The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation

A Rowan Gant Investigation

A Novel Of Suspense and Magick

By

M. R. Sellars

E. M. A. Mysteries

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events or locales
or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE LAW OF THREE: A Rowan Gant
Investigation

A WillowTree Press Book

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2003 by M. R. Sellars

Cover design Copyright © 2003, 2006 Johnathan
Minton

Excerpt from NEVER BURN A WITCH: A Rowan Gant
Investigation Copyright © 2001 by M. R. Sellars

This e-book edition is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This e-book edition may not be re-sold or
given away to other people.

If you would like to share this book with
another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
person

This book may not be reproduced in whole or
in part, by any means, electronic or mechanical, without
permission.

For information contact: WillowTree
Press on the World Wide Web
http://www.willowtreepress.com

Smashwords Edition – 2010

There are so many people who have come into
and gone out of my life over the years that I’ve lost count, and
each of them is in some part responsible for what happens between
the pages of my novels. It is literally impossible for me to thank
each and every one of them here individually, but there are some
who stand out in the crowd, and I feel it a moral imperative that
they be mentioned—

Dorothy Morrison: Friend, mentor, and supreme
conjuress of the “Bobble Head.”

Officer Scott Ruddle, SLPD: Best-Bud,
confidante, and real life “copper”— Ben Storm without the
ancestry.

Roy Osbourn: Teller of wonderful stories,
purveyor of invaluable information, and barbecued rib chef
extraordinaire.

Tammi Nesser: Thanks for letting me borrow
your neuroses and phobias.

Trish Telesco and A.J Drew: Friends, cohorts
in crime, and charter members of the “Bobble Head Coalition.”

My long distance family: Mystic Moon
Coven.

Duane, Chell, Angel, and Randal: I love you
guys.

All of my good friends from the various
acronyms: C.A.S.T., F.O.C.A.S.M.I., H.S.A., M.E.C., S.I.P.A., and
S.P.I.R.A.L.

Patrick Owen: What can I say, brother? A
Romeo and Julietta Churchill, VSOP, and an easy chair—I’ll be
there.

My parents: I will never be able to thank you
enough for introducing me to the written word.

Chell, Cindy, Dorothy and Kathy: The team who
tirelessly reads, re-reads, and then reads some more.

“Chunkee”: Who not only reads and re-reads
but also has the guts to argue with me. My friend, you ARE the
Rowan Gant scholar, and I cannot write these without you.

Johnathan Minton: A sorcerer of graphic art,
who can take my innocuous ramblings about a cover idea and create a
masterpiece worth well more than a thousand words.

My daughter: For being my daughter.

My wife, Kat: For story editing; running the
household; putting up with my dual career; making sure I get where
I am supposed to be, when I am supposed to be, while still making
me look presentable to the public—and she looks gorgeous doing it.
Then, after all that, she claims that she still loves me.

And, as always, everyone who takes the time
to pick up one of my novels, read it, and then recommends it to a
friend.

For Dorothy.

Thank you for reminding me

that this is supposed to be fun…

Ribbit!

While the city of St. Louis and its various
notable landmarks are certainly real, many names have been changed
and liberties taken with some of the details in this book. They are
fabrications. They are pieces of fiction within fiction to create
an illusion of reality to be experienced and enjoyed.

In short, I made them up because it helped me
make the story more entertaining, or in some cases, just because I
wanted to.

Note also that this book is a first-person
narrative. You are seeing this story through the eyes of Rowan
Gant. The words you are reading are his thoughts. In first person
writing, the narrative should match the dialogue of the character
telling the story. Since Rowan, (and anyone else that I know of for
that matter,) does not speak in perfect, unblemished English
throughout his dialogue, he will not do so throughout his
narrative. Therefore, you will notice that some grammatical
anomalies have been retained (under protest from editors) in order
to support this illusion of reality.

Let me repeat something—I DID IT ON PURPOSE.
Do NOT send me an email complaining about my grammar. It is a rude
thing to do, and it does nothing more than waste your valuable
time. If you find a typo, that is a different story. Even editors
miss a few now and then.

Finally, this book is not intended as a
primer for WitchCraft, Wicca, or any Pagan path. However, please
note that the rituals, spells, and explanations of these
religious/magickal practices are accurate. Some of my explanations
may not fit your particular tradition, but you should remember that
your explanations might not fit mine either.

And, yes, some of the magick is “over the
top.” But, like I said in the first paragraph, this is fiction…

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but
rather give place unto wrath: for it is written,

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord.

Romans 12:19

Holy Bible, KJV

Mind the threefold law ye should,

Three times bad, and three times good.

Couplet twenty-three

The Wiccan Rede

Lady Gwen Thompson

First Printing, “Green Egg #69,” Circa
1975

Thursday, January 10

St. Louis, Missouri

White video static raked itself across the
barely-focused television screen in a free-for-all wrestling match
with overblown chroma and luminance. The brightest spot on the tube
fell somewhere near the center where the thick dust had been
haphazardly wiped away by a bare hand. As if actively seeking this
small porthole, the oddly hued video flickered in random bursts
through greasy fingerprints to create angry shadows dancing
throughout the confines of the small room.

