BURY THE WITCH: Book 10 (Detective Marcella Witch's Series)

by Dana E. Donovan

  After drying off and getting dressed, I went back into the kitchen and kissed Lilith on the cheek. “Thanks for the coffee. I love you, too.”

  She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my God! I forgot your coffee. Tony, I’m so sorry.”

  “What?”

  “Do you still want some? I can put a fresh pot on right now. It’ll only take a minute.”

  I must have looked positively stupid, standing there with my jaw unhinged. I looked at Dominic and Ursula to see which one of the two had delivered coffee to the bathroom, along with the phantom note and friendly pinch on the butt. Frankly, I suspected Ursula. Hoped it wasn’t Dominic.

  I only needed to watch their expressions a minute before realizing the joke was on me. I turned again to Lilith. You did it!”

  “Of course,” she said, laughing. “You don’t think Ursula would pinch you on the ass. Now Dominic, I’m not so sure about.”

  Dominic and Ursula were laughing now. All three of them having a good old time at my expense.

  I reeled back and slammed my open hand against the side of the refrigerator hard enough to dent it. “Fuck you all!” I said. They weren’t laughing now. “You think that’s funny? This is funny,” and I punched the side of the refrigerator again.

  “Tony, whoa!” Lilith splayed her hands in an attempt to calm me down. “Easy. We’re sorry. It’s a joke. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is…” I took a deep breath and another look around. Lilith was obviously concerned. Dominic and Ursula appeared unbelievably frightened. “The big deal…” I felt my nerves easing like a teakettle removed from the burner. “Wow. I’m…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, everyone.”

  I realized then that my mind was racing. My vision blurred at the periphery, as though I’d been peering through a straw. I reached out blindly for the back of a chair. Dominic stood and helped me into it.

  “Tony.” Lilith set her hand on my shoulder and began massaging it gently. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive and stupid of me. I…I should have known.”

  “Yeah, Tony, we didn’t mean to make fun of you. We’re all sorry.”

  “Aye,” said Ursula. “`Twas bad enough, I knew not what for I was laughing anyway.”

  By then, my vision had returned. My pulse steadied, my heart knew only the hurt of breaking the hearts around me. I reached up and set my hand upon Lilith’s.

  “It’s my fault,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m the one in denial of what’s happening to me.” I rolled my eyes up at Dominic. “You’re right, Dominic. I am experiencing some sort of PTSD. But I’m working on it,” I added quickly. “I’m working on it.”

  “You know,” I could hear the crack in Dominic’s voice. “The department has people you can talk to, people who can help.”

  “What, and have them pull me off this burglary case in the meantime? No. I won’t do it. Don’t you see, Dominic? This case is the only thing taking my mind off what happened to me.”

  “It’s not working very well, Tony.”

  “I know.” I shook his hand off my other shoulder. “But it’s working some. That’s a start.”

  That seemed to satisfy him, or at least quiet him for the moment. I turned back to look at Lilith, hoping to change the subject. “So, tell me about this dangerous plan you have for dealing with Jerome.”

  She came around me and took a seat at the table. Dominic did the same. Ursula, who I assumed was privy to Lilith’s plan, now appeared clueless, her expressionless face revealing nothing.

  Lilith said, “My plan is a two-prong approach for dealing with Jerome while helping Ursula unload the quintessential at the same time.”

  “Really.” I let my gaze slide to Ursula again. She still appeared clueless, though her thin smile and raised brows indicated her interest. Dominic’s reaction differed. His brooding expression and serious glare told me that Lilith had at least advised him ahead of time what she had in mind.

  “I want to bring Jerome in here and set up a third séance attempt,” she continued. “However, this time when we call forth the guardians, we’re going to have Ursula give the quintessential to Jerome.”

  “What? You can’t do that. That’s insane!”

  “I know, but hear me out. This is how it has to work. Ursula can only give the quintessential to someone already possessing the four prime. If we redistribute the elements to separate guardians, then she’ll be stuck with the quintessential forever.”

