Of course, this was my bizarre life, and something like that wasn’t about to happen.
I guess I should have known I wouldn’t be blessed with such normalcy considering the circumstances, not to mention the fact that just over one year ago my very existence had veered off course to follow this far more tremulous path. On a sweltering August night, an ability that would soon become my life’s bane had exited thirty plus years of shadow to come fully into the light.
It was on that night that a perverted serial murderer had taken the life of one of my friends-a student I’d instructed in the ways of The Craft. Her final passage across the bridge into Summerland had cost me dearly.
I would never again be the same. In fact, I often wondered if what that really meant was that I would never again be sane.
It was during the investigation of her death-as well as the subsequent victims-when I discovered that a cigar is not necessarily always a cigar. I had learned that for me at least, a nightmare is quite possibly a harbinger of reality; that an intimate supernatural connection with the “other side” was my talent as a Witch-and at the same time, my torment.
Just as unfortunate was the fact that the random visions and nightmares didn’t always make much sense-like right now. And they were very often accompanied by a headache that would make a migraine seem like a welcome relief. Sometimes a sensation would even manifest as an unexplained pain localized in some other part of my body-once again, just like now.
The only saving grace was that this didn’t happen all the time. There were actually long stretches where I was able to experience “life as usual.” But, torment did happen frequently enough to keep me off balance and always wondering. I just never knew when or where to expect it.
Judging from the current circumstances, this was obviously one of the when’s, and wherever I was at the moment was, well, one of the where’s.
And once again, as I’d known for some time that I would end up, I was smack in the middle of something I’d rather have no part of. Especially given the fact that I was parked in the chilly back seat of a Saint Louis City police cruiser, wearing a pair of handcuffs and staring out the window at my best friend’s incredulous face.
As I said before, how I’d come to be here I wasn’t entirely certain. The last thing I remembered for a fact was climbing into bed next to my wife, Felicity. From there, to the best of my recollection, I had gone to sleep.
The next thing I even begin to remember after that is chasing after the glowing yellow rectangle. Upon adding up the imagery with the circumstances and carrying the remainder, I had concluded that the luminous shape was none other than the doorway to the apartment in the near distance. It didn’t help that said doorway was quite obviously the entrance to an active crime scene.
“Rowan? Jeezus…” Ben’s voice came to me, initially muted by the tempered glass of the windows, only to have the rest of the sentence leap in volume as he jerked open the car door. “What the fuck?!”
From what I could tell, the woman’s thoughts that had commandeered my synapses were pretty much gone, for now at least. At the moment, I was feeling relatively lucid, though there was still a definite fog hanging over me that kept threatening to obscure rational thought altogether. I hoped it would hold off long enough for me to figure out what was going on.
“Hey,” I answered sheepishly.
“Jeezus H. Christ, white man,” he continued. “What’s goin’ on? What’re ya’ doin’ here?”
“Honestly?”
“Hell yes, honestly, Rowan!” he barked. “This is a fuckin’ crime scene, not a shopping mall.”
“I don’t know.” There it was. The omnipresent and wholly unsatisfactory answer to a serious question that had become my pat answer. But as much as I wanted to give him something different, once again it was all I could conjure at the moment. I shrugged then continued, “I was actually hoping that you could tell me.”
“No way, Row.” He shook his head. “No way. You’re gonna hafta do better’n that.” With a thick frown pasted securely to his face, he huffed out a heavy sigh and stepped back, pulling the door open wider as he did so. “C’mon, get outta there.”
I rocked myself forward, and scooted across the stiff upholstery of the cold bench seat, then twisted toward the opening. Impatiently, my friend took hold of my upper arm with one large hand and guided me out onto the curb, telling me to watch my head at just about the same instant the back of it impacted with the doorframe. I’m pretty sure he timed it that way on purpose because it was more than plain that he wasn’t at all happy with me right now.
As amazing as it seems, even in the middle of the night, if you happen upon a crime scene, you will find at least a handful of onlookers seeking a morbid thrill. At the moment I was apparently the object of that thrill. If that wasn’t enough embarrassment for one sitting, we were being paid even more intense regard by a clutch of reporters and cameramen. Blue-white cones of artificial brightness instantly glared outward from their powerful lights, making the two of us the centerpiece of the harsh setting.
“Friggin’ assholes… Don’t turn around, Row…” Ben instructed me in a clipped voice, helping me forward with a rough hand as he stepped quickly in behind me.
We walked at an even pace, him guiding me with a hand planted firmly on my shoulder, weaving through cops and evidence technicians until we were positioned in the shadows behind a Crime Scene Unit van. Out of sight of the cameras and prying eyes of the reporters, we came to a halt and he told me to stand still.
I heard the clinking of metal, followed by a muted ratcheting noise, and my left hand was suddenly free. I rolled my shoulder and felt it give a slight pop as I brought it back to its natural position. A moment later, the metal was no longer chafing my other wrist, and I repeated the motion for my right shoulder as I turned around.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Yeah, thank me later after I kick your ass,” my friend told me. “Now what gives? What’re ya’ doin’ here?”
