“Now that we are three,” said Lilith, “we can form our own sub-coven of witches. A coven will allow us greater control over our witchcraft. By harnessing the power of three, we can guarantee greater successes, where until now we could only hope. This will also help strengthen the bonding energies for the wedding.”
“So it’s a big thing, huh? You going to have candles and incense and stuff like that?”
“Yes, Carlos. We will have candles and incense and stuff like that.”
“Can I––”
“No. You cannot.”
He turned to me and pleaded with his eyes. I said to Lilith, “Why don’t you let him come, Lilith.” Man, the look she gave me, you would have thought I just called her a skank.
“Tony, this ceremony tonight is a sacred event. It is not a spectator sport. Tonight we will call forth the energies of all the witches in my lineage, from Ursula’s mother to mine. It is a hallowed consecration of body and soul to a higher purpose. Tonight the visceral collective shines. Only those engaged can be in attendance.” She paused and gave me a tentative look. “Besides, I don’t think you want Carlos here for the cleansing ritual.”
“The what?”
“That’s where we purify our bodies to ease the flow of energy between us.”
“Purify?”
“Aye, we shower and oil,” said Ursula. “`Tis natural to cleanse proper thy body and thy mind.”
“Wait,” I said. “We don’t all have to shower together, do we?”
She laughed lightly. “What say thee thy thoughts so silly? The bath holds but one in comfort. Three is by thrice too small.”
“Okay then.” I looked at Carlos and expressed my relief with a smile. “For a minute, I thought we were all going to get naked for the entire ceremony.”
Lilith smiled back. “We are.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tony, witchcraft is all about connecting with nature and the elements. Ideally, we should conduct the ceremony outside in the woods or on a beach along a deserted shoreline. And yes, we would be naked there, too. So be thankful we will be indoors where you can indulge your prudish inclinations.”
“What? I’m not a prude. I’m…modest.”
“No, Tony. Ursula is modest. You’re a prude.”
“I am not, and to prove you wrong, I’ll not only get naked for your ceremony tonight, I’ll stand naked on the front porch and howl like a wolf at the moon when we’re done. How’s that for prudish?”
She hatched a wicked grin. Her eyes caught mine and reeled me in. I think the thought of me howling naked at the moon excited her just a little. “That will not be necessary,” she said, and winked flirtatiously. “Not tonight, anyway.”
She held me with her gaze until I pried myself loose and turned for the door. I called out over my shoulder. “Coming Carlos?”
“Right behind you,” he answered, his footsteps confirming it.
We walked out to the car without saying a word. I knew he wanted to talk about what just happened, but he knew better than to start up with it. The silence held until we turned into the parking garage at the justice center. That is when I said to him, “Listen.”
He shut the car off and turned to me, his expression stalled in a quizzical twist. “Yeah?”
“About this thing tonight.” I shook my finger at him. “You cannot tell Spinelli. You hear me?”
“What?” The way his jaw dropped, you would have thought I had just ripped the mustache from his face. “Tony, don’t you want to see the look on his face when we tell him Ursula is gonna get naked in front of you?”
“No. Of course not. Why would you want to do that to Dominic? You know how vulnerable he is.”
“I know. That is just it. He’ll squirm like a fish.”
“Exactly. I thought you liked Spinelli.”
“I do.”
“Then why make him squirm? Do you think he would do that to you?”
His expression melted into something of a frown. “No, not for the fun of it.”
“All right then. Don’t do it to him.”
He pursed his lips and made a tic sound through his teeth. “Okay, fine. I won’t tell him, but I want all the details tomorrow morning. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said, though I thought I might regret that promise later.
FOUR
Spinelli’s enthusiasm to see us faded quickly after noticing Carlos’ cat that ate the cannery grin. I tried kick-starting the conversation, inquiring about Howard Snow the minute we settled in around my desk.
“Where is he?” I said, hoping to derail his suspicions. “You got him downstairs?”
He pitched a glance my way before refocusing his attention on Carlos and his shit-eating grin. “Who?”
“Snow. Where is he? In holding?”
He pointed at Carlos. “You’re hiding something.”
“Me?” Carlos’ grin widened to a full-fledged smile. “I ain’t hiding anything.”
“Dominic. Snow. Do we have him or not?”
“Huh?” He came back to me, this time long enough to give me a straight answer. “No. We missed him. The black and white reported his car in the driveway, but no one home. He could be at the hospital, though.”
“Why, is he hurt?”
Spinelli’s attention drifted once more to Carlos, who had taken the seat across the desk from me. “No. His wife is in the hospital.” He shook his head. “Cancer I think.” He said to Carlos, “You know something. What is it?”
Carlos threw me a look, begging me to let him off the hook. I shot him down with a stone-faced glare. “You got them heading over to the hospital now?”
“Who?” said Carlos.
“Dominic,” I said. “I’m asking Dominic.”
Dominic replied, “Who?”
“The black and white. Jesus. Will you forget about Carlos and come back to earth?”
He snapped to attention, turned on his heels and pulled the bend out of his tie. “Sorry. No, I don’t have the unit going to the hospital.”
