Captive Magic (Mystic's End Mysteries Book 8)

by Leanne Leeds

  “I’m sure everybody’s thinking the same thing,” I said as soon as the elevator doors closed.

  “Well, of course you’re sure. You’re a telepath.” Chief Clutterbuck chuckled and poked me, his face bright.

  “You’re in an excellent mood considering everything we’re dealing with,” I told him, arms crossed.

  “I told you, I feel great, totally in control. I am utterly confident that we will solve this case, and then we’re going to go out and get some of that Beef Wellington Martin promised. I’m really looking forward to that dinner. I’ve never had that. Too expensive,” Clutterbuck confided with a wink. “I know everybody thinks I’m just rolling in money because of all the bribes and things like that, but I’m really not. Mostly, Karen just threatened me.” He nodded as if that settled it.

  I wasn’t sure precisely what Dalida had done to him—although I was the person who directed her to do it—but whatever she’d done had turned Clutterbuck into a walking, talking advertisement for the positivity that comes from overconfidence. It was like dealing with an older, male version of Pepper.

  “I thought your daughter was a millionaire?” Chris inquired politely.

  Clutterbuck stared at him, his expression horrified. “I would never take a dime from that girl. Not a penny. It’s not for parents to take from their children; it’s for parents to provide for their children. You don’t have children, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No, of course you don’t. Vampire, I almost forgot. My apologies.”

  “For what?”

  “Well, vampires can’t have children, can they?”

  Chris glanced at me for a second and then returned his eyes to Clutterbuck. “Vampires can have children, yes.”

  Chief Clutterbuck stopped his smiling, jovial look then. He turned and studied Chris’s face, his eyes drifting to the vampire’s mouth. His face paled. “I don’t mean any disrespect, son, but that’s damn horrifying.”

  Just when I thought it might be the longest elevator ride in the history of elevator rights, the indicator dinged. The door opened—to the dingiest, darkest, dimmest hallway I’d been in since walking through the haunted house at the Magical Midway.

  “Shall we?” Clutterbuck asked as he stepped out.

  Chris and I followed.

  Describing it to Pepper later, I likened it to the beginning of the labyrinth in David Bowie’s epic ’80s movie. I looked right, and I look left. Both directions seem to go on forever.

  “Is a really tiny worm with a shock of blue hair going to come out and offer me a cup of tea?” I asked, drawing closer to Chris.

  “I love that movie,” he murmured as he reached for my hand and squeezed.

  “Didn’t I mention that the evidence room is in the old lower level?” Clutterbuck asked.

  “I thought this entire complex was new? Martin donated money to build it, and you guys moved from the center of town to here, right?” I asked.

  The air felt humid and oppressive. Even though it was evening, the police station above—new, clean, and modern—had been bustling with a fair amount of activity. Down here, the corridor was empty. So empty I could hear our voices echo out into the darkness. A darkness that seemed to press in.

  “Well, that’s true, mostly,” the chief nodded. “But they built the station on the old Lambert place.”

  “What’s the old Lambert place?”

  “It was an old plantation. It was falling down, but the basement where they kept the workers—”

  “The slaves,” I corrected.

  Chief Clutterbuck rolled his eyes at me. “The workers—”

  “The slaves,” I corrected again.

  “For heavens’ sake, they kept people down here,” Clutterbuck said with an air of frustration. “All right?”

  It felt like we were miles below the surface, deep underground. I’d heard what Clutterbuck said about who stayed here and its purpose, but I wasn’t sure I believed that. Like everywhere else in Mystic’s End, I saw no spirits, no ghosts. The hallway seemed energetically hollow and empty.

  But…not.

  Whatever this was, it wasn’t a bunkhouse for slaves. I was sure of it.

  “Could this have been a mine?” I asked him.

  “I told you what it was.”

