Honeymoon of the Dead

by Tate Hallaway

  I guess that just proved what a heel I used to be.

  Across the street in the park, ice-skaters swished and swirled under a brilliant floodlight. My eyes tracked their graceful movements, but my mind whirled. What would Sebastian say about it all? I’d like to think he’d laugh it off and tell Larkin where to stick it because he knew he had nothing to worry about.

  But if I was honest with myself, I’d have to admit monogamy wasn’t my strong suit. I like men. I’m a shameless flirt. And I tended to have trouble with “good- bye.” My relationships always had some residual entanglements. Even though we broke up, Parrish kept showing up in my living room, declaring his undying affection. Though I shattered the love spell with Dominguez, he claimed to still love me. Much like Larkin, actually.

  Sebastian might make that connection too and see a pattern. It would not be a favorable one either. What if between this disastrous honeymoon, the hotel, and what Larkin might say about my past behavior, Sebastian decided I wasn’t worth the hassle?

  Here I’d been worrying about what Lilith was doing to my marriage. Perhaps I should have been worrying about my own contributions.

  Larkin returned to the table with two crystal glasses full of amber-colored liquid. He must have been able to persuade the waiters to let him bring over the drinks himself.

  “I’m usually more of a beer girl,” I noted unhappily. The lights in the restaurant were dimmed, and a candle in a cut-glass holder flickered softly as Larkin slid into the seat opposite me. A few men in business suits sat at the bar, but otherwise the place was quiet.

  “It’s the happy hour special.” Larkin shrugged.

  I noticed the others at the bar seemed to be drinking something similar, so I nodded and took an experimental sip. The alcohol was smooth, rich, and warmed my throat. “Good stuff,” I said. I wasn’t much of a hard liquor connoisseur, so I asked, “Brandy?”

  Larkin nodded. His head was bowed and his fingers wrapped tightly around the glass, as though he were praying to it.

  Larkin took a long swallow and then began. “It’s like this,” he said. “When I found out that you were supposed to be dead, I thought you’d gotten off lightly.”

  “Oh, well, that’s mighty big of you,” I said, because, well, what did you say to an opener like that? I took a long drink, letting the alcohol burn my throat.

  “See the thing is,” he continued, ignoring my comment, “you got a lot of sympathy dead. People were very forgiving when they thought you’d gone down with the rest of the coven. No one had a lot of sympathy for my—and Liza’s—plight.”

  I had the feeling if I said “sorry,” even if I meant it sincerely, Larkin would take it the wrong way. So I just nodded. The brandy got smoother with every sip. I was beginning to think I was getting a taste for the harder stuff. Or maybe I just wanted to get blind drunk and forget everything.

  “Everyone said ‘Poor Garnet’ and ‘She was so great’ when they talked about you. Do you have any idea how maddening that was? If I pointed out what you did to me and Liza everyone acted like I was some kind of a heel for speaking ill of the dead.”

  Yeah, that would kind of suck. But there wasn’t much I could do about it now, so I let him rant without interruption. Every so often, he’d look at my drink and check my eyes and smile a strange grin.

  “There are a lot of things I wish I could do over,” I admitted. I was surprised to hear my words slurring. I hadn’t drunk that much, had I?

  A slow smile spread across his face, and, I have to say, it wasn’t an attractive one. “Got you.” He sneered.

  “Got me?” I asked, perplexed. A curtain formed at the top of my vision. I felt myself starting to pass out. Had he slipped something into my drink?

  The smug, self-satisfied look on Larkin’s face said it all. He’d totally slipped me a Mickey.

  Well, he’d be in for a surprise.

  “Ha,” I said, full of something akin to drunken bravado. “You’re going to be the one that’s going to get it, pal.”

  Willfully, I surrendered to the feeling of falling and let my consciousness start to drift away. After all, if I passed out, I was more than certain Lilith or Athena or some inner Goddess would hand this jerk his ass on a plate.

  5.

  The Devil

  ASTROLOGICAL CORRESPONDENCE:

  Capricorn

  Thus I was completely floored when I woke up to discover myself in someone’s basement.

