The End Of Desire: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  “Good luck on that. If I get anything you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, Row, the Feebs think there’s only a small chance she’ll try ta’ make an end run at ya’ as long as we’re here. Even if she is keepin’ an eye on the place.”

  “Small chance?”

  “Maybe twenty-five, thirty percent accordin’ to their experts.”

  “They might be underestimating her.”

  “Why do ya’ say that?”

  “Desperate people do desperate things,” I replied.

  “You really think she’s that bad off?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do. There is only one emotion stronger than love, Ben, and that’s hatred. Right now, Annalise is filled with both. That’s a volatile combination. It’s just like the jealous lover who proclaims, ‘if I can’t have her, nobody can.’

  “She’ll do whatever it takes to keep Miranda and Felicity apart, even if it means sacrificing herself so that Miranda has no one left to possess in the end. I’m sure that isn’t her first choice, but I definitely wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “So you’re doin’ psychoanalysis?” he replied, the words were more verbal observation than actual question. “Now I know you’ve been spendin’ too much time with my sister.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I keep hearing. But, it’s not really that academic… Or, arcane either. The simple truth is, I could hear it in her voice. It wasn’t hard to recognize.”

  “Okay,” he huffed. “So if you really think she’s gonna come after ya’ here, then we need ta’ move ya’ no matter what Firehair says.”

  “That would just prolong the inevitable. Like I said, I think that tactic will be a last resort on her part,” I told him with a shake of my head. “She’ll try something else first.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know any more what it might be than the rest of you, Ben. Maybe we’ll find out when she calls again.”

  “Still wouldn’t hurt ta’ get you two someplace safe.”

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, but right now I think this is probably the safest place we can be.”

  “Why? She knows where you are, and if you really believe she’ll come after ya’ here, how is it safe?”

  “It just is.”

  He reached up and smoothed back his hair then shot me a concerned look. “Okay. So, my turn ta’ play shrink. What is it you ain’t sayin’?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it’s been damn near four hours since Devereaux called, and you’ve been off in your own damn world ever since. Somethin’s botherin’ ya’ big time.”

  “No offense, Ben, but are you familiar with the expression, ‘Duh?’ There’s an insane woman out there who wants to kill my wife. Of course something’s bothering me.”

  “Yeah, duh, that’s funny. I mean there’s somethin’ else runnin’ around in your head, White Man. Otherwise you wouldn’t suddenly be so opposed ta’ bein’ moved. Was it somethin’ she said?”

  “You heard the recording when Constance called in.”

  “Yeah, I did. So, what gives? Are you thinkin’ she was right about the ghost bitch and Firehair bein’ hooked up again?”

  “I don’t know if she was right or not,” I said with a shake of my head. “But it definitely worries me.”

  “Well, Felicity ain’t actin’ like a psychobitch or anything. She’s definitely got a bit of wingnut factor goin’ on, but I think Helen’s got a handle on that.”

  “True. But, the fact that Annalise doesn’t seem to recall what was done with that bit of spellwork at Lewis’s apartment is especially unnerving. It means Miranda is directly responsible for the magick instead of her.”

  “And, so explain it to me… I take it that’s a bad thing?”

  “It may well be. I’m not sure. I’ve never gone toe-to-toe with a spirit where the actual working of magick is concerned.”

  “So stayin’ here has somethin’ ta’ do with that?”

  “I can ward against magick anywhere I go… But, the fact remains that I’ve done a lot of work in recent weeks on this house to protect it against any sort of magickal invasion,” I explained. “As long as Felicity stays here, I think I have her protected from Miranda. At least, I hope I do.”

  “Think that’s why your Twilight Zone ain’t workin’ so good in here?”

  “Maybe. Probably. But, you know that’s really hit and miss as it is.”

  “But, did ya’ just say you could do the hocus-pocus someplace else instead?”

