Last Grave (9781101593172)

  Robin screamed and began to thrash. Samantha threw her body over the girl, pinning her to the ground.

  Seconds later, it was over. Robin ceased to struggle and after a moment asked, “What’s going on?”

  Samantha pulled away warily, watching the hand that held the knife. Robin didn’t make a move to lift it, though. That was an excellent sign.

  “Did I try to kill you?” Robin wailed suddenly, her voice cracking with stress.

  “It wasn’t you. You were . . . possessed,” Samantha said. It wasn’t an accurate description of what had been done to her, but it explained the important part simply enough. “You weren’t in control of yourself. Someone else was.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Robin sobbed. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s not your fault. Everything is okay now.”

  Samantha stood up gingerly and stared down at her bloody shirt in distress. “Except for my shirt. It’s not okay. I’m afraid I’m going to have to borrow another T-shirt.”

  “Okay.”

  Samantha moved into the kitchen and peeled off her shirt. She grimaced at it. No salvaging this one either. After a minute, Robin joined her, bringing with her a plastic bag and a purple T-shirt. Samantha dumped the dead shirt in the bag and closed it up tight.

  “I can put it out in the trash,” Robin said.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll get rid of it,” Samantha said. The last thing she needed was for whoever had done this to Robin to get ahold of her blood.

  She used some paper towels to wash up, dumping them in the bag as well. Her pants she was just going to have to deal with when she got home. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be too much blood on them.

  “Exciting end to an awful day,” she said grimly.

  “I’m so sorry,” Robin said, repeating herself.

  “It’s not your fault. Do you hear me?”

  Robin nodded glumly.

  Samantha put on the T-shirt and pulled her hair back. Blood was drying in it, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know, I made it years on the force without being shot or stabbed. It seems like those days are gone forever, and I miss them.”

  Robin turned red and bit her lip.

  “What?”

  “I used to wish I had a more exciting life. I used to dream about it.”

  Samantha sighed. “Be careful what you wish for. It’s a lesson everyone needs to learn, but especially people like us.”

  “Maybe I’ll become a cop. Help people like you do.”

  “There are a lot safer and saner ways that you can help people,” Samantha said. “But you can help me right now.”

  “Anything. What can I do?”

  “Did your mom ever tell you stories about the mountains? Or maybe your grandfather told you a story?”

  “My grandfather told me a lot of stories. I don’t remember most of them. Mom, I don’t know. I can’t think.”

  “Take your time and try. It’s important or I wouldn’t be asking,” Samantha said.

  “What kind of story?” Robin asked.

  “A story about something hidden in or under the mountains around here.”

  “Nothing like that that I can think of. But Mom was kind of funny that way. She collected stories of our culture and that of other tribes, local histories, all that kind of stuff. She liked facts, though, not what she considered fantasy. She never told me any of the really colorful stories. I only heard those from Grandfather.”

  “And yet she knew that the supernatural existed and wanted you to be a shaman. That is odd.”

  “Sometimes I think she just wanted my life to be more normal, you know? I think it was hard for her sometimes, growing up as Grandfather’s daughter and not having powers of her own.”

  “Your mom was a complex woman.”

  “I think I’m only beginning to figure out the half of it,” Robin said.

  A phone rang and Robin answered it. After a minute she hung up. “That’s my aunt. She’s been stuck waiting for a tow truck for hours. She finally got one. She said she should be here in about twenty minutes.”

  “Then we’d better get this place cleaned up,” Samantha said.

  She turned toward the other room and then stopped with a gasp. Her blood on the floor still formed a circle, but that wasn’t all. There, on the floor, spelled out in her blood, was a familiar phrase.

  The last grave.

  Samantha stared at the words in blood. How had they gotten there? She and Robin were alone in the house. At least, she thought they were.

  “Who did this?” she whispered.

  Robin looked down at the message. “I think you did. When I was possessed by whatever that was, I could still see and remember. And I remember watching you write it while I tried to kill you.”

  “It can’t be,” Samantha whispered. She couldn’t have written it. She would have known. And why would she have written it?

  A chill seemed to pass through her as she stared at the words. “I couldn’t have done this,” she whispered.

  And yet doubt assailed her. There had been that one moment, she thought it was only a moment, when she had blacked out before her body had started healing and Freaky had licked her. Had she been out long enough that she could have done this?

  She knelt down slowly, mouth dry, heart hammering painfully in her chest. She stretched out her hand and then pulled back. She heard a whimper escape her. She didn’t want to know. Because if she had done this, what else might she have done?

  “I have to know,” she whispered, trying to convince herself.

  She reached out and touched one of the bloody letters. And she saw herself, lying in the circle dead. No! Not dead, but dying. And Freaky was crawling over her and Robin was attacking the circle.

  Samantha watched herself as she moved her finger and began to write.

  “No!” she screamed, yanking her hand back and throwing herself halfway across the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Robin said. “Should I not have told you?”