  My head pounded so fiercely, tears streamed from my eyes. The inside of my mouth felt dry and cottony. Blearily, I tried to take stock of my surroundings.

  I lay on my side on a cracked, dust-caked concrete floor. My arms twisted behind me, bound with something that felt a bit like duct tape and stuck to my wrists painfully. Someone had thrown a blanket over me, which was good because I wore only my chilled, moist swimsuit.

  That bastard stole my clothes!

  A bare bulb harshly glared down on an uneven stone floor. Tangled spiderwebs gathered dust between exposed copper pipes near the cracked ceiling tiles. A water stain on crumbled concrete made a patchy pattern on the nearby wall.

  Eclipsing much of my view of the rest of the basement was one of those huge octopus-armed furnaces that a lot of older houses still had. Nearby, a rusty bicycle was propped against wooden shelves filled with cans of paint, half-used containers of wood stain, spray paint, and tubes of caulk. Somewhere close by I could smell the sour, rancid odor of a litter box overdue for a change.

  I didn’t remember Larkin having a cat.

  Lifting my head even the slightest made my stomach lurch, so I wisely determined to move as little as possible. The whole of my body continued to ache in tune with my heartbeat. I closed my eyes and felt around for any inner Goddess. I thought I caught a whisper of Lilith’s—or maybe Athena’s—presence humming deep inside, but it seemed as impossible to catch as quicksilver. Every time I thought I had a hold of it, it slipped away.

  Damn drugs. Whatever Larkin gave me must be making it impossible to connect to Lilith. Or Athena, for that matter.

  I heard the creak of rusty hinges followed by the sound of heavy footfalls on a wooden stairway. Screwing my eyes shut, I tried to continue breathing normally, despite a spike of fear that sent shooting pains behind my eyelids.

  “Jesus, dude, you totally overdosed her.”

  “So?”

  Without opening my eyes, I strained to distinguish Larkin’s voice. I thought the gruff response might be him, but it was hard to tell. Who were these other guys?

  “So she could die, man. Don’t you ever watch House? We don’t get the ransom if she’s dead.”

  Ransom! I was being held for a ransom!? What was going on? All I could figure was that Larkin set me up again. This time, however, it was much more serious.

  “How long has she been out, anyway?”

  There were some fumbling noises. I thought maybe I heard the sound of a cell phone being flipped open or a watch being pulled from a pocket. It was hard to keep my eyes from twitching open to check which one it was. “Twenty minutes. That’s bad.”

  “Let’s give her another five. If she doesn’t wake up, we’ll have to call the master.”

  The master? They couldn’t be serious about that, could they? I mean, it sounded like a line out of a bad made- for-TV horror movie. Something about the other voices sounded familiar. Had these guys been the ones that jumped me in the parking lot? The “Eat the Rich” guys?

  Feet padded up the stairs, and I heard the fading bits of their conversation—“That sucks, dude” and “It won’t come to that” and a final “Let’s hope not, anyway”—before a door swung shut with a bang.

  Though they’d clearly gone, I still had the sensation of someone watching me. They might have left someone behind to guard me, so I kept my eyes squeezed tight and tried to think. What was I going to do? I was in such rough shape, I could hardly sit up, much less form a plan of escape. Besides, what if I was overdosed or something like that guy said? I d
idn’t want to die. Not on my honeymoon, damn it. Not when the last words I exchanged with Sebastian were in anger.

  That last thought made my heart constrict and my skull thud dully. My brain might be swimming, but I was pretty sure my heart was breaking.

  I had to live long enough to tell Sebastian I was sorry. He was kind of a know- it-all, but I loved him for it, not in spite of it.

  Pulling desperately on my tape cuffs, I managed to gum up my wrists and not much else. I needed some divine help here. Maybe my inner Goddesses just needed a little coaxing. I mean, perhaps if I could concentrate on one thought long enough, I could break through the drug haze and reach one of them.

