Never Burn A Witch argi-2, page 16
part #2 of A Rowan Gant investigation Series
“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.”
“But how?” Constance asked. “You’ve been right here the whole time. How could you possibly get pool water in your lungs?”
I shook my head wearily and held up my blood-covered hand, “I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing from the same place I got these symbols.”
“Take off your jacket and let me have a look at that arm,” Doctor Sanders ordered.
“Jeez, Rowan, that’s way out there.” Ben shook his head as I complied with the doctor’s instruction. “I mean water just appearin’ in your lungs from nowhere?”
“I know,” I agreed with a nod. “Trust me, I’m as freaked out by this as you are.” Even now I was fighting an involuntary urge to tremble. Precognition, psychometry, channeling, even the stigmata were one thing, but this… This was beyond anything I had ever experienced, and I was at a loss to explain it. More than that, however, I was afraid of it and that made it even worse.
“You mean this isn’t something that happened because you’re a Witch?” Constance asked.
“Maybe,” I answered, using my explanation to direct my attention away from the rancid fear still slithering up and down my spine. “But WitchCraft is merely a practice and way of life coupled with a religion. Even though it’s not unusual to develop some level of psychic ability through meditation and all, conjuring matter into thin air is the stuff of myths and fairy tales.”
“What about your arm then?” she contended.
“As bizarre as it seems, stigmata aren’t unheard of. My body is simply reacting to an outside stimulus. Granted, in this case the stimulus is coming from the other side of the veil, but nothing was conjured or made to appear from nothingness.”
A muffled peal emitted from Ben’s coat. He thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew his cell phone.
“Storm,” he answered tersely after flipping the device open. “…Deck? Where the hell are ya’? You were s’posed ta’ be here an hour ago… What? No. You ain’t serious?”
My respirations were now almost normal, and I sat quietly, allowing Doctor Sanders to treat my bruised and bleeding arm. Constance and I watched Ben, listening in on the one-sided conversation as the concerned M.E. tended to my wounds. She had been told about the original occurrence of the symbol, but this was the first time she had witnessed it for herself. However, after what she had seen that night at the morgue, she seemed to be taking this all in stride.
“…Damn!” Ben spat. The phone was now cradled between his ear and shoulder while he scratched in his notepad. “How long ago? Uh-huh… Yeah… Who called it in? Yeah… Okay, gimme that address again… Uh-huh… Yeah, Cherry Wood Trails. Got it. Uh-huh… Yeah, and Mandalay’s with us too… Yeah, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Bye.”
We stared at him expectantly as he ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket. He rested his gaze on me and sighed.
“What was that all about,” Constance asked.
“That was Deckert. I think I just found out why Rowan’s got two of those marks on his arm.” He lifted his free hand and smoothed his hair back.
“Well?” She raised her eyebrows and looked at him questioningly.
“Deck got a call while he was on ‘is way over here. Seems a security guard was makin’ ‘is rounds over at the Cherry Wood Trails condo complex, and he noticed the gate was open leadin’ in to the swimming pool. He went in and found one of those monograms spray painted on the side of the pool house and a Bible layin’ on the snowdrift in front of it.”
I spoke. “Victim number four.”
“They think so. There’s a hole in the ice.” He bobbed his head. “It hasn’t even started to freeze back over yet.”
“I was afraid that might be why there were two.” I nodded toward my arm as Doctor Sanders mechanically wrapped gauze around it and listened in. “But I ignored it again, and whoever is trying to talk to me resorted to the water…” I let my voice trail off as a spasm of the recent personal horror worked its way back into my thoughts.
“Is that what you meant earlier?” the M.E. questioned cynically. “You actually think the water was somehow mystically conjured into your lungs because of what the killer did to the latest victim?”
“No offense, Doctor,” I ventured, “but do you have a reasonable explanation for how it got there? Medical or otherwise?”
“Fluid can build up in lung tissue due to a variety of medical conditions,” she replied.
“Fluid heavily laden with chlorine?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She just shook her head and continued taping the gauze in place.
“Jeezus, white man,” Ben mused with a loud sigh, “I thought I was gettin’ used to this Twilight Zone shit, but this…”
“Too weird,” Constance muttered.
“Yeah,” Ben echoed quietly. “What she said.”
CHAPTER 13
For the most part, my disquiet had faded into the background during the short drive to the Cherry Wood Trails subdivision. I still did not fully understand why, but suffocation and drowning were my most deep-seated phobias. They had been since I was a small child. To now have my darkest fear brought that close to realization was very nearly more than I had been able to bear.
After twenty minutes of intense concentration, I had almost succeeded in forcing the disturbing thoughts from my mind. Unfortunately, our arrival at the latest crime scene dredged them immediately back to the forefront.
Ben nosed the van into the only available parking space he could find and switched off the engine.
“You gonna be okay?” he asked, worry once again creasing his brow.
I realized as he spoke that my breaths were quickly becoming shallow gasps. The panting had begun as soon as I stared out across the street at the bustling activity around the swimming pool enclosure. I knew there had to be terror in my eyes when I looked at him, and when I jerkily nodded my head to the affirmative, he stared back with an unconvinced, thin-lipped frown.
“Bullshit,” he replied. “You’re a friggin’ wreck. You shoulda gone ta’ the hospital. I’m grabbin’ a squad and sendin’ ya’ home.”
“No.” I shook my head while trying to calm the rampant panic that was building in the pit of my stomach.
