He had simply shot a quick glance at me when I sat the drink on the railing next to him but remained silent. It had taken all of five minutes before he finally spoke.
“It’s okay,” I told him.
“No it isn’t,” he replied, shaking his head. “I acted like a fuckin’ asshole in there.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You did.”
“You don’t have to agree with me so fast, Kemosabe,” he offered with a slight grin.
“It’s okay,” I replied. “You definitely acted like an ass. But, I think I’ve probably done the same to you.”
“Yeah, you have.” His grin spread a little wider. “So, how’s Firehair?”
“She’s okay,” I replied, and then took a sip of my drink. “She crashed awhile ago.”
“I guess I’ll apologize to her later.”
“It’s all good. She’s got pretty thick skin.”
“Yeah, she’s a tough one,” he agreed. “That’s a fact.”
My friend looked down at the drink I had poured for him then picked it up and twisted the tumbler back and forth in front of his face. After a moment, he set it back down, this time a full arms length away.
“Thanks, but that’s prob’ly the last thing I need right now.”
“No problem. I understand,” I returned, paused, then asked, “So what now?”
He huffed out a heavy breath. “We keep our mouths shut and hope for a break.”
“Not much of a plan,” I observed.
“Tell me about it,” he replied. “But there’s no way we can confirm she’s dead, so runnin’ off at the mouth’ll just cause problems.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
We grew quiet again, listening to the ambient sounds of the night. Tires squealed in the distance, and the sound of a roaring engine droned along behind it, eventually fading to nothingness.
“So, where are you staying?” I finally asked.
“Whaddaya mean?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
“We didn’t get a chance to talk earlier, Ben,” I explained. “I know about you and Allison.”
He rubbed his hand across the lower half of his face and sighed heavily through his nose. “How’d ya find out?” he asked. “I run off at the mouth while I was trashed?”
“Not exactly,” I replied. “When you passed out, I called your house. I didn’t want Allison to worry when you didn’t come home.”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Guess I shoulda told ya’. Felicity know?”
“Not yet.”
“Mandalay?”
“I didn’t figure it was my place to tell her.”
“Thanks.”
I shrugged. “No problem. You’d do the same for me.” I paused for a moment, searching for the right words, then said, “You’re going to want to talk to her, though. She’s returning a favor…” I let my voice trail off.
“Yeah, I know.” He gave a short nod. “And I owe her an apology too.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “So you never answered my question. Where are you staying?”
“‘Nother copper in homicide has some rental property down on Tennessee,” he told me. “It was vacant, so he’s lettin’ me have it on a week-to-week.”
“You know, you could have come here. We have a guest room.”
“Naahh.” He shook his head as he uttered the negative. “I think I need some space right now.”
“As long as you don’t withdraw too much.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“So how is Ben junior handling it?”
“About as well as can be expected I guess.”
“What about you? You doing okay?”
He gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Apparently not as okay as I thought I was.”
“I’m sure it’s a big adjustment,” I offered.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“So, I know you’ve got Helen, but if you need another ear…” I let my voice trail off.
“Yeah, I know. I appreciate it, white man.”
“No problem. So… At the risk of prying, is this something you two are going to be able to work out?”
He was just about to answer me when Felicity’s terrified scream shattered the newfound calmness of the night.
CHAPTER 21:
Just as I had witnessed less than two days before, the audible signal of distress served as a trigger, sending my friend’s hand immediately to his sidearm. His now alert gaze swung instantly in the direction of the scream. I’m not sure which one of us began moving first, but I just barely made it to the back door in front of him. In either case, the dogs had overtaken us, and we were both stumbling over them as they yapped wildly at the door. I pushed through to the interior of the house, immediately on the heels of the boisterous canines, and my friend was at my back, physically urging me ahead at a quickening pace.
The dogs had left us in their wake, and I could now hear them whining; the high-pitched noise was interspersed with low growls, and that punctuated the now random barks. Advancing through the kitchen, I caught fleeting glimpses of our cats, fur puffed out in panic, as they darted in opposing directions, two of them literally bouncing from one another before continuing to individual hiding places.
I hooked through the kitchen doorway, into the dining room, and then continued through, my arc leading me down the hallway to our bedroom. I hit the door at as close to a dead run as I could manage in the short distance. The dogs were already scratching at the barrier, yelping and growling as they sought to protect their mistress from the unseen intruder.
Felicity was already splitting the darkness with a third scream. Of all the noises and exclamations I had ever heard coming from her, this had never been among them. This was something entirely new and beyond horrifying. At this moment, it frightened me more than anything in recent memory. It was a sound that made me painfully aware that blood could in fact run cold.
I could feel Ben at my back as I burst through the door and stepped into the darkened room. My gaze fell immediately to the bed but found only rumpled sheets partially illuminated by the swath of light that was projecting inward from the hallway. I reached to my side and slapped the light switch on the wall just above the headboard. Brightness leapt onto the tableau, and I brought my eyes up as my ears centered in on the terror-stricken shriek, which was only now beginning to trail off.
