Spencer's Cove

by Missouri Vaun

  Abby started to suggest that Iain could assist, but then remembered that today was his day off too.

  “I could call Iain. He helps with the horses.”

  “Better not to. The less regulars we involve the better.”

  “Regulars?”

  “People outside the family, if you know what I mean.”

  Abby figured she didn’t mean lesbian; she probably meant witch.

  Dena knelt next to Evan. She touched the pulse point on the inside of her wrist. She held up Evan’s palm and examined it, then Dena pressed her ear to Evan’s chest. Dena opened Evan’s eyelids. Her pupils were chalky white.

  “Is she dead?” Nausea threatened to topple Abby. She was kneeling on the other side of Evan. She rocked back on her heels to steady herself against the cabinet.

  “No, she’s not dead. But this isn’t good.” Dena furrowed her brow and rubbed her chin. “Whoever did this…it was someone close to her.”

  “By close you mean, here? In the house?”

  “No, I mean someone who knows her well enough to have access to her things. Probably access to personal items, like a toothbrush, hairbrush…something…” Dena didn’t finish the thought.

  She glanced up at the clock near the stove and then back to Abby.

  “They should be here by now.” Dena frowned.

  Abby shivered. She hugged herself and looked at Dena.

  “Why am I so cold all of a sudden?”

  ***

  Cold, that was the first sensation Foster became aware of. She was cold and wet, but it was the sound of metal against metal that pulled her from unconsciousness, not the cold. Her head bobbed, and when it did, she got a mouth full of seawater. She sputtered and coughed and swung her arms, splashing about. Foster’s foot slipped, but then found something to stand on. She wiped the salty water from her eyes and blinked. She was in some sort of cage, sunk up to her chest in the water. The bars of the cage were rough in places, slimy in others. She shook the bars, but they didn’t give. Jostling around caused the chain holding the cage to slip, and it dropped with a jolt, sinking deeper. The water was up to her shirt collar, and when small waves came through the bars it splashed her face. Panic raced through her chest like a freight train.

  “Help!” She tried to see what was above. The cage was in shadow. Was she under the pier? “Hey! Anybody up there!”

  No response. Foster took a moment to examine the cage. There was a latch at the front with a padlock. How the hell did she end up here? Her last memory was following Cruella de Vil’s twin sister down the street toward the pier. Who was that woman? Wait, she had a sneaking fear that she knew. The trail of dark matter Jai was tracking. Those two things had to be connected. The creepy woman must be a witch. She had to be. And not the Glinda-the-Good-Witch variety either. This woman reeked evil intent.

  Why had she agreed to follow the woman?

  Dumb, dumb, dumb. So stupid!

  Foster shook the cage in frustration. The motion caused the unstable chain to give another few inches. The entire contraption dropped again. Now the water was up to her chin. She clung to the top of the cage in an attempt to get her face above water.

  One thought crystallized for Foster—she was going to drown.

  Death had always just been an idea, a notion that resided in a far-off place called the future. But here she was, in a vacuum of fear, all the unsaid things flashing through her mind. She closed her eyes and made a silent wish. I want to live. More than anything she wanted a chance to hold Abby in her arms again.

  They’d had one night together. One fleeting night.

  The wind gusted, and successive waves splashed over her face making it impossible for her to catch her breath. Disbelief and terror squeezed her lungs.

  ***

  “I’m so cold.” Abby rubbed her arms as she got to her feet. “It’s Foster. Something’s wrong.” Abby looked at Dena. “She’s afraid.”

  Dena fished her cell phone out of her pocket. “The service here sucks.” She walked around the kitchen holding her phone out. “I’m getting one intermittent bar.”

  “There’s a phone in the library, a landline.”

  “Who doesn’t have a phone in the kitchen?” Dena frowned.

  “Cora hates to be interrupted while she’s cooking or during dinner, so we had it taken out.”

  “Show me the library then.”