  Samantha looked up at the girl and had an insane urge to laugh. Fear rippled through her. Had one of her younger selves done this? Had the witch found a way to control her as well? Either possibility was terrifying. “No, it’s good you told me. It’s important,” Samantha said.

  She grabbed some paper towels and mopped up the blood, adding the used towels to her bag. She turned and saw tiny red paw prints weaving through the house toward the front door.

  Freaky. She hadn’t dispelled his energy and he was still covered in her blood. She groaned and began mopping up after the kitten. When she finally found him, he was staring at her from a perch on the coffee table. He trilled at her for a moment, and then she scattered the energy. She wiped up the remaining blood and returned to the kitchen.

  She grabbed the bag and deposited it in the trunk of her car, then went back inside. “I’ll stay until your aunt arrives,” Samantha said.

  “Okay.”

  Another thought occurred to her. “Did your mother ever talk to you about her dreams, particularly ones dealing with earthquakes?”

  “No,” Robin said. “I didn’t know she had them too.”

  “You dream about earthquakes?” Samantha asked.

  “A few times in the past, but a lot lately. I keep having this recurring dream that I’m standing near the entrance to a cave. There’s someone else with me, but I can’t see her face. I don’t know who she is. In my dream I know her, but you know how that goes.”

  “Yeah. What happens?”

  “We’re standing in front of this cave and there’s an earthquake. I can hear rock, like, breaking apart or something, like an avalanche. The cave entrance gets a little wider, like there’s a crack in the rocks around it. Red light comes out of it. Then the girl with
me disappears and I wake up.”

  “Disappears how? Does she fall into the cave or leave?”

  “No, just like vanishes—there, then gone.”

  “Did you tell your mom about these dreams?”

  “Yeah. She always wanted me to tell her my weird dreams. She said it helped cleanse you by getting it out of your head and into the world.”

  “Did you ever notice if there were earthquakes that occurred shortly after you had the dreams?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. I kind of tried to adopt Mom’s philosophy, not think about it once I talked about it.”

  Samantha had a suspicion that Winona hadn’t been telling George Wakefield about her own earthquake dreams but instead had been telling him her daughter’s. If that was true, then why had she not shared the details of the later dreams with him? Was it because the symbolism meant something very specific to her, something that connected with the research she had been doing about the legend her father had told her as a child?

  Samantha thought about trying to take a look at Robin’s memories of the dream, but she was hesitant to mess around with the girl’s mind given what she had just gone through. It could be traumatic for both of them.

  A truck pulled up outside, and a minute later, an older woman came inside. She had a pleasant face with a few similarities to Robin. She was carrying an oversized purse and was wearing a look of dismay.

  Robin went to hug her. “I was worried about you,” she said.

  “I was worried about me too,” the older woman admitted.

  “Auntie, this is Detective Samantha Ryan. I called her when you didn’t come home.”

  “And you rushed over. That was nice of you,” the older woman said, studying her from behind her glasses.

  “I was happy to do it. I just got here a couple of minutes ago. We were getting ready to go out and look for you.”

  “I’ve had the most unbelievable night,” the older woman said. “The car broke down on the highway, and there was no cell service. It took forever to flag someone down, and then I had to wait hours for the tow truck.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time of it,” Samantha said. She was willing to lay odds that there had been some magic at work there. Clearly Giselle or one of the other witches had wanted to get Robin alone for a while. But why? Was it just to try to have her kill Samantha? Or would that have been the icing on the cake?

  The lady waved her hands. “I’m sorry to worry anybody. Now look, it’s morning already and I haven’t been to bed yet.”

  “Do you want me to cook you some breakfast?” Robin asked.

  “No, child, I think I’m just going to go to bed. Detective, it was nice meeting you.”

  Samantha shook her hand and took the opportunity to check to see if the woman’s memories of the night had been altered. They hadn’t, she was relieved to discover.

  “Well, Robin, walk me out?” Samantha asked.

  “Sure.”

  They walked outside, past the car the tow truck had dropped. Fortunately, he hadn’t blocked in Samantha. She turned and looked at Robin. “Be careful. Now that you’ve seen a protection circle, be sure to form one of your own if you suspect anyone is near.”

  “I will.”

  Samantha reached out and touched her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. I just want you to be safe.”

  Robin nodded.

  Samantha again fought the urge to take a peek at her memories. At this point, she was likely to see the image of Robin stabbing her before she could stop herself. Traumatic memories jumped to the surface oftentimes, especially with the very young. She was sure she didn’t want to see the images of herself being stabbed. Also, she didn’t want to risk damaging Robin’s mind by being the second person to mess with it in such a short time.

  “I have to get some sleep and do some work, but I’m going to be out again later today to check on you.”

  “I’m sorry you have to keep driving all this way.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Samantha lied. “I just want you to be safe, and I want to catch whoever is behind all this. If you remember anything else about the mountains or your earthquake dreams, give me a call.”

  Robin nodded.

