“You knew I was taking these classes, Rowan.” My petite, Irish-American wife made the statement and then paused to poke her head through the neckline of a sleeveless, pullover sweater then tug it down over her blouse. Quickly sliding her thumbs along either side of her jaw, she gathered her recently shower-dampened spirals of auburn hair and pulled them from the back of the garment then allowed them to spill over her shoulders, falling almost to her waist. She looked back at me and gave her head an exaggerated shake. “So what’s the problem?”
“I never said there was a problem,” I replied.
“You didn’t have to,” Felicity stated.
Her normally soft, Celtic lilt was taking on a far more discernable edge, and the colloquial speech of her heritage was starting to add itself to the mix. While the undertone was always there, it didn’t usually present itself so clearly except under particular circumstances-such as being overtired, inebriated, or surrounded by her relatives. Since I knew she was none of the above, it could only mean one thing. She was getting perturbed.
“I’d call it more of a concern,” I told her.
“Semantics,” she chided.
“Not really.”
“So, you don’t have a problem with this then?”
“No… Yes…” I almost stuttered, fighting for some middle ground with regard to my feelings. “I don’t know. I just wish you’d said something earlier instead of springing it on me like this.”
“I’m not springing anything on you, Rowan,” she returned. “I just took some photography classes, that’s all.”
“You’re the most sought after freelance photographer in Saint Louis, Felicity,” I objected. “You don’t just take some photography classes.”
“If I’m going to maintain that reputation, then I have to keep up on new techniques now, don’t I?”
“Quit dancing around it. You specifically took certification courses on crime scene photography.”
“Fine,” she spat. “Yes. I took classes on forensic, crime scene, and evidence photography to be exact. And, yes, I’m certified now.”
“Why?”
“Because I passed the final exam.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Because it’s an aspect of the business I wasn’t familiar with.”
“And it doesn’t have anything to do with Ben mentioning the freelance consultant program for the police department?”
She tried to sidestep the question. “You were sitting right there when he asked me if I was interested, and you didn’t object then.”
“No, I didn’t.” I gave a slight nod. “But, that was what? Seven, maybe eight months ago? As I recall, you said you were going to think about it.”
“Aye, I did think about it,” she shot back. She fixed her jade-green eyes on me and arched her eyebrow, daring me to challenge her response.
“And, apparently you came to a decision,” I said with a half-hearted shrug.
“Aye, that I did.”
“And now you’ve taken these classes, which tells me your decision is that you’re going to sign up for the consultant gig.”
She nodded. “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Okay then. Yes. I am.”
“Felicity, it’s not like we need the money. Between my business and yours, we’re in great shape. The house is paid for, our investments are stable, we’ve…”
She didn’t let me finish. “Money isn’t the point, Row. It’s something I want to do.”
“You WANT to take pictures of dead bodies? Victims of violent murders? Suicides?” I asked with more than a note of incredulity in my voice.
“It’s not likely to even come to that,” she explained. “The freelance program is for specialized photographic techniques that the regular crime scene unit doesn’t do. Infrared, ultraviolet, painting with light, and that sort of thing. Primarily for evidence.”
“So you would never be photographing dead bodies?”
“Well, maybe not never.” She shrugged. “I suppose it all depends on what they need then.”
“Well, don’t you think you should give this a little more thought?”
“Why?”
“Maybe because when you look through a camera lens, you see things most people don’t.”
“Then I should be pretty good at it, shouldn’t I.” She was telling, not asking.
“Probably too good. That’s what I mean… Think about who you are for a minute.”
“Who I am? What do you mean by that?”
“Come on, you’re a Witch.”
“So are you. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Gods, Felicity!” I exclaimed. “Are you trying to tell me the last few years have only been my imagination? Because if you are, I’m not buying it.”
“You’re the one who carries on conversations with the dead, Row, not me.”
“Excuse me?” It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “What do you think I meant about looking through a camera? Besides, have you forgotten your last little brush with the ethereal?”
“That was different.”
“Really? Do tell.”
“Kimberly was my friend. We had a connection. And, besides, that was more than two years ago.”
“Twenty-five months, today,” I offered. “And don’t tell me you didn’t know that. The two year anniversary was marked on your friggin’ calendar. That’s how I knew.”
“What were you doing looking at my calendar?” she barked.
“Checking to see if you were free so I could surprise you with a night out,” I shot back. “You know, dinner. Symphony. Maybe even a hotel room just to be different…”
She closed her eyes and gave her head a quick shake. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”
“You were evading the subject is what you were doing,” I replied.
“Yes, well, Kimberly’s death has nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah… Right…” I nodded as I paused, then fixed her with a serious stare. “You know, I thought the same thing after the first time it happened to me… Ariel Tanner was my friend, and I figured that pretty much had to be the reason for all the ethereal bullshit I was dealing with… I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself of that… You know that… But then… Well, we both know how that worked out, don’t we?”
