Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (5 page)

I let out my own piqued sigh between pursed
lips and sent the mild anger with my friend to spin away down an
imaginary drain. I knew he meant well and that this was all a part
of what made Detective Benjamin Storm, “Ben Storm the devoted
friend.”

I unlatched my door and shouldered it open.
“Let’s go have a look. If I can help, you know I want to.”

“Ya’know... I really hated to ask you to do
this, Rowan.” Ben turned back to face me, his eyes betraying the
pain he still refused to let go. The temperature inside the van had
quickly dropped, and his words came in a cloud of steamy
breath.

“I know you did, Chief,” I answered. “But get
over it. You can’t protect the entire world.”

“Maybe not. But I can sure as hell protect my
corner of it.”

“W
e haven’t cleaned her up
yet,” the emotionless voice of the medical examiner told me
officially. “We just finished the external examination early this
morning. Detective Storm asked us not to proceed with the rest of
the postmortem until you had a look.”

The climate controlled gelidity of the
autopsy suite, though still a fair amount warmer than the current
outdoor temperature, injected itself uninvited into my joints,
quickly hardening them to ice. Insinuating itself like a prickly
arthritis, it froze me in place next to the stainless steel table
bearing the young woman’s partially shrouded corpse. The only sound
to reach my ears was the dull thudding of my own heart. I had been
in this very room before with none but the living, but even then
the restless souls of the departed had called out to me.

Clawed at me…

Pleaded with me…

Spoken to me as their conduit to this
physical plane…

They had sought me out as the one who
understood their continued existence and as the one who could
pierce that unyielding veil between life and death.

And, they had spoken to me then just as they
were speaking to me now.

This unearthly connection to the other side
was my own personal bane as a Witch. Something I had never wanted
but could never deny.

My eyes were beginning to burn, and I
suddenly realized that I was staring. A fixed, unfocused gaze upon
her uncovered face and torso. A face that had once belonged to a
vivacious and beautiful young woman. I blinked and removed my
glasses before rubbing my eyes and taking a moment to will away the
voices of the dead. All of them but one, I hoped.

In life, I am sure that Brianna Walker had
been the proverbial knockout blonde. Even in death, she was beyond
striking. Measuring five-feet nine-inches, she would have been
described as statuesque. From what was visible, her shape fit the
criteria for the much sought after hourglass figure, and the Mother
Goddess had been more than kind to her in the area of endowment.
Still visible along her shoulders and upper arms were the subdued
lines of trim musculature. Her stomach was tight and flat. All of
this gave silent testimony to her superlative physical condition.
Soft but powerful, which is exactly what clients seeking her
particularly specialized services would have been after. It was
also a fact that told me she wouldn’t have gone down easily. This
woman would have fought for her life if given half a chance.

Her natural blonde hair was cropped neatly,
shoulder length; and what had been a stylish coif was matted with a
dried crust of her own blood. The back of her head had impacted
violently with the stone inlaid courtyard in front of the hotel but
not before the rest of her body had won that final race. According
to the medical examiner, the x-rays showed countless fractures
along her spine and each of her limbs. Like Ben had wryly
commented—it wasn’t the fall that killed her, it was the sudden
stop at the end. Cliché, but then everyone had their own way of
dealing with the horrors that they saw. Defense mechanisms are what
the psychologists like to call them. Clichés and dry humor just
happened to be Ben’s. Brianna Walker’s fine Grecian features and
clear complexion bespoke of an austere beauty combined with a cold
arrogance that exuded supreme confidence. She knew she was
beautiful, and she had not hesitated to use that fact to her
advantage.

Now, however, her lifeless blue-grey pallor
contrasted hideously with the painted face of fantasy she had worn
that night. Once full, pouting lips sagged flatly, still lacquered
a garish red. Dusky steel-greys coated her now sinking eyelids in
sharp contoured lines. Thick blue-black mascara still clung in
places to spidery lashes, but only where both it and eyeliner
hadn’t run in dirty streams down her rouged cheeks. She had cried
beyond the threshold of waterproof makeup.

