The Sorceress Screams (19 page)

I was alert
for my conversation with my mother thanks to the hammered silver cuff she’d
given me. I hoped a conversation was all we had. I was still reeling from her
last “favor”. I couldn’t handle another one so soon.

I fixed two
mugs of coffee with two heavy pours of cream and two spoonfuls of sugar and
then tramped into the living room. I closed my eyes to visualize her in her
overalls and lime T-shirt, whispering, “Hecate, I summon you.”

“You’ve had
quite the week,” she said before I’d opened my eyes. Her overalls were folded
down on one corner to show her baby blue
Carebears
T-shirt with the heart in the middle. Her eyes flicked to the television from
her pose nearly upside down on the chair. As always, she had a curious quirk of
refusing to sit on a seat properly unless Hades forced it of her.

“He’s going to
give the ring back as soon as he feels I’m devoted to this relationship.” I
handed her the mug of coffee. Sometimes I could follow the pattern of her
thoughts. She may be a goddess, but she was also my mother.

Her burgundy
hair fluttered as she nodded. “So he says. Watch him. Their kind isn’t to be
trusted.”

She sounded so
like Trip. Was she also concerned my soul would be trapped on the Mortal Realm
inside an undead body?

And what had
happened
to my childhood nemesis? Dare I
ask?

“I’m working
with a Healer doctor in an effort to cure the witches of their blood bond,” I
said even though she’d already know all of this. “
Dea
Woods, the former ambassador for the Earth witch Monarchy, is the guinea pig.
My hope is to cure her and earn her respect.”

My mother
nodded but didn’t comment on whether or not I’d succeed. The rule of Fate meant
she couldn’t because it might interfere with Fate’s plan. Occasionally she
flouted that rule because she and
Clotho
were bosom
buddies. This wasn’t one of those instances.

“Apart from
that, I don’t have any additional news to report,” I said.

She set her
mug down atop the travertine floor. “The Water witch—is he the lynchpin?”

I exhaled a
disappointed breath because I didn’t have a good answer for her. “If he’s not,
he’s at least very important.”

“Find out.”

“I’ve been
trying,” I said under my breath.

“Try harder.”

With that
said, my mother disappeared into the Void, leaving me to wonder how in Hades I
could try harder without sneaking into a coalition meeting.

****

Dea
Woods looked pale but in good
spirits when Rich showed me into their hotel suite sitting room. There were two
bedrooms, confounding me on the question of if they were lovers or not.

Dr. Yates, on
the other hand, had deep circles beneath her eyes and nursed a thermos of
coffee the size of my arm. I hid my frown because her lack of sleep was my
fault.

Dea
greeted me warmly as I settled my
tush
onto the chair across from her. “Thank you for
coming, Ms. Walsh. Won’t you sit? I really appreciate what you and Dr. Yates
are trying to do for me—for us all.”

Rich paced
behind me. I opened my mouth to reply, but he burst out as if my arrival had
only interrupted an argument.

“The Healers
should have been working on this all along,” he said. “This shouldn’t have been
a cobbled together test involving a human
sorceress
and a general practitioner. There should be options that aren’t
risky
. What are the Healers doing
instead? Worrying about
their own
skin? And
Viho
—”

“I can find
you thousands of studies about curing cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and other
prevalent disorders,” Dr. Yates said. “Our focus is on what will improve the
world at large. Not ourselves.”

“Blood bonds
may not have newspaper campaigns and fun runs associated with them, but they’re
just as prevalent.”

“As
cancer
?”
Dr. Yates snorted. “Where are you getting your data? Vampires
enthrall for power, for what someone can do for them. They—”

Rich jabbed a
finger in the doctor’s general direction. “Healers probably aren’t looking into
it because they’re in big-V’s pocket.”

“Aren’t out
there biting random victims,” Dr. Yates said.
“Big V?
Are you serious? Who—”

Dea
spoke over the bickering voices.
“As I was telling Rich and Dr. Yates, anything I can do to help is worth any
risk involved. The gain is too important to worry about the potential for
problems.”

Her steady
gaze was on me, but I sensed her attention was on Rich hovering behind me. I
didn’t need an empathic link to know he was concerned for her. And that his
guilt was eating him up inside. Even if the blood bond were cured, Rich would
still carry that guilt. It would complicate this relationship for years to
come.

This time I’d
ask for permission. “May I check the levels of the antibodies?”

Dea
nodded eagerly, but her hands
clasped just a little tighter in her lap. She didn’t trust me.

Dismay made me
slow. I called on Healing. This time she’d need to
know
I’d done something. I willed the soothing magic to make a
small sound when it connected with her. She flinched upon hearing it. Rich took
a step forward.

Dea
waved a dismissive hand at him.
“It’s fine. I was just startled.”

Healing
already showed me the antibodies I’d isolated yesterday. It wasn’t until I’d
exhaled a relieved breath that I’d realized I’d been holding it in.

“There are
fewer,” I said.
“Far fewer.”

The females
exhaled much as I did.

“That’s good,”
Dea
said.

“Very good,”
Dr. Yates said. “We’ll do more treatments today.”

“As many as I
can handle.”

“D,” Rich said
warningly from his spot on the fringe of the room.

Dea
cast him an impatient look. “I
won’t have my life back until this is resolved. I won’t be happy until I have
my life back. We can’t run forever, Rich.”

He sighed and
shook his head.

Vanessa moved
to my side. “Can you show me how to check?”

