My face was hot in an instant, and I could literally feel my heartbeat thumping in my ears as I flushed with anger. My first inclination was to explode, lash out as I had done earlier in the day. My emotional reaction bolted from its corner and landed a solid punch on the jaw of logic as the bell sounded. The contest had begun.
Hateful words formed on my lips, and I clenched my teeth to keep them at bay. Blood rushed in my ears as I took a deep breath, searching for a solid ground to which I could attach. The opposing sides of my brain were engaged in an all out brawl with the prize being control of what would come out of my mouth in response to his selected verse.
It all came down to a fight between my overwhelming compulsion to explain to him in minute detail exactly how little regard I held for his life and the need to remain rational. I have to admit that rationality was looking very weak at the moment.
The pause was lethargic, and my mute struggle continued as I simply stood there with the phone pressed against my ear. I was just about to spew a stream of vile adjectives into the mouthpiece when he spoke again.
“I know that you are there, Gant,” he said. “I can hear you breathing.”
Again, his voice oozed into my skull from the handset. The very sound of it made me feel physically ill, and I swallowed hard to push back the column of bile I felt climbing up my throat.
The mouthful of expletives rammed against the back of my teeth in an attempt to break free, and I drew my lips into a tight line. I started to tense then felt myself connect to the ground I had sought. I don’t know how I managed it, but I wasn’t about to refuse the link. A calm washed over me, and I let my hot breath out in a slow stream. My logical half rallied and landed its own sucker punch to my emotional side then took over-for the time being, at least.
My first rational thought was to appeal to his sense of morality, as much as it existed within the confines of his malformed psyche. We had already established that he had not exhibited the same restraint regarding the safety of those he perceived as guiltless as he had during his last spree. Still, it was worth a try.
“You almost killed an innocent man today, Eldon.” I turned to face Agent Mandalay as I spoke, clenching my fist and concentrating on keeping my voice even.
Her eyes widened as she immediately picked up on the cue. Behind me, I heard Felicity gasp, and I turned quickly, trying my best to paint a reassuring mask onto my face.
“Detective Deckert?” he asked.
“Yes.” I held my initial reply to a single syllable lest I lose what little control I was exerting over my temper. Accomplishing that, I forged ahead with an entire mouthful. “Or even Detective Storm for that matter. Neither of them are Witches.”
I could hear Mandalay in the background as she pushed away from the table and began whispering into her cell phone.
“Both of them are your friends, aren’t they?”
“Yes they are.”
Porter actually chuckled at my answer before saying, “Then for you to claim that they are innocent is ridiculous.”
“Guilt by association then?”
“Of course,” he replied. “If you are not part of the solution, Gant, then you are part of the problem.”
“I don’t remember that from the Bible, Eldon,” I offered.
“But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.” He laid heavy emphasis on the word idolater as he recited the passage.
“You don’t think that you are taking that out of context?”
The earpiece chirped once, and the phone went to hollow silence punctuated by distant clicking. I pulled it away from my ear and turned back to Agent Mandalay.
“He hung up,” I told her. “Or we got cut off, I don’t know which.”
“He’s on a cell,” she told me as she twisted her own away from her mouth. “The signal dropped before they could pinpoint it on the grid.”
“Dammit,” I spat. “How did he get this number anyway? How did he know where we are?”
“Believe me, Rowan, I’m wondering the same thing myself,” she told me. “But don’t worry, we’ll… What?” She stopped abruptly and twisted her phone back up to her mouth then looked at me and held up a finger. “Hold on a second.”
I nodded, then turned back, and dropped the handset back into its cradle on the wall. I looked over at Felicity and saw that her fear had now surfaced and was evident in the form of a hard edge stricken across her soft features. I was just opening my mouth to reassure her when the phone rang again.
I snapped my head around and stared at the device. On the second ring, I picked it up and placed it against my ear without a word.
“I was beginning to think you planned on leaving the phone off the hook all night, Gant,” Porter said.
“What happened,” I asked with a heavy note of sarcasm. “Did you go through a tunnel?”
“Don’t try to play that game with me, Gant. I know you’ve figured out that I’m on a cell phone. I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were, Eldon.”
“Then you know that the reason we were cut off is that I hung up. I know how this works.”
“So you think you can’t be tracked,” I spat back. “Good for you.”
“You know better than that, Gant,” he instructed me. “I know that I am being tracked. I hung up so that Agent Mandalay would at least have a challenge.”
I turned to Constance and motioned her over.
“Enough of that, Gant,” Porter continued. “Let’s get back to our little talk. What I follow is scripture. There is no context, only truth.”
“Don’t you mean that you are simply being self-serving and ignoring the context?” I contended.
I grabbed a notepad from the countertop and looked frantically for a pen. Coming up empty I glanced over at Constance and snatched one from her breast pocket then scribbled “he knows you are here” on the top sheet and handed it to her. She looked back at me with a surprised expression and then nodded affirmation.
Porter was still talking to me. “…So you see, the ends justify the means.”
“That’s pretty narrow-minded of you, Eldon,” I said. “But then, I don’t suppose I should expect much from someone of such a limited scope.”
His voice hardened. “I thought we’d established that I’m not stupid. I was expecting something a little more eloquent. Insulting my intelligence is beneath you, Gant.”
“What about killing you?” I asked. “Is that beneath me?”
“Why, Gant,” he took on a tone of mock surprise. “You sound angry. What happened to your little claim of being good and nature loving? What is it you always say? An ye harm none. You don’t sound like you are practicing what you preach.”
“I asked you the same thing regarding the commandments of your God,” I replied.
“My path is clear.” He fired his response back with an audible thread of anger playing through it. “Is yours?”