“I was serious, Ben,” I answered with a shake of my head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how I got here.”
“Hell, that’s easy,” he told me while jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Your goddamned truck is parked right over there in the middle of the fuckin’ street blockin’ traffic.”
“Who was murdered?” I unconsciously dismissed his statement and blurted out the question while looking past him at the glowing doorway.
“No… Me first, Row.” He shook his head vigorously. “Is there somethin’ about this I should know? Is this some kinda Twilight Zone shit here? You havin’ one of those visions or somethin’ like that?”
“It might be, Ben. I don’t know.” I shook my head again as I gravitated ever so slightly toward the scene.
“Whoa, Kemosabe.” He reached out and stopped my progress easily. “Just where do ya’ think you’re goin’?”
“I want to have a look at the scene, Ben,” I answered automatically.
“What for?”
I didn’t reply because I simply didn’t know the answer.
“Look, Row, this is a pretty routine investigation here, if you can call somethin’ like this routine. Truth is we don’t even know if it’s a murder or an accidental death just yet. There’re no weird symbols or any crap like that, so I don’t get what you’re doin’ here.”
He was making reference to the anomalous evidence that had prompted him to bring me into the two previous investigations. I could understand his point of view, but it was becoming apparent to me that visible evidence wasn’t always going to be what triggered my involvement.
“Now, let me ask ya’ somethin’,” my friend continued. “Did’ya know someone who lived in this apartment?”
The shroud of disorientation was descending on me again, rendering my fleeting clarity a thing of the past. My scalp was starting to tighten, and the back of my head held fast to a dull throb that was threatening to increase exponentially. I still had no real clue what I w
as doing here, but the growing pressure in my skull told me that there was definitely a reason. I was just too mesmerized by the doorway to recognize what it was.
“Look, Rowan, you’re actin’ pretty weird. How ‘bout I call Felicity and get ‘er down here to pick you up.”
“I’m fine,” I said, looking past him and focusing on the door. Something unseen, but very powerful, was compelling me to move toward that oblong patch of light.
“No, man, you ain’t fine,” he told me, emphasizing the word. “It’s two-friggin’-thirty in the mornin’, and you just showed up outta nowhere at a crime scene. Uninvited mind you. Then ya’ ducked under the barrier tape and started walkin’ across the yard like some kinda zombie, completely ignorin’ the officers who told you to stop. I got news for ya’… not every copper in Saint Louis knows who you are. You’re damn lucky ya’ didn’t get hurt. I mean, Jeezus… Hey… Hey… HEY Rowan! Are you even listenin’ ta’ me?”
“What?” I asked in a distracted timbre. I’d only barely heard him talking and hadn’t actually registered any of the words. The only thing that mattered right now was the doorway.
“Have you been drinkin’?”
“What?” I stammered absently.
“Pay fuckin’ attention! Have you been drinkin’?”
“No…” I shook my head as punctuation. “Of course I haven’t been drinking.”
At least I didn’t think I had. The truth was, I had no earthly idea.
“Okay… So… Ya’ don’t smell toast or somethin’ do ya’?” he asked in earnest.
“What?” I shook my head, this time in confusion, and stared at him briefly. “Toast?”
“I read somewhere that ya’ smell toast when you’re havin’ a stroke,” he offered.
His words came to me in a random sputter of sound as my cognizance shifted in and out of phase with the rest of reality.
“What?” I mumbled, not sure I had heard him correctly.
“That’s it,” Ben said, sounding as much concerned as annoyed this time. “I’m gettin’ you to a hospital. There’s definitely somethin’ not right with ya’.”
Inside my skull I heard a loud electric snap and felt a burning sting along the side of my neck. The nasty tingling sensation that had been at the back of my concerns had now burst into searing flame through my entire side. I tried to reach upward but found my body was ignoring any instructions issued to it by my brain. I felt myself shaking violently and beginning to stiffen as my mind short-circuited into oblivious disorientation. My chest tightened and began to sharply spasm with the same intense pain that accompanies a nocturnal leg cramp.
My sight was taken over by a darkened tunnel of fading vision, and in a flash the ground leapt upward to meet me. On impact, a sharp hammer blow of agony peened the side of my skull and spread rapidly outward into a migraine-like ache that settled in for the long haul.
As I lay crumpled onto the cold lawn, I could just barely make out the distant sound of my friend’s frantic voice yelling, “Somebody get a paramedic! Now!”
The last thought I remember clearly was that I had a pair of red patent leather pumps in my closet that would go perfectly with my new dress.
*****
I’m not sure which assault on my senses was the most disconcerting-the smell or the sound. I suppose it could have been either one, or even a combination of both.
On the one hand, there was no mistaking the antiseptic funk of a hospital emergency room. An odor that was the filtered medicinal smell of alcohol, gauze, and used tongue depressors dancing in an olfactory ballet with the stench of sweat, fear, and blood. Of course, all of that was underscored by the “can’t quite put your finger on it” smell of death, just to drive the point home. As a whole, it carried with it an easily recognizable signature that told you exactly where you were without even opening your eyes or hearing a thing.
