Mark of the Witch (22 page)

“All right, ma’am, all right, calm down. Your nine-one-one call
was impossible to understand. You need to tell us what’s going on.”

“It’s Professor Yates!” she sobbed. “Jonathon Yates. I found
him in his office. He’s…he’s hanged himself!”

14

T
omas stood there, shock washing over him
as he saw one of the cops walk the hysterical woman back into the building. The
other one took up a position at the doors and spoke into his radio.

Tomas lunged up the steps, intending to follow the first cop
and the woman inside, but the cop at the door stopped him, a hand to his chest.
“Sorry, Father. You’ll need to wait out here. This is an active
investigation.”

“He’s a friend. I need to know what happened.”

“So do we. But if you want to help… Do you have any idea what’s
been going on with the professor?”

Yeah,
Tomas thought.
He was helping me interpret messages from a demon. And now
he’s dead. And I don’t for one minute believe it was a suicide.

But if he said any of that, he would wind up detained for
questioning or, worse, a psychiatric evaluation. And there was no time for any
of that.

“No. I’m just…I’m shocked. I want to know what happened.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Father. But I can’t let anyone
in. And I have to question anyone coming out, so you’re going to have to
wait.”

“How long?”

The cop swallowed. “It’ll be a while.”

A heavy hand clapped down on Tomas’s shoulder, and he turned to
see that Father Dom had joined him at the top of the steps. “Come on, son. We
have to let the officer do his job.”

Turning, shell-shocked and almost dizzy with it, Tomas walked
back down the steps to where Rayne and Indy waited, wide-eyed, as stunned as he
was and probably scared, too.

As they approached the women, but before they got too close,
Dom leaned nearer. “Things are getting very dangerous, Tomas. And it’s clear to
me that the witch has no intention of cooperating with us,” Father Dom said.
“Did you see the way she spoke to that dog?”

Tomas nodded, but he didn’t want to hear it. Jon was dead. His
friend was dead.

“And not just the dog, either,” Dom went on. “They all went
back to normal. The squirrel. The birds. Even the students. She’s a far more
powerful witch than either of us knew, Tomas. She not only communes with demons
but commands them.”

“This isn’t the time, Dom.”

“This is the
only
time. How do you
know she didn’t orchestrate this herself? Jon was translating something—maybe
she’s remembered the incantation on her own and didn’t want us to know.
Maybe—”

“Enough!” Tomas snapped loudly, angrily, and Father Dom fell
silent, maybe in shock. But silent all the same.

Tomas continued toward the women, who both hugged him hard when
he got close enough. Their arms, their warmth, were a comfort at a time when not
much could be.

“There’s no way Jonathon hanged himself,” he muttered.

“So says every friend or relative of every suicide that has
ever been,” Father Dom said, standing back from the group hug.

Rayne stepped away, but Indy pressed closer, hugged longer.
“What if the demon did it?”

“Dom says he can’t do anything physical—not directly, anyway.
He has to influence humans or animals to—”

“He managed to influence someone to plant that bomb.” Her face
was pressed to his chest. The movement of her lips, the vibration of her words,
the heat of her breath, seeped through his shirt, and his arms tightened
convulsively around her.

“I know,” he said.

“We need to end this, Tomas. Too many people are dying.”

“I agree with you.”

Finally she backed away from him, blinking away tears and then,
quite suddenly, frowning at something behind him.

He turned to see what had caught her attention, but he didn’t
see anything other than a nearby boulder. It had a bronze plaque on its face,
apparently bearing an inscription. It was only a few yards away, but the way
Indy was staring at it seemed to indicate it meant something to her. Without a
word, she began walking toward it. Frowning, Rayne went with her.

Tomas started to go, too, but Dom gripped his arm, stopping
him.

Father Dom preventing me from going to
Rayne and Indy. It’s a literal representation of what’s happening to me on
all levels. A living parable.

“Tomas, I am rethinking our plan of action. To have her
retrieve the amulet and then allow us to destroy it for all time seemed the best
possible idea, and in many ways it still would be. But if she intends to turn it
over to him instead, we will have failed utterly. Maybe it’s better if we simply
prevent her from acquiring the amulet at all.”

