Last Grave (9781101593172) (20 page)

“You're strong. Powerful,” Samantha said. “I can feel it in you. You've never really had to push yourself, though. That's going to change tonight, but you don't need to be scared. You have all the talent, all the ability you will ever need for this work. You are the right person in the right place at the right time.”

I just hope it doesn't get you killed,
she added silently.

Trina nodded. “Thanks. I needed to hear that. It's true. I've never pushed myself. I've never really had to before.”

“Know your enemy and know yourself and in a thousand battles you will always be victorious,” Samantha said.

“Sun Tzu. Butchered a bit, but still fitting.”

Samantha forced a smile before she turned away to hide the worry in her own eyes. There was every possibility of Trina truly discovering herself tonight, but Samantha worried that she was going to lose herself.

“Ouch!”

Samantha turned. Freaky had emerged from under the bed and taken a swipe at Trina's ankle, startling her and drawing some blood.

“Freaky, play nice,” Samantha said.

The kitten jumped onto the bed, where he proceeded to try to stare down Trina.

“Your cat is . . . disturbing,” Trina said at last.

Samantha smiled. “Freaky has been with me on and off for years.”

“An energy pet. That's brilliant. When this is over, maybe you can show me how to make a ferret.”

“I will. I promise. Now, it's time to prepare for tonight. You might want to go and get your gear.”

“It's in the car. I never travel without it.”

“All right. Let's get started.”

Trina walked outside and Samantha's phone trilled. She had left the magic scrambler on it so she could receive any calls or texts she needed to. “Hello?” she asked cautiously, not recognizing the number.

“Detective Ryan? This is Winona Lightfoot.”

“Winona. How can I help you?”

“After you left, I had to go into the city for a meeting. I'm at the Museum of Natural History and I had the creepiest feeling.”

Like you were walking over your grave?
Samantha thought but didn't ask.

“I was thinking about what you said about the mountains and the cave. On a hunch, I went to check on this one geology exhibit that's always fascinated me. There's a stone tablet with very faint writing on it that I've never been able to make out. There's never been a translation or anything on the plaques about it. None of the curators I've talked to over the years have been able to really tell me anything about it.”

“And?” Samantha asked.

“It was gone. There was a break-in at the museum a few nights ago and until now they didn't think anything had been taken. It felt like it might be important, so I called.”

“Thank you. You were right to do so,” Samantha said as Trina walked back into the room carrying a black duffel bag. “You say you couldn't decipher the writing?”

“No. I'm supposed to meet with a grad student at the university to help her with some research for her dissertation. It's my understanding that she knows a thing or two about some of the older languages, and I had been thinking of asking her if she could read it.”

“Jill,” Samantha whispered.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“Yeah. Listen, let me know if you think of anything else.”

“I will.”

Samantha hung up.

“What was all that about?” Trina asked.

“Apparently the reason Giselle was at the museum was to steal a tablet with some ancient writing on it. I guess it's Winona's luck that somehow she wasn't there to try to stop her this time. I'm worried, though. Apparently, my roommate reads ancient languages. I'm wondering if Giselle figured that out and kidnapped her, hoping to get a translation of the tablet.”

“Stop Giselle and hopefully we'll find Jill,” Trina said.

God, let that be true,
Samantha prayed as she touched her cross.

*  *  *

A couple of hours later, Samantha was following Trina through the forest, headed for Cathedral Grove. They both were dressed in black cloaks and were carrying athames. Fortunately, they were able to park their car within a half hour's walk of the grove. They were set to arrive early. Coven rituals happened at midnight.

She could still sense the fear and doubt that were assailing Trina. Samantha toyed with trying to calm her down, but knew that could backfire on them. Instead, she just hoped that if anyone noticed, they were also feeling the same way and took it as normal.

Around them the wildlife of the forest hushed as they passed by. The air was incredibly still. Inside her cloak, Samantha couldn't feel the biting cold. It never got nearly as cold there as it did in Boston. Still, the temperature had crawled down to around thirty degrees, which was lower than it usually dropped. It was cold enough that her breath crystallized in the air, and she was grateful that she was wearing shoes and not going barefoot.

As they neared the circle, the air around them began to change even more. There was a sense of anticipation, of nature's collective breath being held. It was hard not to hold hers as well.
Spooky
was the only word that came to mind.

