Sapphire Nights: Crystal Magic, Book 1

by Patricia Rice

  Sam glanced up at the ceiling. Sure enough, a mission bell hung overhead, attached to a rope that probably went outside. It rang again.

  She tugged open the heavy door and was rewarded with a sharp rap on her head. Without thinking, she grabbed the offending weapon and yanked it away, then rubbed her head and glared. “Ow, what did you do that for?”

  Nearly as tall as Sam, a skeletal woman dressed in a concealing veil and black drapery scowled at her and retrieved her gnarled walking stick. “You didn’t answer. I need Cass urgently. Tell me where she is.”

  “Not here. And hello to you too.” Hmmm, this Sam person might be a smartass.

  “I know she’s not here,” the—witchy was the best description—woman snarled. “But you must have seen her. Where?”

  Since the last address Sam remembered was the one in the GPS, she responded, “Monterey.” She was about to slam the door, then remembered she was a stranger here and needed help. Never close the door on someone she might need to ask for help—it seemed a good proverb to live by, whether or not she’d made it up herself.

  “Blast and damn,” the woman muttered. “She’s done it. You’ll have to do. Come along.”

  She was starving. She needed to examine the boxes in the trunk. She needed a computer. Now that she had a phone, she could try the number in the book.

  “I’m hungry. You may come in and tell me what you want me to do.” Sam turned to go back to the kitchen, but witchy woman grabbed her elbow.

  “No time. Without knowing her coordinates, I can’t astral project. Lives depend on us.”

  She dragged Sam out the door and into a. . . golf cart?

  Even if she could be heard over the grinding motor or keep her teeth from chattering from the wild bumps on a bad road without shock absorbers, Sam was too busy hanging on to ask questions. Whoever this wild woman was, she drove like a maniac in a vehicle not intended for speed—or for the gravel lane they swerved onto.

  Whose lives depended on them?

  With relief, she saw Mariah at the end of the road. Maybe she’d get answers now.

  Staggering out of the cart, into the dusty chaparral of a plateau well above the town, Sam planted her flip-flops on firm ground and studied the terrain. She noted the natural flora of a dry, west coast plateau but didn’t see anyone dying or in danger of doing so.

  Refusing to follow the command of a woman who wouldn’t show her face, Sam rubbed her temple and strained to recall how she’d ended up in this weird situation—but nothing came to her. She still wasn’t even certain her name was Samantha.

  Other women appeared over the ridge, walking up some back trail. Sam didn’t have a good map in her head of the area yet and wasn’t even sure she could find her way back. Reluctantly, she started toward the one known in this landscape—Mariah.

  In the process, she almost stumbled over a long fissure in the dry ground. Mariah stood at the far end of it, staring down in. . . horror? Fascination? It was hard to tell from this angle. Sam watched where she walked so she didn’t stub her toe on the cracked ground—until she saw the bone.

  Instinct kicked in. With interest, she crouched down to study the brown and corroding ivory with one knobby end protruding. She was pretty certain it was a femur. She had no idea how she knew that—but that was a human body down there. She shuddered when she glimpsed the skull.

  Without a qualm, Walker ran the Subaru’s Utah license plate through the system. He might be taking a sabbatical from his investigative firm and all his agents, but as a cop, he had access to official databases. No stolen vehicle reports. Owner information from out of state would take a little longer.

  Sam might just be passing through. Tourists kept the town running, after all. But there was something about the way the women had latched on to the newcomer that said she might be more. Hillvale was full of weird women. Sam didn’t appear to be one of them, but that could be wishful thinking.

  Face it, Walker, life is full of weird women, and you need to get past it.

  He pinched his nose and shut up his inner demon. His self-enforced sabbatical from his real life was meant to quiet the craziness and return him to normal. He only had six months of this rural cop stint left to find out what no law enforcement agency had been able to uncover. He meant to leave no stone unturned—and that included listening to the women.

