The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (11 page)

“Oh, Rowan…” Cally let her voice trail off
for a moment as she released Felicity and wrapped her arms around
me. “The police were just here. They looked around for a while and
asked a few questions.”

I gave her a reassuring pat on the back as I
returned the hug, feeling her conspicuous anguish connect with my
own purposely subdued emotions. “It’s okay, Cally. It’s okay. They
have to do their jobs.”

“She’s been asking for both of you,” she told
us as she pulled away.

“Aye, we’re here now,” Felicity said. “But
let her rest. She’ll be needing it.”

“Everyone else is here,” Cally continued.
“They’re in the back.”

“Go ahead.” I nodded to them. “I’ll wait for
Ben.”

“Detective Storm?” the young woman asked.

“Aye, he brought us.”

“He’s finding a place to park the van,” I
added.

“He’ll be along in a bit,” Felicity told her
as she took her arm and guided her back down the hall.

I watched them disappear through a doorway at
the end of the corridor, then turned and opened the front door as I
heard a familiar voice and shuffling feet on the other side. Ben
had just raised his hand to knock as I swung the barrier open and
moved to the side.

“How’d you know I was there just now?” he
asked as he stepped in through the opening.

“You mean besides the fact that we arrived
together?” I asked, not really expecting an answer to the sardonic
question.

“Don’t be a smart ass. I mean how’d you know
I was there right at that moment? You doin’ that hocus-pocus
stuff?”

“Nothing quite so ethereal,” I answered. “I
heard you talking.”

He seemed almost disappointed. “Oh.
Okay.”

I cast a glance outside before swinging the
door shut and noticed a uniformed officer getting back into his
patrol car, which was parked on the street in front of the house.
Moderately sized flakes of snow were beginning to float down from
the grey sky, drifting at ever changing angles on the gusts of cold
wind.

“Starting to snow,” I said, announcing the
observation for lack of anything better to say.

“Yeah.” Ben nodded as he shrugged off his
coat, keeping his voice low. “Gonna get bad out there. They’re
callin’ for three to six inches.”

“They were saying just one to two last
night.”

“Yeah, well you know how it is,” he answered
while looking around the foyer. “Nice digs.”

I took his coat and hung it from an available
hook on the dark, bentwood tree, then slipped out of mine and did
the same.

“Randy is…” I caught myself and reformed the
sentence. “Randy was a real estate agent,” I continued the
explanation as I turned back to my friend. “He picked this place up
back when property down here was going for pocket change. Gutted it
and rehabbed it himself. Kind of like you and Allison did with your
place.”

“He did a hell of a job.”

“Yeah. Yeah he did.” I frowned as I nodded.
The past tense references were sickening reminders of why we were
here.

“So,” Ben spoke after a moment of awkward
silence, still keeping his voice at low volume. “How’s she
doin’?”

“Nancy?” I raised an eyebrow. “She’s asleep
upstairs. Everyone else is in the back.”

“Probably good for ‘er,” he replied.

“Yeah, for now,” I agreed before proceeding
into voicing a worrisome thought. “Cally said someone from the
department was already here. They aren’t going to descend on this
place and turn it into a circus are they?”

“Nahh.” He shook his head. “They shouldn’t
anyway. Copper outside said it was Murv from the CSU and Osthoff
from Homicide. Matter of fact, we just missed ‘em. They couldn’t
find anything though. Looks like Porter didn’t grab him from
here.”

“A clue would have been nice,” I said. “But
in a way, I’m glad they didn’t find anything. Here anyway. Nancy
doesn’t need them crawling all over the house right now.”

“Yeah. Prob’ly not,” he agreed.

“So is the officer outside going to hang
around or what?”

“He’s stayin’ put. There’ll be someone
assigned to watch these kids ‘round the clock.”

“That’s good.”

“Ya’know, Rowan.” Ben reached up and massaged
his neck for a moment. “You once told me that there’s a huge number
of Pagans in Saint Louis…”

I gave a vigorous nod as I confronted his
unspoken comment. “There are, but I suspect that they will be safe
this go around. For now, anyway. Porter is after me personally, and
the only reason he killed Randy was to bait me.”

