by Shara Lanel
Thirteen days in a row she’d found herself in bed with a dry mouth and gritty eyes! She was so over this. Not that her being “over it” made a bit of difference to her subconscious. The morbid visions played out each night like a skipping record. She saw dead people, like that freaky kid in that Bruce Willis movie, but they never talked, never explained themselves. And why did they always have the same eyes in the end, brown with rich lashes and the faintest lines about the sides? Too bizarre.
The interesting thing about these dreams was that the locale was familiar. Distinctive. It wasn’t an anonymous cemetery in Anytown, USA. It was Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, her hometown. She recognized the giant stone pyramid dedicated to the Civil War dead and the black iron dog that stood watch over one of the graves. It was an historic place, with gravestones and monuments as far as the eye could see. One edge, near the Ginter mausoleum, overlooked the James River. And how could she not recognize it, considering she’d lived practically over top of it for four years?
But why dream of Hollywood now? And more importantly, why dream of strangers in their coffins? She didn’t recognize any of them. Their ages and races varied. They weren’t rotted or shriveled, so perhaps they were the recent dead, but what was the significance to her subconscious? She was not one to place New Age stock in dreams. Usually, she assumed that dreams were just her recent memories trying to sort themselves out for long-term storage in her overloaded brain. If she’d pictured dead relatives, that might make more sense. Her mother’s family had owned a plot in Hollywood since it had opened in the mid-1800s. Cut into a hillside, the family mausoleum had a wrought-iron gate front and stained glass windows high on each side wall, which let in an eerie light. Her Aunt Maeve kept the place free of cobwebs, leaves, and insects.
And inside that stone tomb both of her parents continued their eternal rest.
Diera slammed the water glass back to the wood surface of her nightstand a bit harder than she should have, splaying drops of water everywhere. She found last night’s T-shirt under her pillow and mopped up the mess. Then she popped a birth control pill out of the pack near the lamp, swallowed it quickly, and finished off the water. She took the pills to control her monthly cramps, because it wasn’t like she expected to have sex anytime soon.
The next question, she thought, as she dragged herself out of bed and fumbled for her light cotton robe, was what to do about these dreams. If she kept losing sleep, it was bound to interfere with her work. Blurry vision and diminished mental capacity were not useful traits for a computer programmer. Did she need to see a shrink? Antidepressants? Maybe she should chat with the lady at the New Age shop about dream interpretation. She snorted. Like she’d believe a word that flake had to say!
Or there was the most disturbing yet most obvious choice—visit her parents’ graves and confront the past.
She so did not want to do that.
* * * *
Holt Pendragon glared at the crinkled white satin inches above his face, as he resisted the urge to bang against it and scream. He was in a coffin again, listening to dirt smacking the wood lid. Someone was burying him alive … again.
Give it up. I know it’s a damn dream. Now WAKE UP!
Of course, he couldn’t wake up. He hadn’t seen her face yet. He hadn’t been overcome by panic, become delusional, and dreamed of her chanting a spell to set him free. Same damn dream night after night.
Can’t we just move things along here? It’s not like I don’t know how it’s going to end.
She always came to him, red hair so full of loose, bouncy curls that she had to pull them back from her lips in order to speak. Red lashes adorned worried emerald eyes that were speckled with gold and brown flecks. She had pale skin, pale for Virginia at least—if that was where she was—with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, very light. He might not have noticed the small brown dots, if her face hadn’t been right over top of him in each and every dream he’d had for thirteen nights.
Maybe this time she’d reveal her name. He snorted, which sounded muffled in the confined space. Unlikely, since the dreams were like repeats of Law and Order, exactly the same no matter what time, night, or station. The whole “addicted to her face” thing had been taken to a new level here.
If only he had a clue what the dreams meant. Tonight, though, he was trying to get the visions to reveal something new by refusing to give in to the panic. If he changed his response, maybe she’d change hers.
