Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  The first photo was of a crudely painted Pentacle on a wall. Sections were shaded in pastel yellow, blue, and green. The outline of the symbol was a deep, rusted red, and a portion of it was smeared with the same color.

  “Now I see why you were asking about the pastels,” I stated. “But the red looks a little strange. Not really a pastel.”

  “It’s the victim’s blood,” Ben volunteered matter-of-factly, his voice almost a whisper.

  “Oh,” I replied. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  The second picture showed the Pentacle at more of a distance, revealing a mound of black and a mound of white on the floor. The following picture, a close-up of the mounds, showed them to be candles that had burned until they extinguished themselves, leaving behind hardened puddles of wax.

  “Obviously a ritual of some sort,” I told him. “I’m not sure for what.”

  I thumbed through more pictures of the candles and wall from various angles. The black and white images were much easier to tolerate, though knowing that the Pentacle had been inscribed in blood made me imagine I could still see the glaring red within the crisp black and grey tones. Eventually, I came to a picture of another wall. In the same dripping crimson strokes as the Pentacle were the words “All Is Forgiven.”

  “The consultant still can’t manage to explain that,” Ben told me, indicating the pictured words. “He says it probably has somethin’ ta’ do with blood sacrifice rituals. Says he thinks it might...”

  “No,” I interrupted him, holding up a hand, “those words have nothing to do with a blood sacrifice ritual.”

  “Whaddaya mean?” he queried, sitting up a little straighter and focusing his attention.

  “Your expert is apparently pretty full of misinformation. I’m not saying that there wasn’t a sacrifice ritual performed mind you, but just because the victim’s blood was used, that doesn’t make it so,” I detailed. “The Pentacle and the inscription are components of a spell.”

  “You mean a hocus-pocus-poof-you’re-a-frog kinda spell?”

  “No. That’s a fairy-tale misconception. While spells sometimes do involve what can be called magick, they are primarily something like a prayer. This particular spell is a separate ritual unto itself, and if I’m right, then I’m willing to bet your killer performed it because of the murder, not as a part of it.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Ben told me, both eager and frustrated.

  “Just a second...” I got up from the table and went across the room to the bookshelves. “I just want to verify something real quick to make sure I’m right.” I scanned the shelves reserved for our Wiccan and alternative religious literature and quickly found what I was after. “Here it is...”

  I pulled the book from the shelf and leafed quickly through it as I strode back across the room and once again took a seat at the table.

  “What is that?” Ben asked as I continued rapidly turning and perusing the pages.

  “A grimoire,” I told him. “Kind of like a recipe book for Witches.” I stopped leafing through the book, and my eyes followed my finger down the text while I quietly mumbled to myself. Eventually I came to rest halfway down the page. “Yes, it’s a variation of an Expiation spell.”

  “A what?” Ben’s still confused voice reached my ears as I handed him the spellbook and quickly leafed back through the pictures I had already seen. According to the grimoire, a piece of the spell appeared to be missing. I felt sure it was there but that I simply hadn’t noticed it.

  “An Expiation spell,” I repeated. “A ritual to rid yourself of guilt and regrets—a way of asking forgiveness from yourself. I’m not finding it...” I stated hurriedly. “Was there a cup or goblet there? It would have had wine in it. Or maybe water.” Only silence met my ears. “Ben?” I queried again, looking up.

  He was staring at me across the table, face ashen, the spellbook held loosely in his hands.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, growing mildly concerned.

  “Yeah, we found a wine glass all right,” he said quietly. “But, it wasn’t filled with wine.”

  The look on his face told me that which I needed but didn’t want to know.

  “It was filled with blood wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “We think the bastard drank her blood.”

  The two of us shared a wordless stare as we were simultaneously bludgeoned by the revolting possibility he had just voiced. I swallowed hard and slowly forced my eyes back down to the permanent visual records of the abomination. Five photographs later, it was my turn for the greyish pallor to overtake my face. The glossy color image before me showed a bed with the nude body of a petite young woman draped across it. Her mouth was frozen in the oval shape of an agonized scream, her dull eyes staring horrifically into space. The wall next to the bed was spattered wildly with blood. Her throat had been cut, and her long, strawberry-blonde hair was matted into the sheets, which flowed to the floor like a crimson waterfall. From the ragged incision at her throat to a point just below her waist, and from shoulder to shoulder, she was nothing but bare exposed muscle. She had been skinned.

  As if that weren’t enough, there was something else that made me hold my breath a beat longer. That something was the fact that her face held more than just a passing familiarity to me.

  “An invocation rite,” I stated flatly, fighting back insistent waves of nausea.

  “What’s that?” Ben asked.

  “A ritual used to call forth someone or something from another plane of existence.”

  “You mean like a spirit or somethin’?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, “it’s the ‘or something’ that bothers me.”

  “How can ya tell that’s what it is?” Ben pressed. “All the symbols were with that Expiation thing.”

  “The flaying,” I answered. “Skinning and mutilation are considered parts of a ritual sacrifice for invocation in some old religions. Have you gotten a report from the coroner?”

  “No, not yet...Why?”

