Spellcasting in Silk: A Witchcraft Mystery (22 page)

“Yes, I’m Lily. Lily Ivory. I—”

“I have to warn you,” she cut me off, her tone urgent. “He’ll—”

Her words ended in a gurgle, and she tumbled off the wall, falling away from us.

“
Lupita
!” I cried out.

Patience and I gawked at each other for a moment, then scrambled over to her, slipping on the slick rocks as the daylight began to fade.

Lupita Rodriguez lay on the rough, rocky ground, writhing, her hands at her throat. Her eyes were wide-open, terrified.

I knelt by her side.

“What is it?” I demanded. “Lupita, can you speak?”

Lupita’s voice was a croaking whisper. “The painting. He has . . . painting—he’s using it to—”

Her words cut off in another gurgle. Above the roar of the ocean, I heard air whistling in her throat as she struggled to breathe. She looked at us, panic in her eyes.

“What is it? What’s wrong with her?” Patience asked.

“Someone’s casting against her . . .” I shone my flashlight into the nearby crevices, trying to spot a poppet. “Call 911!”

“My phone’s broken, remember?
You
call.”

Dangitall
. “I don’t have a cell phone.”

“What do you mean
, you don’t have a cell phone
? How can you not have a
cell phone
?”

“Why is that hard to understand?” I spat the words,
fear making me frantic. “We have to help her. Do you see anything? A doll, or . . . a painting? Someone is using something to cast against her from afar. Or else—go find a phone. Try the restaurant.”

Patience stood atop a wall and started shouting: “
Help
!
Call 911, we need help
!” She had an impressive set of pipes, but I feared the wind and the waves would drown out her words.

“You’ll have to go to the restaurant,” I said.

She yelled some more.

“
Breathe
, Lupita,” I said gently to the woman in my arms.

Adrenaline coursed through me, my heart was pounding, but it was essential that Lupita remain calm. The more she panicked the worse it would be. This was a classic witch’s trick, to make a victim complicit in her own demise.

“Try to relax,” I urged. “Just concentrate on breathing.”

But Lupita continued to struggle, not heeding my words.

And then a gunshot rang out.

Patience fell.

She disappeared on the far side of the wall.

“Patience!”
I scrambled over to her. She was on the ground, flat on her back. “Are you okay? Were you hit?”

She sat up, unhurt but spitting mad. “No, I’m
not
‘okay’! Someone just took a
shot
at me!”

“You’re fine,” I said, sagging in relief against the damp concrete wall, softened by moss. Frantically, I tried to think what to do.

Another shot rang out, striking the crumbling wall above our heads and raining dirt and pebbles down on us.

“We have to get out of here,” I said, ducking. “Someone will hear those gunshots, surely they’ll call the cops. But . . . I don’t think we should wait here.”

As if to underscore my words, another volley missed Patience by only a few inches. We both screamed. My ears rang with the blasts as car alarms wailed from the direction of the parking lot.

I wondered how Lupita was doing—was she shot?—but couldn’t risk checking on her on the other side of the wall.

“Why don’t you carry a
cell
phone
?”
Patience said. “What’s
wrong
with you?”

“Drop the phone thing already, will you? I’m sure someone’s called 911 by now, but for all we know the shooter’s on his way over here to finish us off. We have to get out of here.”

“Can we squeeze through that tunnel?”

Tunnel was a nice word for what was really a gap between slabs of fallen concrete. I shone the light into it; it seemed to be only a few feet long, and at the other end appeared to be a large open space.

“I think so . . . follow me,” I said. I was smaller than Patience and crawled in first, happy now for my less voluptuous figure. I took my medicine bag off and held it in front of me so it didn’t become dislodged as I was squeezing through—this also made it handy to concentrate on keeping myself calm. The rocks scraped and bruised me as I forced myself along the tunnel. It opened onto a chamber littered with beer cans.

“You can make it!” I called back to Patience. “Give me your hand, and I’ll pull you through.”

“I can’t!”

Another gunshot, another squeal of fear.

Panic flooded my veins.

“Patience?”
I yelled. “Were you hit?”

“No. But I . . . I don’t think I can make it.”

“Yes, you can
. You
have
to.” I reached back through the tunnel. “Take my hand. You can do it.”

With my other hand I stroked my medicine bag, and then I started chanting, rallying my concentration, focusing the energy of my emotions, letting my fear fuel my anger.

I pulled so hard my shoulders strained. Patience grunted and complained. I gave one final, mighty tug and she popped through, sending us tumbling on the sandy ground.

She looked around, then turned appalled eyes to me.

“This is
worse
! Now we’re trapped!”

“No we’re not,” I said, gesturing to a yawning square of black on the rear wall. “This way.”

I hunched over and started through the gap.