Or maybe he’d just never wake up.
And you’d think dreaming about the same woman every night would be erotic, but it wasn’t, because her face glowed above him like a moon hanging over the water. An omen, not a lover. And no breasts or other intriguing body parts were involved. He sighed and scratched his hip. He couldn’t reach the place that really itched, about halfway down his thigh. At least he had sensation in his body, so he knew he wasn’t dreaming of himself as a corpse. How morbid that would be. All he could figure was that this dream was meant as a warning: stay away from red-haired women or get buried alive. Fine. No problem. Just let him out of this coffin for good and he’d avoid them. And if it was just this woman he needed to avoid, great! It wasn’t like he even knew who she was, though he had a niggling feeling that he should.
But he really didn’t feel like the dream was a warning against the woman. He thought she might be helping him somehow, trying to save him. He smelled incense burning on charcoal, so he concentrated on the mingling scents and thought he detected sandalwood and wormwood, but there was something else, something obscure. Celandine perhaps? What was that used for? He’d have to look it up in his coven’s Book of Shadows … if he ever friggin’ woke up.
But this time he didn’t have to go through the complete ritual, because he was literally saved by the bell, the tinkling ring-tones of his cell phone to be exact. It encroached on his REM state sending the dream back into the mist from which it came. Who the hell was calling him this damn early?
He knew exactly what time it was, of course. Daybreak. It was always daybreak. Between the dream, his job, and preparations for the Samhain feast, he was running low. Perhaps at esbat, he’d ask the coven to send a little extra energy his way.
Whoever had called had gotten shuffled to his voice mail, so he flipped open the phone, dialed, and keyed in the code. “You have one new message.” Then he heard Rowena Malcolm’s voice. Rowena was the High Priestess of their coven, Night Mist.
“Holt, the dark magick in the area is growing stronger, more determined. I’ve called an emergency meeting at Lena’s this afternoon, if you can make it. I know it’s short notice with your job, but try to be there. Thanks.”
Holt snapped the phone shut and ran his fingers over the stubble on his chin. Rowena sounded shaken, and she was normally the embodiment of calm. Not good.
Leaning over the edge of the bed and scratching his head, he thought, time to shave. Shower first. No, coffee first. Shower and coffee at the same time…
He realized he was mentally babbling, so he walked to the windowsill and snipped a twig of thyme. This he crushed in his palm and held to his nose, inhaling the vigorous scent to smack his mind into shape. Much better.
He had several terra cotta pots on the wide sill, all brimming with fragrant herbs. Most were common varieties, like rosemary, parsley, and mint, but some were more obscure, like St. John’s Wort, which bloomed in a larger container in the corner, and chamomile, which was struggling, since he tended to forget to water it. He may be a witch, but he wasn’t the best green thumb.
As he went through his morning ritual—shower, breakfast, dressing—he thought about the repetitive dream and the dark magick Rowena had mentioned. Could they be related? If only he could see something besides the redhead’s face in the dream, something to give him a sense of location, tell him where to find her. Maybe if he could talk to her, he could figure out what was going on. For now, he’d best get his butt in gear and get to work.
* * * *<
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Diera’s day followed its usual course, a blur of numbers and letters coming together to make program code, customers on the phone complaining about weird error messages, lunch at the salad bar with Ed and Fran. A few hours later, the programmers who actually had a life, like Ed and Fran, had started gathering their things and clocking out. Diera didn’t have an actual life, unfortunately, and the only thing to look forward to at home was a microwave meal and the psycho dream.
A tall, slightly paunchy man with a full head of grey hair rounded the corner of her cubicle. “Dee, may I have a word with you?”
Diera’s boss, Lionel Jacobs, was the only person who shortened her name to Dee and lived to tell about it, and the only reason she let him do it was that he could fire her on a whim. Plus, she was inclined to cut him some slack, since he was a great boss when it counted. Like if she needed defending to an irate customer he’d have her back, or if she was running late from a dentist appointment, he’d let it slide. She’d certainly had other bosses in the past who’d been a lot less reasonable.
