Harm none argi-1

by M. R. Sellars

  “Ariel, Karen, and Ellen.”

  “That’s what I’m figuring,” I agreed. “Anyhow, all three of them are dressed in white lace gowns, and there is this grey mist that keeps spilling off the stage. It creeps across the floor like some kind of fog and just keeps getting deeper. It paralyzes me and holds me in the seat, so I have to sit there and watch as this shadowy figure kills them one by one. Ariel, then Karen, and then Ellen.”

  “What does the little girl do?”

  “She just sits there and watches. For some reason, the fog never touches her.”

  “And she told you it was just a dress rehearsal?”

  “Yeah. After the shadowy figure kills all three women, this plume of mist rises up, and then as it dissipates, there is this other woman…” I stopped mid-sentence as the portion of the nightmare I had just described replayed itself in my mind like an endless loop of film. The realization suddenly struck me like a fist between the eyes. “DAMMIT! How could I have missed it!” I exclaimed.

  I leapt from the table, sending the heretofore-quiescent cats into a frenzied rush to escape. They bolted in three separate directions and in the same direction all at once, sending saltshakers and other table adornments to the floor. Coffee sloshed from my cup, and my wide-eyed wife shot upward from her seat.

  “Rowan! What’s wrong?!”

  “Another woman appeared on the stage, and the bastard killed her too,” I spoke quickly, advancing across the room and snatching the telephone from its cradle. “He killed again! The son-of-a-bitch has killed again!”

  I punched the lighted buttons, frantically dialing Ben’s home number.

  “Aye, are you sure?” Felicity appealed as she tended to the spilled coffee.

  “It has to be,” I answered confidently and then began impatiently urging the phone. “Come on, come on, pick up!”

  I pressed the handset tightly to my ear, listening to the electronic vibrato of the ring at the other end of the line. If nothing else, this portion of the nightmare was suddenly clear to me. Ariel was telling me that there was either going to be another murder or that another had already occurred. A gnawing hollowness in the pit of my stomach insisted that it was the latter.

  “Rowan, don’t you think…” Felicity started.

  I brought my hand up sharply and waved to cut her off as on the fifth ring, the receiver at the other end was picked up.

  “Hello,” a rough, hazy voice, still thick with sleep issued from the earpiece.

  “Ben, it’s Rowan,” I blurted into the handset. “There’s been another murder.”

  “Do what?” Ben’s voice came back to me. “What are ya’ talkin’ about?”

  “The killer, Ben. He’s still out there, and he’s killed again,” I insisted urgently.

  “Slow down, man. Where are ya’?”

  “I’m at home.”

  “The killer murdered someone at your house?”

  “No, no. Nobody at my house. Listen to me, R.J. isn’t the killer. The bastard is still out there, and he’s killed someone else.”

  “Who, Rowan? Who’s dead?”

  “Another young woman. I don’t know her name.”

  “How do you know this?” Ben’s voice sounded much more alert now.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I expressed. “Just trust me on this.”

  “Well, where did this murder take place?” I could hear him shuffling paper, preparing to take notes.

  My mind had been working so fast I had rushed ahead of not only the rest of the world, but myself as well. I motioned to Felicity to hand me my Book of Shadows and began leafing through the last few pages, scanning them as fast as I could. As I had feared, there was nothing to indicate where the murder might have taken place.

  “Rowan? You still there?” Ben’s voice crackled from the earpiece.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Well? Where’d this happen?”

  What I was about to say was sure to portray me as a lunatic. I only wished I had another choice. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Ben’s incredulous voice issued again. “Whaddaya mean, you don’t know?”

  “I mean I don’t know where it happened, I just know that it has,” I answered in a pleading tone, knowing full well that my words now sounded hollow and empty.

  “Lemme get this straight.” He ran down the high points. “The killer is still out there, and he’s killed another young lady. You don’t know who, and you don’t know where, but you just know it happened. So, you decided to call me at…” He paused, I assume to check the clock. “At quarter of four in the morning ta’ tell me all this?”

