Mark of the Witch

by Maggie Shayne

  Rayne wrapped a braided cord of three colors—silver, gold and white, one color to represent each of the three degrees—around my waist and knotted it there.

  I was then introduced to the quarters again, and then to the God and Goddess, this time as a Third Degree High Priestess of Wicca, as Lady Indira.

  Only this time was completely different from any ceremony I had participated in before. This time…I saw them.

  * * *

  I’d lost track of the time, had no idea how long it had all taken. But when it was done, I felt…different. Taller. Stronger. More powerful. And I felt, too, the hot touch of something on my lower back and was fairly sure what it was.

  “Rayne, I feel something. Will you take a look at my back and see?”

  Nodding, she shifted the pashmina enough to see down my spine. And then she gasped. “You have a tattoo?”

  “I didn’t until now,” I whispered. “Not in this lifetime, anyway.” It would remain now. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. I was a witch, a priestess, now, and Ishtar was my goddess. She had chosen me.

  I turned to face Rayne again, surprised when she handed me the scroll. I didn’t remember surrendering it. I’d forgotten both it and its importance.

  “You can read it now,” she said.

  I stared down at the pages, running one hand over them, listening to the newly awakened knowledge inside me. “No. I’ll read it tonight. First I want to try the spell. The one to retrieve the amulet.”

  She nodded. “Meditate and prepare,” she said. “I’ll get Tomas. He has the incantation. And I know he’ll want to be here for this.”

  “Dom can’t come into the circle!” I blurted. The words burst from me before I even knew what I was going to say.

  She smiled. “He probably wouldn’t want to, anyway. But I’ll have them both stay out, just to be diplomatic. Be right back…Lady Indy.”

  A lump rose in my throat, but I forced words past it. “Thank you, Lady Rayne.”

  I sat in the center of the circle, promptly deciding to tuck the scrolls under my “robe” and tighten the cords to hold them there. Father Dom didn’t even know about their existence, and I wasn’t about to take a chance of him finding out. Something inside told me that I was right to want to keep him in the dark.

  Once that was done, I tried to quiet my mind, to meditate, but there was just no way to achieve that state of mental silence. There were too many things rushing through my head. Would the spell work? Would I actually utter an incantation and make a real, physical object appear out of nowhere? And what then? I still didn’t know what I would do with it once I had it. Give it to Tomas and let him destroy it? End this entire thing once and for all?

  That notion felt worse than it ever had before. How could something so sacred, so special and so important that it had been hidden for over three thousand years, be destroyed as if it didn’t matter? It seemed a sacrilege to me. Why would I have hidden it with so much care if it was supposed to be destroyed?

  And what about after I made my decision about the amulet? Would Tomas and I just…go our separate ways? Could I honestly return to my old life as if none of this had happened?

  I couldn’t. I’d left all of that so far behind me now that the thought of going back seemed ludicrous to me.

  Before I could think much further, Rayne was back, beaming, Tomas by her side. I slid my gaze from her to her brother, and saw that he was staring at me as if he’d never seen me before. His eyes expressed surprise. Did I look so different, then?

  “Congratulations, Lady Indy,” he said.

  “Thank you, Tomas.” He took the folded paper from a pocket, handed it to Rayne, then stayed where he was as she cut a door and re-entered the circle, closing it behind her. Father Dom had arrived and now stood beside Tomas, pouting in his chronic state of disapproval. Then I saw him clasp Tomas by the wrist and heard him say, “Steady, my son.”

  No, I didn’t hear him say it. Because he’d muttered it under his breath while shielding his mouth with his other hand. And yet I knew what he’d said.

  Eyes of Spirit. Good shit. And tough luck for you, old man. Tomas is on my side now. You might as well go home.

  I nodded, accepting the folded sheet of paper from Rayne. I opened it, reread it three times, then handed it back to her. The two of us moved to the center of the circle, and I stood there and extended one hand upward, toward the energies of the Great Above, and the other downward, into the realm of the Great Below.

