Crone’s Moon argi-5

by M. R. Sellars

  “Okay, for the moment,” I answered. “Not exactly good, but she seems to be holding her own.”

  Felicity had continued drifting in and out of lucidity, occasionally whimpering my name, then in the same instant looking at me as though I were a complete stranger. All of this was punctuated by fits of quiet sobbing and choking pleas for help. At the moment, her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. She would moan quietly every now and then. From all outward appearances, she looked to be working through a fevered dream.

  The one fortunate circumstance was that the excruciating attacks seemed to have stopped. When they would return was anybody’s guess, but I was mutely begging for never.

  “What about you?” he queried.

  “I’m fine,” I told him, but my voice was clearly betraying my distraught mood every time I opened my mouth.

  “Yeah,” he returned, unconvinced. “It’s gonna be okay, Row.”

  “Uh-huh,” I grunted.

  He didn’t press the point. We simply traveled in silence for a moment or two before Mandalay spoke up.

  “Okay, Storm, do you have a plan?” she asked, shifting the subject yet again.

  “You mean other than shooting this bastard?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not yet,” he admitted. “You?”

  “Well, we’re probably going to need backup at some point, assuming we find what we’re looking for,” she offered.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I know. I’m gonna hafta call Albright too.”

  “We have to find her,” I insisted, throwing myself back into the conversation. “He’s going to kill her and Felicity in the process!”

  “I know, Rowan,” Mandalay told me. “And we will find her. Right now we’re just speculating about procedures.”

  “Okay, here we go,” Ben announced.

  I turned to look out the windshield and saw that we were veering off Highway 270 onto the exit ramp for Route 3 north. I immediately turned back to check on Felicity but found no change.

  “What if, and this is a big ‘what if’,” Constance began, “we aren’t able to locate Kimberly Forest? Is there anything at all you can do to protect Felicity?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, twisting back around to look at her. “I’ve never seen this happen before.”

  “What about you?” Ben asked. “You go freakin’ Twilight Zone all the time.”

  “Not like this,” I replied.

  “So why do ya think she’s not… you know…”

  “…In pain right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My guess is that the asshole got off, and he’s taking a break.”

  A hush fell over us all on the heels of my comment. What I had said wasn’t something new. Even the FBI agent at Quantico who’d worked up the profile of this killer had commented that the torture was probably the acting out of a psychosexual fantasy. I guess hearing it said aloud, as opposed to reading it in a report, simply made the sick concept a little too personal.

  “Let’s hope it’s a long one,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, my voice cold and flat.

  The sullen quiet crept in again. I looked out into the darkness as we merged quickly onto Route 3 and started north. The morbid atmosphere in the van continued to bloom, eventually becoming more than my friend could bear.

  “Friggin’ dark out tonight,” he finally said. “Must be the clouds.”

  “Wouldn’t matter if it was clear,” I offered. “It’s a crone’s moon.”

  “Do what?”

  “Crone’s moon. The darkness prior to the new moon,” I explained.

  “That something special?” he asked.

  “It’s a time of introspection,” I replied with a humorless half-chuckle, given the circumstances. Then I paused before adding, “It can also be a time of some very serious dark magick.”

  “I thought Witches didn’t do black magick.”

  “I didn’t say black. I said dark.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “A big one.”

  “They’re arguing…” a thin and very weak voice came from behind me.

  I turned slowly back to Felicity and saw that she had lolled her head to the side and her eyes were open, staring directly at me. Her cheeks were still damp with tears, and she looked exhausted. Her features were drawn and severe, telling me that she was still dealing with a healthy amount of pain.

  “Felicity?” I asked.

  She gave her head a barely perceptible shake. “No… Felicity is coming for me.”

  The voice was my wife’s, but the inflections were someone else’s entirely. Gone was her Celtic lilt, something that even at its faintest was still perceptible. The pattern of her speech was now fully Midwestern American, and even more specifically, south county Saint Louis.

  “Kimberly?” I asked out of reflex.

  “Yes…” she whimpered, the single word coming out as a dying whine.

  I pressed forth. “Who’s arguing, Kimberly?”

  “They are…”

  “Who are they?”

  “The ones who hurt me,” she whimpered.

  I felt like I was talking to a small child who couldn’t reason through a general question. With the sense of urgency I was feeling, I was having trouble maintaining my patience and in the end I couldn’t keep the insistent tone out of my voice. I shook my head at her and snapped, “Who, Kimberly? Who is he arguing with?”

  Felicity’s face contorted with a look of fear, and she simply whined. I immediately damned myself for losing control.

  “Ssshhh,” I shushed her softly as I reached out and stroked her hand. “Ssshhh… Kimberly, I’m sorry. It’s just that this is important.”

  “Is Kimberly Forest actually talking to you?” Constance asked, incredulity underscoring the whispered question.

  “I think so,” I quietly replied over my shoulder. “Or her subconscious mind at least.”

  “Jeezus…” Ben muttered, then asked in a louder voice. “Is she sayin’ that there’s more than one of ‘em?”

