Under a Spell

Chapter Nine

Nina poked her head over my shoulder. This time, her super speed didn’t faze me. “What is it? Who’s it for?”

She crouched down, poked the box. It moved an inch, the motion benign, not setting off a slew of knife-wielding Vessel thieves or rabid witches with skin-carving tendencies.

“It’s probably from Amazon. Open it.”

I frowned. “Amazon boxes have a smile on them.”

And I got the distinct feeling that this box wouldn’t make me smile.

I bent over anyway, picking up the box. It was surprisingly light and ChaCha sniffed at it, her little paw working its way under the twine. I set her down and slipped the twine off myself, the brown craft paper popping open and slipping to my feet.

I thumbed the lid open carefully, squinting my eyes and peeking in.

Then I slammed the lid down hard.

“Jesus Christ, it’s a dead bird!”

Nina was back on the other side of the room, standing on the table, arms flapping like, well, a live bird. “Ew! Ew! Get rid of it!”

While garlic, holy water, and sunlight were the reigning terrors to most vampires, Nina had one more to add to the list: birds. Dead or alive, in any form. They terrified her.

I looked into the box again and my heart started to swell for the poor creature laying silent in the box. And then my heart dropped down like a fist to the gut.

“People only send dead livestock for one reason,” I said, licking my paper-dry lips. “It’s a warning.”

Vlad looked up from his computer, his fingers still hovering over the keys. “About what?”

The little corpse shook in the box as my hands started to tremble. I clamped my eyes shut, thinking back to the horrendous clanging of metal, of porcelain, of the water shooting to the ceiling in the Mercy High bathroom—the words GET OUT scrawled in angry red across the mirror.

“About me getting any closer with this investigation.”

“What now?”

My head snapped up to Will’s door, cracked open, and Will, his eyes narrowed and caked with sleep. He stepped out of his apartment and raked a hand through his sleep-ragged hair, sandy brown streaks pointing in every direction. He was dressed in nothing except a pair of well-worn jeans, and he didn’t look happy.

I was almost too distressed to notice that he was shirtless, his incredible abs tanned nicely, his jeans slung low enough that the muscles under his hip bones were exposed, sloping toward his groin, a glaring invitation.

“S-Someone left this,” I said, tearing my eyes from the abs I wasn’t staring at because I could be in the midst of a life or death situation and once again, there was a sexy-as-hell, half-naked man in the middle of it.

Will crossed the hall in two swift strides and gingerly took the box from me.

“Get rid of it!” Nina screeched from her tabletop perch.

Will glanced into the box and then up at me, his hazel eyes clouded. “Are you upset because it’s a terrible gift or because you didn’t get anything?”

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s for Vlad.”

Will upturned the lid. There was a thin, white envelope with the name VLAD scrawled across it.

“Oh.”

“I don’t care who it’s for or who it’s from. It’s a dead. Freaking. Bird. Get rid of it! Those things carry disease! They carry the plague!”

I looked at Nina. “You’re immortal. What do you care?”

Will shook the box. “It’s just a pigeon.”

Nina gaped. “A pigeon? It’s not even a classy bird!”

Once we were able to dispose of the bird—which we soon learned was a warning from Kale, for Vlad—and lure Nina from her spot on the dining room table, Will and I sat down with two cups of tea.

“So, I take it that it wasn’t just a dead bird that woke you up in the middle of the night?” Will said, wrapping his hand around his mug.

I wagged my head. “Couldn’t sleep. I just don’t feel like we’re doing enough, Will.”

“We’re doing all we’re supposed to do.”

I pinned him with a glare. “And that’s not enough. We’re no closer to finding—” I paused, then snatched the papers Vlad had printed out for me. “I forgot.”

“What’s that then?”

“Police files.”

Will cocked an approving brow and I handed him half the stack.

“Wait a minute—didn’t the preliminary report say that they found Cathy in Marin?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Battery Townsley. Definitely over the city line.”