  “Yeah,” I muttered.

  “And how you know this, I wouldn’t believe, even if you told me?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Try me.”

  I was dejected. I was frustrated. I was angry that I had no way to make him believe me. I did the only thing I could think of to do. I told him the truth.

  “A vision. Okay?” Discontent permeated my voice. “It’s something I saw in a vision when I went to sleep tonight.”

  “Jeezus, Fuck, Rowan!” The earpiece buzzed as he shouted. “Are you kiddin’ me?! You called me at almost four in the mornin’ because of a goddamned nightmare?!”

  “It’s not just a nightmare, Ben,” I plead. “It’s more than that. You don’t understand…”

  “Hell yes I understand!” he cut me off. “You got some kinda bug up your ass about R.J. not bein’ the killer, and ya’ can’t leave it alone. Now you’re havin’ nightmares about it.”

  “No, Ben, that’s not it,” I insisted. “I know it sounds that way, but trust me…”

  “Look, Rowan,” he spoke slowly. It was obvious he was trying to hold back anger. “You’re just gonna have ta’ accept it. The D.A. is filin’ charges against R.J. tomorrow mornin’, and that’s the end of it. Now drink some warm milk or somethin’, and go back to bed. We’ll talk about this in the mornin’. Goodbye.”

  “No, wait, Ben? Ben?”

  I was talking to dead air.

  I slowly settled the receiver back into its base and stared at it, silently cursing myself for being unable to convince him.

  “He hung up,” I finally said.

  “Aye… I got that feeling. I’m sorry Ben didn’t believe you,” Felicity told me in a mild voice. “I was trying to stop you before you called him.”

  “I should have listened,” I granted. “He’s been pretty understanding about everything so far, but this…I know I must have sounded like I was nuts.”

  She slipped her arms around me and nuzzled in close, slowly rubbing my back in a comforting manner. “You sounded concerned, and convinced.”

  “I sounded nuts,” I repeated. “You don’t have to sugar-coat it. I’ve just never had involuntary visions this intense before. I’m not quite sure how to handle it.”

  “I don’t know if I would either.”

  “If I just had something tangible,” I mused. “Some kind of concrete proof.”

  “Maybe it hasn’t happened yet,” Felicity returned. “Maybe there is still time to convince him, then.”

  “Maybe, but I really doubt it. I’ve got a bad feeling that I’m a day late and a dollar short.”

  The relative stillness of the room was broken by the clamor of the phone as it began to ring. Without releasing my grip on my wife, I reached for it just as STORM, BENJAMIN and a number played across the liquid crystal face of the caller ID box.

  “Hello,” I answered, fully expecting to be chewed out by my friend or even his wife.

  “Good, you’re still up.” The earlier anger in Ben’s voice had been replaced by something resembling horrific awe. “Better get dressed. I’ll be there to pick ya’ up in a half hour.”

  “Someone found a body,” I ventured, already knowing it to be true.

  “I’m just glad you’re on our side,” he muttered, “’cause you ain’t natural, p
aleface. You just ain’t natural.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Darla Anne Radcliffe,” Carl Deckert was telling me as we stood in the bedroom of the Westview area apartment. “Twenty-five years old, flight attendant.” He was reading mechanically from his small notebook. His grey hair was disheveled, angling up in the back where his head had only recently been in contact with a pillow. “The redhead out front is her roommate. They both work for the same airline, and she just got in from a flight at two A.M.” He motioned to the scene before us. “When she got home, this is what was waiting for her.”

  “Door propped open?” I queried as I knelt to inspect the gory spectacle.

  “Yeah,” he answered tiredly. “It was open.”

  The other victims, Ariel, Karen, and Ellen had been splayed out like rag dolls, little care taken as to their appearance once the ritual was complete. This was different. The young woman before me lay like an adornment. Her nude body stretched out upon the bed as if she were a decoration. As if she were being offered.