  They practically jogged to the library where all the shelves were empty. She’d forgotten the tornado of books until they entered the room. Dena cocked an eyebrow and gave her a sideways look as they stepped in and around haphazard piles of books to reach the phone. Abby paced while Dena called Jai’s cell number.

  Something was terribly wrong. Abby could feel it as sure as she could see Dena standing in front of her.

  “Jai, where are you?” Dena frowned. “What do you mean you’re at your apartment? Didn’t Foster pick you up?”

  Panic bubbled up inside her chest. Abby swept her fingers through her hair.

  “Tell Jai to go search for Foster now…right now.”

  Dena had just started to explain the situation with Evan. She stopped talking and looked up. “Hang on, Jai.”

  “Something has happened. She’s trapped.”

  “How? What’s happened?” Dena didn’t seem to doubt Abby’s intuition. “Jai needs to know where to look.”

  Abby squeezed her eyes shut. She visualized Foster, the warmth of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the dark pools of her eyes. And then her pupils morphed into an opening that she could enter. She moved through darkness until there was nothing. She stopped moving and used her arms to turn, as if she were treading water. She was cold, she tasted salt on her tongue. If she listened closely she could hear the lulling, dull sound of waves lapping against an unmoving object and the air smelled of dead fish.

  Abby’s eyes flew open.

  “I think she’s somewhere near the pier.”

  “Jai, did you hear that?” Dena was silent for a moment, listening to Jai on the other end. “We’ll manage here. Go find Foster. Call us when you know something.”

  “I don’t feel so good.” Abby braced her arm against an empty shelf.

  “Without my bag and my book, I’m going to have to take an educated guess about Evan’s condition…” Dena was brainstorming out loud.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Save it.” Dena brushed past her. “Help now, throw up later.”

  How could she help when she sensed that Foster was in imminent danger?

  “Hey! Pull it together or we’re going to lose both of them!” Dena must have sensed her silent question. She faced Abby, a fierce expression on her face.

  “Okay.” The word was almost choked by a sob. “Okay, I’ll try. How can I help?” Abby tried by force of will to stabilize her stomach as she followed Dena back to the kitchen.

  “I need a straight razor.”

  “There’s one in my parents’ room. It belonged to my father.” Abby sprang up the steps to retrieve the blade.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Foster tried to hang onto the top bars of the cage, but her fingers were stiff and frozen from the chilled Pacific. Her teeth chattered making it hard not to swallow small splashes of salt water. The muscles in her arms trembled from fatigue and cold.

  “Foster!”

  She thought she’d imagined hearing her name. The moment she was above the water line and able, she’d called for help. She’d shouted until her throat was raspy, but no one had responded.

  “Foster!”

  There it was again. Was she dreaming?

  “Here…” She tried to shout but ended up coughing instead. “Down here!” She slipped her fingers through the top of the cage in an attempt to signal her location.

  A shadow figure breached the edge of the platform above Foster.

  “Foster, hang on!”

  Was that Jai? Foster was shivering uncontrollably now. Her head dropped below the surface. She sputtered
and blinked against the salty water. Something banged loudly against the top of the cage.

  “Foster, put the hook around the bars!”

  Her fingers were so stiff it was hard to move, plus she had to stop and push against the top of the cage for air. After a few fumbled attempts, she pulled the hook through and against one of the bars near her head. She sensed it the moment the cable was taut and the cage lurched upward. As she breached the surface gravity worked against the Levi’s jacket, soaked with seawater. Foster did her best to hold herself up, but cold, fatigue, and the sheer weight of her waterlogged clothing pinned her to the bottom of the cage.

  The winch whined loudly as the cage kept rising, and then Jai grabbed the edges of her small cell and swung it over the solid surface of the pier. The box came to rest with the awful sound of metal scraping concrete. Foster slumped against the bars. She was vaguely aware of a loud clink as Jai used bolt clippers to sever the padlock’s hold on the cage door.

  “Foster, how long were you in the water?”

