He had already disappeared from view, and I could hear the creak of the door slowly closing behind him. I forged on, and finally topping the first flight of stairs, I rounded the landing and started up the next set, only to halt dead in my tracks.
Seated on the top stair was a blonde in her early twenties, clad in a cheerleader’s uniform. Her arms were crossed, and she was leaning forward with them resting on her knees. The toes of her unnaturally white sneakers pointed slightly in toward one another, and she was staring at me quizzically.
After a brief interval of motionlessness, her mouth began to move. A short measure later, completely out of sync with her lips, words began glancing from the walls with a phase-shifted quality that I’d come to expect from the earthly manifestations of spirits.
I’m dead, She’s dead.
D-E-A-D, dead.
She’s dead, I’m dead.
D-E-A-D, dead.
Her head bobbed back and forth in time with the ditty as she spoke, making the lack of synchronization between the movement of her mouth and the words just that much more disconcerting. Her eyes remained locked with mine, unblinking, and I could do nothing more than return the stare.
The past two days of quiet had lulled me into a sense of complacency where such ethereal visits were concerned, and her sudden appearance here took me by surprise, especially since I was used to hearing the dead, not necessarily seeing them. At least not while I was awake.
I simply stood there, unsure of what to say.
She continued the piece of morose poetry, picking up the disharmonious pace as she went.
Rowan, Rowan, he’s our man!
If he can’t do it, nobody can!
She’s dead, I’m dead, what to do?
Find the killer, we’re counting on you!
Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe,
Catch the killer, don’t let him go.
Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe,
Make him suffer, don’t you know.
If he screams, well we don’t care,
If he cries, then we’ll be there.
We want him to hurt, and to be afraid.
We want him to die in this bed he’s made.
Now go catch the killer,
We’ll make him pay.
And pay, and pay,
And pay, and pay,
And pay, and pay, and pay, and pay, and pay…
The vengeance laced words continued to echo inside my head as they faded in concert with the rapidly dissolving image of Debbie Schaeffer. I felt a hard knot in my stomach and nausea gripped me. This wasn’t good at all.
Debbie had literally taken over my body once before, and even though I was in better shape now than I had been that night, if I wasn’t careful she could do it again. The last thing I needed was for her to use me to commit murder-even if the victim was a killer himself. There’s no way in the world I’d ever be able to convince a jury that my physical body had been possessed by the spirit of a dead cheerleader with a hunger for revenge. No, this was worse than not good. This was just plain bad.
I’m not sure how much time I spent standing there contemplating this fresh threat, but it couldn’t have been long. I started with a violent jerk as the door at the top of the landing bumped open with a heavy thud and Ben stuck his head through the opening.
“Hey, Rowan,” my friend called down to me. “You comin’ or what?”
The doors leading from the ambulance bay slid open before us to reveal something resembling an all-day-long progressive holiday celebration in halting swing. The on-again, off-again nature of the work here was managing to consistently interfere and prevent the festivities from ever making it to the status of a full-blown party.
As we entered, for the second time this week the antiseptic atmosphere of an emergency room assaulted me full force; but at least this time I wasn’t a patient. The sweet smells of cookies and candies mingled with the savory aromas of cheese and cold-cut trays on the cool air. They were in turn undercut with the sharp fumes of isopropyl alcohol and other medicinal preparations. The entire melange was bound together by the peculiar plastic odor of adhesive bandages.
Fortunately, it didn’t appear to be too terribly busy at the moment-yet another calm before the storm considering that, statistically, holidays bring out the worst in some people. Still, even with the lull, the staff wasn’t exactly twiddling their thumbs either. The nurse behind the desk was involved in paperwork, presumably from a recent admission. Here and there, others could be seen taking care of various tasks or simply snatching a cookie from one of the many plates.
The young woman tending the desk had made an effort to offset the plainness of her scrubs, having adorned herself with a holiday bow in her hair and an electronic reindeer pin above her name badge. As we approached, the LED in the plastic novelty’s nose was flashing wildly, and the circuitry embedded within was belting out a medley of holiday tunes comprised entirely of a series of slightly off-key electronic tones.
“Can I help you?” she asked cheerfully as she looked up, obviously noticing that no one in our trio appeared to require immediate medical attention.
“City Police,” Charlee told her as she flashed her badge. “I’m Detective McLaughlin; this is Detective Storm and Mister Gant. I received a call from a Doctor Kennedy a little while ago.”
“Yes.” The nurse nodded, her smile fading. “The rape. He said to expect you. Treatment room four.” She stood and leaned slightly across the counter then motioned with one hand. “Down this corridor, left at the end, through the double doors, and it will be about halfway down on the left.”
“Thanks,” McLaughlin told her.
We rounded the corner of the admitting desk and headed down the hallway with Charlee in the lead. Ben reigned in his extra long stride and put a hand on my arm to hold me back as well, allowing us to fall a few paces behind her.
“I haven’t had a chance ta’ talk ta’ Chuck about the hocus-pocus stuff,” he half whispered to me. “Not ta’ mention that this victim is comin’ right off the incident, and she hasn’t had time ta’ come ta’ terms with it.”
“I understand,” I replied.
“Really, Row,” he admonished. “Don’t go in there slingin’ fairy dust or whatever right outta the box. We gotta feel out the situation first.”
“Okay, Ben,” I reiterated, “I’ve got it. I’m sorry about what I did back at the station and I won’t do it here. I promise.”
“Okay, I just gotta be sure,” he told me as he rummaged in his pockets again.
“What? Do I need another breath mint?” I queried, noticing his preoccupation with the task.
“Prob’ly,” he huffed flatly. “You hot-boxed four cigarettes between gettin’ to the van and gettin’ in here.”
“Yeah, well, blame it on Miranda Hodges. Besides, I seem to recall seeing a Fuente Chateau clenched between your teeth, my friend.”
“Yeah, but I was just chewin’ on it. Actually, I wanted ta’ give you somethin’ else.” He finally withdrew his fist from his pocket and held it out to me. “Here.”
I extended my palm, and he dropped a wad of small paper packets into it. “What’s this?” I asked.
“Salt,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I stole ‘em outta the break room before we left.”
“What do you want me to do with them?”
“Hey, you’re the Witch, you tell me. Felicity seemed ta’ think it was pretty important ta’ have salt the other night. I’m just tryin’ ta’ help.”
“She was doing something a bit different than what I’m about to do.”
“Yeah, well it’s all the same in my book,” he returned. “Besides, I haven’t seen Felicity go off the deep end yet, so maybe ya’ oughta try it her way.”
I was going to object again, but we were almost to the door of the treatment room, and I really didn’t have time to explain the difference between Magickal workings and psychic abilities to him.