“You know this won’t do anything for this kind of headache,” I said in a puzzled tone.
“Aye, that I do.” She closed her eyes as she nodded. “But they aren’t for that. They’re for your face. It will be hurting soon enough, and you don’t need that on top of the headache.”
“Oh, yeah, okay.”
I popped the trio of pain pills into my mouth and took the glass of water from her. Unfortunately, the medicine was only midway down my throat when, for the fourth time this morning, a bloodcurdling scream pierced my skull.
CHAPTER 10:
The ibuprofen tablets lodged sideways in my throat as I involuntarily jerked at the sound. I sputtered and gagged for a moment, then thumped my chest hard with my free hand, forcing the lump of pills to continue along their way. With a quick gasp, I wheezed in a lungful of air. My eyes were watering, and I coughed to expel the water that had ventured down the wrong pipe.
I looked up, fully expecting Felicity to be gazing back at me and wondering why I was suddenly choking. Instead, I found that she was wearing just as startled an expression as I’m sure was plastered to my features. On top of that, she was looking toward the open door. Before either of us could utter a word, a second cry echoed through the house sounding vaguely like the word “no.” As it faded, it became an anguished sob, supported on all sides by sympathetic words uttered softly by a second voice.
“Aye, that would be Nancy, I’m afraid.” Felicity turned to me and spoke in a hurried voice as she rested a hand on my shoulder, “Are you okay, then?”
The earlier stampede was already being repeated as everyone came back up the hallway, passing by the bathroom on the way.
“I’m good,” I choked out as I coughed once again. I was still sitting on the toilet lid and leaning against the washbasin. I motioned at the door with one hand. “Go. I’ll be along in a minute.”
I didn’t have to tell her twice. In fact, she was already moving in the direction of the doorway as I answered her. I watched her go and then pushed myself upward. My muscles were already feeling the leading edge of soreness from the convulsive attack they’d endured. I rinsed out the glass and set it to the side before taking a handful of the cold water running from the tap and gingerly splashing my face. I lingered for a moment at my eyes, letting the coolness soak in as I rubbed. They felt tired and gritty, and that was only one of the many unpleasant sensations coursing through me.
I dried my face with the hand towel and stood for a moment, my expressionless countenance staring back at me from the vanity mirror. My cheek was already swelling noticeably, and my eyes were bloodshot. I desperately needed a shave, and my goatee could have stood a trim as well. It seemed as though every time I looked into a mirror lately I would see just that many more grey hairs.
“Hell gettin' old, ain’t it?” Ben’s quiet voice came from behind me as he voiced the observation.
I glanced over my shoulder at him then back to the mirror. “Do you need to get in here?”
“Nah,” he replied. “Just checkin’ on you.”
“Old,” I muttered with a sigh as I gazed back at my less than flattering reflection. “I’d be inclined to agree with you, but the problem is, according to my driver’s license I’m only forty.”
“It’s not the years, Kemosabe…”
I finished the cliche bromide for him. “…It’s the mileage. Yeah, I know.”
“Cheer up. You got a few left in ya’, white man,” he said.
“I don’t know, Ben. I’m feeling like a bad re-tread right now.”
“So, like maybe you need to do that groundin’ thing you and Felicity are always talkin’ about,” he offered. “Ya’know, so the creepin’ ooga-boogas can’t fuck with ya’ so much.”
“That’s the other problem,” I said. “I’m already doing that.”
“For real? You ain’t just sayin’ that to get me off your ass?”
I guess I’d lied to him about my condition too many times for him to take my word for it right off the bat.
“Yeah, for real. You can ask Felicity if you want.”
He pondered my answer for a moment before speaking. “So, that’s not a good thing then, huh?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”
“So, whaddaya gonna do about it?”
I tucked the hand towel across the bar on the wall then turned to face him and leaned back against the vanity. “I don’t know,” I told him as I shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Can’t you cook up a potion or wear some garlic around your neck or somethin’?”
“What was that you told me earlier?” I answered. “I think it was, ‘you’ve been watching too much TV.’ Besides, garlic is for warding off vampires.”
“Does it work?” He grinned back at me.
I couldn’t help but allow myself a small chuckle. “I don’t know, Chief. I’ve never met one.”
The sobbing noises that were filtering down the corridor had diminished for the moment. They had actually been sliding up and down the scale ever since they began, and this appeared to be one of the low points. More soft voices, including the unmistakable Celtic brogue of my wife, could be heard joining the first in an attempt to shore up the explosion of grief. I needed to get out there myself, but I didn’t know that I was ready to face it; not quite yet, anyway. I felt a bit selfish, hiding away and wallowing in my own problems, but there was far more to this than just Randy’s death. And, since I was at the center of it, I was bearing a disproportionate load that was getting heavier all the time.
A small tickle had been working on the back of my head for a good part of the morning, and it was now resurfacing. This time it bypassed its normal annoyance stage and leapt directly into a nagging question.
I furrowed my brow and pursed my lips for a moment as I mulled the query over. I wasn’t entirely sure why it mattered, but for some reason it was begging an answer.
“You got that look,” Ben announced.
“Excuse me?”
“You know, that look like you’re confused about somethin’.”
“Maybe a little puzzled.”
“Okay, so spit it out.”
“I don’t really know if it’s important.”
“Yeah, so spit it out anyway.”
“Okay. You wouldn’t happen to know where Porter is originally from would you?”
“Not off the top of my head, why?”
“Because of some of the choices he’s made lately,” I explained. “Using the page from Hexen und Hexenmeister for one. The nail for another.”
“I thought the nail was pretty obvious,” he said.
“On the surface, yes, but he could have guaranteed that we could ID the body in a lot of other ways. The nail has symbolism of its own…” I let my voice trail off.
After a moment, Ben spoke up. “Okay, so you wanna enlighten us mortals?”
I was so caught up in pondering the query that I just gave him an offhanded answer. “Witches aren’t immortal, Ben.”
“Yeah, whatever. You wanna fill me in please? What about the nail?”
“What?”
“The nail, Rowan. You’re obsessin’ about the nail, and I’m kinda lost.”
At some point while I was staring off into space, he had retrieved his notebook from his pocket, and he now appeared poised to record any pearl of wisdom I may utter. I was afraid he was about to be disappointed by a cheap, plastic imitation.
“Oh, that. Nails are a major component of Witch jars and have been long thought by certain cultures to act as a deterrent to magickal forces and WitchCraft. Kind of a protective talisman of sorts.”
“Do I wanna know what a Witch jar is?”
I shrugged. “It’s just a version of the talisman. I can give you details if you want them.”
“Is it important?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t seem to know a lot today.”
My reply was laced with sarcasm. “Thanks a lot.”
“Just an observation.” He shrugged then continued. “Okay, so anyway, two plus two equals what? Thirty-seven?”
I furrowed my brow deeper and shook my head. “What are you talking about?”