Trina had told her that members of the coven didn't have to ask permission to be absent from circle meetings. She had arranged for someone from her department to call one of the members of the coven with some fake news about a relative having been in a car crash and being in a coma in the southern part of the state. It had been enough to get the woman out of the way so that when Samantha joined the circle, no one would notice an extra person.

They were the first to arrive at the circle, just as they had planned to be. With regret, Samantha took off her shoes and socks. The ground was cold and hard, and she fought the urge to use magic so that she felt neither.

Then Samantha faced the circle. Remembering the lesson learned from her last visit there, she focused on her belief that she belonged inside the circle. When she finally stepped forward, it did not reject her. She passed through the energy barrier and stood on the inside.

She could feel the trees around her and the earth beneath her feet thrumming with energy. She thought about the ghosts that haunted this place, wishing she'd stopped to think about them earlier. She glanced around, hoping that the pervert ghost didn't show up and cause trouble.

“Can you see them—the ghosts?” Trina asked as she stepped into the circle and stood next to her.

“I have, but I don't see them now. I'm really grateful for that.”

“There's such a sad one, a young man. I feel sorry for him.”

“Don't. He's not worth it. And for heaven's sake, don't do anything to attract his attention.”

Trina looked at her in surprise.

She regretted not having found out how to kill that particular ghost.

“Now what?” Trina whispered.

“Now we soak up all the energy that we can, because we're going to need it.”

They began moving around the circle in opposite directions, going from tree to tree. At each tree, Samantha stopped and pulled energy out of it and into herself. It was uncomfortable, almost painful. The energy was so strange, tainted with darkness, stained with blood. Beggars couldn't be choosers, though, and the more energy the trees gave to her, the less they could possibly give to anyone else.

She couldn't worry about the trees outside of the circle. With any luck, no one would make it out of the circle to try to get it.

When they had finished, they both took some energy from the earth, but not nearly as much. Coven members who entered the circle would not necessarily touch the trees to feel the difference in them, but they would be touching the ground.

“Okay,” Samantha said at last.

“Do you think it's enough?”

“It will have to be. Remember, once the fight starts, suck as much energy from the earth as you can. It will help us and prevent them from using it against us.”

“And now we wait,” Trina said. “Unfortunately, this is one thing I've gotten very good at doing.”

Samantha couldn't help but smile at that. A hundred questions crowded her mind about Trina and the program that she was working for. Randy had said there were other front lines. Just how long had this section of the FBI been in existence? And what was their ultimate goal?

Now was not the time for questions, though. She and Trina stood, waiting patiently as the moon climbed higher and higher in the night sky. She could feel its pull on her just as the oceans did. Big magic was often reserved for the full moon, when there was more energy in the air and chaos was running rampant. It had the added bonus of making it easy to see what you were doing without the requirement of artificial light in the circle.

“Someone's coming,” Trina whispered at last.

Samantha nodded. She could feel it too. A minute later, another cloaked figure stepped barefoot into the circle. Samantha wished she knew who it was. If it was Giselle, she could strike at her now and save a lot of time and effort.
Take her down when she's alone.

But whoever it was didn't carry themself as a leader. Instead they stood silent, head bowed, not in prayer but in respect, in submission.

And the part of Samantha that she didn't want anything to do with recognized weakness in the other and wanted to exploit it.

Steady
, she cautioned herself. It would do her no good to take down this witch and expose herself prematurely. Fortunately, she could see others approaching the circle. The time for waiting was almost over.

One by one cloaked figures stepped inside. They began to stand in a loose ring shape. Samantha and Trina were positioned at the farthest end from the entry point. It wasn't ideal. She would have preferred to be blocking the exit, but then she risked others getting too close to her as they entered and discovering who she was. Giselle, particularly, would likely be able to discern her presence at such close range.

It appeared that all had arrived, but clearly they were still waiting for someone.

Finally, Giselle entered the circle. Samantha could tell that it was her by the way she walked. The high priestess didn't join the others by standing in a circle but instead moved into the exact center of the grove, allowing them to ring her just as the trees ringed them.

“Welcome tonight to this grand moment that will witness our triumph,” she spoke. She tossed back her hood and Samantha tensed, waiting to see if the rest did likewise. They didn't.

