Long and Lost (The Bewitching Hour Book 3)

by Mallory` Crowe

  Sam shoved herself up and gasped for breath. She had only been under a second, but the water had been suffocating and seemed to be trying to ease in on her, causing a claustrophobia she’d never experienced before. She rolled her head to get the water out of her ears when she saw the changes. Whoa...

  Her bathroom was the same but... different. No, maybe she was the different one. All the colors seemed off. It was almost black and white, which was normal for her apartment, but there were little touches of gold as accents. She shook her head to try to get the water out, but then realized there was no water in her ears. It was almost like a white noise in the background.

  Was that something she should be looking for or was that the normal here?

  She stood and the dark water trickled down her body. It didn’t appear to be staining her skin, but she didn’t know how much of what she was seeing was real or a result of the spell. She looked up, but there was no giant in her doorway. “Derek?” she called.

  No answer. He had to be there. She didn’t believe he would abandon her. She walked out of the tub and pulled a towel off the nearby rack and wrapped it around her. The reports of this spell had been mixed, but she should have an hour or two before it wore off, unless something pulled her out.

  So she didn’t waste any time as she walked to her room and got dressed. She knew Derek could very well be right next to her and she’d have no idea. She decided to let that thought slip by.

  She pulled on a pair of black leggings and an oversized navy sweater. Something comfortable and warm. Then she put on a pair of sneakers and headed for the door. She tried to leave it open for a few extra seconds in case Derek was following her before she locked it. From there, she took the stairs down so the elevator wouldn’t get strange with her and an invisible Derek.

  Once she was outside, she let the spell take over as she looked around her. Even the air seemed to taste a little different, with just a hint of copper every time she inhaled. Blood in the air. Probably not a good sign....

  Even outdoors, the monotone theme continued on the cabs and town cars on the street. The buildings of the city were always a version of black and gray but now it was more so. And nothing was moving. There were no people on the sidewalks or inside the cars. She was all alone in the middle of the day in New York City.

  Strange but absolutely useless to her. Heather. She needed to find Heather.

  She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Her instincts and the spell would guide her. She could do this. When she opened her eyes, she knew what direction to go. It wasn’t clear or obvious, but just a small part of her was pulling west. So she started one foot in front of the other, carefully looking around her for any sign of something off.

  When she started to cross the street, she was suddenly thrown back a few feet and her entire body was surrounded by warmth. She caught her breath, but she knew exactly what happened. Derek.

  She’d started to cross the street. The street that wasn’t deserted in the real world. But the warmth was... wow. She’d never realized how cold she was until this second. Her eyes drifted shut. It was as if she stood next to a blazing fire and she didn’t want to leave. She took in a breath and she could smell.... It was familiar and masculine but she couldn’t place it at all. Was this what it was supposed to be like with Derek? Did they really burn this bright?

  She opened her eyes, but there was nothing there. Even though she could feel him right next to her, all she was... wait. There was something. Sam reached out and a little black flake fell into her palm. It had fluttered through the air like a feather and when she touched it, it disintegrated into nothingness. When she looked back up, she could see a few more of the little things.

  Sam left the warmth of Derek and started to trace where they were coming from. It was west... northwest. As she went farther and farther, there were more of them, almost like a black snow on the city except they all disappeared the second they hit anything.

  As she got closer, they also got bigger. It was probably a good ten blocks when it finally came into view. Sam caught her breath at the strange sight. It was a building she didn’t know. Older, with intricate arched windows and tile work up the side. Except the building was starkly black. It stood out against all the gray and white.

  Except the black wasn’t staying there. It seemed to be chipping off and blowing away. With Derek’s help, she crossed the street until she stood in front of the doors. It was like an inky coating over everything. She didn’t even know whether she’d be able to get the door open. The black stuff seemed to be forming an airtight seal over the building. She tentatively reached out a hand and touched the door; in a wave, the entire black covering crashed down. Sam jumped back and covered her head, but just like every other piece of the stuff, it disintegrated into nothing as it fell, never even touching her.

  She caught her breath and reached out for the door once more. This time, the push handle went right in and opened. The inside of the building was like the outside had been. Covered in black and decayed-looking. It used to be a reception desk, but it was eaten away at the edges and pieces of the desk were crumbling. There was a turnstile next to the desk that people would go through after signing in, but the metal had rusted and tarnished.

  The tile floor beneath her feet was cracked and crumbling. Each step was uneven and she was careful not to trip over the strange terrain. She was just about to reach the turnstile when she was stopped by something. There was nothing physical in front of her but she could feel it, like a solid wall. Was she walking into a wall in the real world? No. She didn’t know how she knew, but she was sure this was something the spell wanted her to see. This barrier.

  She put her hands on each side and pushed. The wall seemed to push back at her and Sam didn’t let it. She used every ounce of strength, physical and mental, as she shoved forward, finally letting out a guttural scream as she gave everything she had. Just like that, everything snapped.

