Blood of the Sorceress (28 page)

Indy met Magdalena’s eyes, and it was Lena who spoke. “We had to go after our sister, Ryan. We were following the trail at first, but now we’re just making a beeline for Black Rock Gorge. According to the recording, that’s where he took her.”

“We know, Lena.”

“What do you mean, you know?” She looked at Indy.

“We got it from one of the henchmen who came after Bahru. There are probably more with Sindar,” Tomas said.

“Ten or so, judging from the bear-cam,” Indy told him.

“Babe, Sindar knows you’re coming. It’s a trap. He intends to throw all three of you from that cliff, just like he did before.”

Magdalena met Indy’s eyes and said softly, “That’s pretty much what we’ve pieced together, too. He wants us to catch up to him. The trail was way too easy to follow.”

“Look,” Ryan said, “just wait for us. And then we’ll all go up together. We can take them if we work as a team.”

Holding Indy’s steady gaze, reading it very clearly, Lena said, “All right. I love you, Ryan.”

“I love you, too, babe.”

“Tomas?” Indy asked.

“I’m here, babe.”

“I love you, hon. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“I’ll be there soon. Wait for me,” he said. “I mean it, Indy. Wait for me.”

She disconnected, looked at Lena. “We
can’t
wait. You know that, right?”

Gus stood staring from one of them to the other. “But you can’t face them alone!”

“Fifteen minutes to Beltane,” Lena said. “Sindar might settle for one sacrifice if he can’t have all three. We don’t have time to wait. If we wait, she’ll be dead.”

“We’re going to win this time,” Indy said.

“We win either way, sis. We found each other. We found our loves. I had Ellie. At least she’s safe now.”

“That freakin’ Bahru. Who’d have figured, right?”

“I always liked him,” Lena said. She looked at Gus. “This is our fight. I don’t want you coming up there with us. Wait for the guys, then bring them along, okay?”

He stared at her, said nothing.

Magdalena took her sister’s hand again. “Come on, let’s get it done. This showdown is long overdue.” And they started together up the trail.

* * *

Gus watched them go, shaking his head slowly. “They are so much more than I ever knew, those three women. I was wrong, so very wrong.” And then he started up the hill himself, picking a different route and staying out of sight as best he could. At least until he saw the men heading up the trail behind him at a heartbreaking run. All right, then. He would wait for them, and they would go up to the top together and pray they were not too late.

Because, Gus thought, the three beautiful witches were mistaken. This wasn’t their fight. It was his. It had been his all along.

* * *

Demetrius awoke to a nightmare. He found himself on the ground, hands bound in front of him, propped against a boulder, as he blinked his eyes open and winced at the pain that radiated outward from his belly, burning through his entire torso. But there was worse pain as his vision cleared and a tableau came into focus. A woman in a bloody white makeshift robe stood on the edge of a cliff, her hands bound behind her back, men dressed entirely in black standing nearby.

“Lilia!” He lurched forward as if to get up, only to be slammed by a man wielding a club the size of a baseball bat. It hit him in the chest, and he went down.

“Ah, good,” Sindar said, coming into his vision, blocking Lilia from his view. “You’re awake. I was so afraid you’d miss it.”

“Sindar. What the hell are you doing?” Demetrius demanded. “You failed in your mission. My soul has been restored. It’s over.”

“It’s not over. I could kill you all a thousand times and it would still not be over. My King cannot rest until this is made right.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember? Think, Demetrius. Now that you have your soul back, think about that day when you murdered your friend.”

“That was over three thousand years ago, Sindar. What difference can it possibly make now?”

“All the difference.” Sindar turned and glanced behind him, giving Demetrius a brief glance of Lilia. She was looking over her shoulder at him, and there were tears staining her cheeks. For the briefest of instants their eyes met and held.

“Face front, Lilia,” Sindar snapped. “I want your eyes on the fall that awaits you, right until the moment I push you over the edge.”

“You’re a sick man, to delight in torturing an innocent,” she said.

