A mechanical sound reaches me, felt as well as heard.
Tick, tick… Click!
Tick, tick… Click!
Tick, tick, tick… Click!
My body tenses as I feel my shoulders slowly and simultaneously ripped from their sockets. Something is pulling down against my ankles and my legs are straining to remain joined with the rest of my body.
The metallic click of a gear ratcheting reverberates again.
Tick, tick. Click!
Tick! Clunk!
“Nooooooooooooo.” My cry is no more than a meek whimper.
Muscles and tendons are tearing. Various spots along my upper back spasm and snap like broken rubber bands. White-hot projectiles of torment race through my nervous system at a quickening pace.
Bursting like bullets from my chest, they only turn to re-enter and retrace every inch over and over again.
It is more than I can stand.
As the light begins to fade, I can see his shadow on the floor in front of me, large and foreboding. I can barely hear muffled words.
Something about proof of my crimes.
Something about proof of my heresy.
Something about evidence to validate my “confession.” Something about begging the forgiveness of God.
Darkness overwhelms me.
A deep voice echoes to me. Someone I should know. A name comes to mind. Ben. “Come on, white man, you sonofabitch! Don’t you die on me!”
I am no longer in the basement.
I am outside.
I am still nude.
It is freezing.
Icy wind is slicing through me like a razor.
My arms are bound behind me, as if it mattered. They hang limp and useless from my shoulders. I am secured to something that is rough against my back. It feels like a post or a tree, but I can’t be sure.
The pain is the only thing of which I am positive.
Even the frigid night cannot kill the pain.
I can taste something oily and acrid mixing with the blood in my mouth.
Something strong.
Something caustic.
It numbs my tongue and burns my nostrils.
The smell of it is familiar.
The memory tickles my brain.
Something about light.
Something about warmth.
Kerosene.
It is kerosene and I can feel it splashing down my body.
Dripping.
Corrosively eating away at my open wounds.
“Kendra Darlene Miller.” A dark voice accuses me, “You have openly admitted your crimes of heresy and of engaging in the practice of WitchCraft.”
An enormous, gloved hand roughly grasps my jaw and forces my face upward.
Oily kerosene drips from my soaked hair and into my eyes, burning them.
Blurring my sight.
“I hold before you evidence. Evidence recently obtained from your apartment which validates your confession of these crimes.”
Through my clouded sight I can scarcely make out the silver shape of a pentacle dangling from a chain.
A necklace.
My necklace.
His proof.
The hand releases its grip, and my head is dragged rapidly downward by gravity.
I can hear shuffling footsteps amidst the bitter, sighing wind. The footsteps come to a halt behind me.
An involuntary shiver trickles through my freezing body.
“We, by the mercy of God,” the dark voice begins in an imperious tone, “seeing that you, Kendra Darlene Miller, have been accused before us by public report of heresy, and that you have for many years persisted in those heresies to the great hurt of your immortal soul; and We, whose duty is to exterminate the plague of heresy and WitchCraft, wishing to be more certain of whether you walked the path of darkness or light, have diligently examined you, and find you are indeed infected with the said heresy.”
“No. This isn’t happening,” is the only thing that passes through my mind.
“In as much as you have duly and properly admitted your crimes, and having before us the Holy Gospels that our judgment may proceed as from the countenance of God, by this sentence we cast you away as an impenitent heretic, Witch, and Concubine of Satan, and do hereby deliver you unto the power of our most Holy God. As you are damned in body and soul, your sentence on this day is death. The sentence is to be executed immediately, without appeal, in the manner of expurgation by fire.”
“No! No! This can’t be!”
“May The Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon your soul.”
I cannot move.
I can hear the scraping of a match against stone.
I cannot scream.
I can hear the explosive spark as the match ignites.
Somebody please help me!
I can see the faint shadows cast as the flame on the match head flares and settles to an even burn.
NO! THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!
I am crying.
Thunder crashes in my ears as the kerosene ignites.
Hot yellow agony licks across my body.
“He’s posturing.” The distantly familiar female voice pierces my nightmare. “Look at his hands.”
“GODDAMIT, ROWAN, NO!” I can hear the deep voice now. The one called Ben. “You’re NOT gonna make me tell Felicity you’re dead!”
Fire clings to me in a vicious shroud. I’m holding my breath as the flame washes over my face furiously catching my hair and blossoming upward with yet another loud crash.
I want to scream as the angry blaze literally cooks my flesh.
A sudden roar mixes with the rush of the fire and marries with a high-pitched grind before fading away on the night.
Flames consume all that is.
A sharp sting ripped through my left cheek.
Of all the hurt I was experiencing, this was the least. At the same time, it was the worst.
There was something different about it.
Sizzling noises.
Crackling noises.
I know that they are coming from me.
The gag is burning.
A pair of pantyhose melting into my skin.
I can’t hold my breath any longer.
Maybe I can scream.
I gasp.
Liquid fire rushes down my throat.
Expanding through my lungs.
I choke.
No sound comes past my seared lips.
