sighing, I lowered my hand to my own cup of putrid tea. At least I had my donut.

2

“Father Dominick. You asked for me?”

“In the office,” Dom called.

Tomas entered and closed the front door behind him. The old priest’s entire house smelled like a combination of mothballs and muscle rub that always made Tomas’s stomach clench and his nose wrinkle. He forced himself not to allow the latter as he walked through the cluttered living room into what had probably been a den or a library when the old Victorian was built and now served as Dom’s office. Crucifix on the wall, books everywhere. Not just on the shelves—and there were lots of those—but in stacks and standing upright along the floor between every piece of furniture that could serve as a bookend. Old books, their bindings and pages overwhelming the smells in the rest of the house, much to Tomas’s relief. The smell of books was soothing. It was the smell of knowledge, preserved and passed on.

Father Dom was sitting at his desk, facing his computer. “Come around here, Tomas,” Dom said. “I have someone who wants to talk to you.”

Frowning, Tomas moved behind the desk. Dom nodded at the big monitor, and when Tomas looked, he saw the girl from yesterday, sitting up in her bed, smiling at them via Skype. “Hi, Father Thomas,” she said.

“It’s Toe-MAHS,” Father Dom pronounced. “Say hello to Dora, Tomas.”

“Hello, Dora.” He couldn’t believe his eyes. The girl looked fine. Oh, a little pale, a little tired, but her eyes were bright, and she appeared perfectly healthy.

“You look much better,” he said.

“I know. I feel better. I just wanted to thank you for helping me.”

Shame rose, and he bowed his head. “I didn’t really do anything. It was all Father Dom.”

“No, you were there. I remember. I don’t blame you for leaving. Mamma says it was awfully scary. But you came, and I’m better now.”

Tomas glanced at Dom, who smiled and nodded at the girl. “Well, we’ll let your doctor be the judge of that,” he said. “You’re seeing him this afternoon, aren’t you, Dora?”

“Yes, at two.”

“Let me know what he says, will you?”

“Of course. Bless you, Father Dom. Father Tomas.” She said it correctly that time, and then the on-screen window with her face inside it vanished.

Dom rolled his chair away from his desk but didn’t get up. “Her doctor will give her a clean bill of health. Of course, he couldn’t find anything wrong with her to begin with.”

Tomas nodded. Doubted, but nodded. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Father Dom. I just … in my experience … I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“I’ve seen it a hundred times. Exorcised more demons than any priest in the church. Which is why I inherited this assignment of ours to begin with. This quest.”

“And I’m humbled that you chose me to be your successor.” He ought to tell him. He really ought to. But no, not yet. The wheels took time to turn, and this was going to be a huge and painful discussion when it happened.

Dom grunted as if he doubted it. “You’re the least humble man I know, son. But you were chosen for this. Sent to me just for this. Sit, Tomas,” he ordered. “I don’t like looking up at anyone.”

Tomas sat. The gruff old man was his mentor, his teacher and the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. Yes, he believed in things Tomas had come to consider unbelievable. But even he didn’t doubt the man with as much conviction as he used to. His doubts were still strong enough for him to know this was not the life for him, however. So he sat and tried to assume a humble demeanor. He loved the old priest, despite the fact that he’d always considered him a little bit crazy.

“Pull your chair around here,” Dom said. “We’re not through with this machine yet.” He was clicking keys as he spoke—slowly. Hunting and pecking with a single forefinger, knuckles swollen from arthritis.

Tomas nodded and moved his chair closer, turning it so he could see the computer screen again. It showed a lengthy series of astrological terms, symbols for the signs, abbreviations for alignments and conjunctions and oppositions at varying degrees. It stood beside a map of the solar system with lines and arrows and more symbols all over it. It looked like an NFL coach’s playbook. Astrology had never been his strong suit.

“What am I looking at?”

“This configuration. Right here.” Dom pointed. “In a week it will be exactly the same as it was in the beginning.”

“The beginning …” Tomas looked up from the screen, meeting Dom’s aging but sharp cornflower-blue eyes as he finally got the old man’s meaning. “The beginning? The fifteen-hundred-BC beginning?”

“More precisely, Samhain Eve, fifteen hundred and one BC. The day a high priest of the cult of Marduk imprisoned He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken in the Underworld. If the demon is going to try to escape into our world again, Tomas, it will be soon. Samhain Eve, in fact. And I’m no longer strong enough to do what needs doing, though it pains me to admit it.”

