M Sellars - The Law Of Three

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.”

“So explain to me again why we weren’t watchin’ this Sullivan woman?” Ben smoothed back his hair and then winced. He pulled his bandaged hand away and then stared at it as if it was the first time he’d ever seen it. I didn’t give it long before he did away with the bandages altogether in a fit of frustration.

Apparently, he had only just gotten out of the shower when Mandalay contacted him about Porter’s call. Even though she assured him that she had things covered on our end, he insisted on returning immediately. No amount of explanation from her was going to convince him otherwise. Judging from his rumpled appearance, he had probably still been getting dressed on the drive over.

We were assembled in the living room of the small apartment. Ben occupied one end of the sofa and Mandalay the other. Felicity was parked in the chair, cradling a cup of tea between her dainty hands; but me, I couldn’t begin to think about sitting. I had too much of an infusion of nervous energy. I was standing at the sliding doors, holding the heavy drapes partially open, and looking out across the snow-covered balcony to the parking lot several floors below.

“She was only a dedicant,” I replied without turning.

It had been just slightly over an hour since Porter had called, and my anger was still fresh. My jaw had now added itself to my list of aches due to the fact that I was unconsciously grinding my teeth. I kept catching myself in the act, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop. I was still fighting a case of the jitters that was born of the creepy tune looping in the back of my head; so, I wasn’t sure if the teeth gnashing was an effect of the anger alone or a combination of rage and anxiety. Whatever the cause, it was beginning to get very old.

“And that means she’s like what? A non-person?” He splayed his hands out in a gesture of helplessness.

I shook my head sharply and allowed the drapes to fall closed as I turned. I was frustrated that I had to explain something that I perceived as trivial common knowledge especially in light of my current emotional state. I took a deep breath and huffed it back out, trying to keep in mind that Felicity and I were the only ones in the room familiar with Coven dynamics and order. “I really didn’t mean for it to sound like that,” I told him. “Basically, a dedicant is someone who has made a conscious choice to study a particular religion, or most often, religious path. What we often refer to as a tradition. They take an oath to study and learn the tradition.”

“So it’s like making a pledge or a promise. Somethin’ like that?”

“Aye, exactly,” Felicity chimed in.

“So this isn’t something unusual then?” he asked.

“Not within the confines of a Coven, no,” she answered again. “Not at all.”

“So what you’re really sayin’ is that she wanted to join your study group?” He simplified my answer as he looked back and forth between us.

“Something like that, I suppose, yes.” I nodded. “At any rate, she had approached Cally about joining our Coven some time back. We met with her on a couple of occasions, and we discussed the possibility of her dedicating. What you have to remember is that taking someone into a Coven is not something you do lightly, so we took some time to mull it over. We were actually planning to bring her in at Yule, but she was out of town.”

“So she wasn’t actually a member of your group yet?”

“No. Not officially.” I shook my head. “She would have been brought in at the next Full Moon meeting.”

“Well, Porter obviously chose her because of her relationship to you,” Mandalay offered. “He didn’t just get lucky. How would he have found out about her if she wasn’t actually a member?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head and shrugged. “My best guess would be Randy, but I can’t be sure. It could be that Porter asked him for names when he tortured him. We pretty much know that’s how he started compiling his list of victims originally. Or it could be that Randy had her name and some notes in a day planner or a PDA.”

“Notes?” Ben asked.

“Established Covens take bringing someone new into the fold very seriously,” Felicity offered as explanation.

Ben sighed heavily then brought his other hand up to massage his neck, only to repeat the wince and stunned stare.

“Dammit,” he muttered as he shook his wounded mitt and then lowered it back into his lap.