“Another word and you go over right now.” Sindar turned back to Demetrius, blocking his view of his beloved again. “We’re waiting for the other two, you see. But if they don’t get here soon we’ll be forced to proceed without them.” He looked at the sun and then at his watch. “Ten minutes. That’s how long she has to live.” He smiled in evil delight. Then he looked at his thugs. “I want two of you to go back and wait along the trail. As soon as the witches pass you, grab them, and don’t worry about being gentle. Bind them and bring them to the edge.”

“No!” Lilia cried. “Please, have mercy on my sisters. This was all my doing, not theirs.”

“I know. And you’ll suffer more knowing they will once again die with you for your sins.”

“You’re a high priest, Sindar.” Demetrius sat up straighter, returning his focus to the fat holy man. “You’re supposed to represent the Gods. You’re supposed to live by their standards. Murder isn’t one of them.”

Sindar stomped closer, his eyes blazing. “He wasn’t quite dead, you know. When you finished with him. He lay on the floor, drowning in his own blood, as the guards dragged you away. But he wasn’t quite dead. Hearing the commotion, I raced to his side. I knelt beside him. He could barely speak, and his eyes were filled with pain and fear. He wept, Demetrius. Tears of blood. Because of you.”

Demetrius lowered his head, guilt rising up in him. “It was wrong, what I did to the King. I should have reasoned with him, talked to him....” He lifted his gaze and leveled it on Sindar. “I should have convinced him that his High Priest was unfit to serve in the temple of Marduk.”

“He whispered to me as he lay there dying. ‘I will know no peace,’ he told me, ‘until this is made right.’”

The guilt rose up in Demetrius’s chest. He and the King had been friends. But Balthazorus should never have thought that executing his own harem slaves was justified merely because one of them had fallen in love with another and hurt his pride.

“I promised him, before he died, that I would obey his command,” Sindar said. “And then I swore that vow in ritual. Like your precious harlot Lilia, I did not cross over when I died. I lingered, as I knew she would. And I watched. I controlled people like Father Dom and the man who bombed the interfaith conference, and even you, Demetrius. When you were that raging Underworld beast...it was my voice that whispered to you, that told you to take the witch’s child in order to manifest a body for yourself. It was I who gave you the power to control the minds of the townsfolk who helped you, and even the Hindu guru.”

“Thank the Goddess,” Lilia whispered.

“I’m pretty relieved to hear that myself.” Everyone turned as one to look back along the trail. Magdalena was standing there, her red curls waving like a battle flag in the wind. “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Demetrius, and I forgive you for everything that happened.”

“For the record, so do I.” Indy, Demetrius realized. She had slipped around and come out ahead of them.

“Don’t stand there like mooncalves!” Sindar shouted at his minions. “Kill them!”

His men split into two groups, one going toward Indira, the others heading for Magdalena. Only one remained to guard Lilia, but not for long. As Demetrius watched, Lilia jumped in the air and kicked the thug in the chin.

He went over the side with a desperate cry that brought Sindar’s attention her way. “No, damn you!” He surged forward, but Demetrius got to his feet and plowed into the high priest, his head lowered like an angry bull’s, catching Sindar midchest.

Sindar doubled over and dropped to his knees. Lilia ran to Demetrius and pressed against him. She longed to embrace him, but her hands were still bound behind her. Her sisters were fighting for their lives, Indy dealing with four thugs, while Lena took on three.

“Turn around,” he told Lilia quickly. As soon as she did, he began tugging at the knots, quickly freeing her.

“Stop!” Still on the ground, Sindar fired a gunshot into the air, then got up and marched over to Lilia. He grabbed her arm, jerking her away from Demetrius and pressing the gun to her head. Demetrius lunged after her, though his hands were still bound, and Sindar pointed the weapon and shot him.

Hot lead ripped through Demetrius’s thigh, and he went down hard, bleeding, writhing in pain.

Sindar returned the gun to her head. “Get down here, you traitorous whores!” he shouted to Lena and Indy. “Get down here now, or I’ll shoot her and throw her over the side.”

“Don’t do it!” Lilia screamed. “He’ll kill me anyway. Don’t let him kill you, too! Think of Tomas and Ryan. Think of our mother, of Ellie.”

