“That’s as near as I can figure.”
“Well, if these things that keep changing are the aftershocks, what is the main quake supposed to be doing?” Samantha asked.
“I don’t know yet. I feel like I’m close, though. There’s something they want and they can’t get at it.”
“I know what they want,” Samantha realized. “And now that I know these are timequakes, I know how they plan on getting it.”
“What?” Trina asked.
“You ever heard of the Hell Hole Cave?”
“Yeah. One of the coven members went down into it a couple months back, told us all about it.”
“Have you ever heard what’s down there?”
“I’m guessing you mean besides a bunch of clay faces and a guestbook?”
Samantha nodded.
“No, not a clue.”
“Supposedly, centuries ago a demon was captured and buried down there. The Hell Hole Cave was an access point so that once a year someone could go down and check that it was still there. Over time the earth shifted, cave-ins happened, and it became impossible to go down deep enough.”
“Do you think that’s what Giselle could possibly be referencing whenever she says ‘the last grave’? Maybe it’s the creature’s grave?”
“That makes more sense than anything I’ve been able to come up with,” Samantha admitted. “If so, she wants to crack that grave open.”
“Are you telling me they’re trying to shift time in that cave so it resembles the landscape from centuries ago?”
“That’s what I think.”
“So, they can, what, go down and have a peek at this thing?”
Samantha couldn’t help it; she started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Trina asked, eyes narrowed.
“How naive you are. You really think they just want to have a peek at it?”
“You don’t think they’d actually try to release it, do you?” Trina asked as the color drained from her face.
“I most certainly think they would.”
“Then we have to stop them.”
Samantha nodded. “Time to take down a coven.”
Trina grew even paler. “They’re meeting tonight. It’s the full moon.”
“I know. And I can’t think of a better time to try to pull off what they want to do.”
Trina put her hand over her mouth, and Samantha could see that she was shaking. She waited a moment and then she asked, “Is this your first rodeo?”
Trina shook her head. “My third. But the others, what they were doing was illegal, immoral, but nothing like this. And Randy was with me. He was a senior agent in the group. I’m one of the newcomers. This was my first solo assignment. It was supposed to be an easy one, mostly just keeping tabs. Not all dark covens become a true problem quickly. It can take years for the power to corrupt, new ideas to emerge. There’s been an active coven here for decades, dabbling in dark magic, doing things that might be immoral but weren’t illegal and certainly weren’t seen as a threat by the government. I was just supposed to observe for a couple months, make sure nothing had changed.”
“Well, something changed in a big way.”
“I know. And now there’s not even time to get someone else out here to help.”
Samantha stepped forward and put her hand on Trina’s shoulder. “You’ve got me,” she said softly.
Trina grabbed her hand. Samantha could feel the other woman’s fear and self-doubt. But beneath all that, she felt the surge of power, real power, raw and untamed. In a flash she saw snatches of Trina’s life. She had been raised without others of their kind. She hadn’t found anyone like her until she went to college. Right out of college she’d been recruited by Randy for this task force. She was still learning, growing, and she had no idea how far she could go, how much power she could harness. She might be a great agent, good at infiltration and undercover work, but she had no idea just how much power she had and what she could do with it if she unleashed it.
“You’re strong. Powerful,” Samantha said. “I can feel it in you. You’ve never really had to push yourself, though. That’s going to change tonight, but you don’t need to be scared. You have all the talent, all the ability you will ever need for this work. You are the right person in the right place at the right time.”
I just hope it doesn’t get you killed, she added silently.
Trina nodded. “Thanks. I needed to hear that. It’s true. I’ve never pushed myself. I’ve never really had to before.”
“Know your enemy and know yourself and in a thousand battles you will always be victorious,” Samantha said.
“Sun Tzu. Butchered a bit, but still fitting.”
Samantha forced a smile before she turned away to hide the worry in her own eyes. There was every possibility of Trina truly discovering herself tonight, but Samantha worried that she was going to lose herself.
“Ouch!”
Samantha turned. Freaky had emerged from under the bed and taken a swipe at Trina’s ankle, startling her and drawing some blood.
“Freaky, play nice,” Samantha said.
The kitten jumped onto the bed, where he proceeded to try to stare down Trina.
“Your cat is . . . disturbing,” Trina said at last.
Samantha smiled. “Freaky has been with me on and off for years.”
“An energy pet. That’s brilliant. When this is over, maybe you can show me how to make a ferret.”
“I will. I promise. Now, it’s time to prepare for tonight. You might want to go and get your gear.”
“It’s in the car. I never travel without it.”
“All right. Let’s get started.”
Trina walked outside and Samantha’s phone trilled. She had left the magic scrambler on it so she could receive any calls or texts she needed to. “Hello?” she asked cautiously, not recognizing the number.
“Detective Ryan? This is Winona Lightfoot.”
