I could feel her pressing the back of her hand against my neck and then my cheek as her maternal instincts took over and she slipped into nurturing mode.
“I just came in a few minutes ago,” I told her. “I haven’t warmed up yet.”
“Nice try, but it’s not that cold outside.”
Given how truly awful I was beginning to feel, I decided not to prolong the inevitable and simply conceded. “Okay, then maybe you’re right and I’m coming down with something.”
“You aren’t running a fever,” she countered. “You’re freezing.”
“So maybe it’s a cold,” I quipped, managing to squeeze out the last drop of sarcastic humor I had left in me.
“Not funny,” she replied sternly. “You’re helping Ben with another murder investigation, aren’t you? You’re channeling someone. Damn your eyes, Rowan Linden Gant, you promised!”
At this point the dogs had grown impatient, and the English setter was doing a halting dance nearby while the Aussie was letting out a nasal whine as an accompaniment.
“No,” I told her, giving my head an animated shake then picking up the food dishes from the island and stooping to set them on the floor. The canines were on them immediately, gobbling up the breakfast as if it was their one and only meal for the week.
“Don’t lie to me, Rowan,” she snapped.
“I’m not!” I barked in return as I stood. “I’m not helping him. But the victim apparently doesn’t seem interested in hearing that, okay?”
“You aren’t…”
“No,” I interrupted before she could finish the question. “I’m not letting her in. I’m doing just the opposite, but it isn’t working.”
“Are you grounding then?” she asked, referring to the conscious connection most any Witch makes with the earth in order to avoid mishaps with magickal energies.
Even though the question annoyed me on the surface, I knew she was right to ask. Grounding was a basic skill right out of WitchCraft 101 and moreover, the first step in protecting oneself from a psychic influence. However, following the first experience with my curse a few years back, I had been left unbalanced; therefore, it was also an important ability where I had fallen woefully short for quite some time now, no matter how hard I tried.
In recent months I had been much better at maintaining my focus-or at least I thought I had.
I took hold of my wife’s hand and said, “You tell me. Do I feel grounded to you?”
She twined her fingers into mine, pressing our palms tightly together. I knew she really didn’t need to have the physical contact to know one way or the other if I was truly grounded, but I wanted there to be no mistake. She looked into my face, and what had been a rising flash of anger in her green eyes now turned to concern.
“ Damnu,” she mumbled. “You are grounded… That fekking doiteacht , I’ll kill him.”
“Who?”
“Ben,” she snipped. “Who else? Come on then…”
She began dragging me by the hand toward the living room, and I had no recourse but to follow.
“You can’t blame him for this, Felicity,” I said as I lumbered along behind her, an overwhelming weakness starting to permeate my body. “This all started before I even met up with him this morning.”
“But he talked about a case, didn’t he?”
“Yes. A little.”
“And your channeling the victim, aren’t you?”
“Yeah… That’s my guess, anyway… Why?”
“Because this doesn’t happen to you when it’s someone else’s investigation, that’s why… Here, sit down.”
My wife all but shoved me onto the sofa-not that it took much for her to do so given my present state. She took a moment to situate me to her liking then began covering me with an afghan after shooing one of the cats from it.
She had a point, even if it wasn’t entirely on base. This sort of thing still happened to me even when it wasn’t one of Ben’s cases, but never to this extreme. I suppose even the tortured spirits of the dead had enough sense to know whether or not I had access to someone who would actually listen to what I had to say rather than having me hauled off for psychiatric evaluation.
“You stay right there,” she told me after she finished more or less tucking me in. “I’m going to go make you some sage tea.”
“Okay,” I told her.
There was really little else I could do. Even if I wanted to bring up the fact that I’d been using salt and try to argue the point with her I wasn’t feeling up to it. Oddly enough, however, my lack of fight wasn’t because I was in any major pain. In fact, I no longer felt a single ache. The pervasive weakness had actually transformed into a sense of absolute comfort and the earlier cold that had started to seep into my bones was now replaced by welcome warmth.
I allowed my eyelids to droop as the pleasantness washed over me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so completely relaxed. I was on the verge of giving myself over to the darkness of sleep when I felt a quick flutter in my chest. It was followed by a second, and then a tickle started somewhere deep inside my brain.
I tried to ignore it, but it was on a mission. It persisted in the same way a nagging question would turn into a mindless obsession that kept you awake at night. As if giving in to just such a need to go check and make sure a light is turned off, I allowed the relentless itch to force me to move my arm. Had I been in any other state of mind I don’t know if I would have considered the unnatural degree of effort it took to accomplish that task to be worthwhile. But since the growing nag was going to continue pecking at me until I satisfied the curiosity it had awakened, I complied.
After what seemed an endless stretch of time, I managed to bring my hand against my neck. However, the action did little to quell the tickle in my grey matter because I discovered in that instant my fingers were now completely numb. Unable to feel anything at all, I gave up and allowed my hand to fall away as I offered myself to the comfort of the encroaching darkness.
