Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation (45 page)

Murderous grey eyes bore down on me through
the murky surroundings, smoking with the same fire they had
displayed earlier. Ariel’s athamè flashed once again as my attacker
prepared to plunge it downward. My vision continued to stretch
forth in a tunnel-like fashion then slowly began to fade.

Before I could close my eyes, the blade
jerked out of its killing arc and followed a harmless trajectory
away from me. At the same instant, the dull thrashing of water
distantly entered my ears and was joined by a muffled
explosion.

A dark rain spattered the surface of the
water above my face and mixed lazily into milky spirals—cloudy
helixes of vermilion in the dim moonlight. A second blunted thump
sounded, followed quickly by a third, then a fourth. Three more
showers of the thick crimson rain sprinkled wildly across the
water’s surface. The hand around my throat spasmed twice then fell
limp. The weight pressing down on my chest shifted heavily and slid
sideways.

Cool air rushed forcefully into my lungs,
flowing down my throat in a thick gulp as I suddenly broke the
surface. I gasped gratefully, sputtering and choking on the lake
water I had sucked in, and blinked rapidly to clear the debris from
my eyes. I began flailing angrily as I felt a large meaty hand
entwine itself with the front of my shirt in a viselike grip then
relaxed when I realized I was being pulled out instead of being
pushed back in.

Felicity, Deckert, Mandalay, and two of the
officers gathered in a loose semicircle around me as I laid gasping
on the bank. Ben’s large hand was still tightly gripping my
waterlogged shirt, shaking me.

“Rowan?! Rowan?! Are you all right?” his
concern-laden voice urgently met my ears.

I looked around the worried faces of the
group then back to his. “Little girl?” I croaked.

“She’s fine. The other coppers are with her,”
he smiled down at me. “There’s an ambulance on the way.”

Telltale distant warbling was growing louder
as emergency vehicles raced to converge on us. I struggled to sit
up, only to find they weren’t going to allow it. Ben and Felicity
both pressed me back down gently.

“Stay put,” my wife ordered softly. “They’re
coming for you too.”

I didn’t protest, I just continued biting off
large chunks of the night air and swallowing them hungrily. Again,
I focused on Ben’s face.

“Hey, Tonto,” I choked out between breaths,
“you shoot the bad guy?”

“Yeah, Kemosabe,” he grinned. “Yeah, I shot
the bastard.”

“Next time,” I wheezed, “don’t take so damn
long.”

“B
en
was telling me you got a call from that muckity-muck up in
Seattle,” Deckert posed and then took a hearty sip of beer. “What’d
he have to say?”

He, Ben, and I were seated around the patio
table on the back deck of my house. A little more than a week had
passed since that night at Wild Woods Park, and I had coaxed them
over for a day of barbecue and relaxation. We all desperately
needed the chance to decompress from the pressure of the maniacally
whirlwind investigation, as well as the intensity of its abrupt
ending.

“He wanted to give me the
reward he’d been offering,” I answered, carefully trimming the end
from a
Cruz Real #19
. “Everyone’s firmly convinced that Roger was responsible for
his daughter’s murder, so he wanted to pay up. How he got my name,
he wouldn’t say.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I gave him a list of
charities.
Environmental Defense Fund,
Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund
and
the like.” I set a wooden match alight and touched the fire to the
end of my cigar. “I told him if he really wanted to do something
for me, that he should split the reward between them in the names
of his daughter and the other victims.”

“In other words,” Ben interjected, waving his
own cigar in my direction, “ya’ turned it down.”

“I like to think of it as redirected,” I
expressed.

Allison, Felicity, and Mona, Detective
Deckert’s wife, were leisurely roaming the perimeter of our large
backyard. Every now and then they would pause to admire the last
fitful colors of summer that still bloomed in our various
wildflower gardens.

Benjamin Storm Junior was giggling with the
unencumbered innocence of youth as he tumbled and rolled in the
center of the yard. Our dogs let out excited, puppyish yelps, tails
wagging and ears perked, as he chased them about in a wild game of
tag.

