Last Grave (9781101593172)

  “What did you see?” Samantha asked, feeling her voice drop to a lower register as she tried to soothe Jill.

  “Your clothes. One moment they were fine and the next moment they were shredded, bloody. In the blink of an eye, just like it was magic.”

  Samantha squeezed her eyes shut, cursing herself for being so careless.

  “How is that possible?” she heard Jill ask.

  Samantha opened her eyes and met her roommate’s stare. “You got it right, Jill. It is magic.”

  And Jill began screaming again.

  11

  “Quiet!” Samantha shouted.

  It had the desired result. Jill stopped screaming. A moment later, though, Samantha realized it wasn’t of her own will. Jill’s mouth was still open, but no sound was coming out.

  Samantha wanted to collapse. It was all too much. She wasn’t prepared to deal with any of this. And now that she had inadvertently muted Jill, there was no way out of this but a full explanation.

  “I’m going to go get changed and then we’re going to talk,” Samantha said. “Do you understand?”

  Jill nodded, mouth still open, eyes wide in terror.

  “Please don’t scream,” Samantha said. She released Jill’s voice, and the tail end of the scream echoed out before Jill snapped her mouth shut, staring warily at Samantha.

  Samantha turned and headed toward her bedroom. Nothing about the day was going well; that was clear. She changed into her warmest, fleeciest pair of sweats. The shower would have to wait, as desperate as she was for it. She headed out to the kitchen, determined that she’d at least have cocoa. She made them each a cup and brought Jill’s to her, hoping it would work as a peace offering.

  Jill took the mug, staring at it as though it might be poisoned. She set it on the coffee table.

  “Jill, it’s time we talk,” Samantha said, sinking down on the far end of the couch.

  Jill looked at her and nodded slowly. She turned off the television and drew her feet up under her on the couch.

  “Let’s deal with what you just saw a bit later. I wanted to talk about what happened when we tried to capture the person who’d been texting you.”

  “This is about how I ended up in the park yesterday with no memory of how I got there?”

  “Yes. Now, we’ve been friends for years, right?”

  Jill nodded.

  “What I’m going to say is going to sound a bit crazy and so I need you to just trust me and keep this between us.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Jill said.

  It was more than Samantha had hoped for.

  “I believe that the person who lured you out of the coffee shop and into the park was using a form of mind control on you.”

  “You mean like hypnosis?” Jill asked, her brow furrowing.

  “Yes, something just like that,” Samantha said, struggling with not wanting to tell her the whole truth. “I believe that she might have gotten some piece of information or something from you before I could find you.”

  “Is that what you were doing just now, some kind of mind control?”

  “I said I want to talk about that later. I want to just focus on yesterday at the moment.”

  Samantha felt like a coward, but she knew that once Jill heard the word “witch,” the chances of her becoming hysterical and completely uncooperative were high. She needed to get what information she could out of her before that happened.

  “Okay. You know I’ve been racking my brain and I still can’t figure out what Winona’s killer would want from me.”

  “Me either. But the killer knows.”

  Samantha took a sip of her hot cocoa. Jill’s still sat untouched.

  “And you think that if they hypnotized me, which would explain my moving a few blocks and having no memory of it, that they might have said something to me or asked me something while I was in that state?” Jill asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “And you’re going to ask me to undergo hypnosis to see if you can retrieve that memory, aren’t you?”

  Samantha nodded, keeping her eyes glued to Jill’s face.

  “And just who do you propose that I go to in order to have this done?”

  “Actually, I know how to do it, if you’ll let me.”

  “Somehow, I’m not surprised,” Jill said, her face expressionless and her tone neutral.

  Samantha stared at her, struggling to figure out what that was supposed to mean. She reached out slightly, trying to sense what Jill was feeling, but there was such a mixture of colliding emotions and thoughts that it was impossible to pick out a dominant one.

  “So, will you let me try?” Samantha asked.

  Just do it. You don’t need her permission or cooperation. You can wipe her memory of it afterward. The voice in her head was louder than usual, and she struggled to silence it.

  Jill cleared her throat. “You know, once, in college, when you and I were studying at my apartment, you looked at my smoke detector and told me I should make sure it was working. That was all. There was something odd about the way you said it, though. When you left, I checked it out and it was dead. I put fresh batteries in it. Two nights later, it went off. There was a gas leak in the oven. It saved my life. You saved my life.”

  “You never told me,” Samantha said, staring at her in surprise.

  Jill shook her head. “People . . . some people, they would always say that there was something weird about you. I told them they were crazy. Then, when that happened, I knew you had saved my life somehow. But I didn’t want to know how.”

  Samantha didn’t know what to say. In truth, she didn’t even recall telling Jill to check her smoke alarm. Was it possible that all those years she’d lived with the nightmares, she’d also been having the dreams, the premonitions that she had thought were relatively new things the last few months?

  “I can understand not wanting to know,” Samantha said, hoping that it would be her out.

