Chapter Ten

Fil woke to the chill of an empty bed. Stretching out a hand, she touched the cool crispness of cotton and nothing else. Spar was gone.

Disoriented, she pushed herself into a sitting position and felt the blankets slither down to her waist, leaving her bare to the cool night air. Never one to wake easily, it took her a minute to get her bearings, to realize it was night, that she had fallen asleep after the most amazing sex of her life and obviously napped for at least a couple of hours. A glance at the bedside clock told her it was getting close to eleven, which boded ill for getting a good night’s sleep in an hour or two.

Unless maybe Spar was willing to tire her out again.

Heat rose to her cheeks. The man made love to her one time, and already she couldn’t wait to touch him again. He should be labeled a controlled substance to keep potential addicts like her safe from his influence.

Pushing back the blankets, Fil reached down to snag the robe that had fallen to the floor hours earlier. At least, she assumed that was what had happened. Once the darned thing had opened under Spar’s touch, everything else had ceased to exist. Nothing had mattered but him. Touching him.

When she stilled, she could hear the gravelly rumble of his voice coming from the living room. Who could he be talking to? Did he forget to mention he had a sister and a couple of nephews living in Montreal he wanted to ask over for dinner?

Curious, she opened the door and padded down the short hall to the living room. Spar sat in the middle of her sofa frowning down into her cell phone. Fil recognized the voice on the other end immediately.

“I really wish you’d wake her up so I can talk to her,” Ella argued, worry threading through her voice. “I’m sure you took very good care of her, but I won’t feel entirely comfortable until I can talk to her myself.”

“You will do as my mate asks, Spar. Otherwise she will worry. I dislike it when she worries.”

“I will not,” Spar growled, and Fil assumed the thunder in his expression was for Kees’s benefit. “She is injured and exhausted. She needs to rest. I will not wake her simply to satisfy your human’s curiosity.”

Fill stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to wake me. I’m up.”

Spar turned to her, but he didn’t look any happier. “Why are you awake? You need to sleep.”

“I did sleep, and I’m pretty sure I’ll sleep again at some point, but for the moment I’m fine. Ella, did you hear that?”

“I did. Spar, move the phone so I can see her.”

“Hold on.” Fil circled the sofa and took the seat next to Spar. “Is this better?”

He grunted and shifted her onto his lap. “This is.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“I do not care.”

Fil rolled her eyes and turned to gaze into the phone. “Sorry, El. I dozed off. I had kind of a rough day.”

Her friend stared back at her with wide eyes, an expression of surprise and delight suffusing her features for a moment before she seemed to catch herself. She cleared her throat. “So Spar was telling us. I’m so sorry, sweetie. How’s your side feeling?”

“Tender,” she answered honestly. “It pulls a little when I try to move around too fast, but mostly it’s fine. Spar said it could have been worse. I should be fine in a week or so. Did he call you to tell you what happened?”

“No, I called you. Kees and I just got in a little while ago and got your message. The battery on my phone had died while we were out. I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you.”

“It’s okay. You guys have more than enough of your own stuff to worry about.”

“At the moment I’m mostly worried about you.” Ella frowned. “Let me see the mark.”

Reluctantly, Fil raised her hand and held it palm-out to the phone’s camera. “Pretty, right?”

“I would not call it so,” Kees said, shifting into the frame. “Spar told you what it means?”

“That I’m right on the top of Uhlthor the Defiler’s most wanted list? Yeah. Great name, by the way. Sounds like a real charmer.”

“Fil, I am so sorry,” Ella said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “I should have known something was wrong after you told me about what happened at the abbey. I mean, I figured the nocturnis had tried to cast some sort of spell on you. I should have dug around more and found out what he did.”

“It’s not your fault, Ella. Even if you had figured it out, the damage was already done by the time I talked to you. There’s nothing you could have done to change it. Unless the Guild has some kind of snazzy time-travel mojo you’ve managed to uncover.”

“Not so much. Or if they do, it’s one of the billion secrets that disappeared when the headquarters was bombed.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Fil said firmly. “It’s done. At this point, I’d rather forget how it happened and focus our attention on what can be done to get rid of it. I mean, a spell is like a curse, right? So aren’t there supposed to be antidotes to those? Counter-curses, or something like that?”

Ella sighed. “Theoretically, yes. The problem is that we would need to know exactly what curse was used in order to find the correct counter-spell. If we picked the wrong one, we could end up doing more harm than good. Besides which, you need some pretty serious skill to manage stuff like that. It’s delicate work. I might have a decent amount of power, but as far as Wardens go I’m still basically untrained.”

