Witchy Woman (18 page)

“For an imaginary guy, you sure know how to give a girl a good time.”

He grinned, as she’d hoped her bit of male ego stroking would make him do. “You did seem to enjoy yourself.”

“How do you know?” she asked suspiciously.

“It was hard to miss.”

“Did I …”

“That’s what it looked like to me.”

Tess was torn between being fascinated and embarrassed
by her body’s behavior. This was all so new to her.

Nate glanced at his watch, suddenly grim again. “We probably should get going. No telling what kinds of roadblocks the Cat has in store to slow us down.”

Tess gasped. “Midnight. Midnight—how close are we?” She twisted his arm around to look at the watch. “Nine forty-five?” The entire fantasy had lasted less than ten minutes. It had seemed like hours to her, though she’d heard that earthly time had no meaning in other dimensions.

Surely that’s where she’d been—in another dimension.

Reluctantly she slid off Nate’s lap. “We’d better get going.” Her time with Nate had been a pleasant interlude, but the real world was intruding. “Can you help me take stuff down to the car?”

He stood and touched her arm, stilling her. She looked back at him over her shoulder.

He stroked her cheek. She hoped he would say something about making love for real at a later date. But whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself. “Sure, I’ll help with whatever you need.”

Tess had all of her canvas bags stashed neatly by the door with all of the necessary ingredients. All but one. As she and Nate shrugged into jackets, preparing to leave the apartment, she approached him shyly, nail scissors in hand. If she didn’t get this done quickly, she would lose her nerve.

“Is that everything?”

“Almost.” She reached up with the scissors and snipped off a lock of his hair, then tucked it into a plastic bag. “That’s it.”

He stared after her, speechless, as she preceded him out the door.

It took Nate a few moments to recover from the hair snipping. What was the significance? he thought as he followed Tess down the back stairs, watching every step so he wouldn’t end up like the shopkeeper, Anne-Louise. What, exactly, did the damn spell say?

The blood of a virgin, and a lock of hair from her own true love.

Holy hell. Did that mean what he thought it meant? Whoa, whoa, he was getting ahead of himself. It didn’t mean she was in love with him, just that he was the closest thing to a “true love” she could find. They couldn’t very well perform the spell with no one’s hair. His would have to do.

He was sure that was all there was to it. Now, though, he couldn’t decide whether that conclusion relieved or disappointed him. He’d already acknowledged that his feelings for Tess were more than casual. That something important was happening. But as for a future
together … how could he deal with the one-sidedness of their relationship? How could he cope with a woman who knew, or could find out, every intimate detail of his life just by touching him, while she remained such a mystery to him?

He couldn’t see how it would work.

He and Tess put everything they would need in the backseat of his car, along with the Book of Shadows in case they wanted to refer to something, though Tess had the spell memorized backward and forward. They hadn’t driven the car since their flight from Judy’s town house two days earlier, because the Cat statue was in the trunk. Now, Nate’s trusty Fairlane seemed to groan in protest when he opened the door. Even the car’s appearance had taken on sinister qualities.

“Man, I’m losing it,” he grumbled, rubbing at the healing scratches Whiskers had given his arm. He supposed he was lucky he didn’t have gangrene.

“What?” Tess asked.

“Nothing. Just a minor delusion that my car has turned evil.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me at this point. Are we ready?” she asked too brightly.

“Ready as we’ll ever be.”

Their first hurdle came when Nate tried to start his car. Nothing. “I just replaced the battery six months ago,” he said on a sigh.

“Maybe we left the lights on last time we were in it,” Tess suggested. “We were pretty unnerved.”

“Since when did you start trying to assign logical explanations to everything that happens to us?” he
groused as he got out of the car. “Let’s just chalk another one up to the curse and be done with it. Should we jump the engine, or move everything over to your car?”

“My car,” Tess said decisively.

Ten minutes later they were on the road in Tess’s Tercel. Right before they’d left, Nate had gingerly transferred the Crimson Cat to Tess’s trunk. Was it his imagination, or had the thing been vibrating in his hands? And just before the trunk lid had slammed, he thought he’d seen something glowing in the darkness.