The domestic Saturday afternoon scene was
kind and familiar. I longed to lose myself to the relaxed feeling
of security but knew deep down that it was a place I could only
visit. I would never again be allowed to live there.

Ariel Tanner’s death had forced me to deal
with a question I had denied without even knowing it. The question
of what my purpose within this lifetime was to be. The answer was
one that I had only now begun to come to terms with.

It was only a matter of time before something
evil would knock upon my door again, and I knew it. I hoped I would
be prepared to face whatever it turned out to be.

“I still can’t get over that glamour thing.”
Carl leaned back in his chair, cradling his beer bottle. “I mean I
was lost! I couldn’t find anybody, and the woods just kept getting
darker and thicker no matter which direction I went. Seemed like it
went on forever. Next thing I know, everything clears up, and I’m
on the other side of the freakin’ park hearin’ all this screamin’.
It was weird. Just plain weird.”

From the descriptions
provided by Ben, Carl, Agent Mandalay, and the other officers, I
had come to the conclusion that they were all most likely affected
by a
Spell of
Misdirection
—a glamour of sorts. The closer
they had come to the small clearing, the more disoriented and
confused they became. The illusion of the thickening woods obscured
the clearing and led them farther away with each step. Agent
Mandalay had simply stumbled into the ritual circle entirely by
accident. The amount of energy and concentration Roger Henderson
had to have expended in order to affect and maintain such a massive
phantasm was almost certainly the reason he had not detected my
presence in the park until it was too late.

“Mandalay is the one who caught the worst of
it,” I volunteered. “Whatever she was seeing, it definitely wasn’t
pretty.”

“That reminds me,” Ben spoke
up. “I meant ta’ ask you... If he could do all that shit, then why
was he botherin’ ta’ drug his victims? Why didn’t he just
eenee meenee hocus pocus
‘em?”

“It’s just a guess, but there are a couple of
reasons I can think of off-hand.” I drained the last of my own beer
before outlining the ideas. “One would be the unpredictability. An
aware mind isn’t fooled by illusions and wouldn’t fall into a
trance. Another would be that even if he were able to hypnotize his
victims, so to speak, the sharp physical pain of the flaying would
have snapped them out of it. Drugging them was his safest bet to
keep them quiet and immobile.”

They both thoughtfully nodded acceptance of
my explanation. Moving my chair back, I stood and checked the
burning coals in the fire pit. A fine coating of whitish-grey ash
had formed across half the surfaces of the briquettes. Randomly,
the ash had fallen away to reveal a fiery red-orange glow. A small
tremor ran the length of my spine as my mind fleetingly focused on
the memory of the cancerous grey-red combination of Roger
Henderson’s violent eyes. I must have stood staring into the pit a
moment too long as I was snapped back to reality by the sound of my
friend’s voice.

“Hey, white man. You okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re kinda starin’ off into space, guy,”
Deckert intoned. “Something bothering you?”

“No. No, just daydreaming.” I shrugged off
their mildly concerned queries and then changed the subject. “The
fire needs a few more minutes. I’m dry, anyone else need a
beer?”

“Yeah,” Ben answered, then drained the last
remnants from his bottle.

“Count me in,” Deckert added.

I gathered the empty bottles and disposed of
them in the recycle bin before opening the door of the plant-filled
atrium and proceeding into the kitchen. Allison, Felicity, and Mona
had chased me out of this area earlier and between the three of
them, had quickly prepared the food that was to be grilled. Fresh
herb scents filled the kitchen and helped me to ease back into the
pleasant reality at hand.

I was just opening the refrigerator when the
front chime demanded attention. Momentarily placing the beverages
on hold, I carefully picked my way through rapidly scattering
felines and tugged open the heavy oak door.

“I hope I’m not intruding.” An apologetic
statement issued from a somewhat casually dressed Special Agent
Constance Mandalay. “I noticed Deckert’s car and Storm’s van in the
driveway.”

“Not at all,” I said, holding the door open
wide and motioning to her. “Please come in.”

