The End Of Desire: A Rowan Gant Investigation (16 page)

I ignored ceremony and rushed headlong behind
her at a renewed sprint. The souls of the departed were just going
to have to cut me some slack this time.

I
exited the gates and
shot across Basin Street in front of the cemetery without even
bothering to check traffic. Fortunately, there was none to speak
of. Annalise had widened the gap between us due to that last
scuffle, and no matter how hard I was pushing myself, I no longer
seemed to be able to gain on her. In fact it was all I could do to
keep from falling farther behind. My only saving grace was the fact
that she wasn’t moving as fast as she had been before either, and
it even looked like she might be faltering because I could see that
she was holding on to her side as she ran.

I knew exactly how she felt. I wasn’t sure if
there was a single point on my body that wasn’t ravaged by pain at
the moment, and I knew it was slowing me down. I was also well
aware that the pains weren’t just from the damage she had
inflicted. My legs were getting heavier, and my lungs were burning
as I gasped for breath. A sharp pain was piercing my ribcage with
each labored gulp of air, and I was even starting to feel
lightheaded. The extreme exertion was taking its toll on my already
exhausted system.

I kept my eyes focused on Annalise as I
covered the half block to North Rampart. She was already out into
the middle of the street dodging traffic as I ran off the curb. The
sound of a blaring horn pierced my ears then mixed with the squeal
of tires against pavement. I jerked my head in the direction of the
noise and saw the oncoming vehicles. It felt as though my heart
seized in my chest, and I was frozen with fear. I don’t know how,
but I still managed to jump forward. A compact car skidded at an
angle, and I felt a whoosh of air at my back. I elected not to look
because I didn’t want to see how close I had just come to being
road kill.

Another horn blared, and yet another. Rubber
squealed on asphalt, and a truck slid to a halt in front of me,
stopping only inches away and to my left. I jerked to the side and
started to go around it when a loud crash met my ears. I caught a
flash of the truck lurching forward out of the corner of my eye and
jumped back instead. I felt myself thump against the first car that
had barely missed me and watched as the truck was pushed several
feet by the vehicle that had just rear-ended it, finally halting
exactly where I would have been had I continued around it. I slid
sideways between the truck in front of me and the compact car at my
back then shot forward hooking around the end of the pileup I had
just caused. I should have been scared out of my wits, but at this
point I actually found myself feeling like a confused squirrel on
his way across any given street.

Ahead of me, Annalise was dealing with her
own self-inflicted obstacle course. I watched as she ran directly
into the side of a station wagon that had only a split second
before screeched to a halt in front of her. She bounced against the
front quarter panel, stumbled, then regained her footing and
continued on. As she swivel-hipped around the front end of the
vehicle, she glanced back at me for a split second then tore off
across the asphalt.

I launched myself into the mess once again,
running a serpentine course between vehicles that had ended up
stopped at oblique angles. Traffic was coming to a halt quickly;
however, there were still a few cars in motion, and we both had to
dodge them as well. Horns were still honking, some at us, some at
other cars as confusion ran rampant through the mid-afternoon
drivers. Some of those who had been directly involved in the
accidents were out on the street screaming at us as we darted past
them.

If I hadn’t been smack in the middle of this
insanity myself, I’m sure I would have been looking around for the
movie cameras. It was simply that surreal.

The various obstructions had caused our pace
to slow somewhat, but it didn’t allow either of us to actually
catch our breath. I had managed to close in by maybe a pair of
steps at the most, so Annalise was still well ahead of me when she
hit the curb on the opposite side of North Rampart. Our
trajectories had been thrown off with all the zigzagging, and she
now veered to the left. Anticipating her move, I barreled across
trying to angle myself so that I could continue down the cross
street where I assumed she was heading.

Though it still appeared to me that she was
holding her side, she seemed to have gained a second wind. She
sprinted across the mouth of Saint Louis Street, but instead of
turning down it as I expected her to do, she continued along the
sidewalk parallel to North Rampart. Because of my angle and
momentum, I overshot the sidewalk and had to double back a few
paces, instantly losing any gain I had picked up. Making the quick
turn and whipping back around the corner of the building, I leaped
across the curb and fell in behind her, still several paces to the
rear.

My heart was racing so fast it felt like a
single drawn-out thump inside my chest. I was wheezing air in and
out of my tortured lungs as fast as I possibly could, but the
oxygen apparently still wasn’t making it to my brain because the
lightheadedness I had felt a moment before was now becoming
dizziness.

Over the sound of the blood rushing in my
ears, I thought I heard music trilling nearby. Some portion of my
tipsy brain still managed to recognize the tune and forwarded a
message to the appropriate quadrant telling me that it was my cell
phone. I ignored this new bit of information and kept running. I
couldn’t tell what Annalise was going to do next because she was
merely following a straight line at the fastest pace she could
muster. I tried to stay focused on her and anticipate her moves,
but she had fooled me once already, so I wasn’t sure how confident
I was in making another guess. The problem was that I think she was
well aware of her edge because at the last minute she feinted left
then veered suddenly right onto Toulouse.

However, at the same instant she was making
the turn, a man was coming around the corner from the opposite
direction. She slammed headlong into him, causing him to stumble
back against the wall of the building as she tripped and rolled to
the ground. I tried to yell to the man to hold her there, but I
couldn’t catch enough breath to form the words.

He was already helping her scramble up to her
feet a second later when I made it to them. I reached out to grab
her, and she quickly twisted away, once again screaming “RAPE” as
loud as she could manage while doing so.

The man immediately grabbed my arm and
shouted, “HEY!”

I tried to wrench away from him, but he had
his fist twisted into the cloth of my jacket. Annalise didn’t wait
around to see what was about to ensue; she immediately turned and
bolted down the street into the French Quarter.

