The hands of the clock were firmly pressed up against midnight when we arrived at the Saint Louis City Morgue. Situated on Clark Avenue, the building was flanked by police headquarters on one side, an on-ramp to Highway 40 on the other, and across the street from the rear entrance of city hall. All in all, the structure was less than obtrusive in appearance-simple brick and mortar construction with nothing that would make it stand out, architecturally at least-against the rest of the buildings in the area. In reality, there would be nothing outwardly distinctive about it at all if it weren’t for the small, black-on-white, block lettered sign above the main entrance that stated simply, MEDICAL EXAMINER.
Even though it was clearly marked, it was easily possible for someone to drive past the building on an almost daily basis and not even realize just exactly what it was. It looked like nothing more than just another office building, and even the sign above the door didn’t truly betray the fact that inside was the final stop for those departed from this world under suspicious circumstances. In fact, it was more than likely that the majority of the civilian population of Saint Louis didn’t even know that this was more that just a business office, it was the place where bodies were dissected in search of hidden answers.
But, unlike the majority, I knew those details all too well.
I’d been here more than once, and each time when I had taken my leave, I’d been completely devoid of any desire to ever return. Still, it seemed that I always ended up back here whether I truly wanted to be or not. Even worse, it was sometimes at my own behest.
Like right now.
It had taken a good while to talk Ben and Felicity into allowing me to come here and view the remains of Debbie Schaeffer. Neither of them was particularly keen on the concept, least of all my wife, so she had taken the most convincing by far. If that weren’t bad enough, my friend was absolutely no help. I had been completely on my own in accomplishing the task.
I suppose in some ways it was understandable. For one thing, Ben was already treading on thin ice with her, and both their tempers were only now beginning to cool as it was. Add to that the fact that my coming into direct contact with the young woman’s remains didn’t exactly fit with his concept of keeping me as far removed from the investigation as possible, and there you had it. The combination was easily more than enough to make him unwilling to help me plead my case.
Considering the fragility of the current truce between Felicity and he, I can’t say that I blamed him.
Not much anyway.
I might have simply given up, gone ahead without her, and then suffered the consequences later if it hadn’t been for one simple fact-I needed Ben in order to get into the morgue, and his tenuous agreement with the plan was entirely contingent upon her being present to keep an “ethereal eye” on me just in case I started to slip.
At one point, in a failed attempt to change his mind, I had made the mistake of again mentioning the fact that Felicity may not be able to do anything about it whether she was there or not. For that remark I promptly ended up working double time, not only to win over my wife but to re-convince my friend as well.
When all was said and done, it was already half past eleven when we climbed into Ben’s van and made the trek downtown. The intensity of my own stress level finally decreased a fraction as soon as we were under way. Unfortunately, the quiet ride also allowed for earlier forgotten nuisances to return full force.
I was completely out of nicotine gum, and my inexplicable desire for a cigarette was now reaching unnatural proportions. What was worse, I still had no idea why the cravings had come upon me. I hadn’t even been this bad when I was actually addicted to them. It was becoming increasingly harder for me to keep the outward manifestations at bay. At the moment I was only slightly to one side of irritable, and I was traveling directly toward it at high speed.
The impending collision wasn’t going to be good at all.
“You ain’t plannin’ on doin’ any of that hocus-pocus stuff where you become one with the corpse, are you?” Ben asked me as he levered the gearshift into park and switched off the van’s ignition.
“That’s not something I actually plan, Ben,” I answered with an impatient edge to my voice. “It just has a tendency to happen.”
My wife expressed her feelings on the subject in a single terse sentence. “It might not if you kept yourself grounded.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, right.” Her voice held more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Don’t even go there.”
Felicity paused for a moment, obviously taken aback by the sudden bite of my words. “Excuse me?”
“Forget it,” I answered, shaking my head. “Just forget it.”
Emotionally, I was poised to bite her head off. Logically, I knew she was correct and that I had no valid reason to do so. But, that bit of reality didn’t make the urge any easier to quell.
I simply couldn’t afford to take it any further. If I let the comment bait me, it would only serve to re-kindle the argument we’d just barely settled less than thirty minutes ago. With all of us on edge as we were, such an altercation could turn ugly fast.
