“Rowan?” she asked.
“Long story short, you have to protect us from Annalise, I understand that. But, I have to protect Felicity from Miranda, who may well be an even greater threat in the grand scheme of things. This is the best place for me to do that.”
She shook her head again. “I sympathize, Rowan, I really do. I don’t necessarily understand it, but I sympathize. Unfortunately, it’s out of my hands. My SAC already made the decision. You two are being moved to a safe house, like it or not. Even if it involves officially placing you in federal custody, which we will do if need be.”
“Can ya’ like take some of your Witch stuff with ya’?” Ben asked. “‘Cause it looks ta’ me like you’re goin’.”
“I guess I’ll have to, won’t I?” I spat.
“I’m sorry, Rowan,” Constance said quietly.
“It’s not your fault,” I told her. “You’re just doing your job. I’ll go tell Feli…”
I didn’t get to finish the sentence because I was interrupted by an anguished call emanating from the basement, which came in the form of my wife’s tear-filled voice screaming my name. If that wasn’t enough to stop my heart, the two words that followed were a guaranteed flat line.
All three of us were moving as a plaintive “she’s here” echoed up the stairwell.
CHAPTER 38:
“What the fuck?!” Ben exclaimed, as he automatically filled his hand with the Beretta that rode in his ever-present shoulder rig. “I got the stairs!”
“Side door!” Constance immediately called out. Her own hand was already wrapped around her Sig Sauer, and she immediately turned back toward the front door and darted for it.
The side entrance, leading down into our basement, was the only door anyone could have entered without coming past us. It had a reinforced deadbolt and a handset lock, not to mention that it was monitored by the home security system. The only time it was ever unlocked was when we were moving things in and out of the lower level of the house, so I had no idea how anyone could have come through it, but it was literally the only way to get in relatively undetected. To my knowledge, the entrance hadn’t been used for quite awhile, unless Felicity had done so, and I simply wasn’t aware of it.
My friend was already at the mouth of the hallway, as Constance bounded down the front steps and hooked to the left, her cell phone in her free hand. I was directly behind him, and I yelled out to my wife, “Felicity?”
“Rowan… Help me!” she cried. “She’s here…”
I quickly made a move to step around Ben to the partially open basement door. His hand shot out and slammed into my chest, knocking me back against the wall with a heavy thud.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” I demanded.
“You stay right here,” he growled back at me.
“Dammit, Ben…”
“I said, stay right here! Let us do our jobs!” he barked, then cast his voice toward the opening as he called out, “Devereaux?”
“Rowan…” my wife whimpered. “Help me…”
Before I had a chance to object again, the front door swung open, and one of the FBI agents who had been canvassing the nearby side street rushed in, his sidearm at the ready. Ben gave him a quick glance, pointed at me then stabbed a finger down the hallway. Without a word, the agent continued past him, roughly taking me by the shoulder and pushing me farther back into the corridor.
From the basement, I heard my wife’s sobbing voice call out once more, “Rowan… Please…”
“Get down there before she kills her!” I screamed as I tried to turn, but the federal agent caught the move and pushed me hard toward the end of the hall.
“Sir,” he said. “You need to stay out of the way. Let us handle this.”
“You might have ta’ cuff ‘im,” Ben told him. His voice was cold, and I knew he wasn’t even hinting at a joke.
“Dammit, Ben!” I exclaimed. “The bitch has my wife down there!”
“Rowan!” my friend snapped. “This is what we do! Now stay out of the way!”
I looked back over my shoulder, anger and fear seething inside me. My face was growing hot as I flushed with the swirling emotions. All I could think about was getting to Felicity before Annalise could do anything at all to harm her.
“Annalise Devereaux!” Ben called out again. “This is Detective Storm with the Saint Louis Police. I’m coming down.”
He was answered by an amused chuckle and the words “Send Rowan, little man.”
A second later, struggling through choked sobs, I heard Felicity moan, “ Caorthann…”
A cell phone on the agent’s belt chirped with a two-way alert tone, and it was followed by Constance’s voice.
“Cobb… Reynolds and I are on the side door. It appears to be locked,” she said. “Parker and the locals are coming now. They’ll cover the front and back.”
He snatched the phone from his belt, thumbed a button and replied, “Got it. Storm and I are at the top of the stairs. We’re having an issue with the spouse.”
The device cricket-chirped again, and Constance replied with no hesitation in her voice whatsoever, “Handcuff him.”
What had previously been a threat now became a direct order. Cobb holstered his weapon and quickly slipped out a pair of restraints then brought one metal circlet down against my wrist with a hard snap. With a practiced squeeze, he ratcheted it tight.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I shouted, trying to twist away.
He wasn’t quite Ben’s stature, but he easily had an inch or two on me, not to mention his training. Before I knew it, he had whipped me back around and shoved me into the bathroom at the end of the hall. I bounced against the wall, but before I could turn back around, he had twisted my free arm behind my back and slapped the other cuff onto it.
“I need you to sit down on the floor, Mister Gant,” he ordered. “Now.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I snarled.
