M Sellars - Harm none

— A sour, cackling laugh filled my ears, and the water against my back suddenly felt oddly thick. I looked down at my chest where it splashed across my shoulders and saw blood, viscid and hot, dripping from my skin.

I tried to escape the horror, only to find the shower curtain had become solid and unyielding. I began to pound on it wildly, screaming for my wife, as the enclosure quickly began to fill with the sticky, crimson liquid. My cries remained unheeded as the level reached my chest, then my chin, until finally, I was submerged. My throat and lungs began to burn, and I was starting to black out. No longer able to hold my breath, I was about to face my own innermost fear. I was drowning.

I awoke screaming.

Felicity was over me, firmly grasping my shoulders and shaking me into consciousness. “Rowan, wake up! Rowan!”

I bolted upright on the couch, steeped in my own sweat. The cool breeze from a nearby register sent a shiver up my spine as the air conditioner followed orders from the thermostat and worked to maintain the temperature.

Soft morning light was beginning to filter in between the slats of the mini blinds covering our windows, bringing a murky pallor to my surroundings. My wife, clad in an oversized t-shirt, was staring back at me with the same gentle concern I had seen in her eyes just one night before.

“Another nightmare?” she asked rhetorically, sitting back on the edge of the sofa.

“Yeah,” I sighed, “a weird one. Whatever you do, don’t tell me it’s almost noon, and Ben called to tell me thanks.”

“Why would I?”

I heard a muffled series of barks, telling me that the dogs wanted to be let back in. For some reason, that familiar noise, added to my wife’s puzzled expression and my overall feeling as if I had been beaten severely with a two-by-four, was the evidence I needed to tell me I was actually, truly awake this time.

“It’s a long story,” I told her.

After a shower that began hesitantly, I relinquished the remaining hot water to Felicity and prepared a quick breakfast. Over eggs scrambled with broccoli and Swiss cheese, a side of turkey bacon, and coffee, she and I discussed the events of the past evening. For the most part, the discussion was one-sided, with me doing the talking and her doing the listening as I filled her in on the details of the assault on Roger’s house, followed by those of the doubly bizarre nightmare. The latter accounting, I recorded in my Book of Shadows as I went.

“I got a call from a client last night,” Felicity announced while we put away the freshly washed dishes. “Apparently, they lined up a last minute product shoot with some model that’s only available today.”

“Go ahead. I’ll be fine,” I answered her unspoken question.

“Are you sure, then?” she posed. “I can refer it over to Hartley. He owes me one anyway.”

“Really. I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “There’s no need in both of us sitting around here staring at the walls. I don’t know if there’s much more either of us can do to help Ben right now anyway. Besides, like I said, Agent Mandalay isn’t exactly my number one fan.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

I helped her load the Jeep and waved goodbye as she backed out slowly and went on her way. The landscape around me was growing brighter as the sun crept higher in the morning sky, chasing away the dimly shimmering globe of the moon-the moon that was less than twenty-four hours from full.

I called Ben shortly after Felicity left and was told that he was following up leads in the field. After leaving a message for him, I resigned myself to performing what had become the more mundane tasks in my life-support calls, returning email, and even some minor house cleaning. Don’t get me wrong, I was actually looking forward to returning to the everyday normalcy, but not until this whole thing was over and done with.

It was approaching three in the afternoon when the phone rang. Ben was on the other end, returning my call.

“So, any good news?” I queried into the handset.

“No,” he told me, “not really. The parents made a positive ID on the little girl’s dress. And they found a spot where the floor had been dug up in the corner, but that’s about it.”

“That’s where he buried the hearts he took from the victims,” I stated mechanically.

“Yeah… It wasn’t pleasant… Oh, and that tip ya’ gave us on the syringe. We found it right where ya’ said it would be. Lab showed traces of a sedative called Diazepam.”

“Not the curare?”

“No,” he returned. “Seemed off to me too, so I asked the doc about it. Apparently, that stuff paralyzes the blink response, and he would have to use some kinda artificial lubricant to keep her eyes from dryin’ out. Also, repeated doses could build up in ‘er system and cause respiratory failure. Sounded kinda high maintenance for someone tryin’ ta’ duck the cops.”

“But it makes sense,” I volunteered. “He doesn’t want her injured. I’m convinced of that. In my vision, he kept referring to her as The One. As odd as it may sound, he holds her in very high reverence. She has to be pristine for the ritual, but he also has to keep her under wraps until the full moon.”

“Yeah, it sounds odd all right, ‘specially when ya’ consider what he plans to do to ‘er in this ritual thing.” There was a lengthy pause at his end. I could almost see him trying to form his words. “So listen, Row. About that whole hocus-pocus thing last night. What did’ya mean when ya’ said ya’ don’t know if he’s better than you or not?”

“I meant exactly that. I don’t know.”

“But I thought you were some kinda Master Witch or somethin’,” he appealed. “Like a Black Belt of Witch stuff. Ya’know what I mean?”

“There’s no such thing, Ben. The Craft is a continual learning process.”

“That still doesn’t tell me why ya’ think he’s better’n you.”

“Something happened during that vision that took me by surprise. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, and to be honest, it bothered me quite a bit.”

“Wanna talk about it? After everything I’ve seen lately, I’m willin’ ta’ listen.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath and let it puff out my cheeks as I exhaled. “But you might not want to hear it. If I’m right, I could be the reason he knew we were coming.”

“How so?”

“Well,” I continued, “you understand that when I’ve had these visions at the crime scenes, they were recreations of the recent past, right?”

“Yeah, go on.”

“That’s the kind of vision I had at Roger’s house but with a major exception. He talked to me.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“In the vision,” I explained, “Roger spoke directly to me. He told me that I hadn’t been there to save Ariel Tanner, and there was no way I’d be able to save The One. He looked right at me. Called me by name.”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line as he mulled over my latest revelations. “So lemme get this straight…” His words were measured carefully. “Ya’think that when you had that vision, you like went back in time or somethin’? And he saw ya’ there and knew you were comin’?”

“No, not at all,” I corrected. “I had a vision of something that happened in the recent past. I think Roger knew we were close because of me. Because of the energies I’ve been giving off.”

“So, what about this bit where he was talkin’ to ya’? I still don’t get it. Where does that fit in?”

“I think that since he knew we would be coming, and he knew that I would be there, in a sense, he was waiting for me. He insinuated himself into the vision.”