The laptop chimed as he sat down. It was an email from Leese, as always. He didn't get many emails from anyone else. It was a simple message.
Lunchtime. Open up.
He smiled as he grabbed his potion and a picture of the back of Leese's vet office, one of many he had. In fifteen seconds Leese was stepping through the portal into the kitchen. She wore her scrubs, covered with pictures of dogs and cats, and somehow still managed to look beautiful.
"Oh, God," she said, disgust in her voice. "Please, save me."
He closed the portal behind her. "Bad day?"
She collapsed on the couch, kicking her shoes off. "Let's see. We've had two emergencies, and a woman that, for whatever reason, thought her cat didn't need to be in a carrier. I guess she missed the huge sign when she walked in. I told her that we had a spare in the back, so the cat could be safe until she was seen. Well, right as she was cussing me out about how her cat didn't need a carrier, the cat gets away from her and fights with a York Terrier."
"That's a bad day. If you need any help, just—"
"I know, Kevin. You can heal them, whatever. But we can do our jobs, too."
Kevin leaned back in disbelief, but Leese was already apologizing.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just…don't listen to me."
"I never do."
Finally, she smiled. "Ha ha. So funny."
"You want something to eat? A sandwich? Something to drink?
"You're so sweet. Get me a soda, and I'll give you a big kiss."
"How can I say no to that?"
Kevin retrieved a soda from the fridge and sat next to Leese. She drank half of it in one gulp. He felt bad for her as she leaned her head on his shoulder.
"I won't be able to come over tonight. I'm closing, then I have to help Cindy move some crap around their house. You could come over if you wanted, but I know you're babysitting."
"Don't remind me."
"She's still giving you the cold shoulder?"
"Yup. Nothing like spending Friday night with a little snotty brat."
"I'll tell Jack you said that."
"I'll just lie and say I didn't."
Leese laughed and finished her soda. She set the can on the end table, and in one graceful motion, threw her leg over Kevin's waist. Shifting her hips, she put her hands on his shoulders and flashed her brightest smile.
"I said I'd give you a kiss if you brought me a soda."
Kevin smiled. "Yeah, you did say that."
Leese glanced at her scrubs. "I probably don't look too sexy like this, do I?"
"I wouldn't say—"
He lost whatever he planned on saying when she pulled her top over her head. She reached behind her for the snap on her bra.
"Uh, this isn't exactly a kiss," Kevin said.
"Are you complaining?"
"Well, no—"
"I get a half hour for lunch." She leaned down to whisper in his ear. "Make it count."
She kissed his neck, and Kevin closed his eyes to enjoy the moment. The heaven-like bliss disappeared in an instant as Jack invaded his thoughts, yelling and screaming. He grabbed Leese by the sides, to try to move her, but touching her skin melted his brain once again.
"Leese—"
"Kevin, not one word about Jack, or the couch, or whatever."
She sensed his hesitation, and leaned back to look at him. He had a perfect view of her breasts, and his vision moved up and down, not sure of where to look.
"He won't do anything to you, or me," she said. She sighed and tenderly held his face. "Do you really want me to stop?"
Perhaps it was her brilliant use of reverse psychology, or the beautiful features, the perfect body, her bright smile. Whatever it was, Kevin suddenly couldn't think of a reason not to enjoy his girlfriend at that moment.
"I won't tell him if you don't," he said, using her words from the day before.
Leese helped him out of his shirt.
*****
Twenty-five minutes later, Kevin stood in front of the television. He wore only his jeans, his eyes unmoving from the couch. Passion was a strange thing. Leese and he had just finished doing amazing things to each other. Very few words were spoken. They simply caressed and moved with each other, kissed, held onto each other tightly. Sometimes they were gentle, sometimes not. They even fell from the couch once, and after a quick laugh, picked up right where they left off. Twenty-five wonderful minutes where neither one of them had a care in the world.
That feeling was rapidly floating away as Kevin stared at the couch.