“Yeah, that was kinda obvious. So, I don’t
wanna sound crass or anything, but considerin’ your track record,
couldn’t he have just killed any Pagan on his list?”

“Yes and no,” I answered.

“You think he’s really plannin’ all this that
deliberately?”

“I don’t know. He’s not stupid, Ben. I’m
betting he’s done his homework. He knows that re-initiating the
spree he went on a year ago would draw me out, but I think he wants
more than that.”

“Yeah, he wants you dead, white man.”

“Exactly, but just getting me out of hiding
isn’t going to make that happen. He has to get me vulnerable and
unprotected.”

The look on his face told me that my comment
was merely verbal corroboration for his own theory. “So killin’
Randy was his way of tryin’ to piss you off then. Just like the
note about Felicity.”

“And knock me off balance. That’s how I see
it, anyway,” I agreed and then continued with an explanation of
Coven dynamics. “Groups like ours are literally a family unit
within Pagan culture. There is a bond within a core of a Coven that
can often times be stronger than blood relation. Going after any
one of these kids is the same as going after one of my own. It’s
the difference between killing a stranger and killing a family
member.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I had a feelin’ that’s
what this was all about. I just wanted to hear it from you before I
opened my mouth.”

“Glad I could help,” I replied, my voice
short on emotion.

“You’re right,” he told me. “He’s not stupid.
You came after him by yourself once, so he figures he can make it
happen again.”

“Yeah. Simple as it sounds, I’d have to say
that’s his plan.”

“Well, he’s screwed ‘cause you ain’t gonna do
that, white man.”

“That remains to be seen.”

My friend took on a hard expression and
thrust two fingers stiffly against my chest. “That wasn’t a
question, Row. It was a statement of fact. You’re NOT doin’ it. Not
this time.”

“Okay,” I returned in order to appease
him.

“I’m serious as a heart attack, white man,”
he detailed, still trying to keep his voice low as it developed a
stern edge. “This ain’t Hollywood. The sonofabitch wants to kill
you.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware of that, Ben,” I
told him.

“Yeah, well we’re not talkin’ videogame dead
here, Row. We’re talkin’ about the real thing. For keeps.”

“Yeah, Ben. I know,” I answered, my hackles
raising a bit at once again being treated like a child.

He splayed his hands out in a gesture that
visibly told me to stop and that it was the end of the discussion.
“Listen, don’t make me lock your ass up just to keep you outta
this.”

“Okay, fine,” I answered curtly. “You
win.”

Thick tension hung between us for a measured
beat, eventually softening but never really dissipating
entirely.

“So is there anyone else we should know
about?” Ben finally asked. “Former Coven members? Anyone like
that?”

“No, not that I can think of off hand.” I
shook my head as I ticked off the points. “No one has left this
group since Felicity and I adopted it. I’ve practiced solitary most
of my life. And, the only other Coven I was truly a member of
dissolved a long time ago.”

“Any of the members still around?”

“Not in Saint Louis,” I replied. “It was a
fairly small group, and we only split because everyone but me ended
up moving out of state.”

“What about family? Like your old man?”

“He’s out of town right now. Besides, he
won’t go after a non-Pagan. Not intentionally.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“‘
Pretty sure’ don’t cut it.” He
reached up to massage his neck, and was obviously pondering
something. After a moment he seemed to make a decision and spoke
again. “Well, if your old man is out of town, we’re covered there.
What about your sister?”

“Ironically, she’s in Germany right now. Her
husband is stationed there with the Army.”

“Okay, well I think we should have someone
keep an eye on Felicity’s family just to be safe.”

“Shamus will love that,” I muttered
sarcastically.

My wife’s father was not exactly what you
would call a big fan of mine. Truth was, he believed that I had
corrupted his daughter and diverted her from Christianity. He
refused to take into account that she was already walking a Pagan
path when I met her. At any rate, my dealings with the Major Case
Squad investigating occult-related crimes were nothing less than
fuel for his disdain. This would just stoke that fire.

