Hannah Jayne - Under a Spell

“What? The prom queen—?” I stopped and sucked in a sharp breath when my eyes caught the headline plastered over the photo: MERCY HIGH STUDENT MISSING.

I scanned quickly.

Mercy High School student Alyssa Rand disappeared Monday afternoon. Erica Rand, Alyssa’s mother, said that she last saw her daughter when she boarded the number 57 bus for Mercy as she always did; teachers confirmed that Alyssa attended her classes through the lunch period, but she did not show up for afternoon classes. Police are taking student statements and a conservative approach, unsure yet whether to classify Alyssa as a runaway or an abductee.

I looked up, frowning. “I don’t understand. I mean, it’s horrible, but we don’t even know if she’s really missing.”

“She is, Sophie.”

Sampson pressed his lips together and sighed, his shoulders falling in that way that let me know that he wasn’t telling me everything. “There has been talk of a coven on campus.”

Relief washed over me and I sort of chuckled. “Sampson, every high school has a coven on campus! It’s called disgruntled teenage girls with black dye jobs and too much angsty time on their hands pretending to read tea leaves and shoot you the evil eye.” I waved the article in my hand. “I don’t see how one has to do with the other.”

“When Cathy Ledwith was found last year, she was in the center of a chalked pentagram. Black candles at the points.”

I licked my suddenly dry lips. “They didn’t mention that in the paper or on the news.” There was a beat of silence where Sampson held my eye; finally, I rolled mine with a soft of snorting laugh. “Wait—they think it was witchcraft? Have you seen The Craft ? Teen Witch ? Pentagrams and candles is Freak Out Your Parents With Wicca 101. The killer probably found the pentagram left over from some kids calling up the spirit of Heath Ledger and dumped the body. Convenient, unfortunate, but convenient. ”

“The police considered that, but she had an incantation carved into her flesh.”

I blinked. “Carved?”

“I consulted both Kale and Lorraine.”

I sucked in a breath, willing Sampson to stop talking. Kale and Lorraine are the Underworld Detection Agency’s resident witches. Kale had recently been run over by a car but spent her downtime controlling the elements, and Lorraine was the most powerful Gestalt witch the Green Order had seen in decades. She was also a top Tupperware saleslady, and if anyone knew a true incantation—or, for Lorraine, how to burp a lid—it was these ladies.

“They both confirmed that the incantation was legitimate. The killer also drained her blood.” Even Sampson winced and my heart seemed to fold over on itself. I chewed the inside of my cheek and found myself praying that all of that had been done postmortem.

Sampson went on. “From the looks of it, Cathy Ledwith’s killer was trying to summon a demon—and not a good one. This isn’t just over-the-counter witchcraft.”

“Oh.” The word came out small and hollow, dying in the cavernous room.

“As I mentioned, Cathy’s body was found seven days after she went missing. It was obvious that her attacker wanted—or needed—her to be found on that day.”

“I don’t understand. How do you—why—how do they know that?”

“According to the police report, an anonymous call came in at 7:07 that morning.”

“Seven-oh-seven on the seventh day?”

“Of the seventh month.”

I frowned, resting my chin in my hands. “Maybe her killer is just OCD. Did anyone explore that angle?”

It was silly, but I knew the significance of sevens—and I knew the demon Cathy’s murderer was calling.

“Seven is divine. Seven-seven-seven is—”

“Satan.” The word took up all the space in the room and I found it hard to breathe.

Everyone knows 6-6-6 as the devil’s “call” sign—or they think they do. And while it does have true significance—mostly in movies, fiction, and speed metal songs—it is more like a pop-culture high-five to the Prince of Darkness. The trio of sevens is the summoner.

My heart was throbbing in my throat. I knew the answer, but still had to ask. “Do they think the other girl—”

“Alyssa.”

“Alyssa, do they think she—that she may have been abducted by the same person?”

Sampson’s hulking silence was answer enough.

Something tightened in my chest, and Sampson, his enormous cherry wood desk and his entire office seemed to spin, then fish-eye in front of me. I gripped the sides of my chair and steadied myself.

“We want you to go into Mercy and see what you can find out about this so-called coven.”

“Are they even rela—”

Sampson held up a hand, effectively silencing me. “They’re related, Sophie. There’s no question. Students who knew Cathy confided that she had, in fact, been bullied by a group of other students. Haven’t heard the same about Alyssa but it’s a good possibility.”

A memory wedged in my mind and I was fifteen again, awkward, terrorized, cornered in a Mercy High bathroom by a selection of mean girls with Aqua Net hair and slouchy socks. I could feel the sweat prick on my skin again, the nauseous way my stomach rolled.

“The police—aren’t they working on this?”

Sampson nodded slowly, then laced his fingers together in front of him. “They are.”

“But?”

“They don’t have a whole lot to go on, either. But that’s not what we’re concerned about.”

“We’re concerned about potential witches.”

“I can’t help but believe there is a supernatural element in this case, Sophie. The carving, the state of the body. The police aren’t going to look at things like that. If there is a new coven brewing . . .” Sampson let his words trail off, his dark eyes flicking over me.

“I don’t get it, Sampson. If there were a coven—a coven full of real witches, wouldn’t we know about it? I mean, it’s kind of what we do.” I pointed to the plaque behind Sampson’s head. “It’s right there in the name, Underworld Detection Agency.”

The stern way Sampson’s brows snapped together as he crossed his arms in front of his chest let me know that he wasn’t enjoying my light banter-slash-attempt to do anything other than this assignment.

“Yes, Sophie, I know the name of the agency. But witches are among our least adherent of clients.”

I felt my mouth drop open. “Really?”

“Check the books. We don’t have a lot.”

“I thought that’s because there aren’t a lot.”

“There are thousands. Likely hundreds of thousands in California. We’ve got Wiccan factions, a group of Druids up by Humboldt.”

“And what? They don’t consider themselves ‘Underworldy’?”

Sampson blew out a sigh and nodded his head. “Something like that. If there is a new coven in town—even if it’s an old, under-the-radar one—we likely wouldn’t have known.”

“So really, I have to go out to Mercy and see what I can detect?”

Sampson smiled and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Yup, detect. It’s right there in our ” name.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed myself out of my chair. “Okay. I’m going to run upstairs and get the briefing from the police department. Kind of nice, I guess. They work on the physical, we pick up the metaphysical.” I nodded again. “Kind of like a Batman-and-Robin kind of thing.”

Sampson stood. “No, not like that all. We’re strictly working our angle on this. We’re not trying to find the girl, we’re trying to find the coven.”

A bolt of something shot through me. “So my job is to stand by and look for flying brooms and eye of newt while a girl is missing?”

“The police are going to find Alyssa. They’re going to find Cathy’s killer. Our job is to make sure that if there is a coven involved, if anything has actually been summoned—or anyone is looking for girls to use as future sacrifices—we stop it. We’re doing this on our own. Do you understand that, Sophie?”