Hunting Witches by Jeffery X Martin

feel like I should be watching cartoons and eating cereal,” Nika said.
    “We can watch cartoons and eat pizza,” Mark said. “It’s the modern age, baby. Twenty-four hour news coverage and cartoons all the time. Also, people bring you food, if you pay them enough money.” He gestured to the pizza box on the floor between them. “It’s a brave new world, baby.”
    Nika laid her head on Mark’s shoulder. One of the things she loved about him was his way of turning around lousy situations. Anyone else would have let the failed double date ruin the evening, but not Mark. He channeled his frustration into a whole new plan. Pizza and a tent in the living room? It was like being a child again, but with all the privileges and fun parts of being an adult. She moved in closer to him, smelling him, fabric softener, fading deodorant and a faint hint of clean sweat. Full of Italian food and red wine, and with Mark’s hand stirring between her legs, Nika let the double date fiasco drift from her mind.
    Of course, everything was going to be all right. She would find new friends, ones who weren’t insane. She had her husband, her best friend, whom she loved desperately. They were out of Atlanta, out of that lousy apartment and into a real home, a place where it was safe to make plans or paint the walls or sit on the living room floor without worrying about the downstairs neighbors listening to every noise she made.
    And she was making noises, there under the soft gauzy bedsheet, as Mark’s fingers played a bass solo on her G-Spot. He had played in a rock band in high school and never lost his rhythm. Her buzz from the red wine was still pretty heavy, and Nika loved everything. She loved Tennessee, despite their heavy reliance on orange clothing. She loved Elders Keep, the weird little town she was determined to embrace and call her own. She loved Mark, her delightful husband who could do anything, as long as he kept doing what he was doing to her right then, those subtle movements which were causing spasms in her root chakra and she was so happy, complete, and she loved everything so much that when the living room window exploded inward a couple feet away from her face, she wasn’t sure how to react.
    “What the fuck was that?” Mark bellowed. He stood up, the sheet rising around his shoulders.
    “What’s going on?” Nika murmured.
    “Baby, go into the kitchen and call the sheriff,” Mark said. “Don’t come out this way. There’s glass everywhere.”
    “What happened?” Her haze disappeared in a heartbeat, and she was racing towards a panicked state.
    Mark looked down at the carpet, covered with shards of glittering glass. The chilly evening breeze whistled through the window frame. In the shifting light of the television, Mark could see the solid outline of a brick lying in the floor.
    “Someone just gave us a housewarming present,” he said.
     
    ***
     
    Nika called the cops, then she and Mark went into the bedroom to put on clothes. Even though she knew the sub-division was basically empty, she pulled the blinds shut anyway. Someone might still be outside, lurking, watching. Mark pulled on a pair of ratty lounge pants and an old T-shirt.
    “Don’t go in the living room,” Mark told Nika. “You’ll fuck things up for the cops. Crime scene stuff.”
    “What do you know about crime scene preservation?” she laughed.
    “I know enough to know you need to do it,” Mark replied. “Besides, there’s glass everywhere. Please don’t cut yourself.”
    “Fine,” she said. “We’ll just stay in the kitchen and wait. The sheriff said he would come in through the back door anyway.”
    Mark raised an eyebrow. “Wonder why that is?”
    “I’m assuming it’s so he doesn’t screw up the crime scene,” she said.
    Mark nodded. “I knew that.” He walked out of the bedroom and down the hallway, right as the sheriff’s car pulled up in the driveway. Red and blue light played off the walls, illuminating the