Given my current state, very ugly, very fast.
“Look,” Ben interjected. “I’ve had enough arguin’ for one night. Now, the last time we were here I seem to remember ya’ havin’ ta’ come outside to get away from all the ghosts or whatever ya’ see in there.”
“Lost souls,” I offered flatly.
“Fine. Lost souls, ghosts, ooga-boogas, whatever…it’s all the same ta’ me ‘cause I can’t see ‘em. I just wanna know if all that shit is gonna send ya’ over the edge or somethin’ like last time.”
“They weren’t the real problem last time,” I explained, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “It was the fact that I was channeling the actual death of a victim that…”
“Don’t split hairs with me, Row,” he interrupted. “I need ta’ know whether ta’ take ya’ in there or start the fuckin’ van and get outta here right now.”
“We already talked about this back at the house, Ben,” I shot back a harsh rebuke.
“Yeah, well B.F.D. Is it gonna be a problem or not?”
I gave up and told him what he wanted to hear. “They won’t be a problem.”
Apparently, he was a little short on trust at the moment.
“Is he yankin’ my chain?” He directed his question to Felicity.
“Aye, he is. But if we take some precautions, I think it will be okay.”
“You think it’ll be okay?”
“What do you want? It’s not like I do this every day, you know.” A mild spark of anger flashed in her voice. She was tired; we all were. Her own irritability was showing just as Ben’s was, and I’m certain my uncharacteristic moodiness wasn’t helping in the least. As I had suspected it would, the night was getting longer by the moment.
“Okay, okay,” Ben returned, a slight defensive note in his voice. “I’m not exactly an expert on this Twilight Zone crap myself y’know.”
“Are we going to sit here and fog up the windows, or are we going to go in?” I asked impatiently.
“When I’m ready,” Ben said. “Why don’t ya’ tell me again just what it is that you’re expectin’ ta’ find out?”
“We’ve already discussed this too.”
“Yeah, and we’re discussin’ it again.”
Truth was, I didn’t really have a good answer for the question. All I knew was that someone was communicating with me from the other side, and all indicators now pointed to that someone being Debbie Schaeffer. Coming here was the only way I knew to “complete the call,” so to speak.
“I don’t know.” I gave him the only answer I could. “A clue or something. You know, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve ever done this.”
“Yeah, I know,” he affirmed, “but in the times I’ve seen ya’ do this I’ve also seen it go south. Way south. You’ve almost died on me twice. Three’s a charm, white man. That’s ‘zactly what we’re tryin’ ta’ avoid in case ya’ missed that earlier.”
“Think positive,” I grumbled.
“I am thinkin’ positive. I’m positive I ain’t willin’ ta’ trade your life for a handful of flaky clues in a murder investigation.”
“Look,” I sighed, desperate to at least get out of the confines of the van. “It took me half the night to convince you two that we should come down here, so can we just dispense with this never ending committee meeting or whatever the hell you want to call it?”
“I just wanna make sure we’re doin’ the right thing here,” my friend expressed. “’Cause somethin’ in my gut tells me I should put some distance between you and this place and not look back. I tend ta’ trust my gut.”
“That’s just you being overprotective, again,” I countered.
“There’s no such thing as bein’ overprotective when dyin’ is one of the possibilities.”
“Well, that’s why you wanted Felicity here, right?”
“Don’t be trying to use me as a pawn, then,” my wife declared. “I want to hear you rationalize this too.”
I hadn’t been backed completely into a corner yet, but it was getting very close. I’d had my fill of the ping-pong oration I’d had to repeatedly deliver just to get this far, and it didn’t seem there would ever be an end.
I was exhausted.
I was ready to kill for a cigarette.
But the worst of it was that I was getting very tired of being treated like a child. My resolve was set in concrete, and I wasn’t about to let them make me turn back now.
I knew that exploding wasn’t going to get me anywhere even though it was what my knee jerk impulse was telling me to do. I drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling heavily. In my head I’d made a connection that they apparently had not. Thus far, I’d managed to hold it back as my one trump card, and it appeared that now would be a good time to toss it onto the table.
