Bones of a Witch (4 page)

To which she answered simply, “Yes.”

“I do?” I splayed my arms and gazed down at my
body, all six-foot-six, four-hundred pounds of me. Had I only
imagined that Ms. Adams belittled me in the most literal sense? I
suppose I did, though I was beginning to understand why the good
people of New Castle hanged Ursula Bishop so many years ago. I only
wished they had gotten her sister Victoria, as well.

Tony Marcella:

Two days after Lilith went downtown to give
Harvey Goodman a piece of her mind, his office called back to tell
her where she could go to pick up the bones. I thought she’d be
gone for a while, and so I used that time to work on a spell I had
tried to perfect before showing her that I could actually perform
witchcraft. In the past I had managed to whip up a neat little
level one charm known as a whisper box, which went over well when I
used it on Lilith. Unfortunately, further attempts to employ
witchcraft have proved unsuccessful; earning me only digs and jabs
from her after having them blow up in my face. For that reason I
stopped attempting anything to do with magic in front of
her.

It was nearly sunset when I heard her key in
the door lock. I was about to attempt one of the most difficult
exploits known to witchcraft, something I’m sure Lilith expects
will take me years to accomplish. But instead of fiddling with
cutesy beginners stuff like whisper boxes and image casting, I
decided my first real feat should be something that totally knocks
her socks off. It’s a cloaking spell that’s taken me nearly
eighteen months to figure out, but if it works, it should get
Lilith off my back about practicing magic once and for
all.

She came through the door as I expected she
might after having dealt with the bureaucratic pinheads downtown:
bumptious, restive and cynical; Lilith that is, not the
bureaucrats. Right away she started in, firing off sarcastic sound
bites in quick salvos about grave robbers and witch hunters. I
heard her say something about a lost key or a medallion or
something, but frankly, she wasn’t making much sense to me. I just
know that she was really steamed. I let her rant for a while
without interrupting. It’s a process best left to its own device.
Even when she asks how someone can be so stupid, I’ve learned to
let it go unanswered. If it’s not hypothetical then she’ll ask
again. Until then I simply keep quiet.

Even as she wound down, she never mentioned
anything to me about the pages of notes I had strewn upon the
table, or the candles burning in a circle around me. As it was, I
barely got a word in edgewise, except to suggest we go out for a
bite to eat after she calmed down a notch or two and maybe changed
into something more comfortable. Boy, what a mistake that
was.

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” she
hissed. Ooh, like I could have touched that one.

“Nothing,” I said, shrinking back
some.

“Then why should I change?”

I pointed at her pants. “Your jeans are
dirty.”

She bent over and inspected her legs, brushing
what I thought were dirt stains on her knees. “This?” She swatted a
final time at one of the spots before narrowing her brows at me.
“These aren’t stains. This is how they’re made.”

I laughed, thinking she was kidding. But when
her brows did not find a level medium, I realized she wasn’t. “You
bought them with stains already in them?”

“Of course.” She turned around and showed me
her ass, which also had mud stains on the cheeks, as well as holes
in both pockets.

I shook my head. “So, were they on sale or
something?”

“Shaa, if you call a hundred and twenty bucks a
sale.”

“You spent a hundred and twenty dollars on a
pair of torn, dirty jeans?”

She turned and headed off into the bedroom. I
hurried up and snuffed the candles out and collected my notes off
the table. She came out a few minutes later wearing different
jeans, these with ragged holes in the knees, a tear up the side of
one leg and the back left pocket completely unstitched, save for
the two rivets anchoring the top corners, which left it flapping in
the breeze like a trap door. I honestly don’t know what made me do
it, but I had this feeling. I asked her to turn around for me,
which she did. Then I lifted the flap to reveal a hole beneath it
nearly as large, exposing a sizable patch of her bare ass and her
tattoo of a cat’s paw. I let the flap drop, but not before pinching
the paw and making her jump.

“Nice touch. Those jeans come that
way?”

She smiled coyly. “Like`em? I bought them with
you in mind.”

I smiled back. “So, you do love me.”

She hissed cat-like, gesturing a claw swipe at
my face. It was the closest thing to yes I was likely to get, so I
grabbed the car keys and escorted her to the door. We were just
passing the threshold when the phone rang. I suggest we let the
machine get it, fearing it might be Carlos or Spinelli wanting me
to come back to the office for something silly, like the last time
when they handcuffed themselves to the desks to see who could go
the longest without a trip to the vending machine. What they hadn’t
counted on, however, was their need to use the men’s room to
displace a full pot of coffee. Anyone there could have gotten them
un-cuffed, but they knew that only I would do it without telling
the captain what a bonehead stunt they pulled. Of course it didn’t
come without a cost. Between the two of them, I ate lunch free for
a week.

In most instances, Lilith would
also prefer to let the answering machine pick up the call, but for
some reason this time she didn’t. I say for some reason, when
really I know why. As always, Lilith knows when the phone is for
her. Usually she even
knows
who it is before she picks up. I could tell this
time, though; the call took her by complete surprise. Her side of
the conversation went something like this:

“Hello? What? The medallion? Who is this? How
did you— Where? Yes, when? I’ll be there.”

As soon as she hung up I could see it on her
face that something was not right. She seemed both perplexed and
suspicious at the same time. Her eyes narrowed down to tiny slots
the way they sometimes do when I tell her a lie and she knows it.
It’s a glare that seems to cut right through me, and I was glad
this time it was not meant for me.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“What?”

“That call. Is everything all
right?”

She nodded slowly, her gaze set off somewhere
else entirely. “Yes, fine.”

