Accidental Leigh (7 page)

“You
’re right, as stupid as they all look right now, you’re right. I’m going to take the keys to the truck they brought here and offer them a ride. I can’t make them leave, but I’m not letting them drive. Hey guys, you know you have to be at the job site by six in the morning? How about loading up into the work truck and I’ll drive you home?”

I was pleasantly surprised
when he acted as if Kelly were fully clothed, nothing impressive there. I was still gaping over the display of her bared rack!

“Awww
,” Lindsey protested. “It was just getting good, too! I was finally going to get to see Derek’s goods!”

Luke
agreed with Hunter and slowly put his jeans and shirt back on. Lindsey quickly grabbed the elastic waistband of her vanquished card player.

“Not so f
ast, you still have to pay up.”

To our surprise, she reached her hand
down into his shorts and grabbed ahold of his assets. She pulled his shorts down with the other hand revealing what she had gotten ahold of.

“Nice!
” She gave it a few strokes and then smacked his ass and told him to get dressed.

“I wonder how much of this she will remember in the morning.” I said to
Hunter.

“Oh, I’m sure she will have
a vague memory of it.”

“Leigh
, the work truck is a cargo truck. The guys can climb in the back and I’ll drive you home, if you’d like.”

“I would say I’m sober enough to drive, but I don’t take any chances, even though it’s been about four hours since I’ve had a drink.
So, I’ll take you up on your offer.”

Lindsey
laid down on the couch and was already asleep. Kelly slumped into a chair next to her.

“Hold on
, I just want to cover these girls up. I cannot wait to call them early tomorrow morning.” I went into Lindsey’s room and took some of the fluffy blankets from her bed and spread them over the now snoring beauties. Next, I set their ringers to the most annoying ring tones I could find. Oh, and I turned the volume up all the way.

Hunter
herded the two young roofers out the front door and ushered them into the back of the truck. He rolled down the door and latched it shut, so none of them could stumble back out. “You all should probably sit down before you fall down.” He yelled to the boys.

Once
again, he held the passenger door open for me, but this time he took my hand and helped me up into the cab, which was much higher off the ground than his truck was. The truck bounced and creaked away into the night, accompanied by the groaning protesters in the back. Apparently, they failed to heed the warning of sitting down.

“Thank you
, for helping out. I would invite you in when I get home, but I think you have some special cargo to deliver.”

“Yeah, these guys are all staying at the boss’s house. I bet every one of them will be late
to the job in the morning.”

“Yeah, well
, I think we got there just in time. It looked like they were about to get a little too crazy. I swear that I’ve never seen Lindsey or Kelly act like that before.” Which was a complete lie. There was one time that was equally as bad as, or perhaps even worse than what we walked in on tonight. The incident happened at a bachelorette party we were all invited to. The party featured two male strippers and since it was being held in someone’s house, there were absolutely no rules.

We all had our hands on the goods that night!
Well, we almost had our hands on the goods. I was busily stuffing one dollar bills into this stripper’s skimpy little G-string. Kelly came over and pulled his cock out and tried to stick it in my face. Sorry, but I really don’t have any interest in a cock that makes a living by sticking it in every horny woman or maybe horny guy, in the city. Sorry, but that’s just not my cup of tea. I’m all for having a fun time with the girls, but I have to draw the line at public sex acts with strangers.

The bride to be was the worst. She actually gave an oral performance
… in front of all of us. Somebody recorded it on their phone, which was a complete breech of etiquette and probably blackmail material for later in life.

I was pretty sure
Lindsey was about to reenact the same scene with the young roofer tonight. I really had to wonder what the hell had gotten into them. I knew, I had nothing to do with that. No, I think that was just two young, single, and very drunk women surrounded by shirtless studs. And hormones, let’s not forget about those little bastards. Lindsey attended an all-female Catholic school and college when she was growing up. I know first-hand that she looks for any opportunity to make up for what could have been massive amounts of juvenile delinquent behavior, with a side of wild girl syndrome. Not everything in life is sprinkled with magic, stupidity frequently and easily trumps witchcraft.

Hunter
stopped the truck in front of my place. I thanked him once more for the lift. The guy was just too nice. It was killing me! He’s everything I would expect to find in the best of my best book boyfriends. He asked me once more about getting together soon. How could I refuse?