“Look,” I verbally threatened, “we can either do it this way, right now, or we can just wait until I go out sleepwalking again and see where that takes us.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” My wife shook her head slightly as confusion contorted her brow.
“Yeah, white man,” Ben added, “ya’ wanna expand on that?”
“Debbie Schaeffer went missing two months ago, right?”
“Yeah, so?” he returned.
“So, I started sleepwalking two months ago. You do the math.”
My friend puffed out his cheeks and expelled a deep breath as he sent one large hand up to massage the back of his neck.
“Shit. There’s just no winnin’ with you” was all he said.
Luck seemed to be on our side for a change, as Ben knew the security guard on duty for this shift, so there were no prying questions or even odd looks. The two simply exchanged pleasantries, including what I’m certain was a tired joke about cadavers escaping, and then we were in. The watchman seemed perfectly content to return to the game of solitaire that was occupying the screen on the computer at the reception desk.
The dim lighting at this time of night lent an eerie feel to the corridors of the city morgue. Pale shadows tempted your mind into playing sadistic tricks on your eyes, seeing movement where there was nothing to move.
Seeing light where there was dark.
Seeing dark where there was light.
In reality, some of those sadistic tricks weren’t tricks at all, but anomalies within the veil between the worlds.
If they chose to listen, even those with closed minds could hear the tortured cries of spirits in transition-some in acceptance of their fate, some in utter disbelief, but all with one thing in common. Each of them was trapped between the worlds of life and death, never making it fully to the other side.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have the luxury of choosing to listen, or to ignore. It had been made for me. A relentless cacophony echoed from the walls to assault my senses even before we passed through the door. It was much like walking into a crowded party; only this party was one where most of the guests are screaming and sobbing with pain. It took almost everything I had to put up a mental shield and block them out. Even then they remained, a static-plagued radio, tuned between stations and set at low volume, interrupted every now and again with a burst of angry noise.
A brief glance told me that Felicity was feeling a similar buzz inside her own head.
Earlier this year I had actually spent the night in this place when the worst snowstorm we’d had in a decade had brought Saint Louis to all but a complete standstill. Ben and I had been trapped here with the chief medical examiner and a severely charred corpse whose spirit staunchly refused to move on. My ethereal dealing with that victim was yet another piece of the puzzle that made up the current fractured state of my psyche. I can say without a doubt that, to date, those dark hours had been the longest night of my life.
In the back of the building, we were met by the night morgue attendant. Ben simply flashed his badge and told him that we needed to view the remains of Debbie Schaefer. The pallid young man never even uttered a word and simply handed a clipboard to my friend so he could sign us in. That completed, he mutely led us into the cold storage area, flipping on the overhead lights as we entered.
The right wall of the tiled room was lined with rectangular stainless steel doors. Each of them was a gateway to an individual compartment where a corpse would spend its stay with the medical examiner. On the opposite wall there were two large sinks, each equipped with a table capable of holding a body. Here were also such things as examination gloves and implements I wasn’t the least bit interested in knowing the purpose of.
At the back of the room was another set of doors that led, as I was told later, to the garage which was accessible from the back of the building. This was where recovered bodies were brought in and would begin their journey through the various stages of the postmortem process.
The attendant took us to a wheeled table positioned near the individual storage compartments. On it was a rubberized body bag, an identification tag affixed to the heavy-duty zipper pull. The faint malodor of decay had been noticeable ever since we entered the back area of the building. Upon entry into the cold room, the intensity of the strange funk began to increase several fold. Now as our proximity to the remains was within a matter of feet, the foulness was thick in the atmosphere.
“That’s great, thanks,” Ben told the attendant who was just starting to pull on a pair of latex gloves. “We can handle it from here.”
The young man stopped in the middle of sheathing his hands. Frozen in place like a statue, he simply stared at Ben as if waiting for him to say that he was only kidding.
“Really.” My friend nodded and coughed, wrinkling his nose at the smell. “We’ll call ya’ when we’re finished.”
I was right there with my friend, and I’m sure Felicity wasn’t far behind. My stomach was already starting to churn, and it was all I could do to keep from screwing up my face in disgust.
Giving a slight shrug the attendant pointed toward the sinks and, displaying perceptible effort, muttered, “Gloves.”
