He dragged deep and handed Jess the joint. “Give yourself a break. Leave it alone. You’re only driving yourself crazy.”
“Damn bitch.” She took a deep toke, let the smoke drift lazily out of her nostrils. “You know where she is now?”
“Don’t say it.”
“She’s shacked up with Vic this very minute.”
Hurt flooded Rusty’s eyes.
“What the hell are you acting so injured about?” she demanded, grabbing him, kissing him.
LIGHTNING flashed at the window, and the crack of thunder was right on top of it. The room seemed to vibrate from the force. Again. The sky flashed and snapped. Moaning with pleasure, he looked up. The ceiling was bordered with a continuing spiral circle.
How did they mold the plaster? No one did that kind of work anymore, that was for sure. The spiral ring began to move. His mind drifted, leaving Jess behind.
“No, don’t go away,” Jess cried.
THE room went black. In a glare of lightning, two figures, naked and hideous. During the next flash he watched as they took on new forms. The female now had three heads, and the male had become a snarling black wolf.
Rusty could barely breathe. He stared at the three heads. The middle face, eyes closed, was Hope.
Something grabbed at his legs. Jess. He dropped down beside her, held her tight. The wolf circled, snapping and growling. The three-headed horror came closer and closer.
Flying crones screeched and dove at Rusty and Jess, their whips flailing. “Hecate, Goddess of Darkness. Hecate, Goddess of the Moon. Hecate, Goddess of Blood.”
“WHAT was that crazy dope you gave me to smoke?” Jess asked.
He shrugged. “Just pot.”
They were sitting in the kitchen.
“Hi, kiddies,” Hope said, charging in. “Nice of you to wait up.” She sailed into the bedroom.
Rusty cast a worried glance at Jess and chased after Hope.
“How’re you feeling, sweetheart?” Hope asked, shedding clothing, dropping it on the floor.
“Nothing happened. I swear.”
“I believe you, baby,” she said, planting a juicy kiss on his mouth. He pulled away. “But I won’t believe you if you won’t let me touch you.”
“Sorry, I’m kind of wired.”
“Well, you better get your crap together. We have an important day coming up. Come on to bed. I’ve got the perfect medicine for what’s wrong with you.”
Sex was the last thing Rusty wanted. He considered begging off, saying he wasn’t feeling well, but he knew how she’d react and how miserable she could make him. He said nothing.
“Come on. Don’t keep me waiting.”
“Uh… Jess.”
“Hey, Jess,” Hope shouted. “Better grab some z’s on the couch. We’ve got a big day ahead of us. It’s the day Vic Lancaster becomes a superstar.” She fast-flapped the fingers of both hands, over and over, beckoning impatiently for Rusty.
RUSTY was in a wood with Hope and the black wolf and the three-headed silver dog. He and Hope were having sex. Just as they had been before falling asleep.
Seconds before orgasm, the animals pushed in between them, destroying their coupling.
The three-headed silver dog went after Hope. The black dog attacked Rusty.
Rusty’s scream merged with Hope’s.
HE snapped awake with all-too-lucid memories. He would not, could not, look at Hope.
Hope was smiling. Singing a happy song, she stepped into the shower and shrieked her delight at the ice-cold water.
Rusty glared in her direction and made himself instant coffee. He turned on the TV. Half-asleep, slurping coffee, he flicked from news channel to news channel.
“A man was killed during last night’s storm when he was struck by lightning in his own living room.”
“Charles Hamilton, forty-three…”
“… bolt of lightning came through the open skylight of his sixth-floor apartment…”
“The room was soaked by the rain.”
“In fact,” a man identified as Emmett Nichols, the building superintendent, was saying, “I was under the impression the skylight was painted shut. I don’t remember Mr. Hamilton ever having it open in the ten years he lived here.”
“Wait a minute,” Hope said, coming out of the bathroom, pulling a brush through her tangled hair. “What the hell are they saying about Charlie Hamilton?”
“Who?” Rusty rubbed his bleary eyes, as Jess wandered into the living room.
“What happened to Charlie?” Jess asked. Charles Hamilton was Vic’s second banana.
The newscaster answered all their questions.
“The police said Hamilton appeared to have been killed instantly. His clothes were scorched shreds, and his body burned and bruised by the charge of electricity that surged through him.”
Jess screamed, “Ohmygod!”
The newswoman kept talking. “One officer is quoted as saying, ‘This is weird. There were blood stains in a circle around the corpse. It was as if the electricity boiled the blood out of his body.’ ”
IGNORING Vic’s protests, Hope appointed herself Charlie’s replacement.
Rusty, already her slave, was blown away. She was beautiful, magnetic. From her confidence and ease you’d think she’d been working on TV for years. For Christ’s sake, she even did the warm-up.
“Hello, America. Welcome to Sexploits, the program that lets it all hang out.”
“Ha!” The sound exploded from Rusty’s mouth. Even with the memory of a snarling black dog haunting him, he couldn’t stop laughing. Neither could anyone else in the control booth. Or the audience. It wasn’t that funny, but it was.
The audience laughter was accompanied by deafening applause and foot stomping.
Hope’s beautiful face lit up. “Now, live and in New York, here’s the star of our show, Vic Lancaster.”
Vic appeared, blond and handsome. “Thanks, Hope, I trust you’ll tell the world that I’m an equal opportunity employer.” His punch line was an overstated leer.
He hadn’t let the audience down; they didn’t let him down. The laughter continued and built with each line of Vic’s very ordinary monologue.
HOPE knelt at Vic’s feet. After a moment, she thrust out her hands.
The crone placed the silver bowl and sickle in her open hands. Hope plunged the sickle into Vic’s groin, chanting, “Hecate, Goddess of Darkness, Goddess of the Moon, Goddess of Blood, may you live forever.”
Vic’s wound seemed to explode as a bloody torrent shot into the silver bowl. The blood flowed over the sides and spilled to the ground. The three-headed silver dog, Cerberus, lapped at the spill.
Suddenly, the three-headed silver dog was no longer the dog but the three-headed woman.
The three heads shimmered and became one. The new face was Hope’s, and it was smiling. Her smile was rapturous.
III
Hope opened her eyes; she had fallen asleep sitting up. The first thing she saw was the spiral design on the ceiling above her. It was comforting. She checked her watch. Almost three. Collecting her work, she pulled aside the blanket.
“Hi, sweets,” Rusty said sleepily.
“Hi,” she answered. “Pew. One of us stinks, and I think it’s me. I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep.” She yawned. “I’ve put in one tough day.”
But when the phone rang, Hope fell on the bed and grabbed it. “Hello.”
“Hope Brady?”
“Yes.”
“Harold Garment here.”
“Yes?” Harold Garment was Vic’s doctor. “What’s wrong?”
“It grieves me to tell you, Ms. Brady, Mr. Lancaster died early this morning.”
Her body went numb. She felt sorrow and elation. Poor Vic. But now the show was hers alone.
The physician seemed to be in shock. His speech was disjointed, his voice strident. “… incomprehensible. I couldn’t control the hemorrhaging. Spontaneous hemophilia. I don’t understand. I don’t…”