09 - Return Of The Witch (23 page)

Chapter 21

I called Ursula
early the next morning and asked if she would come over to the house right away. “And bring your witch’s key,” I told her. “I may need to borrow it.”

She showed up
around eight-thirty with Dominic and Carlos in tow.

“Ursula.
” I stood at the door with arms crossed, toe tapping. “When I spoke to you on the phone, did I say anything about bringing Carlos and Dominic along?”

She
shook her head. “Did thou say not to?”

I turned and headed across the room. “Come in. I’ll make another pot of coffee.”

The three followed me into the kitchen and took seats at the table.

Dominic said, “Lilith, you didn’t expect
me to let Ursula come here alone so that you two could hatch some cockamamie plan to take Gypsy on all by yourselves, did you?”

“No
. I thought you’d have been at work by now and she wouldn’t have to ask your permission to come over.”

“It’s my day off.”

“Yeah? What about you, Carlos? Is it your day off, too?”

“No.
I just didn’t want to miss anything.” He helped himself to a piece of leftover toast off my breakfast plate. “I was on my way to the Perc when Dominic called to tell me that you and Ursula were up to something. Hey, you got anymore eggs to go with this toast?”

“Yeah, if you want to cook them yourself.”

“Oh, please,” said Ursula. “I will cook eggs for thee.”

“You?” I gave Dominic
the WTF look. “She cooks?”

“
Yeah, she’s a good cook, so long as it’s over an open fire.”

“
Hmm, that’s what I thought. Carlos, there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge. Help yourself.”

While Carlos rummag
ed through my fridge, Dominic got right down to business. “Okay, Lilith. Tell me what you’re planning.”

“Planning? Who says I’m planning anything?”

“Why else would you need Ursula’s witch’s key?”

Carlos came back to the table with the leftover pizza still in the box. He flipped open the lid. Two-thirds of the pie remained, along with the crust from a couple of
eaten slices.

“Bingo!” he said. “Anyone hungry?”

Dominic leaned over the box and made a face. “How old is that pizza?”

“I don’t know.” I
shrugged a guess. “Couple days.”

“Days? You sure? It’s got green fuzz on it.”

“No it doesn’t. That’s broccoli.”

He eased back in his seat. “
Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Carlos looked
at it closer. “It is sort of fluffy.” He closed the lid. “Got anything else?”

“No. Ursula, did you bring the key?”

“I saw some eggs in there.”

I ignored him. “Ursula?”

Ursula reached into her blouse and removed a witch’s key and chain from around her neck. “Aye, `tis yours as you wish.”

I took the key and slipped it into my pocket.

“Now that you have it, Lilith, what do you plan to do with it?” Dominic asked.

“I
told you I don’t know yet, but not to change the subject….” I went over to the trash and removed the note Gypsy left for me the night before. “I found this last night when I got home,” I said as I tossed it onto the table.

Dominic read it. “It’s from Gypsy.” He handed the note to Carlos. “She was in your house?”

“Apparently.”

Carlos read it and handed it to Ursula. “
She wants you to meet her at ten o`clock?” He checked his watch. “That’s only a little over an hour from now.”

“
I know.”

“And you still don’t have a plan?”
  Dominic asked.

“No, I don’t have a plan. That’s what I was working on when you all got here.”

“Oh, so you’re working on one.”

“Yes.”

“Great. Let’s hear what you have so far.”

“So far
?”

“Yes. What were you thinking?”

“Well, I really haven’t thought much further than getting my hands on a witch’s key.”

“Lilith
.”

“
`Right, all right. Let me think. I work better under pressure.”

Carlos said, “Y
ou can’t work under much more pressure than this.”

“Tell me about it.
”

“
Aw, come on, Lilith,” Dominic said. “You asked Ursula for the key. You must have some inkling as to what you’re planning.”

“Of course, I have
an inkling.”

“Then let’s hear it.”

“Okay. I figured that first I’d try to fake her out with a projection spell, you know, cast my image against a wall to make her look the other way. That’s the simplest thing. Then I thought I might take her out with a zip ball before she even knew what hit her. You know, the classic ambush.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“If that doesn’t work, I go to plan B.” I pulled the witch’s key from my pocket and swung it on its chain like a pendulum. “Before I lost my key, I’d been practicing something called trans-molecular diversion. It facilitates the dissipation of stagnant resistance through matter deflection.”

“It what?”
asked Carlos.

“It lets me move stuff.”

“You mean like magic?”

“Yes, Carlos. That’s what magick is. It’s matter transfer through energy manipulation.”

Dominic asked, “What’ll you move?”

“I don’t know…stuff.
”

“Stuff?”

“Yes, Dominic, whatever. You see, the key is just a conduit for thermodynamic conversion. It’s like the vortex that took us to the Eighth Sphere. The key didn’t take us there, it merely facilitated the energy diversion necessary to create the vortex.”

“
It’s a tool.”

“It’s an instrument of opportunity. Look, I don’t know what to expect.
Gypsy now holds power over the prime essentials. That makes her extremely dangerous.”

“I don’t care,” said Carlos. “Together, we can take her. We can put her down like the scurvy dog she is.”