“Sure thing. What do you need?” She figured it had to do with the “Get Lost” account, which is what the programmers had affectionately named the latest GPS program they were working on.
Most of the work area was still brightly lit by a ceiling full of fluorescent bulbs, but, as the cleaning people made their way through the offices and cubicles, they turned down the lights when they finished each section. Silence reigned around Diera’s workspace along with the lively, fluctuating designs of various screen savers.
She leaned back in her ergonomic chair and checked out her boss’s eyes. He was in his late-fifties, married, with a wayward teenage daughter. A nice man, even if a bit bland for the most part.
He pulled Fran’s chair over and sat down. “Dee, I’ve heard you do a bit of photography on the side.”
She nodded.
“A bit more than photography from the way Ed tells it.”
“It never interferes with this job, sir.”
He smiled. “Of course not. You’re the first one here most mornings and the last to leave. I know that. No, this is a personal matter that I thought you might be able to help me with.”
Diera sat a little straighter. Her moonlighting job as an amateur private detective was something that had evolved out of her hobby of photography, and somehow her reputation had grown.
“Kim is missing.”
Diera gasped. “Missing? For how long?”
“A week.”
“My God! Did you call the police?”
“No, we didn’t.” He frowned and Diera did the same. It always made her suspicious if someone didn’t call the police before her, so she waited for him to explain. “Because we sort of know where she is.”
“Okay.” What did he want her to do then?
“She’s gone to Richmond to join a coven, to do witchcraft.”
She registered the disapproval in his voice, as she tried hard to keep the judgment out of her own expression. She’d been anti-Pagan for quite some time. In fact, she was anti-religion, anti-magic, and anything else that had the makings of mind-control or cult-worship. “That’s … interesting,” she said slowly.
“Obviously, her mother and I strongly disapprove, but we both believe we might push her away for good if we don’t allow her to spread her wings.”
“Bad idea.”
“You think so?”
She clamped her lips. None of your business. Repeat three times. She certainly couldn’t tell her boss about her experience with the occult, or he’d way overreact. Instead she said, “What were you thinking I could do to help?”
“I was hoping that you might go to Richmond, locate the coven, and take photographs—discreetly. Get a feel for what she’s up to, so we can figure out the best way to approach her to get her back. Is she brainwashed? Is it totally benign?”
“I doubt it’s benign.” There she went again, voicing her opinion. Shut up, girl!
“Really? I’d heard these Wicca groups just light candles and grow herbs.”
She blanked her face and focused on Fran’s screensaver, which was a multi-colored fractal. She refused to do any remembering while she sat here in her office. Those mental files were off-limits. “Yeah, maybe that’s all it is.”
“You’re from Richmond, right?”
“Yes.”
“So I thought you’d be the best person for the job. You’ll know your way around better, and I know I can trust you to keep this confidential. I’ll give you paid leave from here, of course, as long as you need, and I’ll pay you your going rate for this sort of service. And if by chance you can talk her into coming home, I’ll give you a very hefty bonus.”
Richmond was the absolute last place Diera wanted to go, but it was also the one place that might hold the key to getting rid of her cemetery dreams. And though she doubted Kim was as gullible as she’d been as a teenager, if she’d gotten sucked into anything remotely similar to Diera’s experience, then she owed it to the girl to get her out. Without another moment’s hesitation, she offered her hand to her boss. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you. You’re proving to be a very useful girl to have around.”