  He steered the county’s official four-wheel drive Explorer up the mountain to the Kennedys’ ostentatious luxury hotel. Redwood Resort could have been as easily called Timberland, the name of the original ranch. The first floor had a log façade, with log cabins dotting the woods surrounding it. He’d read up on the history. Back in the 70’s, environmentalist tree-huggers had nearly burned the place down in protest of the destruction of half a forest and the toxic creosote used to treat the logs.

  Walker could see the argument on either side and didn’t much care which group was right. The main issue was that the Kennedys and the remnants of that early hippy commune had been at war ever since.

  Kurt Kennedy had a security crew to patrol the grounds, since the county road stopped at the front door. Still, Walker liked to cruise in, check with Juan, head of security, and keep an eye on things. It was good publicity for the sheriff’s department and gave him an opportunity to observe new people.

  This small town job was a no-brainer next to the corporate investigation firm he needed to return to.

  It still had its moments. Today, the parking lot was spilling over with locals and tourists on foot instead of in cars. He had to stop on the side of the road and stroll the last few hundred feet, studying the crowd for its source. His damaged leg muscles needed stretching anyway.

  Crazy Daisy was the center of attention, of course. Her face was unlined and ageless, but her graying dark hair stood out in a tangled nimbus around her head, giving evidence that she wasn’t young. She was of average height, probably weighed more than he did, but her flesh hung on her bare arms in folds, as if she’d lost a lot of weight. On any given day she could be garbed in beaded leather or red western attire, but the shedding feather cloak went with her everywhere.

  Today, she wore purple and black satin and a ring of flowers in her hair—dead ones. She was busily sprinkling sparkling dust in a design at her feet.

  “We are telling you, she will die! The prophecy has come true! Look around you, see what you have wrought with your iron and your steel, your destruction of mother earth! Evidence lies right up that mountain,” a voice declared in the thunderous tones of an experienced stage actor.

  Walker rolled his eyes as the crowd gave way so he could see into the clearing. Daisy seldom spoke in anything except circles and never with such venom, so he knew it wasn’t Daisy speaking, but Valdis. Her real name was Valerie Ingersson. But half the people up here invented their own names. Valdis called herself after the Norse goddess of death. Tall, skeletal, usually garbed in flowing black rags, and a veil concealing her face and black hair, she played the part well.

  He’d seen her once without all the gear. Her black hair had blond roots, and her chin was marred by an angry scar. Everyone up here had a story.

  From the steps of the resort, Kurt Kennedy glared at the show with disapproval. Walker caught his eye and quirked a questioning eyebrow. Kurt nodded without a smile.

  Not much older than Walker, the wealthy, uptight resort manager had no sense of humor on a good day, if he ever had good days.

  Walker entered the clearing and caught Valdis by her bony elbow. Daisy made an awkward curtsy in her billowing purple skirt. He bowed his head in acknowledgment of her wordless greeting.

  Valdis continued screeching, but at him now. “Save the earth goddess or she will die as the other did!”

  “I don’t think the guests can help,” he said, applying the respectful tone he used on his mother when she raged. “Why don’t we go somewhere quiet and discuss this?” He steered Valdis toward the side of the sprawling lodge and offered his arm to Daisy.

  “You have kept
your crystals safe?” Daisy asked beneath her friend’s shouting. “You are walking a dark path, and you will need them to light the way.”

  Daisy had built him a clever stone man of wire, rocks, and shiny crystals when he’d first arrived. He kept the sculpture on a window sill in his Baskerville apartment because he admired both the stones and the art. “Rocky is doing just fine. What’s the shouting about?”

  “We don’t know for certain,” Daisy whispered. “But the prophesies have been proven. More deaths will follow.”

  Sometimes Daisy made good sense, if one weeded out references to paths future and past.

  Walker nodded at the security captain opening his office door for them. “Juan, good to see you.”

  The older, stouter man nodded unsmilingly as he gestured for them to enter. Walker got the impression that Juan disliked Walker’s Chinese heritage, or maybe just his city background. Since he had more important goals here, Walker preferred to ignore any implied slight and use the guard’s authority for his own purposes. The resort was private property, after all.

