The shower was invasive but seemed to baptise her into the new day. She towel-dried her hair and gazed at herself in the mirror. Even though her face was clean, her face was creased with worry and bags hung under her eyes.
How would she fair in jail? She knew she wouldn’t do well at all there. She’d never been to jail.
If any of them told anyone about Violet and Norm, they would surely be arrested. Even in a weird little town like Hermana, the fact they knew anything about the slaughtered couple would make them look guilty. Never mind that there was no weapon at the scene of the crime or that no one could have possibly torn their flesh that way. The police would overlook such important ideas and instead set to work holding someone responsible for the crime. Talk of demons and goblins would make them look like druggies or lunatics even though neither were unheard of in this town.
Toni knew there was nothing to do but continue on with her life. She had no time machine and couldn’t go back to last night and remember that her mother had always warned her about talking to strangers. Even though the strangers had been the ones who had come to the most harm.
Facing the rest of the staff that morning was hard, but she forced a smile for the dishwasher and the busboy and the other people she had to greet. Everyone else was lost in his or her own little world as well, and it was no wonder; Sunday was never a good day to work.
Toni hoped listening to the band that afternoon would take her mind from her worries. Once she was actually at work and awake, she berated herself. She should have woken up early and gone to Lucy. Or really, they should have gone to Lucy’s right away. But she knew why they didn’t. Lucy was looking so old and frail, and she needed her rest. And even if she had been awake, them showing up at her doorstep at that hour would likely have scared her half to death.
No, it was better to wait until early evening. Lucy would have plenty to say then. Toni wondered what Lucy would tell them to do. She wondered if there was anything in fact that they could do.
Toni turned and was surprised to see Sid sitting at the end of the bar.
“Good morning, Sid,” she said as she walked toward him.
“Hi, Toni,” Sid said sheepishly. He looked as if he were ready for her to yell at him as he hurriedly spoke. “I’m sorry about last night or this morning or whenever it was. I was freaking out. The situation freaked me out. And I was trashed and stoned. Man.” He put his head into his hands.
“I know, Sid, we all were. It was some fucked-up shit,” Toni said. “Coffee?”
“Yeah, and a shot of something in it. Maybe Irish cream.”
“Sure.” Toni made Sid an Irish coffee and swirled extra whipped cream around on it.
“You don’t have to go through all that trouble,” he said as he eyed the drink.
“No trouble at all. Part of my job. Irish coffee.” She winked.
“I won’t argue,” Sid said as he scooped some of the whip cream from the coffee with the spoon she had given him. He licked it with appreciation. “Whipped cream is one of my favorite food groups.”
“Mine too.” Toni grinned. “All those cows can’t be wrong.”
Sid scooped up some more whipped cream and savoured the taste of it. “No, they sure can’t.”
Toni puttered around the bar, keeping busy while Sid enjoyed his drink. The silence was awkward. She repeatedly wiped the same area of the counter while thoughts raced through her mind.
“Do you think we should do something?” Sid asked. “I mean, do you think I should do something, since you’re at work and all?”
Toni shook her head and put her finger to her lips. “No. There’s not thing to be done just yet. Let’s not talk about it.” Toni said, indicating the other bartender, Megan.
“I hear you,” Sid said. “I’ll wait for your orders, ma’am.”
He took his coffee and found a table, then pulled out a laptop and set to work clicking away on it. Toni waited on the steady stream of customers, glancing over at Sid now and again.
After about half an hour, Toni’s curiosity got the better of her.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she walked over to him.
“What do you mean?”
“What are you doing with that laptop?”
“Everyone has a laptop these days. Why, does this bar have a no laptop rule or something?”
“No, I just didn’t know you did anything that required a laptop. You know, warehouse stocker and glass blower.”
“I do many things in this meager little existence of mine. In fact, I do indeed write. I also like to cruise the Internet looking for bargains. I hope that doesn’t offend you.” Sid said in a teasing tone.