  She fell forward, tripping over debris and tile until the turnstile stopped her. Everything looked the same but the colors were darker. There was a menacing chill in the air and then something touched her back. Sam jumped as she turned around to see Derek standing behind her. “You’re here.”

  “I’ve been with you the entire time.” Derek looked around them. “What the hell is this place?”

  Sam shook her head as she looked around too. “I have no idea. When I was under, it was surrounded by something. I think it’s cloaked by the darkness.”

  “By Heather,” said Derek.

  Most likely. It was so shocking to see. “The darkness has completely corrupted this place,” she said. “If Heather has been using this as a hideout, it isn’t recent. It would take years to get this bad.”

  “Reminds me of Tommy Collins’s apartment. It was falling apart but all the nearby buildings were doing fine.”

  “You were at Tommy Collins’s?” She realized how stupid the question was after she said it. “Never mind.”

  “So if this isn’t a recent hideout, what is it?” asked Derek.

  “It’s important.”

  Derek would’ve been happy if he never set foot in this building again. Not the creepy one with the decaying innards, but this beautiful, lavish high-rise that Claudia Harris called home.

  Sam nudged his shoulder, pulling him out of his pit of hatred for his girlfriend’s grandmother. “Tell her what you saw,” she said.

  Derek glanced to Claudia, who sat behind her large oak desk with the guard dog, Bastian, literally at her right-hand side. “Does she really want me to tell her or does she want to pretend I don’t exist for longer?”

  Claudia narrowed her eyes as she tilted her head back, looking down her nose at him as though to silently tell him he was just a peon she normally stepped over before moving on with her life. “I don’t have any knowledge of what you’re talking about,” she said primly.

  Derek wondered whether punching Sam’s grandmother in her face would hurt his chances with her.
>
  “Come on,” said Sam, giving him a warning look.

  Well, that answered that. “Like Sam said, I followed her as she went outside. Made sure she didn’t walk into a wall or get hit by a car or something. I followed her until she found the abandoned Marco Building.”

  “Except it wasn’t abandoned,” said Sam pointedly.

  “From the outside, it looked totally normal. There was even a security guard behind the reception desk. When Sam went farther inside, the guard was screaming his head off and pulled a gun. I tried to get Sam to stop but then all of a sudden it was gone. We were alone in this decaying place.”

  “And when we went back outside, the glamour was up. It was only once we were inside that it was broken.”

  “Interesting.” Claudia stood and crossed to one of her bookshelves, as though looking for something.

  Sam and Derek both remained seated as they followed her progression with their eyes. “Interesting and powerful,” said Sam. “Once the glamour broke, it pulled me right out of the mirror spell.”

  Claudia gave up, walking back to her desk with no book in hand. She wore long black pants, but not suit pants like her worker bees. These were all flowy stuff that almost looked like a dress when she stood still.

  “Okay. Thank you,” she said. “You’re excused.”

  Derek raised a brow and exchanged a look with Sam.

  “Excused?” she asked. “We just told you about an entire hidden building right down the street and we’re excused?”

  Claudia looked between them. “What did you want to do? Storm the place?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sam, the confusion on her face evident. “Something like that.”

  “Well, she wasn’t there when you were. Was she?”

  “No.”

  “So I’ll send Bastian to look around. Then once I have everything necessary in motion, we will storm the place.”

  Derek wanted to be annoyed but she was right. It would be stupid to run in guns blazing. No, he was still going to be annoyed. He’d just be annoyed and agree with her. Silently.

  “Samantha,” said Claudia then, diverting any and all attention from Derek. “I heard your mother is having a hard time.”

  “She thinks her mother and daughter are going to kill each other. Hard time is an understatement.”

  Claudia nodded. “You’ve done well tonight. You brought me what a lot of more experienced witches couldn’t.”

  Derek glanced up to see whether Bastian took that as an insult, but he didn’t seem fazed.

  “I think that for now, your time would be best served at Abigail’s side. The way she’s stood by you all these years.”

  Derek clenched his jaw but didn’t say anything. Bullshit. Claudia might care about her daughter, but that wasn’t what this was about. She wanted Sam as far away from him as possible. In this case, Connecticut.

  She had to tell by the fact that they were together that her little memory trick wasn’t working. Well, it had worked, but it would take more than that to keep him away from Sam. And now she wanted to at least separate them as much as possible.

  “You’re probably right,” said Sam.

  Even though it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, Derek understood. Just because Claudia was playing Sam didn’t mean she wasn’t right. Abigail did need her daughter. “Not right now.” The words echoed in his mind. Well, he and Sam were at least back to working together and that was one step closer.

  Without saying good-bye, because fuck pleasantries at this point, Derek pushed the chair away and stood. Sam was quick to follow to the elevator. “I think she was happy,” said Sam as the elevator started to descend.

  “I don’t think that woman would know happiness if it bit her in her magic wand.”

  Sam let out a little laugh and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “You know I can see you.”

  “Yeah, I, um, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Ask away. I’m an open book.”

  The elevator hit the lobby and they walked out, Derek keeping a fast pace so he didn’t have to stay there any longer than necessary.

