Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (32 page)

A sharp auger of pain drilled into my skull to join
the continuous jackhammer-like ache that was trying to break
through from the inside. I let out a heavy groan as I tensed and
then dropped my face into my hands. Although I’d tried to stifle
the noise, it was loud enough to be heard. Combined with the fact
that since I felt myself double forward, I knew it had to be
noticeable. I wasn’t surprised to hear my wife’s voice from only a
few short feet behind me.

“Rowan? Are you all right?” she asked, concern
underlining each word with a bold stroke.

I didn’t answer right away for the simple reason
that I couldn’t get my mouth to form the words since my jaw was
clenched in a tight grimace.

She waited only a few seconds before calling to me
again, the distress in her voice moving several notches up the
scale within a pair of syllables, “Rowan?!”

“Okay.” I managed to blurt out the muffled reply on
the tail end of a heavy breath. Sighing for a second time as the
latest addition to the orchestra of agonies began to subside, I
lifted my face out of my palms but kept my eyes squeezed shut as I
added, “I’m okay.”

I knew full well that I didn’t sound okay. The truth
is, I didn’t actually feel okay either. I just didn’t want Felicity
slamming the door on this before it was even fully open. Of course,
it was two against one at this point, in this plane of existence at
any rate. Counting the other side of the veil and what it was doing
to me, I was even more outnumbered than that. So if my wife decided
to pull the plug on this endeavor, there was nothing I would be
able to do. I was barely up to keeping myself upright, much less
fending off a six and a half foot tall cop on a mission to rescue
me from myself.

I opened my eyes and focused on the interior of the
car once more. The voice in my head was still unintelligible, but
it was getting louder by the second. I was beginning to wonder if
it was actually a lone voice or merely the background chatter of an
entire chorus of tortured spirits clamoring for my attention. It
certainly wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. The only
thing that kept me believing this was singular was the uncanny
familiarity of its pitch and tone along with the lack of any other
ethereal noise to dull it.

Several seconds had ticked by, and my wife had yet
to send in the cavalry. However, the recent and painfully overt
stress in her voice told me she was only inches from doing so. All
it would take is another stumble, and I had a feeling I was going
to be flying backwards by my belt. If that happened, and Felicity
closed the circle, there was a good chance I would lose connection
with the other side. It certainly wasn’t a given, but it was a
chance I didn’t want to take. Not yet.

I looked at my palm and then back at the interior of
the car. I knew it was possible I might glean something by reaching
in and touching the steering wheel. Another option would be to
touch the headrest on the seat. Both of them may well hold what I
was seeking, but by the same token, one could be a crystal clear
connection and the other like a frayed speaker wire cutting in and
out.

I continued to stare into the dark passenger cabin
of the sedan. My eyes kept being drawn back to the fingerprint
powder on the passenger side dash. I was certain that it was merely
standard procedure to check for prints throughout the entire car,
but there was something gnawing at my gut where that was
concerned.

After a lengthy pause, I straightened back up and
made a quarter turn back toward the circle but remained standing
next to the opening. I was about to make good on my earlier
omission, but I had to make sure my timing was at least in the
ballpark if this was going to work.

“Rowan?” Felicity called my name, a quizzical note
in her voice replacing at least part of the concern.

“I’m fine,” I told her, looking over my shoulder and
forcing the comment out in a tired drone.

I cast my glance toward the crowd of cops, and my
gaze fell on Captain Albright. She was still wearing a stoic frown,
but her eyes broadcast a far different message. I didn’t have any
way of knowing what her exact relationship was with her niece, but
the anguish flowing from her was akin to what I would expect from a
parent.

This woman had caused me nothing but grief since the
day I had met her. While I could rightfully be accused of having
turned the other cheek more than once in my lifetime, where she was
concerned I had long ago grown tired of her slapping me each time I
did. I owed her nothing. I knew it, and so did she.

Judith Albright, however, was someone I had never
met. But, like all of the other victims I had never met but helped
anyway, I owed her nothing either. Still, between the two of them
and my own conscience, I felt somehow compelled to pay whatever
price was asked.

I hung my head and sighed before casting my glance
toward Ben. “Hey, Tonto,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Do
you have a Slim Jim in your van?”

He gave me a puzzled look as he said, “Yeah, wh…”
Before he could manage to get the “why” fully out of his mouth, his
eyes widened and he started forward as he barked, “Goddammit! Don’t
do it, white man!”

Before the last word had finished passing his lips,
I ducked into the driver’s seat of the sedan, slammed the door and
hit the lock.

Felicity instantly screamed a severely pissed off
“damn your eyes” that was still perfectly audible to me even
through the tempered glass of the car.

I knew that neither Ben nor she could possibly be
surprised that I had pulled this particular stunt. After all, we’d
been doing this sort of thing long enough that they had to know I
would do something they considered stupid but that I felt
absolutely necessary. I had merely managed to catch them off guard.
But regarding that particular coup, I still wasn’t quite sure if I
should consider myself lucky or not.

My wife was at the door, yanking hard on the handle,
and glaring at me with the same emotion she had just voiced, but
her eyes were glistening with a healthy dose of fear as well.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to offer her any reassurances,
verbal or otherwise. With as many state troopers as there were
standing around the perimeter, I knew a Slim Jim or other tool for
unlocking the door was likely to be produced at any moment, whether
from Ben’s van or one of their trunks. The way I had it figured, I
probably had somewhere around thirty seconds before I was wrestled
out of this seat by someone. What they probably didn’t realize was
the fact that I was actually counting on them to do just that in
case this turned out to be a worse idea than I already thought it
was.