She entered hesitantly and waited in silence
while I shut the door. When I turned around, what faced me was a
much-subdued version of the hard-nosed femme fatale that had
originally confronted me at the Major Case Squad command post. She
shuffled nervously and studied the pattern of the hardwood floor
between quick glances at me with schoolgirl eyes.

“Listen, Mister Gant,” she finally sputtered,
racing to get the words out before they could flee, “I just wanted
to apologize for my attitude toward you during the
investigation.”

“Rowan, please,” I appealed calmly. “My
friends call me Rowan. And there’s no apology necessary, Agent
Mandalay.”

“Constance,” she echoed my sentiments. “My
friends call me Constance... And I still want to say I’m sorry... I
treated you poorly, and I’ve no excuse... Except maybe for
ignorance.” She stumbled over the words, and her large eyes
glistened as she choked back what might have been a tear. “What...
What I saw that night... I... I don’t know if I could ever tell
anyone... I don’t know if I could face it again. I... I just feel
that if it weren’t for you, I would be dead... If not dead then
insane at the very least. I owe you for that, and I just wanted to
tell you all this in person... I just needed to say... Thank
you.”

“You’re more than welcome,” I granted. “I’m
just glad that you’re all right.”

“I’m getting there,” she expressed with a
nervous sigh. “The nightmares were bad at first, but I’ve been okay
the past couple of nights. I’m not afraid to go to sleep any more.
With a little luck, I should be off administrative leave by the end
of next week.”

“Just don’t push yourself,” I advised. “Go
back when you’re ready. Not before.”

“I know.”

Timid silence filled the room around us,
broken only by the sound of Salinger as he leapt heavily onto the
coffee table and studied the new human in the room.

“So, how do you like your steak?” I posed,
adding my words to the void.

“Excuse me?”

“How do you like your steak?” I repeated.
“They’ll be going on the grill in just a few minutes, and I’ll need
to know how you want it cooked.”

“No. I couldn’t stay,” she protested. “I’m
sure Deckert and Storm would just as soon I fall off the face of
the earth after the way I acted. Especially Storm.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve known Ben
for...”

“Hey, paleface!” We heard Ben’s jovial voice
booming from the kitchen and growing closer as he ambled through
the house in our direction. “What happened to those beers?”

Ben came to a sudden halt as he rounded the
corner into the dining room and noticed Agent Mandalay standing
across from me. Their eyes locked for a moment, and I could easily
sense the fluid apprehension that flowed between them. The only
sounds to be heard were the distant voices of Allison and Felicity
drifting in from the kitchen.

“I was just asking Constance how she wanted
her steak done,” I expressed calmly.

Their gazes remained fixed a moment longer,
faces expressionless. As if on cue, the heavy tension whirlpooled
down an unseen drain, and Ben’s face spread into a welcoming
smile.

“Hey, Allison,” he called over his shoulder,
“better wrap up another one of those potatoes.” He turned his gaze
back to us before continuing. “Another friend just showed up.”

Agent Mandalay’s face broke into a relieved
grin, and she glanced back to me. “Medium rare,” she answered in an
easy, comfortable tone. “I like my steak medium rare.”

E
ight robed figures stood somberly in the large clearing,
bluish light illuminating them from the rotund globe of the full
moon. Surrounding the small circle were five freshly planted trees,
straight and carefully spaced. Even to a casual onlooker, it was
obvious that great care had been taken in the placement and rooting
of the saplings. To a brother or sister of The Craft, it would be
readily apparent that walking a particular, familiar path between
the five trees would form a large Pentacle.

An auburn-tressed woman, long hair spiraling
in a brilliant cascade down her back, moved lithely about the group
carefully touching a flame to colorful candles appointed at four
stations of the circle—yellow to the East, red to the South, blue
to the West, and green to the North. She moved as if floating,
adding her low, solemn voice to the rest as each of the four towers
was hailed.

The woman moved fluidly back to the center of
the small gathering, taking a position next to a bearded man, his
own long, brown hair flowing loosely about his shoulders. The man
lifted a brightly polished athamè to the sky and scribed a perfect
Pentacle in the still air. As he lowered the ceremonial knife, the
coven members joined in a thrice-repeated chant.