“Hey
, Leigh, I just want you to know that tonight doesn’t count.”

It took me a minute to comprehend what he meant. “Oh, I fully agree!
I’m looking forward to spending time with someone other than my insane friends and psychotic cat.”

“We better do it soon
, though. I’ll be heading to the academy in less than four weeks. How about we get together on Thursday, if you’re free that is? I have the day off. I started shortening my work hours, so I can get more time to work out and do some studying for the academy. It’s a great opportunity and I really want to graduate as close to the top as I can.”

“Thursday would be perfect
. I’m completely free all day and evening, too. Just give me a call to let me know what time you want to get together and we’ll go from there.” Of course, I wasn’t free at all. I had a veterinarian appointment in the afternoon for Luna’s annual exam and a book club meeting in the evening. Neither of those were as important as the prospect of a potentially awesome date with a man that seemed to have a lot of book boyfriend qualities. If it would have been Carl on the other hand, I would have chosen to go to the book club meeting. It had become pretty stale lately, since one of the new members acted like a goddamn dominatrix with her pushy attitude and pleather skirts.

I knew the next thing on my agenda was to find out how long the Chicago
Police Academy course would be. Hopefully short and sweet. Wait, strike that. Something could go terribly wrong.

Chapter
Nine

Witchcraft.com

I had a couple of days before my expected date with
Hunter. By now, I had almost given up on Vlad. Almost. I had already gone back and started reading the series from the first book. I missed the magic of a good story. I wasn’t quite ready to attempt a resurrection of Vlad, until I had honed my witchcraft. When I pondered the idea, I realized that perhaps I needed to learn more about witchcraft, if I expected to gain control of it. Another thing, I figured I had at least a few days left to change the outcome of my parents’ weekend.

Other than throw my friends and family into hellish situations, what else could I do
? I started by delving into information with my research partner. If you’ve never researched “witchcraft” on the internet, you are in for a real treat. The historical facts are buried under steaming manure piles of completely useless garbage. I mean, think about it. Don’t you think, if it was as easy as throwing together a few herbs and saying some silly words to accomplish whatever you wanted, everyone would be doing it? It seemed like everyone was into some new age spiritual revival, I had completely and thankfully missed out on.

I’m pretty open minded, so when I came across one of these tried and true internet fueled magic spells, I decided to give it a try.
The spell was called Wisdom. It promised that the witch would be able to make wise decisions with her or his power. Now, I normally ignore most of
that
kind of stuff on the internet, but wisdom is something I desperately needed right about now. Especially, if I planned to play around with altering someone’s future. I had to be smart. Witchy smart. There was one more thing that gave the spell some validity. The website included images of the original medieval magic book. Of course, most of it was in Latin and some Greek. The rest appeared to be written in a strange alchemist’s code.

Now
, like any classic witch spell, it required a number of ingredients. Some of these things were pretty easily found in any spice rack. Bay leaf, saffron, and sea salt. It would be more difficult to get my hands on the five drops of goose blood and the cow’s tears. A quick check of my kitchen and just as I suspected, I had everything but the goose blood and cow tears. Do cows even cry?

Time to call on my irrational and insane friends to get my car back and see if they wanted to
help me whip up a batch of wisdom. I let Kelly’s phone ring until I reached her voicemail and then I tried Lindsey’s. They were probably still sprawled out like road-kill, right where I left their drunken asses. Finally, after another try to Kelly’s phone, she picked up.

“Ahhhhhhrrrr
,” she both growled and moaned. “What do you want? I’m busy dying here.”

“You guys need to come pick me up. We have some shopping to do. Well
, not so much of a shopping trip as it is a scavenger hunt.”

“What the hell? Really? Does it have to be today?”

“Yes, it does. Now get yourselves together, I’ll be waiting!”

Almost an
hour and a half later, Kelly slinked through my door. “Holy hell, Kel! You look like dog meat!”

“Thanks for the compliment
, Leigh. I tried. I really did, but this is the best it’s going to get today.” Kelly feebly waived her hand over her face and hair.

“Where’s
Lindsey?”

“She is hurtin
g- bad.”