  “No, you told me what you were told it was,” I responded. Somewhat to my surprise, Clutterbuck thought about it and glanced around. “I’m just asking, because if it’s a mine—I mean, how far do these hallways go, anyway?”

  “Are you thinking this is how someone is getting Karen to the church?” Chris asked.

  “Well, almost exactly in that direction,”—I pointed the dark passageway leading toward the complex—“is Martin’s stuff, right? And directly next to that in-between here and there is where Anna is. If we go that way?” I pointed the other direction. “Wouldn’t this beeline straight toward the church?”

  “It would have to go all the way through town,” Clutterbuck said as he stared into the darkness. “The church is on the other side of town from the complex.”

  “Not really.” Chris shook his head as Clutterbuck turned to face him. “The complex is directly across from the prison. The church is in between the two, a little off toward the edge of town. If you were going to measure distance as the crow flies, I doubt it would be more than a couple of miles.”

  “That’s still a really long underground walkway to dig,” I told him.

  “Not if a bunch of witches carved it out by magic,” Chris countered, raising an eyebrow. “Or, not even looking at magic, what if you’re right and this is an old mine? Some mines can go on for miles. There are coalfields in Arkansas. In the river valley.”

  “That’s not that far from here,” Clutterbuck said. “Anyway, the evidence room is right down here. Let’s get what we came down here for. Because between you, me, and the bricks? This place gives me the creeps a little, too.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “I didn’t say it was creepy.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  We walked for another thirty seconds until we came to a heavy wooden door.

  A wooden door.

  A heavy wooden door?

  Why would an evidence room be behind a heavy wooden door?

  It wasn’t just any door, either. The top of the door was a proper arch. A perfect one hundred and eighty-degree radius fitted into the corresponding frame. Its thick, dark wood looked like it had been recently stained and sealed. This entryway seemed more appropriate to an old-world church or castle than a police station evidence room.

  A sizable electronic scan pad was affixed to the stone to the right (looking entirely out of place). Sheriff Clutterbuck took out what I presumed was an ID and scanned it. The light at the top of the pad went from red to green. The door clicked.

  Clutterbuck pushed it open, turned, and gestured for us to come in.

  I took one step toward the room and slammed back into Chris as the air and energy whooshed into me. We both went flying into the opposite wall and landed in a heap on the floor. (Well, I should clarify. I landed in a heap. On top of Chris. Who had somehow managed—while we were flying through the air—to wrap his arms and legs around me so he would cushion the impact.)

  “Are you all right?” he asked me, his eyes concerned.

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right? I basically just bounced off you,” I told him, brushing myself off. We both stood up and looked at Clutterbuck, who was gawking back out at us with his jaw open wide. “So, they warded your evidence room against witches? Or telepaths. Or maybe just me.”

  Chris attempted to walk across the threshold and flew across the hallway—although where I had tumbled rear end over keister, Chris flew through the air like an elegant cat and landed on his feet. “I think it’s warded against paranormals. I could try to speed in there, but if the force with which it throws me has an exponential relation to the force I exert on it, I could hurt myself.”

  “Neither of you can come in here?” Cl
utterbuck asked, incredulous.

  “Nope. That’s fine, though. Just grab the witch bottle, and we’ll go. You’re right,” I told him. “This place does kinda give me the creeps. And I don’t really creep easy.”

  The longer we were in the hallway, the more I felt like I was being watched. Chris seemed slightly more alert than he usually was, which was also never a good sign. “Do you hear anything?” I asked the vampire with the super hearing.

  “No, I don’t. But that’s not the odd thing,” the vampire said, lowering his voice. “I feel like I should. I sense there is something near to hear, and yet I hear nothing.”

  He put his arm around me, and we waited silently for Clutterbuck to return from the magically warded evidence room.

  I wished that time had buried this place long ago. Maybe slaves had lived here in the darkness, perhaps this was a way to traffic people, possibly it was a mine. I didn’t know, but the longer I was down there, the less I wanted to know. That someone had magically warded the evidence room?