“Why not?”
“Because his car is still in the driveway.”
“Then why did you say he could be at the hospital?”
Spinelli offered up a dull shrug. “I don’t know. I was just saying. His wife is in the hospital. If he’s not home, maybe that’s where he went.”
I shook my head. “Forget it. Carlos and I will ride out to his house and try to make contact. Tell me what you found out about Biocrynetix Laboratories.”
“Ahh, something interesting there.” He pulled a small notepad from his back pocket and flipped past the first few pages. “Biocrynetix Laboratories is a privately funded co-op specializing in radical R&D for large pharmaceuticals and governmental contractors.”
“What does that mean, radical R&D?”
“It means they invest in projects deemed too experimental, risky or radical for traditional pharmaceutical companies to take on; projects that hold slim hope for breakthroughs, but yield immense profits with successes.”
“I see. Traditional pharmaceuticals are publically owned and such endeavors make Wall Street investors too skittish.”
“Exactly, but here’s the interesting thing.” He turned to Carlos. “You told me Biocrynetix Laboratories was working on a super sweetener?”
“That’s right. Ferguson told us it was four-thousand times sweeter than corn syrup.”
“See, that’s the thing. An industrial strength food sweetener is agricultural. It is not the sort of thing Biocrynetix Laboratories typically researches.”
“Maybe they are thinking about going public,” I said. “If that’s the case, they have to think about getting away from the radical R&D stuff and going mainstream. A breakthrough in a super sweet food additive would surely add a feather in their cap and boost their IPO.”
Carlos added, “Ferguson did say he didn’t want the publicity. That is exactly the sort of thing that would jeopardize an initial public offering.”
“Maybe,” said Spi
nelli, “but something still seems fishy to me.” He flipped another page in his notepad. “Case in point. Those two guys that died last night, Mark Williams and Rick Delaney?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re not alone.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean they are in good company. In the past three weeks, three other employees of Biocrynetix Laboratories died in bizarre…” he did the quote thing with his fingers in the air, “accidents.”
“You don’t say?”
“I do say. One fellow, Jake Gerardi, drowned in his swimming pool while sleepwalking in the middle of the night. His wife said he was taking prescription sleep aids. He walked straight into the pool and never woke up.”
“That’s bizarre.”
“Ah-huh, so is what happened to Melvin Brookfield. He fell down an escalator and broke his neck after his shoelace hung up in the revolving step tread.”
“Ouch,” said Carlos, rubbing the back of his neck while craning out the kinks. “I bet that hurt.”
Spinelli only nodded. “Bet not as badly as the hurt Julie McSweeney experienced.”
“McSweeney. That’s Ferguson’s secretary. He said she booked his flight last night. What happened to her?”
“Electrocuted.”
“How?”
“A curling iron she was pre-heating fell into the tub while she was taking a bubble bath.”
Carlos twitched, gyrated and recoiled in mock convolutions. “Shocking,” He said.
“Funny.”
“Enough,” I said. “Bizarre indeed, every one of them, but they do all sound like accidents.”
“You don’t think it sounds too coincidental?”
“That’s what coincidences are, Dominic: random unrelated events bound by time and circumstance. Who is to say that a common ingredient, such as fatigue from working late on deadlines, did not contribute to an accident-prone workforce? From initial reports about Williams and Delaney, I could say as much for them.”
“Still, I’m going to dig deeper into Biocrynetix Laboratories. I can’t shake the feeling that something is just not right with them.”
“You do that.” I stood and gestured to Carlos. “You ready to go?”
“What, you getting antsy about tonight?”
“What’s tonight?” Spinelli asked.
I gave Carlos a lowbrow glare that promised to kill him. He came back, “Oh, nothing. Forget it.”
Of course, Spinelli could not forget it.
“No. What? Tell me.”
“It’s nothing,” I told him. “Come on, Carlos.”
“Guys. What the hell? Are you keeping secrets from me now?”
Carlos turned to me. “Tony.”
“All right. Fine.” I said to Spinelli. “It’s no big deal, Dominic. Lilith and Ursula want me to join them in a ceremony tonight to establish a new coven. It’s a private thing and you and Carlos can’t come.”
“That’s it?”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
“They’re gonna get naked,” said Carlos.
“Huh?”
“Carlos. What the hell?”
“You said it was all right to tell him.”
“No I didn’t. I said don’t tell him.”
“Ursula is going to be naked?”
“See, Carlos. This is why I wanted you to keep your trap shut.”
“Again with the telling me what to do.”
“What?”
Dominic asked, “Will all of you be naked.”
“As a jaybird,” said Carlos.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Dominic, it’s a witch thing. I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“Why are you all getting naked?”
“I told you. It is a witch thing. There is this cleansing ritual. Nature. Purity. I don’t know. I don’t understand it all. Lord knows I don’t understand anything those two do. I only know I have to do it or Lilith will make my life miserable.”
“Ooh, tough choice,” Carlos mocked. “Let’s see, get naked with two drop-dead gorgeous women or face the wrath of Lilith. Hmmm, I don’t know.”