I looked to
Dea
for authorization because she was the one who would be
under examination.
Dea
nodded. And then I turned
toward Rich. “May we use you as our control? Dr. Yates will need an unaffected
witch for comparison.”

His lips
thinned, but a glance at
Dea
prompted his agreement.
“Fine.”

I focused on
Vanessa. “Call on Healing and ask it to join with both. Can you do that?”

“Join?”

My skin warmed
because my lack of magical education showed. I didn’t know any of the Healers’
terminology. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what words you use. It’s the link you
create with an individual to check their vitals.”

Vanessa’s head
tilted to the right. Confusion crinkled her eyes. “I have to touch them for
that.”

Oh no
. Not only had I
admitted I could access Healing, but apparently I’d also admitted I had power
above that of a standard Healer. Maybe I could dodge the subject.

I motioned for
Rich to join us. He sat on the sofa beside his high priestess. I moved so
Vanessa could take my seat. She set a hand to their arms, closing her eyes
while she whispered an incantation in a language I didn’t understand.

“I’m linked,”
she said.

“Call on
Healing to visualize the circulatory system of them both.”

The doctor’s
head snapped toward me. “What do you mean?”

I shifted my
weight onto my left hip.

This was just
one of the dangers of having learned as I went and from texts I’d found hidden
in my mother’s quarters in the Underworld. The texts had been centuries old. Things
must have changed since then.

“I ask Healing
to visualize them like an angiographic in my mind’s eye,” I said. “It provides
realtime
updates better than any machine.” At least it did
for me.

Vanessa stared
at me in wordless shock.

“Try it. Will
your Healing magic to show you Rich’s circulatory system.”

She gasped
seconds later.
“Oh, my!
Kora
…
This…”

I dropped into
a nearby chair in a combination of surprise and worry. How was it that Healers
hadn’t been utilizing that ability? And could I hope Dr. Yates would keep quiet
about my knowledge of Healing?

“I’ve done it
for them both,” she said.

“Now ask
Healing to show you the differences. When you find the antibody in Priestess
Woods, ask it to illuminate it for you.” My voice was hollow. Word of my access
to yet another school of magic would make it into every ear in
Wipuk
before the week was out.

A full minute later Vanessa exclaimed.
“I see it! It’s there! This is less?”

“Yes, she has
about a third less today than she did when I saw her last.”

“A third after two treatments.”
Her
eyes darted beneath her closed eyelids. “Four or five more ought to do it. And
now that I can check for the antibodies, I’ll be able to tell if they come
back.”

I felt the
need to give a warning. “This is only our best guess, Priestess Woods. The
antibody may just be a sign of the blood bond’s presence rather than the bond
itself. We don’t know if you’ll be cured when we remove it.”

The Earth
witch nodded. “Thank you for trying all the same.”

I stood
because they no longer needed me and I wanted a nap before work. “Please keep
me updated. I’m eager to know the outcome.”

“We will,”
Dea
said for them all. “Thanks again, Ms. Walsh.”

I left
Flagstaff with no additional information than I’d arrived with. The wait was
frustrating because if nothing came of it, I’d be back to square one with seven
witches I didn’t know how to save and one angry, powerful vampire gunning for
me.

****

There was a
message on my phone when I woke from my nap at quarter after eleven. Nell had
called out sick. She wasn’t truly suffering from a “head cold”. She was
suffering from a sense of betrayal. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do
about it.

I was
particularly aggressive with the styling gel after my shower, taking my
frustration out on my hair. The giant television dominating the living room was
a symbol of why Nell was avoiding work. I was tempted to throw something into
it but restrained myself. The device had cost a pretty penny, and I couldn’t
afford to anger Maximo. So I shuffled around the apartment with my back to it
as I gathered up my purse, keys, and boots.

The shop was
unbearably quiet without Nell’s scuffing or her occasional chatter. I turned
the radio on for the noise. It didn’t fill the void.

Who’d known
how much I’d come to rely on the young woman? Or had Nell been filling a
different sort of void I hadn’t known I’d had until there’d been nothing to
plug it? I shook my head rather than ponder such dark thoughts.

Two tourists
came in, looking for rare crystals. I sent them down the street to one of the
many crystal stores Sedona boasted. A trio of Canadians visited and bought a
stick of incense. One declared she had a terrible time of keeping plants alive
and thus couldn’t buy the potted clovers. I tried to sell her the lightly
etched glass vase that extended the life of any plant stored inside it. She’d
declined but said she’d keep it in mind if she bought nothing else on the trip.
No doubt I’d lose out to a cheap glass sphere that was sold for twenty times
its worth because someone had wrapped it in a box and called it a “crystal
ball”.

There was one
bright spot in my day—a phone call at seven in the evening. Dr. Yates had
successfully eradicated every antibody out of
Dea’s
bloodstream. They’d decided it would be smartest to stay in Flagstaff for
another night and then come home tomorrow if she was still clean. Both women
asked me to visit in the morning again so I could verify
Dea
had no lingering antibodies. I tentatively agreed because I didn’t know how the
meeting with Maximo and Nadir would go later tonight. My hope was Maximo would
put him off for a third day.

Well, my
hope
was that I’d live to see another
sunrise. My days were numbered if the
plasmapheresis
treatment worked. If Nadir didn’t kill me, Maximo surely would.

Chapter Fourteen

I stiffly drew
out of the Escalade’s passenger seat. My lips were compressed in a fine line at
the vampire in front of me. Javier might not have done anything wrong, but he
was a symbol of his boss, or master, or sire—whatever Maximo de Sole was to
him.