  “I can,” I admitted. “But, look at it this way—walls constructed over a few hours versus those that have been fortified over a period of weeks. Which would you rather take cover behind when the shit starts to fly?”

  “Yeah, okay. I get it. So, it’s a Witch thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s a Witch thing.”

  “Jeez…” he mumbled. “Whatever happened ta’ just plain old bad guys with guns and knives?”

  I knew he wasn’t really looking for an answer, but I gave him one anyway. “Easy. You met me.”

  He didn’t reply, not that I really expected him to. With a lull falling in our conversation, I reached up and massaged my forehead. The chronic throb had worked its way from the back of my skull all the way to the front, setting up shop throughout my entire head. I’d been tempted to tap into the aspirin a time or two already but had decided to save them for when things really got bad. At the moment, I was weighing that decision very carefully, trying to convince myself that I hadn’t yet reached that point. I was probably being overly cautious, but old habits die hard, and I now had a healthy fear of that one in particular.

  Dropping my hand down, I opened my eyes then reached for my cup of coffee. I picked it up and took a quick swig, only to discover that what little of it that was left had gone cold. I looked over to my friend and noticed his cup was completely empty.

  “I’m going to get a fresh cup,” I said, lifting my mug into view. “You want one?”

  “Sure,” he replied, pushing his seat back from the table.

  At about the moment we were both rising from our chairs, the front door opened, and Constance came into the house.

  “Cold out there?” Ben asked after she had pressed the door shut and stepped farther into the room.

  “What do you think?” she replied with a return volley of sarcasm while shrugging off her coat and draping it over the back of the sofa.

  “I’ll swap with ya’,” my friend offered. “Where’d ya’ leave off?”

  Constance shook her head. “Don’t worry about it right now. The main houses have been covered. Reynolds and Cobb are still working the side street. Parker and the locals are up the block.”

  “Nothing so far, I take it?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “We didn’t expect much though.”

  “We were just talkin’ about that,” Ben said.

  “We’ll have to make another round when people start arriving home from work,” she detailed then looked directly at me. “Maybe our luck will change then. Either way, the bureau has arranged for you and Felicity to stay at a safe house. We can probably move you there within the next couple of hours.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ben grunted, answering for me. “Welcome to the party. We were just talkin’ about that too.”

  “What about it?”

  “Rowan says they ain’t leavin’.”

  “First Felicity, now you?” Constance appealed, shooting me a hard glance. “Rowan, I hate to break it to you, but you don’t have any choice in the matter. We’re moving you.”

  “It’s a Witch thing, Constance,” my friend told her.

  “What? A Witch th…” she shot us both a confused look and cocked her head. “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain?”

  “Flyin’ shit and big walls,” Ben retorted before I could say a word. “You’d hafta ask the White Man.”

  “Rowan?” she asked.

  “Long story short, you have to p
rotect us from Annalise, I understand that. But, I have to protect Felicity from Miranda, who may well be an even greater threat in the grand scheme of things. This is the best place for me to do that.”

  She shook her head again. “I sympathize, Rowan, I really do. I don’t necessarily understand it, but I sympathize. Unfortunately, it’s out of my hands. My SAC already made the decision. You two are being moved to a safe house, like it or not. Even if it involves officially placing you in federal custody, which we will do if need be.”

  “Can ya’ like take some of your Witch stuff with ya’?” Ben asked. “‘Cause it looks ta’ me like you’re goin’.”

  “I guess I’ll have to, won’t I?” I spat.

  “I’m sorry, Rowan,” Constance said quietly.

  “It’s not your fault,” I told her. “You’re just doing your job. I’ll go tell Feli…”

  I didn’t get to finish the sentence because I was interrupted by an anguished call emanating from the basement, which came in the form of my wife’s tear-filled voice screaming my name. If that wasn’t enough to stop my heart, the two words that followed were a guaranteed flat line.

  All three of us were moving as a plaintive “she’s here” echoed up the stairwell.