Will looked up. “If you’re going to drop a body anywhere around the city, that’s the place to do it.”

I nodded. “What else?”

Will scanned. “It says there was a preliminary search, but they didn’t find any additional evidence and deduced that the Battery was merely a dump site. Subject was not killed there.”

I bit my lip, thinking of Cathy, of her pink-and-cheery room with the frozen-in-time smiles and the deep, ridged lines on her mother’s face. Hearing her referred to as a “subject” that had been “dumped” made my heart clench, became a tightening knot in my chest.

“Feel like going on a field trip?”

Will looked over my head, out the front window where the sky was even blacker than normal, the lights of the city barely punctuating the all-encompassing blackness. “I have a feeling there is absolutely no chance I’ll be able to go back to sleep if I don’t go.”

I smiled and nodded. “You catch on quickly.”

I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with San Francisco in the hours just before dawn. Normally, the city vibrates—it pulses with life, with people going about their day, with horns honking and smoke spewing and, just, life. But in these hours the entire city is still—but perilously so—as if something is slowly lurking, fingers of evil trailing through the night, claiming victims, claiming life.

I leaned forward in my seat and kicked up the heat, circling my arms around me and trying to shrug off a cold that was bone deep.

“It looks like the end of the world, doesn’t it?”

Will looked sideways at me, the light from the passing streetlights shining over him, then plunging him right back into darkness. “You mean because the streets are so empty?”

“Yes—and no.” I shivered again. “It feels like something more this time.”

Will guided Nigella toward the Marina, each mile toward the bay thickening the fog around us. “Something more?”

“You can’t feel it? It’s like . . .” I looked out the window, pressing my forehead against the freezing glass. “Unrest.”

I didn’t look at Will and he didn’t answer me. We crossed through the Marina and coasted onto the bridge in silence. The fog was cotton-ball thick now, squeezing through the night-muted cables of the Golden Gate, wafting over our windshield, leaving spitting drops of moisture. Behind us, the city faded into it, the lights struggling against the haze. I knew there was a mountain in front of us, but all I could see were the two slashes of Nigella’s headlights illuminating the fifteen feet in front of us.

“I’m thinking we probably could have done this in the morning.”

I swallowed. “Probably. But we’re running out of time, Will. And this”—I waved the sheaf of police reports Vlad printed out—“just proves that the police aren’t any closer to finding Alyssa or catching her kidnapper either. There’s something more. Girls don’t disappear into thin air.”

“And a dump site isn’t just a dump site?”

We were turning off the bridge and beginning the steep road up and down toward Battery Townsley. I bit my bottom lip the whole way there, and let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding when Will pulled into the deserted parking lot. He handed me a flashlight.

“Ready?”

My heart thumped. My skin felt too tight. But somewhere, in the back of my head, I could hear that voice. Alyssa, calling. Pleading. Begging.

“Yeah.”

The ice cold hit me like a stinging slap in the face the second I pushed the car door open. It was a wet cold, heavy with salted sea air, and it snatched my breath away and clawed at my hair. I zipped my jacket to my chin, cursed myself for not changing out of my pajama pants, and yanked my hood up over my head. I jutted my chin toward the black blanket of grass leading to the battery.

“That way.”

Will and I cut across the damp grass, walking in companionable silence, the round blobs of light from our flashlights bobbing in front of us. The wind howled and whipped and the water sloshed below us when I stopped, my flashlight hand dropping straight to my thigh, suddenly feeling as though it were tied there.

Will stopped and looked at me, his concerned face yellowed by the glow of the flashlight. “You okay, love? Cramp or something?”

My tongue was solid, stuck to the roof of my mouth. All I could do was shake my head and command my arm to move, but it didn’t. I moved a finger, then two, then wrestled my arm a half inch from my side before wincing at a searing pain around my wrist.