  “Who is that?” Kimberly asked, a new thread of fear weaving through her words.

  “It’s okay, Kimberly,” I replied. “He’s a police officer. He’s coming with me to help you.”

  “Help me!” she pleaded, calling out with a fleeting burst of energy. “Please, help me!”

  “She could hear me?” Ben asked.

  “Apparently,” I told him.

  “Pleeeeaaaasssseee…” she whimpered.

  “That’s what we want to do,” I soothed as I turned back to her.

  “Can you ask her where she is?” Constance pressed, still keeping her voice low as if she was afraid she would interfere.

  “Please help me…” Felicity’s voice whined again before I could answer.

  “We are,” I told her. “We’re coming with Felicity to get you.”

  “Please…”

  “But, listen to me carefully,” I continued, struggling to keep calm. “We need your help. We’re trying to find you right now, but we don’t know where you are. Can you tell us?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Can you tell me what you see?”

  “It’s dark,” she replied.

  “Okay,” I said. “Are you in a house?”

  “I think so,” she sobbed. “They come down stairs to hurt me.”

  “Did you see the house from the outside?”

  “No…”

  “Nothing?” I pressed.

  “No…”

  “So much for that,” I barely heard Constance whisper to Ben.

  “Kimberly,” I said. “You have to help us find you. Is there anything at all you can remember?”

  “They’re arguing again…” she replied, totally bypassing my question.

  “Ask her who,” Ben called out.

  “Who is arguing?” I asked, completely forgetting the earlier exchange.

  “They are.”

  I sighed and quickly refor
mulated the question. “Kimberly, can you tell me who is arguing with who?”

  “Her…” she said. “He’s arguing with her.”

  “Her?”

  “Yes, her…” she moaned.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “The dyke,” she muttered. “He’s upset about what she did to my face.”

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “He’s upset that she burned my face,” she whined. “He keeps saying ‘You don’t hurt face.’”

  “That must be why the torture stopped,” I offered to Ben and Constance.

  “If we’re lucky maybe they’ll fuckin’ kill each other over it,” Ben mumbled.

  “Ask her if she remembers hearing or smelling anything that might help?” Constance whispered.

  I relayed the question.

  “Sometimes the music…” she told me.

  “What kind of music?” I asked.

  “Death Metal.”

  I flashed on the driving thrum that had accompanied the onset of several of my episodes. I’d heard of the particular genre she mentioned, but was unfamiliar with it, that was until now. It would seem that the angry music not only had an explanation, it had a name.

  I was just about to press her for more when I heard Mandalay’s voice, noticeably louder than before.

  “Watch it, Storm,” she instructed.

  “I see ‘em,” he returned.

  “Wait a minute… Is that…” Constance’s frightened voice trailed off.

  “What the fuck…” Ben sounded confused. “How the hell did she…”

  I turned to see what was happening just as he exclaimed, “Jeezus H. Christ!”

  The van violently lurched as he yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. I fell sideways as I twisted, crashing hard against the side of the passenger seat. The van shuddered and there was the sickening sound of locked brakes and rubber squealing against asphalt as we careened off the side of the road. In the split second before we slid nose first into the ditch, I caught a shadowy flash of what had just put us there.

  Directly in the middle of Route 3, with a single palm pressed stiffly out toward us, was a petite woman with pale skin and long, spiraling, auburn hair.

  CHAPTER 39:

  “Everybody okay?” Ben called out, voice not quite frantic, but carrying a definite edge of concern.

  “Yeah,” Constance replied, nodding her head vigorously.

  We hadn’t crashed so much as we had simply skidded off the road. The van was angled diagonally into a shallow drainage channel, causing us to pitch forward and to the right. We were shaken up, but that was about it.

  The headlights were now cocked at such an angle that they were shining against a grassy embankment. The autumn-paled vegetation was now reflecting some of the light back, bringing a dim luminance to the interior of the vehicle.

  “Row?” he inquired.

  “I’m fine,” I returned, pulling myself up using the back of Constance’s seat for leverage against the odd angle.

  “So did everyone see that, or am I goin’ fuckin’ nuts here?” Ben was continuing to talk even as he braced himself against the steering wheel and twisted around in his seat. I could see in his eyes that he was searching for Felicity. I got the impression from my friend’s sudden silence that he actually wasn’t expecting to see my wife still securely belted into her seat.

  As soon as I had made it to my knees, I was turning to check on her myself. While I wasn’t at all surprised to see her sitting there, I was relieved that she didn’t seem to have been knocked around too badly. Her heavy-lidded eyes were half closed, but she appeared to be conscious and was even looking in my direction.

  “I saw her. She was…” I heard Constance reply hesitantly, her voice tainted with awe. “But now she’s…”

  “What the fuck was that?” Ben almost demanded.

  I heard the query but was otherwise occupied. I scrambled over to Felicity’s seat and gently touched her arm. I wasn’t quite sure how to address her at this point, but I knew the last person I’d spoken to had not been my wife-in spirit anyway. And, even though voices were being shared through the ethereal connection, whether or not physical experiences were as well was still a mystery. I hedged my bet and simply asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” my wife replied, ignoring the chatter in the front of the van. Although her voice was somewhat weak, her unmistakable Irish brogue was fully intact and thick as ever.

