Mark of the Witch. Maggie Shayne

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СКАЧАТЬ from yesterday, sitting up in her bed, smiling at them via Skype. “Hi, Father Thomas,” she said.

      “It’s Toe-MAHS,” Father Dom pronounced. “Say hello to Dora, Tomas.”

      “Hello, Dora.” He couldn’t believe his eyes. The girl looked fine. Oh, a little pale, a little tired, but her eyes were bright, and she appeared perfectly healthy.

      “You look much better,” he said.

      “I know. I feel better. I just wanted to thank you for helping me.”

      Shame rose, and he bowed his head. “I didn’t really do anything. It was all Father Dom.”

      “No, you were there. I remember. I don’t blame you for leaving. Mamma says it was awfully scary. But you came, and I’m better now.”

      Tomas glanced at Dom, who smiled and nodded at the girl. “Well, we’ll let your doctor be the judge of that,” he said. “You’re seeing him this afternoon, aren’t you, Dora?”

      “Yes, at two.”

      “Let me know what he says, will you?”

      “Of course. Bless you, Father Dom. Father Tomas.” She said it correctly that time, and then the on-screen window with her face inside it vanished.

      Dom rolled his chair away from his desk but didn’t get up. “Her doctor will give her a clean bill of health. Of course, he couldn’t find anything wrong with her to begin with.”

      Tomas nodded. Doubted, but nodded. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Father Dom. I just … in my experience … I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

      “I’ve seen it a hundred times. Exorcised more demons than any priest in the church. Which is why I inherited this assignment of ours to begin with. This quest.”

      “And I’m humbled that you chose me to be your successor.” He ought to tell him. He really ought to. But no, not yet. The wheels took time to turn, and this was going to be a huge and painful discussion when it happened.

      Dom grunted as if he doubted it. “You’re the least humble man I know, son. But you were chosen for this. Sent to me just for this. Sit, Tomas,” he ordered. “I don’t like looking up at anyone.”

      Tomas sat. The gruff old man was his mentor, his teacher and the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. Yes, he believed in things Tomas had come to consider unbelievable. But even he didn’t doubt the man with as much conviction as he used to. His doubts were still strong enough for him to know this was not the life for him, however. So he sat and tried to assume a humble demeanor. He loved the old priest, despite the fact that he’d always considered him a little bit crazy.

      “Pull your chair around here,” Dom said. “We’re not through with this machine yet.” He was clicking keys as he spoke—slowly. Hunting and pecking with a single forefinger, knuckles swollen from arthritis.

      Tomas nodded and moved his chair closer, turning it so he could see the computer screen again. It showed a lengthy series of astrological terms, symbols for the signs, abbreviations for alignments and conjunctions and oppositions at varying degrees. It stood beside a map of the solar system with lines and arrows and more symbols all over it. It looked like an NFL coach’s playbook. Astrology had never been his strong suit.

      “What am I looking at?”

      “This configuration. Right here.” Dom pointed. “In a week it will be exactly the same as it was in the beginning.”

      “The beginning …” Tomas looked up from the screen, meeting Dom’s aging but sharp cornflower-blue eyes as he finally got the old man’s meaning. “The beginning? The fifteen-hundred-BC beginning?”

      “More precisely, Samhain Eve, fifteen hundred and one BC. The day a high priest of the cult of Marduk imprisoned He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken in the Underworld. If the demon is going to try to escape into our world again, Tomas, it will be soon. Samhain Eve, in fact. And I’m no longer strong enough to do what needs doing, though it pains me to admit it.”

      Tomas searched Dom’s face. “You’re not well?”

      Dom shrugged. “I feel fine.” He turned his head, gazing across the room at the oversize crucifix on the opposite wall. “But the Lord has spoken to me, told me it has to be you. This is the mission I’ve trained for all my life. Now it falls to my successor before his time. But that’s the way it has to be. So sayeth the Lord.”

      “All things happen for a reason, Father Dom.” But inside Tomas was thinking this couldn’t be happening. Now not, not when he’d finally made the decision to leave the priesthood and sent in the paperwork making the request formal.

      Thank God he hadn’t yet told the old man.

      “Watch and wait for the signs, Tomas. Watch for the witches of Babylon. The Demon’s whores. Each of them bound by oath and by blood to help He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken to escape. Stop the first of them and you stop them all. You must do this, no matter how difficult, in order to keep the demon from emerging and wreaking havoc on the world of man. It is our calling.”

      It is a fairy tale, Tomas thought. But I’ll humor you a bit longer. “How will I know—”

      “It’s written, ‘the witch’s past sins will rise up to mark her flesh and wake her memory.’ Watch, wait, listen, and take heed when you are called. I’ll help you all I can, Tomas, but the task, for some reason, must be yours.”

      Tomas nodded solemnly. He wasn’t entirely sure Dom was 100 percent wrong about this, after all. The scrolls were real, and the tale was in them. He had seen it. “And if I locate the first witch and stop her from helping the demon—”

      “Then the next will never be activated and our mission is done. Theoretically the Portal won’t open again until the next alignment, another three thousand five hundred years from now. But if you fail …”

      “If I fail to stop the first witch, I have to try again with the second. And if I fail to stop her, then I try again with the third.”

      “And if you fail then … the demon walks among us and the world of man is doomed.” Father Dom gripped Tomas’s wrist in his hand, squeezing so hard it hurt. “Do you believe me, Tomas? Have I shown you enough proof of the existence of demons, of the power of them, of the danger they pose, to make you a believer in the ancient prophecy?”

      Tomas met the old man’s eyes. There was holy fire sparking from their depths. “Yes,” he said at length. “Yes, Father Dom. I believe.” It was a lie, and he felt guilty as hell for telling it, but what else could he do?

      “Hold on to that faith, my son. You are going to need it.”

      No harm in humoring him a bit longer, Tomas thought. He would play along. But he knew there would be no signs. No witches. No marks. Samhain would pass, and Dom would have to concede defeat. And then Tomas could leave knowing he’d done the best he could for the old guy.

      Then his sister called, and all that changed.

      The occult shop in Greenwich Village had a minuscule backyard enclosed by a vine-smothered stone wall and bathed in moonlight. СКАЧАТЬ