  Juan’s crew would break up the crowd now that the troublemakers were out of sight. Walker could just leave the two women here and let them calm down, but generally, they didn’t create trouble without reason, however weird their purpose might be. So he pushed them inside, where he perched on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. “All right, ladies, who will die? Is there something I can do?”

  Valdis paced jerkily. Daisy drifted off in her own world, staring at a photograph of an owl.

  “It is as Cassandra predicted—” With a dramatic gesture pointing up the mountain, Valdis glared. “The earth mother will die unless we act now. Her gatekeeper is already dead.” She stalked out, as if expecting him to follow.

  “There are four black crows on the gravestone,” Crazy Daisy said sadly. “The Morrigan has arrived.”

  She used a tone that might as well have said “The end is nigh” and followed the Norse death goddess.

  Since they went up the mountain and not back to the parking lot, Walker debated whether to go after them. You’re a crazy magnet his inner demon complained. Walker ignored the warning and sent a wordless question to the older man.

  “They been gathering up on Menendez land all morning,” Juan reported. “Might want to take a look. They could be having a ritual sacrifice for all I know. They’re off our grounds, so I haven’t checked it out.”

  “They?” Walker stood up and led the way out, the shorter man on his heels. He pretty much already knew the answer to his question, but he’d rather avoid surprises.

  “The usual bunch,” the guard confirmed. “We let them park here when we don’t have a lot of guests. Monty says encouraging the locals is good for business.”

  Walker snorted at the mayor’s peacemaking efforts. Monty and Kurt jointly owned the lodge with their mother. He was glad he didn’t have to keep the family peace. “What does Kurt say?”

  “It’s a load of hokum,” Juan said in a tone indicating his agreement with his boss.

  “Some of the ladies are pretty influential. The mayor could be right.” Walker followed the mulch path the resort optimistically called a woodland walk. The uneven ground exacerbated his limp, but he’d deal. Up ahead, he could catch glimpses of the flowing drapery of Valdis and Daisy. He didn’t know why all that fabric didn’t catch on the prickly pear cactus growing all through here.

  Before long, they veered off the mulch path and followed a rockier one. Sand slid from beneath his boots, loosening the stones they walked on. Layers of shale, sandstone, and volcanic rock from the tectonic shifts of the San Andreas fault formed these unstable mountains. In spring, mud slides shifted the geology with enough energy to take out a town.

  In place of worrying about mudslides, he probably ought to worry that it had been a relatively dry spring. People weren’t as cautious with their campfires here as they were further south in the more arid hills.

  He stopped on a rocky outcrop and gazed over a plateau too far north and east for a view of the town below. The area had once been covered in ancient redwoods, but they’d been logged long ago. It was mostly scrub brush now.

  The women had formed a ragged circle to his right. To Walker’s disappointment, the newcomer was with them. He’d hoped she was just visiting and not one of Cass’s coven, although he should have known better. She was sitting cross-legged, leaning against a tree, and studying whatever the hell was happening. Maybe she was an outside observer from some other town’s coven.

  “There’s thirteen,” Juan said in disgust as Valdis and Daisy rejoined the group. “Superstitious claptrap.”

  One of the women waved a smoking weed over the cleared center of the circle, while the others chanted. Were they huddling over hot coals? The day wasn’t cold, and he saw no flames, although the ground did seem displaced. Maybe they were raising zombies.

  “Think I’ll take a look,” Walker decided, not liking smoke in the dry scrub. The scene looked off to him, and Valdis and Daisy had talked about the death of a gatekeeper. The Lucys were inclined toward superstitious claptrap, as Juan said, but they also displayed a deeper concern and intelligence for the land than the Kennedys and their lot did, for all their money and education.

  And Walker had reason to be concerned about mysterious deaths.

  Juan shrugged, chugged at the water bottle he carried on his hip, and followed him down the crude path.

