Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (42 page)

“Awwww, Jeez! What the hell is this?” my
friend exclaimed as the reason for her surprise came into full
view.

I looked down at my arm.

Scattered randomly across the surface of my
flesh were a half dozen small welts, each one surrounding a
puckering lesion. Thin trickles of blood still wept from the
puncture wounds to streak my skin. The deep pricking sensation that
had been masked by my earlier blankness returned with a sharp,
biting rhythm. In my mind there could only be one meaning for this
torture.

“I think he might have moved to the next name
on the list” was all I said.

It was late afternoon before the Major Case
Squad managed to determine for an absolute certainty that Amanda
Marie Stark was missing.

N
othing.

There had not been a public or traceable move
from the killer for almost seven days. A mere dwindling handful of
sixty-minute revolutions around the clock face were all that stood
in the way of officially making it an entire week since the
suspected kidnapping of Amanda Stark.

Each day had slid quietly and uneventfully
into the next. Each one completely devoid of anything to set it
apart from another except for the random appearance and
disappearance of various lacerations on my arm. I didn’t even want
to imagine what was happening to the young woman who was on the
receiving end of the tortures the wounds were mimicking.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep from it.

The Major Case Squad frantically chased down
every lead—even the insignificant ones—and as feared they had all
fallen colder than the winter’s chill. The miniscule amount of
evidence that had been collected endowed us with no more
information than we already possessed. There were no witnesses to
be found. No new clues brought forth into the light of the day.

The daunting concrete wall of a dead end
alleyway was staring us squarely in the face, and it showed no
remorse.

If there was anything positive to be said, it
was that the nothing we faced included that there had been no more
killings. Unfortunately, that one positive was tainted with an
overshadowing negative. We all knew beyond any doubt that another
murder was looming close, and Amanda Stark would be the victim.
Even worse, there was every indication that there was nothing we
could do to stop it from happening unless something suddenly led us
to the killer’s doorstep; and that was something that seemed less
probable with every moment that passed. The unspeakable horror that
no one wished to voice was simply the fact that it would most
likely be the exact catalyst it was going to take to resurrect this
case.

A sixth violent murder was the other shoe we
all abhorred but knew would strike the floor no matter what we did.
Until then, the investigation was all but dead.

So, expectantly, we waited.

As we approached the final hours of the week,
within each of us the mainspring of tension was twisted tightly in
upon itself. With the coil of stress hovering a mere quarter-turn
from the point where that clockwork spring would violently release,
the internal mechanisms of our psyche’s kicked into high gear. In
defense of our own individual sanities, we all became mindless
automatons. Each moment was spent awaiting the heavy soled thud
that would return us to a horrific reality and with any luck just
might provide us with a tangible lead.

With the investigation at a standstill, a
frighteningly eerie apathy had epoxied itself to the city of Saint
Louis. While the search for this serial killer officially remained
a priority, bureaucrats were in control of the purse strings and
decisions made behind closed doors routed tax dollars to projects
viewed as more important by those in power. Overtime for the
members of the MCS became a thing of the past, and officers were
shifted and shuffled to meet the demands of other cases. Suddenly,
the round-the-clock protections originally provided for those
believed to be on the killer’s list became little more than
semi-frequent drive-by’s courtesy of the local police
departments.

Adding insult to injury, Detective Deckert
was forced to reluctantly absent himself to fill in for a
vacationing colleague with the county homicide division. Shortly
thereafter the FBI recalled Special Agent Mandalay, assigning her
to tend other duties deemed more critical in light of the stalled
manhunt. While there was still federal involvement, it was
relegated to the background. Ben continued to head up what was left
of the effort, even with the greatly reduced staff.

And then there was me.

While I was still listed as a consultant for
the MCS, there was very little for me to consult about. With each
cut or contusion that inexplicably appeared on my arm, I became a
barometer by which we knew, or at least suspected, that Amanda
Stark was still among the living. Beyond that, I was relegated to
playing the role of potential victim—watched over day and night by
Ben and off duty officers who owed him for one reason or
another.

The “Ghoul Squad” was no more.

I was almost certain that the seemingly
endless supply of favors owed my friend was in reality a rapidly
mounting debt for him. While I knew he had markers he could call
in, Felicity and I were never left alone, and it would have taken
one man several lifetimes to accumulate such a surplus of
obligements. Fortunately, Carl and Constance took it upon
themselves to fill whatever shifts they could, and I knew they were
doing it out of friendship and not for the trade off.

My daily objections always fell on deaf ears
with Ben. It didn’t matter to him that I felt it unfair that I
should receive protection when the other potential targets weren’t;
or even that I was worried about what he would end up owing to the
parade of cops who came in and out of my home. He had told me
before that he was going to protect his “corner of the world,” and
there was no stopping him from doing just that—whatever it
took.

Truth was, I was actually relieved to have
them there. Not so much for my own safety as for the peace of mind
it gave me knowing I wouldn’t have to worry about Felicity if
something happened. The real debt being accumulated was on my end.
I owed my friends in a big way.

When the long anticipated other shoe finally
did meet the floor, the resulting explosive crash instantly reduced
our anxious calm to shimmering crystalline shards that fell
abrasively upon the landscape.

* * * * *

It didn’t seem like we had been in bed any
time at all when I awoke to heavy handed pounding on our bedroom
door blended with the distant sound of my name being urgently
called. Strategically placed within the stream of noise a duet of
angry barks and growls filled out the cacophonous melody. At first,
I thought it was nothing more than the dying remnants of a dream as
I strained to listen in the darkness and heard only the rhythmic in
and out rush of ocean waves droning from a compact disk set on
repeat. I had been using the natural sounds for a meditation aid as
I urged myself back toward center—not that I had been overly
successful. Apparently, on this night, Felicity and I had fallen
asleep with the player still running.