Her gaze softened a bit. I could tell by the look on her face that my reference had hit home. The first homicide case I’d ever been dragged into by the spirit of the victim had affected her as well. Ariel had been my student of The Craft as well as a good friend to both of us. And, unfortunately, she was but one of a series of victims who were brutally tortured and murdered by a serial killer bent on a misguided quest that I still didn’t understand. I didn’t know that I ever would, but it haunted me on a daily basis, and that was bad enough.
Finding and stopping her killer hadn’t really brought me the peace I so desperately sought. In fact, it seemed more as if it had created a permanent connection between the other side of the veil and me, and ever since then the voices of the dead had become a constant din in my ears.
A few years later when Felicity’s friend, Kimberly Forest, was murdered, my wife ventured down that very same path with the same devastating results. I knew it was taking a toll, even now after all this time.
“Aye, but even you haven’t had anything major happen since Kimberly either,” Felicity countered. “Maybe it’s over, Rowan. Maybe we can finally get back to a normal life.”
I closed my eyes then reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. I could feel a headache coming on. It was hovering directly between my eyes, but unlike some of the ethereally induced pains I’d faced over the years, I was pretty sure this one could be easily addressed with a fistful of aspirin. At least I hoped it could.
“I wish I could believe that, honey,” I finally muttered. “But, I still hear them.”
“But…”
I didn’t let her finish. “Felicity… Sweetheart… It’s been a nice reprieve, but I think we both know this is probably just the calm before the storm.”
“Aye, maybe so,” she muttered. “But I’m still going to do this.”
“Why?” I pressed.
“Because I want to, then.”
“Okay, but why? Why do you want to?”
“Because I find it interesting,” she stated with an unconvincing shrug, once again trying to sidestep the issue. She turned her back to me and picked up a wide-toothed comb from her dressing table. Gathering a handful of her hair, she began intently working at detangling a section.
I watched her for a moment, silently mulling over my impending choice of words. I had been exactly where she was now, and I understood far better how she felt than anyone else possibly could. What I was about to say to her was something she had said to me more than once, and I didn’t want to come off as if I were feeding her own words back to her-even though that was exactly what I was about to do. After a measured beat I responded. “Because you find it interesting, or because you have something to prove?”
“What would I have to prove, then?” she asked, shifting her gaze slightly to look at my reflection in the mirror.
I took in a breath and with my words laid open the wound. “Maybe you feel guilty because you couldn’t save Kimberly Forest.”
She wheeled back around to face me and thrust the comb in my direction. “Don’t…” The word caught in her throat, and I thought I could hear her voice crack slightly. “Don’t… Just don’t go there.”
I nodded. “I thought so.”
“Damn your eyes, Rowan Linden Gant!” she admonished.
“Yeah, damn my eyes.”
I stepped forward and pulled her close, wrapping her in a tight hug. She melted into me as she rested her cheek against my shoulder. I knew she was harboring a desire to cry, but at the same time I was all too aware that she wouldn’t. We stood there for quite awhile, neither of us saying a thing but still communicating with clarity unmatched by simple words.
She finally pulled away then turned back to the mirror without comment and began working at her hair again. Her darkened mood was obvious from the vicious strokes she was making with the comb.
“Aye, I’m still going to do this, you know,” she eventually announced.
“Yeah,” I answered softly, placing my hand on her shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. “Yeah, I know you are.”
There are certain inalienable truths.
We’re born. We grow old. We die. And, somewhere within that span we live our lives. If we’re lucky, we find someone to live that life with. If we’re very lucky, we find that particular someone who makes us whole.
That was one of my personal truths.
In Felicity, I had found just exactly that person who made me whole. I suppose that would explain why I was so adamant about protecting her from those horrors I had already experienced-and would surely experience many more times before reaching that final truth.
At this particular moment, however, the biggest conflict in my mind was the fact that she was, for the most part, correct.
I was the one who talked to the dead.
It was me who had this preternatural connection with the Otherworld that brought unimaginable agonies to my life, both mental and physical. Felicity had only been dragged into the fray because she was desperately trying to protect me, even if it meant sacrificing herself. After repeatedly watching me go through ethereal visions so intense that bloody stigmata mimicking a victim’s wounds had appeared on my own body, she had seen more than enough. From her side of the fence, it had been a wholly different kind of torture, and when the tables were turned and I witnessed her going through the same things over Kimberly Forest, I gained a healthy respect for her feelings. I guess I couldn’t blame her. She was only doing exactly what I would do.
Still, I was just as stubborn as she, and when it came to being the protector, I felt it my place to assume that role. It was the very meaning behind the name Rowan, after all.
I plunged the tip of a shovel down into the soft earth and used my foot to shove it deeper still. Pulling back on the wooden handle, I levered a sizeable chunk of dirt upward and plopped it off to the side then repeated the process as I continued mulling over the events of the morning thus far.