  CHAPTER 38:

  “What the fuck?!” Ben exclaimed, as he automatically filled his hand with the Beretta that rode in his ever-present shoulder rig. “I got the stairs!”

  “Side door!” Constance immediately called out. Her own hand was already wrapped around her Sig Sauer, and she immediately turned back toward the front door and darted for it.

  The side entrance, leading down into our basement, was the only door anyone could have entered without coming past us. It had a reinforced deadbolt and a handset lock, not to mention that it was monitored by the home security system. The only time it was ever unlocked was when we were moving things in and out of the lower level of the house, so I had no idea how anyone could have come through it, but it was literally the only way to get in relatively undetected. To my knowledge, the entrance hadn’t been used for quite awhile, unless Felicity had done so, and I simply wasn’t aware of it.

  My friend was already at the mouth of the hallway, as Constance bounded down the front steps and hooked to the left, her cell phone in her free hand. I was directly behind him, and I yelled out to my wife, “Felicity?”

  “Rowan… Help me!” she cried. “She’s here…”

  I quickly made a move to step around Ben to the partially open basement door. His hand shot out and slammed into my chest, knocking me back against the wall with a heavy thud.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” I demanded.

  “You stay right here,” he growled back at me.

  “Dammit, Ben…”

  “I said, stay right here! Let us do our jobs!” he barked, then cast his voice toward the opening as he called out, “Devereaux?”

  “Rowan…” my wife whimpered. “Help me…”

  Before I had a chance to object again, the front door swung open, and one of the FBI agents who had been canvassing the nearby side street rushed in, his sidearm at the ready. Ben gave him a quick glance, pointed at me then stabbed a finger down the hallway. Without a word, the agent continued past him, roughly taking me by the shoulder and pushing me farther back into the corridor.

  From the basement, I heard my wife’s sobbing voice call out once more, “Rowan… Please…”

  “Get down there before she kills her!” I screamed as I tried to turn, but the federal agent caught the move and pushed me hard toward the end of the hall.

  “Sir,” he said. “You need to stay out of the way. Let us handle this.”

  “You might have ta’ cuff ‘im,” Ben told him. His voice was cold, and I knew he wasn’t even hinting at a joke.

  “Dammit, Ben!” I exclaimed. “The bitch has my wife down there!”

  “Rowan!” my friend snapped. “This is what we do! Now stay out of the way!”

  I looked back over my shoulder, anger and fear seething inside me. My face was growing hot as I flushed with the swirling emotions. All I could think about was getting to Felicity before Annalise could do anything at all to harm her.

  “Annalise Devereaux!” Ben called out again. “This is Detective Storm with the Saint Louis Police. I’m coming down.”

  He was answered by an amused chuckle and the words “Send Rowan, little man.”

  A second later, struggling through choked sobs, I heard Felicity moan, “Caorthann…”

  A cell phone on the agent’s belt chirped with a two-way alert tone, and it was followed by Constance’s voice.

  “Cobb… Reynolds and I are on the side door. It appears to be locked,” she said. “Parker and the locals are coming now. They’ll cover the front and back.”

  He snatched the phone from his belt, thumbed a button and replied, “Got it. Storm and I are at the top of the stairs. We’re having an issue with the spouse.”

  The device cricket-chirped again, and Constance replied with no hesitation in her voice whatsoever, “Handcuff him.”

  What had previously been a threat now became a direct order. Cobb holstered his weapon and quickly slipped out a pair of restraints then brought one metal circlet down against my wrist with a hard snap. With a practiced squeeze, he ratcheted it tight.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I shouted, trying to twist away.

  He wasn’t quite Ben’s stature, but he easily had an inch or two on me, not to mention his training. Before I knew it, he had whipped me back around and shoved me into the bathroom at the end of the hall. I bounced against the wall, but before I could turn back around, he had twisted my free arm behind my back and slapped the other cuff onto it.