“All our preparations have been for this night,” Giselle continued. “At last you will all see the fruits of your labors and you will be rewarded.”

Having witnessed firsthand what trying to raise a demon could do, Samantha would say that what was coming to all those assembled was anything but a reward.

Giselle raised her hands, and the dirt in front of her erupted upward, forming the mound that Samantha had seen the echoes of. She now realized it was representative of the mountain the cave was in, inside of which the demon was trapped.

A line in the dirt formed, cutting across much of the circle, including the mound itself.
A fault line,
Samantha realized.

The witch raised her athame high in the air and then plunged it down into the mountain. “Tonight we release enough energy to return the Hell Hole Cave to its previous form from three hundred years ago, and then one of us will be able to reach the creature and speak its freedom with these words.” She pulled a stone tablet from under her cloak.

Speak its freedom.

Samantha blinked as she suddenly understood. The point of expanding the cave and not just cracking the mountain open was that the binding spell on the creature had to be undone by words and they had to be physically heard by the creature. That was diabolically clever of whoever had locked him up in the first place. It also explained why there'd been a yearly pilgrimage to see if he was still locked up.

“And we have someone who can read it for us,” Giselle continued.

She gestured, and one of the cloaked figures seemed to float closer, until she stood next to the high priestess.

“We have taken that which belonged to our enemy and made it to serve our purpose,” Giselle chortled. She threw back the hood, and Samantha's worst fears were realized.

Standing there, eyes dilated and completely dazed, was Jill.

19

It took all of Samantha's self-control not to leap forward, grab Jill, and try to run with her. That, she knew, would only get both of them killed. She gritted her teeth. She had to wait, pick her moment. Her body was already gearing up for it. Without even intending to, she was pulling energy again from the earth beneath her, preparing to make her move.

Next to her, she could feel Trina's anxiety. The FBI agent was having even more trouble biding her time than she was. At this point, she might very well jump the gun. Samantha regretted now that they hadn't worked out a prearranged signal, but she had honestly expected that Trina would follow her lead.

Giselle raised both hands toward heaven, and even though the night was perfectly clear, lightning flashed down, touching her hands and channeling through her and into the mound at her feet.

She felt the mixed emotions of those around her. Excitement, fear, jealousy, and anticipation mingled with her own anger in the air.

Even though it was not the first time Samantha had seen Giselle channel lightning, she still marveled at it. The amount of neurological damage she had to be doing to herself alone should have been a warning sign. What made the other witch so fearless? She thought of what her eight-year-old self had said.

“It's amazing how much more you can accomplish if you don't care if you live or die.”

Was that what made Giselle so formidable? In the end, did she not care at all for her own life? Samantha had a hard time believing that.

“We seek to restore the cave to its old form,” Giselle intoned.

Around the circle, the cloaked figures stretched out their arms and clasped hands. The mingling of their energies would make them stronger.

Samantha grimaced but took the hand of the person on her right. She stretched her hand toward Trina, but she did not allow their hands to actually touch. In the darkness, it would be hard to tell that from just looking.

More lines appeared in the dirt, radiating from the mound like the spokes of a wheel to each person standing in the circle. They began to shimmer and pulse with energy. Giselle began chanting.

Samantha gave up any sense of subtlety and was pulling energy from the earth below her and the witch beside her.

“What on earth?” she heard the witch beside her mutter in a deep, male voice.

Giselle stopped in midsentence. “Who here works at cross-purposes to us?” she demanded.

Samantha remained still, motionless. She had learned from experience that it was better to wait and see who was accused than to give yourself away. There was a strong chance Giselle would pick someone else.

“I do,” Trina said, stepping forward and lowering her hood. “What we're doing is wrong. Thousands of people could get hurt, killed. You wouldn't want that, would you?” she asked as she moved her head, clearly trying to reach the hearts and minds of the cloaked figures around them.

Samantha could sense it wasn't going to work. Unlike Jill, the others were here of their own free will. And unlike Salem, they knew what it was they were there to do.

Samantha wrapped the fingers of her free hand around her athame, waiting, ready.

Giselle laughed. “I'm afraid you're going to find yourself very much alone.”

Trina lifted her chin even higher. “I'm not alone. I have my coven brothers and sisters, and they will support me because they know in their hearts that what we're doing is wrong and will have very deadly consequences.”

