Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (21 page)

Fighting.

Kicking.

Wrestling to free her hands so that she could
claw at the constriction around her neck, until finally, the lack
of oxygen to her brain won out, and she slipped into darkness.

“I realize it’s the weekend but the sooner
you can get the labs started the better,” Ben was saying in the
background. “We’re still followin’ up the lead on the Roofies.”

“I can have samples ready to go to the lab
first thing Monday morning,” the coroner replied. “But other than
that I...”

Once again, I forced the distant conversation
out of the forefront and focused entirely on the corpse in front of
me. I knew how Sheryl Keeven died. I even knew the twisted
reasoning behind why. What I now desperately wanted to know was who
had killed her... And Kendra Miller... And Brianna Walker...

But what I wanted most desperately of all was
for him to stop.

Without even thinking I reached out my latex
gloved hand and laid my palm across her cold forehead. The
connection that formed was as immediate and piercing as if I had
just wrapped my hand about a frayed electrical cord. The jolt that
followed exploded through my consciousness with blatant disregard
for the here and now, ferociously replacing present with recent
past.

Pain.

Why are you doing this to me?

I can’t stop crying.

The pain again.

Please!

Please stop stabbing me! Just take what you
want and leave! Please!

I cannot scream.

There is tape across my mouth.

I cannot see.

Something dark covers my head.

The pain again.

“Sir?” the voice of the coroner’s assistant
echoes in my skull. “Sir, what are you doing?”

I am so cold.

What is that hissing noise?

Paint?

I smell paint.

“Sheryl Renae Keeven, in accordance with the
thirty-third question, in as much as you stand accused of the
heresy of WitchCraft by another of your kind, and as you have
admitted these crimes and remain still impenitent, and that on this
day evidence of your heresies has been found in this very
dwelling...”

That voice.

I am so cold.

I still can’t see.

Where am I?

Something is wrapped around my neck. It is
uncomfortable. I can feel wind.

I cannot scream.

I want to scream.

“...In as much as you have been found guilty,
and that you are damned in body and soul, you are hereby sentenced
on this day to death. The sentence to be executed immediately and
without appeal in the manner of hanging. May the Lord Jesus Christ
have mercy on your soul.”

Guilty?

Sentenced to death?

Help me, someone! Please help me!

I don’t understand.

What is happening?

Why are you doing this to me?

I feel something brush my face, and suddenly
my tear-blurred eyes can see.

Outside?

We are outside?

Black.

Black fabric.

Dear Mother Goddess, he’s a giant.

Someone please help me.

Wait...

He is picking me up. What is he doing?

Oh no!

The balcony?

He’s going to throw me off my balcony?

He’s going to hang me?

NO!

Someone please help me!

Black and white.

Collar.

Black and white.

Collar.

Black and white.

Black.

“Mister Gant?”

I looked up to see Doctor Sanders kneeling on
the opposite side of the gurney and peering at me curiously across
the open body bag. Her fingers gently encircled my wrist and held
my hand out away from the corpse.

“You doin’ some of that hocus-pocus stuff,
white man?” Ben asked from his position next to her.

I looked up at him and blinked. He and Agent
Mandalay were staring back with mildly concerned expressions
creasing their faces. My eyes were dry and itching, which told me I
had been staring. My throat was parched and seemed almost
obstructed by a hard lump. The welts on my forearm were on
fire.

“Yeah…” I answered in a faint voice. “Yeah,
something like that.”

“What did you see?” Constance asked.

The vision replayed in a sandpapery loop,
abrasively dragging itself over and over through my mind.

Black and white.

Collar.

Black and white.

Collar.

“A priest,” I finally whispered. “The killer
is a priest.”

“A priest?” Ben echoed. “You mean like a
‘bless me father for I have sinned,’ communion givin’ and all that
jazz kinda priest?”

“I think so,” I croaked.

The pain from the ethereal markings on my arm
had intensified twofold, and it was beginning to radiate up through
my shoulder and spread dully through my torso. I knew without even
looking that the welts were now full blown wounds.