“It’s for your own safety as well as your wife’s, sir. Now, please sit down or I’ll sit you down.”
I was left with little choice other than to comply. I leaned back against the wall and slid downward until I was seated on the tile floor but not without appealing, “Goddammit, Ben, get down there and help Felicity!”
Cobb left me sitting and headed back to the basement door. Drawing his weapon, he stood to the backside of the barrier and gave Ben a nod. My friend carefully nudged the door the rest of the way open, staying well to the living room side of the entranceway.
“See anything,” Ben asked.
Agent Cobb carefully shifted to the right, his pistol stiff armed before him and pointing down the stairwell. After a moment, he slid back and shook his head as he said, “Clear.”
My friend mimicked the motion from his side, checking the blind spots the FBI agent wouldn’t have been able to see from his angle.
“Clear,” he told him then called out, “Felicity?”
I listened intently but heard only my wife sobbing. As painful as the sound was, at least it meant she was still alive.
“Devereaux?” Ben shouted after a few seconds.
We waited, but there was still no verbal answer.
“Annalise Devereaux?” he called again.
“No,” a haunting voice carried up the stairs. “Not Annalise.”
“Okay,” he replied. “So, what do I call you?”
We heard the laugh again. In its wake, the Southern-accented voice said, “You may call me, Mistress, little man.”
“Yeah, right, like that’s gonna happen,” my friend muttered, so low even I almost didn’t hear him. Then, he upped the volume and called out, “Look, no one needs to get hurt here.”
“Why don’t you come down,” the voice returned. “I won’t hurt you… Much.”
“How is Miz O’Brien?” he asked, ignoring the taunt.
“Oh, she’s simply lovely,” the voice replied.
“Can I speak with her?”
“I don’t know, little man, can you?” she laughed. “Try again.”
“What the fuck,” Ben whispered.
“I’m not sure, but I think she’s correcting your English,” Cobb returned in a low voice.
“Jeezus, so she’s a smart ass too…”
The voice echoed up the stairs again. “Come on, little man. Say, ‘Please Mistress, may I speak to Felicity?’”
“I’m not gonna play games with you, Devereaux. Let me talk to her.”
A scant few seconds passed, then my wife’s sobbing voice floated up to our ears. “Ben? Is Rowan with you?”
“He’s right here, Felicity,” Ben replied. “Everything is gonna be fine. You just hang in there, okay?…”
“Rowan!” she appealed, her voice strained but stronger than before. “She’s back! Help me!”
“Ben! Help her!” I demanded, rolling sideways against the wall and struggling onto my knees. I shuffled into the doorway and hissed, “Either help her, or let me, dammit!”
I completely lost track of my heartbeats as my chest thudded through the silence. After what seemed like several hours rolled into a single moment, Ben shot a glance my way then looked over at Agent Cobb.
“Tell ‘em I’m goin’ down now,” he said.
“That bottom landing is completely blind,” he replied.
“Yeah, but I’ve been down there before. I can handle it.”
Cobb thumbed his phone and relayed the message. No sooner had he finished speaking than Constance’s voice came back over the device.
“Ben, we can hear you conversing with her. Is the situation stable?”
“Tell ‘er that depends on what the fuck she calls stable,” my friend snipped.
Cobb thumbed the button and said, “She’s talking, and we’ve spoken to the hostage.”
Constance replied, “As long as she’s talking to us, and Felicity is unharmed, stay where you are. I’ve already called in the HRT.”
“You heard her,” Cobb said. “Hostage Rescue is on the way.”
“Ben…” I appealed again.
My friend shot a glance my way then replied, “Yeah, well tell ‘er I’m not waitin’.”
The agent relayed the new message and was again greeted by Constance’s voice saying, “Storm, as long as the situation is stable, stand down and wait for the HRT!”
Ben looked at Cobb then past him at me. Glancing back, he settled his eyes on the phone for a brief second. Stepping forward through the opening he said, “Fuck the HRT.”
Before the federal agent could make a move, my friend had skirted in through the opening and disappeared. I could hear him slowly working his way down the stairs.
“I’m coming down,” his voice echoed from the opening.
Blood was rushing in my ears, and my head was throbbing with pain both ethereal and mundane. I leaned against the doorjamb and fought to listen as my friend continued down the stairs but heard nothing other than the thumping of my own heart.
Seconds eked by, each one adding to the next until they drew themselves out into languid minutes that seemed like hours. I closed my eyes and waited out the eternity since it was all I could do.
Finally, I heard muffled voices through the floor, bleeding in through the pounding in my ears. A piercing yelp and a string of curses that sounded as if they came from Ben followed. After that came the sound of a woman laughing then the creaking noise of the side door opening on oil-deprived hinges. A moment later, Ben’s voice called up the stairwell.
His tone was calm and held only the barest note of urgency when he said, “Cobb… Uncuff Rowan and get him down here.”