The witch who had been standing on Trina's left lunged forward, athame in hand, and prepared to plunge it into Trina's back.

Samantha threw her own athame and it buried itself in the attacker's chest. That was the signal everyone seemed to be waiting for. In a moment, fireballs were streaking through the night.

Samantha hadn't been sure how many of the witches would actually fight. She was dismayed when she realized the answer was
all of them
.

Two witches leaped on her, bringing her to the ground. One began to stab at her with an athame while the other put his hand on her stomach and began pulling something out of her. For a moment Samantha thought he was trying to grab energy from her, but it felt different, strange.

Suddenly her mouth became very dry and her skin felt sunburned all over. She fought against them both, sending energy blasts into them. It did no good. Both witches just seemed to absorb what she sent at them.

Samantha's lips felt incredibly chapped, and a moment later she smelled blood as they split.

He's pulling all the water out of me, dehydrating me,
she realized. She redoubled her efforts, determined not to end up as a petrified corpse in the middle of the Redwoods.

She threw her hands up toward the sky like she had seen Giselle do. Lightning came down, hit her. The electricity rushing through her body hurt worse than anything she'd ever known. But the resultant shock threw the two witches clear of her.

She could feel her body begin its rapid healing, desperately trying to fix the damage as fast as it could. She needed water and badly, but that would have to wait. She stumbled over to the one who had been doing that to her, and while he was still on the ground recovering from the electrocution, she broke his neck.

The other witch, she stabbed through the heart with her athame. The dagger was supposed to be a ritual tool to help focus energy. In a pinch, though, it killed someone pretty quick.

The energy she had soaked up before the coven had arrived was gone, the majority of it focused on healing her body. She needed more fast.

And then something the ghost had said came back to her.
In the end, we're all just energy.
She looked around with new eyes, and instead of seeing ghosts, shadows of people that had once lived, she saw energy. And with crystal clarity she knew what she had to do. “Show me the ghosts,” she whispered.

And then the spirits were swirling around her, reenacting their death throes. Trapped energy.

“What is going on?” the ghost who had kissed her demanded as he strode up to her.

She thrust her hand into the middle of his chest and pulled the energy into herself.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice rising in panic.

“Saving the world,” she said. “And stopping you from hurting anyone else is an added bonus.”

He thrashed and screamed, but rapidly faded until she could barely see him and could no longer hear him. She closed her eyes, gave one last pull, and all the energy was hers. She could feel the moment he left and knew that it was forever.

She opened her eyes and directed a lightning bolt at a witch battling Trina across the clearing. It struck the man in the chest, and he fell to the ground dead.

Samantha spun and plunged her hand into another ghost, draining it as well. She used it to down another witch. Trina saw and immediately began to copy her. The ones they were battling had yet to figure out what they were doing. Samantha waded into a small cluster of them. She slashed the throat of one woman with her athame and stopped the heart of another with a well-placed jolt.

She saw Giselle leave the circle, Jill on her heels.

“No!” Samantha screamed, heading for them.

Two more witches ran toward her, and she yanked out their intestines.
Just like my younger self did to the witch at the Boardwalk,
she realized as she ran past them.

She paused in front of the ghost of the little girl she had seen before. She was a recording only, not sentient like the young man had been. But as the last of the energy drained from her into Samantha, something stirred in her eyes and she looked up at Samantha.

“Thank you,” the ghost child whispered.

Samantha nodded and then drained the energy of the girl's ghost attacker.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trina go down, and she ran to her. The FBI agent had her stomach slashed open, and her eyes were starting to roll back in her head.

Samantha killed the witch who had done it before he could attack Trina again.

“You're going to be okay!” Samantha told Trina.

Trina handed Samantha car keys. “Go stop them. Don't worry. Enough energy here to help heal me.”

Samantha shook her head fiercely. “We drained all the ghosts.”

“The old ones, not the new ones.”

Samantha turned and looked. Everywhere in the circle, ghosts were standing up from their bodies wearing various expressions ranging from vacant stares to bewildered frowns.

“Go get 'em,” she whispered to Trina, and then Samantha crammed her shoes on her feet and took off at a run.

