Warlock Wolf / Bring The Night / Chapter 6

“Wait, wait!” Lizzy hissed now, head cocked, ear upright to the room as if trying to tune into a hard-to-hear sound.

“What is it?” he whispered again, a cold tickle of fear drawing up his back like ghoulish fingernails; he pictured that doll reassembling itself with its creepy doll hands while the two of them rolled around together doing something they definitely shouldn’t. The doll had a new knife, and it was coming for his testicles.

“Off me,” she said, “Off, off, off…”

“Whoa, Whoa,” he said as her hips bucked him and he slipped outside of her, his piece instantly very wet and cold. Instinct had him drawing up his knees as his hands worked between his legs to get himself tucked inside his fly again and the zip done up without a catastrophic incident. The doll still lay in disconnected pieces on the floor, Lizzy’s scroll, too, with its ribbon, exactly where they should be. “What is it?”

She was up off the bed, head darting around the room, arms out at her sides, hands in anxious claws. He bounced his butt off the bed, came behind her, trying to tuck his shirt into his pants. “Lizzy, what is it?—tell me what’s—”

“My underwear!”

She couldn’t find them. She was frantic. The door frame filled with two bodies; Boston standing there with Pris, both of them bewildered by the mess of the room.

Pris said, “What happened here?”

Lizzy did a frightened jump, her legs closing quick and her heels clicking; she made a peep sound then thrust a pointed finger to the broken doll on the floor.

As the deputy and her sorority sister dashed to the devil doll’s remains, Lizzy quarter-turned, said in a hoarse whisper out of the corner of her pretty mouth: “I heard them too late—don’t let them find my panties, please.”

“Yeah, I won’t,” he said and before he could help himself, he patted her bottom and instantly regretted it. She swatted at his hands and stepped away from him, walking to join the other two by the doll’s remains, eyes surreptitiously scanning the floor in search of her panties. Boston and Pris’s attention was on the broken-lamp pieces of the doll, the scroll, the sword and his gun. Lizzy tucked her shirttails into her skirt now, poking at the broken pieces of the chair with her shoe to see if her underpants were underneath.

Boston looked his way, and he jerked his head up, trying not to give away he was searching for something. The deputy said, “Look at this place. Must have been some struggle.”

“Sure was,” he said, tucking his own shirt in and adjusting his belt. Not really. Lizzy gave it a good golf swing with that poker there and then cleaved it in two; the mess was from some dirty celebration we engaged in afterward.

Boston nudged the brim of his hat up, saying, “Shee-oot—What the hell happened here?”

Lizzy stammered, “We, I mean I . . . uh, I came in, and . . . And...” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wet, that ginger hair unkempt. She even sounded guilty.

He interrupted, saying, “I was in here, I was, I guess you’d say, engaged with that . . . that doll...” He pointed at the mess on the floor at Pris’s knees. “When— I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name…” He extended a gracious hand Lizzy’s way.

She straightened, said, “Lizzy. My name’s Lizzy, Agent Black.”

“Sorry, yes, Lizzy here came in and . . . subdued the, uh, the, uh...”

“Suspect?” Boston was smirking.

Black laughed now, inexplicably, laying a palm over his forehead; the whole thing was just fucking ridiculous.

“That’s right,” Lizzy said, taking up the reins. “I came in and Agent Black had found the doll. I knocked it off his back.”

Black interjected, “Then the thing was just, you know, running around all over the place, and, uh, and Lizzy went after it, and, I did, too, and in the process we knocked a few things over.”

“The scroll,” Pris said, getting Lizzy’s attention, “is it...?”

“No,” Lizzy said, “don’t touch it. We’ll need a box for it.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Boston said, getting up on his knees now, removing his hat and scratching his bald head. “Where was it hiding, Agent Black?”

“Hiding? . . . Oh, under the bed,” he said, lifting the bed skirt with the toe of his shoe. “Came right out and grabbed me.”