  “Felicity?” I asked.

  “Aye, of course. Did you bump your head then, Rowan? Who else would I be?”

  I smiled for what seemed the first time all day. “Nice to have you back,” I said.

  She gave me a puzzled look. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I am now,” I told her.

  “Hey,” Ben called out again. “One of you wanna answer me? What the fuck was that?”

  “A glamour,” I answered without turning.

  “Ya mean like that time when you made me see a spider crawlin’ on my shoulder?” He referred back to a bit of impromptu hypnosis I’d once used on him to prove a point.

  “Pretty much.”

  “What’s he on about now?” Felicity asked. “What glamour?”

  “Yours,” I replied.

  She wrinkled her brow and gave her head a slight shake. “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s talkin’ about you standin’ in the middle of the fuckin’ road,” Ben interjected sternly. “You scared the shit outta me. You coulda’ got us all killed.”

  “What?”

  “You. Road. Swerve. Ditch,” he replied, each word punctuated succinctly by a sharp gesture of his hand.

  “Like I said, a glamour,” I explained. “All three of us just saw an apparition of you standing in the middle of the road trying to flag us down.”

  “No wonder I’m so exhausted then,” she said. “Although I can’t imagine why I’d do such a thing.”

  “It’s good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “So I guess this means we’re close, huh?” Ben interjected with a huff.

  “I’d say that’s a safe bet,” I replied.

  “Close to what?” Felicity asked.

  “Close to finding Kimberly Forest,” Constance told her.

  “How so?”

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Felicity?” she asked.

  “I think so,” my wife replied, trying to look past me. “I’ve a few pains I can’t explain, but mainly I’m confused.” She unlatched her safety harness and pushed herself forward. “Rowan, help me sit up.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I told her, fumbling for the lever and easing the back of the seat upward. “Given what you’ve been through.”

  “Aye, I had a seatbelt on which is more than I can say for you,” she said quickly. “Now what’s this about being close to Kimberly? Can somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

  “What are you…” I gave her a puzzled look as my voice faded. “Felicity, do you remember anything that’s happened?”

  “Aye, we’re supposed to be going across the river to look for Kimberly, and apparently Benjamin just ran us off the road.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” my friend instructed then popped his door open. The key alarm hesitantly blipped and then began a sickly buzz. “All right, since everyone’s okay, I’m gonna check outside and get an idea of where we are.” Before climbing out, he cast a glance back over his shoulder and directed himself at my wife. “And you, stay put, will’ya?”

  “It wasn’t actually her, Ben,” I offered. “You know that.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less fucked up,” he replied.

  Mandalay said, “Storm’s right, you guys. That was too weird.”

  “Yeah, I’ll give you that,” I said. “But trust me, I’ve seen weirder.”

  Ben continued, “Weirder or not, lemme tell ya’, two of her is one too many, ‘specially if one of �
�em is in my head.” He looked back to Felicity again and said. “Like I said, no more hocus-pocus.”

  That said, he pushed the door fully open, climbed out, then carefully eased it back shut.

  Felicity let out a frustrated shriek and suddenly appealed, “Dammit, will somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Honey, we’ve been in Illinois for better than forty-five minutes now.”

  “Really?” she asked, the look on her face deeply serious. “Then where have I been?”

  “Mentally? With Kimberly, I’m pretty sure.”

  She grew quiet and looked as if she was trying very hard to remember. In many ways, I was relieved that she couldn’t recall the last hour; because it was one I suspected would be better left forgotten. I knew for a fact that it was a memory I, myself, wanted desperately to erase.

  She finally muttered, “I suppose that would be why the glamour then.”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking so.”

  She pressed, “Then where are we now?”

  “Route Three,” I told her. “A couple of miles north of Two-Seventy.”

  “Is that where she is?”

  I nodded. “She’s probably close by. And, judging from your little out of body display, I’d say VERY close.”

  She started up out of the seat. “Then we have to go get her.”

  “Slow down,” I told her, leaning forward and gently pressing her back. “We’re working on it.”

  She looked back at me and suddenly furrowed her brow. “Let me see your face.”

  “What?”

  “Let me see your face,” she repeated. “What happened to your cheek?”

  I reached up and touched the burn, wincing slightly as my fingertips came in contact with the blistered flesh. At this angle it was hidden in the shadows, but when I had leaned forward she had apparently noticed the blemish.

  I turned so that she could see it, then said, “Same thing that happened to yours and Kimberly’s”

  Felicity mirrored my motion, gently pressing around the wounds on her own face. She closed her eyes and let out a pained sigh. “Gods…”

  “I know, honey,” I said. “But it just may be the thing that buys us enough time to get her out of there alive.”

  “How?” she asked sullenly.

  “For about the past ten minutes, Kimberly Forest has been speaking through you,” I replied.