  Her shoulder length brown hair fanned out in a silky halo around her head, perfectly arranged. Her arms were at her sides, unbound, palms upward. Glassy, green eyes stared unblinking from a slackened face, forever intent upon the textured ceiling above.

  A Pentagram was carefully excised from the skin of her chest and stomach, even more precisely than it had been in the case of Ellen Gray. The pentagon created by the convergence of the lines at the center of the symbol was positioned centrally and just below her ribcage. At this point, muscle and flesh had been removed to leave a gaping five-sided hole. Reaching out, I held my glove-encased fist above the opening, making a visual measurement.

  “That’s where he pulled her heart out,” I ventured bluntly. “Directly through the center of the Pentagram.” I hated the fact that I had become so clinically detached from these horrors. It was beginning to make me feel almost inhuman.

  “You think this might be some kind of copycat deal or something?” Deckert asked. “This one’s not bound up like the other three.”

  “No,” I expressed positively. “It’s the same guy. The pattern of flaying is too much like it was on Ellen Gray. That detail never made it to the media, so it wouldn’t be able to be copied.”

  Deckert grunted agreement. I could tell that he hadn’t really believed we were dealing with an imposter, but someone had to ask the question.

  “Does it smell different in here to you?” Ben asked. He had been quietly scrutinizing the scene ever since we arrived. “Sweeter than before. Kinda reminds me of some opium I took off a dealer I popped a couple’a years back.”

  “That’s exactly what it is,” I answered, still kneeling next to the corpse. “Hallucinogenics were sometimes used by ritual magicians in days gone by. I expect you’ll find that some was added to the incense he burned.”

  “I still don’t get why she isn’t restrained like the others,” Deckert asserted. “Shit, she looks like she just laid there and let him do it. No fight, no struggle.”

  “She probably couldn’t,” a new but familiar voice issued from behind us.

  I turned to see Doctor Sanders peering over the rim of her glasses at us. She looked back down at the clipboard she was holding and finished signing whatever document was attached to its face and then handed it to her assistant.

  “You mind expanding on that a bit, Doc?” Ben asked.

  “D-Tubocurarine chloride,” she stated matter-of-factly as she stepped past him.

  “Dee Tube of what?” Deckert voiced in a confused tone.

  “D-Tubocurarine chloride,” she repeated. “It’s a curarine derivative.”

  “English,” Ben urged.

  “Curare,” she returned seeming somewhat annoyed. “You know, poison darts, all that jazz. Tubocurarine is commonly used as a paralytic agent for patients experiencing violent and uncontrollable seizures. The tox reports came back on the Tanner and Barnes cases. They both had it in their systems. I’m willing to bet we’ll find it in the Gray case, and this one as well.”

  “Would the individual still be able to feel pain?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” she answered with a nod, “The patient would remain conscious and fully aware. Totally capable of feeling pain, just unable to move. The effects are usually short lived but drastic.”

  “That would fit with what this S.O.B. is trying to accomplish.” I offered.

  “But that still doesn’t explain why the other three victims were restrained, and this one isn’t,” Deckert observed. “If he shot the others up, why didn’t they just lay there too?”

  “I can shed some light on that for you. May I?” Doctor Sanders looked at me and motioned to the body.

  I stood and moved back as she leaned over and turned the young woman’s lifeless arm slightly to allow a better view. Expertly, she ran the index finger of her gloved hand across the cooling skin and brought it to rest. “Right here,” she announced. “He injected her intravenously. The other three were intramuscularly.” She left her finger where it was until we had all inspected the puncture wound then gently rolled the arm back against the body. “Tubocurarine chloride is some pretty wicked stuff, but it’s unpredictable when injected into muscle. Dosages are pretty tricky as well because just a little too much can cause respiratory arrest.”

  “So it’s possible that the other victims weren’t completely paralyzed,” I thought aloud.

