M Sellars - Harm none

“ Who are you?” I ask, but my voice is drowned out by the muffled chant.

I take a step forward and the figure disappears. There is a sound like a crashing wave, recorded on tape and played in reverse. The murmur is behind me now. I turn again, and the robed figure is on the opposite side of the bed. The figure is pointing at me. The chant becomes louder, and though disjointed in its cadence, clear.

“ All…Is…Forgiven. All…Is…Forgiven…”

“ Why?” a voice drifts over the chant.

I look down to see Ariel’s mutilated corpse. Her lifeless eyes glare back at me and her mouth slowly animates.

“ Why, Rowan, why?”

An endless scream.

I awoke with a start, my hair and clothes drenched in a cold sweat. Felicity was once again sitting next to me on the edge of the sofa, deep concern creasing her brow and sad tears clouding her eyes.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, immediately worried by the expression on her face.

“Yes,” she sniffed. “I’m all right. The question is are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I think so.”

“You kept saying ‘Why, Rowan, why’, over and over,” she told me as she intertwined her fingers with mine, then wiped away a tear with her free hand. “All I could feel from you was fear, and I couldn’t wake you.”

“How long was I out of it?” I asked with a sigh.

“About half an hour,” she returned. “What’s going on? You’ve never done anything like this before.”

“I don’t know. Probably just a bad dream.” I reached up and brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. “The things I’ve seen in the past twenty-four hours would give anyone nightmares.”

“It’s more than that,” she told me. “You and I both know it.”

I lightly caressed her cheek. “Never can fool you, can I?”

“This isn’t going to stop until you find the killer, is it?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

By some miracle, I actually slept. No dreams, no visions, no nightmares. It was only an hour, but at least it was peaceful. Upon waking, I re-heated and practically inhaled the meal Felicity had made for me earlier. I never realized corned beef hash and eggs could taste so good. After eating, I parked myself in my upstairs office with a solid stack of reference books. The Expiation spell had been readily recognizable to me, even considering the killer’s sickening variations, but the rest of it was only vaguely familiar. I knew from past reading that flaying and vivisection of a live sacrificial victim were components of the invocation rites performed by ritual magicians of days long past. What I wasn’t clear on was what he might be trying to invoke or why. I felt that if I could pin these facts down, I might have a clue about what he would do next. Whether or not this would be important to the police, I also didn’t know, but it was important to me.

It became quickly obvious after only a few moments study that the healthy pile of books held none of the answers I sought. Reference material about The Craft didn’t deal with the horrors I had only recently witnessed, and any other historical texts in my possession touched on it only briefly. Feeling this avenue now closed, I pushed the books off to the side of my desk and switched on my personal computer. A few keystrokes and mouse clicks later, I was logging in to my local Internet service provider and merging with the electronic fast lane of the information superhighway. I navigated through the various starting pages and came to rest at my objective, a database search screen. I began my quest for information by typing in the keywords HUMAN SACRIFICE and clicking on the SUBMIT icon. If my service provider happened to be randomly monitoring this line, I mused silently, they were probably thinking I was some kind of psychopath. The status lights on the modem flickered quickly, and the screen re-painted itself, displaying the online addresses of the various matching World Wide Web sites.

The majority of the web pages listed dealt with historical text and benign non-literal references such as those sacrifices one person makes for another. I was simultaneously pleased and demoralized by the listing of sites that purported to be reservoirs of information regarding active religions that encouraged the actual sacrificing of a human victim. Upon closer inspection, they were obviously no more than idle electronic chatter, but they contained information I felt might be useful. Still, I was violently disgusted by the fact that anyone would claim to subscribe to such beliefs. The world really didn’t need any more sickos than it already had.

When all was said and done, I had conducted several searches of the “Web” using keywords ranging from BLOOD SACRIFICE to FLAYING. With each of these searches turning up a listing of site addresses, I easily investigated over one hundred web pages within a few hours. The information I gathered held references to historical events and dead religions, as well as fictional books and horror movies. All of it told me that I was on the right track in my belief that the killer was practicing for an invocation ritual, but it still didn’t tell me who or what he was trying to invoke.

The digital clock resting in the corner of my monitor screen attested to the fact that the afternoon had slipped by virtually unnoticed. It was rapidly approaching time for our meeting with Ariel’s coven, and I knew Ben would be arriving early. I logged off the network and shut down my computer after the printer spit out the last of the information I had sent to it. Much to my chagrin, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror as I made my way downstairs. My clothing was disheveled, my hair matted and stringy, and my face pallid and drawn. Overall, I looked like death warmed over. A glance at my watch told me I still had some time, so I decided to become acquainted with hot water and a bar of soap.

I was just climbing out of the shower when Felicity poked her head in the door and told me Ben had arrived. By the time I finished drying off and throwing on some clothes, the two of them were parked at the dining room table. I joined them and helped myself to a mug of hot ginger-mint tea.

“I did some research on invocation rites.” I indicated the sheaf of papers I had brought down from my office. “Pretty general stuff. Not much help to be honest.”

“I’ll take your word on it,” Ben nodded as he spoke. “So, Red Squaw here was tellin’ me you had a hard time of it after I dropped ya’ off this afternoon.”

“Nightmare I guess,” I told him. “I’ll get over it.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunted, unconvinced. “By the way, I dropped in on your old man.”

“I thought you might,” I nodded. “How’d he handle it? Should I be expecting a call?”

“Prob’ly not. I didn’t wanna get him all worked up, so I told him I was in the area and just stopped in to say hi.”

“Were you able to find out what you needed?”

“Yeah. I managed ta’ fit it into the conversation.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Hey, no prob, white man.”

During our conversation, Felicity had remained steadfastly silent. It suddenly dawned on me that she hadn’t expressed any interest in the somewhat cryptic exchange, so I turned my attention to her side of the table. A familiar file folder lay open across an equally familiar envelope near the center. A thick stack of crime scene photographs were spread neatly before my wife. One of the glossy monstrosities was resting carefully between her fingers as she studied it intently. All the while, she absently chewed on her lower lip as she concentrated.

“What the hell are you doing?!” I sputtered, nearly choking on a mouthful of hot tea.

“Catching up,” Felicity spoke without looking up from the pictures.