Mark of the Witch. Maggie Shayne

wouldn’t even begin to be able to do. And how the hell did you get my phone?”

      “You left it at your friend’s place.”

      “My f-friend?” I blinked at him, looking like a doe in the headlights, probably. “You mean Rayne?” I thought that was her voice on the recording.

      He nodded. “She went after you to return it and saw the last bit of the attack. Then she realized that guy was recording it. She tried to get him to delete it, but he told her to go to hell, that it was going to go viral. She took you home and put you to bed, but she was so upset she forgot she still had your phone on her.”

      “So … you know Rayne?”

      He nodded but didn’t elaborate. “She knows about my … mission. That’s why she told me about you.”

      I was feeling horribly betrayed by my friend, and there were tears in my voice when I asked, “And have I gone viral?”

      “Thankfully, no. Most people who commented seem to think it’s a hoax. But you and I both know it wasn’t. Was it, Indira?”

      “It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t real, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?” I got up, hitched my bag higher on my shoulder, turned to leave. “I’m going to be late for work. I have to go.” I started walking.

      He came with me, damn him. “Trust me, I know how hard it is to believe all this. It took a lot to convince me, too. Took seeing the impossible with my own eyes, and I’m still arguing with my doubting side.”

      “Your doubting side is right. I’m not a demon fighter. I’m just a simple ex-witch trying to eke out a life in the big bad city. You’ve got the wrong girl.”

      “You’re a Warrior Witch. One of three. And I need your help.”

      “You’re not getting it.” I strode faster, aiming for the big pink sign on the front of the shop up ahead.

      “The dreams are not going to stop, Indy.”

      “She told you about the dreams, too?” No wonder he knew details—the cliff, the location. Everything.

      “The dreams have come to call you to action, to make you remember your mission, your duty, your calling.”

      I reached the door of the Pink Petals, yanked it open hard and looked back at the priest. “My only calling is going to be to nine-one-one unless you get the hell out of my face—now.” I swung my arm out, aiming my forefinger back the way we had come, and a gust went with it, just as if I’d caused it, blowing over a wastebasket and sending every discarded piece of sidewalk litter airborne all at once.

      Could have been a breeze. Had to have been a breeze.

      He lowered his head—I hoped in defeat—took a card from his pocket, and a cigarette along with it, and closed the distance between us. “My cell number is here. I’ll be in the city for a while. If anything else happens, please call me. I’m the only one who can help you, Indy.”

      He handed both the card and the cigarette to me. I would have refused to take the card, but I wanted that smoke—badly—and he knew it, damn him. So I took them both.

      His fingers brushed over mine.

      I jerked as if electrocuted. A flash, white-hot, blinding bright, flesh on flesh, coppery naked flesh on flesh. Thick black hair, bodies entangling through veils of silk.

      I feel his hands on my back.

      He gripped my shoulders. “Are you all right?”

      His touch burned. And he felt it, too, I knew he did. He held my eyes for a long moment, and chills rushed right up my spine. Tears—tears, for crying out loud—burned in my eyes.

      He blinked as if stunned, dragged his gaze from mine, pushed a hand through his thick, dark hair, much the way I wanted to do.

       Stop it! He’s a priest!

      I straightened, realizing he’d grabbed me because I’d nearly fallen over backward, knocked off balance by that brief, vivid flash of lovers entwined. “I’m fine.”

      “No, you’re not. And we both know it. It’s going to get worse for you, Indy. I’ll help you. Even if you refuse to help me, all right?”

      I squinted at him, delivering my patented “Who the fuck do you think you are?” look, proudly made in Brooklyn.

      But he just turned and walked back the way we’d come, moving in long, powerful strides as I noticed the breadth of his shoulders. He had to be cut underneath his black priestly clothes. I wondered if Gnostic priests from the Leaders of the Pack sect took vows of celibacy, then shook the thought away. It didn’t matter. I was never going to see the man again.

      However, there was a certain high priestess who was going to get a fucking earful as soon as I got off work. Because if this guy was her idea of a confidant, she was the most messed-up witch I’d ever heard of.

      Then I looked down at my forefinger and wondered if I had really made that phantom whirlwind kick up, and whether I could do it again.

       3

      Hours later, my workday finished and another long night alone the only thing on my to-do list, I figured I had nothing to lose. If I had somehow tapped into a power beyond everyday witchcraft—which was really not a lot more than positive thinking, focus and luck, or so I’d always thought—then I might as well use it.

      I put an old coffee mug I wasn’t overly fond of on the counter. It was a putrid yellow shade and had come with a set of four that someone had given me. I’d already broken the other three. Time to get rid of this one.

      Standing back a few feet, I focused my eyes on the cup, my arm bent at the elbow, forefinger aimed at the ceiling. When I felt ready, I bought my arm down fast, aiming right at the mug and willing it to explode to smithereens.

      It didn’t even wiggle.

      Huh. Okay, reload and try again. This time I used a sideways sweep of my arms. But nothing. Drawing like a gunfighter didn’t work, either. I sank onto a stool for a break, and quickly flipped open my BlackBerry and searched for that video of me, found it, played it, reviewed my moves, tried to find a pattern.

      Okay, okay, I had a little more flourish, a little more flair and a lot of anger in my black alien eyes, in the vid. I set the phone down, got to my feet, shook my arms and shoulders to loosen the muscles, cracked my knuckles. “All right, I got this. You’re going down, cup.”

      I attacked again.

      And again, the cup just stood there. I think it was looking defiant.

      “Well, shit.”

      I heaved a giant disappointed sigh and decided to resort to the more mundane forms of magic. Maybe I had been just a solitary, but I’d still been a witch. “And a witch knows how to deal with unwanted nightmares and hunky priests poking their nosy noses into her problems. Even if she can’t explode innocent coffee cups at will.”

      I got busy moving furniture.

      An hour later I stood back and surveyed my work.

      The living room of my three-room apartment was no longer a living room but a temple. I’d pushed the love seat—love seat, what a joke—and chairs past the countertop that divided the living room from the eat-in kitchenette. They filled that tiny space. My psychedelic print love seat had my retro lime-green rocker recliner balanced precariously on top of it. I’d dragged the coffee table I’d rescued from the curb out of the way. It had started out ordinary, but I’d sanded it down, painted it yellow, and then added swirly vines and leaves and blossoms with teeth in them to cover its entire surface. The only thing that I’d paid for, besides the paint, was the custom cut piece of Plexiglas I’d screwed onto the top to protect it.

      My living room