He was trying not to be too obvious, but he looked for any signs they may have left behind. Anything at all that would Jack would notice immediately.
"Kevin, are you seriously staring at the couch?"
He looked up at Leese. She was in the kitchen, leaning against the breakfast bar, drinking a glass of water. She wore only his shirt and her panties, her scrubs still splayed on the floor. It looked like a bomb had gone off in Jack's house, a sex bomb.
She looked gorgeous, and the sight of her standing there, a hand on her hip, was almost enough to halt the worry.
Almost.
"No, I'm not."
She smiled and sat on the stool, crossing her legs. Another alluring sight.
"Yeah, you are."
"Okay, a little. Man, just knowing Jack like we do. Do you think he's got hidden cameras? Or shit, knowing him, he'll come walking in with a black light."
"We did not leave any of our love juice on the couch. Stop worrying."
He laughed like he was thirteen years old. "Love juice. And I'm not worrying."
She rolled her eyes. "You sure know how to kill a buzz. If you didn't look so good without a shirt on…."
"At least I got that going for me."
She smiled and stood up. "Okay, I hate to scream and run, but I have to get back to work. I'll give you a call when I get done all my crap."
"I'll be here."
Kevin joined her in the kitchen and they squeezed each other tight. He kissed the crook of her neck, and she shivered as goosebumps broke across her skin. It was good to know he had the same effect on her as she did him.
As Leese squatted to pick up her scrubs, she noticed the spell-book and laptop on the bar. Her eyes traveled between both. Kevin didn't think anything of it as she studied his work.
"Are you taking classes?" she asked. "You didn't tell me."
"No. Just picking up something I used to do. It's not my most proud thing, but that's just a paper I'm working on."
She glanced at Kevin, and back at the paper.
"For someone else?"
"Yeah. You know that lazy student out there, that doesn't feel like writing his own paper."
"So you write it for them."
It was less of a question and more of a statement. Kevin heard the tone, and sensed he was treading into danger.
"Yup."
Leese said nothing. She bored a hole through Kevin, her expression at odds with her pretty blue eyes. The silence stretched until it reached an uncomfortable level. She finally peeled Kevin's shirt off and lightly tossed it to him. The tension was thick as she dressed.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Kevin laughed, and immediately regretted it. She gave him a dangerous look as she stepped into her pants.
"That's obviously not true."
"It's just…doesn't that bother you? Helping people cheat?"
He didn't know what to say to get him out of whatever trouble he was in. The truth certainly wouldn't help. Kevin's very existence was a cheat to the way things were supposed to be. It wasn't natural to take normal, sometimes disgusting, ingredients and make incredible potions with a mere touch. But Kevin did that every day. Writing someone's paper for a few hundred dollars didn't seem world-shattering to him.
"It's not like I'm going to do it forever," he said.
"Oh really? What are you going to do?"
Leese crossed her arms, an angry twinkle in her eye.
She was completely dressed, and waited for an answer. The moaning and screaming they did on the couch felt like so long ago.
"Well, I have to make money somehow. That mall job wasn't exactly cutting it. I can't sell potions anymore. Victoria kicked my ass over that one. But I'm good at writing papers—"
"You used to sell potions? That's just plain stupid."
Kevin could feel the quicksand around him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something told him to be quiet. He simply couldn't.
"Come on, it's not that bad. It's not like I was out there selling meth."
"Wow. It's not meth, so it's okay?"
He shook his head. He wasn't sure what to defend first, his paper-writing or potion selling.
"Look, I don't sell potions anymore, so forget I brought it up. And the papers, it's not like I'm helping someone swindle an old lady's savings. I'm helping someone get an A on a report. That's all."
"Make a portal. Before I'm late to work."
He did nothing for a moment, too stunned to move. How did they get from naked on the couch to fighting in the kitchen?
"Make a portal," she repeated. "Please." Her please had a tone that wasn't meant for the word.