Tomas searched Dom’s face. “You’re not well?”

Dom shrugged. “I feel fine.” He turned his head, gazing across the room at the oversize crucifix on the opposite wall. “But the Lord has spoken to me, told me it has to be you. This is the mission I’ve trained for all my life. Now it falls to my successor before his time. But that’s the way it has to be. So sayeth the Lord.”

“All things happen for a reason, Father Dom.” But inside Tomas was thinking this couldn’t be happening. Now not, not when he’d finally made the decision to leave the priesthood and sent in the paperwork making the request formal.

Thank God he hadn’t yet told the old man.

“Watch and wait for the signs, Tomas. Watch for the witches of Babylon. The Demon’s whores. Each of them bound by oath and by blood to help He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken to escape. Stop the first of them and you stop them all. You must do this, no matter how difficult, in order to keep the demon from emerging and wreaking havoc on the world of man. It is our calling.”

It is a fairy tale, Tomas thought. But I’ll humor you a bit longer. “How will I know—”

“It’s written, ‘the witch’s past sins will rise up to mark her flesh and wake her memory.’ Watch, wait, listen, and take heed when you are called. I’ll help you all I can, Tomas, but the task, for some reason, must be yours.”

Tomas nodded solemnly. He wasn’t entirely sure Dom was 100 percent wrong about this, after all. The scrolls were real, and the tale was in them. He had seen it. “And if I locate the first witch and stop her from helping the demon—”

“Then the next will never be activated and our mission is done. Theoretically the Portal won’t open again until the next alignment, another three thousand five hundred years from now. But if you fail …”

“If I fail to stop the first witch, I have to try again with the second. And if I fail to stop her, then I try again with the third.”

“And if you fail then … the demon walks among us and the world of man is doomed.” Father Dom gripped Tomas’s wrist in his hand, squeezing so hard it hurt. “Do you believe me, Tomas? Have I shown you enough proof of the existence of demons, of the power of them, of the danger they pose, to make you a believer in the ancient prophecy?”

Tomas met the old man’s eyes. There was holy fire sparking from their depths. “Yes,” he said at length. “Yes, Father Dom. I believe.” It was a lie, and he felt guilty as hell for telling it, but what else could he do?

“Hold on to that faith, my son. You are going to need it.”

No harm in humoring him a bit longer, Tomas thought. He would play along. But he knew there would be no signs. No witches. No marks. Samhain would pass, and Dom would have to concede defeat. And then Tomas could leave knowing he’d done the best he could for the old guy.

Then his sister called, and all that changed.

The occult shop in Greenwich Village had a minuscule backyard enclosed by a vine-smothered stone wall and bathed in moonlight. Fingers of dark cloud slithered over the face of the moon, only two days past full. A true Halloween moon—perfect ambiance for a Halloween night gathering of witches. There were fountains and statues marking the four directions. Venus in the west, pouring water from a conch. Brigit—the Celtic goddess of the forge and giver of creative fire to poets—in the south, holding a shallow basin where blue flames floated. On the east wall, the beautiful Eostre—Germanic goddess of spring and rebirth—a ring of wildflowers upon her head, incense wafting spirals of fragrant smoke around her. The north boundary was the back of the brick building, and in front of it stood a modern rendition of Gaia. She held a dish of sea salt in her lap.

I sat in the center of it, and five witches stood around me in a circle. They had already performed all the preliminaries and had gone silent now to listen to Rayne as she led the rite.

“We come to weave a web of protection around the solitary witch Indira,” she said, her voice deep and compelling.

I wanted to correct her—former solitary witch. The words rose in my throat, but I bit my tongue to hold them in.

Rayne wore her long black robes tonight, her vivid red hair loose and moving in the slight breeze, her eyeliner exaggerated, and every limb dripping with sacred jewelry. The other women were dressed much the same way. Everyone jingled when they moved. Even me. I’d dug through my closets and pulled out my old witchy wardrobe. I had chosen white, since this was a spell of protection. A white one-shoulder dress with gold trim that could have been Grecian. But it reminded me, too, of the clothes I wore in that powerful, terrifying dream.

I’d donned my pentacle again. I told myself it didn’t mean I was returning to the fold or had started believing again. I didn’t believe. There was no magic in the world. I’d proven that to myself. I’d cast and cast and cast my spells, but my soul mate hadn’t appeared. And I’d been so damned sure he would—so certain he was real. All my life I’d felt this unnamed, unknowable longing gaping like a great big giant hole in my gut. A yearning for the man who was supposed to be by my side, whose absence I felt keenly, even though we had never met. It was real, that feeling. Which meant he had to be real, too.