“Yeah, well he’ll just have to live with it,”
Ben returned.

The muffled but cheerful warble of a ring
tone started behind me, and my friend reached around to his coat
and searched through a pocket. I stepped to the side as he withdrew
his cell phone, quickly perused the display, then stabbed it on and
stuck it to his ear.

“Yeah, Helen, thanks for calling back,” he
spoke into the device.

The name struck a chord, and I knew
immediately that the individual at the other end had to be his
sister, Helen Storm. She was a psychiatrist and probably one of the
most understanding individuals I had ever met. Ben had talked me
into making an appointment with her just recently when the
nightmares about the horrors I had seen started becoming too much
to handle. I had made that first visit under duress but quickly
struck up a friendship with her.

Unlike her brother, Helen fully embraced her
Native American heritage. While I was never able to pin her down on
anything, something told me there was more to the woman than just
the framed diploma on her wall—something mystical, in fact.

“Uh-huh, I’m afraid so,” Ben continued.
“Yeah, that was us. They didn’t waste any time gettin' it on the
air, did they?… Yeah, I know… No, he’s okay. For the time being
anyway… Yeah… Well, he’s in the middle of it whether I like it or
not, so there’s not a lot I can do… Uh-huh, that’s what I’m
thinkin’… Yeah… Uh-huh… So, what’s your schedule lookin’ like
today? Any chance you could come over?… That’d be great… Yeah… In
the city, on Arkansas. ‘Bout a block off Grand… I can give ya’
directions… Okay, lemme check…”

My friend twisted the phone away from his
mouth and shot me a questioning look. “She wants to know if Nancy
is gonna be okay with havin’ a shrink show up? Whaddaya think?”

I started to open my mouth to answer but
never got that far. My lips froze as I shuddered, every nerve
ending in my body jangling as though each was connected directly to
an electrical wall socket. The involuntary jerking motion was
immediately joined by an excruciating pain that lanced sharply
through my head. The rush of blood in my ears rose and fell, only
to be replaced suddenly by the violent sound of a horrified
scream.

The muted light in the entryway strobed to
unbearable brightness then collapsed in on itself. Color faded,
leaving the scene before me a grainy black and white representation
of its former self, depicted in overblown cartoon contrast.

I heard my friend’s concerned voice call my
name in a long, slow-motion drone as I began physically slipping
downward.

My knees announced their displeasure with the
situation as they thudded on the hardwood, and I continued to
literally vibrate. I could feel my fingernails cutting into my
palms as my hands involuntarily twisted into clawed fists. I was
gnashing my teeth, and I could taste blood in my mouth from where I
was repeatedly biting my tongue.

However, at this particular moment, any
concerns I had for those problems gave way to the fact that the
floor was now slamming itself hard against my face.

I wasn’t sure what the noise echoing in my
head actually was. It was struggling to be heard over the blood
rushing in my ears, which in and of itself, was already in heated
contention with an unnatural ringing sound that permeated my skull.
At any rate, my violently distorted thought processes attempted to
assign a familiarity to it.

One possibility presented itself as the
rumble of a weak earthquake. Another was that it was a small
explosion. There were several others, but in retrospect, those two
were the only ones that came close to anything even remotely
possible. What I later found out was that it hadn’t been any of the
above. In reality, what it had been were the frantic steps of
several feet thudding against the hardwood flooring as everyone ran
to the front of the house.

Right now, however, as far as my brain was
concerned it was an unsolvable and very perplexing mystery. The
vibration rolled toward me down the hallway, growing in intensity
as it traveled through the polished surface. Upon reaching me, it
joined with my cheek, made its way inward through some bizarre
osmosis, and reverberated throughout my skull. The final effect was
that of turning the sound into a tactile sensation as much as an
auditory one.

I could feel myself being rolled over as my
back arched and my muscles stiffened once again. Pain I can only
describe as a full body leg cramp assaulted me, and I felt my
breath catch in my throat. The physical sensation was accompanied
by an elevation in my mental confusion—an elevation a full order of
magnitude beyond anything I had experienced thus far.