Running.
Dripping.
“Why Rowan?” she mouths. “Why?”
“Why don’t you stop him, Rowan?” her gurgling voice echoes, “Why?”
Darkness.
I could feel that the unstoppable flood of hideous visions had completely overpowered both Karyl and Starr. Enthralled by sadistic nightmares that no one should be made to witness, let alone live. I braced myself against yet another wave of remembered agony as I struggled to slam the ethereal door.
“Kendra Darlene Miller…”
“…As you are damned in body and soul, your sentence on this day is death. The sentence is to be executed immediately, without appeal, in the manner of expurgation by fire.”
“Expurgation by fire…”
“Kendra Darlene Miller…”
“Expurgation by fire…”
“No. No, this can’t be.”
“May The Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon your soul.”
I cannot move.
I can hear the scraping of a match against stone.
I cannot scream.
I can hear the explosive spark as the match ignites.
“Somebody please help me!”
“Kendra Darlene Miller…”
“Damned in body and soul…”
“Your sentence on this day is death…”
“Expurgation by fire…”
Hot yellow agony licks across my body.
Fire clings to me in a vicious shroud. I’m holding my breath as the flame washes over my face, furiously catching my hair and blossoming upward with yet another loud crash.
I cannot scream…
With one final push, I levered the mental door shut and forcibly ejected Karyl and Starr from my mind. From beginning to end the entire incident took place in less than a minute. Our outward expressions, however, were enough to tell Ben and Carl that something was definitely going on.
“Hey! Knock, knock…” Carl’s voice poured into my ear in a viscous flow. “Earth to Rowan.”
“Yo, white man? Are you three okay?” Ben’s voice followed, whirlpooling in behind Deckert’s as I snapped soundly back to the physical realm.
I nodded as I turned my concerned attentions to Karyl and Starr. “What? Yeah. Fine. Yeah, I’m okay.”
The two women were staring back at me blankly. Momentarily, a small glimmer of emotion crept into Karyl’s expression and was almost instantly followed by a pair of large tears rolling down her cheeks. A split second later her face was joined with the palms of her hands, and her shoulders began to heave as she quietly sobbed.
“I’m sorry,” I delicately offered, “but at the risk of sounding heartless, you brought it on yourselves.”
“Brought what on their selves?” Carl interjected in a puzzled tone as he switched his gaze back and forth between the two women and me. “What’re you talking about?”
“I apologize,” Starr announced, eyes watering as she choked back her own desire to cry. “You are, of course, correct, and that was…” She swallowed hard and steeled herself against the sorrow and fear that threatened to overtake her. “…It was very rude of us.”
“It’s okay,” I soothed. “I understand.”
“I am afraid that Karyl is in no condition to proceed with this interview,” she continued while she could. “However, if you gentlemen would be so kind as to wait right here, I will be back in a moment… and I will do my best to answer any questions you may have.”
I nodded. “Of course. Take your time.”
Carl waited until the two women had left the room and were out of earshot before turning to me and tossing his hands up. “Could someone please tell me what just happened? One minute she’s a freakin’ ice princess then the next thing you know she looks like she’s about to start bawlin’ and she’s apologizin’ to you… And what was that ‘you brought it on yerself’s’ stuff?”
“In their zeal to… read me psychically shall we say,” I explained, “they got a little carried away and looked at a few memories they would have been better off not seeing.”
“They did WHAT?” His eyes grew wide as he made the exclamation.
“Trust me, Carl,” I told him. “It’s a Witch thing.”
Behind me, Ben softly whistled the opening theme from the Twilight Zone.
“I apologize for Karyl,” Starr told us as she centered herself back on the love seat and self-consciously smoothed her pleated, tartan skirt. Her slightly reddened eyes testified to the fact that she had shed a few tears as well. “She and Kendra were lovers once…” She paused then added, “Before us of course.
“She was taking her death pretty hard to begin with and seeing that…vision…” She allowed her voice to melt into silence then took a deep breath and continued, “My apologies once again to you, Mister Gant. I am certain that reliving those images must have been just as painful for you as well.”
“Rowan. Please,” I replied. “And it’s all right. I just hope the two of you will be okay.”
She smiled. Briefly, but she smiled. She was very striking to begin with, and the smile betrayed the gentle side of the sharp-edged attorney who had been seated there only minutes ago.
She drew in another deep breath and exhaled heavily then asked, “How can I help?”
“Do you know if Miss Miller, or anyone in your group for that matter,” Carl responded, “has been threatened or harassed lately?”
“She mentioned that she had been receiving religious junk mail,” she answered. “But that’s not unusual. Once your name is on a mailing list, it gets circulated everywhere.”
“Nothing else?” he pressed. “Was she maybe approached by anyone that you know of?”
“No. Not that I am aware of, unless you count e-mail.”
“Go on.”
“She received some rather nasty messages on the internet… A month or two back if I remember correctly. ‘Repent now, or burn in hell’ kind of messages. She reported them to her provider, and I assume they took care of it. She never received any more.”
“Did she have any idea who the messages were from or how the person got ‘er e-mail address?” Ben interjected.
“No. She had no idea who was sending them.”
“Whoever it was probably pulled her address down from a newsgroup or something,” I offered. “That would also explain why the person knew her religion. There are several discussion groups about Paganism, Wicca and The Craft. All she had to do was post a message to one of them and her e-mail address became public knowledge.”
“Lovely,” Ben huffed as he scribbled in his notebook.
Turning back to Starr, I asked, “Do you happen to know who her provider was?”
“Not offhand.” She shook her head. “I have her e-mail address, if that would help?”
“Yes. I would appreciate getting that from you later.”
Ben and Carl both shot me curious looks.
“If her internet service provider was filtering the e-mail for her in order to bounce or trap the offensive messages,” I outlined for their benefit, “we might be able to get a domain designation from them.”
They continued to look at me expectantly.
“Kind of like tracing a phone call.” I simplified my explanation. “If we’re lucky, we might be able to determine the origin of the message, the account it was sent from, and maybe even the person who owns the account.”
The expectant looks turned into amazed stares.
“Remember, I make my living with computers. WitchCraft is a part of my belief system. It’s not my profession.”
“I’ll get one of our gurus on that,” Ben assented with an oh yeah, now I remember expression on his face and penned himself a quick reminder.
Carl looked back to the young woman and continued the line of questions. “Did anyone else in your group get any of these e-mails or junk mail?”
“I don’t think so.” She pursed her lips and canted her head to the side then stared off thoughtfully for a moment. “No. I can’t remember anyone mentioning any, although… Brianna did say she had been getting quite a few prank phone calls. Hang-ups mostly, but she did seem a little disturbed by them.”