She had sobbed in pain.

She had whimpered for mercy.

She had died in unfathomable fear.

No longer the cold seductress, she now wore
the mask of a weeping clown, and her pain reached past her cloak of
darkness to tear at my very soul.

I felt Ben’s large hand rest lightly on my
shoulder. “Hey, Kemosabe. You okay?”

“Yeah, Ben.” I whispered past the frog that
had made a home in my throat. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You aren’t gonna try anything, are ya’?
Ya’know, like...” He allowed his voice to melt into silence.

I had previously worked side by side with Ben
on a gruesome serial killer case almost every step of the way. It
was then that he had seen me exhibit abilities that until that time
he had discounted as pure invention. Among those talents had been
the capacity to channel and witness the death of a victim first
hand. However, he had also learned that in doing so, I could run
the risk of joining the victim on the other side permanently. It
was to this that I knew he was now wordlessly referring.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ll try not to
without warning you first.”

“Good enough.” After a brief, brotherly
squeeze, he released my shoulder and stepped back. I could hear him
flip open his notepad, and the rustling sound was punctuated by the
metallic click of a ballpoint pen. “Go ahead, Doc.”

Ben spoke to the medical examiner who stepped
around my motionless form and pulled back the pristine white sheet
to reveal the rest of the nightmare.

I slipped my glasses back on to my face and
adjusted them down the bridge of my nose with slow determination,
and only then did I allow my eyes to roam across the rest of the
young woman’s body.

“As you can see,” the M.E. began as if he
were giving a lecture while directing my gaze with his gloved hand,
“there are several deep lacerations along her hips and thighs.”

Razor precise incisions lined her shapely,
once unblemished legs in diagonal, half-chevron stripes. Lifeless
flesh, now growing mildly flaccid, shrank away in opposing
directions, exposing the severity and depth of the cuts.

“Whoever made the incisions managed to miss
any major blood vessels.” The doctor continued his dispassionate
dissertation of the facts. “And, as I told you, her spinal column
was virtually shattered, most likely from the fall. However, there
were several fractures in her limbs, and both shoulders were
displaced. Bruising would indicate that both the dislocations and a
number of the leg fractures occurred well before she died.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Six to twelve hours, approximately.”

“I assume she rented the room and not her
client?” I directed the question over my shoulder to Ben. “Or else
I wouldn’t be here looking at this.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Room was in her name.
Rented that afternoon on her credit card. Not unusual for her
accordin’ to her Vice rap sheet. Considerin’ what she charged per
hour, I expect she just considered it the cost of doin’
business.”

“What time did she take the fall?”

I heard him flip back through his notes.
“Call came in around one-forty a.m. She bounced off the hood of a
BMW and set off the alarm. It was parked right in front of the
lobby entrance, so she wasn’t layin’ there for long.”

I mused aloud for my friend’s benefit as well
as my own. “That means, theoretically, he could have been torturing
her almost the entire day. But why didn’t anyone hear her? Surely
she had to have screamed.”

“We found fibers matching the hotel linens in
her mouth and bite lacerations on her tongue,” the medical examiner
offered. “As well as tape residue around her mouth.”

“There were washcloths and a lot of duct tape
in the room,” Ben added. “Lab’s checking for saliva and all that,
but we’re pretty sure he used ‘em to gag her. Show him the other
marks, Doc.”

“Mister Gant, if you’ll step over here.”

I moved down the length of the metal table
toward the M.E., and Ben followed along behind. With heartless
clinical detachment, the doctor carefully scissored Brianna
Walker’s legs apart. In a sense, I had begun to feel sorry for him.
Dealing with the cruelties of death on a daily basis had robbed him
of his compassion. I loathed the thought of becoming as he was but
at the same time wished for the ability to switch off the emotions
I was now feeling.

“Here on the inner thigh.” He indicated a
patch of incised flesh as he held a large magnifying glass above
it.