“What do you mean you think so, Rowan?”
Constance pressed. “What exactly did you see?”

Noting that I didn’t outwardly appear to be
repeating the performance she had witnessed at the morgue, Doctor
Sanders released my hand and proceeded to re-zip the body bag. I
stood and backed out of her way, taking a moment to try and clear
my head. The vision was there, but it was starting to blur, and I
didn’t know why.

What I did know was that something definitely
wasn’t right, and I was the only one who seemed to notice.

A sudden, heavy aching filled my chest and
was paired with an acrid chemical taste forming on the back of my
tongue. The bitter taste welled up through my sinuses, reminding me
of the smell of bleach. I drew in a shallow breath and felt it
gurgle in my lungs as if I had just blown through a straw into a
glass of water. I reached up and loosened my tie even farther then
fumbled with the shirt button at my throat.

I propped myself against the edge of a couch
and watched on as the coroner and her assistant wheeled Sheryl
Keeven’s body from the room. I tried to tell myself that maybe my
connection with her was too intense. Maybe I was just experiencing
a latent effect of the vision. After all, she had choked to death,
and I had just channeled the experience. There were bound to be
some phantom pains. Yes, that had to be it, I recited inside my
head. If some distance were put between us, then the pain would
surely stop.

“A collar,” I wheezed.

I sucked hard again, fighting to breathe, and
the wet gurgle rattled deeper in my chest. This time not only did I
feel it but faintly heard it as well. It felt like a car was parked
on top of me, and I was beginning to gasp. The terrifying thought
of a heart attack scrolled through my mind, and I quickly fought to
dismiss it. No, I kept telling myself, this is just an
aftereffect.

“Go on,” Constance urged. “You saw a
collar... Like a clergyman’s collar?”

Ben had pulled out his worn notepad and was
waiting patiently for me to give him something to scribble in
it.

“Yes,” I sputtered and wheezed. “Black and
white... like a priest...”

My voice was gurgling with an odd viscosity,
and what was happening was no longer my own private secret. Abject
horror was unceremoniously paroled from its prison cell in my
subconscious as I suddenly realized what was happening. My one
greatest personal fear was coming to pass. I was suffocating. In
the middle of a bone-dry, Saint Louis apartment, nowhere near
water, I was drowning.

“Hey, Kemosabe…” Ben looked up from his notes
with a cocked eyebrow. “You okay? You sound like you’re havin’
trouble breathin’ or somethin’.”

“I... I...” I panted damply.

I wrestled to beat back the terror that had
just ignited within my body but met with only limited success. I
could feel myself beginning to tremble as I tried to tell my friend
what was happening. The words only caught in my tightening throat
and bubbled back down into my lungs. Each breath was becoming more
labored and shallow than the last. I sucked hard and was rewarded
with nothing but pain. My chest was heavy, and what little air I
inhaled felt horribly thick.

Humid.

Wet.

I was growing dizzy, and the room was
starting to reel and spin slowly. My ears were ringing, and
everything was taking on an unnatural contrast. Lights were
blooming and shadows darkening viciously. Something more than my
ethereal connection with this latest victim was definitely at work.
I brought my hand up and clawed at my chest. I was toeing the
harshly scribed line of panic, and I was teetering precariously
close to the edge.

“Good God, Rowan!” Agent Mandalay’s voice
distorted in my ears. “You’re bleeding!”

I cast my blurred eyes downward to see my
gloved hand covered in bright crimson rivulets. I held it out from
my body and inspected it groggily as blood dripped from the latex
sheath. Heavy cramps racked through my upper torso, but I didn’t
need them to tell me that the open wounds on my arm were the least
of my worries at this moment. I let my hand drop to my side and
stared back at Constance. I couldn’t breathe.

I needed to breathe.

“Hey!” Ben screamed as he ran to the door.
“Get the Doc back in here right now!”

I was having trouble remaining upright. As my
knees began to buckle, I slid from the arm of the sofa and barely
caught myself before I reached the floor. My legs were weak, and a
bizarre tickle was working its way along the back of my throat. No
matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring air into my lungs.

