Witchy Woman (16 page)

Tess’s eyes widened, but she didn’t contradict him.

The cop rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you college kids stay in Cambridge where you belong? All right, get out of here, the both of you. Since it’s near the end of my shift, I’ll let you off.”

“Thank you,” they said together. Then they scurried away before he changed his mind. Nate’s breathing didn’t return to normal until they were riding the ancient wooden escalator down to the Park Street T Station.

Tess stood stiff and tense next to him as they stepped onto the subway car. The lights flickered, as if the Crimson Cat were reminding them that it hadn’t forgotten about them. Nate had to resist the urge to jump back off the car before the doors closed.

“Did you see that?” Tess asked, clinging to him.

“Yeah.” He stifled a tremor.

“I feel like the curse is toying with us, letting us know that it could stop us any time. For good.”

It’s just coincidence, Nate said to himself. A long, serious streak of bad luck. Nothing more. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when they made it home alive. At least they hadn’t seen any more of Tristan Solca.

Tess didn’t make even a token suggestion that she should go home, for which Nate was glad. He didn’t want to spend the night alone any more than he imagined
Tess wanted to, and he certainly didn’t want to venture out again to see her home. By silent agreement he helped her fold out the sofa bed. He gave her an old football jersey to sleep in. It covered her much too decently, all the way to her mid-thigh, except he thought he could see the shadows of her nipples through the pin-sized holes that peppered the jersey fabric.

He tried not to stare as they settled at the dining table with cups of hot chocolate.

“I’m scared,” she said. They’d avoided talking about anything consequential since the subway. “I hope you’re not. You seem so solid, so unflappable, and that’s a comfort to me.”

“No, I’m not scared. Apprehensive, maybe.” Worried about the toll all this magic preparation was taking on Tess. Dark circles marred the translucent skin beneath her eyes. She’d hardly eaten all day.

And she trembled. Like a little bird, or a frightened puppy.

He was worried about Judy. Hell, he hardly knew the woman, but he felt unaccountably close to her anyway, because of his involvement with Tess. He worried about how Tess would react if the spell didn’t work, if they lost Judy despite their heroic efforts.

And, okay, he was just the tiniest bit worried that he would have to live the rest of his life—however brief that might be—shadowed by a curse.

“I know I need to sleep,” Tess said, “to gather my strength, but I’m not sure I can.”

“I’ll stay with you if you want,” he offered, knowing
full well that if he lay next to Tess,
he
would be the one who didn’t get any sleep.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—that is, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to—”

“You’d be safe. Much as I want to make love to you, I’m taking this virgin thing pretty seriously.”

The color flooding her cheeks only reminded him how pale she was looking without the blush.

“It’s your call,” he said, reaching across the table to lay his hands over hers. “If you’d rather I keep my distance, I’ll be in the next room.”

“One scream away.” Her grim smile faded almost as soon as it appeared. “I think we ought to stick together. Am I—would that be teasing you? To ask you to share my bed without any sex? Now you’re finding out how naive I really am. I don’t know the rules ’cause I’ve never played the games, but I know being a tease is bad.”

“These are special circumstances,” he said, wishing he had the strength to deny her request. But at this point he would do anything she asked of him. He was, he realized, completely nuts over the woman.

He was falling in love with a witch.

If Nate had any doubts about the efficacy of the curse, they were laid to rest the next morning. After a tense, eight-hour stretch of lying next to Tess and waking up from one nightmare after another, each more gruesome and terrifying than the last, he awoke to find that his hot-water heater had leaked to near empty during
the night. Not only did he have to deal with a lake in his hallway, but he had to shower in ice water.

Then his toaster exploded when he tried to transform a couple of stale bagels into breakfast, causing a small fire in his kitchen. When he tried to pull the cord out of the wall socket, he damn near electrocuted himself.

If all that hadn’t convinced him, the early-morning drive to Sudbury, where they planned to check out the cemetery, did. A tree fell on them, or very nearly so. Nate was driving Tess’s car because of her swollen ankle, and a hundred-year-old tree suddenly heaved over for no apparent reason. Nate floored it, catching only the massive tree’s outer branches on the back of the car.