The lens did its prescribed duty and visually
enlarged the area, showing a circle carefully carved into the skin.
Around the edges of the circle, small hash marks bisected the
curved line. Centrally located in the ringlet, a large X
intersected and formed union with a large P. I simply stared in
utter disbelief.

“There is an identical marking on the left
inner thigh as well. There are several small but unremarkable
puncture wounds on her back and buttocks. It also appears that
several cigarettes were used to burn the soles of her feet.”

The doctor continued his antiseptic diatribe,
carefully outlining the facts of the examination for my benefit. He
was still holding the magnifying glass in place while I blindly
gazed through it. Staring dumbfounded, only superficially aware
that it was he who was speaking, yet still assimilating the
information that was voiced.

“Her pelvis is fractured in a manner
inconsistent with injuries from the fall. Evidence of bleeding and
preliminary examination would seem to indicate that some foreign
object was inserted forcibly into her vagina.”

“A
Pear
,” I whispered, ending my
muteness.

“What?” Ben asked. “You mean the shithead
stuck fruit up ‘er?”

“No. Not fruit, Ben.” I broke my gaze from
the symbol inscribed in her flesh and turned to him. “It’s a
spiked, medieval torture device used during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. It was inserted, sometimes into the mouth but
more often, rectally or vaginally. I guess the best analogy is that
it worked like a shoe stretcher. By turning a screw it would expand
or contract. Its purpose, however, was to rend flesh and crush
bones.”

“Jeezus fuck...” he muttered.

My mouth was beginning to water, and sharp
convulsions of nausea were threatening to overtake my stomach and
relieve me of its contents.

“What did you say she called herself?” I
asked as I closed my eyes and forced down the overwhelming need to
vomit.

“Mistress
Bree?”

“No. The other one.”

He shuffled back through his notes once
again. “Hmmmm, yeah, here it is. The Wicked Witch of the West
End.”

I turned back to the doctor and opened my
eyes, careful to keep my gaze on his face and the young woman’s
body well out of my field of view.

“Doctor. Did she have any distinguishing
birthmarks? Possibly a mole? Maybe even a distinctly shaped scar or
a tattoo?” I raised my left arm and used my right hand to indicate
the area. “Either under her arms, on her shoulder, or on her upper
back. Either side, it doesn’t matter.”

“She has a tattoo of one of those devil
worship symbols just above her right scapula. A five-pointed star,
whatever they’re called.”

“A Pentacle,” I told him as I clutched my
stomach and sent my eyes searching for the door. I didn’t bother to
correct his evaluation of the symbol’s meaning. Fact was, in this
case, his perception was closer to the reason this young woman had
been murdered than was the truth.

“Why do you ask?”

“Yeah, Row.” Ben chimed in. “What’s it got to
do with anything? What’s that other symbol anyhow? Did’ya recognize
it or not? Hey, where’re you goin’?”

“I need some air.” I was halfway to the exit,
and it was all I could manage to say.

* * * * *

When Ben finally caught up to me, I was in
the corridor with my back pressed into the institutional grey wall.
I had carelessly stuffed my glasses into a shirt pocket, and my
face was now buried in my hands, shielding me from the horror in
the autopsy suite, trapping, however, the vivid remembrance of it
in my mind. My breath was labored, and I slid slowly down the wall
until I was seated, hunched on the frigid tile floor.

“Rowan! What the hell’s goin’ on, man? Are
you all right?” Ben was kneeling in front of me, hands clasping my
shoulders. “What’s happening? Answer me!”

I had pitched my head forward the moment I
noticed the darkness edging into my vision. I was still
hyperventilating and now rode the fence between consciousness and
unconsciousness. I struggled to control my breathing. Reaching deep
inside, I forced myself to ground and center, a Witch’s equivalent
of relaxing and focusing. My breaths began to come slower,
deepening with each draw. I could feel electric tremors still
dancing up my spine and knew I was shivering, but the cold was far
from being the cause.

“Dammit, white man, talk to me!” Ben
demanded.