“Sophie!” Will’s arms were around me, but I couldn’t feel them. All I could feel was the searing heat circling my wrist—both wrists now—and the terror that washed over me. Heat pricked at my hairline and burned the back of my neck. I struggled against invisible bonds that pressed against my shoulders, my rib cage. The pain was intense. I felt my skin splitting.

Finally, I fell backward, suddenly and without warning, expelled from whatever “held” me. Will ran to me and crouched.

“What the hell was that?”

I sputtered and coughed, pushed Will away and pushed myself to standing, righting my flashlight. “Let’s go,” I said, my voice a strangled choke.

I stomped across the grasses and Will trotted behind me before grabbing my left shoulder and turning me toward him. “What the hell was that?” he repeated, slowly this time.

“Cramp,” I said, my eyes holding his.

I bit down hard on my molars so the tears wouldn’t fall, and pulled my hands into my sleeves so he couldn’t see the bruised, reddening marks that circled each wrist.

I needed to focus on Alyssa now.

I was breathing heavily by the time our flashlights swished over the entrance to Battery Townsley. We stopped and I flashed my light toward Will, who stared straight ahead, his lip curling into a scowl.

“That’s it?”

The front side of the Battery (or the backside of the gun) was a plain cement opening half hidden in the edge of the bluff. The words BATTERY TOWNSEND were carved in the concrete above the opening, and a rusted metal gate hung gaping open at the mouth.

“What were you expecting?” I asked Will, taking a step forward.

He looked over his shoulders, then zipped his jacket up to his chin. “Something less sinister looking is all.”

“It’s a dump site for a body,” I reminded him. “And it looks a lot less foreboding during the day.”

“Remind me again why we decided it was absolutely necessary to come out here tonight?”

I glared at Will, challenging him, as I mustered the courage to take a step forward. Finally, I took a small one, then another, closing the distance between the mouth of the Battery and where we were standing. I flashed my light up and down the cement supports, examining every bar of the rusted-out gate.

“Find anything?”

“No,” I said, my teeth starting to chatter.

“Where exactly did they say she was found?” Will wanted to know.

I swallowed, the fear welling up in me.

“There.” I pointed through the gaping black doorway. “In there.”

Will flashed his light in the direction I pointed, his meager light barely piercing the blackness. He looked back at me, then held out his hand.

“Come on.”

I looked at his offered hand, the wind and mist slapping my face, chapping my lips. Behind me was San Francisco, the Underworld, Alex. In front of me was Will, hand outstretched, eyes clear and open. But there was a gaping blackness behind him.

“I—I—I’m not sure—”

The snap of the wind knocked the breath out of me and Will lurched forward, grabbing my wrist. He rolled me into him and we were both slightly airborne, his arms wrapped tightly around me. In a flash our lights were out and we were plunged in total darkness, standing in the concrete entranceway to the Battery. Will flattened himself against the wall and pulled me to him, my body pressing up against his.

I listened to his heart thud in the blackness.

“What was that?” I whispered.

Will glanced down at me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but I was able to make him out, the slope of his jaw, his pursed lips, his index finger pressed against them.

We stayed like that for what seemed like hours, but I’m certain was only a few minutes. Finally Will poked his head into the Battery, the silver of the moonlight outlining his profile.

“Okay,” he said, his voice audible, but low.

“What was that all about?” I asked, shaking my flashlight that refused to come on.

“I thought I heard something—someone.”

I was going to say something smart, something about the crashing waves and the deafening wind, but I could see the slight sheen of sweat above his lip.

“Oh, God, Will, you’re serious.”

He instantly avoided my gaze, snatching my flashlight and pulling the batteries out. “Maybe I just wanted to cop a feel in the darkness.”

But the lightness in his voice, the usual snark of sexy Will was gone. I looked to the sky.

“The clouds are moving. There’s a lot more moonlight now.”

Feeling emboldened by the bit of light, I walked into the Battery, toward the center. The second my sneaker crossed the threshold it was like I had been hit with a Taser. There was a crack of nearly blinding light and I doubled over, pain searing every inch of my skin.

