Blood of the Sorceress Read online

  And then, one night it just happened. Her eyes popped open an hour before dawn, and she simply knew. It’s time. Her heart seemed to jump a little inside her chest, just for an instant. It felt like a trapped bird, flapping excitedly.

  She pushed back the covers and got up, unable to wait. She would take a shower, pack her things, all of them beautiful gifts from her newfound family, and be downstairs when Indy and Tomas awoke, so she could break the news. Then they would go down to Lena’s place together and tell everyone else. It wasn’t going to go down easily. They loved her so much.

  As it turned out, however, she didn’t need to tell them. When she came down, showered and dressed, her long hair hanging in a braid over one shoulder, wearing a white sundress and a turquoise cardigan, she didn’t see Indy and Tomas pouring coffee as she’d expected.

  There were only her two sisters waiting for her, and she knew by the dampness on their cheeks that they already realized she would have to leave them today.

  Lena hugged her hard, sniffling. Indy went next, saying, “I don’t know why you won’t let us go with you. You’re stubborn as hell.”

  Lilia gnawed her lip, tempted. “He’s far away. I don’t even know where. But when I get there, I’ll let you know.” She held up the cell phone Lena had bought her. She’d been added to their family plan and would forever be grateful. “And if I need you, I’ll phone you.”

  “Be on guard, Lilia,” Indy said. “We still don’t know where Father Dom is, and if he’s recovered his health, he could be dangerous. Trust me on this. Bastard almost killed me.”

  “I know. I’ll be careful.”

  Lena took her by the hand and led her to the kitchen table, where a large map of the United States was spread out. From her pocket she took a black velvet drawstring pouch, then pulled a long length of chain from it. At the end of the chain hung a cone-shaped amethyst pendulum.

  “Show me Demetrius,” she said, and then she held the chain over the northeastern section of the map. The amethyst was still at first, but slowly it began to swing from side to side, its momentum making it sweep wider each time.

  Snapping it up into her palm, Lena moved to the southeastern part of the country and repeated the procedure with the same results. Ditto to the Midwest, the center of the country, the Northwest, and the West Coast. It was only when she suspended the pendulum over the Southwest that it began to move in a different way. Not back and forth this time, but in ever widening circles.

  “He’s in the Southwest,” Lena said.

  Lilia nodded, her eyes on the map as Lena stopped the pendulum and glanced at Indy, who brought her a pair of scissors. She cut the map into pieces, cutting out Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and Colorado, then spreading the states out on the table. Then Lena repeated the process, holding the pendulum over each one. She got a positive result over Arizona and lifted her head, looking at her sisters.

  “It’s a start,” Indy said.

  “Thank you. It’ll save a lot of time. And once I get there, I’ll know which direction to go. I’ll feel him.”

  “I’ll cut the state up into sections and call you when I get more details,” Magdalena said. “Just in case you need to narrow it down.”

  “Thank you,” Lilia said softly.

  Indy was typing on her laptop computer by then, and nodded. “There’s a flight to Phoenix leaving in three hours.”

  “Then I should be on it.” Lilia brushed away tears she couldn’t help shedding. By the Goddess, she hoped she would see her sisters, her family, again. But she knew too well that if this didn’t go well, she might not. Not in this lifetime, at least.

  This might be goodbye.

  So she held them a long time when she hugged them, then held them again after the huge breakfast Selma insisted on making for her. Saying goodbye to the woman she accepted as her mother in every way that mattered was painful. Seeing Selma’s tears was almost too much to take.

  And then her sisters drove her to the airport and walked her to the security checkpoint, which was as far as they could go.

  Magdalena kissed her cheek. “Come back to us, okay? You have to come back to us.”

  “If it looks like he’s gonna refuse,” Indy said, “call while there’s still time, so I can come try to...persuade his sorry ass.”

  “I will.”

  “You’d better.”

  “I...love you both so much,” Lilia said. “You kept your vow to me, to him, even when it nearly cost you everything. I’m so grateful to you for that. And for taking me in now, so many lifetimes later. For everything you’ve done for me. Teaching me how to live in this time, the quirks of the language, how to dress, buying me clothes, the phone, lending me money. So much money.”

  “Hey, Lena married a billionaire,” Indy said. “Ryan can afford it.”

  “Still...” Lilia looked at the clock. “I have to go.”

  “Say the word and we’ll be there,” Magdalena said. “Goddess, Lil, I don’t want you to go.”

  “We haven’t come this far to fail now, brave sisters. Trust me, we will be together again. And soon.”

  As she turned to make her way through the security check, Lilia wished she felt as sure of that as she had sounded.

  * * *

  Demetrius looked out from his balcony over the property and remembered Father Dom’s arrival three days ago. The old priest had waved a hand expressively to indicate the beautiful grounds spread out below the small patio table where the two of them had been sitting over coffee. “This place is like a fantasy come true,” he’d said with a nod. “Obviously you’ve figured out how to use your...powers already.”

  Demetrius, who’d been sitting across the table from the old man, had tried to read his face. He didn’t know Father Dom, hadn’t trusted him, and he’d had no intention of giving anything away. But he’d very definitely wanted to know what the old cleric knew, or thought he knew, about him.

