Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  “Well, for the record the Feebs disagree with ya’ on that.” Ben pulled out his small notebook and thumbed through the pages. “They think our bad guy has…yeah, here it is… Haematophilia, which means blood gets him off.”

  “Well, I think they’re wrong,” I said.

  “Ya’know, just because there’s no evidence of rape doesn’t mean the guy didn’t…you know…”

  “Masturbate?” Doctor Sanders offered to fill in the expanding void where Ben had gone quiet.

  “Yeah, that,” he returned.

  “Why are you always so squeamish about sexual acts?” she asked.

  “I’m not… It just ain’t polite ta’ talk about it in mixed company.”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  “Yeah, you’re female too. Like I said, mixed company.”

  “Come on, Storm… You can be just plain crass at times. Even when women are around you’ll toss the word ‘fuck’ out there like it’s from a grade school vocabulary test, but you’re getting antsy when it comes to talking about sex?”

  “That’s different.”

  She shook her head. “You’re an enigma.”

  “What can I say?”

  “Well, I still say the FBI is wrong,” I announced, trying to bring the conversation back on track. “This wasn’t about sex, including autoeroticism.”

  Ben looked over at me and said, “Okay.” Unfortunately, he didn’t sound as if he was convinced.

  I cast a sideways glance in his direction. “Why do I get the feeling you’re just humoring me?”

  “Sorry, Row.” He shrugged again then shook his head. “Don’t mean it that way… I guess I’m just used to a bit more of a dramatic presentation from ya’.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Well, since I got ya’ both here how ‘bout a second opinion?” my friend asked, aiming his gaze at my wife. “Whadda you think, Firehair? The killer sexually motivated or no?”

  “I’m concentrating on something else at the moment,” she replied, her voice flat and distant.

  “What?”

  “In your words, keeping my sorry ass safe,” I answered for her. “She’s grounding me.”

  “Well see there?” Ben made a sweeping gesture at the two of us. “Maybe that’s the problem with your ghost radar or whatever. She’s doin’ too good a job and shortin’ you out or somethin’.”

  “I didn’t know there was a problem.”

  “Well, ya’know… You don’t seem to be goin’ ta’ la-la land and all…”

  “So you’re saying that unless I go into a trance or try to swallow my own tongue I’m not credible?”

  “I’m not sayin’ that,” he grumbled. “It’s just… Well, you know what I’m talkin’ about…”

  “Unfortunately, yes, I do,” I replied. “Would it help if I told you I have a headache?”

  “Maybe. Do ya’?”

  “Yes.”

  “But is it…”

  “The Twilight Zone kind? Yes.”

  “See… Yeah… That does help a bit.”

  “Good, I’m glad.” I tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but I knew some of it had to have leaked through.

  “If the two of you are finished, shall I continue?” Doctor Sanders asked.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” I replied.

  “Superficial ligature marks on the wrists indicate her hands were bound at some point prior to death,” she began her recitation anew. “There are several healed scars on both arms that appear to have been inflicted by something small and sharp, such as a razor blade, but the most recent of them is at least several months old. There is, however, a more recent needle puncture in the left arm. From the level of bruising, it occurred probably one to two days before her death. We’re testing the surrounding adipose tissue for any trace of drugs which may have been injected.”

  Taking a pair of steps toward the end of the drawer, she rolled Emily Foster’s head to the side and held it in place while she used the index finger of her other hand to point out a ragged trauma on her neck. “Now, as I said earlier, the mode of death was desanguination. Everything points to her having bled out from this wound on her neck.” She moved her finger around to indicate an anomaly straddling the gash. “Notice the indentations here and here. We were able to take an impression, and even though it is only partial, what we have is definitely a bite wound. The profile appears to be human, although due to the degree of tearing, we weren’t able to get much more than the upper incisors and the right cuspid. However, the depth of the impression showed that the cuspid is markedly elongated.”

  “You mean long like a vampire fang?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, like a fang,” she replied. “But I really wouldn’t say ‘vampire’ since there is no such thing.”

  “Yeah, I know, Doc,” he said. “What I mean is like the fruitloops who think they’re vampires.”

  “Well, I suppose,” she assented with a nod. “Since the bite is in fact human, it’s possible the subject might have a removable prosthesis, or even a cosmetic dental veneer. But, I’m afraid that unless you find someone we can match up with a dental record it may be moot. Unfortunately, no saliva was detected, even deep into the wound itself, so we aren’t getting any DNA to run against the database.

  “Also of note, the lack of bruising would seem to indicate that the bite was made postmortem. We’re checking for free histamine levels in the surrounding tissues to verify that.” Doctor Sanders looked up and pointed across the room with her free hand. “Storm, do me a favor. There’s a magnifying glass on the table over there, I need it.”

  Ben strode over to the table and searched for a moment before returning with the instrument.

  Doctor Sanders paused and adjusted the woman’s head to bring more light onto the wound then carefully held a flap of sagging flesh in place with her finger. Holding the lens over the area, she began speaking again, “We’ve actually excised a sample here, but if you look closely you can see that the bite rips through the external jugular vein, which is the point where she bled out.”