  Jill took a deep breath. “That was then. I was young. I hadn’t seen much of the world. I’ll let you do what you want to, look for the memory, but only if you agree to tell me the truth. The actual truth.”

  Samantha sat quietly and finally nodded. “Okay. Let’s get this done, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

  “No. First you tell me everything,” Jill said, folding her arms across her chest defensively.

  “Okay,” Samantha said. She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t see any way around it if she wanted Jill’s help. She continued to struggle to silence the inner voice that insisted she didn’t need Jill’s cooperation.

  She cradled her mug of cocoa, focusing on the sensations of warmth in her hands. It was a trick her adoptive father had taught her. When faced with intense stress and anxiety, focus on small physical sensations that you could quantify and fixate on. The mug was smooth and warm. She could smell the cocoa, and it smelled like the holidays to her, probably because it had a touch of peppermint in it.

  “So, I was raised in a coven.”

  “Wiccans? Pagans?” Jill asked interestedly.

  Samantha grimaced. Jill was, after all, an anthropologist. This part probably would be interesting to her.

  “Neither. It was a dark coven based on power and greed, not any discernible faith. They . . . we . . . were witches.”

  Jill raised an eyebrow. “You know, historically speaking—”

  Samantha cut her off. “Real witches, with real powers, who did very, very bad things.”

  Jill nodded slowly. “I’m listening.”

  “When I was twelve, the coven attempted to raise a demon. Everyone was slaughtered except for me.”

  She paused, waiting to see Jill’s reactions. It was telling to her how carefully her roommate chose her next words. “Many cultures believe in the demonic and have rituals for either expellin
g or summoning those types of entities. Some of these ceremonies involve inviting the entity to embody one member, who then purports to speak for it. Other ceremonies make use of certain types of hallucinogens.”

  “Jill, I’m going to have to stop you right there. We need to be on the same page here, talking about the same thing. Now, you told me what happened with the smoke alarm, and you know what you saw when I came in the house.”

  Doubt crossed Jill’s face. Samantha could tell by looking in her eyes that the scientist had already begun to question the evidence of her own eyes, started cataloging possible explanations for what she had seen.

  “You used the word ‘magic’ earlier,” Samantha continued.

  “I probably should have said illusion,” Jill answered. “But yes, some sort of magic trick.”

  “It was no trick.”

  Jill smiled. “Don’t be silly. Of course it was. Nothing else makes sense.”

  Samantha raised her hand and Jill’s cup of hot cocoa slid across the coffee table to her.

  Jill jumped with a small cry and then settled back in her seat, shaking her head. “You almost got me with that one. I’ve seen magicians do stuff like that. There’s got to be a wire or a magnet or something.”

  Samantha groaned. She was too tired to spend all night playing games, trying to make her roommate believe what she clearly didn’t want to believe. “Jill, didn’t you tell me you had a dog when you were a kid?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Can you picture her in your mind for me? Picture her when she was a puppy.”

  “Okay. Now what?”

  “Now just watch.”

  Samantha focused on Jill. She reached out and touched her hand and immediately she could see the dog. It was a tiny puppy, a cocker spaniel–poodle mix. Samantha pulled her hand from Jill’s.

  “Watch closely,” she said.

  She put her hands close together and energy began to form between them. Samantha held the image of Jill’s puppy in her mind, and slowly it began to form. She was tired, so it took a while. She also wanted her to be perfect, and she didn’t have the connection with the puppy that she did with Freaky.

  Moments later she was finished, and the small ball of fur landed on the couch. It looked up at her, panting, and then bounded over and landed on Jill’s lap.

  Her shock was plain to read on her face. Samantha felt herself tense, waiting for the reaction to the dog.

  As the dog began to lick Jill’s nose, her face crumpled and she was laughing and crying all at once and hugging the tiny creature. Samantha smiled. She knew what it was like to be reunited with a pet from childhood. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had conjured Freaky.

  The little black kitten stared at the puppy with wide-eyed fascination. He stalked slowly across the couch on tiny, silent paws. Samantha reached out and scooped him up. “You can play with Roxy later,” she whispered.

  The kitten twisted in her arms, paws reaching out and waving in the air in the direction of the puppy. Samantha laughed, surprised by just how much her little companion wanted to play with the puppy.

  After a couple of minutes, Jill looked up and noticed Freaky. “Who’s he?” she asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  “He was the kitten I had as a child.”

  “Can I keep her?” Jill asked, hugging the puppy.

  Samantha bit her lip, suddenly regretting her choice. How to explain to her roommate that Roxy wasn’t a real, living, breathing dog but merely an energy creation? “It’s complicated. We can talk about it later, but she can stay for now,” Samantha said.

  Jill nodded.

  Samantha cleared her throat. “So, as I was saying—”

  “You’re a witch,” Jill interrupted.

  “Yeah. No. I was. It’s complicated.”

  “I can imagine. And it’s all real?”

  Samantha nodded.

  “And whoever came to talk to me yesterday was a witch too?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How does it work exactly? How do you get your abilities?”

