The Witch's Ladder (34 page)

“
Sorry, Detective, but I’m fresh out of ideas. You got any?”

“
The necklace Michael put around you, can you reach it?”

“
Why?”

“
You can use it as a witch’s ladder, can’t you?”

“
No.”

“
Why not?”

“
It already has a spell attached to it, and it’s not the right kind of spell.”

“
But you said Jean could use it like that if she knew how.”

“
Yeah, I was lying.”

“
Great.”

“
Doesn’t matter. I can’t reach it anyway. Got any more bright ideas?”

“
No I….Wait. Yes. In my coat pocket, there’s the witch’s ladder you made for me. See if you can reach it.”

Lilith contorted her arms against the ropes enough to squeeze her hand into my coat pockets. She fished around with the tips of her fingers, exploring first the left side and then the right. “It’s not there,” she said. “The ladder’s not there.”

“
Try my pants pockets.”

“
Oh sure, like I haven’t heard that one before.”

“
Lilith, I’m serious.”

She stretched her arm through the bite of the ropes, driving her hand into my right pant’s pocket. “Wait. I feel something. You got another gun?”

“
Lilith, that’s me.”

“
Oh, sorry.” She drove her other hand into my left pocket. “It’s not there.”

“
What do you mean? It has to be there. I take it with me everywhere.”

She searched again, this time pushing her hand so far into my pocket she tore a hole in the liner. “Damn it, Detective. It’s not here. I’m telling you.”

“
Oh, hell,” I said, realizing why she couldn’t find it. “I just remembered. I took it out of my pocket while I was following Jean out here. I slung it over my rearview mirror for luck.”

“
Some luck.”

“
Yeah, I’m sorry. I guess I’m out of tricks.”

“
Me, too. I’m sorry you ever had to get involved in this in the first place. If it means anything to you now, I’d like to say that I think you’d have made one hell of a witch, Detective.”

“
Really? What’s a witch detective?”

“
Very funny smart ass.”

“
Thanks, Lilith. Do you mean that?”

“
Yeah. You’re a smart ass.”

“
No. I mean….”

“
I know what you mean. And yes I do.”

“
Well I think you’d have made a really nice, umm…I mean you know, probably a sweet….”

“
Hmm, straight from the heart. I can tell you’re a real softy, aren’t you?”

“
I’m just not good with words.”

We stopped talking when we saw Doctor Lowell stand and hand a piece of Michael’s liver to Jean. Jean accepted the offering and immediately gorged herself on the mutilated organ. The doctor then turned and paced his steps slowly toward us. Michael’s warm red blood still dripped from the corners of his mouth. He raised his knife to his tongue and licked it clean.

I stared at him defiantly. “Attraction of blood, Doctor?”

His reply came as no surprise, not to me, and especially not to Lilith. “Yes, Detective,” he said, and he didn’t flinch when the blade sliced into the flesh of his tongue. “Attraction of blood, it really is true what they say, you know. My powers of psycho kinesis, clairvoyance and telepathy have grown tenfold already.”

“
What about Doctor Lieberman? He wasn’t psychic. Why did you take his liver?”

“
Ah, the good Doctor Lieberman, what an extremely brilliant man he was. His liver was just hanging there waiting for the taking. I couldn’t very well let it go to waste. Could I?”

“
So you ate it?”

“
Of course, and it has served me well, as I expect yours will also.”

“
I’m not psychic.”

“
No, but you do have some endearing qualities of cunning and deductive reasoning, traits that should serve me well in evading capture by less qualified detectives, such as that bumbling fool, Rodriquez.”

“
I wouldn’t sell Carlos short if I were you.”

“
No, I should think there are many things you wouldn’t do if you were me, but we’ll never know, will we?”

“
What about Leona. Have you killed her already?”

The doctor motioned with the blade in the direction of Leona’s apparition. “Does she look dead to you?”

“
I don’t know. I suppose so.”

“
I assure you, she’s not dead, though she may wish she were.”

Doctor Lowell blew Leona a kiss, which caused her to recoil in disgust before disappearing altogether.

“
Yes, a dear sweet girl, that little Honduran virgin. She’s going to be my bride you know. By the end of tonight’s full moon, she’ll no longer be as pure as arctic snow.”

I grimaced at that thought. “You’re a sick, wicked man,” I said. “What have you done to that child?”

“
Don’t worry, Detective. Leona’s not in pain. She’s not cold, nor is she hungry or lonely. I have her locked up, yes, but she’s in a warm room downstairs in the basement of the Center with all the comforts of home. I expect we shall have at least one child a year.” He drew his gaze skyward, fixing his sights on the ominous full moon. “I’m sure the blood of a newborn’s liver will hold quite the attraction, don’t you think? With a little luck, I suspect I’ll live another hundred years or more.”

Again, Lilith gasped. Meanwhile, Jean continued tearing into her prize meat like a rabid dog. Doctor Lowell licked the bloodstained blade one last time. He positioned himself directly in front of me and raised the blade high over his head. I closed my eyes and prepared for death. Lilith let out a final sigh and squeezed my hands tightly.

The mad doctor took a deep breath. I heard a grunt and then a fantastic roar from above that shook the ground with the ferocity of an exploding volcano. I opened my eyes in time to see Doctor Lowell sucked up into the twisting, howling hole of a swirling black vortex. The pull of the wind was so intense, it easily scooped up Michael and Valerie’s mutilated bodies as well. Lilith cried for me to hold her, though tied to the tree I could do nothing more than squeeze her hand tighter.