  “But you’re talking about making Jerome a Pentacle Prodigy.”

  “I know that.”

  “Jerome, Lilith. You’re talking about Jerome! He eats squirrels and plays with his own shit!”

  “Tony, you have to… Wait. What?”

  I waved my hand to dismiss that part of my argument. “Sometimes, not all the time. The point is, how in the world can you trust Jerome with that kind of power?”

  “It’ll only be for a minute, two maybe, tops. That’s it. We just have to start the séance, call forth the guardians. When they show up, Ursula will give Jerome the quintessential and then Jerome will give the guardians the four prime. It’s the razzle-dazzle hand off.”

  “But then Jerome will still have the quintessential.”

  “Yes, he will. I admit the plan’s not perfect, but as soon as we locate the portal, we’ll send him and the quintessential back to the Eighth Sphere where they both came from.”

  “That’s it, huh?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What if you don’t find the portal?”

  She crooked her mouth into a twisted smirk. “You know we’ll find it.”

  I let that statement go unchallenged. “I see. So, this is why it’s so important that Jerome listens to me.”

  “That’s right. The instructions are simple. All he has to do on my say so is let the guardians take the prime essentials from him. Ursula will already have transferred the quintessential. He probably won’t even know it happened.”

  “What if something goes wrong?”

  “What can go wrong?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the guardians won’t show this time.”

  “In that case, Ursula won’t transfer the quintessential to him. Tony, it only takes a second. We’ve had success calling the guardians twice already; a third time should be just as easy. If they don’t show, they don’t show. Then we’re back to square one. There’s no risk whatsoever.”

  “Then why did you say it was dangerous?”

  “Dangerous? Did I say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, well, I suppose there is always the slight chance that once Ursula makes the handoff, the four guardians may fail to acquiesce.”

  “What then?”

  “Then Jerome is our new Pentacle Prodigy.”

  “Ah-huh, and the risk of that doesn’t scare the crap out of you?”

  “Tony, everything we do in life has risks, but look at Ursula.” I turned my head to look at her. She was still smiling pleasantly, barely a care. “I don’t know how she returned from the Eighth Sphere with the quintessential,” Lilith continued, “but she’s hardly the ideal candidate for safeguarding something so important. This is her only chance to shed that burden and return to a normal life.”

  “Yeah, Tony.” Dominic reached across the table to take Ursula’s hand. “Please let her do this. I know it’ll work. You have to let them try. I want my Ursula back.”

  “You know it will work, do you?”

  “Yes. It has to.”

  Ursula now reached her hand across the table to touch mine. “On my word, Master Tony.” Her smile faded, but her eyes had gained a confident gleam. “I am but a simple housewife. I want for naught but to live a simple life with my Dominic. If it pleases him so that I give it all up and more, I should gladly do so. I ask only of thee thy faith and thy trust in that which we endeavor.”

  What could I do? I pulled my hand away and pressed my back into the chair. “Okay, fine.” I gave them all a disgruntled look. It di
dn’t faze them. “Trust the fate of the world to a lizard with the mental capacity of a six-year-old. But I’m telling you right now, I want nothing to do with it.” I checked my watch. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a case to solve.” I stood and pointed to Dominic. “Are you coming with me?”

  “Umm…well, you know,” he started.

  I finished. “Let me rephrase that. You’re coming with me.”

  As I started toward the front door, Lilith called out, “Tony?”

  I turned back. “Yes?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Of course, I’m sorry.” I returned and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, but that’s not what I meant.” She gestured toward the back door. “You want to call him in?”

  “Jerome?”

  “Uh, yeeaah.”

  As it turned out, Jerome was sitting on the back porch, waiting on me. I opened the door to let him in, paying no attention to the thirty-foot tall dirt pyramid behind the shed. He tried pointing it out to me, proud as he was about it, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him inside before he could say anything. Lilith started in on him immediately, expressing her expectations that he listen, obey and behave.

