I was already heading for the stairs before Agent Cobb had the handcuffs fully removed from my wrists. I could hear several voices as I headed downward, but my wife’s wasn’t among them, which firmly seated the panic roiling through my gut. My heart still hadn’t stopped racing nor had my head ceased to pound with its bizarre mix of pain. If anything, the headache had grown worse.
As I neared the bottom of the stairs, I was struck full in the face by an all too familiar but wholly foreign sensation. It was a too pleasant tingle I had felt brush against me from somewhere between the worlds while I was more or less held captive in the bathroom waiting for this to be over. Unfortunately, I knew the feeling well. I’d ignored it then, and I tried my best to do so now, even though it was growing in intensity with each step I took.
Skipping the last two stairs, I leapt from the lower landing, following the direction of the voices to the left. When I came around the corner, I found Ben, Constance, and another FBI agent standing a few feet away from the entrance to my wife’s office.
“Where’s Felicity?!” I demanded. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, Row,” Ben said as he turned toward me. “Physically, anyway.”
“What do you mean? Where is she?”
He sidestepped a bit and turned back toward the office. There, just outside the entrance was one of the vertical, eight-by-eight support beams which were spaced throughout the basement. Sitting cross-legged on the floor at its footing, with her chin resting against her chest, was my wife. Her arms were wrapped around the solid post and a pair of handcuffs was securely locked about her wrists, holding her in place. The wood of the upright was gouged and scraped where the connecting chain between the cuffs had been raked against it. Though I was still several feet away, I could see welts, and even some trickles of blood, where she had been struggling against the restraints.
“Felicity…” I breathed as I started toward her.
Ben grasped my shoulder and held me back. It was only then I noticed he had one hand wrapped in a washcloth from our nearby laundry room, and a bright splotch of red was soaking through it.
“Why haven’t you taken those off her?!” I shouted.
“Because, it might not be a good idea just yet,” Constance replied.
“What?…” I stammered. “What’s going on?”
“You’re gonna wanna keep some distance for a bit,” Ben replied, holding up his wounded hand.
“What happened?”
He cocked his head toward Felicity.
“What? Why?” I stammered, confusion rimming my words. Jumbles of thoughts were bouncing around my head in competition with the odd feelings that were creeping in from elsewhere. I knew deep down the meaning behind the odd rush of pleasure that was fighting to overtake me, but I didn’t want to admit it. I glanced around as I chose to let the puzzlement continue its reign over my grey matter instead. Finally I asked, “Where’s Annalise?”
“She ain’t here, White Man,” Ben told me. “Never was.”
“Then what’s going on?” I demanded.
“Ask her,” he replied, nodding again toward my wife.
She slowly turned her face up and stared at me with a wicked grin stretched across her lips. A smear of blood was streaked from the corner of her mouth and down across her chin. I knew without hesitation that it wasn’t her own.
She casually tossed her head, flipping her hair back over her shoulder in the process, then settled her gaze back on me. After a moment she said, “Hello, little man. Have you missed me?”
Her tone held the same Southern affectation as the voice with which my friend had carried on the conversation via the stairwell. Up close, however, the ethereal hollowness of it resonated through to my very core. I had no idea if anyone besides me could detect the ghostly echo, but that didn’t really matter. As long as I could hear it, I knew exactly who belonged to the words.
“Miranda,” I said.
“You remember,” she replied.
“You’re hard to forget.”
“Of course I am.”
I glanced over at the FBI agent who was standing with Constance. While I was sure there had been some manner of briefing done, I doubted it came with an instant comprehension of the paranormal, especially as it pertained here. Constance caught my gaze and turned to the agent.
“Reynolds,” she said. “Why don’t you go let everyone know we’re secure. And, have Cobb cancel the HRT.”
“Yeah, okay,” he replied, casting a baffled look toward Felicity then me before going.
Once I heard his footsteps receding up the stairs, I turned back to my wife and stated in a flat tone, “You aren’t welcome here, Miranda.”
“Of course I am. I was invited.”
“Bullshit.”
“You really should not be so rude.”
“Coming from you that means pretty much nothing.”
She smiled. “Come now. Is that really a proper way to express your love for me?”
“Leave now, or I’ll make you leave.”
“I was invited,” she told me again.
“By who?”
She made a show of visually inspecting herself for a moment before saying, “Your wife, of course.”
“I know better than that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you only think you do.”
“Then why was Felicity crying out for help?”
“Giving in to one’s desires can be disconcerting at first. But, she will get used to it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“She will. Annalise did.”
