Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (37 page)

“You aren’t.”

“Yes I am. I’m asking you to do this,” I
argued. “But I just don’t see any other way.”

“Tell me now, Row, do you really think you’re
the only one who thought of it?” she asked, her voice fractured and
weak.

“Are you saying this has been your grand plan
all along?”

“Something like that.”

“So why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did,” she said then shuddered with a wave
of pain. “Sort of.”

“So this is what you meant earlier when you
said there was a way to find her?”

“Aye.”

“So why didn’t you just explain it then?”

She grimaced slightly, then crossed her arms
and began to gently rock in the seat. The motion was so shallow
that she barely even pressed against the shoulder harness.

She looked over at me and asked in a quiet
voice, “Would you have gone along with it?”

“At that point in time, no,” I replied.

“But you are now,” she stated rather than
asked.

I answered anyway. “Like I said, only because
I don’t see any other way.”

“Me either.”

“You know,” I said. “What you did was
reckless.”

She allowed herself a small chuckle, and then
closed her eyes tight as she winced. “So are you the pot or the
kettle?”

“Yeah… I know.” I muttered, unable to refute
the idiom then added, “You know this isn’t right. I’m supposed to
be the one dealing with this. Not you.”

“She’s my friend.”

“That still doesn’t make it right.”

“Aye, but it does,” she told me. “It’s your
turn to rest.”

“You call this rest?”

She gave another shallow chuckle. “Aye,
what is it I’ve heard you say? Welcome to
my
life.”

“Yeah…” I muttered. “Something like
that.”

“Are you going to be able to handle this,
Row?” she asked me after a brief moment.

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted.

“You have to,” she said, nearly pleading. “I
need you to.”

The driver-side door opened, creaking and
popping on its tired hinges. A rush of wind blew in through the
opening, bringing a quick chill to the interior of the van. I
looked over my shoulder to see Ben climbing in. A moment later, the
passenger door levered open as well, and Agent Mandalay quickly
filled the other seat.

“How is she doing?” Constance asked, turning
toward us before she’d even closed the door.

I twisted to the side and turned to answer,
but Felicity spoke before I could, her strained tone an audible
barometer of her condition. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Constance insisted.

“Aye,” Felicity answered with a shallow nod.
“But I wouldn’t mind getting this over with, then. Soon.”

“I can understand that.”

“What about… What about you, Constance?” my
wife inquired, breathing through a stab of pain mid-sentence.

“I’m okay,” Mandalay replied. “Not a
scratch.”

“I’m sorry,” Felicity said.

Mandalay cocked her head to the side and
looked at her with a befuddled expression. “For what?”

“That you had to shoot him,” she replied. “I
know it’s hurting you. I can feel it.”

Constance fell silent but continued to hold
my wife’s gaze with her own. Her expression told me that she hadn’t
expected anyone to see past her femme fatale façade.

“You ready to roll back there?” Ben called
over his shoulder as he started the van and gunned the engine.

“Just drive,” my wife instructed.

“Yeah, I’m workin’ on it,” he replied, then
directed himself to Constance. “Door.”

Mandalay continued to sit motionless, distant
introspection in her eyes.

“Yo, Mandalay,” Ben repeated as he poked her
shoulder with his index finger. “Door.”

“What?” Agent Mandalay broke from her
rearward stare. “Oh, yeah. Okay.”

He started the van rolling forward even as
Mandalay was pulling the door shut and then hooked it into a tight
turn. I was still kneeling next to Felicity, and I braced myself
against her armrest as Ben whipped the vehicle around, heading us
back out onto the main thoroughfare.

“Row, get in your seat,” Felicity told
me.

“I’m fine right here.”

“No you aren’t,” she returned. “Ben is
driving.”

“Jeez…” my friend muttered.

“She knows you,” Constance quipped, her voice
still somewhat distant.

“Don’t you start too,” he replied, then over
his shoulder he asked, “Two-seventy to Illinois, right?”

“Aye.”

“Ya’know, you never did say why.”

“Just a feeling.”

“Jeez… I gotta be nuts…” he muttered, then
asked, “It’s a strong feeling, right?”