The trip to Sudbury was surprisingly uneventful—no accidents, no falling trees. But a storm was brewing. By the time they turned off the main highway, the winds had picked up considerably, buffeting the car with alarmingly violent gusts. The full moon, now high in the sky, played peekaboo with churning storm clouds.

“Someone’s following us,” Tess said. “That same car has been behind us ever since we exited the main road.”

A few days before, Nate would have thought Tess was being paranoid. But not now. They had to watch anything out of the ordinary carefully. And the car that Tess had pointed out was following a little too close.

Nate slowed down and pulled to the shoulder to let the car pass. At first, the other driver didn’t take the hint. But finally the car pulled around and ahead of Nate and Tess.

Tess sighed audibly. “Guess I’m a little skittish.”

“Me too.”

As they moved into a residential area another car turned from a side street and started to follow. “Ah, hell.”

“What?”

“We’ve got company again, and it’s the same car. Want me to try to lose him?”

Tess looked at her watch. “We don’t have much time to spare, and I’m not sure my car has enough horses under the hood to lose anyone. Let’s just go.”

The strange car stayed on their tail all the way to the turnoff for the church and cemetery, but at that point he went on straight.

“Thank God for that,” Tess said.

Nate reserved his gratitude. He’d tailed people a time or two. Sometimes he would deliberately
not
turn, just to throw off his prey, then double back or catch them at another intersection.

They were still blessedly alone, however, when they pulled into the church parking lot. The wind was blowing hard, whistling eerily through the wrought-iron fence that protected the graveyard. The huge hardwood trees that surrounded them groaned in protest.

Nate took one look through the fence at the gravestones within and felt his skin go clammy. The way the moonlight wavered and flickered made the stone markers move, as if they were dancing. Visions of every B horror movie he’d ever seen danced through his mind. Carrie’s hand pushing through the dirt of her new grave. Zombies lurching around with their empty eyes and green skin.

“Nate? Nate!”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I zoned out there for a minute.” He’d been standing frozen beside the car. “Let’s carry this stuff to the fence. Then you can climb over and I’ll hand everything to you.”

“Okay. I hope it doesn’t rain.” At her words, the first fat drops began falling. “Well, so much for that.”

When it came to carrying the cat, Tess insisted it was her turn. Up until now, she hadn’t actually come into physical contact with the statue. She leaned inside the trunk and picked it up, still wrapped in its paper bag.

She hadn’t gone more than a few steps toward the fence when she cried out and dropped the statue into the grass.

“What’s wrong?” Nate demanded, at her side in an instant.

“It burned me!” She held out her hands. Even in the on-again, off-again moonlight, Nate could see the angry red welts on the palms of her hands.

“Holy—! Are you okay? Do you need medical—”

“No, it’s not that bad. Hurts like hell. I’ve got some old towels in the trunk I use at the car wash. Maybe we can use them like pot holders—”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Nate and Tess froze, looking around for the source of the voice that didn’t belong to either of them. Nate recognized it, though.

A shadow stepped from behind a massive tree trunk. Tristan Solca stood before them, and this time he didn’t wait before displaying his knife, an even bigger knife than he’d used before. It glittered malevolently
in the moonlight, as did his black eyes. “All I want is the statue. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

All of Tess’s oxygen seemed to be trapped in her throat. They couldn’t get this close, only to be thwarted by this horrible man who wanted to use the Cat for who knew what evil purposes.

Well, he’d have to take it over her dead body.

“Look, Solca, give us half an hour,” Nate said, using his best cajoling voice. “We’re about to use the statue for a small … exercise. A religious ceremony, if you will. After we’re done, you can have the Cat. And we won’t even press charges for assault with a deadly weapon, which this in fact is. Fair enough?”

Solca’s face wavered with uncertainty.

“That okay with you, Tess?” Nate looked over at her.

She nodded, though she didn’t have a good feeling about this. What if the spell failed? How could they, in good conscience, hand over an instrument of evil power to this horrible man?

“What kind of ceremony?” Solca asked suspiciously.

“Just a little witchly hocus-pocus,” Nate said glibly. It was the wrong thing to say.