“Wait! I lost my flashlight.”

“Keep a hand on my shoulder, and follow me.”

We stumbled along, hoping against hope for a way out, but saw no sign of an exit. We appeared to be in a room used as a shrine of some sort. There were candle stubs and the remains of food set on a piece of driftwood arranged to form a makeshift table.

“What is this place?” Patience whispered.

“Probably just somewhere kids like to hang out.”

“I don’t like it,” said Patience.

“Neither do I. I was hoping for a way out. We have to get back to Lupita.”

“Screw Lupita,” Patience said.

“Patience, really.”

“Sorry if that sounds harsh,” Patience said. “I promise to mourn for her, but in the meantime I’m planning on getting the hell out of here. Priorities.”

I pointed the flashlight at her. The kohl that had outlined her beautiful eyes was running down her cheeks, and I hadn’t realized until that moment how frightened she was—how frightened we both were.

It dawned on me with sudden dread that I had left my backpack next to Lupita. If the person choking her went to see if she was dead and discovered it . . . I could be in trouble. Serious trouble. Someone with the power to cast from afar would find more than enough material in the backpack to make me vulnerable. Yet another reason to go back.

Once again, I willed myself to transform my fear into power. Closing my eyes, I started to chant.

“This is no time for your meditation crap,” said Patience.

“I’m not meditating,” I said. “I’m chanting. Or I was until you interrupted. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you have skills that would be useful in this situation? Something beyond profit-making scams?”

“Oh, sure, I’ll just pull up one of these boulders and use it as a crystal ball, shall I?”

“I’d appreciate that, yes. Thanks.”

“No need: I can already see the future. Three women found dead in the Sutro Baths ruins.”

“Way to look on the bright side, Patience. That’s exactly what we need right now.”

“Like you’re doing anything useful.”

“Let’s focus, shall we? We have to get out of here.”

“And just how do you suggest we do that?”

I scanned the stone and cement walls, casting the light here and there, hoping against hope for a crevice or small opening that I had somehow missed. But the only way out was the way we had come in.

Patience seemed to be reading my thoughts. “What if he’s waiting on the other end, with his gun?”

“We can’t stay here forever.”

A rat darted across the damp floor.

Patience screamed and lifted up one foot, then the other, as though dancing the tarantella. “Ew, ew,
ew
! I
hate
rats!”

I wasn’t particularly fond of them, myself. But as I watched the rat disappear behind a chunk of broken concrete, it gave me an idea.

“Help me move this,” I said. “I think there might be an opening behind it.

We pushed and grunted, finally budging the concrete boulder. Sure enough, there was an opening. It was hard
to see beyond it, even with the flashlight, but I could smell the salt of the ocean.

Unfortunately, the crevice was even smaller than the one we went through to get here. There was no way Patience would make it through.

I met her eyes.

“Don’t you dare leave me here,” she said.

“I’ll come back for you, I promise.”

“I was just kidding about the witch’s mark.” She started to cry. “I have a weird sense of humor, I know. I’m sorry.”

I reached out and hugged her, then leaned back, holding her hand, and looked into her beautiful eyes, now smudged with kohl.

“I promise:
I will come back for you
. Do you believe me?”

She nodded and sniffed.

“I’ll leave the flashlight with you. But you might want to save the battery. Just sit and stay calm, maybe meditate or something.”

“Meditate, just me and the rats?” She gave a humorless chuckle, and I joined her.

Pretty soon we were both laughing so hard we snorted. Our laughter had a hysterical edge to it.

“Okay, my grandmother used to say I was double-backboned. So I guess that’s good.”

“Sounds like it would make it even harder to fit through that hole.”

I laughed again. “No, it’s an expression. It means having a lot of guts. Or being so stupid that you’ll do anything.”

“Your own grandmother called you stupid?”

“Not in so many words. Maybe . . . she insinuated a certain lack of caution.”

“Lily, I . . .” She shook her head. “Be careful.”

“You worried about me now?”

She smiled. “Of course, I am. I don’t know if I can make it out of here without you.”

“I’ll be back. I think I need you to help me push through.”

Before heading into the hole, I took a moment to chant, and stroked my medicine bag. My magic could not move these mountains, but all I needed was an inch or two.

Handing my flashlight to Patience, I gave her one last hug.

Then I knelt and, holding my medicine bag out in front of me in one hand, started wriggling through the tight passage. Until I got stuck.

“
Push
,” I said.

I could feel Patience’s hands shoving unceremoniously on my butt. I had to fight the panic that bubbled up, and wondered whether I would be found like this, dead from a gunshot, or exposure, or asphyxiation.

But I kept chanting, concentrating on slipping through the rock crevice, using the panic to fuel my concentration, my focus.