Lizzy went ghost white and her lips slimmed to a drawn line, sucked under her teeth. Her eyes were wide and blinking. Down at the point of his shoe was a pink cotton bundle like a pale cream puff; her panties.

He dropped to his knees, crouching his body over the skivvies, putting down an elbow and pretending to scan for other potential lurking devil-doll threats. “No more under here,” he laughed, face under the bed, creeping himself out with the replaying image of that fucking doll scrambling toward him, bent on his death. His left hand scooted to the floor, palming around blindly until finding Lizzy’s panties; he balled them in a fist, then thrust them in the pocket of his suit jacket. Boston’s boots were next to him now, the man bending down to take a peek as well.

Out of range of the girls, Boston said quietly, “Being honest, I’m glad it was you who found it. Don’t know how I’d handle a doll coming after me.”

“It was nothing,” he said.

“I’ll bet,” Boston said, “just the same, Agent, you’re sweating your ass off.”

“Am I?” He touched his cheek and found his skin slick. With Boston watching him, he said, “It was quite the workout, you know, uh, chasing that thing around.”

“I’ll bet,” Boston said, eyeing him still, both of them crouched on their knees, chests near the floor. “Running around, huh?”

Black’s heart pounded suddenly, Boston’s gaze on his making him feel like he’d been caught. First day on the job and you get fired for sexual impropriety, Black? What are you going to tell your mother? . . . “Running around,” he confirmed, seeing Boston’s lie-detector eyes on him, gauging his stress levels.

Boston nodded, unconvinced. “Okay, you say so. No shame telling me you need a change of underwear.”

His stomach flinched at the mention of his underwear. Yes, I need a change. My manhood is slick and wet and, yup, I feel it still leaking. But as Boston smiled, Black realized what he meant. The officer was being good-natured, not implying this new young F.B.I. man just had sex with a sorority girl his office liaised with. Boston meant he must have been so scared he shit his pants.

Relief flooded his brain, and he gave a light laugh. He whispered, “I don’t know if I can trust you with my secrets yet, Boston.”

Boston laughed, winked, then rose to stand, offering Black a hand. When they were both up, Boston clapped his arm. To the side, Lizzy and Pris watched, both of them close, Pris puzzled, Lizzy looking meek and worried.

Boston said, “This is now officially an O-Branch case, Agent Black. Pretty clear, I’m sure you’d agree. More than a dead body and strange circumstances. We got a devil doll, a magic scroll, and a sword. It’s your show now.”

Everyone looked at him now. It was his show. He bore the responsibility of an SAIC, and despite the terrible sexual transgression of the last few minutes, he intended to do this job right. There was a long moment where his mind whirred and they all stared, grew uncomfortable and looked concerned this new guy didn’t know what he was doing. He nodded, like his mind was made up. “Okay. Let the coroner do his thing, let’s get the cause of death, get an ID on our victim. Then in the morning we’ll get a warrant, head to the toymaker’s house if it turns out he’s our guy.”

Pris said, “He had a store in town, too.”

Boston said, “And a workshop.”

Black said, “You girls can go on back to your dorm, and Lizzy, you know, uh, thanks for the”—he mimed a golf swing, but it didn’t even get a smile from her.

When Pris regarded Lizzy speculatively, her eyes widened. Then Lizzy realized it was a joke and smiled unevenly. “My pleasure, Agent Black.”

*

While Agent Black remained engaged with Deputy Boston in the room where she’d captured the spirit, Lizzy and Pris made their way along the hall and down the stairs to the main floor. Pris had asked what happened, and Lizzy had told her, mostly keeping it true, up until the point where her lips met Black’s. That’s where details grew thin.

