The Witch and the Huntsman (2 page)

“
You need to come in and report to me in person at our offices tomorrow, Allison. Let’s say noon.”
Click
.

Great. I knew I was in a whole boatload of trouble. That was all I needed now; to lose my job. Because everything else in my life was just going so well.

My so very, very
weird
life.

After I got off the phone, I wondered just how this reporting to her office thing was going to work. I’d never been disciplined by the powers that be before, not since high school, anyway. Would Donna just fire me? Would she cut me off the hotline’s computer network now, right this minute? I knew I badly needed to sit in my Spirit Chair, to meditate, get back in harmony with my own powers and Mother Gaia, and commune with the senior partner of the triad of witches I was a part of, Millicent.

But Millicent was dead, as I’ve said, and can only project her ghostly etheric spirit to me, and this got weaker and weaker as the moon waned. Tonight was the new moon, and even though I sent a super-strong signal of need out to her, I was getting nothing back. Ivy, the third and youngest member of our triad, was in Baja, California on a film shoot, and Samantha, my best friend and the vampire from whom I drew my psychic power after being fed on, was also off somewhere with her recently reconciled boyfriend, Kingsley.

Her
werewolf
boyfriend. So the darkest phase of the moon was their happy time. See? It isn’t just me. All my friends’ lives are pretty darned weird, too. I know I live in Beverly Hills, but still.

The Hotline ringtone buzzed from my computer, shattering the silence. Guess I wasn’t immediately cut off, after all.

“
Hi,” I answered it. “This is Allison. Thank you for calling The Psychic Hotline. How can I help—”

“
You’ve got to save me, Allison
!
” The voice at the other end was low and urgent, almost a rasping whisper. And it was no kid’s voice, either; this was a grown woman. And it seemed to me there was something familiar about her voice. When I reached out to touch her consciousness, all I could see was a blankness of white.

“
Have we spoken before?”

“
Marisa. My name is Marisa. Yes, you helped me once when I was getting over the trauma of losing my mom. I had you on speed dial. But I don’t have much time now, Allison.” I had absolutely no memory of what she was talking about, which was weird. Her voice sank even lower, if possible, so now I really did have to read her mind. “
He’s
coming for me.”

“
Who?”

Snow. I was seeing snow everywhere, that was why everything was white. A ski lodge? Suddenly I was sure I’d caught a glimpse of ski lifts in the background. But where was she calling from where people were skiing in the middle of the summer? Switzerland?

Normally, I don’t see things through other people’s eyes. I get ‘remote views’ of their faces, of where they’re calling from, their environment. But this was different. This time, I was seeing the world as Marisa was seeing it, feeling her terror, even thinking her thoughts. Too bad they were so full of panic, I couldn’t make much sense of them.

“
Who’s
coming for you, Marisa? Talk to me!”

“
Him
...the Huntsman. It’s really
her
who’s making him do it—you’ve got to help me.
Oh my God, he’s found me
! Please call the cops for me, Allison!
Please...
”

And then our connection went dead. And I don’t just mean our cell phone connection; I mean our spiritual link, too. I could no longer see anything through Marisa’s eyes. My consciousness was jolted back to my own living room.

It was as if she’d never existed
.

Chapter Two

I just sat there, trembling for a half minute before I realized I had to do something.

But what? The only clue I’d had was that view of white snow. And maybe some dark lines. Trees—a forest? Had I briefly glimpsed a mountain in the background? That wasn’t much to go on—I didn’t even know what state or even country she was calling from. The computer keeps a record of all our incoming calls, and her number was still on my laptop screen, but her cell had the same west Los Angeles/Beverly Hills exchange as mine: 424.

And I was pretty damn sure there wasn’t any snow here.

Normally, I’d rely on Millicent to bail me out, but she was still silent, though I kept having the feeling she was trying to get through to me. Maybe even urgently. Inhabiting the spirit plane, she probably knew a lot more about my mystery caller than I could find out even if I put a private investigator like my vampire friend Samantha Moon on the case. But what I needed now more than anything was a fix on Marisa’s cell phone number—and I knew only one person to call if I had any shot at getting that.

