Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (16 page)

Even considering the energies I’d been
feeling thus far, I didn’t expect anything in the way of a major
psychic event. That level of talent comes with years of practice
and is not necessarily achieved by everyone just because they
practice Wicca. Such abilities are not a given. They are not an
automatic bonus that comes with the religion. They are acquired.
Even so, any Witch with the most rudimentary knowledge of The Craft
should be perfectly capable of “feeling someone out” and that was
my hope with this exercise.

What became instantly apparent the moment my
defenses dropped, however, was that these two Witches were by no
means mere beginners. Unfortunately, for all three of us, I was
soon to find out just exactly how talented they were.

Karyl’s energies reached me first. They were
warm, cautious and soft, moving carefully around the periphery of
my aura. Starr’s touch followed and was the direct opposite.
Plunging sharply inward and demanding complete attention—as hard
and abrasive as the outer personality she had demonstrated thus
far. I winced and fired off a quick mental warning to her,
basically letting her know “Witch to Witch” that she was a guest
and that I wouldn’t tolerate being challenged by her on this level.
The small volley hit its mark, and she toned down her insistent
energies noticeably, though they remained raw and somewhat
grating.

Not surprisingly, it was Karyl’s tender and
subtle delving that located the locked and barred door in the dark
corner of my mind where I cloistered away all the horrors I had
witnessed throughout my life. No doubt, she had done this while my
attentions had been on Starr’s assertive ethereal contact. They
made a good team, and unfortunately, I hadn’t foreseen that they
would do this. What was worse, I didn’t notice until it was too
late to stop it. Before I could throw up a barrier, or even warn
her, she unbolted and threw open the imaginary door that held back
my nightmare world. Then with the unsuspecting innocence of a
child, stared directly into the maelstrom of vivid atrocities I so
desperately sought to forget.

My body tenses as I feel my shoulders slowly
and simultaneously ripping from their sockets. Something is pulling
down against my ankles, and my legs are straining to remain joined
with the rest of my body.

I don’t know where I am...

I don’t know how I got here...

What is happening to me?

The metallic click of a gear ratcheting
reverberates again.

Tick, tick. Click!

“ADMIT your heresies woman!” a dark voice
demands.

Tick, tick. Click!

Tick! Clunk!

Muscle and tendons are tearing. Along my
upper back, they spasm and snap like overstressed rubber bands
sending white hot projectiles of torment through my body.

I try to cry out in pain.

The memories screamed forth like air escaping
from a balloon, ricocheting from the corners of my mind and raking
steely, barbed hooks through my very soul. As painful as they were
for me, I couldn’t imagine what the two young women must be feeling
as they bore naked witness to my personal demons.

Fear.

Pure unadulterated terror.

“Please come in,” a voice.

I turned to face the direction of the
voice.

It is my friend. Why am I so frightened?

Ariel Tanner is standing before me, radiant
and lovely in a white lace gown. She smiles at me.

“Rowan, how nice to see you.” Her voice
floats mellifluously, displacing a demonic rushing noise in my
ears. “It’s been so long.”

I cannot believe it is she. She is dead. This
cannot be her.

“Ariel?” I question.

She jerks and spasms. The smile flees her
lips. Her eyes grow wide and she looks down. A small spot of
crimson appears on the high neck of the lace gown and begins
growing.

Spreading.

Her mouth falls open in shock, and bright
blood trickles from the corner of her lips. She looks back at me
with questioning eyes, and the vermilion stain waxes unceasingly,
covering her chest.

Running.

Dripping.

“Why Rowan?” she mouths. “Why?”

“Why don’t you stop him, Rowan?” her gurgling
voice echoes, “Why?”

Darkness.

I could feel that the unstoppable flood of
hideous visions had completely overpowered both Karyl and Starr.
Enthralled by sadistic nightmares that no one should be made to
witness, let alone live. I braced myself against yet another wave
of remembered agony as I struggled to slam the ethereal door.

“Kendra Darlene Miller...”