  Jai struggled to tug her through the cage door. She was hardly any help. Her limbs were numb from the cold, stiff and clumsy. The wet clothing weighed down her already exhausted arms and legs. There was a wood railing along the edge of the pier and Foster slumped against it as soon as she was free from the trap, or whatever it was.

  Jai knelt in front of her. She systematically checked Foster over, moving her arms, touching her legs, checking her pupils. Foster knew on some level that she’d survived, but she ached all over. Every single muscle contracted, and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

  “Hey, stay with me.” Jai grabbed the front of the soaked jacket. “Can you walk? We need to get you into dry clothes.”

  Foster nodded. With Jai’s help she got to her feet and they walked away from the pier and up the hill. Foster stumbled twice, and she’d surely have done a face plant if Jai hadn’t caught her.

  ***

  Abby filled a large bowl with warm soapy water. Dena was kneeling beside Evan with the straight razor. Dena had drawn a rectangular pattern around Evan on the kitchen floor. Dena called the shape a rectangular pentagram. It looked different from the salt design on the floor in her bedroom. This shape had been drawn with chalk rather than salt, and as soon as Dena shaved Evan’s head, Abby would place white candles from the pantry in a half circle around Evan’s head and light them. This all seemed very bizarre, but in some odd way, it made sense at the same time.

  Dena’s phone rang and she fished it out of her pocket. “Hello? Hello? This connection is terrible. Text me.” Dena clicked off but held the phone until a message popped up on the screen. She showed the screen to Abby.

  Foster’s okay. We will come to you.

  Abby would have appreciated a bit more information, but she’d find out more when they arrived. Knowing Foster was safe would allow her to focus on Evan.

  Abby held Evan’s head off the floor as Dena cut as much of her hair away with scissors as she could, then she started to work slowly with the straight razor.

  “Why are we doing this?” Abby hadn’t asked and Dena hadn’t offered an explanation. Dena barked directions and Abby had simply followed them.

  “Usually for a spell like this someone uses the easiest source for the subject’s DNA. And that’s most commonly hair from a comb or brush.” Dena lathered more soap onto Evan’s scalp and slid the blade carefully up and around her ear. “We weaken the connection by removing the hair.”

  “And what if it wasn’t a hair sample they used?”

  “Then I hope Jai gets here with my supplies…because Evan is running out of time.”

  Evan was cool to the touch and her skin didn’t look normal; it was ashy, almost gray in color. The hardest area to reach was the back of Evan’s head. It took both of them to roll her onto her side so that Dena could gain access. As Dena wiped the remnants of hair and lather away with a towel, Abby could see that there was some intricate design on Evan’s scalp, a tattoo under her hair.

  “Well, well.” Dena rocked back on her heels, a half-smile on her face.

  “What is that?” Abby leaned in for a closer look.

  “The Helm of Awe.” Dena moved the razor and basin aside, clearing the space around the pentagram on the floor. “It was a symbol originally worn by Vikings for invincibility. See these?” Dena pointed toward the outer edge of the design which was made up of a circle, pierced by eight lines. Each line ended with three prongs, like a spear, crossed by three perpendicular shorter lines. “These are Z-runes…for protection and triumph over one’s enemies.”

  “What does all that mean?”

  “It means our friend Evan here is a regulation badass…that’s what it means.” Dena placed the candles in a semicircle. “Come on. Let’s bring her back.”

  Dena lit the candles and held her hands out for Abby to clasp them above where Evan lay on the floor, deathly still.

  “I’ll start, then you say the words with me.”

  Abby nodded. A shiver ran up her spine.

  “With faith there is strength, with strength there is power, with power there is light.” Dena voiced the phrase once more before Abby joined her. Softly at first. “With faith there is strength, with strength there is power, with power there is light. With faith there is strength, with strength there is power, with power there is light…with light there is truth.”

  Dena squeezed her hand. While Abby repeated the same phrase, Dena added a separate plea.

  “I call now upon the wellsprings of Hecate and ask that she lend her might to my spell.’’ Dena nodded, a signal Abby interpreted as continue, so she did.