Jean ran across the clearing and sought safety behind a nearby boulder. The rushing wind swept her feet out from under her. Her body levitated horizontally, tethered to Earth by only her grip on the huge chunk of rock. She held out longer than I thought possible, and although her grip seemed firm, she eventually tired and let go. Her body sliced through the air like a dart and ascended into the abyss of the funnel in the blink of an eye.

I hollered to Lilith above the deafening roar, “Nice work. Now how about making it stop?”

“
I’d like to oblige,” she screamed back, “but this isn’t my handy work.”

“
Then whose handy work is it?”

She turned her head and nodded into the stinging wind. “I think it’s his.”

I looked back. In the woods just beyond the clearing, I saw Carlos hunkered down behind a tree stump. “Carlos,” I yelled, though unsure if he could hear me. By then, the deadly black twister had doubled in size and grew stronger by the second. “Carlos, toss it in. Toss the ladder into the cyclone.”

It was no use. He could not hear me above the roar.

“
Lilith, do something.”

“
Like what?”

“
Anything. Can’t you send him a thought wave or something? Tell him to toss the ladder into the cyclone.”

“
What good will that do?”

“
I don’t know. I just have this feeling. Will you do it?”

“
All right, fine. I’ll try it, but it’s not really my area of expertise. You should probably try it with me.”

“
Yes, fine. Let’s do it together.”

Lilith and I concentrated our thought energies on sending Carlos a message telepathically. Meters away, the raging cyclone continued to grow stronger, sucking up anything not tied down or grounded by roots. Luckily, Lilith and I easily met that requirement. For Carlos, things were getting more dangerous. Even as he backed away, the winds pulled at his clothes like a riptide threatening to suck him in.

Lilith and I continued concentrating on sending a telepathic message. I cannot say for sure, but just when we thought he would give up, he seemed to hear us. He emerged from behind the safety of a Norfolk Pine and hurled the knotted piece of rope into the heart of the beast. A thunderous explosion echoed through the woods, accompanied by a brilliant flash of light. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared the colossal twister spun itself out, surrendering all the branches, twigs and leaves it had sucked up into its belly, allowing them to rain down harmlessly on the cold bare ground.

Conspicuously missing from the falling carpet of debris, however, was any trace of Doctor Lowell, Jean, Michael or Valerie. Absolutely no evidence of their existence remained. Neither body nor blood returned to earth. Lilith uttered something under her breath about the Eighth Sphere. I paid little attention.

By the time Carlos cut Lilith and me loose, nearly thirty of New Castle’s finest had surrounded the area.

“
Damn, Carlos, what took you so long?” I said.

“
Hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Just be thankful I found your witch’s ladder in your car.” Carlos flashed his bold, boyish grin. “I thought that thing was like your American Express.”

“
Come again?”

“
You never leave home without it.”

“
Oh, right. Well don’t worry my friend. I’ll ask Lilith to make me another one and—” I turned to where Lilith had been standing only seconds before. “Where’d she go?”

Carlos scanned the clearing. “I don’t know. She was here a minute ago. Don’t worry. She won’t get far. We have thirty guys out here. We’ll find her.”

That’s when I spotted a little white kitten off in the distance, perched atop a small boulder some twenty yards away. She watched curiously as the hunt for bodies, blood and answers continued around her. Carlos was still looking in the opposite direction when I raised my hand to my forehead and dropped it again with a snap of my wrist. It was not exactly a salute, but something very close.

The kitten hopped down from her perch, but before walking away she glanced back at me and flicked her scrawny tail side to side as if waving goodbye. I motioned again with a wave, only this time Carlos noticed.

“
Who are you waving at, Tony?” He squinted into the darkness at the tree line beyond.

My lips tightened. I drew a short breath before diverting my attention in another direction. “Oh nothing, I was just swatting at these damn mosquitoes.”

Ten minutes later we were in the basement of the research center. We found Leona, and contrary to Doctor Lowell’s assertion, she was scared, cold and hungry. He had chained her to the bed with wrist and leg irons. The abrasions on her arms and around her ankles indicated she had struggled with great difficulty to break free of her bonds, but to no avail. She seemed uncertain about the sudden attention and the excitement of everyone gathering in the room. When she saw me, however, she broke down and wept.

“
Mi Salvador! Mi Salvador!” she cried, and fell into my arms.

We sat on the edge of the bed and I hugged her shivering body, holding her close until a female officer came in with a blanket and a hot cup of coffee. She introduced herself as Officer Brittany Olson, but for Leona, she was another angel of mercy sent from above. I took the coffee from Olson and placed the cup in Leona’s trembling hands.

“
Leona, Aqui. Por favor, beber.”

Leona drank it down quickly. “Ooh. De cafe…es muy caliente!” she said, fanning her mouth with her hand. I laughed, relieved to see a bright smile washed over her face. Olson laughed too, as did another officer, and soon we were all laughing, Leona the loudest of all. I knew then that everything would be all right.

Olson excused herself and returned a few minutes later. “They’re here, Detective,” she said. “Is she ready?”

I looked up. “What?”

“
Leona? Is she ready to go? The ambulance is waiting out front.”

“
Yes, of course. Please, come in.”

She approached and offered her hand like a mother to her child, her fingers gently coaching Leona forward. At first Leona didn’t want to go. She turned to me, her big brown eyes filled with apprehension.

“
It’s okay,” I said, and I smiled reassuringly. “No one’s going to hurt you now.”