But they came anyway. Demetrius saw them rushing forward, leaving four thugs picking themselves up off the ground in their wake. Damn, no, seven. Three more were straggling in from behind some rocks.

Demetrius did his best to keep pressure on his bleeding thigh and tried to come up with a plan to save the women. But he was sorely afraid he was out of ideas.

17

L
ilia stood beside her sisters on the edge of the cliff. A man in black stood at her back and another was behind each of her sisters, awaiting Sindar’s command to push them over. Her hands were tied behind her again. As were theirs. Her love lay on the ground bleeding, straining to help her, suffering more than she was. And she understood why. It would be easier to die herself than to watch him murdered at the hands of a madman. She was sorry for his pain, and even more sorry that they hadn’t had the chance to be together as they should have been.

Goddess, she couldn’t believe it had come to this...again.

“Cast a circle,” Lilia said. “Cast it around all of them. Maybe we can break the spell he put on his minions.”

“I don’t think there’s time,” Magdalena said, and closed her eyes. “I love you so much, Ryan,” she said, just as if he were standing right there. “I wish you were here so I could tell you how much.” Her voice broke on a sob, but she forced herself to go on. “Take care of Ellie. Don’t let her forget me. I love you. I love you both so much.”

“I love you, too,” Ryan said softly. Lilia gasped and almost turned her head, but he added in a harsh whisper, “No, don’t look back and give us away.”

“No, don’t do that,” Tomas said from her other side. He was the masked figure standing behind Indira.

“No matter,” said a raspy voice in Lilia’s ear. “I’m gonna give us away right now.”

“Gus?” she whispered, feeling him undo the ropes around her wrists.

“The hour is at hand!” Sindar shouted with delight. “Push them over on my word.”

“Ladies, get away from the edge, and do it now,” Tomas said, and he wasn’t bothering to whisper anymore.

“Now!” Sindar cried.

Tomas and Ryan turned around to face Sindar, yanking off their masks.

Sindar’s eyes widened as Lilia clasped hands with her sisters and they raced away from the edge, toward Demetrius. He was on his feet. He’d somehow managed to undo the knots binding his wrists and tie the rope around his leg to staunch the blood flow. But the wound in his belly was still seeping.

Three men stood now against Sindar and his four remaining thugs, though Lilia thought Demetrius looked as if he would collapse at any minute. And one still stood near the cliff with his back to them all.

Gus.

“Kill them all!” Sindar commanded, and the fight was on.

Demetrius, Tomas and Ryan fought side by side. Just as Lilia and her sisters were about to jump into the battle, Gus joined them, his mask still on, and took Lilia’s hand. “Come with me,” he told them. “Trust me, this is about to end. Come.”

They frowned at each other but followed as he climbed up on top of the boulder Demetrius had been leaning against, then bent down to offer them each a hand up. When they were all standing there with him, he took off his mask at last. Lilia caught her breath, because he looked very different.

His hair was darker, gleaming, and his face had lost its wrinkles but kept its fine chiseled structure, strong jaw, proud nose. His salt-and-pepper brows were jet now, and thicker. He didn’t look old anymore. He looked...

“Oh, my Goddess,” Magdalena said. “He looks just like—”

“Balthazorus?” Indy asked.

He smiled at them, then shouted in a booming voice that rang from the rocks and seemed to fill the entire gorge with its power. “Sindar! Heed the words of thy King!”

The fighting ceased as everyone below stared up at the spectacle on the rock. Demetrius’s jaw dropped, and he took a few halting steps forward. “Gus?”

The King smiled warmly, but his smile died when his gaze fell on the gaping high priest.

Sindar fell to his knees beneath the power of that gaze, then prostrated himself. “My King, oh, my King! I avenged you once, my liege, and now I do so again.”

“I never asked you to avenge me, Sindar.” Gus—Balthazorus—told the women to remain where they were, then leapt nimbly down from the boulder. He walked right up to Sindar and, staring at him sadly, shook his head. “When my friend and trusted soldier slit my throat, and the life spilled out of me, my final thought was—”

“I’m sorry I betrayed you. I’m sorry I...I killed you, Gus,” Demetrius said, lurching forward, but the King held up a hand to stop him, never breaking eye contact with Sindar.