“Very.”

“Good, ‘cause my ass is hangin’ way out on
this one.”

“Like it hasn’t before?” I asked.

“Not as bad as this,” he responded, and I
knew he was serious. He paused, then asked, “Okay, so across the
bridge and then where?”

“I’ll let you know when I know.”

“I thought this was a strong feelin’?”

“It is,” Felicity replied. “And we’ll be
counting on some more when we get closer.”

“Yeah, great. So, what do I do if ya’ start
goin’ la-la on us?”

She answered without hesitation, “Drive
faster.”

CHAPTER 37:

“P
… p… pleee… pleasssse…”
Felicity whimpered pitifully as tears streamed across her cheeks.
“H… hel… hellpp meeee…”

“Hold on,” I whispered, struggling to keep my
voice from cracking with the bitter fear that was constricting my
throat. There was dampness on my own face, and I knew that I was
silently weeping for myself as well as her.

I was doing my best to keep her grounded, but
it was no longer doing any good. Her connection with Kimberly
Forest was so deeply ingrained that they had all but become one
person. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even sure which one of them I
was talking to at any given moment.

“I… I… I can’t…” she stuttered, her voice a
thin whine as her body tensed.

She groaned, sending out a low, unearthly
sound that instantly set about rending my heart with unimaginable
fury. Her back arched, and her body began to actually vibrate.

I watched helplessly as she shook. She was
twisting violently in the seat as her face contorted into a mask of
pure torment. I had to steel myself against everything I was seeing
and feeling, otherwise I knew I would spin into an emotional crash.
I didn’t know if I was doing her any good right now, but I knew for
a fact that I would be worse than useless if I lost control; I
would be a liability.

I was out of my seat and kneeling next to her
once again. This time, however, she was in no condition to object.
Her hand was clamped around mine, squeezing my fingers until they
had gone almost completely numb. Even as she shuddered through the
waves of pain, she never let go.

Neither did I.

As we both suspected would happen, her pain
had gradually intensified the closer we came to the Chain of Rocks
Bridge. Each mile that ticked away had brought with it a new level
of torture that she would fight to endure. And, each time she would
seem to bring it under some modicum of control, it would suddenly
advance another notch up the scale, forcing her to begin the
struggle once again.

As I said, this is almost exactly what we had
expected to happen, so it came as no shock. We were as prepared for
it as we could be under the circumstances, or so we thought—
because, it was what we had not even considered that now blindsided
us with the force of a locomotive.

Once we had crossed the river, those gradual
increases immediately transformed into hastened attacks, unfolding
themselves geometrically. Within minutes, the ethereal torture had
vaulted to such a degree that the waves were overlapping one
another. She could no longer cope, and she was reduced to a state
of constant agony. The frightening speed at which this occurred
caught us both unaware and completely without recourse.

And, it only got worse.

Within five minutes of crossing the
Mississippi, Felicity had moved even beyond simple agony. And, by
the time we started over the short expanse of the Canal Bridge, she
was delirious.

“We have to be close,” I said as I looked
over my shoulder at Ben, the rampant anxiety beginning to consume
me. “She can’t take much more.”

“Can’t you do anything to help her?”
Constance asked.

“Don’t you think I’ve fucking tried!” I
snapped, then immediately caught myself. “Gods… Constance, I’m
sorry… It’s…”

She cut me off. “I understand, Rowan. Don’t
worry. What can we do to help?”

“Find this prick and kill him,” I
blurted.

“We’ll be coming up on Route Three in just a
minute,” Ben announced. “Should I keep going or turn?”

“I don’t know,” I answered quickly and then
twisted back to my wife. “Felicity… Honey… Talk to me…”

Her chin was pressed against her chest, and
her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She was literally squealing, as if
a high-pitched scream was caught in her throat, escaping only in a
thin stream of torturous noise. She snapped her head back suddenly
and cried, “NO! PLEASE! Noooooo!”

The sound following the words was an
unintelligible, raw scream, and it set a new benchmark for
horrifying.

“Felicity!” I called her name, my voice
raised sharply in both pitch and volume.