Then on the other hand, there was the terse exchange going on between my wife and my best friend. A pair of hedged voices, both straining not to outwardly display the overabundance of the anger they were quite obviously holding back. From the sound of it, they were bickering somewhere just beyond the door of the treatment room where I was presently lying flat on my back.
Whichever of the two was responsible, the job was done. I was jarred back from the semi-conscious ledge of introspection I’d been tiptoeing along since the doctor had finished poking, prodding, and interrogating me.
“I asked you not to get him involved any more, Ben,” Felicity was stating in a flat tone. “At least not for a while. He still hasn’t recovered from what he went through the last time, and you know it.”
“That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell ya’, Felicity,” he appealed. “He just showed up outta the clear freakin’ blue. I didn’t get ‘im involved this time.”
Their tones were hushed and muted by the hinged obstruction, but if I listened closely I could still make out what they were saying.
My mind had continued to replay the memories of recent events ever since I had come to in the back of an ambulance. I had quickly pieced everything together, but I was still at a loss to explain why I had suddenly “awakened” from what I could only explain as a trance, while at a crime scene in progress to boot. Two things I knew for certain were that my midnight wanderings were no longer going to be a secret and that I was now starting down a road toward an explanation for why they were happening in the first place. I only hoped that I would survive the trip.
The earlier fog that had been ruthlessly shrouding my brain had apparently lifted, though a dull ache still persisted in the back of my head. I knew from past experience that this wasn’t a good sign at all.
It was obvious to me that I was somehow connected to this crime. Ben had already verified for me that the victim was in fact a woman and that her name was Paige Lawson. This information at least seemed to explain the rogue thoughts I’d experienced. However, I hadn’t recognized her name at all, so to my knowledge I didn’t know her, and therefore, I seriously doubted that she knew me.
I remembered feeling a sharp stinging sensation on the side of my neck just before I blacked out. An active tingle still occupied the swath of flesh behind and below my left ear, so I slowly reached up and gingerly probed the area with my fingertips. There were no obvious welts or abrasions that I could feel, but the burning sensation continued. No big surprise there.
“Well what was he doing there then?” I heard Felicity almost hiss.
“I don’t know,” Ben answered as forcefully as he could without raising his voice. “Hell, when I asked him, he didn’t even know.”
I had been trying to ignore them while I concentrated, but I was failing miserably at blocking out their banter. Also, I was getting the impression that they were going to escalate if something didn’t alter their current course. I concluded that I had best intervene.
“He’s right,” I spoke loudly, casting my words in the direction of the door. “It’s not his fault, so will you two please quit arguing about it.”
Silence instantly replaced the tempered squabble. After a moment Ben and Felicity came sheepishly through the door and positioned themselves next to the bed.
“Row…” my wife sighed as she brushed my disheveled hair back from my forehead, “shouldn’t you be resting, then?”
Felicity gave the outward appearance of a fragile china doll standing next to Ben. Petite, with a milky complexion, her own hair was a pile of flaming auburn resting atop her head in a loose Gibson girl. Whenever she let it down, it was a rush of spiral curls reaching almost to her waist. Her green eyes held more than a hint of concern as she gazed back at me. Her normally smooth face was wrinkled with mild anguish. A second generation Irish-American, her voice usually held only the barest hint of an accent but could blossom fully into a thick brogue-at times liberally peppered with Gaelic-if she were tired, stressed, angry, or had recently spent time with certain members of her family. Right now, it was obvious that at the very least the first two opti
ons were weighing in, maybe even the third.
“I’m trying to,” I answered, “but it’s a bit noisy.”
“Sorry, white man,” Ben offered apologetically. “Didn’t mean to keep ya’ up.”
“You weren’t, actually,” I replied. “The doctor told me I had to stay awake until the test results came back.”
“So ya’ wanna help me out and tell the red squaw here that I didn’t call ya’ in on this.”
“What were you doing there then?” Felicity queried without waiting for me to fulfill Ben’s request.
“Ben didn’t have anything to do with me being there.” I went ahead and made the statement for his benefit then addressed my wife’s question. “And, I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.”
The last half of my sentence was joined by the swooshing sound of the door to the treatment room swinging open. A tired looking brunette woman dressed in blue hospital scrubs and a lab coat followed the door inward. In her hand she carried an oversized brown envelope clearly marked with my name and a handful of other scrawlings that only made sense to someone in the medical profession or a two-year-old. I wasn’t sure which.
“How are you feeling, Mister Gant?”
“About the same, I guess,” I answered.
“Good.” She nodded as she crossed the room to the opposite wall. “No new pains or tremors?”
“No. Just a bit of a headache.”
After pulling a rectangular x-ray from the envelope, she deftly popped it into a pair of holding clips on a wall-mounted box and then switched on the backlight.
“How about your memory?” she queried as she stared at the black and white study of my skull. “Can you tell me what day this is?”
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