“Winona. How can I help you?”
“After you left, I had to go into the city for a meeting. I’m at the Museum of Natural History and I had the creepiest feeling.”
Like you were walking over your grave? Samantha thought but didn’t ask.
“I was thinking about what you said about the mountains and the cave. On a hunch, I went to check on this one geology exhibit that’s always fascinated me. There’s a stone tablet with very faint writing on it that I’ve never been able to make out. There’s never been a translation or anything on the plaques about it. None of the curators I’ve talked to over the years have been able to really tell me anything about it.”
“And?” Samantha asked.
“It was gone. There was a break-in at the museum a few nights ago and until now they didn’t think anything had been taken. It felt like it might be important, so I called.”
“Thank you. You were right to do so,” Samantha said as Trina walked back into the room carrying a black duffel bag. “You say you couldn’t decipher the writing?”
“No. I’m supposed to meet with a grad student at the university to help her with some research for her dissertation. It’s my understanding that she knows a thing or two about some of the older languages, and I had been thinking of asking her if she could read it.”
“Jill,” Samantha whispered.
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“Yeah. Listen, let me know if you think of anything else.”
“I will.”
Samantha hung up.
“What was all that about?” Trina asked.
“Apparently the reason Giselle was at the museum was to steal a tablet with some ancient writing on it. I guess it’s Winona’s luck that somehow she wasn’t there to try to stop her this time. I’m worried, though. Apparently, my roommate reads ancient languages. I’m wondering if Giselle figured that out and kidnapped h
er, hoping to get a translation of the tablet.”
“Stop Giselle and hopefully we’ll find Jill,” Trina said.
God, let that be true, Samantha prayed as she touched her cross.
* * *
A couple of hours later, Samantha was following Trina through the forest, headed for Cathedral Grove. They both were dressed in black cloaks and were carrying athames. Fortunately, they were able to park their car within a half hour’s walk of the grove. They were set to arrive early. Coven rituals happened at midnight.
She could still sense the fear and doubt that were assailing Trina. Samantha toyed with trying to calm her down, but knew that could backfire on them. Instead, she just hoped that if anyone noticed, they were also feeling the same way and took it as normal.
Around them the wildlife of the forest hushed as they passed by. The air was incredibly still. Inside her cloak, Samantha couldn’t feel the biting cold. It never got nearly as cold there as it did in Boston. Still, the temperature had crawled down to around thirty degrees, which was lower than it usually dropped. It was cold enough that her breath crystallized in the air, and she was grateful that she was wearing shoes and not going barefoot.
As they neared the circle, the air around them began to change even more. There was a sense of anticipation, of nature’s collective breath being held. It was hard not to hold hers as well. Spooky was the only word that came to mind.
Trina had told her that members of the coven didn’t have to ask permission to be absent from circle meetings. She had arranged for someone from her department to call one of the members of the coven with some fake news about a relative having been in a car crash and being in a coma in the southern part of the state. It had been enough to get the woman out of the way so that when Samantha joined the circle, no one would notice an extra person.
They were the first to arrive at the circle, just as they had planned to be. With regret, Samantha took off her shoes and socks. The ground was cold and hard, and she fought the urge to use magic so that she felt neither.
Then Samantha faced the circle. Remembering the lesson learned from her last visit there, she focused on her belief that she belonged inside the circle. When she finally stepped forward, it did not reject her. She passed through the energy barrier and stood on the inside.
She could feel the trees around her and the earth beneath her feet thrumming with energy. She thought about the ghosts that haunted this place, wishing she’d stopped to think about them earlier. She glanced around, hoping that the pervert ghost didn’t show up and cause trouble.
“Can you see them—the ghosts?” Trina asked as she stepped into the circle and stood next to her.
“I have, but I don’t see them now. I’m really grateful for that.”
“There’s such a sad one, a young man. I feel sorry for him.”
“Don’t. He’s not worth it. And for heaven’s sake, don’t do anything to attract his attention.”
Trina looked at her in surprise.
She regretted not having found out how to kill that particular ghost.
“Now what?” Trina whispered.
“Now we soak up all the energy that we can, because we’re going to need it.”
They began moving around the circle in opposite directions, going from tree to tree. At each tree, Samantha stopped and pulled energy out of it and into herself. It was uncomfortable, almost painful. The energy was so strange, tainted with darkness, stained with blood. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, though, and the more energy the trees gave to her, the less they could possibly give to anyone else.
She couldn’t worry about the trees outside of the circle. With any luck, no one would make it out of the circle to try to get it.
When they had finished, they both took some energy from the earth, but not nearly as much. Coven members who entered the circle would not necessarily touch the trees to feel the difference in them, but they would be touching the ground.
“Okay,” Samantha said at last.
“Do you think it’s enough?”
“It will have to be. Remember, once the fight starts, suck as much energy from the earth as you can. It will help us and prevent them from using it against us.”
