Maggie Shayne: Mark of the Witch

Of course, he’d been in a crisis of faith for a while now. And all of this was making him wonder if he’d made the right decision. Because if this was real, after all—if Dom’s obsession turned out to be true …

But this wasn’t the time to ponder those things. That would come later.

Right now, he was about to face a demon. Maybe the devil himself. With a witch as his only ally, a witch who didn’t know—or did she?—that she was that demon’s friend. Either way, that alliance made her Tomas’s enemy.

It seemed unnecessarily risky to take her so near the Portal, since allegedly the demon couldn’t pass through without her help. But Dom said it was worth the risk. That she had to be there to help Tomas destroy the demon for good.

He’d trained for this, he’d studied, he knew what had to be done, but that was all back when he thought the whole thing was just an old man’s crazy fantasy. But now it was here, real and present. And complicating things further, in all his thoughts on this very topic, he had never counted on liking the woman.

He looked up at her. Sipping her coffee, eyes closed, thick lashes resting on those high-boned cheeks, skin like a ripe peach. He was drawn to her and felt an unbelievable urge to touch her at every opportunity.

She burped, interrupting his thoughts. Her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes went huge. “Well, that was polite,” she said. “Excuse me.” Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, her smile self-deprecating.

She was charming the socks off him, he thought.

He glanced at her plate. Empty. She ran her forefinger through the syrup on the edge and popped it into her mouth, and he clenched his jaw to keep from groaning out loud. “God, that was good,” she said.

“Glad you enjoyed it.”

“You eat like a bird, Father Tomas.”

“Not normally. Got a lot on my mind.”

“Ow!” She gripped her arm again, then frowned and lowered her hand.

“Are you going to let me take a look at that?”

“There’s nothing to look at.”

He tipped his head to one side. “Clearly, it hurts. You keep grabbing it, then quickly letting go.”

“And just as quickly putting it out of my mind. It only hurts if I think about it, so I wish you’d stop reminding me.”

“Sorry. It won’t happen again.” He picked up the check their waitress had dropped, and rose from his seat. “Are you ready?”

The bubbly mood she’d been emanating seemed to burst. Back to reality, he thought. She really was dreading what lay ahead. “Yes. All ready.” She got up, too, snatching her mug off the table and taking one last gulp before hurrying to the counter with him. She tugged on his sleeve and said, “Restroom” in a stage whisper. He nodded and tried not to watch her as she walked away.

The restroom was deserted. Perfect. I needed privacy, big-time. ‘Cause something was going on with my arm, despite my denials to Tomas.

God he was good-looking. And funny. And interesting. So okay, he believed in demons and a fairy tale grimmer than anything the Grimm Brothers could have come up with. And he’s a priest. Don’t forget that minor detail . But no one was perfect.

I pulled off my jacket, wincing as it peeled down over my right arm, then, turned my shoulder toward the big mirror.

My blood rushed straight to my feet, leaving me so damn dizzy I almost fell over. My arm looked as if it had been hacked by a mini-madman with a tiny blade. Little cuts crisscrossed my flesh like a road map, and blood had run everywhere. The inside of my favorite jacket must be soaked in it. Ruined.

Damn it all, Past Self, if you want me to bail on this whole harebrained road trip, you just keep fucking with me .

I looked up at my own face in the mirror, but someone else was looking back at me. Not a pale-faced dirty blonde with a killer sense of style, but a copper-skinned woman with thick black hair hanging long and wavy, heavy brows in desperate need of tweezing, and black, black eyes.

And behind her—no, behind me—stood another woman with similar coloring but a totally different face.

Lilia.

I ought to turn around, see if she’s really standing there. I really should .

Too bad I was too scared to move.

She stared at me in the mirror, then suddenly shouted, “Remember, Indira!”

After jumping out of my skin, I yelled right back at her. “Remember what , for cryin’ out loud!”

“I’ll make you remember!” I sort of heard her say inside my head. Then she lifted a big curved blade that glinted in the fluorescent restroom lights as she swung it down to carve me up some more.

That was enough to end my paralysis. I spun around, screaming at the top of my lungs. But there was no one behind me.

Before I could even sigh in relief, though, I heard the hissing sound of the invisible blade as it cut the air, and something slashed across my chest. I felt it slicing my flesh, saw the gaping cut opening up like a zipper, saw the blood flowing out of me as I sank to the floor in pain. In terror.

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