Felicity was cowering in the opposite corner, back pressed into the wall next to the bathroom door, hands holding either side of her head as she rocked in a frantic rhythm. Crimson trails were trickling down her arm from her bloody left hand, and an obvious smear blemished her cheek. I launched myself forward, swiveling around the end of the bed and dropping to my knees in front of my wife.
“Felicity?!” I called as I reached out and placed my hands on her trembling shoulders.
My touch proved only to elicit a new round of screams as she began flailing her arms and slapping at me blindly. Her eyes were fixed directly ahead, unblinking and dilated. Upon catching a glimpse of the glassy stare, I was convinced that she wasn’t even walking in this world.
“FELICITY!” I called again, grabbing at her wrists as I attempted to defend myself against her unconscious attack. “FELICITY! It’s me! Rowan!”
Her head snapped back, and she centered her unfocused stare on my face. Her arms stopped flailing, but she continued to tremble and rock. She sat wordlessly- looking through me more than at me.
I reached out and slowly started to brush back her hair. She flinched and I hesitated.
“It’s okay, Felicity,” I cooed softly. “It’s me. It’s Rowan.”
Slowly, I pushed my hand along the side of her cheek, lifting her auburn locks, and inspecting her milky skin. I could see no wound on her face, only the smear of crimson.
I continued whispering to her as I took her left hand in mine and turned the palm to face me. Deep gashes were cut into the tips of her index and middle fingers, and they were still oozing thick blood.
“What
happened here?” I asked her softly but got no answer.
The dogs were trying to nose their way in for their own first hand inspection, and I could still feel Ben standing behind me.
I began to notice that the room seemed colder than usual, especially since at this hour of the morning the electronic thermostat would still have the air conditioner switched off in energy-saving mode.
I watched Felicity’s expression slowly change, recognition dawning in her eyes as she awakened from the dream state. She swallowed hard, and tears began to silently stream across her cheeks. I slipped my arms around my wife and pulled her close as she began to sob, rocking in harmony as I rubbed her back.
I heard Ben shuffle and then step past me into the bathroom. I didn’t pay much attention to what he was doing until I heard him slowly mutter, “Jeezus H. Christ.”
I continued slowly rocking Felicity but turned my head in his direction and looked up. He was staring at us, and we locked gazes for a moment before he turned away. When I followed his line of sight, I saw the object of his exclamation.
On the large mirror hanging above the double vanity smeared blood reflected in upon itself. Opaque red lines arced in deliberate, if smudged, patterns literally forming what appeared to be a map.
Below it, in unfamiliar, back-slanted writing were the words, FIND ME.
*****
“You never should have done that binding…” I said, a note of sadness filling my voice.
I had just finished rinsing my wife’s wounded hand with peroxide for a second time and had now patted it dry. She was still wearing the oversized t-shirt she had been sleeping in, and it was covered with smears and spatters of blood down the left side. I had helped her pull on a pair of jeans and slip her feet into tennis shoes with the intention of taking her to the emergency room, but she would have none of that. She hated hospitals almost as much as Ben and adamantly refused to go even though I was sure she needed stitches. So, it was left up to me to play doctor.
The gashes were fairly deep and somewhat ragged, as she had made them with the sharp edge of a broken drinking glass. Even though I still felt that she should see a doctor, I had to admit that the cuts didn’t look nearly as bad as they had before they were cleaned up.
We were in the kitchen where we could both have a seat, and more importantly, I could spread out the first aid kit on the table. At the moment, I was snipping off strips of white tape from a metal spindle.
Ben was behind me, seated in the dining room and comparing a sketch of Felicity’s bloody rendering to a road atlas. Unfortunately, the image on the mirror, while obvious in its intent, was a smeary conglomeration of thick lines and devoid of any text labels, save for the ‘FIND ME’. Because of that, it was somewhat of a puzzle in and of itself.
Before getting started, he had called Agent Mandalay, catching her just as she was pulling into her driveway. She never even shut off her engine and now, was on her way back here.
“Aye,” Felicity returned, her voice surprisingly calm. “Maybe so, but I broke it.”
I nodded. “True. But it obviously wasn’t a clean break.”
I cut a final strip of the surgical tape and stuck it to the edge of the table then snapped the spindle back into its cover. I tossed it back into the box with a slight clatter. Then I reached deeper into the first aid kit and pulled out a small, brown jar then twisted off the lid. I dipped a cotton swab into the homemade comfrey and menthol salve and twirled it for a moment.
Felicity let out a short laugh that came as an abbreviated ‘hmph’, and then she said, “I wasn’t really sure that the spell would work at all if you want to know the truth.”
“It didn’t, really,” I offered. “All it did was suck you into all of this mess.”
“Aye, but you were free of the visions for a short time.”
“I’m surprised it did that much.” I shook my head. “Nothing should have happened at all.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, I’d already tried it.”
“You did?” There was a note of surprise in her voice. “When?”
“Awhile back.” I shrugged. “I even tried a banishing.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“But if you don’t believe in the magick, Rowan, then it can’t work. You know that.”
“I know,” I told her. “But you just told me that you had your own doubts.”
“Aye.” She nodded. “I did at that. But still… You tried to do a banishing?”
