It didn’t really matter now anyway. Fifteen minutes had noticeably ticked away since then, and in the world of the living, time still retained its illusion of being a dependable benchmark. Of course, while one-quarter hour wasn’t exactly the distant past, it still made a difference; for now there was no longer darkness and peaceful quiet wrapped around me-just harsh light and the sound of running water.
“Really, honey, I’m fine,” I said aloud, my voice a tired drone. The words themselves were inherently positive, but my timbre painted them with a gloomy hue, which effectively defeated my purpose for making the comment in the first place.
I leaned forward with a heavy sigh, resting my hands on top of the bathroom vanity, and looked into the mirror as I struggled to actually believe the untruth that had just tumbled out of my mouth. Given what I saw staring back at me, I was going to be hard pressed to do so. On top of that, I wasn’t even taking into account that the all too familiar dull thud in the back of my head had finally arrived, which definitely wasn’t going to make things easy. The symptom list of signature aches associated with my curse was sounding off one by one. But the truth is, as residual effects go, the headache was probably the lesser of my worries at the moment.
Shifting my eyes slightly, I could see Felicity’s face reflected in the pane of silvered glass as well. Judging from her thin-lipped frown, she wasn’t buying into my empty reassurances at all, so it was really a waste of time for me to even continue pretending.
After a thick pause, she replied flatly, giving me a verbal confirmation of her disbelief while she finished wringing out a washcloth in the basin. “No, Rowan, you aren’t. Look at yourself…”
I certainly couldn’t blame her for being disagreeable. After all, I was lying and not very well at that. Under the circumstances, she obviously wasn’t interested in wasting time with the game of verbal hide and seek. I had to admit that I didn’t really feel up to playing either. I suppose I was just doing it out of habit.
I moved my gaze back to my own reflection and took in the not so pretty picture once again. Smears of red still glistened in haphazard swaths along my jaw line and down my neck. A rusting crinkled pattern ran across my shoulder and upper chest where my now discarded shirt had recently been plastered to my body by the sticky wetness. I was an absolute mess by most any standards. In my own eyes at least, I pretty much looked like an extra from the set of a low budget slasher movie.
I continued watching in the mirror as my wife reached up and carefully wiped away more of the blood with the wet cloth then folded it over and made a second gentle swipe. Since it had already started coagulating, there were thick, crusty trails left behind on my skin that were going to take quite a bit more coercion to remove.
“This is insane, Row,” she muttered. “Just insane…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Tell me about it.”
“And this was how the victim died then?”
“Uh-huh,” I answered. “At least that’s what I was told. Apparently, the way Ben outlined it, she appeared to have been purposely bled to death, which would kind of explain this…” I gestured at the blood with my free hand. “Except there was no blood at the scene, which obviously doesn’t explain this.”
“I see,” she returned. “I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t something a bit more immediate or you might not be standing here right now.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I guess that last bit is why he asked you about vampires, then” she announced, ignoring my objection.
“Yeah, I think so. I guess I can’t blame him too much for thinking something like that,” I said. “I mean after everything we’ve asked him to accept on blind faith over the years, why not? To someone like him, I don’t think he sees it as that much of a stretch. Witch, vampire…”
“Maybe so, but what next? Zombies?”
I couldn’t help but snort out a half chuckle. “I really doubt it. In his defense he was talking about the people in a particular subset of the Goth subculture who claim to be vampires.”
“I still say it’s insane,” she replied then made a point of displaying the bloody washcloth to me and adding, “Especially this.”
“I guess that’s about as good a word as any.”
Even with the grumbling, I was amazed at how we both seemed to be taking this all in stride. Of course, there had been several extremely tense minutes at the beginning, especially in light of Felicity’s initial panic upon seeing what she described as me bleeding to death. Our alarm probably would have continued unchecked had it not been for my wife’s hand inadvertently slipping from my neck as she struggled to reach for the phone in order to call 9-1-1. Instead of the feared spray of blood, however, there was nothing. Not even a wound. It suddenly became obvious to us both that this was an ethereal tap on my shoulder and that someone wanted my attention in the worst way.
Since realizing that, neither of us had really treated this event as much more than a severe aggravation. In a way it seemed as though we were both under the influence of a psychic anesthetic. I suppose that was a good thing, but I couldn’t help wondering when it was going to wear off or if it was simply going to keep us numbed forever. I couldn’t really say which option frightened me the most. I did know, however, that neither of them was particularly appealing as far as I was concerned. But as worrisome as that could be, it was actually one of the least important thoughts assaulting my grey matter at the moment.
What truly puzzled me was my earlier queasiness over the thought of blood when placed in juxtaposition to the apparent nonchalance I felt about it now. Normally I walked a line somewhere in between the two reactions-affected by the sight of it, yes, but not repulsed. This sudden shift to one extreme and then the other had me perplexed. The more I rolled it around inside my skull the more it gnawed at me, and that wasn’t good. After chasing the thought around in a circle for several minutes, I finally told myself that I needed to leave it alone, especially since it was most certainly some kind of cryptic message from the spirit who was doing this to me in the first place. Dwelling on it was just going to give her reason to press the issue to the next level. After what she’d already done, that was something I definitely didn’t want happening.
I turned my head to glance directly at Felicity as she continued moving the washcloth down my bare arm. In its wake were diluted streaks of the sticky fluid forming mottled trails across my skin.
“I think it would probably be easier if I just jumped in the shower,” I said, looking down at how much blood was still left to remove.
“You’re right,” she replied. “But I wanted to see if I could find that wound. I guess I just got carried away.”
“You didn’t and you won’t,” I told her. “You’ve already looked at my neck, and if it was still there you would have found it by now.”
“I just want to be sure.”
“I understand, Felicity, but if it was there I’d be bleeding all over you,” I countered. “And, obviously I’m not. It disappeared, so that should tell you something right there.”
“Oh? And what should it tell me?”
“That it wasn’t real in the first place.”
She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “So I suppose all of this blood is just a figment of my imagination then?”
“You know what I meant,” I replied. “It was real but it wasn’t. It was just there to get my attention. Nothing more.”
“Well, by the Gods, it got mine,” she replied.
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said as I fidgeted.
“Be still, I want to have another look,” she ordered then gave the washcloth a quick rinse. After a moment she let out a sigh and added, “Maybe I should have just gone ahead and called nine-one-one so they could check you out.”
I shook my head in quick response and started to speak.
“I said be still,” she admonished in a distant tone as she pressed the fingers of her free hand upward beneath my jaw to expose my neck.