All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (42 page)

“That has nothing to do with you,” I
objected.

“Aye, it has to. She gets inside me and makes
me do things. We’re bound by blood. Maybe we are bound by madness
as well.”

“You’re going to have to stop talking
like this, Felicity,” I told her. “You aren’t her and she isn’t
you. This is a
Lwa
, and it’s
taking the path of least resistance.”

She shook her head slightly. “This
isn’t just the
Lwa
. It’s her
too. You know that.”

“Even if it is, so what?”

“You said it yourself.”

“What?”

“The
Lwa
is taking the path of least resistance. What better choice
than someone who is insane?”

“Honey, we can’t have this conversation. You
aren’t being rational.”

“Aye, you’re right. Maybe you should go.”

“Excuse me?”

She hung her head, avoiding my eyes. “You
should go now.”

“Felicity…”

“No,” she choked. “Go. Please.”

It took a pair of minutes before I could
bring myself to rise from the chair. Felicity still hadn’t lifted
her head, and it became obvious that she was done with the visit.
No amount of pleading was going to bring her back into the
conversation, not right now anyway. Her stubbornness would see to
that.

I was worried, angry, hurt, and confused all
at once, but there was nothing more I could do here. I just kept
telling myself that she was safe and that Helen would take care of
her. Maybe tomorrow she would be ready to talk again.

I leaned forward and kissed her on top of her
head.

“I love you Felicity Caitlin O’Brien,” I
whispered, lingering for several heartbeats before turning and
walking to the door.

It took a moment before the attendant
answered my knock and unbolted the barrier. On my way out I paused,
looking back toward my wife. She had drawn her legs back up and was
sitting again, just as I had found her when I walked in, although
this time she was no longer watching the window.

* * * * *

“Dammit, Helen, she thinks she’s insane!” I
almost spat the comment across the desk. My pain and confusion had
given way to anger before the elevator doors had ever closed. Now
that I was standing in the office she kept at the hospital, it had
begun to boil over.

“Rowan,” she replied calmly. “I told you that
everything we had accomplished thus far was completely negated by
the incident this morning.”

“But she thinks she’s insane!”

“She thought she was insane the day you
admitted her,” she replied matter-of-factly. “She simply had not
told you as much.”

My cell phone chirped again. My awareness of
the tone had been drifting in and out, so I’d lost count of how
many times it had reminded me to pick up my voice mail. I snatched
it from my pocket, angrily stabbed some buttons to silence the
annoyance, and then shoved it back into the darkness from whence it
came.

“Well, there’s got to be something you can
do,” I demanded.

“Yes, Rowan, there is. Continue her sessions
and keep her safe and comfortable until you find the rogue spirit
that is causing her this strife. Then, and only then, real healing
can begin.”

“Dammit, Helen, this is fucked up.”

“Yes, it is.”

I rubbed my hand across the lower half of my
face, pinching my cheeks together and pursing my lips as I
contemplated the situation. Stubble had already begun to sprout
around my goatee, and it made a soft swishing noise as it dragged
against the ridges on my fingertips.

“I’m sorry,” I finally muttered.

“I understand, Rowan,” she replied. “And,
apology accepted.”

We sat in silence for a long while. I could
feel the ever-present throb in my head beating out a rhythm all its
own. I’d grown used to it these days. Enough so that I pretty much
ignored it unless it got worse.

“I guess I’d better go home,” I finally
said.

“That would probably be a good idea,” Helen
replied. “I would not normally do this, however, under the
circumstances I am willing to make an exception. Would you like for
me to prescribe something to help you sleep?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

* * * * *

I hadn’t been in my truck for more than five
minutes that my cell phone began to ring. I finished backing out of
the space and levered the vehicle into drive before fishing around
in my pocket for the device and pulling it out. Stabbing it on, I
placed it against my ear, holding it tight as I swung my gaze left
and right before pulling out of the parking lot.

“Rowan Gant,” I half-barked into the device.
Right now I didn’t care who I alienated.

“Rowan, it’s Velvet,” a Southern drawl rolled
into my ear. “Did you get my message?”

“No,” I returned, fighting to soften my
tone.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, actually. Felicity experienced
another possession by the
Lwa
this morning,” I explained. “It wasn’t good.”

“Did anyone get hurt?” she asked, genuine
concern in her voice. I had confided everything in her to date, so
she was well aware of how bad things could get.

“Physically, no, but my wife is now convinced
that she is insane.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, but I don’t intend to let her travel
that road for very long. But anyway, you said left a message? Tell
me it’s good news.”

“Yes, I think it might be. I just might have
found something.”

“If you did, I’ll put you on my goddamned
altar as my personal Goddess.”

“Let’s not go that far just yet,” she
replied. “I put some feelers out in the
Vodoun
community and started getting a few
interesting calls. But, one that came in yesterday really stuck
out, so I ran it down. There’s a tomb in New Orleans that has been
having offerings placed on it on a fairly regular basis starting a
few years ago. Not unusual in itself, but none of the locals were
familiar with the ancestor, so that was curious. Still, not that
big a deal, but then over the past year, they noticed that the
activity had increased significantly.”

“Did this tomb survive Katrina?”

“Yes, it is in a part of the city that didn’t
flood.”

“Has there been activity there since the
disaster?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Okay, sounds promising. So, in your
opinion do you think this might mean someone has made this ancestor
a personal
Lwa
?”

“It’s possible, but let me finish because
here’s the interesting thing. The tomb had been damaged at some
point, so the name was only partially legible, but it started with
an M and an I…”

“You’re getting damn close to a place on that
altar, Velvet.”

