Blood of the Sorceress (24 page)

His eyes felt heavy, and he caught them falling closed and forced them open again. Then it happened again. His head sank into the pillows, eyes closing as the velvet embrace of sleep reached up to enfold him.

* * *

“Master Sindar,” Bahru called, addressing the egomaniac in the way he’d been instructed, while peering between the bars of his makeshift cell. “Master?”

It wasn’t Sindar but one of his minions who responded by coming over. He wore black from his head to his feet. Loose-fitting black pants of thin cotton, a shirt that matched, and a sash, also black. Did that black belt signify a martial arts ranking, or was it purely decorative? Bahru wondered. And why were they all wearing masks? Ridiculous masks. This one wore a half mask that covered only his eyes and nose. It was black, like everything else.

“He’s busy,” the man said. “What do you want?”

“The baby needs to eat. Baby formula. Goat’s milk. Something.”

“There are only a couple of hours until her aunt arrives and we can let it go. It won’t starve in a couple of hours,” the man snapped, his tone hateful.

Bahru tilted his head, locking his gaze with the other man’s. “I am not your enemy. I only came along to care for the baby until Sindar has no further use for her. He doesn’t want her screaming for her mother, as she surely would be, were I not here.”

He was speaking to the man’s soul, trying to reach it with his own. But a man like this one was unlikely to be in touch with his higher self, so it might not do a lot of good. Still...

“What’s your name, my friend?”

The man blinked. “Jarred.”

“Jarred, if I don’t have a bottle of warm milk for this little girl soon, she’ll be wailing like a howler monkey.” He looked past the man, up at the domed ceiling. “In this concrete room, it will echo enough to drive us all mad. Believe me when I tell you, it would be far better to keep her content now than try to quiet her once a full-blown fit is under way.”

Jarred’s eyes shifted to the baby, wrapped in a blanket and sleeping on the cot, then moved quickly back to Bahru again. “She seems fine now.”

“She won’t be for long. But that’s all right. Just let it happen. Once we’re all covering our ears to avoid her screaming, I will be sure to tell your master that you were warned and chose to ignore it.”

The eyes peering out though the holes in the mask seemed to narrow. “I’ll send someone out. Where we’re going to find formula at this time of the night, I can’t even—”

“True, there’s no place open. The mother’s home, however, would have bottles filling the refrigerator. Surely one of you is skilled enough to slip inside undetected and bring back a bottle of baby formula?” He knew they were close. Sindar had only driven for a couple of miles before they got out and headed for the tunnel on foot.

Jarred didn’t say no immediately. He was considering the suggestion.

“And, if you can, the little teddy bear sitting on the fireplace mantel. That would soothe her a great deal.”

“I don’t think—”

Ellie chose that moment to begin to cry. And not just any cry, but a lovely loud shriek of a cry that made the would-be ninja’s brows rise in alarm, “Quiet her!” He looked behind him toward where Sindar was gathered with several others on the far side of the room. They were pounding and drilling and rattling chains over there, and despite all the noise, they were starting to look this way.

Bahru gathered Ellie up into his arms and held her close. “There, there, little one.”

She paused only for a breath and cut loose with another wail.

“All right, okay, I’ll go. I’ll get what you need. Just keep her quiet in the meantime.”

Bahru smiled as the man raced across the room, spoke quickly to Sindar and apparently, gained his consent. Of course, Eleanora was still howling.

But as soon as the man started up the stairs she stopped. Just like that.

Bahru smiled down at the baby. “Well done, little witchling. Very well done.” She only clasped a fistful of his beard and tugged.

* * *

Lilia gazed at her beloved, lying asleep in the bed. She hated to leave him, especially since she might not see him again in this lifetime. But she had no choice. The message in the chalice had been very clear. She must come alone, and only then would Ellie be released. As she’d stared down into the chalice, it had become more like a video chat than a scrying device. She’d seen Sindar as he’d been before. Fat and mean, effeminate and powerful. She’d asked silently how she could believe that he would release Bahru and Ellie upon her arrival, and he’d sworn in the name of Marduk, the God he served.