I laughed and asked Kelly what she remembered from the previous night’s strip poker game.
Like any good friend, I had to tease the hell out of her. When these opportunities arise with loved ones, you must strike quick and hard! “So, do you remember the strip poker game?”

“Ugh
! You saw that? It’s all pretty fuzzy still. We were just having fun. They’re nothing but college guys. They were cool about it, and to be honest, it was a bit reminiscent of being back in college. For me at least.”

“Yeah, I didn’t see
all
of it. I walked in right as Lindsey was about to strip the one guy completely naked. I interrupted her little show.”

“Speaking of guys. Where did you skip off to with Mr. Arms?
Don’t think for a minute that we didn’t notice your little disappearing act!”

“Mr. Arms, by the way is
Hunter. He is probably the nicest guy that I’ve met in a very long time. We actually have a date Thursday night. You see, I have something called self-control, unlike the two of you. You two acted like it was your first night of freedom from a women’s correctional institution.” Kelly simply rolled her eyes, which was probably a bad idea considering the fact that she still smelled like a brewery. The room probably started to spin on her again.

“Pffft.
You forget, I know all of your secrets. Besides, I’m happy you have a date. Maybe I’ll get Luke’s number and give him a call. I’m pretty sure, I saw Derek writing his number on Lindsey’s thigh with a sharpie. Anyway, now that I’m here, what exactly are we doing today?”

“Witchcraft! More precisely, a magic spell that will hopefully give me better control over using my newfound witchy powers. I found out some
pretty interesting things about my desk and I need to find a way to tame it.”

“Like?”
Kelly prompted.

“It has a message written in Latin under the drawer.
Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui
, and translated it means,
beware of what you say, when, and to whom
. I also contacted the old bitch who gave it to me. I had to practically twist her into a knot to tell me anything about it. She told me the desk was very old and came from Massachusetts!”

“Woohoo! Massachusetts! Lucky you!” Kelly was dripping with sarcasm. “My
cousin married a guy who came from Massachusetts, and let me tell you, there is nothing magical about that son of a bitch.”

“No!
My desk is very old and it belonged to a witch!”

“He
IS old and I’ve heard that his ex IS a real witch.” Kelly said in a lifeless tone. “All right, just kidding, Leigh. That’s actually a pretty cool story. So, you think that you’ve gained this long forgotten witch’s power?”

“Exactly
. I know I did.”

“Let me guess. You
sicced Florian the troll boy on me. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, but only to have him call you back. It ended there.”

“Well, then you
are
a witch all right! That’s just one word and not the word that I would choose to use, but hey, my game isn’t quite up to par today.”

“Anyway, I want to try some other magic. Not the magic
that requires the desk. I want to see if some of that power rubbed off on me in other ways. Enough of it to at least perhaps try some good old fashioned magic spell stuff. I found this spell on the internet…”

“Stop right there. Internet? You found it on th
e internet? You do realize that some fourteen year old probably made that up. Ugh! This is going to be bad.  Anything that follows the statement, I found this spell on the internet is not going to have a good ending!”

I opened the web page and pointed out the medieval manuscript
. It was after all the supposed reference of my wisdom spell. I defiantly pointed it out to Kelly.

“See
, Kel, this is something that is at least based on a real book of magic. I’m not saying that it will work, but I think it could be fun to give it a try.”

“Wow, you are seriously embracing this whole witch thing
. Aren’t you?”

I suppose Kelly was right about that. Why shouldn’t I? The first thing
we had to find was goose blood.

“Of course I am. Now, where
do you think we will find goose blood?”

“Simple
, Leigh. Haha! I crack myself up!”

When I looked at her like a lost deer in the headlights, she finally took a moment to elaborate…
yay for me, more people messing with my name!

“SimpLeigh
- Simply, get it? Find a butcher shop that sells goose or geese to cook.”

“
Oh my God, you’re such a dork! Gee, that sounds good, if you live in the time of Charles Dickens you might have a shot. Honestly, when is the last time you saw goose meat in the grocery store? Maybe if we could score an invite to the Jeffrey Dahmer house for Hanukkah, they could hook us up. Other than that, you aren’t likely to find any place in Chicago where they are hacking apart a live goose in the back room.”

“That’s it
, Leigh! You just figured out where to get one!”

“What? Serial killer school?”