  “We’re born with them. We can sense the flow of currents, energy, magnetism, things like that. And we learn to manipulate them. It can get complicated, but that’s the nutshell version.”

  “That’s a lot of responsibility,” Jill noted.

  “Yeah. Well, some don’t take it as seriously as they should.”

  “So, everyone with the power is a witch?” Jill asked, scratching Roxy behind the ears.

  “Hardly. People with the power belong to different creeds, faiths, and walks of life. Only those with a true lust for power are drawn to the darkness.”

  “Isn’t that true of so many things?”

  Her statement took Samantha aback. She had never really thought of that, but once Jill had said it, she had to admit the truth of it. “I guess so.”

  Jill nodded. “So, go on.”

  “I was adopted by a very kind couple, and I gave up my past completely, the magic, everything I owned, even my memories.”

  “Wow, that’s intense,” Jill said.

  “It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.”

  “It’s very unusual that someone can give up their history that completely. Usually they keep something, even if it’s just a reminder.”

  “I didn’t want any reminders,” Samantha said, reflexively touching the cross around her neck.

  “What happened?”

  “A few months ago, a dark coven started sacrificing girls. I was a detective with the Boston PD. My captain knew of my past and asked me to go undercover to stop the killings. I finally agreed. It was bad, even worse than I had thought it would be. When it was all over, I was once more the last witch standing. But I couldn’t go back to my old life.”

  Samantha could hear the stress in her voice. She didn’t want to tell Jill about the accusations and betrayals. “My captain helped arrange for me to transfer out here. New job. New city. New everything.”

  “Old Samantha,” Jill said softly.

  Her words pierced Samantha’s heart, wounding deeply. “Yes,” she admitted. That was certainly something she didn’t want to discuss further, though. “I’ve been here three months and now I’m investigating a homicide that has witchcraft written all over it.”

  Jill leaned forward. “Really? Winona? What was it?”

  Samantha shook her head. “Not able to really discuss that yet.”

  Jill leaned back, clearly disappointed. “I still don’t get what her killer wanted with me,” she said.

  “That’s what I want to figure out. Are you ready to help me?”

  Jill nodded hesitantly. “What will it involve?”

  “You know how you pictured Roxy and I was able to create her?” Samantha said.

  The puppy was now curled up in Jill’s lap. Her ears twitched at the mention of her name, but she didn’t move otherwise. Freaky was attacking the arm of the sofa, and Samantha lifted a hand to dispel the energy but quickly thought better of it. She didn’t want to have to explain how all that worked and how it was going to pertain to Roxy until she’d gotten what she needed to out of Jill.

  “But I don’t remember what happened,” Jill protested.

  “You don’t have to. The information’s there; your mind still recorded the events. You just have been denied access to those memories. If you think about sitting in the coffee shop and then sitting on that park bench, I can establish a connection and try to find those memories.”

  “You make it sound like you’re going to be walking around in my head.”

  Samantha smiled grimly. “It’s an easy metaphor to understand.”

  “Will I have to remember?”

  Samantha made note of the other woman’s word choice. Jill didn’t want to remember.

  “Hopefully not. I’ll do
what I can. And I’ll leave the memories intact so that someday, if you want to, you can possibly access them.”

  Jill shuddered. “Who would want to remember something like that?”

  “It’s not always a matter of want,” Samantha snapped, upbraiding herself for her instant defensive reaction.

  “Let’s do this before I change my mind,” Jill said. She took a shaky breath. “What do you need me to do again?”

  “Just think about being in the coffee shop and then being on the park bench.”

  “Is it going to hurt?”

  “No. It will be like when I got the image of Roxy from your mind just a few minutes ago.”

  She reached over and took Jill’s hand. She could feel her roommate’s pulse pounding in her wrist, the blood thrumming through her fingers. She was far too upset for this to go well for either of them.

  “Just breathe in and out slowly, deeply,” Samantha said, dropping her voice lower and allowing her words to wash persuasively over Jill. The change was almost instantaneous as the other’s pulse slowed and her muscles relaxed.

  “Good. Just keep doing that; you’re doing great,” Samantha said. “Just relax. If you want to fall asleep, that’s fine.”

  She gave her words the force of suggestion. After a few moments, Jill’s head tilted back against the couch. Her eyes closed and her breathing became shallow and regular.

  Samantha already had the trail of the memories she was looking for. Jill had been thinking hard about sitting in that coffee shop. She had been nervous, apprehensive, jumping at every little sound, staring at her phone every five seconds, and studying everyone in the store very, very carefully. All of Jill’s senses had been on overdrive. Samantha could hear the chatter of patrons around Jill, smell the coffee fragrance heavy in the air, taste the bitterness of the coffee Jill herself was drinking. Samantha saw the moment when the memories skipped and felt Jill’s bewilderment as she came to on the park bench staring up at Samantha. She saw herself through her roommate’s eyes. Jill’s perceptions of her made Samantha look slightly taller, more in command than she knew she had been at that moment. Jill trusted her, respected her, even when given reason not to. All of that Samantha could feel.