She didn’t think he would break a vow to Marduk, so she had agreed. When she’d asked what would happen to her, he’d shown her nothing at all. But she knew. He was going to kill her close enough to Beltane so that she wouldn’t have time to revive and Demetrius had a chance to reclaim his soul-piece, and it would die with her. And then Demetrius would die, as well. Forever. Unless she figured out a way to save him.

One last kiss, she thought, leaning over the bed, whispering in song to him. “Sleep my love, a little more. Till the babe is safe once more. Then come find me, where I wait. I’ll sing you right up to the gate. Listen for my song, my heart, and never more we’ll be apart.”

She leaned down and kissed him. Then she put her clothes back on, donned a jacket and good walking shoes, and slipped out of the cottage, walking briskly and unerringly through the night to the tunnel she’d been shown in the vision.

It was part of an abandoned railroad track. A tunnel had been blasted through one of the mountains in the area and track laid straight through, to save the time it would have taken to route the train around the mountain and through the pass. This stretch had been abandoned decades ago, deemed unsafe after repeated cave-ins. One train had barely escaped as part of the cave collapsed behind it. The tunnel had been cleared, shored up, repaired, and then a second cave-in, triggered by a roaring engine, had crushed a passenger train, burying three cars inside the mountain.

By the time the workers had dug them out, fifteen passengers were dead. Thirty-three survived with various injuries. From then on, the track was never used again.

In the sixties, while schools were training children to line up against walls and shield their faces with their arms in case of nuclear attack, the government had created a bomb shelter in the mountain underneath the cave. It was supposed to have been a secret.

She received all this information as she approached the cave. It filtered down to her from the vast pool of knowledge stored in the Akashic Records, the universal library where all knowledge of all things for all time was stored. Apparently she’d tapped into it simply by asking,
What is this place?

And now she stood before it, facing the tunnel’s dark maw and feeling as if she were facing the jaws of death itself.

A man in black stepped out of the shadows. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Lilia.”

He moved closer to her, then turned her around, lifting her blouse to check her lower back. She knew what he saw there: the cuneiform symbols that said “Daughter of Ishtar.” Apparently satisfied, he nodded and took her by one arm.

“I’m not setting foot inside until Bahru and the baby are set free.”

She was unafraid, even though she knew she was facing probable death. Her mind was completely focused on saving Ellie. The man lifted a hand and three others appeared, closing around her on all sides. “You will do as you are told, witch,” said the first man. Two of the others clasped her arms and pulled her bodily forward. She could either move her feet to keep up or she would be dragged. So she tried to keep her feet moving.

They pulled her into the bowels of the tunnel, into utter darkness, and then there was a door, and it opened, and there was light, a metal staircase, more men in black. At the far wall, as she descended the stairway, struggling not to fall, since the bastards were still pulling her, she saw Bahru holding Ellie in his arms, a bottle to her little mouth as she sucked happily. A teddy bear was on the floor near him. She recognized it and frowned, then snapped her eyes up to his.

He held her gaze. His was very sad. He was not happy to see her, nor was he surprised. He must know, then, what Sindar had planned.

“Well, I’m so glad you finally arrived. Time is short, you know.”

She knew that voice, and she turned her head toward it. Sindar. The evil priest’s soul had further contorted Father Dom’s vacated body. He looked more like he had in the past than when she had last seen him. His skin was still a shade lighter than before, and he was taller, as Father Dom had been a tall man. But aside from those details, he was all Sindar. He’d even gotten his hands on some eyeliner somewhere.

“What became of Father Dom when you stole his body?” she asked.

Sindar’s eyes sparkled, just like a man on the brink of victory. “He’d already vacated the premises, so to speak. Of course, he couldn’t move on into the afterlife while the machines kept his body alive. The bonds, you know.”

“I know.”

“I imagine he’s in a place much like the one where you’ve been these past thirty-five-hundred years. Limbo.”

“The world between the worlds,” she said, nodding. “I hope he’s free soon.”

“That can only happen if I die.”

“In that case he will be free soon.”

He scowled at her, a look of disgust.