Toni laughed.
“Not at all, of course. I’m sorry. I just wondered if you were suddenly writing the great American novel or maybe writing a dear diary entry that you really shouldn’t be writing.”
“You know, I haven’t gone full re—”“
“It’s okay, Sid. I know this hasn’t been easy. Not for any of us. I’ll let you know when there’s news.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said. “Now I’m relegated to that guy who might be worth bothering telling something to sometime.”
“Well, Sid, you’re the one that ran like a coward, leaving us there to deal with it.”
“I’m sorry I’m not a big-cheese movie star like Ben Stiller who can conquer the magical creatures of the night.”
“Creatures of the night. You’ve seen nothing—” Toni realized she was speaking too loudly and lowered her voice. “Don’t worry Sid. I understand. I was new to the ways of Hermana once too. But you’ll soon see that everything’s gonna be all right.”
“All right now, baby,” Sid sang as he finished his drink. “What do I owe you?”
“It’s on the house. Now go, please. I have a long night ahead of me. I’m seeing Lucy after work.”
“Okay, then.” Sid dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table. “You’re still the cutest bartender in the joint.”
Toni smiled and blushed as she scooped up the money and put it in her apron. His gait was cocky as he left. A confident far cry from the sunken husk of a man who had slunk into the bar an hour or two before.
Toni returned to her duties, slicing lemons and preparing the bar area in case the place ended up getting busy in the afternoon as it seemed to more and more in the nicer weather.
The band came in to set up, and Toni helped them pull tables out and get cords and amps organized. Maggie arrived soon after, her face flushed, her hair wilder than usual. She slid onto a barstool and waited for Toni to wait on her.
“When do you want to go see her?” Maggie whispered. She put a five-dollar bill on the counter.
Toni poured a pint and passed it to her. “Meet me at five. We’ll go over then.”
“Sure.” Maggie sipped on her beer and looked around the club. She watched the musicians setting up for a few minutes, then turned back to Toni. “I’ll go by the house to make sure nothing is out of place.”
“Don’t go there,” Toni warned. “No, just stay cool.”
“I’m curious,” Maggie said. “Just to see if there’s police tape or anything.”
“There shouldn’t be yet unless they were expected somewhere this morning. Somehow I doubt it.”
“I know. I’ll be careful though, don’t worry. I’m just going to casually walk by on a walk. Nothing dramatic.”
Maggie drank the pint and watched the band tuning guitars and testing the drum kit. “There’s been far too much excitement in this town lately. I’m not sure I want to stay sometimes.”
“Maggie,” Toni sighed. “Stop.”
“No, really. Weldon is convinced his twin brother was at the orgy. The one in the nuthouse that can astral-project.”
Toni shrugged. “Anything is possible. So what if he was?”
“Maybe he caused the murder. Maybe the demons really were just sex demons and he commanded them to kill.”
“But why?”
“Bec
ause he’s jealous of Weldon. He’s trying to make life hard for him.”
“Well, he’s doing a good job.”
“How can we stop him?” Maggie asked, touching Toni’s arm in a plea.
“Don’t ask me. I’m just a palm reader. Maybe ask Lucy when we go.”
“I think I will,” Maggie said as she finished her beer. “I’m outta here.”
* * *
At 5:00, Toni finished her shift. Maggie came into the bar, donning sunglasses. The bar was busy, and Megan wasn’t too happy to see Toni leaving.
“Gill will be here soon,” Toni reassured her.
“She better be. That girl is always late,” Megan whined. Gill breezed through the door just as Toni was putting on her coat.
“You’d better get going,” Toni told her. “Megan’s having kittens.”
“I know, I know. I just had some shit to do,” Gill said.
“Well, now you have shit to do here,” Toni said. “Get on with it.”
Gill bustled behind the bar, and Toni went over to Maggie.
“Let’s do this,” Toni said.