  “I wished for this. Visualized it in great detail. And it came to me. Is that what you mean by my...powers?”

  “You have the chalice and the blade,” the old man said. “Using the two together can bring desires and ideas, anything from the astral plane, into physical form. Did you use them before you acquired all this?”

  “I was messing around with them.” Demetrius shrugged, unwilling to reveal that he’d performed a rite according to a voice in his head, a female voice, and that he had apparently brought her into physical form from the astral plane, as well. And yes, all of this, too. But first, her.

  “Have you noticed any other powers attached to those tools of yours?”

  “The chalice and the blade?”

  “And the amulet, of course.” The priest nodded at the piece Demetrius wore around his neck.

  So he knew about that, as well. “They have other powers?”

  “That’s what I was asking you. Do they?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” It was a blatant lie. “Are they supposed to?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” the priest lied back.

  And it was a lie. The old man knew. Demetrius was sure of it. That priest knew the blade could blast energy like a laser, could set things on fire and even blow them up. And he must know what the amulet did, as well. He was dying to ask.

  All in good time, though. I have to be careful. Men would kill to possess tools like these.

  “You said you knew about me, about where I come from,” Demetrius said, choosing his words with care.

  The priest nodded slowly. “Everything that has brought you to where you now find yourself springs from another lifetime, Demetrius. A lifetime in the distant past. You have been human before, you know.”

  “Have I?” He had to hold himself still in his seat, will himself not to lean forward and gaze at the old priest in rapt interest. He tried to keep a cool demeanor, to relax and not look too eager.

  “You lived in ancient Babylon, in the sixteenth century, BC.”

  A flash came and went in his mind. Swirling
veils, bronze-skinned bellies, feminine arms twisting like snakes. Dancers in the desert. Just like his dreams. The blonde woman, she’d been there—though she hadn’t been a blonde then. And two others with her. The three witches?

  “What did I...do there?” he asked, aiming for a skeptical, nearly bored, tone.

  “You were the First Soldier of King Balthazorus,” the priest said. He lowered his head as he said the name, the way Demetrius had observed other people did when mentioning someone they’d known who had died.

  “I was a Babylonian soldier. Fascinating.” He tried to sound amused, as if the notion were silly. But deep down he felt a stirring of...something. Memory?

  “You were seduced and then betrayed by three women. Witches, all of them. Slaves in the King’s harem.”

  So they had been there with him, those three. Those same three, they had to be. Was that why they had to help him now? Because they had betrayed him in some long ago existence he didn’t even remember? Or want to remember.

  “What did these...witches...want with me?” he asked at length.

  “What any witch wants. Power. They wanted power over you. For though they lived in luxury, they were, after all, slaves. Owned by the King, forced to serve him for his pleasures. They wanted what any enslaved person wants. Freedom.”

  “Freedom,” Demetrius repeated. He knew about wanting freedom. He’d wanted it even before he’d known what it was.

  “They used their charms to seduce you to the point where you would do anything for them. Even murder the King you were sworn to serve. Which you did, my friend. Which you did.”

  “I murdered the King?”

  There was another flash in his mind. An ornate room that belonged in a palace, golden relics and rich fabrics everywhere. Exotic oil lamps out of one of the tales about Ali Baba sent thick black ribbons of smoke into the air. A bearded man stood before him, shaking his head sadly while Demetrius struggled against the soldiers who held his arms.

  “You cannot have them killed! Blame me for this. Take my life, not theirs. Not Lilia’s!”

  But the King wouldn’t even look him in the eye. “You betrayed me. You, my most trusted soldier. My...my friend...” When the King finally raised his eyes they glinted with fury. “They die.”

  “No!”

  Demetrius ripped free of his captors and yanked the blade from one soldier’s belt. He lunged forward, brandishing the dagger before him, and he heard the slight hiss of the razor-sharp edge slicing the air—and then the King’s throat.

  It happened so fast. Blood from Balthazorus’s neck sprayed like water from an elephant’s trunk, and Demetrius’s arms flew up in front of his face as its warmth spattered him. The man he’d sworn to serve, his friend, dropped to his knees, one hand grasping uselessly at his blood-pulsing throat, his mouth working soundlessly, eyes wide with shock.

  Demetrius moved forward, falling to his own knees. The knife fell from his numb hand. “No. No, I didn’t mean—”

  The King toppled sideways and lay still, and the blood flow slowed as his body emptied itself. Only then did the guards snap out of their shocked paralysis. One shouted, “Fetch the high priest,” and another brought the hilt of his sword down across the back of Demetrius’s head.

  A soft hand patted the back of Demetrius’s neck and snapped him out of the vision or memory or whatever it had been.

  “Are you all right, my son?” Father Dom asked.

  Demetrius had to blink the hot moisture from his eyes. What he had seen couldn’t have been real. It couldn’t have. He would never have murdered a friend. Not even over a woman. “Of course. I was thinking about the pool. It’s due for maintenance.” His voice was raspy. He cleared his throat. “You say all of this happened in...?”

  “Fifteen-hundred and one, BC.”

  “Ah.”