“...As you are damned in body and soul, your
sentence on this day is death. The sentence is to be executed
immediately, without appeal, in the manner of expurgation by
fire.”

“Expurgation by fire...”

“Kendra Darlene Miller...”

“Expurgation by fire...”

“No. No, this can’t be.”

“May The Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon
your soul.”

I cannot move.

I can hear the scraping of a match against
stone.

I cannot scream.

I can hear the explosive spark as the match
ignites.

“Somebody please help me!”

“Kendra Darlene Miller...”

“Damned in body and soul...”

“Your sentence on this day is death...”

“Expurgation by fire...”

Hot yellow agony licks across my body.

Fire clings to me in a vicious shroud. I’m
holding my breath as the flame washes over my face, furiously
catching my hair and blossoming upward with yet another loud
crash.

I cannot scream...

With one final push, I levered the mental
door shut and forcibly ejected Karyl and Starr from my mind. From
beginning to end the entire incident took place in less than a
minute. Our outward expressions, however, were enough to tell Ben
and Carl that something was definitely going on.

“Hey! Knock, knock...” Carl’s voice poured
into my ear in a viscous flow. “Earth to Rowan.”

“Yo, white man? Are you three okay?” Ben’s
voice followed, whirlpooling in behind Deckert’s as I snapped
soundly back to the physical realm.

I nodded as I turned my concerned attentions
to Karyl and Starr. “What? Yeah. Fine. Yeah, I’m okay.”

The two women were staring back at me
blankly. Momentarily, a small glimmer of emotion crept into Karyl’s
expression and was almost instantly followed by a pair of large
tears rolling down her cheeks. A split second later her face was
joined with the palms of her hands, and her shoulders began to
heave as she quietly sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” I delicately offered, “but at
the risk of sounding heartless, you brought it on yourselves.”

“Brought
what
on their selves?” Carl interjected in a
puzzled tone as he switched his gaze back and forth between the two
women and me. “What’re you talking about?”

“I apologize,” Starr announced, eyes watering
as she choked back her own desire to cry. “You are, of course,
correct, and that was...” She swallowed hard and steeled herself
against the sorrow and fear that threatened to overtake her. “...It
was very rude of us.”

“It’s okay,” I soothed. “I understand.”

“I am afraid that Karyl is in no condition to
proceed with this interview,” she continued while she could.
“However, if you gentlemen would be so kind as to wait right here,
I will be back in a moment... and I will do my best to answer any
questions you may have.”

I nodded. “Of course. Take your time.”

Carl waited until the two women had left the
room and were out of earshot before turning to me and tossing his
hands up. “Could someone please tell me what just happened? One
minute she’s a freakin’ ice princess then the next thing you know
she looks like she’s about to start bawlin’ and she’s apologizin’
to you... And what was that ‘you brought it on yerself’s’
stuff?”

“In their zeal to... read me psychically
shall we say,” I explained, “they got a little carried away and
looked at a few memories they would have been better off not
seeing.”

“They did WHAT?” His eyes grew wide as he
made the exclamation.

“Trust me, Carl,” I told him. “It’s a Witch
thing.”

Behind me, Ben softly whistled the
opening theme from the
Twilight
Zone
.

* * * * *

“I apologize for Karyl,” Starr told us as she
centered herself back on the love seat and self-consciously
smoothed her pleated, tartan skirt. Her slightly reddened eyes
testified to the fact that she had shed a few tears as well. “She
and Kendra were lovers once…” She paused then added, “Before us of
course.

“She was taking her death pretty hard to
begin with and seeing that...vision...” She allowed her voice to
melt into silence then took a deep breath and continued, “My
apologies once again to you, Mister Gant. I am certain that
reliving those images must have been just as painful for you as
well.”

“Rowan. Please,” I replied. “And it’s all
right. I just hope the two of you will be okay.”

She smiled. Briefly, but she smiled. She was
very striking to begin with, and the smile betrayed the gentle side
of the sharp-edged attorney who had been seated there only minutes
ago.

