Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation (21 page)

“You have been one of the leading authorities
on cults within the Saint Louis County Police Department for the
past few years. Why aren’t you involved with the Major Case
Squad?”

“I resigned from the MCS this morning due to
a shift in caseloads,” Arthur succinctly replied.

“Way to go Arthur,” I thought as I listened
to his reply. “At least you engaged your brain before opening your
mouth this time.”

“Would your resignation have anything to do
with the involvement of Rowan Gant as a consultant to the Major
Case Squad?” Brandee persisted.

“I have no comment on that.” He continued his
guarded, tactful stance.

“Mister Gant is a self-proclaimed Witch and
practitioner of the Wiccan religion,” she pressed harder. “You
yourself stated that this amounts to nothing more than a cult.”

Arthur’s face had reddened, and I could tell
that he desperately wanted to spill his guts. He was dying to tell
the world of the police department’s moral decrepitude due to my
involvement. He probably even wanted to take a few verbal shots at
me personally. But Arthur McCann was only a few short years away
from his pension, and whatever his personal beliefs, he was still a
dedicated cop.

“No comment,” he finally returned.

The picture changed back to the talking heads
behind the anchor desk on the stylized set. They began to banter
back and forth, making what they believed to be clever quips about
me, and Witches in general.

It wasn’t long before I was thoroughly
disgusted with the entire exposition and switched the television
off. Following my wife’s example, I went to bed.

A distant scream.

Darkness.

Indigo Darkness.

A point of light far away.

A distant scream.

The light grows brighter. Larger.
Closer.

I move toward the light.

The light stays beyond my reach.

A violent chord struck sharply upon an
unearthly instrument. Grating tones that seem to last forever,
carrying themselves visibly aloft on directionless winds. Sounds
that can be seen as well as heard.

A terrified scream.

Grey.

Damp, thick greyness.

It’s raining. Not heavily, just a gentle
mist. A light sprinkle raining down from a gloomy grey sky.

“
Rowan, so nice to see you again.”

I turn to the voice and find Ariel clad in
white lace. She smiles at me then looks upward. I try to speak but
have no voice. She looks up at the sky, the misty rain lightly
bathing her innocent smiling face. She looks back to my face, eyes
smiling and a strand of hair clinging damply to her cheek.

“
It always rains here,” she says to me. “I
don’t know why. It’s mostly just a misty rain.”

A dark figure rises from the grey
nothingness behind her.

A figure black as night.

A figure wrapped in a hooded robe.

“
Do you like the rain, Rowan?” Ariel asks
me. “I do, but I think it rains too much here. What do you
think?”

A flicker of light.

No, a reflection.

There is something in the dark figure’s
hand.

Once again I try to speak. I try to warn
her. I scream a silent scream.

Her eyes grow large in sudden astonishment.
Her lithe body jerks upward in a violent spasm. A crimson stain
spreads savagely across her breast.

I’ve seen this before.

I can’t make it stop.

I can’t look away.

“
Why, Rowan?” she mouths wordlessly.
“Why?

Indigo darkness.

A distant ceaseless scream.

“
Why don’t you make it stop,
Rowan?”

I turn again. Ariel faces me, her lace gown
streaked vermilion. Glassy eyes stare unblinkingly at me. Her lips
are frozen in a perpetual scream, yet only silence moves past
them.

“
How can I make it stop, Ariel? Tell me.”
My voice halts and jerks, changing in speed and pitch as if
haphazardly pieced together.

“
Please make it stop, Rowan?” Her pleading
voice meets my ears.

Her lips never move.

Misty rain.

Grey misty rain.

An endless scream.

I don’t know when the nightmare started or
even how long it lasted. It could have begun mere moments after I
closed my eyes or for all I knew, the last slumbering seconds
before reopening them. Logically, I knew that the entire sequence
couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes at the most.
Emotionally, I was certain it had lasted for hours.

