Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (33 page)

Whether by actual realization or simple
reflex, I kicked my right toe against the heel of my left shoe and
began yanking my foot upward. I struggled against the tight laces
of the ankle high tennis shoe until I managed to pull my foot free
and then quickly plant it against the asphalt.

Coolness seeped upward through my sock but
was immediately overtaken by the heat. I closed my eyes and
concentrated as best I could on forming the connection between
earth ground and myself. In my mind’s eye, I could see a shaft of
light, extending from me and leading down into the center of the
earth. Or, at least I thought I could. I wasn’t sure anymore
because nothing was changing.

I opened my eyes and saw that Felicity was
still writhing against invisible bonds. When I looked closer, I saw
that patches of blood were starting to spread where her shirt was
pulled taut across her chest.

In my clouded mind, I began wondering if I
had done the unthinkable when I had made my cursing demand of
Cerridwen. I was no longer thinking clearly, and the idea took
vicious hold. I snapped my head to the side and squeezed my eyes
shut, unable to look into Felicity’s tortured face any longer,
distraught by the belief that I had brought this upon her.

Emotion joined with pain, and I felt hot
tears running down my cheeks. I blinked hard, and my blurred vision
fell upon the back of the passenger seat inside the van as I
allowed my head to hang. My body was beginning to shudder with the
first wave of sobs, and I was losing control. I stared forward,
continuing to blink as tears formed and overflowed onto my
cheeks.

It was then that the ether finally gave up
the answer.

In front of me, peeking from the top of the
pocket on the back of the seat was a small silver dome, fitted with
a ring. Extending from it, wrapped by bailing wire, were faded
yellow-tan bristles expanding horizontally into a triangular
fan.

It was a whiskbroom.

Felicity’s attempt to stutter a word ran
through my brain and joined with an arcane thought that had somehow
managed to escape the muddy swirl that was supposed to be my
rational mind. At its root, magick was a simple thing, and
sometimes the simpler the better.

I reached out and plucked the broom from the
pocket, flipped it over so that the bristles now pointed upward,
and plunged it back into place.

“Goddammit, GO AWAY!” I screamed.

And, for me, the day turned into night.

Light became darkness.

Then consciousness became a distant
memory.

* * * * *

The diesel engine of the life support vehicle
was thrumming away at idle, sending a gentle vibration through the
floorboards. The back door was hanging open, and looking outward
through it, I could see the emergency lights flickering across the
cars on the parking lot. To my right, in the cab, the two-way radio
would occasionally burp with static and a stream of tinny voices,
too faint for me to understand, before falling back into momentary
silence.

True to his word, the security officer had
called paramedics, and they had arrived within moments of my losing
consciousness. When I awoke, I had a throbbing headache but other
than that, seemed none the worse for wear. Felicity, too, was
showing little or no signs of distress from what she had just been
through, other than the fact that she was growing more anxious with
every moment that passed. I suspected, however, that we were both
running on residual adrenalin and the effects would eventually
catch up to us. Fortunately, it was nothing a good, long sleep
wouldn’t fix.

“I told you we don’t have time for this!”
Felicity spat, her voice an audible indicator of her agitation. “We
have to go!”

“I just want to check you over,” the
paramedic calmly told her.

“What for? How many times do I have to repeat
myself?” she demanded. “I’m telling you that I’m just fine,
then.”

“Felicity, just let them check you out,” I
said, looking over in her direction, only to have my head gently
turned back forward by a latex-gloved hand and a penlight
unceremoniously shone into my eye.

“Ma’am,” the paramedic tending my wife said,
trying to calm the auburn-haired tempest in front of him. “Listen
to your husband. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’ve already told you I’m okay,” she
snipped, her faint Celtic lilt taking on the hard edge of a
full-blown brogue. “That should be good enough for the both of
you.”

“Ma’am,” he appealed. “You have blood all
over your shirt.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see that
he was motioning toward her chest with his gloved finger.

“I told you those are just stains.”

He shook his head. “They don’t look like
stains, ma’am.”

“Aye, and your point?”