  “Tell him, Tony,” she said, punctuating her authority by placing her hands on her hips.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. I squatted to Jerome’s level and looked at him straight on. He responded by rolling his milky white orbs back behind his head and blinking at me with eyes resembling Lilith’s, something he learned to do whenever he thought I planned to scold him. I laughed lightly and shook my head. “You’re not in trouble.”

  “Bossman not mad `bout big dirt?”

  Lilith said, “What?”

  I said, “Jerome, Bossman has to go to work now, but Lilith has something she needs you to do.”

  He looked up at Lilith, but not before changing his eyes to something resembling mine. “Lilith, good witch.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Lilith is a good witch. So I want you to listen to her and do as she says. After I’m gone, she’s going to play a game, and you’re going to play, too.”

  He smiled a large toothy grin. “Jerome like games.”

  “I know you do. You’re good at them, and I want you to show Lilith how good you are by doing exactly what she tells you to do, exactly when she tells you to do it. You think you can handle that?”

  Jerome pumped his fists against his puny pigeon chest. “Jerome handle tings. All the where Jerome go. No problem.”

  “All right then. That’s my guy.” I stood and said to Lilith. “He’s all yours.”

  She tweaked her lips and broke them apart with a tsk. “You sure you got him programmed to behave?”

  “Lilith, he’s not a VCR.”

  “Blu-ray.”

  “Huh?”

  “We haven’t owned a VCR since pre-Ursula.”

  “Whatever. The point is he’s all yours now. I have to go to work, so good luck. Dominic?”

  “Yeah, I’ll follow you in my car,” he said, and he kissed Ursula, telling her, “Ring me if you need to.”

  I fist bumped him on the arm. “Why would she need to do that? You told me their plan would work perfectly.”

  He looked back at Jerome, who appeared to be scratching his ass, perhaps in anticipation of acquiring something new to play with. “Oh, it’ll work.” He seemed much less convinced now. As he started for the door, I saw him turn back to Ursula and mouth, call me.

  Chapter 15

  Dominic and I arrived on the second floor of the Justice Center around eight o’clock. Carlos was already there, working his laptop to see what he could learn about Allen Brinkman, the attorney at Hartman Pierce and Petruzelli. He looked up from the screen just long enough to acknowledge us, until the blue and white bag in Dominic’s hand caused him to do a double take.

  “Whoa, hello.” He pointed. “Is that Muffin City?”

  Dominic tossed the bag down in front of him. “Got it just for you.”

  “Thanks!” He began tearing into the bag. “Raisin nut bran?”

  “No. Blueberry.”

  He stopped in mid-shred. “Blueberry?” He looked up at me. “You didn’t want it, did you?”

  I gave him a shrug, went around my desk and took a seat. “What are you working on?”

  He liberated the muffin from the bag and sank his teeth into it. “Looking up Allen Brinkman,” he said, spitting muffin crumbs over his keyboard.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Yeah, look.” He turned the screen around for me to see. “This is his LinkedIn page.”

  “LinkedIn? What’s that?”

  “Seriously?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a professional networking site,” said Dominic.

  “Okay. Well, how am I supposed to know?”

  Carlos tapped the screen. “Says here he’s a junior partner at HP&P, next in line to make full partner later this year.”

  “Oh yeah, their new golden boy, I suppose. Probably handpicked to replace whatshisname.”

  “Rivera.”

  “Yes, Rivera. Ricardo Rivera.”

  “The guy Dominic shot.”

  “Justifiably,” said Dominic. “Rivera drew his weapon on me and wouldn’t stand down.”

  “Sure, I’m just saying he’s the guy you shot.”

  “And I’m saying it was self-defense. I had no choice but to—“

  “Dominic.” I held my hand up, fingers splayed. “No one’s saying you weren’t justified. I hardly think there’s an officer in this building that wouldn’t have taken the shot. You simply did what you were trained to do.”

  “Would you have taken the shot, Tony?”

