“Storm!” Agent Mandalay’s voice threaded through the racket with more than a hint of urgency.
Out of reflex, I sent my eyes searching for the source of the cry. Ben maintained his grip on me but twisted around to look as well. As I rolled my head to the side and glanced past him, I caught a glimpse of Constance struggling to hold my wife’s violently shaking form.
The memory of her first experience with such ethereal channeling was still fresh enough for me to get a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach just at the sight of her seizing. Lucidity rushed in where once there was confusion, and the words “Dammit Rowan! Ground!” reverberated inside my skull. I instantly realized what had happened. Felicity, in an attempt to ground me, had taken my place on the other side.
I didn’t know how far I had gone, but I did remember that the hold on me had been one of the strongest I had ever felt. Tearing me away from it meant she had been left with no choice but to release her own ground in this plane; and, because of that, now it was she who was grappling with the horrors on the opposite side of the dark threshold.
I couldn’t remember exactly what had been happening to me before I was wrenched away, but I knew it wasn’t good. What I did recall was that at the very least, I was in horrific pain, and at the very worst, I was a scant few steps from taking up permanent residence in the domain of the dead.
In either case, I simply wasn’t going to allow it to continue happening to her.
I heard myself screaming ‘NO’ as I broke away from Ben and threw myself toward my now posturing wife. I managed to sidestep my friend before he even realized what was happening, and a few steps later, I was hooking my arms around Felicity, taking the brunt of her weight from Agent Mandalay as she continued to shudder and jerk. I began settling downward as I cradled her, kneeling onto the asphalt parking lot.
“Dammit, Cerridwen, you bitch!” I said aloud, almost yelling; rancor was thick in my voice. “Leave her alone! Do you hear me?! Leave… Her… Alone!”
Never, and I do mean never, in my history as a practicing Witch, have I ever had a spell work in full the very moment it was cast. Especially when it was cast as a demand and not a request. And, even more importantly, when I didn’t even realize I was casting one to begin with.
Of course, strong emotion is the most powerful energy one can muster, and the words themselves are nothing more than a vehicle for that energy. Sometimes, I suppose being painfully direct about what you want is the only way to communicate with The Ancients.
Still, as much as I would like to take credit for what transpired the moment I recited the angry demand, I am fairly certain my position with the Gods is not one of absolute favor. If it was, I’m sure I wouldn’t be doomed to this particular destiny. Therefore, any demand I would make would be certain to fall on deaf ears, and I fully suspect this end result was mere coincidence.
However, you couldn’t convince Ben Storm that it was anything short of magick.
Even as the last syllable was leaving my mouth, Felicity ceased her violent shaking and fell limp in my arms. She gasped once, her chest rose as she drew in a deep measure of fresh air, and then she began to breathe normally. She was unconscious, but that was probably for the best at the moment.
Strobe-like amber luminescence was now flickering across us in the pre-dusk dimness of the overcast afternoon. I felt a presence beside me and looked up to see Ben’s incredulous face staring back down at us as he leaned forward.
“Damn, white man, I dunno who the hell Kara is,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear. “But I think she’s afraid of ya’.”
“Special Agent Mandalay, Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Off to my left, I heard Constance almost yelling the formality, and I looked over to see her face to face with a mall security guard. She had her badge case open and displayed in her hand, and the older man was giving it a close look.
I hadn’t even noticed the truck pull up, but considering that the alarm on the car had yet to reset itself, I shouldn’t have been surprised that I hadn’t heard it. The security vehicle was equipped with a flashing light bar, so that explained the yellowish disco lighting that had suddenly appeared.
I looked around and noticed a small crowd of shoppers had gathered several yards away. There was plenty of the standard pointing, gawking, and leaning close to one another in order to compare notes as they speculated about the scene. I didn’t have to hear them to know what they were saying. I’d stared back into crowds like this before. It was all just a part of the human dynamic, and where there was public strife there would be onlookers with off-base opinions.
“Seizure,” Constance was shouting to the security guard. “Fell against the car…”
The last two words of her sentence belted out across the parking lot, piercing the suddenly low-level ambient noise as the car alarm reset with a clipped burp of the horn and settled into silence.
“Fell against the car and set off the alarm,” she continued in a normal tone.
“She an epileptic?” he asked.
“Something like that,” Constance replied.
“Would you like for me to call paramedics?” the guard asked, glancing past her at Felicity’s motionless form, still cradled in my arms.
“Rowan?” Constance called over to me.
I shook my head. “No. We just need to get her home so she can rest.”
“You sure, sir? She doesn’t look so good,” the officer leaned around Constance and spoke directly to me, a slight southern drawl to his voice.
I nodded quickly. “She’ll be fine. We’ve been through this before.”
Neither of us was lying. We just weren’t telling the whole story. Fortunately, the security officer didn’t seem to notice.
“If you say so,” he replied. “But I’m gonna have to get your names and such for my report.”
“Detective Ben Storm, SLPD,” my friend offered, flashing his badge. “Listen, do you mind if I go pull my van up so she has a place to lay down.”
The guard looked over the top of his glasses at the gold shield, then glanced around, inspecting the thruway. He finally nodded as he pointed to a freshly vacated slot a few cars away, “Yeah, go ahead. Just pull in over there so you’re not blockin’ traffic.”
Ben took off at a jog, and the security officer turned his attention back to us. “A Fed and a city cop,” he grunted and then looked over at me. “You got a badge too?”
“No sir,” I replied. “We’re both civilians.”
“Good,” he grunted again. “I was starting to wonder if y’all were out here about the abduction this morning. Wait here while I go get my clipboard.”
Constance looked over at me as he turned his back to us and she asked, “Are you sure she’s okay?”
“She should be. It’s over now,” I replied and then paused before adding. “For the moment, anyway.”
“So, what happened?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper. “You started falling, she starting yelling something about the ground, and the next thing I knew she went stiff as a board.”
“I slipped over to the other side,” I replied quietly, not bothering to correct her perception regarding what Felicity had said. “I’m pretty sure she decided to rescue me, and since Kimberly Forest is her friend, she had an even stronger connection than me. So…” I allowed the rest of my speculation to remain unspoken.
“Damn, Rowan, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you two.”
“Don’t worry,” I offered. “I don’t think we’ll ever get used to us either.”
“You said your name was Mandalay, right?” the security officer asked as he stepped back over to us, clipboard in hand. “So, how do you spell that?”
“Here,” Constance said, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing a business card for him.
He took it from her and slipped it beneath the holder on the metal clipboard, then began writing, pausing now and again to glance at the cardboard rectangle.
“Rowan…” Felicity’s faint voice wafted into my ears.