  The new girl in town—Sam—looked up the instant they hit the plateau. She rose and walked toward them with willowy grace—even in her totally impractical flip flops. He liked the way her hair flew wild and free around movie star cheekbones. What the hell was she wearing? A sweat suit? With nothing under it? Walker had to force his eyes to focus on her face. He wasn’t allowing any more crazy into his life.

  As they approached, he could see her forehead carved into worried lines. He expected to hear crows cawing three times any second—and that was his father’s Irish superstition coming to haunt him.

  “You fall in with the wrong crowd fast,” he said gruffly as she came close enough for him to observe the pucker over her aquiline nose.

  “They apparently needed thirteen people, and I was all they had. And I’m guessing your attitude is the reason they didn’t call you.” She said that without an ounce of disapproval, merely turning back the way she came. “But I’m relieved you’re here. Val and Daisy said they tried to warn you, but you didn’t believe them.”

  “Val and Daisy talk in riddles. Next time, send someone coherent.” His limp easily limited his stride to match her slower one, while he kept his eye on the group ahead.

  The women appeared to be keening now, huddled around an open. . . grave?

  “I trust there will be no next time,” she said in what sounded like alarm. “If this happens often, I’m wearing shoes to bed.”

  He snorted and glanced down at her dusty toes. “They dragged you out of bed?”

  “You think I go hiking like this regularly? There are probably rattlesnakes out here!”

  “Only the western rattlesnake survives in this climate. Try not answering the door,” he suggested.

  She shot him an azure glare that relieved some of his tension as they arrived at the circle of women—which parted to let him pass.

  His gut knotted and his relief vanished.

  A fissure had opened in the dry earth, revealing a human skull and what appeared to be a leg bone.

  He’d been afraid of this, but what was left of his heart split in two.

  Chapter 4

  Efficiently, Deputy Walker cleared Val’s friends away from what Sam assumed was a grave site. The skull had looked old, but the women were agitated. Call her an unsympathetic wimp, but beyond intellectual curiosity, she didn’t really care about long-dead bones. She had an urgent need, not only for food, but for the relative sanity of Cass’s place and the boxes waiting there. Unfortunately, she was stranded out here with chanting witches and no car.

  Ol
d graves were probably scattered all through these parts, so she didn’t see any reason to linger. Smudging and chanting wouldn’t bring back the dead. When the hunky deputy brushed her off by suggesting she return to the lodge with the surly man in a security uniform, Sam accepted.

  The older man helped her over rocky ledges where her feet tended to slip out of the ridiculous beach shoes.

  “Did the natives who lived here not bury their dead in the cemetery?” she tried asking once they were back on a reasonable path.

  “Natives lived down on the coast, not up here,” the guard said. “Only people ornery enough to wrestle with grizzlies settled up here.”

  Grizzlies? There were grizzlies as well as rattlesnakes? Western rattlesnakes, as if the type made any difference.

  “Oh, I thought the cemetery was a native burial ground.” Or maybe Mariah had said sacred ground—and she really hadn’t specified the location.

  “That’s just an old folk tale,” he said in dismissal. “Gives the locals a reason to keep anyone from building out here. They don’t like strangers settling in.”

  Two sides to every story, she supposed. When they reached a small log cabin marked SECURITY, a tall, solidly built man in a suit, who obviously belonged in a city, waited for them. Dark hair and stubborn jaw accentuated his scowl. He wore a fancy gold watch and what appeared to be an expensive linen shirt open at the throat to reveal a deep tan.

  “Where’s Walker?” he demanded.

  Sam wasn’t certain if he was asking her or the man with her.

  “Got a situation up there on the Menendez land. Wasn’t none of our concern, so I said I’d put in a call to the sheriff’s office and escort the lady back down. The witches kidnapped her, and she’s got no way of getting home.”

  “Kidnapped?” the man asked. He unbent enough to look at her. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrogate. I’m Kurt Kennedy, manager of the resort.”