“No. You said Hanukkah. So what about calling a kosher butcher? Don’t they have to butcher geese a certain way? Maybe a small kosher butcher shop will sell or give you some goose blood?”

I don’t know
, I think the butchery takes place in a sterile plant or facility in Wisconsin or someplace, kosher. Besides, the whole idea of kosher meat is to get rid of the blood. It’s not like they save it to supply the local witchcraft covens or hobbyists, and even if they did, what am I supposed to say? Hi, I’m a newbie witch and I need some goose blood for a spell.”

“Fine, we
can go to the city park and shank some poor unsuspecting goose or we can call a butcher. While we are at it, we’ll see about cow’s tears. Maybe they cry before they sentence them to death.”

Kelly and I were so busy with our snarky banter that we
didn’t realize Lindsey had stumbled through the door. She had quietly listened in on our conversation, trying desperately to figure out what the fuck we were talking about. “Safeway. They sell goose livers. I’m pretty sure they are dripping with it.”

“See. That’s why we love you
, Lindsey. You’re always thinking. Well, when you’re not in the middle of a drunken orgy. Now, cow’s tears. Any suggestions?”

“
Got it. All we have to do is go by the petting zoo that we had the students go to last year. Cows, bulls, calves, pigs, you name it. We’ll corner one of the cows and relate our lousy love lives to her. You can guarantee we will get sympathy tears.” Lindsey seemed to be on a roll with the answers. Maybe, she should be hung over more often.

“With the exception of Leigh.
Do you remember that roofer guy with the arms, Lindsey?”

“Oh yeah. Very fuckable. And
, Leigh, we noticed that you two snuck away from the party.”

“First, I want to clear up a few things. We didn’t snea
k anywhere. I announced loud and clear that Hunter was giving me a ride home. That’s all that happened until I needed to call him, so we could go back to your so-called party and save you from becoming the internet hand-job queen.”

Lindsey was silenced. She didn’t remember!
Time to pounce, strike fast and hard. Remember?

“Oh yeah, Lindsey, you may not remember. Strip poker? Kelly were topless. You had one guy in front of you and he was down to his skivvies. I came in just in time as you were shamele
ssly wrangling his snake free.”

“
Hmmm, well then, I blame you, Leigh, you and your naughty little witchcraft. Kelly spilled the beans on what you’ve been up to and that’s precisely why I couldn’t wait to see what you were doing today. By the way, next time you want to magically hook me up, please remember something. I’m not as experienced at being a slut as some people.” She nodded to Kelly. “And dammit, make me sober next time, because I sure wish I could remember the whole snake part. I’ve got nothing. Was his package big? Small? Microscopic? These really are details a woman
needs
to remember, damn it!”

Thankfully, good friends transcend complete and utter insults such as these and we had a good laugh. I couldn’t break it to Lindsey that her
lewd conduct was completely of her own accord.

We eventually made it into Kelly’s car and headed for the children’s petting zoo. The brightly painted little barns and animal shaped playground equipment
reminded me of how nice it was not to be responsible for twenty five little hellions trying out novel ways to end up as plaintiffs in a personal injury lawsuit.

We strolled in past a variety of foul smelling beasts
, and Kelly made an observation in her typical fashion.

“Oh God, can you imagine what it must have been like on Noah’
s Ark? Seriously. Forty days trapped in a floating barn full of seasick people and parasite ridden animals wading around in their own filth? I can barely stomach being around these things when they are supposedly cared for professionally.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking you would have been one of the people listed as
persona non grata
, left to clamber up the last tall tree.” Lindsey remarked.

“I don’t think those heels would help her much for tree climbing, anyway.” I had to chime in.

“Oh, and how would you two get onboard? I’m thinking you could easily pass as a pair of jackasses.”

“
Touché, Kelly.” Lindsey responded.

“Hey! There
’s your cow!” Lindsey leaned out over the fence as far as she could and pursed her lips. She made some obscene smacking sounds that apparently raised the animal’s curiosity. Lindsey stepped onto the fence’s bottom rung and leaned further out, in an attempt to call the cow over to us. “Here cow-cow, come on, who’s a good girl?” Kelly plucked some nearby dandelions and handed them to Lindsey. She waved the limp wanna-be flowers, trying to entice the cautious bovine.