He was correct. At the moment I was a wreck, but it was a luxury I couldn’t afford. There simply wasn’t enough time. Me breaking down would not do any good for anyone, including myself, and it definitely wasn’t going to help find the killer.
“No. I’ll be all right,” I continued. “I just need a minute.”
Knowing I had to get a grip, I began to inwardly visualize myself surrounded by an impenetrable shield of white light. In my mind I was carefully constructing a barrier, tangible only on a supernormal level, but exactly what I needed to hold the frightening visions at bay nonetheless. Almost instantly I began to relax.
“Well if ya’ won’t go to the hospital and ya’ won’t go home,” he ventured, “why don’t you just wait here in the van? The techs from the crime scene unit are takin’ pictures, and I can fill ya’ in on any other details afterwards.”
“That may not be enough, Ben,” I returned and cocked my head in the direction of the scene. “Maybe this victim saw his face. Maybe there’s something in there that won’t show up on a photograph but will be visible to me. I can’t let a stupid phobia keep me from doing what I was brought here to do.”
“Fuck phobias, Rowan!” he shot back. “I just watched you almost drown in a goddamned dry apartment. That’s not a phobia, white man, that’s… that’s… Well hell, I dunno what it was, but I know ya’ coulda died. And that was the second time too! In my book that’s worth more than just a little fear.”
“I let you know right from the very beginning that this one was going to be worse than the last case,” I told him quietly.
“Yeah…” Ben nodded. “But I thought you were just talkin’ about the body count.”
“Unfortunately, so did I.”
I was feeling much more at ease now, though it was a sensation that was most certainly only temporary. I had successfully wrestled the demon known as terror back into its cage for the time being, and the thick supernatural armor I had erected around myself would protect me from the outside influences of the scene. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay hidden behind it the entire time, for if I did my particular talents would be useless. However, what I would do was try to keep myself safe for a little while. At least until I was fully grounded and ready to face whatever horrific image was waiting for me on the other side.
“Okay,” my friend eventually huffed. “Short of bannin’ ya’ from the scene, I know I’m gonna play hell tryin’ ta’ keep ya’ out, so I might as well give up. But,” he added sharply and thrust a stiff index finger at me, “first sign of you bein’ in some kinda spooky ass trouble, you’re outta here. No arguments. Understood?”
“Understood,” I agreed.
“Better yet, no hocus-pocus without warnin’ me first.”
“I can’t always control it, Ben. You know that.”
“Yeah, but sometimes ya’ do shit without tellin’ anyone and ya’ get yourself in trouble. That’s the kinda thing I’m talkin’ about.”
“Okay, okay. If I try to do anything, I promise I’ll tell you first.”
“Like I said, don’t try anything. If it just happens ain’t much I can do about it, but don’t be makin’ it happen.”
“Yeah. Okay. I won’t.”
“I’m serious, Row.”
“I know you are.”
After he finally gave his reluctant, negotiated blessing, Ben and I climbed out of the beat up Chevy and started across the small parking lot toward the crux of the activity. Since we were on the opposite side of the street, we had to stop for a moment and wait as a large, black panel van rolled past. A patina of grey and white from salt and road grime dusted its dark exterior, blending it in with every other vehicle in the city that had yet to see time in a car wash. A multi-pitched mechanical groan emitted from beneath the van, audibly announcing improperly meshed gears as the driver shifted and slowed. The van coasted for a second while the occupant stared at the spectacle, or so I assumed. A fraction of a minute later the engine gunned and roared its protest in an off key duet with the transmission as it was up-shifted again.
“Take a picture, asshole,” Ben called after the pair of dusky red taillights. “It’ll last longer.”
As we crossed the narrow lane immediately behind the passing vehicle, a cold tingle danced up my spine. My scalp tightened painfully, and the hair on the back of my neck tilted upward, sending a prickling sensation throughout. I caught myself as I tripped across the low curb and stifled a small gasp. Fortunately, Ben didn’t know the real reason behind my stumbling, and I was able to mask the event as a random attack of clumsiness.
I was more than a little surprised and took a moment to bolster my defenses even more. I shouldn’t have felt anything yet, and if something was getting through to me already, then this was going to be worse than I originally thought.
In that moment, I became even less pleased by the prospect that I would soon need to cast away these ethereal shields in order to view the scene with senses other than the physical. I tried not to think about it as we continued walking. Needless to say, I met with only limited success.
The street immediately in front of the pool enclosure was alive with light bars atop emergency vehicles flashing in and out of sync. Each revolution temporarily stained the snow with harsh, multi-colored blotches of brilliance. The wildly flickering show was almost enough to mesmerize.
Powerful halogen lamps were mounted high on strategically placed standards around the pool area, and they now flooded it with severe blue-white illumination. Originally meant to extend the hours of swimming enjoyment deep into summer nights, they cast eerie shadows across the frozen tableau. The hard edges of obscurity served only to underscore the horror and misery that had forced its way into this place intended for happiness and pleasure.
Ben slipped his badge onto a thick cord as we walked and then hung it around his neck in plain view before we signed ourselves in on the crime scene log. The officer tending the entrance to the pool area was from the local municipality that encompassed the subdivision of condominiums and was unfamiliar with my part in the investigation. Since I lacked a badge, it took a terse and abbreviated explanation of my role by Ben in order to overcome the patrolman’s unwillingness to allow me entry. Finally, we continued past the yellow tape barrier without further challenge.
“Ben, Rowan.” Carl Deckert addressed us grimly as we skirted around taut stretches of bright, canary-colored plastic labeled with simple black letters-CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS.
