Bones of a Witch (28 page)

Each time he staggered away from center I felt
the rope tug at my neck like a rusty chain. I knew he could not
hold out for long. “I’m all right,” I told him. “Can you reach the
chair?”

He turned with some difficulty toward the
chair, but the sigh in his voice told me to give that up. “It’s
busted,” he said.

“Can you shoot the rope?”

“Sorry, no gun.”

“How `bout your phone? Can you call
Tony?”

“Negative. I tried calling him when I first got
here. There’s no reception.”

“Damn it. All right, listen, can you reach this
witch’s stone around my neck. I need you to yank it off me and
pitch it as far as you can?”

“I’ll try,” he said, and he did, but he could
not reach high enough to get it, and with the noose around my neck,
I could not lean over to lower it to him.

“Dominic, you’re going to have to go and get
help.”

“No. I can’t leave you.”

He stumbled again, and the rope tightened
against mine and Ursula’s neck so hard it nearly jerked us off his
shoulders.

“Dominic.” My voice was faltering now, choked
to a harsh whisper by the noose. “You can’t hold us up
indefinitely. If you’re hurt badly you might bleed to
death.”

“I don’t care. I’d die for you,
Lilith.”

“Baby, that’s sweet—but stupid. Listen, if you
die then we die. You get it?”

“Lilith, I can’t leave you.”

“Okay, look, maybe there’s another way. If you
can make a spark, I think I can get us out of this.”

“What do you mean?”

“
It’s the witch’s stone. I can
work some magic if we can just figure out a way to interrupt the
magnetic field around it. I just need a spark.”

“Like from a lighter?”

“No. It needs to be electrical, like from a
stun gun.”

“Sorry, no stun gun.”

I could feel Dominic’s strength weakening by
the second. His breathing had grown labored, and his hardly
noticeable grunting noises had become very noticeable gasps of
pain.

“Dominic, is your car down the
hill?”

“Yeees, uuhh.”

“Can you take the battery out and bring it up
here?”

“What?”

“The battery. We can make a really big spark
from it, can’t we? Go down and get it.”

“Lilith, I can’t get the battery. I would have
to leave you hanging here too long. Besides, I have…” He stopped
there to cough and spit up blood. “I have no tools to remove
it.”

“Then we’re all dead,” I said. “You need to
drop us. Drop us and try to get yourself to a hospital.”

“Lilith I…. Wait.”

“What?”

“My phone.”

“Yeah, I thought you said it wouldn’t
work.”

“No, I said it wouldn’t call out.”

“So, what good is it?”

“You don’t understand. It has a dual resonance
flux compression magneto. If I can reverse its polarity and off
sync it with the capacitor regeneration modular, then I can induce
a static charge of….”

“Jesus, Dominic. All right already. Just do it,
will you?”

I have no idea what the hell the boy was
talking about. I only know that he took the back of his phone off,
flipped something around and then told me to count to three. I did,
and when I got to three the device blew up with the biggest damn
spark of blue and white light this side of St. Elmo’s fire. At that
instant, I exercised a spell that turned the noose ropes into
straw, and like a house of cards, we tumbled to the ground, Dominic
on bottom, me on him and Ursula on me. Immediately after getting
up, I removed the witch’s stone from around my neck and pitched it
into the night as far as I could. I helped Ursula to her feet,
next. She seemed unsteady, dazed and I’m sure sore as hell from
rope burns and bruises. I asked if she was all right, but my own
voice came out sounding so shredded and hoarse that I don’t think
she understood.

It was not until I bent over to help Dominic
that I realized the gravity of his situation. He told me he had
been hit, but I had no idea. After lifting his jacket away, I saw
that Putnam’s bullet had entered his chest dangerously close to his
heart and exited his back, punching a hole there so large I could
almost put my fist in it. How he managed to hold Ursula and me up
on his shoulders in spite of his wound is an unprecedented
testament of human will and sacrifice. I think at that point I knew
exactly what I had to do.

Ursula had already begun tearing off segments
of her blouse to use as bandages and applying them with pressure to
Dominic’s wounds. I gave her some words of encouragement and
assured Dominic he was in great hands before telling them that I
was going off to find some help. I didn’t think she’d notice, but
it turns out Ursula is a bright individual. She caught me heading
off in the direction of Putnam’s retreat and called me
back.

“I believe Mister Spinelli’s coach is waiting
down the hill that way,” she said, pointing.

I nodded. “It is, but I have a quick errand to
run first. You keep pressure on those wounds now. I’ll have help up
here before you know it.”

Naturally, I’m not at liberty to discuss what
my errand was, but suffice to say it was a necessary task that did
not take me long to accomplish. After all, I do hate it when loose
ends are not tidied up.

Tony Marcella:

I feel like a fool. What can I say? A total
damn fool. Why didn’t I listen to Spinelli? He tried to tell me
back at the tavern that he thought Putnam had the girls up on
Gallows Hill, but I wouldn’t listen. I was so Goddamn pigheaded,
and because of it, all three of them nearly died. Jesus, I don’t
know what I would have done then. If I ever lost Lilith and
Dominic, too, I wouldn’t…I just couldn’t…. Forget it. I’m not going
to go there. There were already enough tears to go around at the
base of Gallows Hill when Carlos and I drove up on scene thirty
minutes too late to make a difference to anyone, except maybe for
Lilith. She seemed so genuinely happy to see me that even I started
to cry. And Carlos? Gees, forget about it. When he saw Dominic all
strapped into the ambulance gurney with the oxygen mask over his
face and forty yards of white bandages around his chest, well, that
big old teddy bear wept like a baby, I wanna tell you.

“Can I see him?” I remember Carlos asking, his
face strung like taffy and his eyes like two leaky water balloons.
“Can I see my buddy?”