Detective Smithy.

I had his card. He was the homicide detective at my local police station, and we’d worked on a couple of cases together. Neither of which had exactly turned out so well, maybe, but at least the two of us had a healthy professional relationship. And after some of the crazy stuff we’d been through together, he didn’t scoff at the supernatural.

He was a bland-looking guy, a little older than me. I’m in my mid-thirties, so I guess that made him anywhere from thirty-sevenish to forty-two-plus. Which was about the size of his waistband, too, in my estimation. If not for that and his squirrelly cop mustache, Smithy might have even been kind of cute. I have to admit that whenever I was around him—and we weren’t, you know, battling demons or something—I felt an almost overwhelming urge to rip off most of his clothes, give his upper lip a good close shave, and then subject him to a couple of intense hours of weight training at the gym.

The other really great thing about him? He always works late, and seems to have no life. Pretty much like me. Actually, we’d have made a great couple—if only he didn’t look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. And if only my life wasn’t so weird.

He answered his cell on the first ring. Which was when I realized I didn’t even know his first name. ‘F. A.’ was all it said on his desk plate.

I explained the situation to him as quickly as I could. Spoken aloud, I guess it sounded kind of lame—but he hadn’t heard the terror in Marisa’s voice. I finished with: “So I was kind of wondering if there was anything
detectivy
you could do. You know, like trace the cell phone call back to where she made it. Or at least the closest tower or whatever, so I’d have some idea of where she was.” I noticed I was already speaking of the poor woman in the past tense.

“
No, I’m afraid I can’t do that, Allison. I’d like to help—you know I don’t doubt your, um, abilities and instincts about the supernatural, not after what we’ve been through together. But it would take a court order to cough up your Psycho Hotline company’s caller records, and even if I could get a judge to sign on, which is never gonna happen, it would still probably take another week to get PacBell or whoever to comply.”

“
What about the tower? Can’t you trace it that way? I’m always reading on the
Times
site that you guys are running your own illegal towers to snoop on cell calls. This is an emergency! Somebody’s life may be at stake!”

“
You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet, Allison. Besides, even if unsubstantiated rumors like that were true, we’d still be looking for a needle in a haystack. She didn’t call you on your own cell, right? If she had, things would be a lot easier.”

My heart sank. I knew he was right.

“
Look, it will be twenty-four hours before I can even put out a MisPer BOLO out for her.” This was cop-talk for a “Be On the Look Out for a Missing Person.” That much I knew from hanging around the station. “In the meantime, do some of your witchy stuff and try to bring me in something a little more solid—shall we say first thing in the morning? There’s nothing more either of us can do right now. Might as well sleep on it, am I right? You’ll feel better about this in the morning, I promise.”

“
Yeah, okay.” Like I had a choice.

“
Goodnight, Allison. Sleep tight.”

Was it my imagination or had his voice sounded sort of tender when he got off? Big deal, I told myself. It’s just that he’s as lonesome as you are.

***

He was right. I did feel better in the morning.

Maybe it was just the coffee, or maybe it was because I was a woman on a mission, but I felt freshly charged up and energized like a little Eveready bunny as I drove over to the Beverly Hills police station bright and early the next morning. Somehow, things looked better in the daylight —though I knew Sam wouldn’t have agreed, being a vampire and all.

Sam was not handicapped like poor Victor, who could only go out at night—which worked because it was actually kind of normal for Las Vegas, where we lived, but still was a giant pain for both of us. Sam, on the other hand, possessed a magical ring to ward off the effects of the sun’s rays. This had been forged for her by the occult librarian at Cal State Fullerton, Archibald Maximus.

The very cute librarian, even if he was really, really old. Because he totally didn’t look it.

Actually, right now, even as I drove down North Rexford to the station, I was wearing a ring he’d made for me, too. The thing was, I wasn’t quite sure what it actually did. I was still learning its powers. Whatever they were, they certainly didn’t include getting a good non-metered parking space anywhere near the stationhouse.