“Carlos, that’s my mother you’re talking about.”

“Oh, sorry.”
He looked away sheepishly.

“It’s scurvy bitch to you.”

He rolled his eyes back up at me and smiled. I winked and smiled back. “Look, everyone. I appreciate the support; I do, but this is my battle. I have to fight it alone.”

“You will not!”

“Carlos. I need—”

“No, Lilith. I told you last night. I made a promise to Tony that I’d look out for you. This may be your battle, and you can fight it whichever way you
like, but I’m going with you. I got your back.”

“
We
got your back,” said Dominic.

“You do, eh?” I looked to Ursula. “You, too?”

“Aye. Through thick and thin. Art we not sisters to the end?”

I returned to Dominic. “You got anything to say about that?”

“No.” He reached across the table and took Ursula’s hand. “Ursula and I talked about this last night. We’ve been through a lot over the years, all of us. The thing that’s kept us strong is that we’ve always gone through difficult times together. Until now, we’ve always come back.” He bowed his head and shook it softly. “We’re not losing anyone else. It’s your battle. You can fight it as you wish, but if you go down, we all go down.”

“Amen to that,” said Carlos. He checked his watch and added, “But we don’t have to go down hungry. There’s a place on Madison that serves breakfast burritos
at their drive-thru. It’s on the way to Suffolk’s Walk. If anyone’s interested, I’m buying.”

“All right then.” I clapped my hands together. “Let’s go kick some witch ass
.”

I led them
single-file across the living room and out the front door, but stopped short when I saw what was sitting in my driveway.

“Carlos?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that in my driveway?
”

“You mean the big blue thing?”

“Yes, the big blue thing.”

“Um
…that would be my monster truck.”

“You came here in
a monster truck.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Cuz I could
.”

“Carlos.”

“Hey, I didn’t know we were all going out to kick some witch ass. Besides, if Gypsy tries to pull that old cow trick again we can just squash her.”

“You think?”

“It could happen.”

“
The wheels are taller than me. Is this thing even street legal?”

He thought about it. “Maybe.”

“Okay. That’s it.”

“
What?”

I
backhanded him on the chest and took off running for the passenger side. “I call shotgun!”

As it turned out, there was enough room in the
cab for three of us. Dominic rode in the back, hanging on to the tie down cleats bolted along the side panels of the bed. It worked out well, until it was time to eat his burrito. Carlos swore at him for making a mess with it, but inside we all laughed…inside the cab, that is.

We arrived at the old cannery around nine-thirty, plenty early enough for the others to
hide and for me to scope out the battle field.

I have a bit of history at Suffolk’s Walk. I know the docks and warehouses there well.
Yet the fact Gypsy picked that location made me think she knew something about the place that I didn’t, perhaps some advantage it offered that only she could appreciate.

Like
most of the buildings spaced along a half-mile stretch between the first and fourth pier, the old cannery had seen its day. Decades of neglect after the district’s closing had rendered the place unsafe for occupancy.

Every window on the parking lot side was broken,
kids and stickball games being what they are. The variegated sheet metal on the walls and steep-angled roof, however, proved more resilient against such elements. Their galvanized panels made for good skins against the wrath of vandals and nor’easters alike. Yet the wooden trusses, struts, studs and joists that made up the bones of the building fared none so well.

We made entry through a hol
e in the west wall after trying the barn-sized doors out front and finding them locked. Dominic brought along a flashlight, but didn’t need it. The combination of skylights and broken windows out front presented a surprisingly well-lit interior. But for the gloom of brown sunlight filtering through the grime-stained bayside windows, Gypsy had picked a perfectly rustic arena for a showdown.

“All right,” I said, taking my first step across the cathedral
-sized room. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Carlos
snatched my wrist and pulled me back. “Careful.” His gaze directed mine to the floor where the boards there were badly splintered, rotten, and in some places missing.

I
looked at him with surprise. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome.
Now watch your step. We’ll be over there.”

I followed his nod and assumed he was talking about the supervisor’s office, a
ten-by-ten room behind the weigh station, surrounded on three sides by large observation windows.

“You’ll be in there?”

“No. Ursula will be in there. Dominic and I will be above it.”

I looked again, this time spying the
observation deck above the office. From there, the two would have a commanding view of the entire work floor, the entrances, exits and even the catwalk skirting the bayside wall below the skylights.

“Nice,” I said. “What more could you ask for?”

Dominic answered, “A sniper’s rifle?”

“A little late for that.”

“Listen,” said Carlos. “We know this is your game. You call it as you see it. But the moment Gypsy demonstrates a hostile move, Dominic and I will take the shot. So, if you hear gunfire, I want you to hit the ground hard. Got it?”

“Sure, only not there, right?” I pointed to
a hole in the floor where one could see the telephone pole-sized pilings sticking up from the muddy bay bottom below. “Water’s probably cold.”

“Yeah, you know it. Got your witch’s key?”

I patted my jeans pocket. “Got it.”

“How about your zip ball? Is there enough energy in the room for that?”

“Carlos, there’s plenty of energy for a zip ball. Now how `bout you? You got your piece?”

He
patted the bulge in his jacket. “Locked and loaded.”