“Something happened here,” I whispered. “This is where she was found.”

Will stepped toward me, lacing his arm around my waist.

“Come on. There’s nothing here for us. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said, pushing him away.

“Are you ‘getting something’?” The way he said it let me know that he thought my “feelings” were right up there with revelations from Dionne Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network. “Come on out when you’re ready.”

He took off toward the mouth of the Battery and that creaky metal gate while I walked around and around the circle. Something caught the moonlight, something on the ground. I crouched and squinted and stood back, certain I was missing something. Finally, I crawled my way up the side of the bluff, using the moonlight behind me to stare down into the Battery. There, things became clearer.

And then completely dark again.

I felt the clamp over my mouth before I felt the crushing grip around my rib cage. My arms were pinned to my sides, but I clawed just the same, thinking that I would feel nothing but air as another feeling overtook me. But I felt the arm around me clench tighter, pushing the air out of my lungs in a silent whoosh. I tried to scream, but a leather-clad hand pressed against my open mouth, my assailant’s thumb digging into my cheeks. I squirmed and struggled. He remained stalwart. He took a step backward and I fumbled with him before slumping and angrily digging my heels into the soft dirt.

I heard him huff, heard his heartbeat speed up and his breath come in short bursts as he struggled with me.

“You. Have. The—” he huffed and I used the leverage of my heels in the mud to arch my back, giving my arms just enough play to land a solid blow to the groin. I heard the grunt and then the break of his arms as they fell from my mouth, from my sides. The wind slapped at my face as I ran, screaming into the wind, not daring to look behind me.

Where is Will?

It was the last thought I had before I felt the world slide out from under me. There was no extra give, no few seconds of Scooby Doo-like running on air—I went straight down.

My feet slapped at the mud and my shoulders banged against the earth.

And then everything stopped.

“Lawson?” I heard Alex’s breathy call on the wind.

Angelic.

Oh. I had died. I had fallen off the earth or into the ocean and died, and Alex was there. In Heaven.

Or maybe I was in hell?

I tried to struggle, to move, but the cold was everywhere, around me, sinking into my clothes, through my sneakers and into my socks.

“Where am I?” It was an aching, gut-wrenching scream. I expected fire and brimstone or flying monkeys or the gates of St. Peter at any moment. But all I got was the overwhelming stench of fresh earth and a pair of muddy Nikes right under my nose.

“What the—?”

A blinding wash of light poured over me and I tried to use my hand to shield my face—but my arms were still stuck by my sides. So I squinted, then sunk back against the dirt.

“Alex? Where are—why—what the hell is going on?”

He crouched down next to me, settling his flashlight on the ground so it wasn’t blinding me anymore. “I could ask you the same thing.”

I was about to answer him in some fashion—I still had no real idea where I was or what, exactly, had happened—when Alex went vaulting forward, the toe of his sneaker scraping across the top of my head. I heard the sickening sound of flesh hitting earth and I tried to turn, but I was stuck, held solid by this—dirt.

I stopped.

“I’m in a fucking hole,” I mumbled, awed. “I’m in a fucking hole!” I craned my head over my shoulder as far as I could get it. “Will, help me!”

Will had pummeled my attacker and was on top of him now, pinning him into the dirt, about to land a blow.

“Will?” I heard.

“Alex?” Will asked.

“Alex? Alex!”

“Lawson?”

“Oh, holy Christ.”

Will rolled off of Alex and pushed himself to standing, offering Alex a hand—which he didn’t take.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Alex spat.

“Why the fuck are you attacking her?” Will returned, throwing a gesturing arm my way.

“You’re trespassing at a crime scene.”

“Guys!” I yelled from my hole. “Guys!” I tried to dig my toes against the wall of the hole, but without the use of my hands—still bound by the narrow hole to my sides—all I could do was wobble back and forth uselessly.