I pulled hard, trying to break free of the
man, but he appeared to be dead set on protecting her from me,
shouting once again, “HEY! Whaddaya think you’re doin’?!” Then,
with a sudden look of surprise in his face he added, “GAWD!”

What the final exclamation was all about I
didn’t know, but I decided his apparent shock might work to my
advantage. I seized on the fact that he was pulling against me and
that I could use the opposing force as additional leverage. Yanking
back, I then suddenly pitched forward and launched myself into him.
Taken completely by surprise, he slammed backwards against the
wall. He was by no means incapacitated, but it jarred him enough
that I was able to twist and pull free of his grasp. I started away
before he could make another grab for me, but I still sucked in a
quick breath and wheezed it back out at him as, “Cops…Call
cops…”

Huffing hard, I ran in the direction Annalise
had taken, but by now she was completely out of sight. Fortunately,
I didn’t hear any footsteps behind me, so when I reached the first
cross street, I slowed before glancing first left then right, but I
saw no sign of her. I thought about flipping a mental coin and
heading one direction or the other, but something didn’t feel right
about the tactic. Instead, I picked up my pace and decided to jog
farther along Toulouse, heading deeper into The Quarter.

Going ahead and crossing Burgundy Street, I
entered the second block. It actually made sense that she would
have continued along this path as it would afford the easiest way
to disappear. The sidewalks were littered with debris that had been
removed from hurricane-damaged buildings. There were even several
refrigerators and other appliances blocking the walkways, many of
them inscribed in indelible marker with what appeared to be
derogatory statements about FEMA and the executive branch of the
federal government. With delivery trucks and other vehicles on the
road as well, it made for a maze in which hiding places were beyond
plentiful.

If the inanimate objects weren’t enough, the
farther in I traveled, the more activity I encountered. There were
people going about their daily routines, which now included a large
amount of rehab. The majority of them were intent on their jobs
hauling trash out of buildings, and paid me little to no attention,
although I did get an odd glance or two. I guess they weren’t used
to seeing people jog through The Quarter.

My somewhat slower pace was actually allowing
me to catch my breath, but the dizziness remained, and it was
starting to make me nauseous. My throttled-back jog also wasn’t
doing anything positive for my anxiety. As long as Annalise had
been within my line of sight, I had felt like there was a chance to
catch her. Now, I was beginning to wonder if I was simply wasting
my time. Even if I was, I couldn’t give up quite yet. But, I also
knew that running full out down the street wouldn’t allow me to see
her if she was hiding just around a corner.

In a way, this all should have been funny,
but I definitely wasn’t laughing. It had barely been one day since
I had told Ben that Annalise was his problem and not mine. I
suppose when I said that, I had simply been spouting empty words
because when it came right down to it, she was just as much my
problem as anyone else’s. Maybe even more. While Miranda was
definitely at the root of this evil, I knew all along I was dealing
with both of them, and it was a no-win situation. I had to find
Miranda to find Annalise, but I had to find Annalise before I could
do anything about Miranda.

I stopped in the middle of Dauphine as I
crossed, glancing quickly up and down, but still saw no sign of my
wife’s doppelganger. Continuing on across, I began running into
more people, some of them possibly tourists from the way they were
acting. However, instead of ignoring me as most of the workers had,
the odd looks became far more frequent, and some of the individuals
even made it a point to step out of my way.

The dizziness had grown worse, and I could no
longer maintain a jog. Now, I was merely plodding along while
sending my barely focused gaze to search both sides of the street,
not that it was doing any good. My head was pounding as the world
tilted and spun, and I wasn’t sure any longer if I would even be
able to pick her out of the crowd if I was staring directly into
her face.

An older couple darted out of my path as I
began to stagger, their own faces stretching into horrified masks
right before my eyes. I turned to look at them then stumbled and
fell against the wall of the building next to me. I knew Bourbon
Street couldn’t be much farther, but when I looked up, the
signature light post at the corner seemed as though it was a mile
away.

I slumped against the bricks as pedestrians
continued going out of their way to walk around me, even stepping
out into the street to do so. I hung my head and closed my eyes,
trying to breath deeply and force the nausea to pass, but I wasn’t
having much luck. When my eyes fluttered open, I noticed a small
splotch on the sidewalk. For no other reason than to try focusing
my eyes, I stared at it. The edges of the blot began to sharpen,
and a moment of clarity overtook my vision. In that second I
noticed a droplet of red as it fell and struck the blotch with a
wet splat. Directing my gaze toward the source, I noticed a ragged
flap of flesh peeled back from the top of my wrist and a swath of
the same crimson flowing across the back of my hand.

I felt myself sinking as fatigue overwhelmed
me, and I slid downward against the wall. Voices were echoing in my
ears, and I struggled to understand them with little success. I
tried to push myself back up to my feet but couldn’t seem to make
my legs work.

I rolled my head back and saw lights
flashing. My mouth watered as a fresh round of nausea attacked my
stomach. I could feel my lips moving as I tried desperately to ask
for help but found myself unable to make the word come out.

Everything began to spin and go dark.

Trilling music began playing softly. I knew
it was my cell phone demanding my attention once again, but I
couldn’t make my hand move to retrieve it. It continued stepping up
in volume but was suddenly drowned out by the sound of a car
stopping nearby.

The last thing I remember hearing was a rush
of radio static followed by a voice echoing in my ears as it said,
“I got ‘im. Corner a Too-Loose an’ Bourbon. Better send da’
paramedics.”

“A
pparently kitten has
claws,” Velvet said, giving me a once over as she walked
in.

“Isn’t that some kind of makeup or
something?” I grunted. “I think my wife has some of it.”

“I believe it might be a shade of nail
polish,” she replied. “But, I was actually talking about your
face.”