At that same instant, I could have sworn I heard Felicity’s near panicked voice screaming my name.
CHAPTER 7:
I didn’t recall much of anything between hearing the echo of my wife’s voice and coming to once again. Of course, whether or not I had actually lost consciousness in the first place was a minor point of contention. I thought I had, but according to Felicity, she didn’t think so; or if I had, it was for no more than a split second. Since the whole event was all really just a blank spot in my head, I had to take her word for it.
The only thing I could say for certain was that I had suddenly found her concerned face hovering over me while she pressed her hand hard against my neck-hard enough to hurt, in fact. Prior to that, about the only thing I could remember was the sensation of floating in a dark, silent void. Of course, that was nothing new. Unfathomable darkness and general disorientation were all just part of the scenery when the dead were demanding my attention. It seemed to be their way of trying to gain the upper hand, and much to my chagrin, it usually worked.
What it came down to in the final analysis was that Felicity was probably dead on with her estimate about how much time I had spent unconscious-even if that fraction of a second had felt much longer to me. But, that was to be expected. Time had an odd way of becoming an unreliable reference point on the dark side of the veil, especially when you didn’t belong there.
It didn’t really matter now anyway. Fifteen minutes had noticeably ticked away since then, and in the world of the living, time still retained its illusion of being a dependable benchmark. Of course, while one-quarter hour wasn’t exactly the distant past, it still made a difference; for now there was no longer darkness and peaceful quiet wrapped around me-just harsh light and the sound of running water.
“Really, honey, I’m fine,” I said aloud, my voice a tired drone. The words themselves were inherently positive, but my timbre painted them with a gloomy hue, which effectively defeated my purpose for making the comment in the first pla
ce.
I leaned forward with a heavy sigh, resting my hands on top of the bathroom vanity, and looked into the mirror as I struggled to actually believe the untruth that had just tumbled out of my mouth. Given what I saw staring back at me, I was going to be hard pressed to do so. On top of that, I wasn’t even taking into account that the all too familiar dull thud in the back of my head had finally arrived, which definitely wasn’t going to make things easy. The symptom list of signature aches associated with my curse was sounding off one by one. But the truth is, as residual effects go, the headache was probably the lesser of my worries at the moment.
Shifting my eyes slightly, I could see Felicity’s face reflected in the pane of silvered glass as well. Judging from her thin-lipped frown, she wasn’t buying into my empty reassurances at all, so it was really a waste of time for me to even continue pretending.
After a thick pause, she replied flatly, giving me a verbal confirmation of her disbelief while she finished wringing out a washcloth in the basin. “No, Rowan, you aren’t. Look at yourself…”
I certainly couldn’t blame her for being disagreeable. After all, I was lying and not very well at that. Under the circumstances, she obviously wasn’t interested in wasting time with the game of verbal hide and seek. I had to admit that I didn’t really feel up to playing either. I suppose I was just doing it out of habit.
I moved my gaze back to my own reflection and took in the not so pretty picture once again. Smears of red still glistened in haphazard swaths along my jaw line and down my neck. A rusting crinkled pattern ran across my shoulder and upper chest where my now discarded shirt had recently been plastered to my body by the sticky wetness. I was an absolute mess by most any standards. In my own eyes at least, I pretty much looked like an extra from the set of a low budget slasher movie.
I continued watching in the mirror as my wife reached up and carefully wiped away more of the blood with the wet cloth then folded it over and made a second gentle swipe. Since it had already started coagulating, there were thick, crusty trails left behind on my skin that were going to take quite a bit more coercion to remove.
“This is insane, Row,” she muttered. “Just insane…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Tell me about it.”
“And this was how the victim died then?”
“Uh-huh,” I answered. “At least that’s what I was told. Apparently, the way Ben outlined it, she appeared to have been purposely bled to death, which would kind of explain this…” I gestured at the blood with my free hand. “Except there was no blood at the scene, which obviously doesn’t explain this.”
“I see,” she returned. “I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t something a bit more immediate or you might not be standing here right now.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I guess that last bit is why he asked you about vampires, then” she announced, ignoring my objection.
“Yeah, I think so. I guess I can’t blame him too much for thinking something like that,” I said. “I mean after everything we’ve asked him to accept on blind faith over the years, why not? To someone like him, I don’t think he sees it as that much of a stretch. Witch, vampire…”
“Maybe so, but what next? Zombies?”
I couldn’t help but snort out a half chuckle. “I really doubt it. In his defense he was talking about the people in a particular subset of the Goth subculture who claim to be vampires.”
“I still say it’s insane,” she replied then made a point of displaying the bloody washcloth to me and adding, “Especially this.”
“I guess that’s about as good a word as any.”