“Carlos, you’re not helping.”
Spinelli grabbed Carlos’ forearm and shook it hard. “Don’t talk about my fiancée that way, and stop thinking about her naked.”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me. Tony is the one that’s going to be gawking at her all night, not me.”
“What? I’m not going to gawk. You see, this is exactly the reason––”
“Oh, here he goes again, telling me to keep my mouth shut.”
“I didn’t say––”
“I want to come.”
“What? No. Sorry, Dominic. You can’t.”
“If he goes, I go.”
“Forget it, Carlos. Nobody is going. Dominic, listen. This is a serious thing for the girls. You know how important witchcraft is to them. If not for witchcraft, Ursula would not even be with us. You know that. No one is going to gawk. There will be no touching, no hanky-panky. I swear. I imagine we will have the lights off, a few candles burning maybe, nothing more. We probably won’t even be able to see one another.”
“So you’ll be groping,” said Carlos.
I hauled back as though I might hit him. He didn’t flinch. Spinelli started away angry. I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him back around. “Dominic, please. What do you say? You trust Ursula, don’t you? Let her do this. It means a lot to her.”
I could see Carlos getting ready to open his mouth, perhaps to lend his opinion on what it might mean to me, but a rock hard stare shut him down. Dominic’s eyes rolled up to meet mine and he forced a thin smile. “Alright. But you have to promise not to even look at Ursula.”
“Dominic, I don’t know if I can––”
“Promise me.”
“All right, I promise. I won’t look at her. If I have to walk into furniture and bust a toe, I will, but I won’t so much as look at her. Okay?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“So we’re good?”
“We’re good.”
“That’s my boy.” I looked at Carlos and stitched my brows low. “You ready now, troublemaker?”
The phone rang. Spinelli picked it up.
“Where to?” Carlos asked.
“Out to Snow’s house. If his car is in the driveway then he’s probably home. I’ll break the door down to get to him if I have to.”
“Okay then. Let’s roll.”
We started out. Spinelli called back to us. “Guys, wait up.” We turned. “Did I hear you say you were going to Snow’s house?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s not there anymore.”
“Come again?”
“That was NCFD. Snow’s house blew up about fifteen minutes ago. It’s gone.”
I looked at Carlos. His cheeks dimpled the way they do sometimes when he’s thinking about food. “What do you say now? Still coincidence?”
I shook my head. “It’s getting hard to believe it. I’ll give you that.”
“We still going?”
“Of course. You have somewhere better?”
He checked his watch. “It is noon.”
“I suppose you’re thinking about food.”
“Well….”
I pushed him toward the door. “You’re driving.”
Howard Snow lived in the historic section across town, not far from the old cemetery where construction workers inadvertently dug up Ursula’s bones while working on a road-widening project. I suppose the mention of the cemetery is what started us talking about her. Carlos asked me what I thought about her and Spinelli together. I told him I was happy for them.
“No. I mean, what do you think about them…you know, doing it?”
“Doing what?” I knew what he meant.
“You know what I mean.”
“Sex? Is that what you mean?”
He smiled boyishly. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. What do you think about that?”
I fed him
a sour look. “Where is your mind?”
“Tony, please, you never thought about it?”
“About Dominic having sex with Ursula?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“How could you not? She looks just like Lilith.”
“First of all, she may look like Lilith, but Ursula is definitely not Lilith. Secondly, I happen to know that Dominic and Ursula are not having sex.”
“So, you are not jealous?”
“Of Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“He’s jealous of you.”
“What?”
“Seriously. He told me so. He said he thinks about you and Lilith doing it all the time.”
“Ha. I have news for him. Lilith and I don’t do it all the time.”
“No, I mean he thinks about it all the time.”
“Does he?”
“Yes, and he’s afraid that if you like having sex with one witch so much, then you will want to have sex with two.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why, you don’t like having sex with a witch?”
I laughed at that, as my mind took me on a brief but paradisaic tour of necromantic bliss. “Oh, Carlos,” I said, unable to shake the smile from my face. “If you only knew.”
“So you do like it.”
“Of course.”
“And you never thought about having sex with Ursula?”
“Well, maybe, but not because she’s a witch.”
“Why then?”
I shrugged some. How could I answer that? Did I even know the answer? Did it matter that Lilith and Ursula were identical on the outside in every way, save for the tattoo on Lilith’s butt, or that if I took away Lilith’s hair-trigger temper, her condescending attitude and confrontational disposition, that I might find beneath it all someone like Ursula––that I might find Ursula? Should the same physical attraction I find in Lilith not feed my desires for Ursula as well? If not by force of magic that I incline toward one, then I should naturally incline toward the other. Carlos questioned my thoughts regarding sex with Ursula. What could I tell him? The truth was that I had thought about having sex with her, but only while having sex with Lilith. In that vein, I imagined Ursula nothing like Lilith at all. But for the passion burning within her, Lilith could not be the incredible lover she is. Do I suspect that same passion burns within Ursula, as well? Perhaps, yet I do not see it.
Kiss the Witch Page 4