  Sam kept up and once they were in the cool night air, he slowed down. He didn’t have any illusions, though. They might be out of the building, but if Claudia wanted to listen in, she’d be able to.

  Sam tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shifted her weight.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ve asked much stranger questions in my head.”

  She let out an awkward laugh. “I bet. Especially with all this stuff going on. I was thinking back to the mirror spell, though. I was wondering.... Did anything happen that you didn’t want to tell Claudia about? Something with us?”

  Derek immediately knew what she was talking about. “Sam, you were under the influence and—”

  “No. It was real. I felt... something. I don’t really know what’s happening and I don’t know what I don’t know, but I do know you aren’t lying to me.”

  Derek was fucking exhausted and almost nothing good had happened that day, but this explosion of joy hit him right in the chest at her words. He took a step forward until he was so close to her. Close enough to smell. Close enough to reach out and—

  Sam’s hand reached up and her fingers just brushed his cheek before tracing the one side of his jaw. “I’m so sorry you had to be put through all this,” she whispered.

  “Price of dating a witch, right? You’re dating a cop. Just wait until you find out all the baggage that comes with that.” Her eyes smiled back at him, but he could tell something was holding her back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Every single nerve in my body is telling me to kiss you right now,” she breathed. “Every instinct. Every thought in the back of my mind.”

  Didn’t sound wrong to him. “You know, I’ve learned to trust my gut.”

  She let out a small laugh but still didn’t kiss him. “I meant what I said. I do want to figure this out.”

  “But not right now,” he finished. His hands balled into fists, the only way to stop himself from touching her. He knew she was right. They couldn’t take precedent over everything that was going on around them. But he was fighting with the same urges as she was. He was fighting every instinct and every nerve ending each second he was around her. At least he knew he wasn’t alone....

  She pulled away first. “I, um, I made sure your number is back in my phone. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

  “Sounds good,” said Derek in a hollow voice.

  She walked over to one of her grandmother’s men and had him call her a car.

  Derek should be good for nothing at the moment, but he couldn’t go back home. Not with the charge through his body after.... With everything that had gone on today, he’d gotten almost no work done. Might as well go back to the precinct and do something.

  Anything to keep him from having to think about Sam while he was all alone in his apartment.

  Working late was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you weren’t relaxing at home when most of the city were hanging up their nine-to-five briefcases. On the other, the precinct emptied out so much that these late hours could be some of the most productive of the day.

  However, you could only really be productive if the goddamn printer would stop jamming. Derek gave the piece of shit a swift kick. Hard enough to get his point across but weak enough to not actually damage it much more than it already was.

  But all of a sudden, the fifty pages of documents he was trying to get printed started to shoot out. He let out a bitter laugh. “Guess Sam’s not the only one with powers.”

  The precinct was never really deserted, but people on the detective floor tended to work a slightly more regular schedule. Slightly being the key word. Voss wasn’t around to ask for status updates, and he wasn’t on call tonight, so he wouldn’t be pulled away to any crime scenes.

  Even though it was night, all the lights were on. The main difference was the si
lence. Anyone who was there was working hard and not there for socializing. They just wanted to get shit solved and go to sleep.

  Derek got back to his office and let the papers fall onto the desk. When he sat down, he glanced at the clock. Eleven. Not midnight yet. If he was at the office past midnight, then he’d start to worry. For now, he was going to keep on the productive streak.

  Then he heard a click-clacking sound that pulled him out of his thoughts. He knew that sound. It was heels clicking against the hard tile of the precinct. Except no one he knew wore heels like that to work. The women detectives liked to be able to run if needed, so even if they were in heels, they were shorter and chunkier so they wouldn’t hurt balance.

  Usually it was lawyers who wore the painful-looking shit that seemed to be purely for looks and did nothing for function. It wasn’t unheard of for a lawyer to be here this late.

  Derek craned his head to get a better view out the windows of his office, but the woman walking toward him was no lawyer. Before he could manage to stand or grab his gun, Heather Harris strolled right into his office.

  Heather smiled at him, as if nothing was wrong. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

  Derek tried to push himself out of the chair, but every muscle in his body seemed to seize up, keeping him trapped right where he was.

  “Oh, honey.” Heather walked around his desk until she stood right in front of him. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

  She set her hands behind her on his desk and jumped up until she sat right on the edge. Her black leather pencil skirt rode up as she crossed her legs. Not full-on Basic Instinct style, but it was obvious enough she was trying to be sexy.

  Derek had to hold back the urge to throw up. He glared up at Heather, trying to see what her next move was going to be. She hadn’t killed him yet, which was something. That meant she needed him, and that didn’t exactly fill him with a sense of comfort.

  The side effects of the dark magic were on full display. It was as if she wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore. The pupils of her eyes bled into the irises, almost completely taking over until there was barely a hint of green. Her long fingernails were now completely black and it looked as if even the tips of the fingers had been dipped in black ink. From what he knew, her hair was supposed to be turning black too, but it was still a bright platinum blonde. Probably still dyed.