He gave a shallow laugh as if he couldn’t
believe he was having the conversation. “Ma’am, that’s fresh blood.
Usually where there’s blood, there’s an injury.”

My wife raised an eyebrow and cocked her head
at the young man.

“You’re wanting to see my chest?” she asked
with a perturbed bob of her head. “Is that it?”

Before the paramedic could reply, Felicity
crossed her arms and ripped her shirt upward. In a single motion,
she pulled it quickly over her head with a snap, revealing that she
was braless underneath.

Tugging one arm loose from the sleeve, she
reached up and pulled her long hair back over her shoulder with the
free hand, then thrust her chest outward.

“There,” she said, glaring back at the
startled paramedic. “Are these what you wanted to see, then?”

I was free to look over at them now that most
eyes were focused on my half-naked wife, instead of tending to my
impromptu check-up. Just as she had been telling him, there was
nothing to see— in the way of injuries that is. The young man in
front of her, for all his training and clinical experience, was so
taken aback by her unabashed display that his face was running
through every imaginable shade of uneasy.

Ben was standing outside the door with the
county police officer who had responded along with the life support
vehicle. My friend nervously cleared his throat and turned
away.

The uniformed cop continued to watch,
expression never changing. He nodded then quipped, “Nice
tattoo.”

“Thank you,” Felicity replied out of
reflex.

I sighed. “Put your shirt back on,
Felicity.”

“But you said for me to let them check me
over,” she replied sarcastically.

“Felicity…”

“Aye, all right, it is a bit cold, then,” she
retorted, then directed herself to the paramedic. “But I suppose
you can see that for yourself now, can’t you?”

“Go ahead and put your shirt back on, ma’am,”
he stuttered.

She let go of her hair and slipped her arm
back into the sleeve, then lifted her arms in a reverse of her
earlier display.

“Honey, leave the poor guy alone,” I
appealed. “He just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“And so I am,” she spat. “And, why are you on
his side? I’m your wife.”

She finished pulling the shirt back over her
head and then tugged it into place.

“Hey,” I said. “I seem to recall being in the
same position a few months back, and you weren’t anywhere near as
forgiving.”

“That was different,” she told me as she
untucked her spiraling curls from her collar and brushed them
back.

“How?” I asked, a note of incredulity in my
voice.

“Because it was you and not me.”

“I see,” I replied with a nod. “Well, at
least I was a little more cooperative.”

“That’s not my recollection.”

“I didn’t do a strip-tease.”

“I was just being cooperative, then.”

“How? By embarrassing everyone?”

“No,” she returned. “I’m simply trying to get
us out of here.”

“Ben and Constance are waiting,” I told her.
“It won’t take long.”

“I don’t care,” she snapped. “Kimberly hasn’t
the time to wait.”

With everything that had happened, I had
completely forgotten that she had told me she remembered something
from her excursion into the ethereal plane. I looked over at her
and met her gaze.

“Do you still…” I started.

“Aye,” she shot back, her voice deadly
serious as she nodded vigorously. “And, right now, we’re in the
wrong damned place to do anything about it.”

“W
hat the hell was all
that with the strip tease?” Ben asked as he backed the van out of
the parking space.

“I still can’t believe you did that,”
Constance added, but you could almost hear the giggle in her
voice.

My wife replied in a matter-of-fact tone, as
if the answer was obvious, “Getting us out of there.”

“By takin’ your damn clothes off?”

“Aye, it worked didn’t it?”

“It embarrassed the kid,” Ben replied.

“And he couldn’t wait to get rid of me then,
could he?”

“Yeah, maybe. I guess.”

“Then it worked.”

“You know they’re gonna be tellin’ stories
about ya’ don’t ya’?”

“Aye, let them talk. They’ll be giving
someone else a rest then,” Felicity remarked, then turned her
attention to more pressing matters. With her next sentence, the
deadpan delivery was gone and impatience suddenly underlined her
words. “Have you found the map yet, Constance?”

“Still looking,” Mandalay called back to
her.

The first thing Felicity had asked for when
we climbed back into the van was a Missouri highway map. She gave
no explanation other than that she needed the map, and she needed
it right now.