  And the power came. The wind picked up and lifted my hair, and there was a light softly illuminating the circle, a light I knew was emanating from me. The words came then. They were not the words written on the paper, but I knew as I spoke them that it wasn’t the words that mattered. It was the power.

  Power I was wielding now. I felt it surging inside me as the words spilled from my lips in a voice deeper than my own.

  “Hear my words and know me,” I said to the stars. “I am Lady Indira, daughter of Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven. Give heed to my call!”

  I felt heat in the palm I had raised to the sky and suddenly saw where the light was coming from. A beam of radiance was blasting from somewhere beyond the endless sky and into my palm, down my arm, into my torso.

  I looked down. “Hear my words and know me. I am the daughter of Ereshkigal, Lady of the Underworld. Obey my command!”

  Instantly a shaft of glowing black luminescence shot from the earth itself into my lowered hand and up through my feet, then into my midsection, where I felt it meet and entwine with the white light and empower every cell in my body.

  “Hear my words and know me.” My voice was even deeper now. “I am she who hid the amulet and that which it contained, and I call it forth now, for the time has come. So mote it be!”

  It felt like an explosion from within, expanding my chest like a heart attack on crack. Or maybe the big bang had just happened in my sternum. There was a flash of blinding light in my eyes, but it came from the inside, and it knocked me right off my feet.

  And then everything went silent and I sat up, blinking.

  There on the ground in front of me was a flat, gold disk, maybe two inches in diameter, with two gleaming stones that looked like diamonds in its face, glinting in the candlelight. A long chain of silver was attached to it.

  Holy shit, it really worked.

  I pushed myself up onto my knees and stared down at the amulet. Then I looked up again, a smile splitting my face as I sought Tomas’s eyes. He was looking stunned and bewildered as he stared back at me. Why wasn’t he smiling? “I did it,” I said. “I did it!”

  But his shocked expression remained as he moved forward, his legs oddly stiff. Bending, he picked up the amulet. I caught myself wondering what he was about to do.

  Destroy it?

  He straightened. I was still on my knees, but I lifted my head, met his eyes and begged him to trust me without saying a word.

  “Destroy it, Tomas! Do it now!” Dom was shouting.

  But Tomas, my Tomas, didn’t even seem to hear the old man. Instead he held my eyes and slowly lowered the chain over my head.

  Looking down again, I saw the ancient, magical amulet resting upon my chest and lifted my hand. My fingers caressed it. “Thank you, my love,” I whispered, for Tomas’s ears alone.

  And then my brain exploded in another white-hot flash. Everything went blindingly bright and then velvet, silent black.

  * * *

  When Indy had moved to the center of the circle, extending her hands, one up and one down, Tomas had been able to focus on nothing else. God, she was like a divine being, an angel. She literally glowed from within, lighting the dark circle beyond the ability of the small candles lining it. She’d changed, visibly changed, from before the ceremony. He watched, he listened, and he was even more stunned when at last she began to speak, because she wasn’t speaking English. It was Babylonian flowing flawlessly from her lips.

  But that was just the beginning. She paused betwee
n words, and a bolt from the sky hit her. His first thought was lightning—a bolt from a clear sky. But it wasn’t lightning. It wasn’t anything he could identify. A beam of white-gold light entered her body through her upturned palm.

  And then she lowered her head and started talking again. Deep, deeper than her normal voice. And richer, somehow.

  He was a little more prepared this time, but just as stunned when another bolt of light—only it was black light this time, he couldn’t describe it any better than that—shot up from the ground and into her other hand.

  A heartbeat later she was emitting an even brighter glow than before. It came from her body, beaming out of her like an aura. He tried to look at Rayne to see if she was as shocked as he was—because surely this didn’t happen every time witches cast a spell, did it? Surely she would have told him if it had. Anyway, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t look away.