* * *
Lucy listened to their story with great interest as the ladies drank tea from dainty, little cups in her’ study. Maggie and Toni had decided that Maggie would tell her what happened and to ask for her help.
When she was finished, Lucy poured herself another cup of tea and scooped several spoons of sugar into it.
“My, oh my. All you girls and your problems. I don’t wonder if our spells aren’t too powerful,” she sighed. “I’m really beginning to think maybe we should just stop.”
“Oh, no, Lucy,” Maggie said. “I don’t think anyone wants the spells to stop. We just keep getting mixed up in silly stuff.”
“I wouldn’t call the deaths of two innocent people ‘silly stuff.’”
“Well, they did call in demons,” Toni said.
“It doesn’t matter. No one deserves to die,” Lucy said, shaking her head sadly. She fingered a large ruby that dangled from her necklace.
“We were hoping that maybe they weren’t dead. That maybe there’s a way to regenerate them somehow,” Maggie said.
“They need skin,” Toni said. “The creatures peeled away their skin.”
“And some flesh. Some parts. I noticed Norm was missing part of his hand.”
Lucy nodded. “Dead? Not dead? Hmmmm… resurrecting the dead isn’t my specialty. That’s more like the voodoo that Veronica does. Why do you think we can bring them back?”
“We have a sense. That maybe they aren’t really dead though they look dead. It’s just so odd, with the spirits and sex and the skin-peeling. With Easter and stuff so close, isn’t a resurrection possible?” Maggie said.
Lucy considered Maggie’s words carefully. “Anything is possible in Hermana. You never know what is going to happen.”
She looked over at her bookcase and ran her fingers along various possibilities. Maggie and Toni looked at each other warily.
“Is it too much?” Toni asked. “Are we just wasting our time?”
“We think they are amateur witches. That they didn’t really know what they were doing, so the spell may not be binding and therefore maybe their deaths aren’t’ binding.” Maggie said.
“You don’t know until you try. You don’t know anything unless you ask,” Lucy muttered, pulling a few books from the shelves. Dust puffed out of them as she searched through yellowed pages, her fingers following faded words, her eyes peering to read the old scripts.
Toni and Maggie watched with bated breath, not daring to say anything else for fear of distracting the old woman.
“I know what will work,” Lucy said at last, looking up from a book.
“What? What can we do?” Maggie asked.
“You know the story of ‘Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus?’” Lucy asked. “Mary Shelley?”
“Of course,” Maggie replied.
Toni nodded. She had never read it, but she had seen all the movies and even the Broadway play “Young Frankenstein, so” she knew the story had something to do with a mad scientist and body parts.
“On the new moon, assemble them back together. You’ll have to find the parts they’re missing, so you’ll have to figure out what you need,” Lucy said as simply as if she were giving out a cooking recipe.
“Good Lord,” Toni said. “I’m not sewing people back together. That’s fucking disgusting.”
“No,” Lucy sighed. “It’s not that disgusting. What did you think you’d have to do to bring them back?”
“I don’t know. I just know I was hoping it wasn’t going to involve actually touching them,” Toni sighed.
“Well, of course you’re going to have to touch them. You have to put them back together,” Lucy scolded. “You’re so lucky this happened when it did, or maybe it was supposed to happen when it did. But you have a shot at getting them back together quickly before rigor mortis and decay sets in as I can cast a spell to slow it all down for a little while. The new moon on Friday will be in Aries. Well, it’ll be slipping from Aries to Taurus that night. Venus went direct the other day, and it will be entering Aries on Friday as well. And Mars enters Aries on Wednesday. So, my fire sign ladies, this is a very auspicious time for you to create life.”
“Is it? Because we’re fire signs?”
“Fire is the spark of life, right? Remember how Prometheus gave fire, the spark of life, to humans? Now you will do the same.” Lucy sat back and laughed. “Oh, the irony, the paradox, déjà vu, whatever it is. This is all quite fascinating.”