“Sophie and I were here looking for clues. We were assigned this job.”

I rolled the abandoned flashlight with my chin so that both Will and Alex were illuminated. My stomach dropped when I saw the fire in Will’s eyes, the hard clench of Alex’s jaw. The guys were nearly nose to nose and spitting mad. Will’s hands were fisted at his sides, and Alex kept one hand resting on his holster.

“Guys!”

“I’m on this case. The SFPD is on this case, not the UDA. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’M IN A FUCKING HOLE, HERE!” I screamed.

Both Alex and Will swung their heads to look at me as though they had just realized I was there.

“Why are you in a hole?” Will asked, calm as ever.

“I fell in.” I gestured with my chin toward Alex. “I guess you thought I was an intruder. He chased, I ran. I fell.”

Alex’s ice-blue eyes washed over me. “I was just doing my job. We were staking out the Battery.” He jutted his head toward me in my hole, then cut his eyes toward Will. “Doesn’t look like you were doing much of your job.”

Will’s nostrils flared. “I am doing my job just fine. She’s not hurt. The Vessel is still intact.” He took a half-inch step closer. “It’s not like I lost it.”

“Guys?” I asked, half to diffuse the spitting glares between Alex and Will, and half because I was still stuck in a goddamn hole on the Marin headlands in the middle of the night.

“I didn’t lose it,” Alex said, biting off his words—and completely oblivious to my stump of a head in the dirt.

They were talking about the Vessel of Souls—before it was me. Alex stole it, which caused his fall from grace. There is much more to the story as it’s rather long and complicated and I was praying to God, Buddha, and Oprah that they wouldn’t go over the details now, while I stood in my HOLE IN THE GROUND.

“Really?” I screamed. “Really, guys? I’m down here. IN A HOLE. I fell into a hole that’s about as big around as my shoulder span. I’m in a hole!” I could hear the hysteria and panic rising in my voice, but I didn’t care, because my mind was suddenly full of all the bugs and maggots that climbed around underground, mere centimeters from my exposed skin.

Suddenly, I was an upright corpse and I swear to God there was a worm on my arm.

“Get me out of here!”

“How’d you end up standing upright in a hole?” Will wanted to know.

“Just get me out!”

The guys stared at me and walked around the hole as if somewhere I was hiding a spring trap door.

When Alex and Will shared a shrug and a glance, I realized that I would likely have to spend the rest of my life in this hole, begging for people to bring me marshmallow pinwheels or dig me out with soup spoons.

“Can you get your arms out?” Alex asked.

My enormous, exasperated sigh was lost in ten inches of damp dirt. “I can’t do anything. This”—I think I shrugged—“is what you have to work with.”

“All right,” Will said over my head. “I’ll take this side. I think we can slide our hands in enough to reach under her arms and pull from there.”

“From her armpits,” Alex clarified.

Will nodded and counted to three, and suddenly I was being remarkably molested by four strong hands. I tried to help, squirming in one direction and then the other, but that only served to first lob one boob into Alex’s hand, the other into Will’s.

“Those aren’t my armpits.”

“Sorry.”

On three, there was a larger-than-necessary groan, and I was free from my upright tomb. The fresh air whipping through my clothes was cold but freeing. I would have run, but the guys were still holding me, my feet six inches from the ground, dangling.

“You can put me down. I’m free. I’m okay.” I swung my head, addressing Alex and then Will. “Nothing’s broken or anything.”

But neither Will nor Alex was focused on me. Each of their heads were bent downward.

“We’re going to set you down, but keep your right foot raised, okay?” Alex asked.

“Okay, I guess.”

The guys placed me down gently, my one sneaker touching the tuft of soft grass in front of me, my right leg bent, foot swung in front of me. I could feel my eyes widen. My teeth started a chatter that had nothing to do with the cold. My stomach folded in on itself.

“Wh-wh-what is that?” I asked, pointing.