  “I need you to sit down on the floor, Mister Gant,” he ordered. “Now.”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I snarled.

  “It’s for your own safety as well as your wife’s, sir. Now, please sit down or I’ll sit you down.”

  I was left with little choice other than to comply. I leaned back against the wall and slid downward until I was seated on the tile floor but not without appealing, “Goddammit, Ben, get down there and help Felicity!”

  Cobb left me sitting and headed back to the basement door. Drawing his weapon, he stood to the backside of the barrier and gave Ben a nod. My friend carefully nudged the door the rest of the way open, staying well to the living room side of the entranceway.

  “See anything,” Ben asked.

  Agent Cobb carefully shifted to the right, his pistol stiff armed before him and pointing down the stairwell. After a moment, he slid back and shook his head as he said, “Clear.”

  My friend mimicked the motion from his side, checking the blind spots the FBI agent wouldn’t have been able to see from his angle.

  “Clear,” he told him then called out, “Felicity?”

  I listened intently but heard only my wife sobbing. As painful as the sound was, at least it meant she was still alive.

  “Devereaux?” Ben shouted after a few seconds.

  We waited, but there was still no verbal answer.

  “Annalise Devereaux?” he called again.

  “No,” a haunting voice carried up the stairs. “Not Annalise.”

  “Okay,” he replied. “So, what do I call you?”

  We heard the laugh again. In its wake, the Southern-accented voice said, “You may call me, Mistress, little man.”

  “Yeah, right, like that’s gonna happen,” my friend muttered, so low even I almost didn’t hear him. Then, he upped the volume and called out, “Look, no one needs to get hurt here.”

  “Why don’t you come down,” the voice returned. “I won’t hurt you… Much.”

  “How is Miz O’Brien?” he asked, ignoring the taunt.

  “Oh, she’s simply lovely,” the voice replied.

  “Can I speak with her?”

  “I don’t know, little man, can you?” she laughed. “Try again.”

  “Wh
at the fuck,” Ben whispered.

  “I’m not sure, but I think she’s correcting your English,” Cobb returned in a low voice.

  “Jeezus, so she’s a smart ass too…”

  The voice echoed up the stairs again. “Come on, little man. Say, ‘Please Mistress, may I speak to Felicity?’”

  “I’m not gonna play games with you, Devereaux. Let me talk to her.”

  A scant few seconds passed, then my wife’s sobbing voice floated up to our ears. “Ben? Is Rowan with you?”

  “He’s right here, Felicity,” Ben replied. “Everything is gonna be fine. You just hang in there, okay?…”

  “Rowan!” she appealed, her voice strained but stronger than before. “She’s back! Help me!”

  “Ben! Help her!” I demanded, rolling sideways against the wall and struggling onto my knees. I shuffled into the doorway and hissed, “Either help her, or let me, dammit!”

  I completely lost track of my heartbeats as my chest thudded through the silence. After what seemed like several hours rolled into a single moment, Ben shot a glance my way then looked over at Agent Cobb.

  “Tell ‘em I’m goin’ down now,” he said.

  “That bottom landing is completely blind,” he replied.

  “Yeah, but I’ve been down there before. I can handle it.”

  Cobb thumbed his phone and relayed the message. No sooner had he finished speaking than Constance’s voice came back over the device.

  “Ben, we can hear you conversing with her. Is the situation stable?”

  “Tell ‘er that depends on what the fuck she calls stable,” my friend snipped.

  Cobb thumbed the button and said, “She’s talking, and we’ve spoken to the hostage.”

  Constance replied, “As long as she’s talking to us, and Felicity is unharmed, stay where you are. I’ve already called in the HRT.”

  “You heard her,” Cobb said. “Hostage Rescue is on the way.”

  “Ben…” I appealed again.

  My friend shot a glance my way then replied, “Yeah, well tell ‘er I’m not waitin’.”