In the mansion foyer, Maddie met them. Lizzy went straight to her friend, who held out her arms. She let herself be hugged, rested her chin in the crook of Maddie’s neck while Maddie rubbed circles on her back underneath her leather jacket.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. And she was. Smashing the doll and capturing the spirit hadn’t shaken her. Not one bit. In fact, in that moment where she knew she’d claimed victory, she’d been quite excited. But the awfulness of that transgression with a guy she’d never even had a full conversation with was pressing down on her. She’d offered a stranger her virginity.

Maddie said, “Kernohan’s got a box we can use in the trunk.”

“We should get it fast,” she said, back to business.

Goody joined them from the east wing, walking the garden path in the snow to meet them at the back of the Rolls. Kernohan had the trunk open and withdrew a wooden box carved with intricate scrollwork.

Maddie said, “That’ll do,” and took it from him.

Now, wordless, all four of them headed back into the house and upstairs. The closer she got to the room, the more Lizzy’s heart beat in anticipation. Would she be able to contain herself when she saw Black again? Would she be able to stop herself from bubbling over? And, since she was ‘good’ at her core, how long could she withhold the truth from everyone else?

Going up the stairs she was faced with a new problem. She wore no underwear. She had no panties, and things weren’t exactly ship-shape down below. Everything was wet. And she found herself now walking with her knees close together, her thighs squishing. It gave her a funny walk, and she hoped no one noticed.

As they approached the room where the scroll still hopefully held the spirit, she drew a deep breath and held it. But when they entered, the room was empty. Agent Black was gone. Relief and disappointment collided. Glad she wouldn’t have to struggle face-to-face with the big mistake she’d made, but disappointed she didn’t get to see Black again.

All four of them studied the scroll. It was intact, the spirit still contained. There’d been only a slim chance that a mistake could be made and the spirit finding that mistake and capitalizing on it, then escaping, but they had to be careful. They worked together to get the scroll inside the box without disturbing the paper or the ribbon that tied it. Once the lid was closed and the brass hasp locked, they all sighed in relief.

Maddie had looked at her oddly in that moment, all four of them on their knees, like she had something to say but withheld it. She worried about what her friend was afraid to broach. Did she smell like sex? Was it written on her face? Did a girl have an aura Maddie could detect when she’d lost her virginity? Maddie had emotional insight. It was part of her magic. How red were her cheeks right now? Could Maddie discern the redness was from sex rather than some other exhilaration like golf-swinging a sword and capturing a spirit in a scroll? . . . It had truly been some night for young Lizzy Armbruster.

In the car on the way back to the school, Maddie asked them all, “What do we think of Agent Black?”

Pris whipped around in the front passenger seat to face them, arms hugging the headrest and smiling. “I think he’s cute,” she said, and it made Lizzy bristle. Then Pris asked, “What do you think, Lizzy?” And now the bristling turned to heart-stopping.

She stammered, “I-I, uh, don’t kn-know.”

Goody folded her arms and said to herself, “I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”

Maddie nodded. “Strange they would send him to replace . . . you know…”

Now they were all nodding solemnly, saying nothing, thinking of Otterman.

Maddie’s hand gripped Lizzy’s bare knee, and Lizzy jumped.

“If I ask you something quick,” Maddie said, “can you answer me without thinking?”

Lizzy bristled, rubbed her back into the leather seat of the Rolls, squirming with sudden discomfort. “Sure. Of course. What is it?”

Maddie sighed, prepared herself, then said, “How’d you know to bring Heximoth’s Pick?”

“I don’t know. I just felt it.” The truthful answer just flowed from her like water. Relief flooded her. She’d honored Maddie’s wish, rushing into an answer without thinking; and if the question had been “Did you have sex with the F.B.I. Agent?” she would have told the truth. If the question had been “Are you not wearing any panties?” she would have told Maddie she wasn’t. But her fingers tingled with anxious joy that it was about the artifact sword she’d brought along tonight at the last minute.

Maddie’s slim fingers slipped between hers and they clasped hands, Maddie’s thumb stroking tickles on her palm—but she couldn’t look in her friend’s eyes for fear of giving the truth away.