“
So what have you got for me?” Smithy asked after I finally found a spot for my banged-up old Toyota Camry and walked into his office. He was the only Robbery-Homicide detective at Beverly Hills, so that meant he got his own office. It was called the “squad room” or the “bullpen” in other stations, he’d told me; the main one downtown was half the size of a football field.

His wasn’t—it was about the size of my kitchen.

“
Consulted all your spooks and spirits?” He meant Millicent.

“
Nope.” I cleared a stack of file folders off the seat of the single chair across the desk from him and sat down. He’d cleaned up for my visit, I could tell; shined his shoes, put on his newest suit, and even trimmed his nose hairs. I felt flattered.

“
I still can’t raise Millicent. She’s not a morning person, anyway.”

“
What about your human partner, Ivy?”

He got that hungry, wistful sound in his voice that all men get when they ask after Ivy. She’s a knockout is why—and about ten years younger than me. She’s blonde, has a perfect figure, and glamorous good looks. He was probably hoping she’d tag along this morning, too. In fact, I realized that was probably why he’d gone to all the trouble with his appearance. Sigh.

“
Sorry, you’re out of luck. She’s off on a film shoot in Baja.”

Did I mention that Ivy’s talented, too? It figures she’s an up and coming actress. If we weren’t so bound up together now with this trifecta business, I’d probably hate her.

“
Anyway, I did come up with an idea or two for you in the night,” I went on. “It was the ski lifts in the distance that made me think of it. So first thing when I got up I went online and Googled ski lodges in the US. I’m pretty sure that’s where she was—is—and probably pretty close by, too. Because I’ve never actually established a close psychic link with anybody overseas.”

In point of fact, I’ve never even
known
anybody overseas, aside from in the military, but I didn’t need to tell him that; Smithy thought I was enough of a yokel as it was.

“
So I checked out a few ski lodges here in California, but they’re all closed right now because it’s summer. And you know, there’s a drought and all.” As I was speaking, Smithy was nodding and tapping away at his own keyboard while he stared at his monitor. “There’s only one ski lodge in America that’s open for skiing all year round—La Chasse Lodge in Oregon.”

“
Got it,” he said. “Good work, Allison—you’ll be up for my job at this rate. You sure this is the place?”

I nodded, beaming at the compliment. I’m a sucker for a well-earned compliment. Anyway, I was pretty sure it was the place; something inside me had sort of
hummed
when I first saw its web page. My Higher Self, the part of me that’s attuned to Mother Gaia.

The Great Detective brought up their Wikipedia page on his desk computer. “Let’s see...La Chasse Lodge, halfway up Mount Hood, opened in 1937, dedicated by President Roosevelt, blah, blah...looks kind of like that hotel in
The Shining
, doesn’t it?”

“
You’re not cheering me up.”

“
Sorry about that. Oh, I see. Turns out that all the exterior scenes for the movie were shot there, so not just my imagination. Let’s see, nearest police station is in Sandy...damn, that’s pretty far away. Oregon State Police has a substation in Government Camp, that’s pretty near. Hold on, I’ll give them a call.”

It took him a while, but Smithy finally got through to a sergeant on duty, who was named Robinson Doberman. Helluva name for a cop. Smithy next told this guy his name—still just the ‘F. A.’, no Fred or Frank or Ferdinand—and asked him if they’d had any reports of a missing hotel guest named Marisa, no last name.

“
No missing guests or strange women wandering around in the snow up there? Okay, well, thanks for your time, Sergeant—I’ll stand you a cold one next time you come down here to the Southland. Ha! Cold day in hell, he says,” Smithy said after he hung up. “Wonder why it is that everybody in Oregon hates California so much? I like it here.”

Which made me wonder if he was originally from someplace else. But I didn’t have time to ask—I was already on my cell scrolling for plane reservations.

“
What’s the nearest city to this God forsaken place?” I asked him.