Splotchy stains washed across the walls,
illuminated by the swiftly shifting silhouettes. Most of them had
long ago been rendered unidentifiable by the growing layers of
filth. They now competed for attention with their more recent
counterparts. Some of them looked as though they could be the
remnants of foodstuffs, possibly hurled in anger or disgust. Others
bore more than a passing resemblance to various bodily excretions
better left unconsidered by those easily sickened—or in at least
one instance, horrified. Still others might simply be nothing more
than the result of water damage from the sieve-like roof. Whatever
they had each been in their individual existences, they now blended
to become a single stomach-turning mosaic.

The canvas for this nauseating mural was the
paint that covered the crumbling sheetrock. It might have been pale
blue in a previous incarnation, but the color, much less the
particular shade, now defied any positive recognition. Dirty grey
did not even come close to describing it, and the patina of grime
did nothing to lend even the smallest clue.

“It’s now six seventeen a.m., and here’s
Jennifer to fill you in on what to expect for your morning
commute.” A muddy voice rattled outward from the speaker on the
geriatric television set. “How’s it looking out there, Jen?”

A higher-pitched voice buzzed through as the
hand-off was taken in a smooth segue. “Not so good, Skip.”

The screen switched to what might have been a
chroma-keyed map being gestured at by what might have been a
somewhat attractive woman—it was hard to say through the blur.

She continued. “Traffic is at a standstill at
Forty-Four and Two-Seventy extending all the way back to Bowles
Avenue due to an earlier accident, so you might want to avoid that
area this morning if at all possible. And a reminder, police and
MoDot crews are still on the scene of an overturned tractor trailer
on I-Seventy, just east of Bermuda…”

The rushing sound of water in conjunction
with a hollow, porcelain-throated burp echoed from a curtained
corner of the room to drown out the thick audio of the TV. A
steadily increasing whine followed, punctuated by a deep thud
inside the walls as the plumbing complained. The familiar wet hiss
of a toilet tank automatically refilling fell in behind—the
pronounced noise droning unmuted for lack of a lid.

“Thanks, Jen.” The news anchor’s voice once
again projected into the room from behind a faux woodgrain plastic
grill. “In local news, the Saint Louis Major Case Squad is still
looking for leads in the disappearance of Tamara Linwood. You will
remember Eyewitness News was first to bring you this story when the
twenty-seven-year-old grade school teacher was reported missing
over one week ago after not showing up for work. Her locked car was
found abandoned on the parking lot of the Westview Shopping
Mall.

“Authorities suspect foul play but have
declined to comment on a possible connection with the case of Sarah
Hart. Hart disappeared from the same parking lot just under one
year ago. Her badly decomposed remains were found several months
later in a wooded area along the Missouri River. Anyone with
information should contact the Major Case Squad at the number on
the bottom of your screen.”

Eldon Porter was paying little attention to
the prattle of the reporters. They were nothing more than
background noise filling the small motel room. He listened with
only passing interest to the periodic weather updates and even less
concern for the actual news.

Pipes sang a pained lament once again as he
twisted the faucet handle on a rust-stained basin that barely clung
to the wall—supported more by the deteriorating drain pipe beneath
than the corroded lag bolts that were supposed to be doing the job.
He frowned at a cracked rectangle of glass mounted on the wall over
the canted sink, peering into a kidney-shaped section where the
silver had not yet peeled from the back. With no more than a sigh,
he automatically set about the task of washing his right hand.
There was a time in his life, not that long ago, when he would have
washed his hands. Not the singular, hand. But the plural, hands—as
in two.

However, there is no reason to wash something
you almost never use, and that is how it had been for almost a year
now.

Ever since that night on the bridge—ever
since the warlock, Rowan Gant, had tried to kill him with something
so mundane as a bullet.

Of course, Gant had been left with no other
choice than to turn to such a commonplace method of attack to save
himself. Eldon’s devotion had prevailed, and he had not been taken
in by the sorcery and tricks. He had seen through the chicanery
that masked the true depravity of the Satan-spawned heretic. The
mundane was all that was left, for he was immune to the mystical.
Had he only realized that the warlock would be carrying a pistol,
he would have been triumphant.

Instead, he had failed in his task. Still,
his righteousness and loyalty to his God’s mission had protected
him from death that night— but not from the hardship of injury.

Perhaps a skilled surgeon, or even a back
alley quack for that matter, could have repaired some of the damage
that had rendered his hand so useless. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. The
point was moot now, as it had been then, for he could ill afford
the risk of being caught.

Not as long as the warlock, Rowan Gant, was
still alive.

Eldon looked down at his left forearm. The
monstrous pink and white depression extended from just below his
wrist to a point halfway up to his elbow where the bullet had
ripped away a tunnel of flesh. It might not have been so severe had
it not been for the raging infection that almost instantly made a
home in the wound, killing off even more of the ragged tissue. The
resulting fever had seared his brow for days and was quelled only
after he had been able to muster enough strength to break into a
pharmacy for antibiotics and dressings.