With the one syllable utterance out of the way, he left us alone in the chilled room.
“That was a little bizarre,” Felicity commented quietly after the young man disappeared out the door.
“If ya’ ask me, all of ‘em that work here are fuckin’ nut cases,” Ben asserted as he stepped across the room and began pulling a pair of oversized latex gloves onto his hands. With a nod, he indicated for us to do the same then turned his attention directly on my wife. “You said there were some precautions we need ta’ take for this?”
“Do you think he’s going to come back anytime soon?” She cocked her head toward the door.
For some wholly bizarre and unknown reason, I took great notice of the way her hair almost shimmered in the light when she tossed her head. The perfection of her auburn mane as it cascaded down her back in a fiery plume of loosely spiraling curls. The way it softly brushed against the ivory skin of her neck when she tilted her head to the side.
“You mean Mister Personality? Not likely,” he answered.
“It would be best if he doesn’t,” she continued. “Because what I need to do might look a bit strange to someone who doesn’t understand.”
“What, like he’s not strange enough on ‘is own?” Ben offered a rhetorical answer.
“Aye, but that’s beside the point.”
I watched her closely-observing the way the layered cut of her hair framed her face and accented her dainty features. I was amazed that I had never noticed it in such intense detail before.
“So how strange are you gonna get?”
“Not terribly. I just need to cast a spell.”
“Cast a spell? I thought you guys didn’t do shit like that.”
“No,” Felicity explained, “we do cast spells, just not the way most people think we do.”
“So you’re not gonna whip out some bat wings and crap like that, right?”
“Just some salt, Ben.”
She used the back of her hand to brush a tousle of her feathery coif back from the side of her face, and I was entranced as she let it linger there.
“Salt?” he queried with a shake of his head.
“Salt.”
“Where are you gonna get salt?”
Felicity rummaged about in one of the many pockets of her photo vest, and when she withdrew her hand she was holding some individual condiment packets of the substance. “Not exactly sea salt, but it’ll do.”
I felt a rush of excitement course through my body, and my skin literally prickled with the energy of overwhelming desire. I wanted to simply reach out and touch her.
“You always carry that stuff around with you?”
“Pretty much.”
“What, so ya’ can do shit like this?”
“No, not really. I just happen to like salt and you don’t always get any when you order at a busy drive-thru.”
I was beginning to have trouble containing the intense burst of longing for the woman in front of me. I couldn’t turn my gaze away, and if I continued to stare I was certain to embarrass myself.
“Yo, Rowan!” My friend’s urgent and concern-tinged voice slapped me hard in the face, breaking the trance. I felt his hand on my shoulder as he started to shake me lightly. “You all right? You aren’t goin’ all Twilight Zone, are ya’?”
“Wh-wh-what? No… No, I’m okay,” I managed to stammer as I blinked.
I had no idea what had just happened. I did know that I wasn’t about to tell the two of them that I had been standing there having some sort of disconnected, uncontrolled psychosexual fantasy about my wife’s hair. That was odd enough in and of itself, but considering where we were and what we were supposed to be doing, I was certain they would have me committed immediately. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t blame them if they did.
I was, to say the least, more than a little disturbed by the incident, but I tried not to let it show. I made a mental note to mention it to Helen Storm during my next session with her. I was really beginning to wonder if my sanity had finally fled in a futile attempt to save itself.
“Aye, help me out here,” Felicity demanded as she struggled to move the wheeled table out from the wall.
Ben stepped over to help her, and after a brief moment of mimicking her struggle, he located the parking brake and released it. The two of them moved the gurney out and, at my wife’s direction, centered it in the room before locking it down once again.
“What else ya need me ta’ do?” Ben asked.
“I’m a bit disoriented,” she returned as she looked around, trying to gain her bearings. “Which direction is east?”
“Shit, ummmmm,” he muttered as he spun around as well, slowly motioning his arms in various directions while mumbling aloud to himself. “Clark runs east and west, building faces Clark. Highway would be there… Headquarters…” he stopped and pointed at a wall, “this way.”
“Okay.” Felicity nodded as she directed her attention toward me and motioned for me to come over. “Rowan, you come stand here, then.”