“Where it concerns you, yes it is.”
“And what of YOUR commandment to ‘harm none’? Or is that merely another of Satan’s tricks?”
“It doesn’t apply here.”
“So why don’t you tell me who’s ignoring context now?”
My temper was on the edge of flaring, and I had to pause for a moment before finally answering, “I’m not interested in arguing semantics with you, Eldon.”
Once more, the phone chirped and went dead. I shot it a disgusted look then slammed it back onto the cradle before glancing back over to Mandalay.
“He hung up again,” I told her.
“He’s using multiple cell phones,” she explained. “The first call was on the one he used earlier today. They’re still tracking the ID on the second one, but it was definitely a different signal.”
“Guess he doesn’t feel like taping any more pay phones together,” I volunteered with a tinge of sarcasm. “This is insane. First Randy and Nancy’s number, then Felicity’s cell, now here. How is he getting this information?”
“Well, the Harper’s number is easy enough to explain,” Constance volunteered. “He probably got that one from Randy or something he had on his person. What about your cell, Felicity, is that a published number?”
“Aye, it’s on my business cards,” Felicity acknowledged from behind me, trepidation thick in her voice.
“Are those readily available to the public?” Mandalay asked.
“Aye,” Felicity said. “I’m freelance. Every camera and photo supply store in Saint Louis has a stack of them for referrals.”
“So that would explain that,” Constance said in a thoughtful tone. “Either he got Felicity’s number from a business card or maybe even that came from Randy as well. But, the number here is private and unpublished. There should be no way he could get his hands on it. Did you give it out to anyone?”
I looked back at her then closed my eyes as the obvious answer bludgeoned me with my own stupidity. “Randy,” I said quietly. “Randy had it.”
“Yeah.” She shook her head and frowned. “I’ll lay odds that is your answer.”
Felicity’s tense voice brought us back to the situation at hand. “Do you think he’s going to call back?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head as I turned. “But it’s going to be okay.”
“Okay? Rowan, he knows where we are!” she appealed.
I was so accustomed to Felicity’s strength that I was taken aback by the growing intensity of her fear. The still fresh horror of the kidnapping and attempted rape had bruised her deeper than either of us had realized, and her facade was beginning to tear away.
I reached for her. She stepped forward and fell into me, burying her face against my shoulder and wrapping her arms tightly around me. Before I could utter a single word, the phone pierced the room with its metallic jangle for attention.
I twisted slightly, keeping one arm securely around my wife and snatched up the telephone with my free hand. I consciously released my temper from its mental prison and began speaking the moment I brought the handset to the side of my head.
“You’re really starting to piss me off, Eldon.”
“Good,” he replied.
“I’m going to hang up now,” I spat.
“Before you do, there is something you should know.”
“What? That you’re a sick, twisted sonofabitch?” I barked. “I already know that.”
Instead of the sarcastic reply I expected from him, I heard a thin hissing noise mixed with the sound of a car engine. There was a scratchy, rustling noise followed by what sounded like a faint squeal.
I snarled into the phone again. “What? No comment you sorry ass…”
I stopped short as the squeal repeated, this time sounding far more like a distinct, nasal whine. This time it was followed by a high-pitched whimper.
Bile rose once again in my throat as I fought my stomach’s urge to evict anything it might currently contain. Gooseflesh prickled along the back of my neck and terror swelled in my chest. I continued to listen in abject horror as a sobbing, feminine voice choked out two faint words, “Help me.”
“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live, Gant,” Porter’s voice issued once again from the earpiece.
“What are you doing, Eldon?” I almost pleaded.
“Her judgment is at hand,” he continued speaking as if he hadn’t heard me. “Are you willing to be responsible for it?”
“PORTER!” I screamed, but there was nothing more than the hollow sound of the disconnected line to answer me.
I slammed the phone back into the cradle once again. The mechanical bell rattled out a muted ding that was mixed with the bang of plastic against Formica. The excess force caused the device to jump back out and clatter across the counter before bouncing from the floor and swinging pendulum-like from its spiral cord. I didn’t bother to pick it up. I just closed my eyes and held Felicity tight.
“What, Row?” she said, her voice muffled as she spoke into my shoulder. “What did he say?”
I couldn’t speak. My mind was racing as I tried to move all of the pieces together. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman’s voice, and it had now displaced all of the other nagging bothers that were dancing about in my brain.
Agent Mandalay spoke up from across the room. “The second and third calls came from the same phone, but we couldn’t pinpoint a grid location before we lost the signal.”
“You got a name though, didn’t you?”
“What?” Mandalay asked with a faint note of confusion.
“The owner of the cell phone,” I explained. “It’s a woman, right?”
“Yeah,” Her puzzled tone blossomed. “How did you know that?”
“Because he put her on the phone just before he hung up,” I told her.
“So she’s still alive?” she asked.
“For now.”
“Dammit!” she snarled as she began stabbing at the buttons on her cell phone once more.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Millicent something,” she answered, dividing her attentions between dialing the phone and checking her notes. “Millicent Sullivan.”
Felicity tensed against me as she heard the name. Pain stabbed into the center of my brain, and I damned myself for being so careless.
“Dear Mother Goddess…” I moaned. “How could I have let this happen?”
“Rowan, what’s wrong?” Mandalay asked.
I squeezed Felicity tighter as I felt her begin to tremble.
“Rowan, talk to me,” Agent Mandalay pressed again. “Do you know this woman?”
“We know her as Starfyre,” I answered quietly. “She’s being considered as a dedicant in our Coven.”
“But I thought everyone was…”
“They were,” I cut her off. “We were still just considering her. She hadn’t been taken into the fold yet, so no one would have thought to call her about any of this.”