  And then there was a flash and Indy hit the ground. The lights shut down, and there was a golden disk lying on the ground in front of her.

  It had worked.

  She looked at him, smiling, telling him as much, but he was still in shock over seeing her as the center of a laser light show. Despite that, he moved into the circle, though his knees kept trying to buckle, and he bent and picked up the amulet.

  He had a choice to make, and he had to make it right then. To trust her with what was, after all, her destiny. Or to trust Father Dom instead.

  There was no competition. He looked down at her and met her eyes, then lowered the necklace over her head until the amulet lay on her breast. She thanked him with her eyes and lifted a hand to touch the golden disk.

  Suddenly she froze, her eyes going blank, her body, rigid, paralyzed as the amulet’s golden glow flashed unnaturally brighter.

  “Indy?”

  The amulet wavered and began to fade.

  “Grab it, Tomas!” Dom shouted. “It’s vanishing again!”

  But it continued to fade, until all at once it disappeared and Indy’s head rose. Expressionless, she faced him, and her eyes flashed. The diamonds from the amulet were there, right there, in her eyes. And then her eyes fell closed and she collapsed on the ground.

  Tomas fell to his knees beside her, cradling her, lifting her. “Indy! Talk to me. Wake up.”

  A heavy hand fell to his shoulder. Tomas looked up. Father Dom was there, staring down knowingly. “This was supposed to happen.”

  “What?” Tomas searched his old friend’s face, noting vaguely that his sister was rushing around releasing the energies of the four quarters and performing the other closing rites. He knew they were important or she would be there with him. He shifted his attention back to Father Dom. “What do you mean by that?”

  “The amulet has melded with her. She has taken it into her own body. ‘Only she who created it can call it forth, and only to return it to the one to whom it rightfully belongs,’” he quoted. “It won’t emerge from her again except by her will, and only then to go to the Demon. To enable him to cross back into our world.”

  “And you knew this would happen all along?”

  “I did. I was hoping you could smash it first, but…” He lowered his head briefly, gave it a rapid shake.

  “I don’t understand, Dom. If you knew she would…absorb the damn thing, then how the hell did you think we’d be able to destroy it?”

  Dom leaned closer, lowered his voice and said, “There’s only one way, Tomas. There’s only ever been one way. And it’s the same solution that you enacted long, long ago. You have to kill her, Tomas. That is your true calling. You have to kill the witch.”

  17

  “You’ve lost your mind, Dom!”

  Tomas refused to listen to anything further; in fact, he was still unsure he’d heard Dom correctly to begin with, as he carried Indy back toward the house, her beautiful white robe trailing almost to the ground. Rayne, having finished the closing rites in what must have been record time, raced along beside them, holding up the edges of her own identical garment, held in place by braided cords just like the ones wrapped around Indy’s waist now.

  “What happened?” Rayne asked. “Where’s the amulet?”

  “I think it’s…inside her.”

  His sister clapped a hand to her mouth and raced ahead to open the sliding doors, then up the stairs to open the bedroom door. She yanked back the bedcovers, and Tomas laid Indy down and pulled them over her again. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he stroked her cheek, pushing her hair back over and over, searching her face for any sign of life. She was breathing, but the pulse in her throat was beating soft and fast, like a hummingbird’s.

  “It was too much for her. Too much,” he whispered.

  “Not for her,” Rayne said. “She’s amazing, Tomas. I’ve never seen such a powerful witch.”

  He shook his head. “Dom says…” And then he stopped. Indy might be a super-witch, but his sister was no slouch, and if he told her what Dom had said out in the apple orchard, the old priest might be sitting on a lily pad catching flies before morning.

  Or worse. Rayne had a temper. And she was fiercely protective of her fellow witches. “Dom says what?” she asked.

  “Never mind. I need to make him leave. This is over, this is…over. It’s done. I’m sending him home. Stay with her?”

  “I will.”