“I thought you were studying like a third-year law student.”

“I am, every chance I get, but at the moment I have to settle for learning the spells I have access to, and even then it’s kind of on a need-to-know basis. So far, I’ve had to know more about wards and bindings and portals than I have about curses. Sorry.”

“Again, not your fault. I really would like to get rid of this, though. There’s got to be something else we can do.”

“I’m going to push hard on the leads we have to another Warden,” Ella said. “An actual fully trained member of the Guild is going to know a lot more about this than either of us, so if I can locate him, he may be able to help.”

Fil made a face. “Great. Provided he’s still alive when you find him, right?”

Ella looked away.

“Wardens are not the only individuals with power,” Kees said, laying his hand on Ella’s shoulder in a clear gesture of comfort. “The magic they wield is the purest expression of such power, but for centuries there have been humans with the ability to channel the energy of the earth or to manifest simple blessings into the mortal realm.”

It took a moment for Fil to piece that together. “What? Are you talking about witches and priests? Do I need an exorcism?”

Spar snorted. “Exorcism is nothing more than sending the weakest form of Dark spirit to its room for a punishment. The mark of one of the Seven cannot be removed so easily, and especially not by the holy man of a human church waving a crucifix and chanting a simple prayer.”

“Well, if there are demons, then there must be a God, right? So why shouldn’t a priest be able to help?”

“God is such a human concept.” Spar shook his head. “There is the Light and there is the Dark. What you humans call gods are facets of the Light that you have built stories around to aid your understanding of the unknowable. A priest of one facet cannot hope to counter the corruption inherent in one of the Seven.”

“But a witch would do better?” Fil snapped.

“A witch’s treatment might be more direct.” Kees stepped in before Spar could reply. “Their kind can channel the energy of the earth and also apply the remedies it provides. It is unlikely to remove the mark, but it might help to slow its progression.”

“At this point, I’ll take that.”

“But how is she supposed to find a witch?” Ella demanded, frowning at her Guardian. “She’s human, Kees, like me, remember? I doubt she’s hanging out with the local coven, or whatever it’s called.”

Fil laughed. “You’re right, I’m not. But I might know someone who can point me toward one.”

“Who?”

“Tim Massello. He’s a professor at McGill, a sociologist or an anthropologist, something like that, but his real hobby is the supernatural. About a year ago, he hired me to restore a page from an illuminated manuscript. He’d come across it while doing research for a book he was writing on the evolution of witchcraft from historical persecution to modern paganism. He said he’d spent a lot of time talking to present-day witches for his project. I wonder if he’d be willing to put me in touch with one.”

“It can’t hurt to try, right?” Ella sounded almost enthusiastic about the idea. “You’ve got to give it a shot, Fil. I hate to think about that thing on your hand getting any worse. Or, God forbid, spreading.”

Fil shuddered. “Yeah, thanks for putting that thought in my head, because it’s not like I had anything to worry about.”

Her friend winced. “Sorry.”

“We will contact this professor tomorrow,” Spar said, reaching out to take her hand in his. “And if he cannot help us, we will find someone who can.”

“In the meantime, Ella and I will search for the Warden. We have hopes not only that can we find him alive, but that he might have information on the location of one of our brothers. We must assume that the danger to them is greater than ever.”

“Agreed. We should stay in contact every few days at the very least. We will need to pool our knowledge and resources in order to remain ahead of the nocturnis.”

“This method of communication seems adequate and efficient.”

Ella shot Fil a grin. “That’s big, coming from Kees. Modern technology has yet to win him over. At least, anything that doesn’t have wheels and a really big engine.”

Spar met his brother’s gaze in the screen, and his lips curved at one corner. “My human has a motorcycle. I quite enjoy riding on it, but I hope to persuade her to allow me to drive it.”

“Just as soon as I’m cold in my grave,” Fil growled, frowning at him.

Ella laughed. “Good luck with that, and with your professor. Send me a text or an e-mail and let me know how that goes, okay? And call if there’s anything you need.”

“I will, El. Thanks.”

“No problem. Talk to you later, sweetie.”

“Bye.”

Fil took the phone from Spar’s grasp and ended the call. She leaned forward to set it on the coffee table, only to have him tug her right back against his chest.

“You should have remained asleep.”

She leaned into him and let her head rest against his shoulder. “If you didn’t want me to wake up, you should have stayed in bed.”

