by Krista Walsh
On the sixth recitation, Allegra stumbled, jerked forward as if someone had grabbed the belt of her robe. She caught her balance and stepped backward, but met with resistance. Her words echoed back at her as though she spoke them to a solid wall, and she chanted louder, certain that she was close to the end.
Her pulse raced and her heart pounded in her ears as the draugr energy closed in on her. A band wrapped around her throat, preventing air from filling her lungs, and panic burned her esophagus with its acidity. The draugrs’ power was greater than she’d realized, and as spots closed in on the edges of her vision, she doubted whether she could succeed against them.
But they wouldn’t be fighting so hard if she weren’t close to getting rid of them. She firmed her mind and braced herself against their push. Her strength slipped, but she caught it. She stoked her anger to fuel herself. Sweat dripped down her stomach.
The screams in her head grew to a fevered pitch, blocking out all other sound in the garden. They wrapped around her head and squeezed, sending a sharp pain down her neck. The energy was so strong, so close to choking the breath out of her. In her mind, she saw darkness rise out of the grave like smoke and encircle her, obscuring all other thought and leaving her mind hazy. Her muscles weighed down with exhaustion and her lips felt too numb to form the words she needed to speak.
With her eyes squeezed shut against the wind and flying dirt, she couldn’t see if Cody and Matthew were suffering the same attack, but beyond the static of the voices in her head, and the fog created by the darkness, none of them broke the cadence of the magic.
Another tug came, and her foot slipped forward on the edge of the hole. She toppled back into the grass and mud, landing hard on her tailbone and the heels of her palms, but she continued her chant. She couldn’t give up.
Once more Allegra began at the top of the verse, and this time when she reached the end, the force of the wind was so strong she had to turn her face away to avoid having her breath stolen from her.
The braid between the three chanters pulled tight, and the dark energy trapped between the strands snapped. The earth trembled, and one last cry rose into the air. Then the garden fell into silence.
13
Allegra opened her eyes. She looked down at her robe to find it spattered with mud, stones, and leaves. At some point near the end of the chant, the rain had abated to a soft sprinkle and the clouds had lightened. Although she doubted it had anything to do with the spell, she was grateful the storm had lasted as long as it had. It seemed to have kept all the other guests and staff inside and well away from their back corner of the garden.
Cody and Matthew were on the ground. Matthew was already rolling himself up onto his elbows, but Cody lay still.
Allegra scrambled to her feet and rushed around the edge of the hole to kneel next to him. She ran her hand over his head and her fingers came away smeared with blood. Icy dread tightened her chest, squeezing her heart up into her throat. She was the one who had pushed him to stay. It would be her fault if anything had happened to him.
“He must have hit his head on the planter as he came down,” she said to Matthew, her words tight and stiff. She gave Cody’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Cody?”
Matthew eased to his feet and stumbled over to them, kneeling on Cody’s other side. He pressed his fingers against the younger man’s neck. “He’s still breathing, but we should probably call for an ambulance.”
Cody groaned. “Never mind that. Jeez, man, you can’t take a hint. I was hoping the lady would give me some good old-fashioned resuscitation.”
He opened his eyes and flashed Allegra a wink and a shaky smile, then winced and touched his fingers to the back of his head. “That did hurt like hell, though. Trust me to choose the stupid spot to stand.” Allegra and Matthew supported his back as he sat up, and he stared into the hole. “Did it work?”
“Did you not feel it?” she asked. “The power that pushed you back?”
Cody shuddered. “I don’t know what the hell just happened, but that was wilder than any ride I’ve been on. If that was magic, I don’t think I like it.”
“I guess there’s hope for you yet if you’ve stopped laughing at Allegra’s theory now,” said Matthew. Allegra threw him a reproving look, and his mouth quirked.
Cody frowned. “Of course I’m not laughing. I almost peed my pants I was so freaked out.” He looked up at Allegra. “Are they gone?”
“Yes,” she said. “I believe it worked.”
The presence that had lurked in the hedges had disappeared, which was a good start.
Allegra’s breath came easier and the vice around her heart loosened its grip as the burden of her mission fell from her shoulders. She rose to her feet and, with Matthew’s help, raised Cody up between them.
Gone was the taste of blood on her tongue, and when she wiped her sleeve across her face, it came back clean except for the mud. She closed her eyes again, and in a blissful reprieve, didn’t sense anyone watching her. The energy of the hotel still swam in a thick murkiness, but she couldn’t expect the change to take place all at once. There was still a murderer within its walls.
She found herself smiling, and when she opened her eyes again, Matthew and Cody were staring at her as if she’d gone mad.
“What? Am I not allowed a moment to celebrate my success?”
“Of course,” Matthew said, the amused twinkle returning to his eyes. “But there’s still the matter of this dead body we need to address.”
Allegra’s haze of victory cleared, and her shoulders slumped. “Oh, right. Very well. I suppose we should all return to the hotel and phone the police. Although how we are to explain finding her escapes me.”