“He’s sedated now,” said a paramedic, whose
name I recall only as Pete. “Let us finish getting him
stabilized.”

“Is it bad?”

“Yeah, it’s serious. He’s been shot in the
chest,” Something big, too. It blew right through him.”

“It’s a .45 I bet.”

“Maybe, or a small cannon.”

“Oh, God. How could I let this
happen?”

“Look, Detective, your friend has a condition
known as dextrocardia, and he’s—”

“Dextro…. Oh, no. Tony did you hear that?
Dominic’s has dex-o-trada.”

“No,” said the paramedic, “dextrocardia; it’s a
genetic condition where a person’s heart forms on the opposite side
of his chest. He was born with it.”

“Really?” Carlos turned to me with his hand
covering the right side of his chest. “His heart’s over
here?”

I shrugged. “Who knew?”

Pete said, “It’s more common than people
realize. In some cases it’s not just the heart, but all the
internal organs. It doesn’t affect their quality of life, and most
who have it never even know. I mention this because in Mister
Spinelli’s case it’s a lucky thing. If his heart were on the left
side of his chest where yours and mine is, he would be dead right
now.”

“So he’s going to be all right?”

Finally the reassuring smile that Carlos (and
yes, I) needed inched across Pete’s face. “Well, he’s lost a lot of
blood,” he said in a confidential tone. “But yes, I think he’ll
make it.”

“Oh, good God,” Carlos sighed, and I with him.
We stepped back as Pete closed the door on the ambulance and
watched him jot around to the passenger side. He was barely in when
the driver dropped it into gear and sped off with lights flashing
and siren wailing. I patted Carlos on the back and mumbled
something about how everything was going to be all right. He
nodded, but kept his head down so that I would not see his tears,
which worked out well, as he couldn’t see mine either.

Across the lot sat another ambulance where
Lilith and Ursula were being treated for rope burns, contusions and
possible internal injuries. I say that now with some reservations,
as Lilith seemed vocal enough to complain about her treatment
without too much apparent discomfort. Fearing a no-win
confrontation between her and the paramedics, I excused myself from
Carlos and hurried over to see if I could calm the
situation.

“All right, Lilith, tell me what the big fuss
is.”

“This guy,” she said, pushing away a
young-looking EMT with a chin full of peach fuzz shorter than
Spinelli’s. “He keeps trying to take my blood pressure even after I
told him not to.”

“But that’s his job. He’s got to take your
vitals.”

“No, he’s got to get out of my face before I go
all witchy on his ass.” She reached up and pulled me in by my
lapels. “What do you think he’ll say when he sees that my blood
pressure is only forty over twenty?”

I rolled back a curious grin.
“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Huh, he’ll probably wonder why you’re not in a
coma.”

“Exactly.” She let go and pushed me away. “Now
tell the twerp I don’t need my blood pressure checked.”

I walked the paramedic off to the side a few
steps, putting my arm around his shoulder for an air of confidence.
“Look,” I said, “the young ladies’ are not up to getting her blood
pressures checked right now. But I’ll tell you what. Just as soon
as we get them back to New Castle I take them to the emergency room
for a thorough check up. We’ll get their blood pressures checked
then, along with their pulse and everything else. What do you
say?”

The kid brushed my hand off his shoulder as if
it were toxic. “Forget it,” he said. “I heard her. The woman’s a
bitch. You do whatever the hell you want with her.” He marched off
toward the front of the ambulance, leaving me to slink back to
Lilith on a bead of thin ice.

“Well?” she said. “What did he say?”

I smiled convincingly. “He said he knows
you.”

She gave her hair a flip back over her
shoulder. “Of course, they all say that.” And she hopped off the
bumper and put her hand out for Ursula. “Come on, Urs, let’s go
home.”

We had just started for the car when I spotted
Carlos together with another gentleman walking toward us. Right
away I knew the other guy was a cop. The first give-away was his
manner of dress. We plainclothesmen all have the same street smart
sense of fashion, only it’s always at least two years out of date.
But the biggest give-away was Carlos, or more accurately his walk:
shoulders back, chest out. You see, anytime he’s with one or more
cops he always tries to be the tallest in the group. With anyone
else he slouches, usually with his hands in his pockets. It’s a
small thing, I know, but it’s one of the little quirks that endear
him to me.

“Tony,” he said, after meeting up with the
girls and me half way. “This is Detective David Chandler of the
Salem PD. He has a few questions for you.”

“Oh?” I put my hand out. “Detective, pleasure
to meet you.”

“Same here,” he said, and he shook my hand with
a quick but firm grip. “Actually, it’s these young ladies I need to
chat with.”

Lilith stepped between us. “We’ve already given
full statements to the lead investigating officer, Detective. I’m
not sure if there is anything else we can add to it.”

“Yes, I understand, but we have a new
development and I just need to ask you a couple of questions about
it.”

“New development?” I looked to Carlos and could
tell from the expression on his face that he knew what it was and
that it was a biggie. “Have you apprehended Putnam?”

“We have,” the detective answered. “That is to
say, we found him. He’s dead.”

“Ha!” said Lilith. “Good riddance to
him.”

I inserted my arm between Lilith and Detective
Chandler and eased her out of the circle. “I don’t understand. How
did he die? Did Spinelli shoot him?”

I looked at Carlos again; his face lit up like
a neon sign. I knew it was killing him that he couldn’t be the one
to tell me.

“No, it wasn’t your detective. It looks like an
animal got him. Tore him apart something awful. That’s what I
wanted to ask these ladies about.” He stepped around me to gain
direct access to both Lilith and Ursula. “Either of you see
anything prowling around these parts tonight?”

“Prowling?” said Lilith. I knew she knew
something.