“I’m here, just as you asked me to be. You have to keep your vow to your God and let Bahru and the baby go,” she said. Because as soon as he did, she was going to attempt to sing Demetrius here to her. She would sing them all here to her. They would make it in time. They would save her. And she would return the last piece of Demetrius’s soul to him, and everything would be all right again. Just as soon as the baby was safe, she would—

“I will let them go,” Sindar said softly. “Just as soon as you’re dead and that demon’s soul is dead with you.”

“If you kill me, I’ll revive.”

“You can’t return his soul to him while you’re dead. And I’ll make sure you are, before Beltane has arrived, at which point you will stay dead and his soul will die with you. And he will be no more.” He nodded to his men. “Dress her, then chain her.”

The men who still held her arms were joined by others who tore off her clothes. She twisted and kicked, but there were too many of them, and she didn’t possess the supernatural fighting skills Indy did. If she’d had the amulet, maybe, but not on her own.

When she was naked except for her panties, they released her, and she stood there exposed and furious. She saw Bahru in the cell, his gaze respectfully lowered, but he was the only one. The others leered their fill. Sindar’s gaze was on her, too, but his wasn’t lecherous. It was disgusted. He threw a garment at her chest. “Cover yourself, witch.”

She held the soft white garment in front of her, shaking out its folds and finding it was little more than rectangle of fabric. She wrapped it around herself, back to front, then crossed the corners in front and tied them behind her neck.

“You have to release them, Sindar. My sisters will come, and they’ll kill you. You can’t win.”

“I’ve already won.” He nodded to his men, and they were on her again, clasping her arms and lifting her off her feet, carrying her backward. She kept twisting her head around, but she could see only a concrete slab and few scattered support posts.

“You swore by Marduk that you would keep your word.”

“Marduk knew fully what I intended.”

“Damn you, Sindar!” She yanked one arm free, made a fist and punched one of her captors, who dropped the other, but they grabbed her again before she could get her legs loose. “The Gods allowed me to remain between the worlds,” she said, speaking rapidly to keep her panic at bay. “For three-thousand, five-hundred years they allowed it. And my sisters—”

A shackle was snapped around each of her wrists, and the men stepped away to the nearby pillars, where they picked up heavy chains and snapped them to her cuffs. She followed the links up and saw pulleys at the top, and as the black-clad thugs pulled the chains, they raised her arms with every tug.

“The Gods allowed my sisters to reincarnate, lifetime after lifetime, Sindar. To remember, to bear the same names, to find each other again. Do you really think— Unh!” The chains pulled her arms all the way overhead, and then farther, so she was lifted off her feet. It hurt. She gripped the chains in her hands to take her weight off her shoulders, but it wasn’t easy. “Do you really think...” She grunted, forcing the words past the pain of her shoulders being so painfully wrenched and the burn of her hands on the chains. “Do you really think that the Gods gave us all of that only to see us fail now?”

“You’re witches. The Gods gave you nothing. Your demon overlords, perhaps. But not Marduk.”

“Not Marduk,” she agreed, holding her head up when she wanted to let it fall forward in pain. “Ishtar.”

The flash of fear in the ancient high priest’s eyes was enough to tell her that she was on the right track. “Even Marduk himself doesn’t dare defy the wishes of the Queen of Heaven. Ishtar will exact a huge price from you, Sindar.”

He held up a hand, and the yanking of the chains ceased. Then the men pushed a concrete slab, a dais of some kind, forward. It scraped loudly against the concrete floor, but soon it was beneath her, supporting her feet, taking the burden from her hands and shoulders. She pressed her feet down and sighed in relief.

“Fetch the vessel,” Sindar barked.

Vessel? By the Gods, what was he up to?

A man scurried off, then returned with a large pottery urn, wide at the top, narrower at the bottom, and inlaid with semiprecious stones in the image of a golden rearing lion and lapis bull, just as they’d appeared on the city gates of Babylon.

She couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the piece from her own former time. And yet it didn’t bode well. It was very much like one that had been routinely used to hold the organs of victims who’d been disemboweled for scrying purposes, one of the high priest’s specialties. The heart and liver, sometimes other organs, would be stored inside it for use in future spells and rituals, while the intestines would be examined for signs and omens of the future.