Felicity was still sleeping soundly when I
awoke bathed in sweat and tangled almost irremovably in the sheets.
My heart was racing, and I gasped hungrily for air to feed it.
Slowly, I withdrew myself from the damp snarl of the bed linens and
retrieved my Book of Shadows from the nightstand next to me then
made my way to the bathroom and closed the door. I switched on the
light in an effort to chase away my sudden irrational fear of the
darkness then perched myself on the cool tile ledge surrounding the
tub and began the task of relaxing. Fifteen minutes and three cups
of water later, my pulse and breathing finally returned to
normal.

Pulling the ink pen from its loop in the
cover, I opened the Book of Shadows, my diary of dreams and
thoughts, and proceeded to record every detail of the vision I
could remember while it was still fresh in my mind. Every single
thing I saw, no matter how nonsensical. Every little nuance of my
emotions, each and every sliver of information, I scribed within
the pages of the book until there was nothing left to write.

Senseless fear fought to grip me once again
as I doused the light and returned quietly to the bedroom. I
mentally beat the emotion down and after returning my Book of
Shadows to the nightstand, slid into the bed next to my wife. I
cuddled next to her in search of comfort, and she shifted lazily as
I slipped my arm around her. I pressed myself to relax and rested
my cheek against her soft auburn hair, drinking in its sweet scent.
Before long, fatigue won out over irrational panic, and I floated
easily into the world of sleep.

* * * * *

The clock on the nightstand read 1:45 A.M.
when I rolled over and peered blearily at its glowing face. I was
enveloped in a fog of half sleep and struggled to grasp the concept
of why I was awake at such an hour. A loud, obnoxious clamor
reached my ears and then fell silent. I closed my eyes and decided
I must be dreaming, then rolled over. The noise, now more clearly a
ringing sound, filtered into my ears again and was followed by
Felicity’s sharp elbow poking me in the ribs.

“Aye, Rowan, get the phone, then,” she
mumbled from her own half dream state.

I rolled back to face the nightstand and
groped for the receiver. When my fumbling fingers finally located
the device, I grasped it and lifted it from the cradle, cutting off
the noise mid-ring.

“Hello,” I croaked, my voice permeated with
sleep.

“Didn’t wake you, did I?” Ben’s tired voice
came rhetorically from the earpiece.

“You’re not in my driveway again, are you?” I
mumbled.

“No,” he replied. “But I can have a squad car
there in about fifteen minutes if you don’t feel like driving.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, quickly becoming
more alert.

“Number three” was his only reply.

I
jotted down the address and nudged Felicity into wakefulness.
After dragging on a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt, I
started a pot of coffee and proceeded to put on my socks and tennis
shoes. By the time the coffee was finished brewing, my wife had
dressed and was sitting at the breakfast nook with her camera bag
slung over her shoulder.

“You want some of this?” I asked her as I
filled an oversized travel mug with the hot black liquid.

“Aye, is it decaf?” she asked sleepily.

“No. Sorry.”

“I shouldn’t then,” she said with a slight
yawn. “The doctor said I should be avoiding caffeine, what with the
baby and all. I’ve already broken that rule a couple of times this
weekend.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed. “Would you rather
skip this and go back to bed? I can go by myself.”

“No.” She shook her head and stifled another
yawn. “I’d rather go along and see if we can catch this guy. That
way we can all go back to bed and get some sleep.”

I tucked the address into my shirt pocket and
snapped the lid onto the travel mug. Upon opening the front door,
we were greeted by slightly cooler temperatures than earlier in the
day, though the air was still heavy with humidity. Moments later we
were on our way, my petite wife behind the wheel.

* * * * *

The clock was just clicking over to 2:30 A.M.
when we rolled to a halt on what should have been a quiet side
street in the small suburb of Stone Knoll. The scene was similar to
the methodic confusion I had experienced just one night before,
minus the rain. Felicity was quickly mesmerized by the flickering
lights and sat momentarily transfixed until I rescued her from the
stupor with a gentle nudge.

News vans were already rolling in on the
scene as we made our way past parked patrol cars to the crux of the
activity. A uniformed officer executing his duty blocked our path
as we neared the yellow tape that cordoned off the house.