Solca’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re going to take the curse off it!” He turned his head and spat. “Morganna attempted and failed. It can’t be done.”

“Then why don’t you let us get on with it?” Tess
said. “We’ll try, we’ll fail, we’ll probably die in the process, and you can have your old Cat.”

Solca wavered again. “Why should I take the chance? Morganna always said her spawn had powers she only dreamed of. You might succeed at that.” He took a step forward.

Tess and Nate instinctively moved closer together, protecting the hated Crimson Cat between them. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Nate said.

“You think those fancy kung-fu steps of yours are any match for a man with a knife?” Solca challenged. His teeth glowed yellow in the moonlight. He took another step, his eyes on Nate.

Nate adopted a fighting stance.

Oh, God, Tess thought, she couldn’t let Nate get hurt. She was just about to speak up and tell Solca he could have his damn statue when all at once the man lunged at
her.

The move was so completely unexpected, it knocked both Tess and Nate off balance. Before she knew what was happening, the knife sliced downward faster than she could see, and her left arm was cut—deep.

Nate’s attention immediately went to Tess, no doubt as Solca had anticipated. He made a grab for the Cat and started running with it.

“Go after him!” Tess cried, barely able to get the words out through the pain in her arm. She clamped her other hand over the cut and hugged her arm against her, trying to stanch the flow of blood. “I’m okay. Don’t let him leave with the Cat.”

After a moment of indecision Nate took off after Solca. He was both bigger and faster than the other man, and it took him only a few seconds to overtake the Gypsy and tackle him, like an all-pro linebacker. Solca fumbled the statue. It went flying while the two men hit the ground.

“Nate!” Tess ran to where the two men grappled with each other. Solca still had the knife, but Nate had a firm grip around the man’s wrist. The blade was inches from Nate’s neck.

Tess dropped to her knees, grabbed Solca’s arm, and bit him. He screamed and dropped the knife, which she promptly recovered and flung out into the darkness where it couldn’t hurt anyone.

Without his weapon, Solca was helpless. He stopped struggling and, to Tess’s horror, began sobbing. “My Cat … my Cat.”

Nate stood up and brushed himself off. The other man lay on the ground curled into the fetal position. “What should we do with him now?”

“We could tie him up, or lock him in the trunk of the car,” Tess suggested. “Just until we finish the spell. Whatever we do, we have to hurry. Midnight’s coming fast.”

“The trunk will have to do, I guess.” Nate dragged Solca onto his feet.

All at once the little man came alive. He gave Nate a vicious punch in the gut, shook himself free, and took off into the darkness.

“Nate! Nate, are you all right?”

“I’m not … worried … about me,” he said,
trying to straighten up. “I’m … worried about … you. You’re bleeding like a …” He couldn’t finish. He leaned against a tree, trying to catch his breath.

“I was going to have to cut myself anyway,” Tess said. “Solca just saved me the trouble. Let’s just do the spell before he works up his nerve and comes back with something worse than a knife.”

Nate nodded. “You’re sure you aren’t bleeding to death?”

“The bleeding is slowing down,” she fibbed. If she didn’t, he would run her straight to a hospital.

Something caught her eye. It was the Crimson Cat peeking at her from the grass where it had fallen, its golden gemstone eyes glowing with a light all their own.

“I’ll get it.” Nate had seen the eyes too. He took off his belt, hooked it around the Cat’s neck. Then he looked up at her. “Jeez, Tess, the blood …” He looked a little pale himself.

“I’m okay, really. Just go, hurry. We don’t have much time.”

Looking doubtful, Nate shrugged and dragged the statue across the ground toward the cemetery.

Tess followed, feeling a little light-headed—whether from the fright she’d just had, or the loss of blood, she didn’t know. There was a lot of blood on the front of her sweater, but it was hard for her to judge how much she’d really lost. The arm was still bleeding, though. She could feel the warmth seeping between her fingers as she applied pressure with her other hand.

With Nate’s help, Tess managed to clamber over the wrought-iron gate. He handed her the tools and ingredients for the spell. When it came time to transfer the Cat, he unceremoniously heaved it over the fence. It landed with a thunk on the soft ground.