The bizarre, piercing discomfort attacked me again. This time, my right cheek reported the sensation. Off in the control center of my brain, a series of comparisons took place. A vague recollection of something called the plane of physical reality was suddenly rushed to the forefront.
I snapped my eyes open.
I awoke to find myself sprawled on a metal table in what I knew to be an autopsy suite at the city morgue. Ben was towering over me, one meaty paw entwined in the front of my shirt, the other reared back in preparation to impart a serious-looking backhand to my face. Just as I started to cringe, I caught a swift motion from the corner of my eye and saw Doctor Sanders reach out to grab his wrist.
“Hold it, Storm!” she barked as she leaned in and brought her concerned gaze to meet mine. “Mister Gant, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
I felt Ben’s hand relax and release my shirt immediately following my gravelly-voiced answer, which simply came out as “I could really use a drink.”
CHAPTER 7
My hands were still shaking as I poured myself a second drink from the bottle of Gentleman Jack. Under normal circumstances I would have preferred Scotch to bourbon, but obviously, the word “normal” wasn’t something that one would readily apply to what had just transpired. At this particular point I wasn’t about to argue, and since Tennessee whiskey was what Doctor Sanders had hidden away in her desk drawer, it would have to do. At least it was good bourbon.
My shakes weren’t blatantly obvious, but they were perceptible, and very little escaped Ben Storm’s scrutiny.
A veteran witness to my sometimes sudden, supernormal departures, he stood mute on the other side of the office, holding up the wall with his back and nursing a drink while patiently waiting for me to continue. Doctor Sanders, on the other hand, while knowing of my perceptions, was a novice in this arena. Seated opposite me at her desk, she was still staring in wide-eyed amazement. Every now and then she would shift her gaze from me to Ben then back. Having only recently been baptized by fire, so to speak, she had done little more than listen and tend to her own libation as I relayed the experience to the best of my ability. No matter how hard I searched, I was unable to find words that could truly describe what I had just shared with the tortured soul of a dead woman.
Tossing my head back, I downed the second three-finger measure of the brown liquor and set the highball glass back onto the desk, taking care to place it on the notepad I was using for a coaster.
“Like I said, I never saw his face... I... She...never had the chance.” As if to punctuate my statement, the handful of ice cubes in the tumbler clinked musically as they settled. “I’m pretty sure I’d recognize his voice if I heard it again, though.”
“And you’re pretty sure on the identity of the corpse too, right?” Ben turned up the notebook he held at his side and glanced quickly down at it. “Kendra Miller. Middle name, Darlene.”
“That’s what he called her.” I nodded as I wrapped my hand around the neck of the bottle of bourbon. “He stated her full name when he passed judgment and informed her of her sentence.”
“You think maybe she knew him?” he asked. “Sure sounds like he knew her.”
“I didn’t get that impression,” I answered. “She was very confused... And she was afraid of him, that’s for sure. But I don’t think she knew who he was, or I would have picked it up. His familiarity with her was probably from afar. He might have stalked her…” I shrugged. “I don’t know. At any rate, the fact that he knew her full name was a formality. It was kind of a ‘legal necessity’ shall we say, for when he passed his sentence on her. Just like it would have been during the time of the Inquisition.”
“By all means, let’s make sure the legal necessities are all friggin’ covered,” Ben muttered sarcastically. “Any possibility this one might’ve been a hooker too?”
I touched the mouth of the bottle to the rim of my glass and carefully splashed another double over the melting ice. “I don’t know. I can guarantee you of one thing about her though... She was guilty as charged. Kendra Miller was a practicing Witch.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Doctor Sanders hesitantly broke her self-imposed reticence. “I mean if I understood you correctly, the killer’s proof was the necklace. It might not have even belonged to her.”
“Oh, it belonged to her all right. No doubt in my mind.” I twirled the alcohol in the tumbler while watching the light glow through its amber translucence and then rested the glass on my knee. I had hammered the first two drinks, and on an empty stomach they had quickly served their purpose by chasing away my trembles with their liquid courage. I was beginning to feel a mildly warm tingle creeping along the back of my scalp and decided I had better take it easy with this one. “I’m sure she was of The Craft because of the strength of the vision and the force with which I was drawn into it. I had a similar experience with Ariel Tanner when she was murdered... Only the spirit of a Witch could have pulled me in like that.”
“Amazing,” she muttered before taking a sip of her own drink.
“You said this asshole told ‘er he got the evidence—the necklace—from her apartment recently. Right?” Ben pressed.
“Yeah. That’s what he said.”
“But ya’ don’t know how long she was left alone?”
“The whole thing was pretty disjointed,” I confessed. “I really couldn’t determine any type of reference point for time, so I guess the answer would be no. Why do you ask?”
Ben set his drink atop a nearby filing cabinet, and his now free hand went up to smooth his hair then slid easily down to begin massaging his neck. “Just curious. I thought maybe once we found ‘er apartment, we could determine a radius or somethin’. An area where this wingnut might be operatin’ out of. But if ya’ don’t know how long he was gone...” He let his voice fade.
“Sorry,” I offered.