“And let this thing keep going on, lifetime after lifetime?
She’s trapped in this cycle, Dom, don’t you see that? It’s like a curse. No, we
have to end it. We have to break it now.”

Dom lowered his head. “Thirteen clerics have died. And now your
old friend. The world is at stake, and your chief concern is still with the
witch?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess it is.”

“I pity you, Tomas. I pity you for the torment you’re inviting
into your life by your lack of faith.”

Tomas tugged free of Father Dom’s restraining hand, and hurried
toward Rayne and Indy. Dom followed. Looking at the rock, then at Indy, Tomas
said, “What is it?”

“That’s the one I saw in my dream,” Indy said. “It was sort
of…glowing.”

“Are you sure it was the same one?”

She shrugged her bag from her shoulder and pulled out the
journal—the one he had bought for her. Then, quickly, she flipped the pages and
turned the book face-out to show him the drawing.

She had sketched a boulder exactly like the one before them. It
even had the square plaque on its face, with tiny lines to indicate writing, and
a silhouette of a male face a lot like the one actually engraved there.

“It means something. It has to.”

Rayne nodded in agreement. “Indy, maybe you should look around
for the other things you saw in your dreams.”

“Yes, the other things you drew,” Tomas agreed excitedly.

Indy nodded hard. “I sketched everything. I mean, I’m no
artist, but—” As she spoke, she riffled pages. “Let’s see… There’s the tree that
looks just like an old man, bent and stretching out one partly broken branch,
like it’s pointing a finger at something.”

“Like
that
tree?” Rayne asked,
pointing herself.

All eyes turned that way, and Tomas heard Indy gasp. A moment
later she had found the page with the sketch of the tree in question. It was a
perfect image of one in the distance, across a sloping green lawn. Men were
already gathering around it with chain saws and a pickup truck to remove the
broken branch. But until they did, everything about it, even the larger knots in
the tree’s trunk, was identical to her sketch. There was even a small bird’s
nest on the broken limb, accurately depicted.

“This has to mean something,” Tomas said.

“I…I have to follow the signs, Tomas. I know you’ve lost a
friend and you need to stay here, but…”

Tomas shook his head. “I’m coming with you.”

“Me, too,” Rayne put in. “You might need me.”

Father Dom opened his mouth, but Tomas spoke before he could.
“I need you to stay here, Dom. I need you to find out what happened to Jonathon.
And what he did with the translation, if you can.”

“But suppose you need me?”

“It’ll be too hard for you to keep up.” He met the old man’s
eyes, looking at him steadily and deeply. “You chose me for this, Dom. You were
guided by God to do that. Maybe it’s time for you to trust that God knew what He
was doing when He made you pick me.” And as he said it, he thought it made more
sense than anything else ever had. Maybe there really
was
a reason why he’d been chosen for this mission. Maybe it was
because Dom had things too twisted up in his mind, with his preconceived notions
and prejudices clouding his vision.

Dom closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up. “Maybe I can
convince the officer to let me deliver the professor’s Last Rites before they
move the body.”

“Good idea. See if you can get a look at his notes, especially
the translation. Slide the pages under your shirt if you can.”

The old man nodded. “I’ll meet you back here by this rock
whenever you’ve finished. Agreed?”

“Yes, good,” Tomas said. “If anything else happens, call me.”
He patted his cell phone, which was attached to his belt.

“I will.” Then, turning, Father Dom started slowly toward the
building.

Tomas noticed that his old friend was limping. Very clever, he
thought.

Together with Rayne and Indy, he headed for the broken tree.
They followed its pointing “finger” while Indy flipped pages in her journal.
Suddenly she stopped, looked up and blinked in what looked like amazement.

“I…I thought it was a castle,” she whispered.

And no wonder, given its huge rough-cut stones, its gothic
arched windows, its elaborate, pillar-flanked entrance. The clock tower beside
it could easily be mistaken for a castle spire.

But it wasn’t a castle. It was Uris Library.

They stood outside the building, staring at the beautiful
entrance, as students with backpacks strode purposefully in and out.