We had reached an impasse. Felicity had it in her head that she was going to add herself to the list of freelance crime scene photographers used by the local police departments. As a matter of fact, at this very moment she was literally on her way to fill out the necessary paperwork.
The plain truth was that I was most likely worrying myself over nothing. Ben had told us that the local departments rarely used the freelancers. They were primarily there for the specialized photos just as Felicity had said. The only reason she’d had to go through the crime scene technician certification courses was to meet the requirements set forth by the city police department. What it really came down to was that the freelance program was really nothing more than a contingency plan born of an anal retentive bureaucracy.
So, as it stood, the likelihood of needing them was minimal, much less Felicity having her name drawn from the pool. Still, anyone can tell you that Murphy’s law will invoke itself without warning, and I just had a bad feeling that if her name was on the list, she was going to end up in the middle of something. What’s more, I feared that since she had been fully across the veil once, it would only take a single, highly charged experience to drag her under in an ethereal riptide. That was how it happened with me, so I had to figure it could happen with her-unless of course, I had any say in the matter.
And, that was the very reason why I was standing in our back yard on a chilly November morning, digging a hole in the rock garden.
It was cold enough to cause my breath to condense in rapidly dissipating clouds of steam yet still far enough above the freezing mark that the somewhat soggy ground was soft and easy to penetrate. My most laborious task so far had been moving the small boulder from the spot where I wanted to dig.
I had waited until I was certain Felicity was well on her way so that I would have ample time to complete my project. It was a task that was a long time coming. Something I’d started better than two years ago and now felt compelled to finish without delay.
I struck the point of the shovel into the hole with a repeated chopping motion, widening the small excavation to suit my purpose. I only stopped for a brief moment when my heart skipped a beat upon hearing our English setter and Australian cattle dog yelping at the gate. But, I immediately breathed a sigh of relief when I caught a glimpse of someone walking past the house on the sidewalk out front. For a frightening instant, I feared Felicity had returned too soon.
I finished squaring up the hole, which now looked to be better than a foot deep, then set the shovel aside. Kneeling next to it, I opened a small, metal toolbox I had set off to the side before starting the manual labor portion of this job. Inside the shallow container, pristine as when I had placed it there, was what would at first glance be considered a toy. It was a fashion doll to be exact, complete with long red hair and a smooth, ivory-tinted complexion. If ever there was a perfect representation of my ethnically stereotypical wife, this was it. The doll was wrapped securely in clear cellophane and trussed with a criss-crossed purple ribbon. It was a piece of SpellCraft commonly known as a binding. A powerful act of magick with, in this case, one purpose-to keep Felicity safe from harm. It was something I had worked immediately following my wife’s experience with Kimberly Forest’s kidnapping and eventual death.
Unfortunately, the day I had set about casting the spell, she had come home unexpectedly, and I’d had to hide the box before I could bury it. Soon after that, everything in our lives had calmed. It had been so quiet for the past two plus years that I had never seen the need to fully complete the spell. Still, I had kept the old metal box in the back of my desk’s file drawer all this time, hidden but not forgotten. I knew, as it sat now, in some sense it was working its intended magick. However, placing the poppet into the earth would bring the spell completely to fruition beyond any doubt-as long as Felicity didn’t know about it.
And, right now, something was telling me that it was imperative for the spell to be finished. I tried not to dismiss those “somethings” when they talked to me. Because, even though they usually got me in trouble, ignoring them just made the trouble that much worse.
I finally realized I was staring blankly at the doll and broke myself out of the shallow trance. I closed the lid and snapped the latch shut then nestled the box snugly at the bottom of the hole. I stood and with almost mechanical repetition, scooped the loose dirt in on top of it then tamped it down with the back of the shovel. After rolling the decorative boulder back into place-as well as muscling it around to make sure it looked close as possible to its original position-I scattered some of the fallen leaves around it in an attempt to hide any evidence that it had been disturbed.
I stood there staring at the rock for a long while, leaning on the shovel handle as I pondered the magnitude of what I had just done. A spell was supposed to be cast in perfect love and perfect trust. I could easily claim perfect love, but the issue of perfect trust was another story entirely. I was inflicting my will upon my wife without her knowledge, much less her blessing, and I knew for that I would eventually pay. Even so, if it kept her safe, the debt was one upon which I would gladly make good.
Finally, even though there was no one there to hear the words but me, I simply said, “Not on my watch, Felicity Caitlin O’Brien. Not on my watch.”
A few minutes later, I stowed the tools back in the shed then went inside to clean up and get down to work. I had a client with a system crash and two more with remote updates scheduled for installation this afternoon.
It was going to be a full day. Had I realized how full the days beyond this one were about to become, I would have considered it a vacation.
Tuesday, November 8
12:27 A.M.
Suite 1233, Concourse Suites
St. Louis, Missouri