Through the windshield I could see uniformed bodies
moving in every direction as trunk lids began flying open. The
tableau outside seemed almost like a surreal picture as my contact
with the seat began to melt into an ethereal connection to things
past. The murmuring voice inside my head stepped upward as if
someone had just twisted the volume knob to full. I still couldn’t
make out what was being said, but it was becoming clearer with each
sound it uttered.

I wasn’t able to keep literal track of the seconds
as they ticked by, but I knew my hesitation over my own doubts had
already cost me part of the already short span of time. I now began
to wonder if thirty seconds would be enough to accomplish what I
needed to do.

I took another glance out the
driver’s side window and saw Felicity. Though I could no longer
hear her, or anything other than the preternatural noise inside my
skull, I saw her lips moving in slow motion and could make out the
words, “
Damnú!
Rowan, open the door!
”

A few feet behind her I saw Ben snatching a Slim Jim
from a state trooper and turning toward the car. My hoped for
thirty seconds was about to become something closer to fifteen or
twenty at the most.

I realized then I couldn’t wait for the connection
to take its normal course. Unfortunately, the only way I knew to
speed it up added yet another layer of peril to the unbridled risk
I was already taking. Given that fact, I might well be glad to be
pulled out of here in twenty seconds instead of thirty.

Ben was already nearing the car, sprinting in an
extruded slow motion through my distorted view of the here and now.
If I wasted any more time, this whole undertaking would be for
naught.

I grasped the steering wheel with my left hand,
slapped my right palm onto the passenger side seatback, and then
leaned back against the headrest as I purposely stopped grounding
and allowed all of my psychic defenses to fall by the wayside.

There was a bloom of color then a bright flash of
blinding white. After that, my world was no longer my own. In that
instant, I was no longer who I was, I was no longer where I was,
and I was no longer what I was.

I simply
wasn’t
.

Anger…

Sadness…

Betrayal…

And back to anger yet again.

The emotions are shifting through me like a storm…
Random, but always beginning with anger and ending with the same,
as the semi-jumbled cycle repeats once again.

Memories flood around me, none of them familiar
because none of them are my own. They don’t stop to acquaint
themselves with the stranger grasping at them. Instead they flit
past, as if in a hurry to escape something yet unseen.

I catch only the barest glimpse of what they might
be but nowhere near enough to grasp what they truly are.

I see nothing but their flickering trails as they
fade into the distant void to remain a private mystery.

I feel nothing but the circular list of painful
emotions.

Then I feel nothing at all…

Thirst…

Want…

Need…

Thirst…

A new flight of feelings penetrates my soul.
Something is different about them—something beyond the obvious.

They are darker…

More ordered…

More frightening.

I try to embrace them anyway, but they recede at my
touch. They have as much fear of me as I have of them.

Falling…

Falling…

Falling…

I feel as though the brass ring has been ripped from
my grasp. The answers I seek are now nothing more than
Doppler-shifted pinpoints in the distance.

I am left only with questions.

And, frustration…

I try to scream, but no sound can penetrate the
emptiness.

Falling…

Floating…

Falling…

Absolute darkness surrounds me.

There is no longer anything in the void.

No emotion.

No memories.

Nothing…

Only me, and I am nothing.

A chorus of screams echoes in my ears as light
blooms in my eyes. They come to an abrupt end as once again silence
falls swiftly like a sharp guillotine blade.

There is a complete end to all sound.

The light dulls to blue-black night. Muted colors
bleed into a grainy landscape before me as my eyes try to adjust.
Sound fades in once again, but all I hear is the beating of my own
heart and the rhythmic rush of blood in my ears.

I am standing on an empty street. A lone streetlamp
casts a dim sodium vapor glow around me, sending my own oblique
shadow across the cracked asphalt to meld with the darkness.

I stare at the shadow where it falls across the
curb. There is a storm drain to my right. The street is dry, but a
narrow river is flowing along the gutter and into the gaping mouth
of the sewer.

But it isn’t water.

It is red…

And thick…

It is blood.

I look up and away from the horrid sight. In front
of me is a boarded up house. I try to focus on it. It is old, and
the brick facing is streaked black where smoke and fire once
billowed out. Fallen leaves choke the stands of browned weeds that
cover the yard.

A short flight of concrete stairs leads up to the
front door. They are in a state of extreme disrepair, pocked with
holes where chunks have been broken off through years of abuse and
neglect. The vinyl soffit is scorched, now hanging in drip-like
slags where it eventually cooled, frozen in time. Warped and
greying plywood covers the windows. Graffiti marks the boards with
names and crude drawings, but the weather has faded them beyond
recognition.

It appears that even the vandals have abandoned this
place.

I stare at the unlit porch light to the left of the
door. It is really nothing more than a metal protrusion jutting
from the outer wall. The glass globe is long missing, and a dead
yellow bulb sags beneath as the detached socket in which it is set
dangles from the frayed electrical wires. The motion draws my
attention to the area below where reflective numbers step downward
across the brick at a shallow angle.

2 – 3 – 0 – 2.

The last 2 in the sequence is canted to the right,
apparently missing the top fastener that held it to the brick. The
curve at its back rests against what remains of a frame for a now
missing storm door.

Something soft brushes against my palm then gently
clasps around my fingers. I don’t start with surprise, as I would
expect. I simply accept it and look down to see what appears to be
a woman’s hand holding mine. I bring my eyes up to a face that
isn’t there. I find only darkness where it should be.

She feels familiar. I am certain I should know her,
but without a face I can’t attach a name. I stare into the darkness
where it should be but still find nothing.

I don’t feel fear, only curiosity. I sense secrecy.
I feel that she is hiding from me. As if she does not want me to
know her identity.