  “With faith there is strength, with strength there is power, with power there is light. With light there is truth.” And after a few refrains, Dena joined Abby in the chant.

  “With faith there is strength, with strength there is power, with power there is light. With light there is truth.”

  Abby lost count of how many times they’d repeated the chant, when suddenly, the overhead light blew, raining glass down around them, and in the same instant, a gust of wind from nowhere extinguished the half circle of candles.

  “Did it work?” Abby had covered Evan with her body to protect her from the broken glass. She plucked a few stray pieces from Evan’s shirt.

  “Give it a minute.” Dena studied Evan’s face.

  A loud banging sound came from the front entry. It seemed odd that Foster would go to the front door, and if she did, why would she knock so loudly? Wait, that wasn’t Foster. Abby got to her feet quickly and then helped Dena up. They’d been kneeling for too long on the stone tile.

  As they approached the entry hall, Abby had the most unsettling sensation. Her skin tingled, and the air in the room seemed abnormally still, deadened, lifeless. She came to an abrupt stop when she saw the dark figure from her dream standing in the foyer, the ominous woman who’d said she was coming for Abby had been true to her word.

  “Who are you?” Dena stepped protectively in front of Abby.

  The woman oozed malicious intention. Abby instinctively took a step back.

  “I told you I would come for you, and yet, you seem so surprised to see me. I’m crushed.” The woman moved forward, her words dripping with sarcasm.

  “Who are you?” Dena asked again.

  “I am Leath Dane…what? Evan didn’t tell you about me? She didn’t tell you I was coming?”

  Abby sensed a trap of some kind, and she had no idea how to avoid falling into it. She was drawn to Leath and repulsed by her at the same time. Leath was tall, willowy, elegant, but with an aura of cruelty. Abby was afraid.

  “Back away.” Dena wasn’t giving up any ground. “Leave this house.”

  “I’m too powerful for some third chair, West Coast witch.” Leath sneered.

  Dena moved her hands as if she were forming an invisible snowball. Sparks leapt from her fingers. She hurled the electrically charged translucent sphere at Leath, who swung her arm, casting the missile aside as if
it were nothing. The charged particles destroyed an armchair and a lamp along the far wall of the large entry hall.

  It was as if they’d stepped into some green room where special effects were the norm. She’d never seen anything like what Dena had just done. Leath molded some darkly tinted sphere of her own and hurled it in their direction. Dena deflected it with raised arms and some sort of invisible force field like shield, but the strength of impact caused Dena to stagger backward. Abby caught her to keep her from toppling completely.

  “Abby, come with me. Come now and no one else has to be hurt.”

  Abby’s intuition told her that Leath was talking about Evan and Foster. At least she knew Foster was okay and with Jai. Evan’s condition was still an unknown.

  “Why are you here?” Abby tried to step in front of Dena, but Dena protectively blocked her.

  “I’m here to celebrate your birthday.” Leath stepped closer.

  “That’s far enough.” Dena held a palm up.

  “You have no idea how far I’ve come or how far I’m willing to go.” Leath’s expression darkened. Her pupils expanded so that her eyes went completely black.

  Leath made a swift, sweeping arc with her left hand, as if she were brushing a veil aside. Maybe she was. Without making physical contact, Dena was thrown across the room. She thumped against the wall and dropped to the floor.

  Abby held her ground as Leath came closer. She was close enough now that she could reach out and touch Abby if she wanted.

  “I’m not coming with you.”

  “Is that your final answer?” Leath reached in the air in Dena’s direction. When she closed her fingers into a fist, Dena cried out on the floor.

  “Stop.”

  “Stop what?” Leath opened and closed her fingers into a fist again. Across the room, Dena curled into a fetal position.

  “Why are you here? What do you really want?”

  “I want you. All of you.” Leath stroked a strand of Abby’s hair between her fingers. She cocked her head and smiled, which made Abby even more unnerved.