He’d scarcely recovered from that fright when a drunk driver—or at least, someone who drove like a drunk—strayed across the center line of the highway and nearly front-ended them. Again, only Nate’s quick reflexes and a mild flirtation with a ditch saved their lives. After those two near tragedies the curse didn’t bother with staged accidents. The car itself tried to drive them off the road.

Nate held the steering wheel in a firm grip, using every muscle in his arms and shoulders to keep to his course.

“What’s going on now?” Tess asked as she watched his struggle.

“The damn car seems to have a mind of its own. I can’t—oh, God, no!” The car veered into oncoming traffic.

Tess grabbed the steering wheel; between them, amid honking and squealing tires, they narrowly avoided another collision.

“It’s that next road, on the right,” Tess said. “God, I can’t believe this. Even the map has turned against us. I just got a paper cut that ought to have stitches!”

Nate followed her directions to the tiny churchyard, his stomach roiling. Why couldn’t he wake up and find this whole trip was a continuation of the previous night’s nightmares?

He pulled the car, obedient for the moment, under a huge chestnut tree and cut the motor.

“I
do
believe in curses,” he chanted softly. “I do, I do, I do.”

Tess thought Nate looked a little pale as he got out of the car, but she couldn’t blame him. She was shaking herself. “You know,” she said, “in a way, all these terrible things happening to us are a good sign.”

Nate, who’d been rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, paused and looked at her. “Come again?”

“The curse, or whatever force is behind it, is working awfully hard at trying to stop us from casting the spell. That must mean we’re on the right track. It must mean we have at least a chance of succeeding, or why would the Cat bother to stop us?”

Nate came and stood beside her. “I apologize.”

“For what?”

“For not believing in this thing from the very beginning. I can’t deny now that there is something very powerful out to get us.”

“It’s only natural for a logical person such as yourself to want proof.”

“I have it now, that’s for sure.” His eyes bored into hers. “Tess, a minute ago you said ‘the curse, or the force behind it.’ What exactly are you talking about?”

Tess rubbed her upper arms, fighting off the chill that came from within. “I don’t even want to speculate.”

Her answer obviously didn’t satisfy him, but he didn’t press her, for which she was grateful. She’d already lain awake the night before thinking about the power of the force they were up against, speculating the worst. Morganna had mentioned something about a “Dark Lord.”

She shivered again. “You ready?”

He nodded, his throat working as if he wanted to say something.

The cemetery was a small one, fenced in black wrought iron and nestled among some trees behind a picturesque white frame church—picture-postcard perfect. The area was deserted. They couldn’t see anything around them but trees. It was a perfect setting for their midnight ritual.

The entry gate was locked, but the low fence didn’t provide much of a deterrent. Even with her tender ankle, Tess didn’t have much trouble vaulting the barricade. She waited for Nate to join her, but he didn’t. She look back at him.

Nate stood on the outside looking in, his face frozen. He’d gone from pale to almost green.

“Nate? What’s wrong?”

He swung his gaze toward her. “Remember that
first day we went out to the antique stores? And I accused you of having a phobia about cats?”

“Yeah …”

“I’m well acquainted with phobias. I have one.”

“Cemeteries?” she squeaked. “That’s right. You did say something about that. I remember now.”

“Uh-huh. I thought—I mean, it’s completely irrational. I know that. I intended to tough it out, but I don’t seem to be able to make my legs take me over the fence. I can’t even
look
at all those headstones without getting queasy.”

“It’s okay, Nate.” She reached over the fence and touched his arm. Funny how automatic the gesture had become. Touching, which until a few days ago had been the bane of her existence, seemed completely natural with Nate. Comforting, even.

She felt his horror, though. Beads of perspiration popped out on her forehead and upper lip.