“Not your fault,” he returned. “So what about the basement, if that’s what it was. Do ya’ remember anything about it? Anything unique?”
“Just what I already told you. Your standard grey concrete walls and floor. They were a little on the pitted side though, so I’d guess it was an older house... Kind of hefty rafters... Wooden stairs... Had a fairly high ceiling, considering... And then there was the oversized crucifix and the candles. Get rid of those and it’s just a pretty basic basement.”
“Crucifix and candles,” he echoed under his breath then paused. “That would imply that the killer is Roman Catholic.”
“Or Greek Orthodox, or Russian Orthodox, or Lutheran for that matter...” I let my voice trail off. “I’m inclined to agree that he practices some manner of Catholicism based on his adherence to the Malleus Maleficarum. Of course, Saint Louis is just like most large cities. We have a rather substantial population of traditional Catholics as well as the various offshoots. The religion factor, in and of itself, really doesn’t narrow the field much.”
“Don’t remind me,” he sighed.
The ensuing silence was interrupted by a muffled electronic warble demanding immediate attention. Ben stepped over to a chair and rummaged about in his coat then produced a hand-held cell phone from a pocket. Flipping it open and stabbing it on, he cut off the third ring mid-peal and placed it against his ear. “Storm.”
Only he was privy to who was on the other end of the line, but his broken attempts to reply made it apparent that the person was a mere heartbeat away from hysterics. The caller’s identity became immediately obvious when he was finally able to forcibly wedge a sentence into the one-sided conversation. “Whoa, whoa, calm down, okay? He’s right here and he’s fine. I’m standin’ here lookin’ at ‘im... No problem. Hold on.”
Ben had covered the short distance between us as he talked and now offered me the device. “It’s your wife. If I understood her right she seems ta’ think that you’re dead.”
Upon hearing my voice, Felicity abandoned her frenzy of concern and burst into relieved sobs. Running the full gamut of emotions at a breakneck pace, her solace was quickly followed by happiness, embarrassment, and eventually anger. I allowed her to vent, and after five minutes of bombarding me with her particular brand of Irish fury at my having engaged in such a dangerous endeavor, she completed the circle and returned once again to relief. A few moments later I finally convinced her I was fine and promised to stay that way.
Doctor Sanders had been sitting quietly and now stared at me incredulously for a moment as I switched off the phone and handed it back to Ben.
“Your wife could see what you were seeing?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” I returned. “More along the lines of a premonition or a nightmare. She saw me being burned and felt some of the pain that I was feeling.”
She continued to stare across her desk at me and slowly cocked one eyebrow. Momentarily, she drained her glass of bourbon and planted it on the desktop then pushed her chair back. “I’m not entirely sure what to make of anything I’ve heard so far tonight, Mister Gant... But on that note, I believe I have an autopsy to finish.”
* * * * *
My dinner consisted of a stale Zagnut coaxed unceremoniously from a recalcitrant vending machine in the lobby of the building. I had washed it down with coffee served in a cheerfully decorated paper cup left over from a holiday office party. It now felt as though it was lodged sideways in the pit of my stomach, angrily fighting for space with the three tumblers of bourbon. Not exactly fine dining at Kemoll’s, but I took what I could get.
Quarter-sized clumps of snow were pelting me mercilessly as I tipped my head back an
d swallowed the last dregs from the red and green, holly-inscribed vessel. The remaining brew had already begun to grow cold, and it slowly forced its way down my throat in a bitter, watery lump.
While sitting alone in the break room, choking down the dry candy bar, I had been subjected to only slightly muted versions of the earlier pains brought about by the procedure going on in the autopsy suite. Physically, I could neither see nor hear what was happening in that room. Mentally, I was being treated to—or more accurately, tortured by—a first hand view through a dead woman’s eyes. Before long I was left with no choice other than to seek safe haven by placing even more distance between the corpse and myself. Constrained by the hazardous travel conditions and my only avenue for refuge being outdoors, I had ventured out into the snowy night. The added distance served to blunt a good deal of the pain; however, even the frozen darkness couldn’t remove it entirely.
I had continued to feel the spirit of Kendra Miller cry out in protest at what was being done to her earthly remains. I was unable to escape her wailing lament at what she could only view as more torture.
I crumpled the empty paper cup and stuffed it into my coat pocket then turned my back to the frigid wind, seeking what shelter I could alongside the glassed-in foyer that jutted from the front of the building. With cold-numbed hands, I slipped the cellophane from a Cruz Real #2 and neatly guillotined the end. A thick swoosh sounded behind me as the sluggish metal-framed door was forced open, and I heard heavy footsteps squeakily crunching in the snow.
“Still hooked on those Mexicans, eh?” Ben’s voice met my ears, the words making a weary jab at my choice of cigar brands.
The match I held cupped in my hands flared to life, and I touched its fire to the cigar clenched between my teeth. Staring into it, I felt myself becoming mesmerized by the tiny flame. A hot knife dragged down my spine, and I closed my eyes tightly, forcibly willing away the vibrant Technicolor flashes of my recent vision.
Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 9