Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (9 page)

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.

I cocked my head to the side so as to allow
her better access then said, “It was already over the minute it
started, Felicity. Calling nine-one-one would have just raised
questions we can’t answer. Like, why I’m covered in blood but don’t
have any injuries for one thing.”

“You should probably still see a doctor.”

“And what do I say? I’m a pint low but I
don’t know where it went?”

“There’s still a spot here that looks
irritated,” she said, apparently ignoring me again. “I’m pretty
sure that’s where it was.”

“Was,” I repeated. “Like I just told you…
It’s not there anymore. Besides, I’ve been rubbing my neck all
morning because of the pain. I’m not surprised it looks
irritated.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not really.”

“Not really? What’s that mean?”

“It means it isn’t hurting like it was
earlier,” I explained. “It just burns a little I guess. But like
you said, it’s irritated.”

“Well…” she murmured, gingerly pressing her
fingers around the spot on my neck as if she expected it to erupt
once again. “I don’t see anything else, and you aren’t cold
anymore.”

“See… It’s over… So, can I just go ahead and
take a shower?”

“I suppose… But I’m none too happy about
this.”

“Trust me, honey, I’m not falling all over
myself about it either, but what’s done is done.”

“What if it happens again?”

“We deal with it, I guess.”

“And what if I’m not there to stop it?”

“You mean the bleeding?” I shrugged. “I
wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Oh?” she said, raising both eyebrows. “And
why not then?”

“Like I said, the spirit just wanted my
attention. It’s not like she would let me bleed out or anything.
I’m no good to her dead.”

“I think you’re giving her too much credit,
Rowan.”

“Why?”

“Because if she was that smart she’d know I’m
about ready to put her arse in a shoebox with a pound of salt and
bury her in the back yard.”

“Very funny.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

I shook my head. “Do you really want to take
that chance? You know what happened the last time either of us
tried a binding.”

“On each other, yes. What about on them?”

“You can’t seriously plan on binding every
spirit that tries to communicate with me.”

“Watch me.”

“Felicity…”

“
Damnú
, I’m serious, Rowan,” she said,
tossing the cloth into the sink then turning and leaning back
against the vanity next to me. “What do we do about this?”

“I don’t know,” I offered with a sigh. “Like
I said, I guess we just take it as it comes.”

She snorted. “That’s not much of a plan now,
is it? You know you can’t function like this.”

“Why not?” I asked, giving her a shrug.
“That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing for several years
now.”

“I know,” she replied, casting her gaze at
the floor and letting her voice drop. “But…”

I waited for the rest of the sentence;
however, she simply allowed the quiet to close in.

“But what?” I finally asked.

She audibly took in a deep breath then looked
up at me. “I wonder if maybe I’m asking too much of you then.”

“How so?”

“You haven’t any control over this… I know
that. Maybe I shouldn’t be asking you to fight it. Maybe you should
just let it happen.”

“That’s an unexpected about-face,” I
replied.

“Maybe that’s how it has to be.”

“I really don’t see that as an option.” I
shook my head to punctuate the statement. “Besides, the way I
remember it, this was a mutual decision. I don’t want this
happening to me any more than you do.”

“Are you certain of that?”

I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll admit there was a
time when I thought I had no choice but to accept it as my fate,
but now I just don’t know.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead
as I breathed a heavy sigh of my own. “Right now, all I can say is
I’m tired, sweetheart. I’m just…tired.”

“I know… But when you don’t fight it… When
you let them in it isn’t as bad. Not like this…”

“I’m not so sure that’s true.”

“I am…” she replied, nodding. “I’m not saying
it’s good when you let them in. It isn’t… I’ve grown to hate it…
But now it seems to be worse when you fight them, and I’m afraid it
won’t get any better.”

“Maybe it will, in time. Let’s just give it
awhile,” I said, trying to soothe her. “If I ignore her long enough
maybe she’ll finally get the message and leave me alone for
good.”

“And what about the next one? And the
next?”

“If this works then maybe there won’t be
anymore.”

“Do you really believe that then?”

“I have to hope it will work out that way,” I
answered, avoiding any commitment that might come back to haunt
me.

“But you know it won’t, don’t you?”

I wanted to say no, but I had a sick feeling
that she was correct. Besides, it didn’t matter any longer. Even if
I gave in to the urge and lied, my hesitation had already told her
the real answer.

“That’s what I thought,” she whispered. “Go
on, take a shower then. I’ll heat up that tea.”

* * * * *

With the exception of a lingering fatigue,
the rest of my day was uneventful. Felicity made it a point to
never allow me out of her line of sight, but I could definitely
think of worse things to endure. In fact, it was nice to actually
spend some time together instead of being cloistered away in our
separate home offices. Of course, it would have been more enjoyable
if it hadn’t been obvious that she was expecting me to once again
start bleeding profusely at any moment.

However, by evening, she had relaxed
considerably and so had I. The irritated spot on my neck remained
sore, and the ethereal thump in the back of my head was still
making itself known, but provided they didn’t get any worse, those
were both things with which I could easily cope.

Under the circumstances, everything was
fine.

The only thing I couldn’t explain is why,
when I went to sleep that night, I dreamt of a moonlit lake, the
bank of which was blemished with the corpse of a single black
swan.