She nodded miserably, then shook herself. They had business to take care of, but there was no reason for them to linger in this place longer than necessary. “Stay here, Nate. You don’t have to come inside the fence.”

She turned and walked briskly toward the far corner of the cemetery, where the newer headstones were located. Vibrations reached out for her like grasping vines, but she determinedly shook them off. It took only a couple of minutes of scanning the epitaphs to locate Mary Beth Logan’s headstone.

TAKEN
TOO
YOUNG
,
HER
LIFE
BARELY
BEGUN
, the etched granite stone read.
SHE
IS
WITH
THE
ANGELS
NOW
.
A ribbon of grief laced itself through Tess’s mind. She went with it for a moment, letting the tears come to her eyes, then released it. There, that wasn’t so bad. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a big white bow, which she stuck to the top of the headstone so they could easily locate the grave later that night.

It seemed almost too easy, she caught herself dunking as she hobbled on her sore ankle back toward the exit. But she supposed they were entitled to have
something
go right.

Nate waited for her exactly where she’d left him. He helped her over the fence. “Did you find it?”

“Yes.”

He opened her car door for her, then walked around and folded himself behind the steering wheel. The car started right up and behaved perfectly as Nate pulled onto the road. Nothing more was said until the church and graveyard were well out of sight.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said. “I feel like an idiot, a coward, to let a bunch of marble and granite and old bones scare me.”

“Please don’t apologize. Weren’t you the one who told me not to be embarrassed about a phobia? That they were common?”

“Yeah, but that was before it was me acting irrationally.” He paused, staring out the window. “My mother died when I was four.”

Tess cringed inwardly. “Oh, Nate, that must have been horrible.”

“I haven’t been near a cemetery since, not even
when my sister died. But I thought I could … no, I will. I’ll go in with you tonight, Tess. I promise. I stood there at the fence the whole time you were inside, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I can do it.”

“I know you can,” she said simply, believing that with all her heart. Nate wasn’t weak. He would do what needed to be done when the time came. She had absolute faith in him.

Everything was ready. Tess had assembled the ingredients for the spell and placed them in several canvas tote bags Nate had supplied. She had practiced reaching into the bags and withdrawing the various powders and whatnot in the order in which she would need them, assisted by her parapsychological powers. She had committed the spell itself to memory, then rehearsed it at least a hundred times, so that she could chant the appropriate words at the right moment without stumbling.

She had coached Nate on his responsibilities, which he was suddenly taking very seriously.

Finally she had taken a ritual bath in cool water laced with sea salt. Nate made them some potato soup and peanut-butter sandwiches for dinner, but Tess could hardly touch the food. Her stomach was tied in knots no Boy Scout ever knew. She meditated, using some long-ago-learned mantra, trying to make herself calm and serene. The potential for mistakes was huge, and she didn’t want nerves to be a contributing factor.

After dinner, she called the hospital. Judy’s condition
had deteriorated further. “Now would be the time to come,” the nurse whispered confidentially.

Oh, God, what a choice to have to make, she thought as she woodenly hung up the phone. Should she go to her friend and be with her during her final hours, or should she risk everything with a dangerous magic ritual?

Nate took her hand. “We have to do the spell,” he said. “I know you want to be with her, but if we don’t finish this thing, I’m afraid we’ll all be seeing each other sooner than we like—on some other plane, if you get my drift.”

She knew exactly what he was talking about, and she was forced to agree with him. “Nate, do you realize you just read my mind? I was thinking about the choice I had to make, and you responded as if I’d posed the question out loud.”

Nate looked confused. “You
did
say it out loud.”

She shook her head, looking down pointedly at their hands, which they’d unconsciously joined. “Maybe the connection goes two ways?”

He shook his head. “I’m not psychic.”

“Everyone’s psychic to some degree,” she said, but with that she let the matter drop. The idea intrigued her, though. No one had ever picked up
her
vibrations before.

By nine-thirty, she felt ready. She figured they had at least an hour, though, before they needed to leave for the cemetery. An hour before they took the final, irreversible steps in this macabre drama.