“My final thought was that it was no more than I deserved. I had overreacted. Demetrius was my best friend. I should have given him Lilia with my blessing. But I was an arrogant man with an enormous ego, and I couldn’t overcome that. At least not in time.”

“B-but, my King, these witches betrayed you.”

“They fell in love. That had nothing to do with me, Sindar. But you...all this evil you’ve done in my name. On my behalf. That has everything to do with me. And it ends now.”

“You said you would never know peace until things had been made right!”

“Which is what I’m doing right now.” Balthazorus nodded at the four thugs, and then at three more who were coming into the clearing from the brush nearby, wearing Tomas’s, Ryan’s and Gus’s former clothes. “Release these men from your thrall, dark magician.”

“B-but—”

“I command it.”

Looking stricken, Sindar waved a hand, and the thugs started blinking and looking around as if they had no idea where they were or how they’d gotten there.

“That way,” Gus told them, pointing down the trail. “Go.”

They hustled to obey, looking as puzzled as if they’d awakened on another planet.

“I thought I was doing what you wanted,” Sindar whimpered.

“You knew me, Sindar. I was a good king, a decent man. I never would have condoned the evil you’ve done in my name. Never.”

Sindar began backing away, but Gus kept right on talking. “You killed innocents. You menaced a baby. You stripped a man of his soul. You need to revoke the spell you cast on Demetrius, the spell that has kept you trapped in this darkness all this time. You need to let go, Sindar, and move on into the afterlife your dark magic has kept at bay. And you need to do it now.”

Lowering his head, Sindar took one last step backward and went over the edge. The only sound came from his robes flapping in the wind—until the splash when he reached the shallow stream at the bottom.

Lilia didn’t feel even a hint of sorrow for him.

Then Gus went to Demetrius and wrapped his arms around him in a powerful hug. “I wronged you, my friend,” he said.

“I wronged you far more,” Demetrius told him. “I never meant to love her. I never meant to kill you. I’m sorry, Balthazorus.”

The King clapped him on the back heartily, then stood back and looked him in the eye. “You saved me from the fire. That put you ahead on good deeds. This one makes us even. And please, for crying out loud, call me Gus.” A smile split Demetrius’s face as Gus released him and turned to Ryan. “My son,” he said. “I’m so proud of you.”

The two men embraced, and when they separated Gus waved a hand toward the women, who still stood atop the boulder, high above the gorge. The wind lifted their hair, and they gazed down lovingly at the men in their lives. In their hearts.

“Are they not the most beautiful women in all the land?” Gus asked.

“And the most powerful,” Demetrius said.

“And the most loving,” Ryan put in.

“And the most amazing,” Tomas said.

“Ahh, that they are. And they are yours. Take good care of them, my friends.”

And with that Gus turned away and started walking down the trail.

“Wait, Gus! Where are you going?” Lilia shouted, as she and her sisters jumped off the rock and ran after him.

He turned and smiled at her, at all of them, looking more like the old Gus again. “I am going to live like the king I am, thanks to Demetrius.”

He continued on his way. Tomas came up and wrapped Indira in his arms. Ryan swept Lena up for a passionate kiss.

Demetrius and Lilia stood facing each other for a long moment, lost in each other’s eyes. And then, together, they moved closer. She lifted tentative fingers, to touch his face. “I—”

He stopped her with a soft, light kiss. And then he said, “I think it’s my turn to say it. I love you, Lilia. I’ve loved you for thirty-five centuries. Maybe longer. I lost myself for a while, but I never lost that. It’s what made me rage and rant in the Underworld, though I didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t being imprisoned that was driving my fury. It was being kept apart from you. You never held a piece of my soul in your heart, you know. You held
all
of it. You still do. And you always will.”

Her tears flooded over. “I’ve waited so long...so long for this.”

“The wait is over, my beautiful Lilia.” And then he kissed her the way he’d been wanting to. Long and deep and passionately.