She ignored the comment and rushed into an
explanation. “Just to cover the bases, I went ahead and got the
location for the tomb and had a friend with the Louisiana Division
City Archives look into it for me. Listen to this. The remains
interred in there are of one Miranda Blanque, date of death on or
around September fourteenth, eighteen fifty-one.”

I felt the thud in my skull ramp up a
notch then send a hard stab of pain lancing beneath my scalp. A
wave of gooseflesh followed it as the hair along the back of my
neck rose to attention. I knew then that this wasn’t a case of
finding
some
thing.

This was
the
thing.

It was she.

“How does it feel?” I asked.

“How does what feel?”

“To be a Goddess,” I replied. “Because you
just got a promotion.”

Wednesday, November 30

7:17 P.M.

Lambert Saint Louis International Airport

Concourse C, Gate C3

Saint Louis, Missouri

Felicity had been in much better spirits when
I had visited her earlier in the day. Apparently, a good nights
sleep and some time chatting with Helen had done wonders. I didn’t
want to second-guess someone with a laundry list of credentials
that I, myself, didn’t possess, but I was betting my wife had far
more resilience than she’d been credited.

Helen had objected to me coming to the
hospital at first, feeling that my presence might upset some of the
balance they had reached. For once, I actually agreed on that point
and would have bowed to her wishes had it not been for the fact
that I needed to seek my wife’s permission. Not exactly like a
child seeking endorsement from a parent, but I needed to make a
trip to New Orleans. There was no way around it. Unfortunately, I
was having trouble making myself leave Saint Louis with Felicity
locked away in the psychiatric ward of a hospital, even if she was
under Helen’s watchful eye.

I knew I had no choice, and so did
they. In fact, the prospect that I had most likely found the
Lwa
served to brighten my wife’s mood
even more, turning her underlying sense of despair into a newfound
hope. But, in the end it still took both of them better than an
hour to convince me that it was okay for me to leave and that she
would be all right.

I looked at my watch and shifted in my seat.
The entire row of chairs was interconnected, and they rocked
slightly as I moved, shifting back and coming to a rest with a
mildly jarring clunk. The lady sitting two seats to the left of me
instantly shot me a hard glance. Her face was creased with a thin
frown as she made a show of tugging at her yarn and settling back
in to crochet whatever oddly shaped project she was attempting.

“Sorry,” I mumbled then tried to sit still.
The seat wasn’t exactly comfortable, so I couldn’t say how long
that was going to last.

My trip through the TSA security checkpoint
had been much quicker than I expected, so I had ended up sitting
here way too long. It was one of the things I hated most about air
travel, especially since 9-11. It had become a terminal case of
hurry up and wait. Of course, I had hurried, and now I was waiting.
I’d been planted in this spot long enough now that my buttocks were
going to sleep, and I still had a plane ride ahead of me.

According to the time on my watch, I had a
good twenty to thirty minutes before they would even begin
boarding. In fact, the plane hadn’t even arrived yet, and in my
experience if they said they were going to board at 7:45 that
really meant 8:05. I knew I was going to be miserable if I didn’t
at least get up and move around a bit.

I turned my head slightly to the side and
watched the woman with the crochet hook stabbing away as she poked
it through one loop, hooked a strand, pulled, then repeated,
twisting and fiddling as she went. Eventually, she stopped and
gazed intently at a folded magazine in her lap. I assumed it was a
pattern of sorts.

Either way, pattern or not, I took the
opportunity to get up from my seat and heft my carry-on from the
floor next to me. The row of joined chairs rocked and thumped once
again, and even though she wasn’t actually working on the project
at the moment, the lady shot me another disgusted glare.

This time I didn’t bother to apologize. I
simply shrugged and walked away.

Hooking the strap of my backpack over my
shoulder, I started across the concourse, dodging travelers as they
endeavored to run over one another with their wheeled luggage in
tow. After running the gauntlet, I ducked into the coffee shop that
sat diagonally across from my gate. I ordered a large coffee with a
double shot of espresso and then, after glancing at the
refrigerated case, had them add a cheese Danish onto the tab. I
suddenly realized that I hadn’t even given thought to eating before
I rushed to the airport. There’d been too much to do with getting
the last minute plane ticket, arranging for our friend RJ to watch
the animals, canceling a meeting with a client, and trying to pack
for the quick trip.

The shop was bustling, just as it was any
other time I’d had occasion to fly, so it took a few minutes for my
drink to get done. I simply stood away from the crush of people,
holding my pastry-filled and logo-adorned bag in one hand, with the
thumb of my other hooked through the shoulder strap of my backpack.
Eventually, my name was called, and after an aborted attempt or two
at reaching the counter, I managed to get my hands on my
coffee.

I had kept an eye on my gate and thus far saw
no one exiting the jetway, so I figured there was plenty of time
before I would be called to board. I exited the shop and found that
one of the small café tables in front of it was free, so I parked
myself there, dropping my carryon to the floor and sitting back.
The chair wasn’t any more comfortable than the one I had been
sitting in before, but at least it wasn’t connected to anything
else, so the only person I could disturb was myself.

I was just pulling the Danish out of the bag
when my cell phone started to warble. I dropped the pastry onto a
handful of napkins then pulled the device out of my pocket and
answered it.

“Rowan Gant.”

“Where the fuck are you?” Ben’s voice hit my
ear.

“Actually, I’m at the airport.”

“Why in hell are ya’ at the friggin’
airport?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Well where ya’ goin’?”

“Like I said, you don’t want to know.”

“Dammit, Row, is this somethin’ ta’ do with
that Voodoo stuff? Are you doin’ somethin’ stupid like I told ya’
not to?”

“Do I need to say it a third time, Ben?”

“Fuck me.”

“I’d rather not. So, did you just call me to
brush up on your suspect interviewing skills, or was there some
greater reason?”