“Don’t freak out, Lawson.”

Will still had my arm as Alex whipped a Ziploc bag from his pocket and used it to gingerly remove the thing that was hanging from the cuff of my jeans.

He moved his hand and I saw what he’d picked from me as it crossed the yellow beam of light.

“Is that a—”

Will’s grip on my arm tightened and I heard Alex say again, “Lawson, don’t freak out.” This time his words were stern, but they did nothing to slow me down.

“That’s a hand! That’s a hand!”

I felt the heat shoot up the back of my neck and throb in my temples. Suddenly, I was doubled over, then on my hands and knees, my body jerking and heaving as I vomited.

I barely had enough time to register my rage when I heard Alex yell, “Keep it away from the hole!” because the sudden stench of moist dirt and decay assaulted my nostrils and I heaved again.

I felt Will’s cool hand lace through my hair as he pulled it back from my face, his other hand touching the small of my back tenderly as I sputtered and coughed, hot tears mixing with snot dribbling over my chin. I sat back on my haunches and Alex handed me his handkerchief. It may have been my nerves or my recent assault by a disembodied hand, but I thought I saw a flash of jealousy in Will’s eyes as I took the white cloth from Alex.

“What—whose—who does that belong to?” I croaked, dabbing at my nose and mouth.

Alex had the hand laid out on the plastic bag as Will shone a light down on it.

“Doesn’t look too recent,” Will said, squinting.

“Most of the flesh has been eaten away. Kind of hard to determine time of death at this point.”

My stomach lurched and I prepared for another round of vomit that thankfully, never came.

“It’s a female,” Alex said. He pulled a pencil from his pocket and pointed it toward the hand’s clawed index finger.

“Is that a ring?” Will asked.

“Looks like it.”

I crawled over, unable to help myself, and stared. Among the dirt and muck was a tiny band of something silvery, pushed up against the knuckle. “It has a stone in it,” I said, amazed.

Will pushed the eraser end of the pencil toward the stone that I pointed out and nudged the moist earth aside. A sliver of emerald green—muted and fogged—caught the light.

I swallowed heavily and sat back on my haunches, suddenly overcome with grief.

“Hate to break up the bio lesson but, wouldn’t you say where there’s a hand there’s probably—”

Alex glanced up at Will, his eyes reflecting the light. “An arm?”

Will nodded solemnly and they both looked at me. My heart thumped. “What are you looking at me for? I found that, I’m done for the night.”

Alex handed Will the flashlight as he pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. “I’m going to call this in. There’s probably a body in there.”

“A body.” I heard myself say it, the word dropping solid on the cold air.

Will rolled the extra flashlight to me. “Just take a look.”

I chewed the inside of my lip and begged that this hand had come upon this hole independently. But when the yellow streak of my light caught the glossy mud walls I’d had leaned up against, my stomach went to liquid.

Suri. Gretchen. Cathy. And now—Alyssa?

“It’s not a body,” I said slowly. “It’s a couple of bodies.”

Fingers of color were just starting to streak through the night sky as the police began making their way toward the bluff. A news crew followed the cavalcade and onlookers came behind them; I shuddered when Alex directed a few officers with metal gates to hold back the sudden proliferation of people.

“You okay, love?” Will asked.

I swallowed and sighed. “Yeah. Just got a very unfortunate case of deja vu.”

The last time I had been on a beautiful, grassy bluff overlooking the bay, I had also been at a crime scene. There, the bodies of two women had been found, decimated. And now, before the majority of the city even roused from their beds, the police were digging up the remains of more women. The realization was like a steel band tightening around my heart. I glanced toward Alex as he was meeting the coroner’s van in the parking lot.

“Sometimes it seems like we’re all under attack,” I muttered.

Alex tossed a glance over his shoulder as Will and I made our way toward the parking lot. I wanted to say good-bye to Alex, to explain—something—but exhaustion and a numbness that seeped all the way to my bones prevented it.