Kevin pulled out another photo and created the portal. He heard a dog barking and cars in the distance. No one ever went behind Leese's work, making it the best place for Kevin's magic.
She stopped and looked at him before stepping through.
"You're better than that," she said. "Even without all the magic crap."
Leese stepped through the portal and turned left, out of sight. He closed it behind her, his thoughts a mess. He was already in a bad mood, and he had to pick up Tiffany in a few hours. The weekend awaited them, and she'd no doubt be miserable each and every second. Not only did he have to deal with Leese being angry with him, but also with Tiffany being angry at whatever mysterious reason she had going on.
"What fun."
CHAPTER 18
Jack unlocked the door to his hotel room and tossed his coat on the dresser. Without his pocket-watch, he didn't get tired, didn't feel fatigue at all. But now he'd finally tasted sleep, knew what it felt like. He knew it was his mind playing tricks on him, due to the circumstances of the day.
As he sat on the bed, he could have sworn he was tired.
It wasn't a general lack of energy, but a weariness, that made him slump his shoulders. He'd spent the day at the site of Erica's murder, a random alley not far from her apartment. Jack found what he feared he would.
Nothing.
There was no trail, no clues. There was only a small splatter of blood that gave him an idea of where the body lay on the pavement, which he already knew from the police report. He walked for miles around the site, only stopping once for a hot dog. His perception picked up so many things about the busyness and the useless mortals around him. Affairs, women who didn't know they were pregnant, men who were oblivious to the stares they received, employees that were cheating their own employers. He'd seen so much, but couldn't see the most important thing. He had no idea who murdered Erica.
There was either no trail, or he lacked the focus to see it.
He slammed his fist on the nightstand next to the bed. The sun slowly gave way to night as he poured through the police report one more time, hoping he'd see something no one else did. He thought of Kevin, and how magic would pop into the witch's mind at the strangest times.
Jack would have no such luck.
He flung the folder across the room, the contents flying everywhere. Each setback, each small failure, pushed him in the simple direction of hopelessness. Sometimes, the killer wasn't caught. Sometimes, they got away.
He was the perfect example.
His thoughts drifted to Tiffany. If there was anyone that could pull him out of the funk he was in, it was his daughter.
He grabbed his iPad and made the call. Instead of his daughter, the witch with the forlorn expression greeted him. It was getting to be an annoying habit.
"Hey, Jack."
"Glinda. Where's Tiffany?"
He glanced around, and Jack frowned. His first floor didn't exactly have many hiding places that required a search.
"Where is she?"
"She's out in the garden?"
"What the hell is she doing out in the garden?"
"I don't know. Whatever the hell it is young kids do in gardens."
"Did you piss her off? What's going on? Have you been taking care of her?"
"Yes! What the hell else would I be doing? She's alive, just like you asked."
Jack smirked as he studied the witch. Kevin was agitated, something Jack had only seen a few times.
"What's your problem?" Jack nodded as it struck him. It could only have been one thing. "Let me see if I can take a wild guess. You and Blondie got into a little lover's quarrel."
"Yeah. She came over today for lunch. Everything was going well, and then…I just don't know what her problem is."
Jack clenched his eyes shut as his ears were assaulted.
"Glinda, I don't care. And I don't even have the ability to pretend I care. You are not Tiffany. You are not Victoria. So, unless you have a cure for me, very little that comes out of your mouth has any real meaning for me."
Kevin continued, like he didn't even hear Jack.
"She saw me working on a research paper. I would have hid the crap, if I'd known she'd throw such a fit over it."
For a brief, fleeting instant, Jack felt sorry for the useless witch. Erica had called off their relationship because she found out the man she was dating was a centuries-old killer with no regard for mortal life. Leese was giving Kevin a hard time because he wrote college research papers. The two scenarios didn't seem like they had quite the same weight.
"Well, what did you expect? Blondie's a young woman of fine character and morals. She's honest, hard-working, decent."