“I feared the sound coming from your device would disturb you.”

“No, I was disturbed when I got cold.”

His hand slipped between the sides of her robe and traced over the top of her bandage. “I worry that I might have been too rough with you. Your wound needs time to heal.”

“I’m fine.” She laid her hand over his chest and felt his heart beat against her palm. “Physically anyway. I can’t deny that I’d feel better without this thing on my hand. Getting rid of that would certainly brighten my day.”

She felt the press of his lips, warm and tender against her forehead. “Tomorrow we will contact this man at the university and demand that he find us a witch.”

Fil chuckled and angled her head to give him a wry glance. “We might want to try asking nicely first. He was pretty stoked about the work I did on his manuscript page. I think he’ll help if he can.”

“Good.”

He held her in silence for several minutes, and for the first time since her break-in at the abbey she felt completely safe and nearly at peace. Of course, with his hard thighs pressing against her bottom and his large hand absently stroking her hip, it wasn’t long before she began to feel another, more urgent sensation.

Tilting her head back, she pressed her lips against the scratchy underside of his jaw. She felt him tense and let her tongue dart out to tease his skin.

“You should rest,” he said, his voice the familiar low rumble that went straight to her libido. He made as if to ease her off his lap, but she could tell his fingers had tightened around her, reluctant to let go.

“You know where’s a really good place to rest?” she purred, wiggling her bottom and feeling his erection beginning to swell beneath her. “In bed. Why don’t we go there, hm? Together.”

Spar groaned like a man tormented, but that didn’t stop him from surging to his feet with her still cradled protectively in his arms. “You will rest,” he ordered, heading toward the hallway with a determined stride and eyes that glinted with want. “You must promise.”

“Absolutely, babe. I promise I’ll rest.” She twined her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth to his. “After.”

*   *   *

Professor Massello turned out to be a man of average height, average weight, and keen intelligence. In his late thirties or early forties, he looked more like an older version of one of his students than the stodgy, serious academics Spar mentioned encountering in his previous years. Of course, having not awoken for the last two hundred of them might have colored his view just a bit.

Tim, as he encouraged them to call him, waved them into his office with a warm smile and closed the door on the throng of students milling in the hall.

“Sorry to interrupt your office hours, but I figured it was my best chance to actually find you in your office.” Fil smiled.

“Don’t worry about it. You caught me on the tail end. I was actually just about to lock the door against the teeming vermin and get some grading done.” He waited for them to sit in the uncomfortable chairs facing his desk before he hitched a hip onto the edge of the piece and raised an eyebrow. “So what can I do for you, Fil? I suspect you haven’t dropped by to take me up on that cup of coffee I keep offering to buy you.”

Fil heard Spar grunt and shot him a warning glance. “First, I guess I should introduce you two. Spar, this is Professor Timothy Massello of McGill University, Quebec. Tim, this is my friend Spar—”

“Livingston,” the man in question broke in, offering the other a brisk nod.

Living stone? Fil nearly pulled a muscle trying not to roll her eyes at that one.

“Nice to meet you.”

Tim sounded a little wary, but friendly enough. Maybe he’d picked up on the way Spar had entered the office and immediately scanned every inch as if searching for threats, or maybe he’d simply noticed the protective way the Guardian nearly hovered over Fil. Either way, he kept his expression relaxed and made no move to continue the flirtation he’d previously begun with her. She could only be grateful for that. More complications were not what she needed at the moment. She needed help and answers, and for Tim not to assume she had lost her ever-loving mind when she told him her story.

Taking a deep breath, she decided to just get it out. “Okay, so this might sound a little bit crazy—”

“Oh, all the best stories start that way.” Tim grinned and waved at her to excuse his interruption.

“But I was hoping that your more, um, esoteric research might mean you can help me with a problem I’m having.”

Fil had spent half the night and all of the morning debating how much to tell the professor, and in the end she’d decided to stick with the minimum amount possible. He really didn’t need to know about Guardians, the Order of Eternal Darkness, or the ongoing war between the forces of good and evil. Better to keep things simple and just focus on the mark and the help she needed to treat it.

“Hm, I take it you’re not talking about my papers on the spiritual dimension of rites of passage in the sub-Saharan tribes of Africa.”

Fil blew out a chuckle. “Not so much. I’m thinking more along the lines of your book, specifically the more modern section.”

Tim’s brows darted toward his hairline. “You’re interested in neo-paganism? I thought you told me you were Catholic. Are you looking to explore alternative spiritualties?”