“Who was it?”

Now our eyes met, and she appeared to snap out
of whatever frame of mind had momentarily consumed her. “No one.”
She reached for the car keys and snatched them from me. “I gotta
go.”

“Where?”

“To see a man.”

“But what about—”

“We’ll eat later.”

And like that, she was gone. I grabbed a beer
from the fridge, hit the couch and flicked on the television.
Whatever she had to do, I figured I’d know soon enough. She never
keeps secrets from me anymore. We just have that kind of
relationship.

Lilith Adams:

As soon as I walked in the door I knew that
Tony had been working on a spell of some sort. He had his notes
sprawled out over the kitchen table and his candles all burning in
a circle around him. He thought I didn’t notice, but I noticed. If
he had asked, I’d have told him that he had the candles all wrong.
He was supposed to situate the yellow ones at the compass points:
north, east, south and west, and align the brown one with the
current position of the moon. I mean any witch worth her salt knows
that.

Anyway, he didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell. I’m
just glad to see him working on his witchcraft. I guess my bitching
is paying off. If he decides he wants help with his whisper box or
image casting, then all he has to do is say the word. In the
meantime, I certainly don’t need him critiquing my wardrobe. Do you
know he actually believes the mud-stained jeans come that way now?
I know, what a hoot. He is too cute, I swear. I can’t believe how
easy it is to fool him sometimes.

Of course, he wasn’t fooled for a
minute with that phone call I got. Even before I picked it up I
knew it wasn’t going to be good. I got this weird sense of
otherness from the caller, like maybe I wasn’t really talking to
the person whose voice I was hearing. Strange, I know. It’s so
mysterious.
He
was so mysterious. I got the feeling he knew me, or worse,
that he knew I was a witch and that’s the real reason he wanted to
meet with me. But you had to read into it to hear it from our
conversation. He started off by saying, “I have something you
want.” It’s a great icebreaker, I’ll give you that.

“What?” I said.

“The gate key.”

Okay, so now he had my attention. “The
Medallion?”

“Yes. And if you want it, you’ll have to meet
with me.”

“Who is this?”

“I’m a friend. That’s all you need to
know.”

“How did you—”

“Not over the phone. We do this in
person.”

“Where?”

“The parking garage downtown. It’s quiet there.
Will you meet me?”

“Yes, when.”

“Now.”

“I’ll be there.”

At first I thought it might be Carlos or that
nerd, Spinelli, playing a practical joke on me. But then I realized
that made no sense. Neither have the balls to dare rile me like
that.

I suppose I should have told Tony what was
going on, I mean I wanted to. But I figured he’d just go off on his
high horse and turn it into some gung-ho police operation with
helicopters, swat teams, dogs; the whole works. Just because this
guy stole my aunt’s gate key didn’t mean I couldn’t handle things
myself. I’ve dealt with a few seriously shady characters in my life
before; I couldn’t imagine some pathetic grave robber posing too
much inconvenience for me. So I grabbed the keys from Tony and
headed out to the parking garage. I know he thought I’d tell him
where I was going, but I wouldn’t. I mean, we have to have some
secrets between.

Shades of night had crept in slowly while I was
up in the apartment with Tony, so by the time I made it downtown, a
sickle-shaped moon already found its perch above the rooftops
overlooking the river. The parking garage sits two blocks south of
that and worlds away from what little nightlife the downtown
corridor offered on a rapidly chilling evening. I suspected that
was why my mysterious caller selected that location in the first
place.

The garage is an unattended facility; an
automated gate at the entrance dispenses time-stamped parking
vouchers, which another gate at the exit validates upon departure,
accepting payments in a collection basket similar to a toll booth.
I imagined that’s another reason my friend picked the place.
Witnesses there are far and few between. But I also knew that
someone that clever would not bring his car into the garage. Not
only would the parking vouchers document his movements, but the
cameras set up to catch gate crashers would ID his license plate.
With that in mind, I concluded that our meeting was probably
scheduled to take place on the ground floor.

I parked my car on Vega Street, one block west
of the garage, and walked the back alley to the side door. Once
inside, I took up a position along a chain-link fence in the shadow
of a cylindrical concrete column. And there I waited.

Only a few minutes later I saw something move
behind a distant column on the other side of the fence. I sneaked
in closer, keeping in the shadows and watching his behavior
closely. He appeared to be hiding as well, something I didn’t much
like, seeing that he was there to meet me. It made me wonder how he
expected me to find him if he acted like he didn’t want to be
seen.

The answer came sooner that I thought, and in a
particularly unsettling way. I was just about to step out into the
light and call to him when I heard the ding of an elevator bell
signaling it had just hit the ground floor and the doors were
opening. I pulled back behind the column; the stranger in the
shadows did the same, only now he was in a crouch. I could not see
the elevator from my vantage point, but the sound of footsteps told
me that a woman, alone and probably in heels, had stepped out and
was heading our way. As the footfalls neared, I heard keys jingling
and the chirp from her car as she hit the remote entry button her
keychain. She had nearly made it to her car when the man
straightened up and started towards her.

“Hello, Ms. Adams?” he said, continuing his
approach in a convincingly unthreatening manner. “Hi, there, I’m
the man who spoke with you over the phone. Can we talk?”

The woman stopped. I could see her tense up,
but she did not panic. Clearly, she believed the man thought he
knew her. I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined as he got closer
his smile must have thawed the ice in her veins. She relaxed her
arms, allowing her handbag to drop to her side. “I’m afraid you’re
mistaken,” she said, returning a polite smile.