"And I'm not any of those things?"
"Not at all."
"Screw you, Jack."
"Ah, a hint of a testicle. Every now and then, you show a nut, and it's just so cute."
"I've got morals. I'm a good person."
"You're two centuries away from being just like me. You're a witch, Glinda. Everything you do is based around making the difficult easy. Taking shortcuts. I don't think Leese was raised that way."
Kevin's face turned red. Jack tried not to laugh.
"It's a fucking research paper! I'm not slaughtering kittens, or driving drunk with a pound of crack in my hand."
"You're not driving at all, since you don't own a car. You know what you should do? Go rent a prostitute. Believe me, a lady of the night won't care what the hell you do."
"I'm not renting a prostitute."
"She'll probably charge you double just for the stupid look on your face."
"How exactly is any of this making me feel better?"
"Who said I was trying to make you feel better? I don't care how you feel. Actually, you've made me feel better. You're just so pathetic."
"Did you want to talk to Tiffany? I think we're done here."
"Yeah, but one more thing. Don't tell her yet, but I may be home earlier than I thought."
"The sooner, the better. Hold on, let me get her."
Jack watched as Kevin carried the iPad through the house. He saw glimpses of the living room and kitchen, and suddenly wished he was home.
Kevin walked to the back door and dangled the iPad at his side. All Jack saw was a portion of the witch's hip and ass, perhaps the worst thing to every grace his tablet.
"Tiffany!" Kevin called. "Jack wants to talk to you."
Silence passed.
"Hmm," Kevin said. "She's not outside."
A young female voice he recognized quite well shouted in the background, barely audible on the iPad.
"Kevin! Did you go in my room?"
Kevin didn't answer until Jack spoke.
"Well? Did you go in Tiffany's room?"
"Yeah. I had to wash her clothes. I am ho
use-sitting, you know."
Jack caught a glimpse of his daughter at the top of the stairs. Tiffany and he spoke at the same time.
"Why did you go in my room? You're not allowed in there!"
"Is there any particular reason you're digging through my daughter's room? You sick, disgusting perv."
Kevin glanced between the iPad and Tiffany, an amusing sight.
"I washed your clothes. You know, most people say thank you when someone does something nice."
"I can take my own clothes downstairs!"
Jack agreed. "Tiff's not an idiot. She can carry baskets. No need for you to be in there."
"Fine, whatever." He passed the iPad to Tiffany. "Take this thing."
Tiffany's bright smile was what Jack was missing. His mood eased, and the darkness lifted as she held the iPad at a distance and waved.
"Hi, Dad."
"Hey, sweetie. Is everything okay? How's school?"
"Everything's fine, except for Glinda going in my room. When are you coming home?"
"Not too much longer. Listen, you should probably start being nicer to Gli…Kevin. You should start calling him Kevin. He's got delicate feelings, like a little baby, and he'll start crying all over the place."
Tiffany wrinkled her nose, and Jack held in a laugh. She turned her head, probably looking at Kevin in the kitchen, and lowered her voice.
"I'll try really hard."
"Good." Jack checked the time. "Shouldn't you be getting ready?"
"Yeah. Thank you so much, Daddy. I love you."
"Love you, too. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
Tiffany kissed the screen before ending the call. He set the tablet down and leaned back in the chair. In the end, nothing had changed. He still had no leads to Erica's killer. But his mood was much improved. He held onto it, refusing to the let the bad thoughts seep back in.
What would help just as well was a nice hamburger. It was a shame he burned that bar to ashes the night before. Their food smelled delicious.
He stepped over the scattered pages of the police report and left the room. His room was on the second floor, the elevator just down the hall. A woman struggled to move three suitcases. Jack whistled as he walked. A simple dinner, maybe a movie, and perhaps he'd take one last stab at the police report. If nothing came up, he'd make plans to go home.
Damned and Cursed (Book 2): Witch's Kurse Page 20