“I’m more interested in getting your take on the people who practice them on a practical as well as a religious level.” When he frowned at her, Fil sighed. “I was hoping you could put me in touch with a witch.”

Tim huffed in amused confusion and shook his head. “What, don’t tell me you’re looking for someone to sell you a love spell, Fil. I don’t think my imagination bends that way.”

She forced a smile. “No, no love spells. I don’t suppose you met anyone during your research with any expertise in practicing magic? Or, um, curses?”

There was a moment of silence while Tim simply stared at her. “I have a hard time believing you’re trying to find someone who can help you put a curse on something, but it’s even harder to wrap my mind around why else you might be asking me this.”

“Tim, when we talked about your research before, while you were still out there in the field, you told me you had seen some pretty remarkable things, right? Things you wouldn’t have believed if you hadn’t witnessed them with your own eyes.”

“Yeah, I did, but—”

“Well, at first, I thought you were a little bit off your rocker, or at least maybe too naïve to realize when some of the people you were observing were playing tricks on you. You know, using smoke and mirrors to put on a good show so that you’d write about what you thought they could do as if it were really magic.”

When he just stared at her as if she’d lapsed into Lithuanian without realizing it, she sighed. She pulled her left hand out from where she’d tucked it between her leg and her chair.

“Today, I don’t think you’re naïve and I don’t think you’re crazy. I think that if you really saw some people practicing magic during your research, I might need their help.”

Holding up her palm, she watched as his gaze fell to her skin.

His eyes widened. “Holy crap, Fil. What the hell is that?”

“We think it’s a kind of curse, and we’d really, really like to find somebody who might be able to help us get rid of it.”

Tim reached for her hand, but froze when Spar growled a warning. Fil shot him a quelling glance, then nodded at the professor.

“Go ahead, take a closer look. It’s pretty messed up, I know.”

Carefully, he cupped the back of her hand in his palm and angled her skin to the light shining in though the multipaned window. At first, he seemed to keep one wary eye on Spar, but within seconds all his attention was focused on the mark covering Fil’s palm.

“This is amazing. How did this happen?”

“That is a really long, really weird, and really not-the-time-or-place-for-it story. Suffice it to say, someone got mad at me, ridiculous and unbelievable things happened, and this thing just kind of showed up.”

“It looks almost like a burn or a brand of some sort, but the mark isn’t raised off the skin the way keloid scarring usually is. In that way, I suppose it resembles something more like a tattoo. It’s fascinating.”

Fil made a face. “That’s because it isn’t on your hand.”

Tim glanced up, looking guilty. “I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”

“No, it’s not painful, just … disturbing. Which is why I’m asking you if you’ve ever met anyone who might know about things like this and how to counter them.”

Spar reached out and tugged Fil’s hand down, clasping it firmly in his. Tim looked from one to the other and shook his head.

“That’s a huge question,” he said. “I met plenty of witches and people who called themselves that during my interviews, but for, like, ninety-nine percent of them, what they call magic is what an academic like me would call accessorized prayer. They decide what it is they want to accomplish, and they use symbols and ritualized actions to focus their intent on making it happen.”

“Remember that we are not academics,” Spar said, his voice deep and sharp enough that Tim’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“Right,” he hurried to say. “What I mean is, say one of these witches thinks a neighbor is spying on her. You know, looking in her window while she’s getting changed or something. She might get a small mirror and hang it on a string like a sun catcher. She’ll cast a spell over it, which is really like saying a prayer, and envision the mirror reflecting back the energy of the person who’s facing it. Then she’ll hang the mirror in the window and close her curtains. When the neighbor stops spying and she finds out he lost his job when his company caught him using the Internet at work to look at porn, she tells herself her spell worked. Really, the guy stopped watching her because she kept her curtains closed, so he had nothing to look at anymore, and his company monitors all of its employees’ computer usage.”

Spar snorted. “That is not magic; it is self-delusion.”

“That’s my point. People believe in it because they have faith, the same way Catholics have faith that when they eat that little wafer the priest hands them at Mass, they’re partaking in the body of Christ. It has meaning not because of what it accomplishes, but because of what they think it will accomplish.”

That was not what Fil wanted to hear. She needed actual help, not futile prayers. Those she could handle herself.

“You said ninety-nine percent,” she pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean that there’s one percent that isn’t that way?”

