Under a Spell (17 page)

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 B
ATTERY
T
OWNSEND
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.