Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(36)

Nightfall approached. As we curved around the shore outside the city limits, Lon sneaked his hand over the leather armrest and gently prodded my arm. When I glanced over at him, he was resting the side of his head against the seat, a tender look on his face. He tucked his long hair behind one ear, then ran his knuckles over the elbow of my jacket. I switched hands on the wheel so that I could link fingers with him.

With a sudden cry, Hajo woke up from his stupor. He’d caught the thread.

His directions became increasingly frequent and urgent. Bob perked up and watched with interest as Hajo guided us down an unmarked rocky side street that meandered around the coast. It was hard to see much of the terrain under dark skies and dreary rain. The headlights illuminated a thicket of evergreens on the left that blocked our view of the main road and, as I steered the SUV around a sharp curve, a row of concrete buildings stacked up in the distance, clinging to the shore. From a rickety post, a metal sign hung sideways, riddled with rusted-out holes. It read: PACIFIC GLORY TUNA CANNERY.

“Huh,” Lon murmured. “I remember touring this place on a school trip when I was a kid. It used to rival Bumble Bee until it was shut down in the late 1970s. Botulism outbreak. Put hundreds of locals out of work.”

“We’re close,” Hajo said. “Really close.”

I slowed the SUV as the bumpy road became covered with creeping bramble and downed tree branches every ten feet or so. Across the water, white-purple lightning struck on the edge of the horizon as darker storm clouds gathered. Angry waves crashed against the shore below us as we drove further down into the small peninsula where the cannery sprawled. Sections of the buildings transitioned from land to water with the aid of stilts. A long dock with missing boards wrapped around the Pacific edge of the buildings where tuna boats used to empty their catches.

“Stop.”

I braked in front of one of the cannery buildings.

“Inside there,” Hajo said, flinging off his seat belt.

I switched off the ignition and exited the SUV under a smattering of cold rain while Lon dug around in a seat pocket for a flashlight. He flicked it on and followed Hajo to a large loading door at the end of the building. Waist-high weeds, dead and brittle, blocked the door. Lon and Hajo worked together silently to stamp them down until they revealed a vertical door handle chained with a blackened padlock.

“You know how to pick locks?” Hajo asked Lon.

Lon shone the flashlight on the padlock, studied it for several seconds, then beckoned for me to take the light from him. “Hold it right there,” he instructed. He fished out his father’s old pocketknife and dug rusted bolts from the metal plate holding one side of the chain. Within seconds, the entire plate fell away with the chain still attached.

“Don’t get your fingerprints on anything. Just in case,” he said. He retracted his hand inside the edge of his jacket sleeve before sliding the large door a few feet to the side, and one by one we slipped into darkness, shaking the rain off as we entered the crumbling warehouse.

A shallow ramp led into a cavernous empty room. Everything was concrete—the floor, walls, rows of columns, even the ceiling. Only a narrow, rectangular band of windows broke the monotony. Stormy twilight passed through busted glass and illuminated an impressive display of faded graffiti that tagged the walls. Near the entrance, wooden crates were stacked high, a make-do ladder leading up to one of the broken windows, presumably used by graffiti artists to get in and out of the building. A pile of rusted spray-paint cans lay nearby.

We walked in, wet shoes squelching as we avoided rubble and some foul-smelling standing water that ran through the center of the room. At the end, we continued through a passage into a second area filled with tables and long metal tanks. Abandoned machinery was choked with weeds that snaked in through the broken windows. The graffiti tags tapered off here.

“So strong . . .” Hajo mumbled. “Keep going.”

Something stirred in the darkness to the side. I started and Lon herded me in closer to his hip. “Just rats,” he assured me, “or bats. Or maybe seagulls.” Any of them would explain the strong, acidic smell of animal droppings that stung my eyes.

“People get sick from breathing in pigeon shit,” I complained, eyeing the darkness with trepidation. “Like, hospital sick.”

Lon grunted. “Isn’t your buddy Bob here a healer?”

“I’m not good with disease,” Bob argued in a loud whisper behind me. “Just minor injuries. My father’s knack was stronger. He was a well-known GP in Morella before he died.”

He was right about that. Earthbounds with healing abilities were fairly common, and those with substantial skills usually made a career of medicine. Their high rate of success gave them a sizable advantage over human doctors and also gave them access to the highest-paying jobs. In fact, Bob lived off his father’s inheritance. I often wondered if Bob felt overshadowed by his father’s success—he talked about the man a lot, especially after a few drinks.

“It’s just on the other side of that hallway,” Hajo said.

We all looked where he was pointing. “That hallway” was long, narrow, and echoed with the sound of water dripping from broken pipes running along the ceiling. Every fiber of my being screamed a warning not to step into it. If Jupe were there, he would tell me that people too dumb to live did this kind of thing all the time in horror movies.