“Now what?” Tomas asked, looking down at Indy and noticing
again how beautiful she was. How stunningly beautiful. Almost otherworldly.

“Now,” she said, meeting his eyes, and nodding as if feeling
completely sure of herself and rather proud of it, “we go inside.”

* * *

I couldn’t believe the confidence that was surging in
me. I mean, it seemed really inappropriate at a time like this, you know? With
Tomas’s old friend apparently hanging dead in his own office.

There was something off about that. I didn’t know what, but I
was letting it ferment a little, way down deep in my subconscious, because
something wasn’t right. The timing. It was too coincidental. It had to be
connected to what we were doing here. And while I knew you couldn’t tell much
about a person by meeting them once, I hadn’t picked up any depressed vibes from
the late Professor Yates. Hell, he’d seemed happy. Vibrant, even.

But despite the tragedy of that, and the oddness surrounding
it, there was still this feeling bubbling up inside me. A feeling of…of power,
really. Ever since Rayne had offered me the honor of initiation at her own hand,
the feeling had been growing. And then, when she challenged me to do a simple
parking-space spell and it had worked instantly, the feeling had grown even
more.

Why was I even surprised by that? I’d always had fairly decent
success with minor magics. Finding lost items, snaking my way through traffic
jams. Making unpleasant customers suddenly remember somewhere else they had to
be. It was the big stuff I’d never been able to do.

The big stuff. Like the one spell I had cared so much about:
the one to bring my soul mate to me.

But now it was all coming back to me, all my studying and
practicing, all my casting and conjuring. As I looked at the image given to me
in my own dreams, sketched out by my own hand and accurate to the tiniest detail
in the objects now revealing themselves on campus, I was almost high on my own
power. Every time I saw proof that it was real, it became more real. I was
feeling ten feet tall and bulletproof by the time we entered the hallowed halls
of the Uris Library, standing in the shadow of McGraw Tower. My drawing’s castle
spire.

“Now what?” Tomas asked.

Rayne looked at me expectantly. I just shrugged. “I don’t
know.”

We walked through the library for a while, exploring it while I
waited to feel…something. Eventually we wound up in the elaborate and
breathtaking A. D. White Reading Room. I blinked like a doe in headlights as I
took it in.

“Students call this the Harry Potter Room,” Tomas whispered. It
seemed natural to whisper in a place like this. Like in a church.

There was ornate bronze-colored metalwork everywhere, levels of
books rising on two sides, deep red carpet on the floors, and gleaming antique
hardwood desks and stands. It was like something ancient and sacred. Mystical
and powerful, this place.

I was looking for something, anything, else to match my
sketches. There were only a couple left. A decorative design I thought was a
medallion on a floor. A dark doorway beneath a statue—a bust, really—and a very
old treasure chest, which didn’t count, because it was my own. It was home in my
closet with all my magical supplies.

My confidence was waning.

“Don’t give up yet, Indy,” Rayne said. “We haven’t been here
that long. Why don’t we climb up to the higher levels, browse the stacks, see if
we hit on inspiration?”

She was staring upward as she spoke. From the level we were on,
you could look up and see the stacks on either side of us rising two more
levels. Catwalks with railings in that same bronze-colored metal with its
twisting swirling scrollwork stretched along two sides of the room overhead.
More of those ornate metal railings protected the aisles in front of the
elevated stacks, creating safe areas to walk, all carpeted in red just like the
main floor. This design left the center open all the way to the vaulted,
cathedral-like ceiling. Between the stacks, huge arched windows let the sun pour
through. The place was a work of art in itself.

I nodded, and we headed up a metal staircase. No one questioned
us or stopped us as we scanned the stacks and made use of one of the catwalks to
cross to the other side. I was determined to see every inch of this place, all
the while straining my senses to find some clue. Rayne took one side, Tomas and
I the other, as we moved up to the third and final level.

Tomas put a hand on my shoulder as I scanned the place so
intently that my eyes hurt. “Stop trying so hard, Indy. Relax. Let the
revelations unfold on their own.”

I blinked at him and got caught in his eyes like a fly in a
spider’s web. I saw so much there, caring and concern and a heavy grief. “Are
you all right?” I asked softly.