There was enough feeling left in my fingers
for me to know that her nails were now biting deeply into them. I
watched her through watering eyes as she struggled to move her head
against some unseen restraint. The way she was postured, it looked
as if something— or someone— was pressing her head back into the
seat and twisting it to the side.

Suddenly, the sickly-sweet odor of singed
flesh filled the cabin of the van, and as I looked on, a roughly
circular, dime-sized burn appeared on her cheek.

“You sonofabitch!” I cried out. “Stop it!
STOP IT!”

“What’s happening?” I heard Constance
ask.

“Turn or straight, Rowan?!” Ben called back
to me again.

“I don’t know, dammit!” I barked. “Just go
straight… no, turn… Straight… Gods! I don’t know!”

A second burn began to eat into my wife’s
ivory skin, and out of reflex I reached for her cheek with my free
hand. My anger was seething and I had become blind to everything.
Control was no longer a conscious option for me. Overwhelmed with
the intensity of my emotions, I was no longer concentrating on the
ground I had been attempting to maintain.

My fingers brushed Felicity’s cheek, and
there was the thin sound of sizzling flesh once again. I yelped in
surprise as a blistering divot appeared on the back of my hand.

Constance’s voice sounded again as she
exclaimed, “Oh my God…”

“What the fuck is goin’ on back there?!” Ben
asked, confused urgency in his tone. “Mandalay, what’s
happenin’?!”

“Rowan!” Constance called out.

Her voice hit my ears as a pounding echo. My
body was beginning to tense in a mirror image of my wife’s as I
inadvertently plugged myself in to her ethereal connection with
Kimberly Forest. I forced myself to move against the constricting
tendons, feeling them burn with the resistance.

“Heee’sss looosssiinggg itttt,
Sstoorrrmmmmmm!” Mandalay’s voice stretched through time, a languid
stream of sound.

Ben’s words rumbled through the van,
following hers in a repeat performance of the elastic speech.
“Sssstaaayy wiiittthhh usssss, Rooowwwwaaannn!”

I struggled to keep my eyes focused on
Felicity as I sought a new ground. I jerkily pulled my hand away
from her cheek and saw a new burn forming. I reached for her again,
but it didn’t matter. I was no longer simply brushing through the
ethereal sphere; I was joining with it. Hot pain lanced my own
cheek as I became yet another surrogate victim.

“Roooowwwwaaaannnnn!” Mandalay’s voice flowed
around me.

I tried to turn toward her as agonizing pains
began helping themselves to every inch of my body.

A low thrum was starting in my ears, driving
and rhythmic. As it grew louder, percussive beats fell in with the
heavy tune, slamming mercilessly against my eardrums.

When my eyes finally fell upon Mandalay’s
face, I could see that it was painted with fear. She was moving in
slow motion, her mouth making shapes I was unable to decipher. I
knew she was trying to say something, but I could hear only the
angry music.

I started turning back toward Felicity and
saw darkness beyond the windshield. In a flash, I caught a glimpse
of dull green and reflective white, as the exit sign for Route 3
was struck full by the headlights. Then, as quickly as it appeared,
it fell from sight.

I continued to twist until I once again faced
my wife and saw a grimace of pain still warping her features. The
pounding, heavy metal thrum drove through its crescendo, reaching a
deafening climax.

Felicity’s head was tilted back and her mouth
stretched open wide. I could tell by the cramping muscles in my
face that mine was doing the same.

I think we were both screaming, but I
couldn’t be sure, because a moment later, my consciousness escaped,
leaving me to a world of peaceful darkness.

* * * * *

“Row! C’mon, white man, wake up!” A man’s
thick voice filled my ears.

I was drifting in a dreamlike stupor,
somewhere between partially conscious and just plain dead. At
least, that is what I assumed. All I knew is that I was no longer
in pain.

“She’s breathing.” I heard a woman’s no less
frantic words nearby. “Strong pulse, but she’s unconscious.”

The sound of an approaching car filled in
behind her voice, growing louder with each second. This was odd to
me, but I endeavored to ignore it. I was comfortable, and I wanted
to stay that way.