She drew in another deep breath and exhaled
heavily then asked, “How can I help?”

“Do you know if Miss Miller, or anyone in
your group for that matter,” Carl responded, “has been threatened
or harassed lately?”

“She mentioned that she had been receiving
religious junk mail,” she answered. “But that’s not unusual. Once
your name is on a mailing list, it gets circulated everywhere.”

“Nothing else?” he pressed. “Was she maybe
approached by anyone that you know of?”

“No. Not that I am aware of, unless you count
e-mail.”

“Go on.”

“She received some rather nasty messages on
the internet... A month or two back if I remember correctly.
‘Repent now, or burn in hell’ kind of messages. She reported them
to her provider, and I assume they took care of it. She never
received any more.”

“Did she have any idea who the messages were
from or how the person got ‘er e-mail address?” Ben
interjected.

“No. She had no idea who was sending
them.”

“Whoever it was probably pulled her address
down from a newsgroup or something,” I offered. “That would also
explain why the person knew her religion. There are several
discussion groups about Paganism, Wicca and The Craft. All she had
to do was post a message to one of them and her e-mail address
became public knowledge.”

“Lovely,” Ben huffed as he scribbled in his
notebook.

Turning back to Starr, I asked, “Do you
happen to know who her provider was?”

“Not offhand.” She shook her head. “I have
her e-mail address, if that would help?”

“Yes. I would appreciate getting that from
you later.”

Ben and Carl both shot me curious looks.

“If her internet service provider was
filtering the e-mail for her in order to bounce or trap the
offensive messages,” I outlined for their benefit, “we might be
able to get a domain designation from them.”

They continued to look at me expectantly.

“Kind of like tracing a phone call.” I
simplified my explanation. “If we’re lucky, we might be able to
determine the origin of the message, the account it was sent from,
and maybe even the person who owns the account.”

The expectant looks turned into amazed
stares.

“Remember, I make my living with computers.
WitchCraft is a part of my belief system. It’s not my
profession.”

“I’ll get one of our gurus on that,”
Ben assented with an
oh yeah, now I
remember
expression on his face and penned himself a
quick reminder.

Carl looked back to the young woman and
continued the line of questions. “Did anyone else in your group get
any of these e-mails or junk mail?”

“I don’t think so.” She pursed her lips and
canted her head to the side then stared off thoughtfully for a
moment. “No. I can’t remember anyone mentioning any, although...
Brianna did say she had been getting quite a few prank phone calls.
Hang-ups mostly, but she did seem a little disturbed by them.”

“Brianna?” Ben looked up from his notepad,
shot a glance at Carl then me and finally back to Starr.

“Yes,” she answered. “Brianna Walker. She is
a member of our Coven. I can give you her number if you’d like,
though she may be out of town. I haven’t been able to reach her
this past week.”

“Brianna LOUISE Walker?” Ben ventured again.
“Also known as Mistress Bree?”

“Yes, Detective Storm,” she returned. “Please
don’t tell me you arrested her while working vice or something. At
a time like this, I hardly see why something like that
should...”

“Miz Winston,” Carl interrupted as Starr
began to defend her friend and fellow sister of The Craft. “I don’t
quite know how to tell you this...”

“Tell me what? What’s wrong?”

“Brianna Walker appears to have been the
killer’s first victim,” Ben detailed concisely. “Her name hasn’t
been released yet because we’ve been unable to contact her next of
kin.”

She looked at Ben incredulously, then to
Detective Deckert, then brought her eyes to meet mine and shook her
head. Her lips parted slightly as she mouthed a silent “No.”

The blunt hammer of emotional pain that
descended upon her secured itself a two-for-one deal as she
remained supernaturally connected to me through our locked gaze.
For a fleeting moment, I felt a hard lump rise in my throat and a
caustic burn flood through my sinuses as my own eyes began to
water.

I glanced away to break the ethereal union
then stared off into space and uttered the only words that came to
my clouded mind, “I’m so very sorry.”