  That was just icing on the creepy cake.

  “You’re not gonna believe this,” Clutterbuck said as he appeared at the door.

  “The witch bottle is gone,” Chris guessed.

  “Still holding onto that confidence that we’re going to solve this, Chief?” I asked him.

  Chief Clutterbuck didn’t answer.

  Thirteen

  “So, what do we do now?” Clutterbuck asked me.

  “Give me a minute to think.” I leaned against the opposite wall and stared at the warded door.

  It seemed like I was losing track of things, and I needed a minute to center myself. Just to reevaluate what we were doing. On the whole, I would’ve preferred to center myself lying on a couch with my dog and a cup of tea, but I was learning we can’t all have exactly what we want in Mystic’s End.

  “How many levels below the ground are we?” I asked Clutterbuck.

  “This is level B6, so six or seven.”

  “There is no level B. The basement is B1. So, six levels,” Chris added, watching me.

  “If the height of each story is roughly 15 feet,” I mused, eying the ceiling, “we are roughly 90 feet below ground. Give or take.” I thought back to my climb down the hidden hole. “That seems to be more or less even with Anna’s tomb-ish thing. At least as far as I can guess from memory. I can’t believe that’s a coincidence.”

  Clutterbuck nodded. “That’s the place only you can get into, right?”

  “Not only that, but only paranormals can see it,” Chris reminded him.

  “Have you ever gone down that way, Chief?” I pointed right toward the darkness. “Where does it stop?”

  “From what I understand, they bricked up both ends to keep anybody from getting lost down here. There’s just storage, and it’s all pretty close to the elevator here.”

  “Storage? Besides the evidence room, what else is down here?”

  Clutterbuck shrugged. “Police storage, evidence storage. Unused furniture, old uniforms. You know, just stuff.”

  “But why here? Why six stories below the surface? Is there something wrong with levels B1 through B5?”

  “We’re using them.”

  “That seems an excessive depth to build down to,” Chris murmured, gazing in the complex’s direction. “If there is an end to this hallway, Chief Clutterbuck, I don’t sense it.”

  Clutterbuck looked Chris up and down. “Oh, right, you have that sonar stuff. Like a bat.”

  I could tell my boyfriend was trying not to chuckle at the lawman’s use of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to inform himself about Sparkles’ superpowers. Finally, he shrugged. “Sure. My bat powers. I can sense several doors down in that direction, but there’s no wall. Suppose I wanted to go in that direction. In that case, I could do so at a relatively quick speed without being concerned I would hit anything soon. If there is a wall, it is definitely beyond the bounds of this property.”

  “Should we go look?” Clutterbuck asked. His tone made it clear he wanted to do anything, absolutely anything, other than to look.

  “No, just wait a second. There’s got to be a way to pull down these wards,” I said, glaring at the door. “Maybe the bottle is in there. Maybe someone hid it with magic. Stand back,” I warned both men. “I’m a witch, darn it. I can get these down.”

  “I have no idea how to take these down. No idea. None,” I told Chris and Clutterbuck an hour later. A thin sheen of sweat covered my body, and I was panting. I was furious, and I fought the single-minded determination demanding I stay there all night lobbing lightning bolts if I had to. “What am I even doing here? If these are on the church, too? I may as well just go home and cuddle up with my dog. I’m useless.”

  “You are not,” Chris told me sternly. I looked into his deep brown eyes. They shone with so much love and warmth my tiny tantrum embarrassed me. “You have no idea what they put into that spell. It’s quite possible they were made more complex just for you. Just so you couldn’t take them down.”

  “Is Karen that good at planning?” I asked as I pulled my shirt away from my body and back again rapidly to facilitate air movement.

  “I told you once not to underestimate her.”

  I stared down the darkened endless hall and tried to calm myself. I felt like I was running around in circles. Each lap I took piled another weird thing right on top of the last bizarre thing. It was a teetering tower of weirdness.