“I’m glad you’re amused,” Toni said, looking at Maggie with apprehension.
“It’s not about being amused. It’s being delighted by life’s ironies or whatever,” Lucy said. “Your plight is most serious, and you are to be commended for wanting to put the balance back into the universe. Lesser witches would have left them to the fate they called by their own hands.”
“I don’t think it’s about being lesser witches or greater witches. It just doesn’t ‘“feel’” right this time, for these two to die. It’s not their time,” Maggie said.
“This is going to be so hard,” Toni whined.
“It’s not that hard. Maggie, get the hand of Glory from your booth. Ask Natasha to help you find flesh. She’ll know what to do.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Toni moaned. “We’re not—”
“Do you want them to come back?” Lucy asked.
“Of course. I don’t want them to die just because they wanted pleasure.”
“Then you must do this for them. I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do,” Lucy said.
* * *
Toni and Maggie dragged the bodies from the house to the car that night. It was dark and there were no cars on the road. It was heavy, sweaty work, even in the cool April night. They were still rolled up like pigs in a blanket, and Toni had noticed the dried blood on the materials, but the women didn’t check the bodies before they moved them.
Weldon sat in the hedge to avoid the scrutiny of the neighbors, keeping a lookout by the driveway, his cell phone in his hand in case he saw anyone.
When they’d loaded the bodies into the trunk of Toni’s car, Maggie quietly shut the trunk.
“Okay, phase one complete,” she whispered. “Do you think we should bring Weldon with us?”
“No, the less people, the less we’ll be noticed,” Toni said.
“Yeah, but he’d be good for lifting,” Maggie said.
“It’s okay, we’ll be fine,” Toni said nervously as she looked at Maggie.
Maggie slid into the passenger seat and clicked on her seat belt. Toni climbed in and started the car, tuning the station to an AC/DC tune.
Toni bit her lip as she drove. “I think I dismantled all the security cameras when I went back, but I’m not sure.”
After they had left Lucy’s house, Toni had gone back to the bar, informing the staff that she hadn’t finished some paperwork. Instead she went into the
office and turned all the security cameras off.
Or so she hoped.
“Just hope that you got them all,” Maggie said, “or we’re fucked.”
They parked the car in the lot behind the bar, and Toni found her keys for the front door and let herself in. The bar was creepy in the middle of the night, and she carefully made her way through it until she arrived at the back door.
“Shh,” she said to Maggie as she let her in.
Maggie clutched Toni’s hand. “I’m so scared.”
“Me too. Let’s do this,” Toni said, taking a deep breath.
They went to the car and one by one carried the bodies into the bar. They tried to be quiet and quick, but it was hard navigating two heavy people in the dark. Once Violet and Norm were safely tucked by the back door, Maggie drove the car back to Toni’s house.
Toni waited in silence for Maggie’s return, pouring herself a beer to calm her nerves.
There was a soft rapping at the door. Toni opened it a bit and seeing Maggie, let her in. Maggie was trembling, her face pale.
“Do you think this will work?” Maggie asked.
Toni shrugged. “Let’s not talk.”
Maggie nodded, and together they huffed and puffed as they dragged the bodies, one by one, into the basement. There, Toni found several large cardboard boxes that had been folded for recycling. When she and Maggie put one back together, they decided it was big enough to hold one of the bodies. They taped up two boxes and proceeded to put a body into each. They taped the boxes shut and wrote, “do not open” on them as well as “return,” although the boxes had no return addresses.
With a lot of grunting and back strain, they were able to slide the boxes into the walk-in freezer. They removed a whole wall of beef to stash the boxes beside each other. When they piled the meat back on, Toni and Maggie admired their handiwork.
“You can’t even tell there are boxes there at all,” Toni said, shutting the door.
“Nope, no boxes at all.” “Maggie nodded.
They quietly left the bar and parted company in the back alley.
Aries: Swinging into Spring Page 10