  I leaned in to look through the magnifier, but not being versed in vascular anatomy, all I really saw was a jagged gash in a dead woman’s neck. I kept staring, but apparently the angle at which I was leaning was starting to affect my balance because a nasty wave of vertigo was causing my head to swim. That being the case, I decided I should just step back and rely on Doctor Sanders to explain.

  “Okay, just a sec…” Ben interjected. “She bled ta’ death so that would make all kinds of sense, but you also just said you think the bite came after she was already dead. So how does that work?”

  “I’m coming to that,” Doctor Sanders replied. “The sample and vein section we excised bore indications of a large gauge needle puncture.”

  “So the killer drained ‘er with a needle?”

  “Most likely a catheter and IV tubing, but yes.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Ben muttered then let out a thoughtful sigh.

  Doctor Sanders voice floated into my ears with a questioning note firmly attached. “Mister Gant?”

  A handful of seconds later Ben’s echoing words followed. “Hey, Row… You’re pretty quiet over there. You gettin’ somethin’?”

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to answer him. He was, however, about to get his earlier wish for the dramatic.

  CHAPTER 22:

  The onset of the vertigo should have been my first clue that something wasn’t right. Unfortunately, I had allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security by the almost complete lack of usual warning signs leading up to it. Therefore, by the time I had actually backed away from Emily Foster’s corpse, it was too late. Of course, since I knew this moment was really just another step in an already runaway supernatural process, I was also painfully aware that it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Truth be told it was already too late the day I awoke with the inexplicable pain in the side of my neck.

  “Rowan?” Ben’s voice hurtled past me
once again, pausing in its flight just long enough to send a distorted echo down my ear canal before continuing along its random trajectory through the room.

  I don’t know how long it actually took me to figure out that the ricocheting noise was my name being called, but it really wasn’t important. Whether minutes or only fractions of a second passed, the point was moot. For me, time was no longer a constant.

  For a third time, he called my name, adding even more insistence as if I simply wasn’t listening. I still didn’t answer. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I simply couldn’t form the words, either physically or mentally. In fact, all I could manage to do was stare downward at the edge of the slide out drawer but, more specifically, at my hand resting upon it. Of course, it wasn’t so much that my hand was resting on the metal as much as the fact that it was also in full contact with Emily Foster’s arm.

  I couldn’t help but stare in wonderment. My right hand was still sheathed in the surgical glove Doctor Sanders had insisted I wear. Heretofore, even such a thin layer of latex had seemed to be an insurmountable barrier whenever I was purposely attempting to connect with the dead. But now, that had obviously changed. With a single accidental touch I was now spiraling into an encounter with this dead woman’s horrors, and there was little I could do to stop it from happening.

  The dizziness was taking over now, swirling around behind my eyes as my stomach churned out of synch, making a strong bid to work itself into a frenzy of nausea. I could feel my heart thumping just behind my face instead of in my chest where it belonged, and an odd pressure forced outward from inside my skull. The headache that had been knocking on the back of my head let itself in and fell into a wildly syncopated rhythm with the frantic beat.

  Ben’s voice corkscrewed its way through the rush of blood in my ears. “Somethin’s wrong… Felicity? You with us?”

  Hearing him call my wife’s name sent a wave of panic ripping through my intestines. In the past few moments, I had all but forgotten that she was fighting to anchor me in the realm of the living. I now feared that the solid connection she had formed to protect me was now placing her in jeopardy.

  I tried to alleviate the threat by releasing my grip on her hand but immediately found that the signals from my brain were being stopped well before they made it to my fingers. Realizing that there was nothing I could do, the terror now shot upward through the pit of my stomach and settled into my chest. As it began spreading out into a cold fear, a second voice slammed headlong against my eardrums.

  “Caorthann,” my wife said, calling my name in Gaelic.

  What I managed to glean from the sound was not that she was in distress but that she was concerned. While that fact didn’t completely quell the panic, it at least put a damper on the fear that she was in any danger. If she was talking to me, then she was obviously in much better shape than I was at the moment.

  The influx of relief forced my guard down just enough that the incorporeal Emily Foster gained an even more solid foothold in my psyche. In a flash she slipped through and demanded to be heard. I had no other choice but to listen.

  I felt myself falling, but it wasn’t the dreamlike sensation of endless descent to which I was accustomed. This was the real thing. My knees buckled. Soon, what followed was my body pitching to the side and then back. The fall came slowly at first, then with an ever-increasing rate as I crumpled in place.

  I heard Felicity yelp. “Rowan!”

  As I hastened toward the floor, I felt a quick tug on my hand. I thought I heard my wife let out another sharp cry, and then I experienced the sensation of cold tile slamming against my back and shoulder. Not to be outdone, my head cracked against the floor, sending a fresh and very intense pain to join forces with the migraine as everything shuddered. As it morphed into a dull ache, I could feel the coolness of the floor seeping into my cheek. A split second later the air was unexpectedly forced from my lungs by a squirming weight landing hard on top of me. I realized, as the object continued moving and then scrambled to the side, that it was Felicity. My hand was still locked tight with hers, and I had apparently dragged her down with me.