  “Come on.” I shook my head doubtfully. “I wasn’t there. I can’t speculate on something like that.”

  “You said anyone would take it.” He looked at Carlos. “What about you?”

  “No,” he answered, without hesitation. “I wouldn’t have shot him.”

  “Ha. Well, then you’d have been dead now, wouldn’t you?”

  “How do you know? He didn’t shoot first.”

  “That’s because I didn’t give him the chance.”

  “Guys!” I pointed to both of them. “Let’s end this now.” To Carlos I said, “What else does it say there about Brinkman?”

  “Nothing, just that he’s Harvard educated, did four years in the Marines and is waiting on Mrs. Right.”

  “Does it say if he’s working today?”

  “No, Tony. It doesn’t post his daily work schedule.”

  “Then what time does the law firm open.”

  “Nine,” said Dominic. “Least it did when—”

  Carlos interrupted, “When you killed Rivera?”

  “Carlos!” I slammed my hand down on the desk hard. Carlos jumped. Dominic stepped back with that same look of terror in his eyes that I saw after I clobbered the refrigerator at home.

  “Sorry.” Carlos closed the lid on his laptop and dragged it back sheepishly. I saw him glance up at Dominic and share a look of solidarity. Dominic nodded faintly.

  “Okay. Dominic, what about the pawnshop on Van Buren you mentioned yesterday? Is it open?”

  “Is now,” he answered. “Hours are eight-to-five.”

  “Good. We’ll go there first. In the meantime, see if you can scrounge up the address for that gem appraiser. What was his name?”

  “Stephens?”

  “Yes, Stephens.” I stood and made my way to the window. “Lloyd Bishop Stephens. You might want to call him first. Let him know…”

  I started to say, let him know the reason for our visit, in case he needed to pull some files pertaining to his work with the jewelry store. Then something caught my eye and I suddenly found myself hostage to a flashback that returned me to the Eighth Sphere.

  It was silly, really, a simple spider web in the corner of the window, blowing in the wind. I found myself back on the cliff face on that mo
untain, the one that looked like something out of Afghanistan. Jerome and I were trapped, confined to a narrow ledge with no possible lateral movement. The wind howled. The bitter cold gnawed at my flesh. I tried warming the rocks by hitting them with zip balls, but after one of the zips ricocheted back and nearly killed us both, I decided it was too dangerous.

  The portal hovered above us, too high for me to climb, the steep cliff face impossible to rappel without a rope. Though I was sure it was hopeless, Jerome thought otherwise.

  He started climbing, scaling the vertical wall like a tree frog, using his suction cupped fingers and toes to inch his way up. Several times the wind drove a wedge between him and the wall, peeling him off the rocks and dropping him two feet for every three he gained.

  Eventually, he somehow managed to reach the portal, and with a flip of his tail, pitched himself into it.

  I remember feeling happy for him, knowing that at least he’d survive, yet understanding that I would not.

  As the hours dragged, my body grew numb and my breath more shallow. Several times, the bitter cold knocked me out, and each time I awoke, cursing the hands of fate that refused to let me die. I thought of Lilith, how much I missed her and how I wished I had studied that damn Grimoire. Maybe then I’d find a trick or two up my sleeve.

  The black suns fell below the horizon. This I knew, as I could feel the invisible shade creep upon the mountainside. All seemed lost, as the endless night grew darker. The last wave of sleep began to settle over me, when a strand of thread brushed the top of my head. I reached up to swat it away when I felt a tug against it. I looked up, and there, hanging from the portal was a rope of spider silk as thick as a shoelace. I grabbed the thread, wrapped it around my hands and gave it a yank. Jerome began pulling me up, his surprising strength more than enough to lift me past the rock face and into the portal. I remember laughing and crying at the same time, promising myself that when I saw Jerome again I would—

  “Tony!”

  I snapped to and found Carlos and Dominic flanking my sides, each with an arm around mine.

  “Tony?” It was Carlos. Not until I shook the vision of that cliff from my mind did I realize he was talking to me.