“You’ll have to move back folks,” he stated
evenly as he insinuated himself between us and the end of the
driveway. “Press isn’t allowed in this area.”

Apparently, we had been mistaken for members
of the media, and I quickly understood why when I remembered the
bulky camera bag slung over my wife’s shoulder.

“We aren’t with the press,” I told him. “I’m
Rowan Gant, and this is my wife, Felicity. We were called here by
Detective Benjamin Storm.”

“Hold on just a second,” he returned with a
nod and then spoke into his radio handset.

A few seconds later, Detective Carl Deckert
came out of the front door and trundled down the driveway to the
barricade where we stood.

“Rowan, Felicity,” he greeted us, nodding at
the officer who acknowledged and extended a clipboard for us to
sign in. Deckert waited patiently for us to finish then held up the
tape so we could duck under and shook our hands quickly as we
walked.

“Ben’s inside. Sorry no one was out here to
meet you,” he apologized. “But it’s a little on the busy side
around here.”

“Aye, that’s understandable,” Felicity told
him, her voice laced with a full Celtic lilt.

“So you’re pretty sure it’s the same guy?” I
asked.

“Pretty sure,” Deckert answered, pulling out
surgical gloves and handing them to us as we neared the door. “But
there are some changes in the M.O. That’s why you’re here.”

“What kind of changes?”

Deckert opened his mouth to reply and then
paused for a moment before continuing, “I’d better let you see for
yourself.”

“Do you always carry these things around in
your pockets, then?” Felicity queried, indicating the gloves as she
drew them over her hands.

“In my line of work...” he shrugged and then
added with a grin, “Besides, my brother-in-law owns a medical
supply company so I get ‘em cheap—as in free. So… if you don’t mind
me askin’, what’s with the heavy accent all of a sudden?”

“What accent?” my wife asked, cocking her
head to the side.

“She’s the real-deal Irish,” I interjected,
answering for her. “It tends to really bleed through when she gets
tired.”

“O’Brien, yeah.” He nodded. “Makes sense.
Just wasn’t expectin’ it.”

“You get used to the linguistic flip-flops
after awhile. You should hear her when she’s had a couple of
drinks.”

“Aye, will you two quit talking about me like
I’m not even here, then?” Felicity declared.

“Sorry, honey,” I told my
wife as I turned my attention to her. “Now, when we go in, ground,
center, and be careful. You’re gonna feel a lot of stuff flying at
you, and if you don’t watch it, you’ll
zone
out
. Trust me, I’ve already been through
it. If you feel like you’re headed for trouble, get
out.”

“Okay.” She nodded assent, and I literally
felt her falling into a slow, rhythmic breathing pattern that
mimicked my own. “I’m ready.”

We entered and followed Deckert toward the
rear of the house, carefully weaving our way around crime scene
technicians who were focusing intently on their jobs. The cold aura
of death surrounded us as we advanced down a narrow hallway and
through the doorway at its end. The frigid atmosphere permeated the
room, stabbing me with its sharpness. A quick glance at Felicity
showed me she was feeling it as well.

The room was simple, basically rectangular in
shape, with an antique chest of drawers dominating one corner.
Against the wall, a matching dressing table resided. The makeup and
perfumes that adorned the top of the table were neatly arranged to
the back, and occupying the center were two hardened puddles of
candle wax, one white, one black. Next to them, a wine glass was
wrapped around its volume of crimson liquid. An ornate, pivoting
frame, supported by similarly carved wooden arms, was canted
slightly against the wall. The mirror it had once held now lay
shattered, spilling like silvery gems across the floor. The once
hidden wall behind it now bore the pastel-shaded image of a
Pentacle and three familiar words inscribed in a dripping
scrawl.

A queen-size bed, stripped of the top layer
of linens, jutted out into the middle of the room from the wall
opposite the dressing table. Occupying the center of the bed was a
long mass covered with a white sheet. Hands protruding from beneath
the edge of the fabric and bound to the headboard with duct tape
gave clear evidence as to the identity of the mass. The pungent
odor of burned sage and rose oil still hung cloyingly in the
air.