Even with the grumbling, I was amazed at how we both seemed to be taking this all in stride. Of course, there had been several extremely tense minutes at the beginning, especially in light of Felicity’s initial panic upon seeing what she described as me bleeding to death. Our alarm probably would have continued unchecked had it not been for my wife’s hand inadvertently slipping from my neck as she struggled to reach for the phone in order to call 9-1-1. Instead of the feared spray of blood, however, there was nothing. Not even a wound. It suddenly became obvious to us both that this was an ethereal tap on my shoulder and that someone wanted my attention in the worst way.
Since realizing that, neither of us had really treated this event as much more than a severe aggravation. In a way it seemed as though we were both under the influence of a psychic anesthetic. I suppose that was a good thing, but I couldn’t help wondering when it was going to wear off or if it was simply going to keep us numbed forever. I couldn’t really say which option frightened me the most. I did know, however, that neither of them was particularly appealing as far as I was concerned. But as worrisome as that could be, it was actually one of the least important thoughts assaulting my grey matter at the moment.
What truly puzzled me was my earlier queasiness over the thought of blood when placed in juxtaposition to the apparent nonchalance I felt about it now. Normally I walked a line somewhere in between the two reactions-affected by the sight of it, yes, but not repulsed. This sudden shift to one extreme and then the other had me perplexed. The more I rolled it around inside my skull the more it gnawed at me, and that wasn’t good. After chasing the thought around in a circle for several minutes, I finally told myself that I needed to leave it alone, especially since it was most certainly some kind of cryptic message from the spirit who was doing this to me in the first place. Dwelling on it was just going to give her reason to press the issue to the next level. After what she’d already done, that was something I definitely didn’t want happening.
I turned my head to glance directly at Felicity as she continued moving the washcloth down my bare arm. In its wake were diluted streaks of the sticky fluid forming mottled trails across my skin.
“I think it would probably be easier if I just jumped in the shower,” I said, looking down at how much blood was still left to remove.
“You’re right,” she replied. “But I wanted to see if I could find that wound. I guess I just got carried away.”
“You didn’t and you won’t,” I told her. “You’ve already looked at my neck, and if it was still there you would have found it by now.”
“I just want to be sure.”
“I understand, Felicity, but if it was there I’d be bleeding all over you,” I countered. “And, obviously I’m not. It disappeared, so that should tell you something right there.”
“Oh? And what should it tell me?”
“That it wasn’t real in the first place.”
She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “So I suppose all of this blood is just a figment of my imagination then?”
“You know what I meant,” I replied. “It was real but it wasn’t. It was just there to get my attention. Nothing more.”
“Well, by the Gods, it got mine,” she replied.
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said as I fidgeted.
“Be still, I want to have another look,” she ordered then gave the washcloth a quick rinse. After a moment she let out a sigh and added, “Maybe I should have just gone ahead and called nine-one-one so they could check you out.”
I shook my head in quick response and started to speak.
“I said be still,” she admonished in a distant tone as she pressed the fingers of her free hand upward beneath my jaw to expose my neck.
I cocked my head to the side so as to allow her better access then said, “It was already over the minute it started, Felicity. Calling nine-one-one would have just raised questions we can’t answer. Like, why I’m covered in blood but don’t have any injuries for one thing.”
“You should probably still see a doctor.”
“And what do I say? I’m a pint low but I don’t know where it went?”
“There’s still a spot here that looks irritated,” she said, apparently ignoring me again. “I’m pretty sure that’s where it was.”
“Was,” I repeated. “Like I just told you… I
t’s not there anymore. Besides, I’ve been rubbing my neck all morning because of the pain. I’m not surprised it looks irritated.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? What’s that mean?”
“It means it isn’t hurting like it was earlier,” I explained. “It just burns a little I guess. But like you said, it’s irritated.”
“Well…” she murmured, gingerly pressing her fingers around the spot on my neck as if she expected it to erupt once again. “I don’t see anything else, and you aren’t cold anymore.”
“See… It’s over… So, can I just go ahead and take a shower?”
“I suppose… But I’m none too happy about this.”
“Trust me, honey, I’m not falling all over myself about it either, but what’s done is done.”
“What if it happens again?”
“We deal with it, I guess.”
“And what if I’m not there to stop it?”
“You mean the bleeding?” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Oh?” she said, raising both eyebrows. “And why not then?”
“Like I said, the spirit just wanted my attention. It’s not like she would let me bleed out or anything. I’m no good to her dead.”
“I think you’re giving her too much credit, Rowan.”
“Why?”
“Because if she was that smart she’d know I’m about ready to put her arse in a shoebox with a pound of salt and bury her in the back yard.”
“Very funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
I shook my head. “Do you really want to take that chance? You know what happened the last time either of us tried a binding.”
“On each other, yes. What about on them?”
“You can’t seriously plan on binding every spirit that tries to communicate with me.”
“Watch me.”
“Felicity…”
“ Damnu, I’m serious, Rowan,” she said, tossing the cloth into the sink then turning and leaning back against the vanity next to me. “What do we do about this?”
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