Agent Mandalay continued rummaging about in
the glove box, extracting all manner of Chinese take-out menus,
receipts, and even Ben’s backup weapon. All the while, he was
making haste for the nearest exit, looking to put some distance
between Northwoods Mall and us.

I, for one, had absolutely no objection to
that maneuver.

Eventually Constance extracted a wrinkled wad
of semi-folded paper, gave it a quick glance, and then started to
set it aside with the rest of the detritus.

“That’s it,” Ben announced before she dove in
again.

“This?” she asked, holding it up. “For
real?”

“Yeah, for real.”

“How can you tell?”

“Just give it to her, will’ya’?”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing anyway,” she
muttered in reply as she handed the sample of origami-gone-bad back
to Felicity. “Because I think something’s alive in there.”

My wife took the wad of paper and began
looking for a free corner so she could unravel the map from itself.
She reached up to click on the courtesy light but was met with
nothing more than darkness and the popping noise of the switch.

“Bulb’s shot,” Ben offered.

“Obviously,” she returned, her irritation
plainly audible. “And I can’t very well read this in the dark now
can I?”

“Hey, you wanna chill?” he barked. “I’m
workin’ on it.”

“Benjamin Storm!” she snapped in return.
“Don’t you understand? We simply don’t have time to waste!”

“What did you just call me?” my friend asked,
giving a quick glance back over his shoulder.

“That’s what she does when she gets serious,”
I offered. “Uses your full name, just like her mother.”

Ben shifted his eyes back forward and
immediately slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding a rear end
collision with a sports car. I couldn’t help but noticed that
Constance instantly reached for the shoulder harness, pulled it
across her chest, and stabbed the metal finger into the catch at
her side.

“Yeah, well stop it, Felicity,” Ben called
over his shoulder. “That just didn’t even sound right comin’ outta
you.”

“Hey, just be glad she didn’t use your middle
name,” I explained. “She does that when you’re in trouble.”

“Dammit, will you two quit joking,” Felicity
demanded. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” I replied.

“Look, Felicity,” Ben replied as he turned
the van toward the main exit. “I know we don’t have time. Trust me,
I said it myself earlier, but a lotta shit has happened in the past
two hours, and I’m still tryin’ ta’ get my bearings here.”

“Kimberly is being tortured!” my wife
appealed, her voice rising slightly. “Don’t you get it?!”

“Goddamit, Felicity, yes! Yes, I get it.
Isn’t that what I just said?” Ben growled. “Jeezus H. Christ,
you’re worse than Rowan when it comes ta’ this shit!”

“Felicity,” Constance voiced, stepping into
the role of mediator. “While neither Ben nor I can fully understand
what you are going through, we do have a grasp of what’s happening.
We’re on your side, but you are going to have to calm down.”

My wife huffed out a frustrated sigh and sat
back hard in her seat. “Aye. I know. But the son-of-a-bitch is
killing my friend.”

“Not if we can help it,” Mandalay replied
with a note of compassion. “I promise.”

Ben angled the van toward the merge lane and
shot forward into traffic, cutting off a small sedan in the
process. Horns blared, but he continued wedging his vehicle into
the flow of traffic anyway.

“Yeah, fuck you too,” he muttered as he shot
an angry glance out his side window.

The light ahead of us winked yellow and my
friend punched the accelerator, making the left hand turn onto
Northwoods Drive just as it switched to red.

“Over there,” Felicity sat forward and
exclaimed. “On your right. The gas station!”

“What?”

“The gas station,” she repeated urgently.
“Pull in and get under the light so I can read the map!”

Ben jerked the van over into the next lane
and then quickly hooked it into the lot. He pulled off to the side,
out of the way, and rolled beneath a bright streetlamp. Felicity
was already out of her seat and climbing over me to get to the door
before we had come to a stop. I convinced her to wait a second
while I levered it open and slid it back. She pushed past me the
moment the opening was wide enough for her to fit through then
continued spreading out the tattered map, which was literally
falling apart in her hands.