CHAPTER 39:
I was already heading for the stairs before Agent Cobb had the handcuffs fully removed from my wrists. I could hear several voices as I headed downward, but my wife’s wasn’t among them, which firmly seated the panic roiling through my gut. My heart still hadn’t stopped racing nor had my head ceased to pound with its bizarre mix of pain. If anything, the headache had grown worse.
As I neared the bottom of the stairs, I was struck full in the face by an all too familiar but wholly foreign sensation. It was a too pleasant tingle I had felt brush against me from somewhere between the worlds while I was more or less held captive in the bathroom waiting for this to be over. Unfortunately, I knew the feeling well. I’d ignored it then, and I tried my best to do so now, even though it was growing in intensity with each step I took.
Skipping the last two stairs, I leapt from the lower landing, following the direction of the voices to the left. When I came around the corner, I found Ben, Constance, and another FBI agent standing a few feet away from the entrance to my wife’s office.
“Where’s Felicity?!” I demanded. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, Row,” Ben said as he turned toward me. “Physically, anyway.”
“What do you mean? Where is she?”
He sidestepped a bit and turned back toward the office. There, just outside the entrance was one of the vertical, eight-by-eight support beams which were spaced throughout the basement. Sitting cross-legged on the floor at its footing, with her chin resting against her chest, was my wife. Her arms were wrapped around the solid post and a pair of handcuffs was securely locked about her wrists, holding her in place. The wood of the upright was gouged and scraped where the connecting chain between the cuffs had been raked against it. Though I was still several feet away, I could see welts, and even some trickles of blood, where she had been struggling against the restraints.
“Felicity…” I breathed as I started toward her.
Ben grasped my shoulder and held me back. It was only then I noticed he had one hand wrapped in a washcloth from our nearby laundry room, and a bright splotch of red was soaking through it.
“Why haven’t you taken those off her?!” I shouted.
“Because, it might not be a good idea just yet,” Constance replied.
“What?…” I stammered. “What’s going on?”
“You’re gonna wanna keep some distance for a bit,” Ben replied, holding up his wounded hand.
“What happened?”
He cocked his head toward Felicity.
“What? Why?” I stammered, confusion rimming my words. Jumbles of thoughts were bouncing around my head in competition with the odd feelings that were creeping in from elsewhere. I knew deep down the meaning behind the odd rush of pleasure that was fighting to overtake me, but I didn’t want to admit it. I glanced around as I chose to let the puzzlement continue its reign over my grey matter instead. Finally I asked, “Where’s Annalise?”
“She ain’t here, White Man,” Ben told me. “Never was.”
“Then what’s going on?” I demanded.
“Ask her,” he replied, nodding again toward my wife.
She slowly turned her face up and stared at me with a wicked grin stretched across her lips. A smear of blood was streaked from the corner of her mouth and down across her chin. I knew without hesitation that it wasn’t her own.
She casually tossed her head, flipping her hair back over her shoulder in the process, then settled her gaze back on me. After a moment she said, “Hello, little man. Have you missed me?”
Her tone held the same Southern affectation as the voice with which my friend had carried on the conversation via the stairwell. Up close, however, the ethereal hollowness of it resonated through to my very core. I had no idea if anyone besides me could detect the ghostly echo, but that didn’t really matter. As long as I could hear it, I knew exactly who belonged to the words.
“Miranda,” I said.
“You remember,” she replied.
“You’re hard to forget.”
“Of course I am.”
I glanced over at the FBI agent who was standing with Constance. While I was sure there had been some manner of briefing done, I doubted it came with an instant comprehension of the paranormal, especially as it pertained here. Constance caught my gaze and turned to the agent.
“Reynolds
,” she said. “Why don’t you go let everyone know we’re secure. And, have Cobb cancel the HRT.”
“Yeah, okay,” he replied, casting a baffled look toward Felicity then me before going.
Once I heard his footsteps receding up the stairs, I turned back to my wife and stated in a flat tone, “You aren’t welcome here, Miranda.”
“Of course I am. I was invited.”
“Bullshit.”
“You really should not be so rude.”
“Coming from you that means pretty much nothing.”
She smiled. “Come now. Is that really a proper way to express your love for me?”
“Leave now, or I’ll make you leave.”
“I was invited,” she told me again.
“By who?”
She made a show of visually inspecting herself for a moment before saying, “Your wife, of course.”
“I know better than that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you only think you do.”
“Then why was Felicity crying out for help?”
“Giving in to one’s desires can be disconcerting at first. But, she will get used to it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“She will. Annalise did.”
“We both know you’re lying. Felicity never invited you here. You invited yourself.”
She shrugged. “Does it really matter? She is mine now.”
“Perhaps you only think she is.”
She let out a small laugh that sent icy fingers along my spine. “You are very quick, little man. Touche.”
“What did you do with the cloves and the blood, Miranda?”
“Is it not obvious?”
“The effects, yes. But, what did you do?”
“It is a secret.”
“What’s wrong? Are you afraid I might be able to work stronger magick than you?”
“No.”
“Then why not just tell me?”
“I have a better idea. Maybe you should beg me to tell you.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Even to save your wife?”
“You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t trust you.”
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