“Gant Consulting,” I said into the handset as
I leaned back in my chair. “This is Rowan speaking.”

I had grabbed the phone on the first ring.
Customarily I didn’t get to it before the second at least, and
usually not even before the third. But business wasn’t exactly
booming right now, so when the bell began to peal I hadn’t been
deeply involved in anything that needed my undivided attention.

Truth be told, the lack of work was a good
thing at the moment. I’d awakened this morning with the haunting
vision of the dead swan still flashing in my head, and it hadn’t
yet faded. If anything, it had intensified. That was bad enough in
itself, but the imagery was also coupled with an odd, jittery
sensation that had only grown worse as the day wore on. Dealing
with those aggravations was keeping me more than a little
preoccupied, so concentration definitely wasn’t one of my strengths
right now. In fact, I’d been having enough trouble staying focused
on the game of solitaire that was now sitting idle on my screen. If
real work had been involved, I would be worthless.

“Yo, white man,” Ben’s voice buzzed from the
earpiece in response to my businesslike greeting.

I pulled off my glasses and laid them on the
desk before allowing the chair to rock all the way back on its
springs. I reached up and began massaging the bridge of my nose
with my free hand as a quiet sigh escaped. On top of the nervous
agitation, yesterday’s dull headache was still living somewhere
around the base of my skull, and it had been randomly sending out
raiding parties to the front of my brain all morning. I seriously
doubted it was a coincidence that one of those infiltrators had
just now managed to dig in and set up a forward base camp right
behind my eyes.

To be honest, I couldn’t say I was all that
surprised to hear my friend on the other end of the line. In fact,
more than once this morning I had almost been the one to dial the
phone. I kept telling myself it would just be to see if he had the
name of Annalise’s attorney for me yet; but deep down I knew better
than that, which is why I never followed through. I couldn’t help
but harbor a conscious fear that there was an underlying motive for
me to make the call and that if I did so, I would fall into the
trap of talking to him about his current homicide investigation. In
my mind it was a tossup as to which one of us would be first to
broach the subject, but I definitely didn’t want it to be me. If I
did it, then that just meant I had caved, and the spirit world
would have gained yet another foothold in my life.

Of course, it really didn’t matter who
started it. The end result would be the same either way and could
easily invoke a repeat performance of yesterday’s events, which was
exactly what I was trying to avoid. While I wasn’t willing to place
all the blame on Ben, Felicity had made a valid point—he and his
case just might be a corporeal trigger. Unfortunately, the fresh
stabs of pain inside my skull at this particular moment went a long
way toward being a smoking gun where that theory was concerned.

“You still there?” my friend asked.

His tone told me I had paused far longer than
I thought. I rocked forward in my chair and managed to spit out,
“Hey, Ben… Yeah, I’m here.”

“This a bad time?” he asked, trying to
interpret the verbal cue. “You busy?”

“No, not really,” I replied. “It’s just…
Nothing… Don’t worry about it. So, how are you this morning?”

“Not bad I guess. Better’n yesterday. I
actually got some sleep last night. How ‘bout you?”

“Fine,” I told him. “I’m doing fine.”

I could feel my body tense as a fresh wave of
foreboding swept over me. If he didn’t pursue the previous day’s
events any further everything should be okay. But I knew it wasn’t
very likely he’d stop now. He had a motive for the contact, he
always did, and exchanging simple pleasantries was never it. I
tried pretending that maybe this call was for the express purpose
of giving me the information on the attorney and nothing more, but
unfortunately, I wasn’t having much success where suspension of
disbelief was concerned.

As expected, his next question made it a moot
point to even continue trying.

“So how’s your neck?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Any
Twilight Zone
or other weird shit
to report?” he asked.

“No,” I lied again and then added a bit of
truth to reinforce the statement, “Not that I’d be reporting it if
there was.”

“Why not?”

“You know why, Ben. I’m pretty sure we’ve
already beaten this conversation to death.”

“Yeah, okay, but really? Nothin’
happened?”

“Yeah, really.”

He paused for a moment then said, “You’re
lyin’. I can tell.”

“Okay,
Columbo
. So what if I am?” I
asked.

He chuckled. “I ain’t that short and I dress
better.”

“But you smoke cigars and drive a piece of
junk,” I offered, hoping to divert the subject.

“Okay, enough with the comedy routine. So
seriously, how’s your neck?”

“Like I already said, just fine.”

“Bullshit. You’re still lyin’.”

“You know, for someone who always tells me to
stay out of things and let you do your job, you sure sound like
you’re trying to drag me into the middle of this one. Just like
yesterday.”

“Nope, I ain’t. Just concerned about ya’ is
all.”

“Well, I’m fine, so don’t worry so much.”

“Ya’ don’t sound fine.”

“Well, I am.”

“Says you… Did ya’ at least let Firehair
know? I mean about your neck hurtin’ yesterday.”

“Oh yeah,” I replied. The words came out on
the heels of a low snort that I couldn’t manage to contain. “She
knows all about it.”

“Uh-huh, see, I knew you were lyin’.” His
voice actually sounded like it held a note of concern. “What
happened, Row?

“I’d really rather not discuss it, Ben.”