  “You think it sounds crazy,” said the priest. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him, ankles crossed, then folded his arms. “You don’t remember any of it, then?”

  “No.”

  “Just the part about being imprisoned in another dimension without a body?”

  Demetrius lifted his brows. “I don’t remember that, either.”

  The old priest’s lips puckered briefly in thought, and then he said, “That’s not what your friend Gus told me.”

  Demetrius sat forward. “When were you talking to Gus?”

  Father Dom smiled. “I wasn’t. I only saw him from a distance and heard your man Sid call his name. I was bluffing, but you just confirmed that I was right. If you’re not going to be honest with me, Demetrius, there’s no way I can help you. But believe me, the third witch is coming. And soon.” He fell silent and waited for Demetrius to react.

  At length Demetrius sighed and decided he had to reveal more interest than he’d intended. “Tell me about the third witch,” he said slowly. Because he simply had to know about her.

  “Tell me about your time in the Underworld.”

  Demetrius faced the man down, not liking him, not at all. “I don’t remember anything. Because there’s nothing to remember. A void. Consciousness amid nothingness. Just...black.”

  “But aware.” Father Dom sat up straight again. “You were aware.”

  “Yes, I was aware.”

  “And angry.”

  “Raging. Against my imprisonment, my confinement, that emptiness. What else, I don’t know.”

  “And you knew, even then, in that state, that there were witches. Three witches.”

  Demetrius met the man’s eyes but didn’t confirm or deny the statement.

  “You probably thought they were supposed to help you. And they confirmed it when the first one gave you the way back into the mortal world and the second a means to reconstitute your body.”

  “Reconstitute?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s the same body you had before. Well, more or less. You’re all but impervious to illness, can heal from any injury, can live forever. At least for now. The third witch will try to see to it that all that ends.”

  “How?” Demetrius asked, still admitting nothing.

  “She wants to complete what her sisters started, to take away all of your power to make you completely human again. Mortal. Weak. Vulnerable. Ordinary, Demetrius.”

  “And why would she want to do that to me?”

  “As I said, for the same reason any witch does anything. To get power. They want to keep your power for themselves, and themselves alone. Already the first two share some of your abilities.”

  “Such as?”

  The priest shook his head. “I only know they’ll strip you of all you have if you do as they say. You must be prepared. It was the witches who tricked you to begin with. They used their bodies to seduce you into betraying your friend and your King. And they used your feelings for them to trick you into murdering him. They are the ones who put you in that dark prison long ago. You should kill them. But short of that, you must at least resist them.”

  “And what about you? What do you gain from all this? From helping me?”

  “I’m a priest,” Father Dom said softly. “I’ve been trying to stop the witches all along. It’s my duty. My sacred calling. I don’t gain anything from it.”

  Demetrius looked around, down to the pool area where guests still lingered. The crowd had thinned, but there were still beautiful people dressed in almost nothing walking around, drinking his liquor and getting high from it as he couldn’t do. Gus always had company.

  He saw the priest looking and knew what he wanted. Part of what he wanted, at least. “You want to stay here, don’t you?”

  Demetrius had agreed, and now the old man was staying in the observatory, because the only access to it was through Demetrius’s suite on the circular third floor. No one was allowed up there. And the priest wanted no one, not even Sid or Gus, to know he was there. Demetrius had needed space around him, privacy, a haven in which he could be alone, which was why he’d chosen the third story as his own. Now the pries
t had invaded that space, but he had assured Demetrius it wouldn’t be for long. And today he’d promised to help Demetrius learn to control his powers.

  They were sitting once again on Demetrius’s private patio with their chairs well back toward the house, out of sight from prying eyes. After a long silence Father Dom, looking as if he’d gained twenty pounds since he’d arrived at the door, not to mention that his skin was several shades pinker, said, “Bring me the chalice, Demetrius. Let me show you what it does.”

  Demetrius studied the priest for a long moment, then, with a nod, decided he had nothing to lose. “Wait here,” he said. Then he went into the house and through the master suite to the safe, hidden behind a painting of three beautiful women standing on a cliff watching the sun rise over the desert. They wore flowing silk, and the sky was orange-red. It had been in the house when he arrived. He had no idea who had painted it, where Ned Nelson had bought it, or why he’d put it here, but it meant something to Demetrius.

  He just hadn’t known what until the priest had told him of his history.

  Three women. Ancient Babylon. Harem slaves. It could be them.

  Sighing, putting those thoughts aside for later, he opened the safe and took out the chalice. Then he carried it carefully back to the patio and out to the priest.

  “Ahh.” The old man’s eyes lit with a hungry gleam as he leaned forward and touched the chalice. “Yes, it’s just as I remember.”

  “Remember?”

  Father Dom looked up quickly. “I’ve seen its likeness in an ancient diary. Do you know how to use it?”

  “Fill with liquid and drink?” Demetrius asked, using the sarcasm he’d learned by observing others. It was one of his favorite quirks of the language. The priest stared blankly at him. Clearly the joke had gone right “over his head,” as Gus would have put it. It reminded Demetrius sharply of the way he used to react to modern humor. Never understanding it. Because he was out of his time.