Chapter 19

The fire smoldered to ashes, the light of dawn filtered through the last clinging shadows of night, and the woman in the bed hadn't moved in hours. Tick, tock. The spirit hovered above the clock on the mantel and shimmered in anxious unease.

Tick, tock. The plan was at an excruciating stand still until his first companion laid hold of the vessel again. The vessel lay in wait beneath the swaying leaves of a tree. It should be in her hand, should be empowering him to make strides forward. He should be using its power to set each piece of the plan in place.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Time was running out. Time to push...

***

Bending low before a blazing fire, she busied in preparation. Her lush, rose red lips pinched into twin lines of hatred slashing through a once vibrant face.

Betrayed.

Revenge.

A deep, seething anger rose in her breast, burning as if the fires of Hell had made their home where her soul used to be. No amount of prayer or wise counsel made the fire abate. Neither heavy drink nor drug could make her forget the pain and anguish one man had brought upon her.

How dare he take her heart, use her body, and then leave her as if she were a flea-bitten mongrel? She was the most blessed of the Rom. She was beautiful, glorious, the most prized woman among her people! She could choose any man, but she'd been charmed, seduced, and thrown carelessly aside by the man to whom she'd given her love...and her innocence. Now, branded a whore, she'd fallen and faced pity from the people of her own tribe, her own family, her own father. Everything she held dear fell to pieces. She was Vengeance, a curse upon Earth.

He would pay. Would learn with whom he trifled. The silly man assumed her a simple young girl, but she was more than anyone knew, more than anyone could understand. She was a witch, sorceress, and an anathema to her own people. Her own family would turn against her if they discovered what she'd become. She'd practiced and toiled in secret with her hunger for more power, and now she had a focus for her wrath.

She wouldn't kill him. The punishment she'd planned would take much longer to devour him than a slow, painful death ever could. It would be brilliantly, horrifically perfect. Death was too good a gift.

No mercy. No compassion. With soul searing clarity she remembered his dismissal, his duplicity.

From her knapsack she pulled an ornate wooden box. The intricate scrollwork along the lid appeared to have been delicately crafted by the hands of fairy folk, lovingly carved and detailed by the hands of gods. Stained a rich mahogany, and enhanced by the lighter color along the scrolling patterns, the dark wood sang. Book sized, but deeper in order to securely carry its contents, the sides held elaborate etchings of stars over stars. The hinges, fashioned from the finest gold, were each adorned with three crescent moons. The latch, a breathtaking marriage of wood and gold wrought together to form a lock, felt cold and hard beneath her fingers.

She opened it, and removed a pocket-sized leather bound book, a golden pocket watch, and a folded kerchief.

Untying the leather thong, she opened the book, and thumbed through until she came to the page containing the words she sought.

Now, the time had come.

With great care, she lifted the folded kerchief, and pulled back the edges, revealing a curling lock of dark human hair.

She remembered how that glossy lock came into her possession. After a delirious night of lovemaking, he cut the curl from his beautiful head, and teased and caressed the peaks of her breasts with its softness. His devastatingly sensual grin warmed her as he swirled the silken hair around her well-kissed, tender nipples. She shuddered in response, and bent up to taste him, licking the sweat from his chest. She reveled in his smell, his hardness against her, the sight of him above, and his thickness inside. Naked flesh against naked flesh. Hot. Wet. Delicious.

When the dawn broke, he had dressed, kissed her long and deep, spoke words of love and promise, and tied the dark curl to her bodice. He'd smiled then, and her heart turned in her chest as he flitted off into the daylight...and into the arms of another woman twelve hours later.

The mere memory was bliss. Her nipples hardened, and her breasts swelled to fullness. Heat rose within her, racing through her blood like untamed palominos. The unwelcome heat scorched her flesh, and poured through her center, gathering in her aching mound.

She gasped when a piercing, slashing pain tore through her heart, but despite the pain, she smiled.

With a black, fathomless hatred, she called upon the dark power growing in her soul, preparing to recite the incantation written on the page before her.

The incantation that would bind him forever.

"May the goddesses bring ruin upon him," her very essence cried out for retribution.

Because of his betrayal, he would spend eternity a slave. He would be helpless against the powerful celestial beings commanding him. Trapped forever in utter stillness until The Sister Goddesses called him.

She peered down at the time worn vellum, and the words tumbled, age old and forbidden from her lips.

"Maledicam servire sorores tres deae." Her voice was a harsh rumble of discord. She took the soft, dark hair into her hand, and tied it into a knot. Sucking a breath, she tried to forget his smile and the feeling of his calloused hands as he aroused her. She held the hair above the fire, and the gyrating blaze reached out, ignited it, and consumed it with hungry, cerulean flames.

"Maledicam servire sorores tres deae." And again. "Maledicam servire sorores tres deae." The words were simple, but the chant was complex: tones and tempo weaving a spell of blackness through the air, pulling the breath from her lungs, compelling her to repeat them as if in a trance. Over and over and over until the fire engulfed the rocky ceiling of the cavern in sea blue flame. Suffocating heat poured through the room, turning the saliva in her mouth to dust.

She lifted the golden pocket watch by its chain, and plunged it into the heart of the fire. Then waited. The flames licked her skin, and a cry escaped through her bloodless lips as the pain of her screaming skin shot through her.

Sacrifices must be made.

Straightening her shoulders, she focused on the watch. The gold turned hot in her grasp, and the golden chain branded link shaped circles into her fingers.

The once stagnant air of the cavern turned fetid with the odor of burning herbs, seared hair, and roasting human meat. The fire devoured her, boiling the blood in her veins, and cooking the muscle beneath.

Seconds ticked by, and she remained still, silent, rippling with unholy glee-the skin of her arm turning black. Despite her resolve to finish what she began, her arm trembled beneath the onslaught of fire, agony, and nervous energy.

Steady. Just a bit longer. The fire had eaten so much of her arm she had little strength to hold it still.

She would sacrifice her very soul this night for revenge. What was one arm?

A terrible scream cleaved through the night, and discordant echoes tore through the cavern. The encampment in the valley below the cave came to life. She heard the confused shouts and frightened murmurs of her tribe as they scrambled about like terrified bats.

The watch suspended from her blackened, skeletal fingertips began to spin on its tether, faster and faster into a brilliant golden orb. Strong tingling sensations mingled with the white-hot pain in her fingers, and her breath left in excited gasps. The pulsing magic thrummed throughout the large chamber, covering her in vibrations so deep the hairs on her neck twitched.

Around and around it spun, throwing blinding golden flashes of shimmering light throughout the shadowy cavern. Then it stopped, coming to a halt mid-spin.

She pulled what remained of her arm from the fire. Her breath held in awe, the flames leapt from their berth, and burned swirling patterns into the back of the watch. Moving to the chain, the anomalous fire crawled up the golden links to kiss the tips of her shriveled black fingers.

The strange fire licked up her hand and over her arm, washing her burns in cooling relief, and dissipating at her shoulder. The large, gaping wounds on her arm closed, and flesh and nerve and vein knit back together. Within seconds, her arm was completely healed. She turned her arm over, and grinned in awe of the sorcery that made her whole again.

A smile spread its venom across her hate-darkened face, and ugly joy washed over her as she stared in wonder and rapture at the now cold and lifeless watch.