Under a Spell uda-5 Read online

  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 str
eak 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.

  Chapter Ten

  Once home, I showered and changed in record speed—fast even with Nina’s wrinkled nose and directive to “change into something that doesn’t look like I buried my Aunt Fanny in it.” I interpreted the Aunt Fanny crack to mean a never-been-worn pale blue cashmere sweater and a pair of charcoal-grey slacks that had miraculously become cigarette-slim while living in the back of my closet.

  “Way better,” Nina said, handing me a Fresca and a bagel in a brown paper bag. She shrugged. “You should probably go grocery shopping.”

  “We’re out of detergent, too,” Vlad chimed in, scaring the bejesus out of me. He poked his head over the top of the couch and grinned.

  “Look, I was out all night—”

  Nina held her hand out, stop-sign style. “No need to brag about your conquests with a C-H-I-L-D in the room.” Her eyes cut back and forth from the top of Vlad’s head to me.