  “Whoever did this...” I caught my breath and started again. “Whoever did this probably skinned her alive. The sonofabitch performed two rituals. One to invoke who knows what, and one to forgive himself for doing it.”

  “Jeezus,” Ben whispered.

  “I need to see this crime scene, Ben,” I told him, still staring at the two-dimensional horror.

  “I don’t know, Rowan...” he began to protest.

  “No, Ben,” I shot back, “I’m serious. I don’t know for sure what this guy is up to yet, but you’ve already told me that your expert can’t find his way around the block. If this bastard is really trying to do what I think he is, then I doubt if he’s going to stop here. If I’m physically on the scene, maybe I can find something that will help.” Without realizing it, I had stood up from my seat and had begun pacing. “Besides,” I stopped, looked down at the picture for a moment and then back to Ben’s face, “I know the victim.”

  “You know ‘er?” He stared back at me incredulously.

  “Her name’s Ariel Tanner,” I stated quietly and then turned away as if having the photographs behind me would make them magically disappear. I took a deep breath before adding, “She’s a... was… a Witch.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “I was her teacher. I instructed her in The Craft.”

  I could hear him scribbling quickly, making notes like a good cop was supposed to do. I had started him on the road to solving one of his mysteries, but an entirely new one was unfolding before me. A new one that my instincts were telling me would need to be solved very quickly.

  “Shit,” Ben muttered as he made his decision. “Okay. I’ll pick you up in the mornin’.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  CHAPTER 2

  I didn’t have any of the nightmares Ben warned me of—of course, you have to go to sleep in order to have nightmares. I was still sitting at the dining room table, absently studying the pattern of the sponge-painted walls when F
elicity awoke and wandered in.

  “Aye, it’s four A.M.,” she said with a yawn as she hooked her arm around my neck and fell into my lap. The fact that she wasn’t fully awake was allowing a hint of her Celtic brogue to show through. “How late were you and Ben drinking, then?” She reached out to the table and picked up my coffee cup then took a swallow. “Yech, needs sugar.”

  I wrapped an arm about her waist and held her close. I had never been any good at breaking bad news to people, and I wasn’t really looking forward to doing it now. I let my head rest against her chest and took in the sweet scent of her long auburn curls. I felt comfortable and safe against her, and I held her even tighter. A foreboding deep inside told me that this was the last time I was going to feel this way for a while, so I allowed it to linger as long as I could.

  “Row,” she asked, resting her cheek against my head. “What’s wrong?”

  Her drowsy voice threw back my thin security blanket of denial and exposed me once again to the frigid reality I had come to accept only a few hours before. I took in a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh, and then reluctantly, I spoke, “Remember Ariel Tanner?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “What about her? Is everything okay?” She pulled away, remaining in my lap, and bringing a hand beneath my bearded chin, raised my face to meet her concerned gaze.

  “She was murdered,” I told her. “Ben is the investigating officer.”

  “Oh no...” she whispered, her voice trailing off, and then hugged me tightly. “When did it happen? How?”

  “A couple of days ago. As for the how...well, it wasn’t pretty. It looks like it might have been a ritual murder.”

  “A ritual murder!” she gasped. “You mean as in someone sacrificed her?”

  “That’s how it appears.” I continued, “In the crime scene pictures Ben showed me, anyway.”

  Her voice suddenly took on a sharp, almost angry tone, “Why would he show pictures to you, then? Has he lost his mind?”

  “Now don’t go off the deep end.” I helped her gently from my lap and stood up. “He had no idea that I knew her, and he was showing me the pictures because I offered to help. It seems his expert wasn’t having much luck deciphering the symbols left at the scene.” Picking up my coffee cup, I went into the kitchen to freshen it, Felicity trailing along behind.

  “I see.” She calmed and held out a cup she had retrieved from the cabinet. She stopped me when I had filled it just over halfway. “Were you able to figure anything out for him?”

  I leaned against the counter and took a sip of hot java. “Well, whoever committed the crime performed a ritual flaying, I would assume in order to invoke something. What’s interesting though, is that there were also blatant signs of what I’m pretty sure was supposed to be an Expiation spell.”

  “Expiation spell,” she repeated while stirring sugar into her cup. “So do you think that the killer felt remorse and was trying to get rid of the guilt then?”

  I nodded. “That’s my best guess for now. I’ll know more in a few hours.”

  “What happens in a few hours?” she queried, her bright, green eyes peering at me over the rim of her cup as she took a drink.

  “I’m going to look at the crime scene with Ben.”

  “You’re what?!” Her eyes grew large and she nearly dropped her mug. “What in the name of the Mother Goddess are you doing that for?”

  “Calm down, sweetheart.” I held up my hand defensively. “You know as well as I do that if this creep is for real, he’s likely to do something like this again sooner or later. Probably sooner.”

  “Aye, so let the police handle it,” she shot back. “It’s their job, not yours.”

  “I intend to,” I told her. “But you also know that if he’s leaving behind blatant occult symbology, the media and the cops will end up on a real ‘Witch’ hunt. If they knew what they were looking at to begin with, then Ben wouldn’t have asked for my advice.”