* * * *
That little exchange partially explained why she now sat at the edge of Byrd Park at midnight with a telephoto lens trained out her open car window. The other part had to do with looking up Richmond covens on Google and chatting with an employee at a freaky little shop in Northside. With her six megapixel digital camera, Diera watched a group of New Age freaks holding hands in a circle and walking clockwise, which made it very hard to get a good picture of anyone’s face. She’d debated whether to get out of her car and try to move closer, but beyond the gravel parking lot no decent hiding spots presented themselves. The neatly-mowed grass field at the base of the Carillon gleamed under the half moon and some nearby street lights. She had been surprised to see a coven performing their rites in a public space like this, but realized they must have gotten appropriate permission, probably under the guise of religious worship.
Diera squinted through the viewfinder and clicked off a few shots. She avoided cynicism in most areas of her life, preferring to stick to dispassionate facts, but witchcraft and Satan worship rubbed her the wrong way. And not because of ultra-conservative Christian values. She didn’t consider herself a Christian anymore either. No, this little pet peeve came from tragic experience.
When she’d first moved in with her Aunt Maeve at the age of fifteen, her many shrinks had told her that she should stick to blaming that one man, her rapist, and maybe her parents for not getting her away from him. More like giving her to him. She shouldn’t be blaming the whole world of religion. At first, she’d even sought solace in the Catholic Church. When that didn’t erase the flashbacks, she’d tried the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ. She’d even tried a synagogue and a mosque. In each, she’d found some doctrine or dogma she disagreed with, one question that the priest, minister, or rabbi couldn’t answer or refused to explain. A religion that couldn’t hold up to intelligent debate was not a religion for her. In the end, she’d had to accept that she’d never take anything on faith again.
Drawing her attention back to the field instead of her ornery thoughts, she noted that everyone in the coven wore street clothes. Sure, this looked like a happy coven, but Diera knew how deceiving that could be. The small altar in the center of the dancing ring was too small to put a person on, at least, and it held only a chalice, six candles, and an incense burner, as far as she could see. Probably some ex-hippy New Agers, like the lady in the shop near her apartment. Harmless and misguided, but even that could be dangerous if in the hands of a devious leader.
When the group, an even number of men and women, stopped chanting and threw their hands in the air, she heard laughter and talk. She couldn’t make out any words, but the faces held smiles. Backs were slapped and cakes were shared. Eventually in twos and threes the revelers made their way toward the pa
rking lot. Diera ducked down a bit more, as she trained her camera to get clear shots of each member of the coven.
She had a picture of Kim, her boss’s daughter, but she was beginning to wonder if he had the name of the coven wrong. She’d seen no sign of the girl at the Coven of the Night Mist gathering, and her boss had said two or three different names, all with the word “night” in them, so he’d obviously forgotten exactly what his daughter had told him on the phone.
However, Diera did see something at this gathering that truly disturbed her, more than finding Kim herself.
Her Aunt Maeve! The gentle, thoughtful woman who had attended church services with her and hung crosses over her mantle, out in the middle of the night, walking and giggling. Her broomstick skirt swirled about her legs and a billowing white top made her look younger than her fifty-five years, as she clutched the arm of a man Diera’s age. Oh, my God! Her aunt was in a coven! How could she do that to her?
Diera ducked completely out of sight as she heard car doors open and slam. Voices bounced off the trees, engines roared to life, and tires crunched over gravel.
A few minutes of silence told Diera that the coast was clear, so she leaned back in her seat with a heavy sigh.
“Hi.”
“Holy shit!” She nearly peed her pants when a man appeared at her open window. It was the man her aunt had been clinging to. She could barely see his face, since they were several feet from the nearest light post, but he wore a tight red T-shirt and she thought he was grinning. “You scared the crap out of me!” Damn. She usually kept her guard up better than that.
“Are you lost?” he asked. Mmm. Deep, rumbly voice that electrified her breasts.
“No, I’m not.”
“Do you need help with your car?” He leaned closer to the window. “A jump, perhaps?”
Diera turned the key in the ignition then the knob for the lights, so that the glowing dials on the dash lit her face and his. His eyes were very dark—she peered more closely—and somewhat familiar.
“Do I know you?”