I did as I was instructed, still feeling somewhat wistful at the sight of her and that auburn mane.
“Ben, you stand on the other side here,” she instructed.
“Okay.” He moved into position. “What now?”
“Just be quiet and don’t open that bag until I tell you to.”
“This isn’t gonna get all hinky, is it?”
Felicity had already stepped behind him, facing toward the east and was tearing open the salt packets. “Just be quiet and do what I tell you to do.”
“Yeah. Great,” he answered in a flat tone then mumbled, “Jeezus, I can’t believe I’m doin’ this.”
Felicity carefully began sprinkling the salt along an arc as she walked slowly clockwise around us. She would stop only briefly at each of the quarters-south, west, and north-and give a slight nod of her head, silently acknowledging the elements. By the time she made her way back around to the east, she had emptied a half dozen of the small paper packets onto the floor in a rough circle, leaving only a small opening unsalted. Though it was not visibly perceptible, the energy of the purified barrier was something I could easily feel.
In a fluid motion my wife moved smoothly deosil-or clockwise-around us a second time. Holding her arms outstretched, she moved silently until she was once again before the small opening where she started. After a slight pause she repeated the circuit twice more.
“What the hell’s she doin’?” Ben whispered the question to me from across the wheeled table.
“Cleansing the work area,” I replied in my own hushed tone.
As Felicity came to rest at the end of the third revolution, she brought her arms down, around, and back up in front of her as if gathering something unseen into a bundle. Then she forcefully pushed her palms outward, casting the invisible detritus she had gathered through the opening she had left just for this purpose. Immediately upon completing this task, she sprinkled the remains of a salt packet on the floor at her feet, effectively closing the now purified circle.
“Is that it?” Ben voiced.
“Shhhh!” my wife warned as she remained at rest-arms at her sides, facing east with her back to us, and her head bowed.
He started to retort but halted before uttering a sound as I slowly shook my head and mouthed the word, “Don’t.” Instead he simply rolled his eyes and allowed his shoulders to fall slightly.
I could sense that Felicity had fallen into an easy rhythm with her breathing, taking deep lungfuls of air in through her nose and exhaling softly out through her mouth. In an almost symbiotic reaction, my own breathing slipped into time with hers.
After a short meditation, she slowly raised her arms from her sides, palms upward, then allowed her chin to rise from her chest, bringing her face upturned toward the ceiling.
“Lord and Lady spin about,” she began in a quiet, singsong voice, “Watch over us this night throughout. In the dark, one journeys long, in search of answers hidden strong. Please guide him through and guard his fate, for on this side, I shall wait.
“Please lead me through these passing hours, and grant to me your protective powers. For here and now are spirits still, kept at bay by my own will. From head to toe, above and below, watch over him as west winds blow. From earth to air, sky to ground, keep Rowan safe and well and sound.”
Chilled silence filled the room as her last words faded. Ben stood staring at me, mute but questioning with his eyes. I’m not entirely sure what he had been expecting to happen in conjunction with this bit of SpellCraft, but he seemed almost disappointed. His face visibly betrayed his reaction to what must have been anticlimactic in a host of ways. The sort of letdown that comes from seeing real WitchCraft firsthand, but only after first being saturated with years of too many Hollywood special effects and inaccurate portrayals by the entertainment industry.
I couldn’t place all of the blame in their laps, however. Even though they were only partially connected with my spiritual path, one could be certain that the bizarre psychic phenomena that seemed to plague me on a regular basis had helped to cloud his perceptions as well.
“Like I’ve told you before,” I whispered in answer to his unasked question, “casting a spell for a Witch is pretty much just like praying is for a Christian.”
Felicity had left her station at the eastern point of the circle and had now sidled up next to me. I felt her right palm press against my own and her fingers intertwine with mine in a vise-like grip. Immediately I felt the chaotic energy within my body connect with hers as she took firm hold of my ethereal self. She simply ignored my own earthly bond, fleeting and tenuous as it was, and forcibly grounded me through her own solid coupling with this plane of existence.
She looked into my eyes, silently daring me to even try letting go of her hand, and then glanced over to Ben with a look of extreme concentration furrowing into her brow.
“Aye,” she said with a nod. “ Now you can open it.”