  “Well.” She calmed significantly as the logic took hold. “You’re right about that.”

  “I just want to make sure they get the real bad guy and not pin it on some poor unsuspecting kid just because he has long hair and a copy of Buckland’s Complete Book of WitchCraft on his bookshelf.”

  “I agree,” she surrendered.

  “Besides,” I said, turning and attempting to look out into the darkness through the sliding doors but seeing only my ragged reflection staring back at me, “if this cretin actually has a background in The Craft...”

  “...It’s going to take a Witch to catch a Witch gone bad,” Felicity finished the sentence for me. “And that Witch is going to be you.”

  “It might have to be,” I told her.

  “Aye, that’s what scares me,” she replied.

  * * * * *

  I convinced Felicity to go ahead on her planned outing with her nature photography club but only after promising to call her if something of consequence happened. She made a great show of placing her cell phone prominently in a pocket of her photo vest and reminding me of the number before loading her equipment and setting out. I had showered and tied my long brown hair back in a ponytail after she left and was making a futile attempt to relax on the front porch swing when Ben pulled into the driveway.

  “Hey, paleface,” he greeted me as he climbed the stairs.

  I held up my hand in a classic TV Indian greeting. “How, Tonto.”

  “However I can get it.” He motioned to the coffee cup in my hand. “Got any more of that? I’m havin’ a hell of a time wakin’ up this mornin’.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I replied, getting up and opening the door. “Same here. It’s the only thing standing between me and sleep right now.”

  Ben took a seat in the living room and was promptly accosted by a large, green-eyed, black cat that elected to take up residence in his lap. Dickens, as we called him, loved having visitors, especially men, and was quick to claim them for his own. I headed for the kitchen while he settled in, then quickly returned with a steaming cup of black coffee and handed it to Ben.

  “I gotta be honest with ya’, Rowan,” he began, scratching the purring lump of fur beneath its chin. “I was thinkin’ on the way over, and I’m not so sure about you goin’ to the scene and all.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked. “Is it because I’m a civilian?”

  “No, not at all,” he answered. “Civilian consultants ain’t that unusual. What I’m worried about is the fact that you knew the victim.”

  “I see,” I nodded. “So you think I might be too close to this whole thing.”

  “It crossed my mind,” he answered and then took a sip from his cup.

  I had seated myself across from him in my favorite chair, an antique rocker. Gazing thoughtfully into space, I gently nudged it into motion. I had been told more than once by my parents that as a child, whenever I was lost in thought, I would rock, rocking chair or not. I still did.

  “I’m not going to lie to you Ben,” I finally said. “It does get to me that Ariel is the victim, and yes, she was a good friend even though we hadn’t seen one another for over a year.” I stopped the chair and leaned forward. “On the other hand, I have knowledge that might help to catch whoever did this. I think I demonstrated that last night.”

  “I’ll give ya’ that,” he replied. “But what do you think you’re gonna find at the scene that wasn’t in the photos?”

  “Hopefully something that will tell me if this guy is for real or just trying to make it look that way.”

  “And that somethin’ would be?”

  “I won’t know until I see it...or feel it,” I explained. “What I’m looking for might not be visible to the naked eye.”

  “You mean like some kinda psychic thing? You know I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “I know, but I do, and if it gives you a solid lead, what does it matter?”

  “Okay, tell me this.” He skipped past answering my question and proceeded into another of his own. �
�You ain’t lookin’ for revenge or somethin’ are you?”

  “No. Not at all,” I answered with unabashed honesty. “There’s no need. What goes around comes around. He’ll get what’s coming to him whether I help you or not…Eventually.”

  “Yeah, well that’s a pretty idealistic sentiment.”

  “It comes with the religion.”

  Ben grunted and stared thoughtfully into the depths of the mug held between his large hands. After a short period of suggestive silence, he looked up at me with deadly serious eyes. “Mind if I ask where ya’ were Wednesday evenin’?”

  I was taken aback by the question and what it implied. At first I was hurt and then angry. It took less than a second for the anger to be replaced by understanding. I knew the victim, and I knew The Craft. The symbols and words in the pictures were no great mysteries to me. I was sure that Ben didn’t truly suspect me of the crime, but if he was going to bring me into this investigation, someone was bound to ask the question. He was correct to assume that I would prefer it came from him.

  “Felicity and I had dinner with my dad,” I answered. “We went over to his place around four-thirty and left from there.”

  “Where’d you eat?”

  “Union Station,” I told him. “There’s a restaurant down there with a fantastic mixed grill. Before you ask,” I added, “we got home around nine-thirty.”

  “Your old man can verify this, right?”

  “The phone’s right there.” I pointed at the bookshelves. “His number is on the speed dial. I’m sure the receipt is upstairs if you want a copy of that too.”

  “I’m sorry, man.” He looked back down at his drink. “You know I had ta’ ask...”

  “...Or somebody else would,” I finished the sentence for him. “It’s all right. I was a little miffed at first, but I understand.”

  “Okay,” he answered, then drained the coffee from his cup and set it on the table before him. “Let’s go do this.”