  “Are you all right?” Ben’s voice bounced through the room, but I knew he wasn’t speaking to me.

  “Aye,” Felicity answered him in slow motion. “Rowan? Rowan?!”

  I could feel something prying at my fingers. I was struggling to stay planted in this plane, but a tortured spirit had a much different idea about where I needed to be. Emily Foster had something to show me, and she was pulling me backward into darkness in an insane tug of war across the veil.

  And as I expected she was already starting to win.

  “Just a little sting…” an androgynous and wholly unfamiliar voice echoed. But it wasn’t in my ears; it was inside my head.

  I can’t see anything.

  The world is completely black for me.

  I feel pressure against my neck.

  “Don’t worry,” the voice says again. “It will all be over soon…very soon… I envy you. To be chosen like this. It’s such an honor… I wish it were me…”

  I still can’t move. I’m facing the tiled wall lined with stainless steel doors, and I see shadows moving across it. There is a hard pressure against my neck now. Although I can barely make it out over the din of blood rushing in my ears, I can hear what sounds to be a flurry of activity just out of my line of sight.

  My ankles are burning… The rope is biting into them hard.

  I can no longer feel my feet. They’ve gone completely numb.

  Dizziness…

  Headache…

  I wish I could see.

  I won’t be afraid… I won’t be afraid…

  I am chosen…

  It is an honor…

  I have been prepared…

  I can hear the chanting now…

  The time must be near…

  It is an honor to be chosen…

  It is an honor to be chosen…

  I won’t be afraid…

  The last thing I heard before blacking out was Doctor Sanders voice puncturing the drone in my ears with a sharp note of controlled alarm threaded through her words. “I can’t stop the bleeding. Get the paramedics now!”

  CHAPTER 23:

  I slowly opened one eye and let it roam. There was no mistaking where I was based simply on the institutional colors now bleeding into my limited field of vision. But, even if the drab hues didn’t give it away, there was a failsafe to back them up, that being the antiseptic smell that was now tingling my nostrils. I closed the eye once again and tried to remember what was going on prior to this particular moment in my life.

  Unfortunately, my head was throbbing too much to allow for anything resembling deep thought. I remembered being at the morgue, accidentally touching Emily Foster’s corpse, then becoming acquainted with the floor of the autopsy suite. All of that pretty much consumed the space I had left in my grey matter that wasn’t being taken up with pain. However, there was still enough room in between the cycling aches for me to wonder where my wife happened to be.

  “Felicity?” I barely croaked in a dry, wispy voice.

  I didn’t get an answer, but since I could barely hear myself, maybe she couldn’t hear me at all. I cleared my throat then opened both of my eyes this time and lifted my head slightly as I sent them searching. To my disappointment, there wasn’t a single petite redhead in sight. In fact, I appeared to be the only one present here in hospital hell.

  I laid my head back against the pillow as the throbbing started to increase. I took a moment to slowly adjust my position when I felt the sore spot on the right side of my scalp. That triggered a vague memory of my head hitting the floor, which I suppose would explain the whole lapse of memory. At least, as far as my addled senses were concerned it did.

  I ran down a mental list just for the sake of my sanity. I knew who I was, I knew where I was, and I was fairly certain I knew what day it was, although I didn’t have anything or anyone handy to confirm those
facts. I even remembered the incident that had most likely landed me here. I just couldn’t remember the time between then and now.

  That annoyed me. But, what truly had me concerned was the fact that I didn’t know where Felicity was or, more importantly, her condition. I was relatively certain she was uninjured. After all, she had been speaking to me, and I even recalled Ben asking her if she was okay. Unfortunately, my brain was in no hurry to remember any of the other pertinent details, no matter how much I willed it to do so.

  After a minute or two passed, I started pondering the idea of getting out of the bed and going to find my wife or, at the very least, someone who could tell me where she was. As I started to reach for the side railing I felt a tug on my finger, which led me to realize something was attached to it. Feeling around with my other hand I felt a tug on it as well. I held them both up for a bleary-eyed inspection that ended with a heavy sigh. Getting out of the bed now became a bit more complicated between the IV and the monitor hookups.

  Of course, if I couldn’t go to them I figured I might as well bring them to me. Taking hold of the pulse oximeter probe that was firmly clamped to my finger, I popped it off, laid back, closed my eyes, and waited.

  As expected, a shrill tone immediately bit into my ears. Even though I knew it was coming, I groaned in response to the noise anyway. I didn’t bother to open my eyes, I simply laid there, unmoving all except for the handful of muscles that were necessary to twist my face into an annoyed grimace.

  Soft but slightly hurried footfalls sounded a few moments later. I felt someone fumbling with my finger, and then the mild pressure clamped down upon it once again. There was a chirp, and then relative quiet fell again.

  “Where’s my wife?” I asked, still holding my eyes tightly shut.

  “Mister Gant, you’re awake I see,” a woman’s voice said.