I gave a moment’s consideration to answering
the phantom voice and decided I should check the time first. I
rolled to the side, and before my eyes were even fully open a
square fist of pain rained a double jab down upon my forearm. I
winced as I started to move the appendage and sent the agony in a
reverberating right hook up through my elbow and into my shoulder.
Reflexively I reached for the origin of the torture and was
presented with a handful of sticky wetness far beyond anything that
had occurred in the past septet of days.

I knew instantly that the voice had not been
a dream at all.

“Goddammit, Rowan! Felicity! Wake up!” Ben’s
muffled demand joined once more with his frantic hammering against
the bedroom door, and again the dogs loudly announced their
displeasure in return.

“Hold on,” I managed to croak out through the
pain as I sent my hand searching for the switch on the bedside
lamp.

By now the commotion had awakened my wife,
and she was groggily dragging herself up from her pillow while
yawning, “What’s going on?”

“Ben’s at the door,” I groaned as I continued
to grope for the light.

“Are you all right?” Felicity questioned as
she tossed back the blankets and rolled out of the bed. “You sound
like you’re in pain.”

My hand brushed across the switch, and
I fumbled with it for a moment before snapping the device to life.
The first thing to meet my eyes was the smear of blood on the
nightstand where I had been feeling around. The second was the
blood soaked patches on the bed sheets. The third was the
puckering
Monogram of Christ
carved deeply into a purplish welt on my forearm. Blood
continued to ooze thickly from the symbol as I stared at it with a
dejected frown.

“Oh Gods, Rowan!” my wife yelped as her
bleary eyes fell across the wound. Till now she had only seen the
monogram as fading pink scars on my flesh, and the variety of
tortures of the past week had never achieved this level of trauma.
This was the first time she had witnessed the stigmata in full gory
bloom.

The pain was already starting to subside. My
ethereal tormentor had my full attention, and the added push of
suffering was no longer needed. “It’s okay. I’ll be all right,” I
told her. “Let Ben in. I’m pretty sure I know what he wants.”

I glanced at the clock and saw that my
earlier thought had been correct. We hadn’t been in bed long at
all. It was only 10:34.

* * * * *

“Jeezus H. Christ…” Ben muttered from behind
his hand as he covered the lower half of his face in an attempt to
ward off a sweetly vile stench.

My wife and I were following suit as the
malodor grew in intensity with each intake of breath.

With February racing toward a close, the
ever-changeable pattern of Saint Louis’ weather had executed a
backflip, and the jet stream was temporarily exacting kindness on
the Midwest. The mercury had been hovering a healthy handful of
degrees above the freezing point for a few days now in a practice
run for the spring thaw. The combination of patchy leftover snow,
evaporation, and temperature created the ideal condition for the
misty fog that was now rolling in upon us. In a matter of hours it
would be an opaque grey veil obscuring everything it touched, but
for now it was a clammy humidity that carried with it the stink of
burning flesh.

Through the teaming haze that forewarned of
the coming thickness, a discordant flurry of attention-grabbing
emergency lights generated blurry star-filtered patterns in the
air. Emanating from no less than five Metropolitan Saint Louis City
police cruisers, two fire engines, one emergency rescue vehicle,
and an undetermined number of cars belonging to detectives with the
Major Case Squad, the area was a cluster of strobing illumination.
Each pulsing flicker of luminescence was immediately blended,
bisected, and bounced in triangular directions by the silvery
stainless steel plates that composed the Gateway Arch.

A sharp twinge insinuated itself through my
nerve endings, and I absently reached to my wounded forearm as we
walked, feeling the soreness swell throughout. I wasn’t sure why
the pain had suddenly returned, but I feared perhaps another mark
might be appearing soon.

Felicity had hastily bandaged my arm
while we both shrugged into clothes in record time—record time at
least for someone who was not a firefighter. All the while Ben had
impatiently waited in the living room where earlier he had been
keeping vigil. His anxious shuffling was marbled throughout with
frustrated
hurry up’s
and
come on you two’s
.
When all was said and done, we were ready to go in less than five
minutes. It had only seemed longer. With my friend behind the wheel
of his van and the corner of the roof adorned with his own madly
flickering red emergency light, traffic signs and speed limits
became instantly null and void. In just less than twenty minutes
from the time we left the driveway, we sped down the park access
road and jerked to a halt on the grounds of the Jefferson National
Expansion Memorial.

Now that we were here, I would just as soon
have been almost anyplace else. And the more I dwelled on that
desire, the more my arm began to throb.

An ashen-faced rookie clad in the uniform of
the city police department was just unfurling a roll of bright
yellow barrier tape when we signed in to the crime scene. The
vacant look in his glassy eyes was reminiscent of inner redolence
brought on by abject horror. His cold emptiness combined with the
unmistakable fetor wafting from a point several dozen yards behind
him acted as a harbinger of the abomination we were about to
witness.

“Who’s runnin’ the scene?” Ben asked the
officer while Felicity and I penned our names on the log.

“Detective McLaughlin,” he answered
distantly.

I had grounded myself before leaving the van,
and thankfully, for the moment at least, I didn’t seem to be having
any trouble maintaining the connection. However, compared to my
normal level of ethereal protections, the shield I had cast about
myself was a fragile eggshell in danger of cracking at any moment.
Unwanted visions were angrily demanding ingress through the porous
envelope, and the fearful disgust felt by the young man was already
seeping through to bathe me with frigid anxiety. What he had
witnessed had brought him close to his own personal threshold, and
I could feel his need to retreat.