***
The Garden Hotel guests milled around in the common areas as the crime scene search team worked the back corner of the garden. When the police had first arrived, whispers began about what might have happened, but when word spread that a body had been found under the asters, all pretense of silent curiosity vanished. Now the sounds of two dozen people talking over each other echoed from the dining hall, with guesses being passed around over Lee’s lunch menu about who the corpse was and who had killed her.
Tim stood in the lobby, steaming, his hands clenched at his sides.
Allegra leaned her shoulder against the doorway to the sitting room and watched him. She wondered if his anger came from having his work disrupted and his guests inconvenienced or from having his dirtiest, darkest secret unearthed.
Matthew paced the room behind her — the rich spice of his cologne making her mouth water whenever he passed near her — but she didn’t turn to look at him. She hadn’t spoken to him since they’d returned to the hotel, and as things stood, she didn’t intend to. Their mission was complete, and they could go back to the way things were before. Only another few days in this once-cursed hotel, and she would be free to pretend it had all been one more nightmare haunting her dreams.
A chair creaked from under the window as Cody shifted in his seat. He’d dropped down in the armchair when the police had escorted them to the room and had lost himself in an outdated fishing magazine that had been lying on the coffee table. She doubted he was actually reading it. The window offered a good view of the garden, and even if most of the crime scene was blocked by hedges, he would still be able to make out the bustle of activity. He hadn’t said much since they’d come inside, too wound up in his thoughts.
Allegra didn’t blame him for his distraction. He’d had his eyes opened to another side of the world today. Such a change required many mental adjustments.
The side door opened, and two detective sergeants stepped into the hotel — the same pair who had come following Monique’s death. Neither Avery nor Kealey appeared happy to be making a second trip within the same week.
Detective Avery, his auburn hair plastered over his forehead from the rain, extended his hand to direct Allegra back into the sitting room, and he and Detective Kealey followed her in. Kealey, her hair pulled
back in a ponytail and her makeup perfect in spite of the weather, closed the door and leaned against it, crossing one foot over the other. She pulled her notebook and pen out of her raincoat pocket and stood poised to write, while Avery peeled off his soaked coat and draped it over the back of a chair. He crossed his arms, creasing the material of his cheap but well-fitted suit.
“This is the second body you’ve found this week,” he said.
Allegra raised her shoulder in a shrug. “You cannot believe I had anything to do with putting this one in the ground. I have never been a guest of this hotel before.”
He cupped the back of his neck. “We can at least agree you have a nose for trouble. How did you know where to look for her?”
“As it happens, I was not the one who found this woman. That honor was left to these men.”
“Mr. Austen? Mr. Walker?”
Allegra’s muscles tightened as Matthew cleared his throat. This moment would be the first test of his promise to keep her secret. In the time that had passed, she’d been so focused on not speaking with him that she hadn’t thought of going over the statement they would give to the police. She kicked herself for the oversight. One slip of his tongue would bring about questions she would have to work around. She had enough practice to make her lies smooth, but her thoughts were so jumbled after the attack in the garden that she wasn’t certain she would be able to keep them straight.
She held her breath and listened as Matthew said, “There’s a rumor that the hotel is haunted, and that maybe the paranormal events people have experienced over the years are connected to a murder that happened here over a decade ago. I was bored and had some free time, so I decided to do a bit of searching.”
“What led you to the garden?” Avery asked.
Allegra cast Matthew a glance in time to see him shift on his feet and shove his hands into his pockets. A relaxed gesture to a casual observer, but she recognized it as a way to buy a moment’s time. “It was the asters that put the idea in my head. After the freak snow storm last week, I thought it strange the flowers should have bounced back so quickly. If this was a paranormal situation, it made sense for there to be a connection.”
Allegra closed her eyes, thinking he might have come up with a better lie. Yet the smoothness of his delivery suggested he’d thought it through while they’d waited for the detectives to arrive.
He chuckled. “Not to say I believe in the paranormal, of course, but how often do you end up in a place with such a rich history of ghosts and have the opportunity to poke around? The shovels were there, the hole had already been started — I couldn’t resist.”
Allegra didn’t miss the glance Avery and Kealey exchanged at Matthew’s comment. Their expressions were so unexpected it took her a moment to recognize them for what they were, but after she had, her eyes widened: they knew the stories were true. There had been no disbelief in that glance, only distaste, as though they’d expected the explanation would be unusual.
She wondered what they knew that she didn’t, and if their knowledge might have helped her sort out this problem sooner. Perhaps before the draugr had tasted her.
“Did you touch anything on the corpse?” Avery asked, returning Allegra’s thoughts to the bigger issue.
“No one touched her once we found her,” Matthew said. “I was there the entire time. I sent Cody to find Allegra, and then it was just the three of us.”
“Why did you send for her and not for us?” Kealey asked.
Allegra mentally kicked Matthew, although she didn’t see how he could have found any way around the truth. She was still in her bathing suit, so clearly she hadn’t gone into the garden to take in the sights. In the rain, no less.
“She had also expressed an interest in discovering what might be causing the haunting,” Matthew said, and by the waver in his voice, he was clearly aware of the weakness of his explanation.