“I dunno what it is!” Ben barked at Doctor
Sanders as she met him at the door. “I think he’s havin’ a coronary
or somethin’!”

A rushing noise nudged the ringing from my
ears and then was followed closely by a loud thudding as my heart
hammered furiously in my chest. I opened my mouth and fought to beg
help, only to form wordless, wet noises.

My legs gave way completely, and I went
crashing to the floor. I could see Agent Mandalay’s lips form my
name as she started toward me in slow motion. Ben and Doctor
Sanders were angling at me with the same lethargic movements, rabid
concern on their faces. The tickle in my throat began migrating
upward.

My knees impacted, and I automatically thrust
my hands out in front of me as I pitched forward. My eyes were
beginning to roll backwards in their sockets, and I felt my back
arch involuntarily. The tickle mutated abruptly into a spastic
cough, and my body heaved violently.

Water.

Water exploded from my nose and mouth and
spattered on the carpet in front of me. Reflexively, I gulped in
air and felt it gurgle roughly through my body. A second brutal
spasm rippled up my throat, and fluid once again erupted from my
lungs.

Cool air rushed in to fill my chest as I
coughed and sputtered. The tightness that had occupied that space
only a moment ago had fled, and my breaths started coming easier
with each passing second. I was still pitched forward on my hands
and knees, and I merely allowed my head to hang and gratefully
gulped in the desperately needed oxygen. My body still shuddered
with the adrenalin tremors of nightmarish fear, and I felt like a
small, frightened child.

Slowly, the pounding in my ears began to
fade, and the room lights settled to an even incandescent burn, no
longer wildly blooming and casting angry shadows. Finally, I heard
my name being urgently spoken.

“Mister Gant?” Doctor Sanders questioned me.
“Mister Gant? Can you tell me where you are having pains?”

I felt her hand on my back. I opened my eyes
then lifted my head and glanced slowly around. Constance was
kneeling to one side of me with Doctor Sanders on the other. Ben
was standing a few steps from us looking deeply concerned and
utterly helpless.

I was breathing raspily now, but the wet
gurgle had disappeared. I could feel the fresh air washing through
my lungs, and my heart was beginning to back down from its frantic
pace. I started shaking my head as I bit off hungry breaths and
struggled to stand up.

“Mister Gant,” Doctor Sanders spoke as she
helped me to my feet. “Are you having chest pains? Any pains in
your neck, jaw or left arm?”

I continued to shake my head and spoke
between the welcome unrestricted respirations, “No. Not chest.”

“Jeezus, Rowan!” Ben exclaimed. “Did’ya just
have ta’ puke or somethin’?”

“No. Water,” I sighed as I shakily seated
myself on the arm of the sofa.

“You need a glass of water?” Constance
asked.

“No.” I shook my head again and pointed at
the soaked area of the carpet. My breathing hadn’t yet fully
slowed, and I was only able to communicate in short, choppy
sentences. “That’s water. Drowning.”

“Drowning?” she looked at me quizzically.

“Do any of you smell that?” Ben suddenly
asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Now that you mention it, yes,” Doctor
Sanders answered. “It smells like a swimming pool.”

I knew the chemical odor, to which they
referred, to be coming from the fluid I had just expelled onto the
floor. It was how I knew what had just happened. I had tasted it on
the back of my tongue when this all began, and the smell was
permeating my nose where the liquid had elected to make an exit. I
was starting to settle now—somewhat—and I tried to explain
further.

Sucking in a deep breath, I pointed again to
the damp carpet. “That’s not vomit, it’s water. It came out of my
lungs. I was drowning.”

“You were WHAT?” Ben exclaimed.

Doctor Sanders glanced back and forth between
Agent Mandalay and Ben then knelt next to the wet patch.
Cautiously, she touched it with gloved fingertips. After rubbing
her fingers against her thumb to check the consistency of the
substance, she apprehensively brought her hand up to her nose and
sniffed.

“He’s right,” she said, looking up at the two
of them. “This doesn’t appear to be stomach contents. It’s water.
Heavily chlorinated water.”