“I did meet one woman,” Tim said, looking thoughtful. “I met her by accident, really. She wasn’t one of the people I sent my letter of inquiry to when I was initially looking for subjects. I ran into her when I was in an occult store talking to the people who worked there. She’d come in to sell some herbs she had grown in her garden.”

“She’s an herbalist?”

“Among other things. She grows herbs, makes teas and lotions and bath products from them. She’s also a licensed massage therapist and a basket weaver.” Tim grinned. “When I first saw her, I took her for any other hippie, new-age Wiccan type.”

Spar narrowed his eyes. “What made her different?”

“At first, nothing. She went about her business with the shop manager while I talked to the owner behind the counter and left, but when I finished my initial interview and left the store, she was waiting for me outside. She warned me that some of the information the store owner had given me about plants and herbology was just plain wrong. She advised me to speak with a woman at a different store out in Anjou. After we chatted for a couple of minutes, I asked if she’d be willing to do a formal interview for my research. She turned me down flat.”

“So how did you find out she was different from the other people you talked to?”

“That already was different. Most of the people I approached couldn’t wait to talk my ear off.” Tim shook his head. “It took me six months of dogged persistence to get her to even consider going on record about what she does.”

“And what does she do?” Spar demanded.

“I once saw her bury an apple seed in a plain garden pot and place her hand over the soil. Within five minutes, I watched while a green shoot pushed out of the dirt and budded a new leaf. I dropped my digital voice recorder and nearly lost the entire morning’s interview.”

“That’s it? She grew a plant?”

“Hush.” Fil scolded Spar and turned back to Tim. “There’s more, right?”

“Too much to list, most of it little stuff, but all of it like nothing else I’d ever seen. Everyone else would tell me these elaborate stories of rituals they’d done to make something or other happen, but all I heard was post hoc, ergo propter hoc. After it, therefore because of it,” Tim explained. “Back in the Middle Ages, people thought maggots grew out of meat, because if they left out a piece of meat, eventually maggots would appear on it. They saw the first thing, then the second thing, so they assumed the first caused the second.”

“I’m amazed all people weren’t vegetarians,” Fil muttered.

“They largely were, but that’s the subject of a lecture for the history department. What’s important is that none of what W—what she did,” Tim caught himself, “was like that. She never made any claims. She just did things and left the interpretation to me.”

Fil pursed her lips. “Do you think she could help me?”

“I think she’s the only person I’ve met who might have an honest idea of how to try.”

“Will you give me her phone number?”

Tim made a face. “I can’t. I promised I’d keep her identity strictly confidential. It was the only way to get her to talk to me.”

Spar’s lip curled back in a snarl. “Then why do you taunt us by letting us believe she could help Felicity?”

“I wasn’t taunting you, I swear,” the man hurried to assure them. “I can’t put you in contact with her, but I can do the reverse. I’ll call her myself and tell her your story. She believes that her abilities come with a responsibility to use them to help others. I’m certain that if I tell her what’s happened to you, she’ll reach out to you herself.”

Fil pulled her hand out of Spar’s grasp and held her palm up again. “This is important, Tim. I really need to talk to her.”

“I know. And I promise she will call.”

She sighed. “Then I suppose that’s the best I can ask for.”

“I’m sorry. Trust me, if I could help you myself, I would, but with all the stuff I know, I’m afraid it’s all—forgive the pun—academic knowledge. I’ve seen and recorded a lot of things happening, but I have absolutely no clue how to do them myself.”

Tim pushed up from his desk and walked around to the back to rummage in one of the deep bottom drawers. A moment later he was back, holding out a miniature glass vial.

“Here. I figure this can’t hurt.” He passed it to Fil with a shrug and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Holy water. From the Vatican. It was a souvenir. I know it’s kind of a cliché, but you are Catholic, right? I really do think that there’s a lot of power in faith.”

Fil let out a half laugh. “I was Catholic. My grandparents raised me that way. But after the past few days?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what I believe anymore.”

“Well, consider that in the mold of a rabbit’s foot.” His mouth curved at one corner. “Carrying it won’t make anything bad happen, and if something good comes of it … post hoc, ergo propter hoc, right?”

Fil rose and tucked the vial into the pocket of her jacket. “Thanks, Tim. I’d appreciate it if you’d make that call as soon as possible. Like I said, it’s been a rough few days for me.”

“As soon as I shut the door behind you.” He held up a hand with the three middle fingers extended. “Scout’s honor.”

“Thanks.”

Slipping her hand into Spar’s, Fil said her good-byes. Together they stepped out of the cool brick building and into the bright sunshine.