  An accountant having a witch bottle and a crystal ball. An accountant being shot in the head. The church needing a piece of land so much that someone may have gunned down the accountant to get it. Two places I went to—about this murder—being warded against me. Me!

  And to top it all off, I contemplated all this in an honest to goodness dungeon with a corridor so long and so dark I couldn’t see to the end.

  With the chief of police and my vampire boyfriend.

  Weird upon strange upon bizarre. Why was this even here? Who put this at the bottom of a jail? My patience for all this intrigue was wearing thinner than my oldest pair of sweatpants. I was growing weary of the twists and turns.

  “How far into the future could she have been planning?” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “Could Karen have known there was a chance they would arrest her, and have planned or facilitated this? Because this makes little sense otherwise. Constructing a brand-new facility that’s modern and state-of-the-art, but leaving the dungeon intact? Why would anyone do that?”

  “What’s more, building an elevator down to that dungeon. That room is not the most obvious choice to keep evidence in. Chief, you never answered me before,” Chris reminded Clutterbuck. He repeated his question regarding the five floors above our head and what they were used for.

  “Cells. B1 is the visiting level, processing. That includes a couple of twenty-four-hour courts to get the misbehaving tourists in and out quickly. B2 and B3 are the men’s cells. B4 houses women. B5 are the high-security cells, and isolation cells, and the medical facilities.”

  I cursed loudly in surprise that a literal Alcatraz was sitting on my head. Clutterbuck winced.

  “Look, the complex may have their own security force that can pass people off to us, but they can’t house people. We have 336 cells in the whole place, though we rarely get close to that. Thanks to Martin’s taxes and donations, we don’t have any reason to run it at capacity. I think we are about on par with the prison on the edge of town.”

  “The number of cells for a small town jail seems wildly excessive.”

  “Remember, we share the jail with the county. Some smaller neighboring towns house people here as well,” Clutterbuck reminded me, shifting slightly. He seemed to get a little defensive.

  As well he should.

  “I just never thought a town with a few thousand residents would have something like that.”

  The chief turned and closed the door, locking it. “We’re not your average town, Fortuna.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that, Chief
Clutterbuck. Your evidence room just blew me across a dungeon corridor to make sure I don’t overlook that insignificant fact.”

  “I still don’t understand that.” Clutterbuck walked away from the archway and turned to stare at the wooden door. “We’ve had no reports of anything like that. I’ve seen nothing like it until today.”

  “Why can’t I put this all together?” I asked Chris. “This just seems like a jumble of weird things that don’t go together.”

  Chris looked at me oddly. “It seems related to me, Fortuna. Clearly so. That Conrad Noble’s home was warded to keep you out, and this evidence room was warded the same way? That’s far more than two weird things that don’t go together,” he said, surprised. “We know that your mother has magical ability left because of what she did to Chief Clutterbuck. We know she was seen at the church when she should have been a few floors up in a jail cell. The witch bottle is missing. The sacred orb, also missing.” He tilted his head. “I feel you may be trying to pull these things apart because you know if they are all related? They lead back to one place. And it’s the one place you don’t want to go.”

  I took a deep breath. “You think I’m being deliberately obtuse.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Because if I stopped being deliberately obtuse, it would be clear to me I need to go speak to my mother.”

  “I would never call you obtuse,” Chris said thoughtfully.

  I waited. “So you think I should go talk to her?”

  He continued watching me.

  After waiting another twenty seconds, I snapped, “You don’t have any observations beyond that?”

  “I don’t think I need to give voice to them. I can see in your eyes you know what the answer is.”

  I hated that he was always right. And I hated the way he always sounded super smug but totally caring all simultaneously. It made it very difficult to hold on to my indignation.

  “Fine, but…I want a few more answers before we go.” I pointed down the darkened hall that seemed to lead directly to Anna and Martin’s complex. “I want to know where this goes.”