I ached for him. Sometimes even cried for him. Like a real lover I’d had and lost. That’s how vivid the feeling was.

Sort of like those damned dreams.

Hey, that was encouraging. Maybe they were as flimsy and imaginary as he was.

Anyway, he hadn’t come, so I’d stopped believing. Magic either worked or it didn’t. Black and white. Scientific method. Test the theory, prove it right or wrong. I’d tested it. It hadn’t worked. Ergo, no magic. Period.

And yet, when I’d pulled out my pretty mini-treasure chest from the back of my closet and opened it, and the smells of sandalwood and dragon’s blood resin had enveloped me like a puff of magic from a genie’s lamp, I’d felt it all coming back to me. Witchcraft might be all bullshit, but it had felt very real from time to time.

It felt real now.

Rayne was still talking. Her voice was different during a ritual. Deeper. More powerful. “Together with the powers of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit, and by the unyielding power of the Goddess Herself, we weave this web so that nothing, be it from this world or any other, may harm this woman.” Facing me, she said, “Do you have any requests of the Goddess before we raise the cone of power, Indira Simon?”

I nodded and, rising to my feet, lifted my eyes and arms skyward. I felt a tingle flowing through me from the tips of my fingers down my arms, into my spine, and another upward from the ground, through my feet, up my legs and into my spine, until the two energies met and exploded. I pulsed with it and reminded myself it was just a trick of the mind.

“Show me what I need to know,” I said, though I was sure no one was listening. I was playing along because Rayne knew something and I wanted her to tell me what it was. “Show me what these dreams mean, what you want of me. More than anything right now, I need clarity. Wisdom. And information.”

And while you’re at it, that soul mate I’ve been longing for, forever and a day, would be a really nice bonus. You know, on the off chance you’re real.

Stupid. You gave up on that, remember?

“So mote it be,” Lady Rayne said.

“So mote it be,” the others all repeated in unison.

“So mote it be,” I whispered softly. I don’t have any idea why there were tears rolling down my cheeks. Maybe my eyes were just reacting to the smoke from the incense that hung in the air. It didn’t dissipate like you’d expect it to do, outside like this. And even though it was the end of October, it was warm within the circle, as if it were physically holding our body heat and the fragrant smoke within it, just like it would supposedly hold the energy we raised until Rayne sent it forth to become the magical goal.

One woman hit her djembe drum, beginning a slow, steady beat. Another joined in, adding an accent, and then another brought a flourish of her own. A fourth woman shook a rattle in time, and then Rayne began a chant that echoed the heady music.

“She changes everything She touches. Everything She touches changes.”

On and on the chant went, and it grew louder, its pace picking up. The witches joined hands, began walking in a circle, spiraling inward until the first of them reached me in the center, then turning to spiral outward again, forming a human snake with no end and no beginning. The drums kept up or led the way, it was impossible to tell which, but everything increased in both volume and tempo until the entire area was vibrating with energy. I felt it in my chest, in the pit of my stomach, all around and within me, until it reached a fever pitch and the chant evolved into a simple, rapid repetition.

“Touches, changes, touches, changes, touches, changes, toucheschangestoucheschangestoucheschanges …”

Then, like the crack of a starter’s pistol at the beginning of a race, Lady Rayne pressed her palm flat to my chest and shouted, “Release!”

And I swear to God, I was knocked backward, right off my feet. A witch standing behind me caught me, though, so I never hit the ground as the energy wave—or whatever it was—rushed over me. I sank to my knees in reaction. As I lifted my head, blinking my eyes open once more to look around me, I was not surprised to see several of the other witches sitting on the ground, where they’d settled as they let the power surge from them. I could almost see the result of the spell—the bubble of light around me. I could certainly feel it.

I tended to be a skeptic about most things of a so-called paranormal nature. But in witchcraft, I had believed—had really believed—and moments like this were why.

The mind sure is a powerful thing, isn’t it?

“It is done,” Rayne said. “Now you’ll be safe, at least. And pretty soon, I bet you’ll receive the information you’ve asked for. Watch for signs, Indy.”

I nodded. “I was hoping some of that information might be coming from you, Rayne.” I searched her eyes. She averted them.

“I have a call out. I might have something for you by tomorrow.”