  Samantha stared at the girl in her rearview mirror as she left a minute later. She couldn’t help but feel that Robin was alone even though her aunt was there. It was too easy to isolate the girl, use her. For now, though, Samantha didn’t know what else she could do for her.

  She cranked the music loud once she hit the highway. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to be alone with her own thoughts or risk falling asleep at the wheel. There was too much at stake. She couldn’t lose it now.

  When she finally made it home, she was relieved to see that Jill had already left for the morning. She called Lance, trying to forestall him showing up.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I just got home. Robin Lightfoot called because she thought an intruder was snooping around her house. I ended up going down there for a while. Still no luck on turning up anything from her mom’s papers.”

  “Was there an intruder?”

  “Hard to say. I lectured her about calling nine-one-one next time.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m going to crash. I’ll call you when I wake up in a few hours.”

  “Okay. I got a couple more leads. You want me to run them down?”

  “Yes, please,” she answered, knowing that he likely had nothing that would be of interest to her.

  She hung up with him and went back down to her car. She retrieved the bag of bloody towels and her shirt and headed to the basement of the building, where she knew there was an ancient furnace that supplied all the apartments with heat. Five minutes later, her bag and its contents were nothing but ash.

  She made it back upstairs and into the bathroom, where she stripped out of her clothes and got into the shower. She cranked up the hot water as high as it would go and let it pummel her body. She closed her eyes as she let the water run all over her head and face.

  So much blood and gore needed to be washed off. She wished it was just as easy to wash off the stains and blood that tainted her mind as it was the external ones. She stayed in the shower long after the water had turned cold, scrubbing her skin and hair as well as she could.

  When she finally stepped out, she dumped her pants in the sink to soak out the blood, put the T-shirt in the washer, and headed for her bedroom. Dressed in pajamas, she sat down on her bed and stared at the clock. She was exhausted, but her mind was racing and she didn’t know if she’d be able to get to sleep.

  “Sleep,” she said, in her deepest, most persuasive voice. Then she sighed because, as usual, she couldn’t influence herself that way.

  “Because that would be too easy,” she said with a sigh.

  She pulled the book out from underneath her mattress and started to read from where she had left off. Within three minutes, her eyes were crossing and her muscles spasming. She still knew that if she tried to lie down, though, sleep wouldn’t come.

  She put her hands together and conjured Freaky. Petting the kitten always helped to relax her. She was relieved to see that he was clean, without a sign of her blood on him. She didn’t want to imagine what giving an energy kitten a bath would have looked like.

  The small kitten snuggled onto her lap, stretched, and promptly fell asleep.

  “Traitor,” she whispered, as she stroked his head. “You’re supposed to keep me company because I can’t sleep.”

  He either didn’t hear or didn’t care. A minute later, he was snoring. She rolled her eyes and picked the book back up.

  Somewhere in here is a clue I need to help all of this make sense, she thought. I just have to find it.

  She just wished she weren’t too tired to read it. Once she got some
sleep and woke up, she was going to be back on the clock dealing with Lance and Robin and whatever else the day decided to dump on her.

  “There’s got to be an easier way to do this,” she groaned.

  And then she thought of the lectures given by her younger selves. Maybe there was an easier way to do it.

  “Magic is simple. I’m making this too complicated.”

  She put the book on the bed and passed her hand over it. “Show me what Winona Lightfoot found.”

  The book cover opened and the pages began to fan her as they flipped rapidly. They stopped abruptly, and she stared at the heading at the top of the page.

  Hell Hole Cave.

  16

  Samantha stared at the words. Hell Hole Cave. Robin had said her dreams about the earthquake had taken place at the entrance to a cave. There was a rough drawing of the cave entrance, which was very narrow. She stared at it intently. There was something familiar and frightening about it.

  Why should such a thing scare me? she wondered.

  Maybe it was because she was so tired and so overwrought. The suggestion of caves and mountains and earthquakes coupled with the name Hell Hole was clearly playing havoc with her imagination.

  Get a grip, Samantha.

  She picked up the book and stared at the page.

  The Hell Hole Cave located in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Gray Whale Ranch is one of the most dangerous caves of the three hundred miles of caverns lying beneath California. The depth of this cave has never been adequately measured. Entrance to the cave is gained through a small opening in the side of the mountain. It is a tight fit, and only the slimmest and hardiest of souls should dare venture there. The cave has a successive series of narrow passageways and open caverns and several steep drops. One of the large caverns in the mountain is known as the Hall of Faces, where people leave sculptures in the clay walls. Other sections of the cave are rich in minerals such as quartz.

  Perhaps the most intriguing part about the cave, though, are the historical references to it. Some Indian legends suggest that the faces depicted in the Hall of Faces are not carved by visitors, but are actually the only surviving remains of a small tribe that took refuge in the caves during a war between two larger tribes. Another legend has it that there is pirate gold buried in one of the lower chambers. Most mysterious of all is the rumor that ancient peoples trapped a demonlike monster inside this mountain and left only a series of narrow openings as a way for one person once a year on the anniversary of the entrapment to make their way down and check that the creature was still captive.