  So I did something I hadn’t done in a long, long time. I prayed. Having not one, but two Goddesses at your beck and call tended to make a girl complacent, I guess. Before the incident with the Vatican witch hunters, I used to have a practice of daily devotion that included saying a short, informal “good morning” to the higher powers Wiccans called the Lord and Lady. My life had grown so complicated after that, with a new Goddess inside my body, I neglected that sort of thing in favor of spells and big, showy rituals.

  I really wasn’t the witch I wanted to be at all, was I?

  That thought made me sad, so I prayed for help with all my heart. I sobbed a little in desperation, but crying actually made my head hurt worse so I settled for trying just to remain open to the presence of the God and Goddess.

  I’m sorry I’ve been so absent, Lord and Lady. Please help me in my desperate hour.

  I lay there in that dark, dank basement, and I waited for a sign.

  Nothing.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe a feeling of oneness with the universe or something else deeply profound. But I didn’t even feel a glimmer from Athena or even Lilith.

  I sighed. I guess I was on my own after all. At least until the drugs wore off.

  Lying there, I felt dejected. Finally, despite the fact that the feeling of being observed remained, I carefully cracked one eye open.

  A rail-thin, short-haired black cat sat back on its haunches regarding me with yellow eyes as though I might make a delectable lunch if I would just hurry up and die. Apparently noticing my conscious state, it stood, yawned, and arched its back, as if to say, “Oh, never mind.”

  The cat stretched its front paws out until claws popped out inches from my nose. Then, with a soft, plaintive mew, it bonked its forehead against mine.

  Soft as it was, I still expected shooting pains again. Instead, it felt warm and almost pleasant. “Good kitty,” I murmured appreciatively. After licking its lips, the cat seemed to give me a smile in return.

  It hopped over me, with a brief bounce off my shoulder, and seemed to be nudging around by my wrists. It was acting a bit like it might settle down for a nap. I tried to wiggle my fingers, hoping to shoo it away. Like any good cat, it completely ignored me. Suddenly, I heard the crunch of teeth and felt warm cat drool on my palm.

  Holy Bast! The cat was chewing through my bonds.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. I half expected an answer, but instead I felt a sharp nip near my wrist. Giving the bonds an experimental tug, the tape gave way with a tearing sound.

  Pins and needles raced down the nerves in my arms. Awkwardly, I flopped an arm over to slap on the floor in front of my face. Given the scream of my muscles, I wasn’t entirely sure that was such a good idea.

  The next thing I tried was even more stupid. I sat up. The contents of my stomach roiled to the surface. Standing on shaky legs, I made a stumbling dash for a nearby concrete laundry sink. I mostly made it. The cat twined itself around my legs as I hurled.

  “What was that?” I heard someone say above.

  I gripped the edges of the sink and tried to think of where to run. Out of my line of sight, the door at the top of the stairs started to creak open. My hands shook. The cat bounded past me to a root cellar door and scratched at it. I stumbled after the cat.

  I had just pulled the door closed behind me when feet pounded down the stairs.

  “Shit!”

  “Look at the cuffs, man. She’s gone! How the hell did she do that?”

  “I told you she was a witch.” Yep. That definitely sounded like Larkin.

  “Check it, dude. She totally barfed in your mom’s sink.”

  My ear pressed against the door. Ostensibly, I was trying to hear what was said, but really I was hanging on for dear life and trying not to spew all over my bare feet. The room spun. I gritted my teeth in an effort not to whimper.

  The door I was leaning on suddenly sprang open, swinging inward. By some miracle, I stumbled back between the wall and the door without exposing myself, upchucking, or making any noise. I held my breath, convinced I’d be noticed any moment. When the light flashed on I might have squeaked, but it didn’t matter for all the screeching from the cat, who sounded like it had gotten its tail stepped on.

  “Jesus, Snot. You scared the bejesus out of me,” one of my kidnappers said.

  The cat shot out the door and banged into a number of paint cans, yowling up a fuss the entire time. There was a lot more cursing and some chasing of the cat. Then, finally, mercifully, the light shut off and the door to the root cellar closed. I sagged back against it gratefully.

  “She got away,” I heard a guy say. “We’ve got to find her.”