Finally, I was spurred on by a puff of fresh air on my face. I felt bruised and scraped, but I managed to squeeze both shoulders past the opening of rock and concrete. After that, the rest was easy. Relatively.

“I made it!” I yelled back through the crevice.

“Where are you?” Patience’s voice was muffled.

“I—”

A man loomed in front of me. I screamed.

*   *   *

I held my hand up and let out a blast of power just as Sailor said, “
Lily!
It’s me!”

He fell back, striking his head on a jagged piece of concrete.

“Sailor!”
I cried, running to his side. “Sailor, I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?”

“I was just hurled against a concrete wall. Yes, I’m hurt.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize . . . But, if you’re complaining at least I didn’t knock you out.”

“What’s going on?” Sailor asked as he sat up, cradling his forehead in one palm. When he brought his hand away, it looked black in the moonlight. Blood.

“Sailor—”

He batted my hand away. “I’m all right. Just a flesh wound. Are
you
all right? What’s going on?”

His question brought me back to the gravity of the situation. I looked around but the sun was setting, and I didn’t want to use Sailor’s flashlight for fear of being spotted by the shooter.

“Someone was shooting at us. We went through a tunnel to escape, but got stuck. We were afraid to go out the way we came for fear he was waiting for us.”

“Who’s ‘we’? Is Selena here?”

“No, Patience. She’s still inside, I barely made it out.”

“
Patience?
Why is—never mind. We’ll straighten all that out later.”

“How did you know to come here?”

“I saw something. In my wine, believe it or not. I was at Renna’s for dinner, and I felt a wave of anxiety. I was about to take a sip of wine when I had a vision of the Sutro Baths.” He reached out and cupped my head. “Typical, plaguing me on a nice evening with my family. You sure you’re all right?”

I nodded. “A few scrapes and bruises, that’s all.”

Despite his fear for our safety, Sailor seemed pleased
to have been able to sense that I—or
we—
were in danger. His abilities were growing under Patience’s tutelage.

“Who was shooting at you?”

I shook my head. “We didn’t see who, but Lupita mentioned a ‘he.’ Sailor, I have to get back to her.”

“Lupita’s here? In the tunnel with Patience?”

“No, she’s over there . . . Someone was casting over her to prevent her from telling me something important.”

“Did she say anything at all?”

“Something about him having her painting.”

“So you think it’s the old artist, Fred?”

“I have no idea. But I have to get to Lupita,
now
. I don’t know how much longer she has. Would you call 911?”

“No need. The cops are already here.” He gestured toward the parking lot, where emergency lights flashed red and blue. When I stood and peered over the concrete bunker I saw uniformed officers with flashlights searching the ruins.

Surely the shooter wouldn’t still be lurking, would he? Would he be willing to take that chance, or so arrogant he thought he wouldn’t get caught?

“They’re going to want to talk to us,” said Sailor.

I nodded. “I have to see if they found Lupita and were able to help her.”

We made our way across the crumbling mounds of slippery concrete and twisted rebar until finally reaching the chamber next to where we had seen Lupita. Sailor and I sat with our backs against the wall for a moment, catching our breath. Sailor motioned to me and cautiously peeked over the top of the wall.

He sat back down.

“Anything?” I asked.

“She’s gone.

“As in . . . dead?”

“As in, not there.”

“Maybe the police got to her, took her to the hospital.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it.”

I stood and peeked over the edge.

Lupita was gone. But someone had left a note under my backpack.

*   *   *

We extricated Patience from our hidey-hole and then gave our statements to the police, a process that, I can say from experience, takes far longer than one would expect.

By the time we left the Sutro Baths, it was late. Sailor insisted we go to my place to talk everything through, Patience included.

Once Patience got over her teary gratitude at being rescued, she regained her haughty mien. Still, she elected to leave her car in the parking lot for the night. The police had found bullet casings on the ground nearby, and were treating it like a crime scene.

Sailor followed closely behind the Mustang, on his motorcycle.

“
Stop
it,” I said to Patience as she yanked the rearview mirror toward her, for the second time, to fix her makeup. “I need the mirror to drive.”

“What’s with this old jalopy? A
normal
car would have a vanity mirror.”

“You ever think about the literal meaning of ‘vanity mirror’?” I asked in my most innocent tone.

She didn’t deign to answer. Still, I was impressed that despite everything, she not only had hidden an eyeliner pencil somewhere on her person, but had managed not to lose it at the bath ruins.

I
, on the other hand, had been lucky to hold on to my medicine bag. I seemed to have lost an earring, and though I had recovered my backpack, the extra scarf I had brought was gone.

Probably taken by whoever left the note.

That thought chilled me to the core. I had worn that scarf, so it carried a trace of my energy with it. Not much, but enough for a skilled practitioner to focus intent upon me, to cast against me.