KISS THE WITCH (6 page)

“
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.

So sure, I thought about it. I can say that
and know I love Lilith. I only wish sometimes she were more like
Ursula on the inside and less like her on the outside. At least
then I might not wonder.

“
You know, Carlos,” I
said, after what may have seemed like minutes. “I’m not comfortable
with where this is going. Look, I love Lilith, and I admit that our
relationship is complicated, but that does not mean that I covet
thy neighbor’s wife, or in this case, his fiancée.”

“
I bet Dominic would love
to hear you say that.”

“
I’ll say that to him, if
he asks me like a man.”

“
He won’t do that. He
respects you too much.”

“
If he respects me, then
why is he worried about me sleeping with Ursula? He knows he can
trust me.”

“
Maybe it is not you he
mistrusts.”

“
You mean
Ursula?”

“
I mean
Lilith.”

“
What?”

“
Sure. You know how she’s
always getting Ursula to try new things. She is the shepherd and
Ursula is her lamb.”

“
No, what you’re saying is
that she is a pimp and Ursula is her bitch.”

“
Tony.”

“
Don’t Tony me. You give
Ursula no credit at all for being her own woman. Not to mention you
give me no credit either. Do you think I would sleep with Ursula
behind Spinelli’s back just to––to what? Break her in?”

“
I don’t think that.
Dominic does.”

“
Well then set him
straight, why don’t you?”

“
Okay, I will. I’ll tell
him you think about having sex with Ursula, but that it’s not
Lilith’s idea.”

“
What?”

“
I said I
will––”

“
I know what you said. Why
would you tell him that after what I just told you?”

“
You just told me a minute
ago that you think about having sex with Ursula.”

“
No, you asked me if I
ever thought about having sex with Ursula, and I said I did. I
don’t think about it. I only thought about it.”

“
Isn’t that the same
thing?”

“
No. It is completely
different. Look, haven’t you ever thought about having sex with
Ursula?”

“
Sure. I thought about it
many times. I mean come on. Have you seen her? She’s
gorgeous.”