  “Precisely,” Doctor Sanders affirmed. “Based on the differing amounts between the Tanner and Barnes cases, I’d venture to say that the killer was experimenting. It can also depend on how long it was in their system because it can metabolize in as little as thirty minutes.”

  “What about the fact that the killer ingested blood from the victims?” I queried. “Wouldn’t the drug affect him then?”

  “Doubtful.” She shook her head. “He would have to ingest much more than he has for it to have an effect on him, and even then it’s unlikely.”

  I continued to stare quietly at the lifeless body so neatly arranged upon the bed. The killer had been more precise with his movements, more exacting. Nothing was wasted. After a few moments, I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out in a long sigh. The cloying odor of the opium made my nostrils tingle as I drew in a fresh breath. Something was rattling around in the back of my brain. Something recent. Something I should know.

  “I guess this clears the kid,” Deckert was speaking to Ben. “Maybe,” Ben answered, “maybe not. His fingerprint was still on that candle. Maybe there’s an accomplice. Like a cult thing or somethin’.”

  “No,” I volunteered over my shoulder without taking my eyes off the corpse. “There’s only one killer. I would have felt it if there were more.”

  “Hey, Doc.” Ben turned his attention to Doctor Sanders. “Have you established a time of death yet?”

  “I’d place it around eleven last night, give or take an hour,” she replied. “I can be more specific once I get a liver temp, but between ten and midnight is your ballpark.”

  The sigh that Ben Storm let out was barely audible. I suppose I heard it simply because I could also feel the tension as it drained from him. I could sense him relaxing as if an unbearable weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. I felt all this because I had been aware of his thoughts. I had known what he was thinking ever since I had climbed into his van less than an hour ago.

  “Feel better now,” I asked without turning.

  “Huh?” he grunted.

  “Do you feel better now that you know I didn’t commit this murder?” I turned to face my friend.

  “How did…” His voice trailed off as he looked at me, obviously both surprised and embarrassed.

  “What are you talking about?” Deckert inserted, genuinely befuddled.

  “I had a vision tonight,” I explained. “Something of a nightmare I suppose. In it I saw that this murder had occurred, so I called Ben and told him.” I didn’t go into the details of his not believing me. “Of course, being the go
od cop that he is, when the body was found, he immediately considered me a suspect. That is, until the doctor here established that it probably all happened while he and I were sitting in his living room drinking a beer.”

  “Rowan… Look, I’m sorry man… I…” Ben stuttered.

  “Forget it,” I told him sincerely. “You didn’t have any choice. I know I sounded like a lunatic when I called you…”

  “Yeah, but you’re my friend,” he protested. “And after everything that’s happened… Well, I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

  “Really, Ben. It’s okay. I would have done the same thing if I were in your position. Let’s just figure out who it is, so we can stop him.”

  “How did you know anyway?”

  “Like you said. I just ain’t natural.” I smiled.

  He nodded and returned the smile, and I knew that the matter was settled.

  I turned back to the neatly arranged sacrifice. The earlier thought was clawing its way forward from the back of my head, tearing painfully at my brain. I knew for certain that the answer was right in front of me. I just didn’t know why I couldn’t see it.

  Her arms were at her sides, palms upward-an act of supplication. Her hair was fanned out like a diaphanous halo floating around her head. The flaying was precise and clean.

  Deckert and Ben were still talking behind me, discussing the question of whether or not this event actually did clear R.J. of the crimes. I pressed myself to tune them out and listen only to the rhythmic patterns of my measured breathing. I wasn’t about to try channeling this young woman, especially without Felicity here to anchor me on this plane. I simply wanted to read the room with something other than my eyes. I wanted to know what the killer was up to. What he was trying to accomplish.

  I stretched my senses outward, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the sound of my own heart. I raked my senses through the ethereal atmosphere only I could see. I let every molecule of residual energy run through my otherworldly fingers like ghostly grains of sand. To be inspected. Scrutinized. Discarded.