“And now we wait,” Trina said. “Unfortunately, this is one thing I’ve gotten very good at doing.”
Samantha couldn’t help but smile at that. A hundred questions crowded her mind about Trina and the program that she was working for. Randy had said there were other front lines. Just how long had this section of the FBI been in existence? And what was their ultimate goal?
Now was not the time for questions, though. She and Trina stood, waiting patiently as the moon climbed higher and higher in the night sky. She could feel its pull on her just as the oceans did. Big magic was often reserved for the full moon, when there was more energy in the air and chaos was running rampant. It had the added bonus of making it easy to see what you were doing without the requirement of artificial light in the circle.
“Someone’s coming,” Trina whispered at last.
Samantha nodded. She could feel it too. A minute later, another cloaked figure stepped barefoot into the circle. Samantha wished she knew who it was. If it was Giselle, she could strike at her now and save a lot of time and effort. Take her down when she’s alone.
But whoever it was didn’t carry themself as a leader. Instead they stood silent, head bowed, not in prayer but in respect, in submission.
And the part of Samantha that she didn’t want anything to do with recognized weakness in the other and wanted to exploit it.
Steady, she cautioned herself. It would do her no good to take down this witch and expose herself prematurely. Fortunately, she could see others approaching the circle. The time for waiting was almost over.
One by one cloaked figures stepped inside. They began to stand in a loose ring shape. Samantha and Trina were positioned at the farthest end from the entry point. It wasn’t ideal. She would have preferred to be blocking the exit, but then she risked others getting too close to her as they entered and discovering who she was. Giselle, particularly, would likely be able to discern her presence at such close range.
It appeared that all had arrived, but clearly they were still waiting for someone.
Finally, Giselle entered the circle. Samantha could tell that it was her by the way she walked. The high priestess didn’t join the others by standing in a circle but instead moved into the exact center of the grove, allowing them to ring her just as the trees ringed them.
“Welcome tonight to this grand moment that will witness our triumph,” she spoke. She tossed back her hood and Samantha tensed, waiting to see if the rest did likewise. They didn’t.
“All our preparations have been for this night,” Giselle continued. “At last you will all see the fruits of your labors and you will be rewarded.”
Having witnessed firsthand what trying to raise a demon could do, Samantha would say that what was coming to all those assembled was anything but a reward.
Giselle raised her hands, and the dirt in front of her erupted upward, forming the mound that Samantha had seen the echoes of. She now realized it was representative of the mountain the cave was in, inside of which the demon was trapped.
A line in the dirt formed, cutting across much of the circle, including the mound itself. A fault line, Samantha realized.
The witch raised her athame high in the air and then plunged it down into the mountain. “Tonight we release enough energy to return the Hell Hole Cave to its previous form from three hundred years ago, and then one of us will be able to reach the creature and speak its freedom with these words.” She pulled a stone tablet from under her cloak.
Speak its freedom.
Samantha blinked as she suddenly understood. The point of expanding the cave and not just cracking the mountain open was that the binding spell on the creature had
to be undone by words and they had to be physically heard by the creature. That was diabolically clever of whoever had locked him up in the first place. It also explained why there’d been a yearly pilgrimage to see if he was still locked up.
“And we have someone who can read it for us,” Giselle continued.
She gestured, and one of the cloaked figures seemed to float closer, until she stood next to the high priestess.
“We have taken that which belonged to our enemy and made it to serve our purpose,” Giselle chortled. She threw back the hood, and Samantha’s worst fears were realized.
Standing there, eyes dilated and completely dazed, was Jill.
19
It took all of Samantha’s self-control not to leap forward, grab Jill, and try to run with her. That, she knew, would only get both of them killed. She gritted her teeth. She had to wait, pick her moment. Her body was already gearing up for it. Without even intending to, she was pulling energy again from the earth beneath her, preparing to make her move.
Next to her, she could feel Trina’s anxiety. The FBI agent was having even more trouble biding her time than she was. At this point, she might very well jump the gun. Samantha regretted now that they hadn’t worked out a prearranged signal, but she had honestly expected that Trina would follow her lead.
Giselle raised both hands toward heaven, and even though the night was perfectly clear, lightning flashed down, touching her hands and channeling through her and into the mound at her feet.
She felt the mixed emotions of those around her. Excitement, fear, jealousy, and anticipation mingled with her own anger in the air.
Even though it was not the first time Samantha had seen Giselle channel lightning, she still marveled at it. The amount of neurological damage she had to be doing to herself alone should have been a warning sign. What made the other witch so fearless? She thought of what her eight-year-old self had said.
“It’s amazing how much more you can accomplish if you don’t care if you live or die.”
Was that what made Giselle so formidable? In the end, did she not care at all for her own life? Samantha had a hard time believing that.
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