From his chair, Cody snorted. “Oh, come on, you’re taking all the fun out of the hunt. The fact is I’ve worked here for six months and all I’ve heard about are these walking dead corpse things that lurk in the shadows. So when it came up that they were maybe here because of some murder twelve years ago, I figured why not check into it? Become the man who solves the mystery of the hotel. That’s why all of us were there. It was a chance to be like those brothers on that TV show who drive around in their old Chevy looking for demons to kill. I don’t care how grown up you are, that shit is cool.”
Allegra turned to him with a quirked eyebrow. For someone who had been so shaken up a moment ago, he’d managed to come up with a perfect cover story.
“A man with your instincts should consider joining the police force,” Avery said, his tone dry. “If you have nothing else to add, I think that’s all for now. You might be charged, or at least billed, for the damage you’ve done to the property, but that will be up to the owner to decide.”
Allegra considered letting matters rest as they were. She’d done what she’d set out to do. Penny’s body had been found and the draugrs had been cut off and left to starve. As far as she was concerned, she could return to the remainder of her photo shoot and put everything else behind her, knowing that when she returned home, she would be safe.
But the image of Tim standing in the lobby, his face red and his hands shaking with fury, hovered in front of her, and the small part of her that, as Matthew had pointed out, enjoyed “stirring the pot” couldn’t let the situation stand. Somehow, Tim had been strong enough to slip out of her allure, and he knew that she suspected he was guilty of the crime. If the police walked out and left him behind, she worried he might come after her, hoping to silence her before she gave away his secret.
“I have reason to believe the corpse to be the previous owner of the hotel,” she said. “And I think her nephew might have been the one to kill her.”
Four pairs of eyebrows shot up. Matthew took a step toward her, as though in support, and Cody’s mouth fell open.
“What makes you think that, Ms. Rossi?” Detective Kealey asked.
Allegra gave them a summary of Lee’s story, leaving Lee’s name out of it — Cody might know about her visits to the kitchen, but she didn’t want word getting around that she voluntarily spent time with the staff — then told them about her conversation with Tim.
“If you believed he was involved in something like murder, perhaps it wasn’t the smartest decision to confront him on it,” Kealey said.
Allegra knew she was right. She’d been overconfident, so sure in her skills that she’d jumped too far ahead without considering what might go wrong. Her mistake might have put her directly in the murderer’s target lines.
But it wouldn’t do for anyone to believe she’d acted without thinking, so instead of agreeing with Kealey, she grinned. “I rarely walk on the safe side, Detective, but I can take care of myself. I just thought you might be interested in what I’ve learned.”
Detective Kealey closed her notebook and nodded to Avery, who released his crossed arms. “Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. Make sure that one of the officers has your contact information so we can reach you if we have any follow-up questions.”
Matthew and Cody assured them they would. Allegra kept her eye on Kealey as the two left the room, then followed them through the lobby. She approached the stairs and watched out of the corner of her eye as the detectives walked up to Tim. She averted her gaze, not wanting to draw his attention.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “No, I will not go anywhere with you to answer questions about something I had no idea happened. This is my place of business and I have things I need to attend to here.”
“Mr. Banks,” Avery said, dropping his voice so most people wouldn’t hear him. Allegra took her time climbing the stairs and tilted her head to better decipher his words. “I understand you’re busy, so we can either speak here in the comfort of your office or you can come with us to the station and make your statement there.”
“Statement?” Tim
blustered, drawing the attention of everyone on the main floor. “I have no statement to make. I have no idea what’s going on. What has that woman said — what has she told you?”
Allegra tightened her grip around the railing and looked over her shoulder at Tim. He stood glaring at her, his brow furrowed. Kealey took the man’s arm firmly in her grip while Avery grabbed the other, and they hauled him out the door.
Tim cast one last look over his shoulder before he disappeared, never ceasing his protestations, and Allegra’s heart vibrated against her ribs.
Had she just made another mistake? What would he tell them when he reached the police station? Would he try to steer suspicion in her direction or hint at her otherness to the detectives? A low groan slipped between her lips, but she shook off her fears. It was too late to change what she’d done. She would just have to prepare for the consequences.
As soon as Tim was gone, the guests poured out of the dining hall and gathered in the lobby to watch the police cars drive away. A few people went to the windows on the garden side of the hotel to watch the crime scene technicians still at work in their blue coveralls. The rain that had stopped while Allegra answered the detectives’ questions started again, pelting down and swirling on the wind. It battered against the peak of the white tent that appeared above the hedges where they’d set it up around the hole in the ground.
She scanned the faces in the crowd and spotted Courtney near the reception desk, her expression full of questions that Allegra was in no mood to answer right now. Making her escape before the production manager could approach her, she left the gawkers to their guesses and headed up to her room. Her legs wobbled with her morning’s exertion, and her eyelids were weighed down with exhaustion. She longed to wash the chlorine out of her hair and change out of her mud-spattered outfit. Even with her resistance to the elements, the cold wind on her bare legs had been enough to set a chill in her blood, and she thought tonight might be the perfect time to indulge in that bath. Especially now that there would be no chance of any dead fingers reaching out for her.