“Don’t act so surprised. It’s not like I want this to keep happening to me you know.”
“That’s not true.”
I stopped twirling the swab. “Excuse me?”
“You see it as a gift as well as a curse.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” she replied. “I can feel it. You certainly don’t revel in it, but you see it as your destiny. If it were to stop, you would feel as though you had failed.”
She was touching on insights I had thought were completely hidden from view. Of course, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised by that. I really knew better than to think I could keep anything from her.
“Pretty amazing,” I offered with a sigh, returning to the original subject and hoping she would follow. “A spell that shouldn’t have worked to begin with, doomed to certain failure by your own disbelief, and yet you still managed to make magick happen anyway. Lucky you.”
I took her hand and blotted the oozing gashes once more.
“Why do you think that is, then?” she asked.
“The Ancients like your accent maybe?” I replied.
“What?” She shot me a puzzled look. “Oh, no, seriously. Why do you think it worked at all?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe there’s something bigger going on here. We both know I’m probably the last guy to be able to answer that.” I pulled her hand closer and retrieved the cotton swab from the ointment. “This is probably going to sting.”
The word ‘probably’ morphed instantly into ‘absolutely’ as I touched the healing salve to the gashes. She sucked in a startled breath as her face twisted into a grimace. At the same moment, her hand jerked out of reflex, trying to pull away from the sudden burn, but I held it fast.
“I really wish you’d reconsider the stitches.”
“No,” she forced out between clenched teeth.
I continued gently dabbing the wounds until they were covered, then tossed the swab into the small trashcan next to me.
“There, that should be the worst of it,” I said as I started wrapping her fingers with sterile gauze.
I glanced up and saw that her grimace had melted into a thoughtful stare. She was absently chewing at her lower lip, something she tended to do when she was preoccupied. I stopped wrapping for a moment and asked, “You okay? This too tight?”
She snapped out of the shallow trance and looked at me. “What? Oh, no, it’s fine. I… Ummm… I was just thinking about earlier.”
I went back to wrapping the gauze then glanced up as I said, “Earlier? You mean the hypnosis?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Before that. Before I left this evening.”
“What about it?”
“What I said about you feeling sorry for yourself,” she said hesitantly. “I’m sorry.”
I gave my head a slight shake. “Don’t be. You were right. I have been feeling sorry for myself.”
“No, Rowan…”
“Yes,” I interrupted her objection. “I have. Don’t get me wrong, honey, it hurt when you said it, but all you did was point out the obvious. I should actually thank you.”
“Aye, but I shouldn’t have been so mean.”
“You weren’t really.” I grinned. “No meaner than usual, anyway.”
She gave her head a dismissive shake, but the corners of her mouth curled into a slight grin.
“Of course,” I added as I starte
d applying the tape, “I’m not suddenly all better now just because of what you said. That only happens in the movies. But, I recognize that my own self-pity is a part of the larger problem, so maybe I’m on the right path to do something about it.”
“You know you have family who wants to help, then.” Her words were a comment as much as a question.
“Yes, I do.”
“Hey you two,” Ben’s voice came from the doorway. “Come look at this for a second. I think I got somethin’”
Felicity was already coming up out of the chair as he finished the sentence, and I had to rise in unison with her as I hastily finished looping the white tape around the gauze.
“Whoa, honey, slow down,” I told her as she pulled away and stepped past me, but she wasn’t listening.
I knew the sense of urgency she was exuding all too well. She was physically manifesting her desire to get this over with, to make it into a distant memory. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wouldn’t work. Nothing could make it play out any faster than had already been pre-ordained and that speed was something that we’d never be privy to before the fact.
But, what pained me even more was the fact that while I knew the memories would fade somewhat, the distance would never be great enough for her to ever stop running from them.
I pushed back the wave of sorrow brought on by the thought and followed her into the dining room.
“Look at this,” Ben was already saying, running his finger along the contours of lines between the sketch and a page in the road atlas. “Right here, this could be the Mississippi River.” He drew his hand downward, first on one page then the other. He shot a quick glance at us and then proceeded to motion horizontally. “This here could be Two-Seventy, and this could be Riverview.”
I stuck my hand in and traced the same lines. “Sure, but couldn’t this also be the Missouri River, this be Highway Seventy, and that be Fifth Street?”
“Yeah,” he replied, swishing his fingertip around. “And it could also be the other end of Two-Seventy and this could be Two-Thirty-One. Or it could be Sixty-Four and Fifty-Five for all that matter. But bear with me. Just assume that this is the Mississippi and look here and here.” He pointed first to an extra line running perpendicular to the line he had identified as Highway Two-Seventy. “This could be the Chain of Rocks Canal on the Illinois side.” He moved his finger back and forth between the sketch and the road map and then dropped his finger onto a small spot on the drawing. “On the mirror, this is pretty much just a bloody fingerprint, so I really didn’t pay much attention to it at first, but look at this.” He pointed to an identical spot on the roadmap, and at the tip of his finger was a small triangle encompassed by a circle. “This is the tourist info center on the Missouri side.”
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