“We both know you’re lying. Felicity never invited you here. You invited yourself.”
She shrugged. “Does it really matter? She is mine now.”
“Perhaps you only think she is.”
She let out a small laugh that sent icy fingers along my spine. “You are very quick, little man. Touche.”
“What did you do with the cloves and the blood, Miranda?”
“Is it not obvious?”
“The effects, yes. But, what did you do?”
“It is a secret.”
“What’s wrong? Are you afraid I might be able to work stronger magick than you?”
“No.”
“Then why not just tell me?”
“I have a better idea. Maybe you should beg me to tell you.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Even to save your wife?”
“You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t trust you.”
“Quick and bright. No wonder you love me.”
“This game is over. It’s time for you to leave. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“Not just yet.”
I didn’t respond. Instead I simply turned and started toward the stairs.
Ben reached out and grabbed my arm. “Wher’re ya’ goin’?”
I shot a glance back at Felicity then turned to face him. “I’m sure our guest is thirsty,” I said. “I thought I’d go get her a big glass of salt water so she can be on her way. You’d like that, right, Miranda?”
“You do not… want… to do… that,” she interjected with an odd faltering in her voice.
The hesitation seemed uncharacteristic based on my previous encounters with this Lwa, but I was certainly no expert in the field, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. For all I knew, it was some sort of trick.
I snapped back at her, “Then leave and I won’t have to.”
“I… I am…” she started, the hesitation growing worse. “I am not… going… to do… that… just yet.”
She appeared to be struggling with something unseen. Not just the words but also something on the order of an outside influence. Her expression changed between each syllable, and her eyes would go from a cold stare to a vacant wandering each time. I started to wonder if my wife was fighting back. I could only hope that she was.
“Then you don’t leave me any choice,” I said.
I wasn’t going to take any chances. Whether Felicity was locked in some manner of ethereal tug of war or not, she needed help. I started toward the stairs again.
“It… will not…” she said then suddenly halted.
“What? Won’t work?” I called back to her. “It did before, and I’m betting it will again.”
I hadn’t gone any more than five paces when a pitiful sob hit my ears. I turned back out of a confused sense of curiosity and saw tears streaming down my wife’s cheeks.
“I’m not playing this game, Miranda,” I spat before turning and starting away once more just for good measure. As I said, I didn’t trust her.
“Rowan… Help me…” she wailed.
This time I stopped dead in my tracks. The voice calling my name held every bit of the Celtic lilt that identified Felicity and not even the barest hint of the Southern accent so prevalent in the Lwa’s manifestation.
“Row?” Ben breathed, shifting his gaze back and forth between the two of us.
I turned and stepped back toward her. “Felicity?”
“Help me…” she moaned, leaning her body against the vertical support as if she was completely spent.
“Give me the key,” I said to Ben.
“What?”
“Give me the goddamned key to the handcuffs!” I demanded again.
He dug in his pocket and fished out a key ring then shuffled through it before handing it to me with one pinched between his fingers. “Try this one. Those aren’t our cuffs so I dunno if it’ll fit.”
“You didn’t cuff her?” I asked, taking the keys and starting toward Felicity.
“She was like that when I got down here, Row,” he replied then asked, “Are you sure about this?”
“I don’t know if I’m sure about anything anymore, Ben,” I said.
I knelt next to my wife and slipped the key into one of the handcuffs. From this angle, I could see in through the door to her office, and I noticed a purple overnight bag sitting on her desk. It was the same one that had once been seized as evidence when she had been charged with Annalise’s crimes, simply because it was a repository of Felicity’s “toys” from when she had been directly involved in the BDSM community well before we had ever met. I hadn’t seen it since the last time Miranda had made her presence known through my wife. Obviously, she had tucked it away down here.
Things began to gel inside my pounding skull. One of the last times a possession had occurred, Felicity had tried to kill me and had almost succeeded. She must have sensed this one coming on and decided to make sure that couldn’t happen again.
I twisted the key and it unlatched the restraint. I carefully opened it and slipped the metal circlet from my wife’s bruised and scraped wrist and then undid the other. Sitting down on the floor, I gathered her up into my arms and held her.
After a moment of stroking her hair as I slowly rocked, I looked up at Ben and Constance and asked, “Would one of you please go get me a glass of salt water before that bitch comes back?”
“I’ll get it,” Constance offered as she turned toward the stairwell.
“Aspirin, too,” I added. “Just bring the whole damn bottle.”