  Tomas nodded, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Indy. His heart ached for what this had cost her, was still costing her. And at this point, he just wanted her to be all right. She’d done her part. It hadn’t worked, and there was no way he—or anyone else—was going to kill her to make it work. Dom had crossed the border from zealot to lunatic. It ended here.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told his sister, finally dragging his eyes from Indy and rising from the bed.

  Rayne wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re making the right decision, Tomas. I don’t know what the answers are, but I don’t for one minute believe that out of the four of us, Dom is the only one who has it all figured out. He’s the least-holy holy man I’ve ever met.”

  He hugged his sister. “I love you, Rayne. Thanks for being here for me.”

  “Where else is a sister gonna be when her big bro’s out fighting demons and saving the world?” She moved to the bed and sat down, her entire focus shifting from him to Indy. “Damn, did you see it out there tonight? The power coming into her from above and below? Did you see it?”

  “Yeah. I saw it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  Well, that answered one of his questions.

  “She’s really something special, Tomas.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, she really is.”

  He left the room reluctantly, but he’d made up his mind. It was time to confront Father Dom and politely retire from this insane mission. And while he was at it, he might as well break it to his mentor, the man who had performed his initiation rites—only they called it ordination in his neck of the woods—that he’d decided he could no longer remain in the priesthood.

  It was going to devastate Dom. But Tomas thought the old man had bigger problems than being disappointed in his apprentice. He needed help. And Tomas was going to make sure he got it. Dom had been the only father figure Tomas had ever known. He would see to it that he got better.

  * * *

  “Hey, there you are.”

  Rayne was stroking my hair when I woke. I’d felt the soft caress in my dreams and had hoped it was her brother. But no, it was Rayne. And that was almost as good.

  I smiled, though I felt tired. “Hey. Where’s Tomas?”

  “Having a sit-down with Father Dom. I think he’s finally ready to bail on this mission of his.”

  I sat up straight in the bed, my brain coming fully awake. “Really?” Was he actually telling the old goat that he was hanging up his collar? Or just giving up on this particular demon quest? “Did he say that, or are you guessing?”

  “Oh, he said it. I
had the feeling there was more, but that’s all he gave me. Still, it’s a good sign.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I lowered my head, feeling sort of let down. “It’s a pretty anticlimactic ending to all this, though, wouldn’t you say? I mean, we went through so much to get the amulet, and now that we have it, he doesn’t even want it?”

  “Well, we don’t actually have it.” Rayne pursed her lips and seemed to be searching for words. “I mean, you do, but…” Shrugging, she sighed. Like she’d just given up on trying to convey something she didn’t understand herself.

  “I have it?” I put a hand to my chest to see if I was still wearing the thing on a chain, warming at the memory of Tomas putting it around my neck. I patted myself down, pausing on the shape of the scroll at my waist. “I don’t have it.” I lifted the covers to see if the amulet had fallen off underneath them while I was asleep or passed out or whatever I’d been, but it wasn’t there. I gave up the hunt and began untying the cords at my waist, which were only supposed to be worn during ritual.

  Rayne pursed her lips, started over. “You sort of…absorbed it.”

  I had tugged the cords out from beneath the covers and was holding them out toward her. But I froze at those words. “I…what?”

  “Absorbed it.” She took the braided cords from me and gently twined them into a coil as she walked away from me. She put them into a black drawstring sack she must have taken from her own things, tugged it closed, and then brought it back and hung it from the bedpost. “The amulet vanished, the diamonds flashed in your eyes, clear as day, and then you passed out cold.”

  “But…but I don’t understand.”

  “Me neither,” she said softly. “Maybe you’d better read the scrolls now.”

  I drew a breath and reached under the covers. When I’d removed the cords, the scrolls had slid from their spot at my waist, but now I fished them out from under my makeshift toga and laid them on my lap. “I’m exhausted. I don’t know if I can stay awake long enough to read them.”