  “No shit,” the-one-I-was-now-fairly-certain-was-Larkin said. “But it’s subzero out there and she’s in a bathing suit. That’s why we took her clothes in the first place.”

  “Right,” another said with that kind of we’re-so-clever snort of a laugh. “She won’t get far. C’mon.”

  Goddess knows how long Islumped dizzily against the door until I finally responded to the cat’s plaintive scratching to be let in. “Snot is a terrible name for you,” I told the cat as I cracked the door open for it. I gingerly leaned down to give its back a long pat. “If you came home with me, I’d name you Hero.”

  It chirped happily at that idea.

  “Okay, my Hero, let’s find me some clothes and a way out.”

  Slowly, with my head still heavy and cloudy, I made my way up the staircase, cringing at every squeak of loose boards.

  At the top of the stairs, I paused to listen. Whatever lay on the other side was silent, and so I gave the door an experimental push. To my surprise, it opened easily. The protesting hinges wouldn’t win me any stealth awards, however. Grimacing, I stood stock- still for a moment, waiting for my kidnappers to swoop in and knock me back down the stairs or something worse.

  Hero sat by my feet on the top step, looking up at me. He meowed encouragingly and then slid through the narrow opening. “I guess that means the coast is clear, eh, kitty?”

  I got a sharp “meow” that seemed to say, “Yes, but hurry.”

  The door opened into a narrow kitchen with gleaming oak floors. Decoratively carved, glass-fronted cabinets showed off a surprising array of china patterns.

  “What, are these guys the Martha Stewarts of kidnappers?”

  At the cat’s continued insistence, I dragged myself jealously past a shining, dish- free porcelain sink with a silver gooseneck faucet.

  Was this Larkin’s house? What had that guy said: “Your mom’s sink”? Did my old lover still live with his mom?

  Sadly, I couldn’t remember very much about our sexual rendezvous. Had I taken him back to my place? Or . . . good Goddess, tell me we hadn’t done it in his mother’s house, had we?

  Hero nudged my leg, reminding me I needed to get a move on. It was just as well, the thought that I’d somehow messed around with Larkin with his mom in another room made me feel barfy all over again.

  An archway led into a huge dining room with a beautiful built-in buffet. A Persian rug covered more polished hardwood. As I made my way into an equally large living room full of comfy- looking couches, my fingers traced the dust-free surfaces, admiring the Victorian-era spindle work.

  “I think I would have remembered this,”
I told Hero, though he cocked his head at me like he didn’t believe a word. Instead, he stood waiting by a coat-tree full of parkas, and, to my great delight, a pair of snow pants that almost fit me—they were a little long in the legs. Boots were a little more difficult to fit since my feet are so tiny, but I figured a couple of blisters would be a small price to pay if I actually managed to get out of here and not freeze to death.

  The worst part was that I got the distinct impression I was running off with things that belonged to the lady of the house, Larkin’s mom? I felt bad about that.

  “Here I thought you were living in a dump,” I told the cat, kneeling down to give my Hero a scratch behind the ear. He bumped happily against my fingers. “I was hoping to return the favor and rescue you. But, you’re probably doing all right, eh?”

  He sat back and regarded me in that enigmatic way cats have. I couldn’t tell if he agreed or not.

  “Well, if you’re ever in Madison, I’ll introduce you to Barney. You’ll like her. She’s a mouser, and very fluffy and fat. Not like you. You big, handsome man.” I gave him a final pat and stood up with a lot of help from the arm of a bench. My head thudded at the effort, reminding me I needed to get a move on.

  Boy, how much did Larkin slip me, anyway?

  After grabbing a scarf and a purple stocking hat with the Vikings’ logo on it from a basket by the coat- tree, I fumbled my way out the front door. The second the door was open, Hero darted out.

  “Are you supposed to be an outdoor cat?” I asked him.

  The cat didn’t seem at all bothered by the packed snow on the unshoveled walk, so I figured he must be. Before Barney became a barn cat at Sebastian’s, she used to try to run outside now and again. Whenever her paws felt snow, she’d desperately try to shake off the cold, like it was some goo stuck on her pads.

  “So, you’re coming with me?”