She had paid attention to the way they had come to get to the grove. Trina had told her everyone parked in the same place. It was close and isolated. Giselle would be heading for the Hell Hole Cave, and she would need her car to get her and Jill there quickly.

I'm coming, Jill. Hold on.

Samantha ran with everything she had in her, hoping she could catch the others before they made it to the cars. Tree branches reached out for her, trying to entangle her. She pushed them back with small, measured bursts of energy. When roots reared up to try to trip her, she leaped over them.

An enormous felled tree suddenly appeared across her path. Samantha knew it hadn't been there earlier. Going around would take too much time. Climbing over it would present its own challenges.

It's not real, just an illusion
. She was willing to bet everything on that. So, she ran straight into it and then through it. As she emerged on the other side, she fought the urge to shout with triumph. Her instincts had been right. It had been nothing more than a mirage.

A fireball exploded into a tree two feet away from her, and she forced herself to keep running. She couldn't see Giselle and she was willing to bet Giselle couldn't see her either.

The closer they got to the cars, the more fireballs whizzed around her. She knew she was gaining. She could feel it.

Then a wall of energy seemed to hit her hard, propelling her backward. She flew through the air and landed on her back with a grunt. She jumped to her feet, her own hands forming fireballs that she then had to release out to her sides. She couldn't risk hurting Jill.

She made it to the parking area just in time to see a silver car speeding away. Samantha slid into Trina's car and floored it. Tires squealed as they sought to gain a purchase on the ground beneath.

Giselle knew the roads better than she did. Samantha could see her taillights ahead of her, but she could never quite catch up to her. Every time she pushed the accelerator too hard, they'd hit another sharp turn and her car would swerve out of control.

For a moment she panicked, thinking she'd lost the other car. She rounded two more turns and then saw it parked off to the side of the road. Samantha parked her car and leaped out. Giselle and Jill were already gone.

Samantha ran up the side of the mountain and reached the Hell Hole Cave. She stared at the opening. There was no grate partially covering it now, but that made it no less frightening. She touched the rock inside and could feel the subtle vibrations. Giselle and Jill had gone inside. Samantha couldn't risk trying to incapacitate Giselle from where she was because it might hurt or even kill Jill, depending on where they were in the climb and how completely Giselle had control over her mind.

Samantha was going to have to go in after them. She formed a ball of light with her hands and dropped it into the cave so that she'd be able to see what she was doing.

Samantha got down onto her stomach and shimmied backward into the cave opening. The way was narrow, and when she'd gone just a couple of feet, she couldn't see outside anymore. She felt completely claustrophobic and wanted nothing more than to crawl back out.

You can do this. You have to,
she told herself. She forced herself to keep backing up, scooting over rocks. Then she reached a place where she could stand up. She turned to look around. The reddish brown rock had a few salamanders crawling over it. She kept going but tripped painfully over some tree roots in mud. She came to a rope that led down to what had to be an eighty-foot drop. She held her breath as she climbed down.

The walls closed in again, and she had to twist sideways to get between them. When she emerged into another larger cavern, her heart was racing. She wondered how far the cave extended. She guessed that depended a lot on when the cave was created. The older it was, the farther it should go, free of rock slides.

At last she made it to the cavern of clay faces, and she shuddered. There were only a handful there, leading her to believe this couldn't be the modern form of the cave. Also, there was no guestbook to sign. On the far end, another incredibly narrow passageway led deeper into the earth.

After she squeezed through a particularly tight place, the tunnel seemed to open up again. It was still steep, but at least it was slightly wider.

If something happens to this cave, I'll never make it out alive,
she realized.

Her shins and ankles were completely bruised, but her body was too busy still working on the other injuries to be of any help. She started limping. And then, at last, she heard something ahead of her in the darkness.

She paused and listened.

Footsteps. She had to be getting closer to Giselle and Jill. She dimmed the light as much as she could and continued to move forward as carefully and quietly as possible.

The rocks on either side brushed against her shoulders, and she had to start walking stooped over because the ceiling was getting lower. Another long slope presented itself, and she started down it, twisted her ankle, and fell hard.

She slid down the rock slope on her chest, trying not to scream in pain. When she landed at the bottom, she pushed herself up off the ground with arms that were shaking uncontrollably.

Why had Giselle come here? They hadn't completed the ritual. There was no guarantee this cave as it was would get her within earshot of the demon.