chance of falling flat. While I wasn’t unfamiliar with SpellCraft, by any means, the truth was that this sort of thing was really Felicity’s area of expertise, not mine. Given what had transpired over the last several minutes, however, I figured it was a safe bet that she wasn’t going to be giving me any help. Since this was all that I could think of at the moment, it would simply have to do. At least the components and intent were both aimed at grounding and cleansing, so at the very least it couldn’t do any harm.
So far I had been unsuccessful in discovering who, or what, possessed my wife, and that wasn’t going to help my plight. I had originally thought that she was simply channeling the killer, and while that might in fact still be the case to some extent, she had escalated well beyond simply being a conveyance of ethereal spirit. She had, for all intents and purposes, become one with it, and the woman I knew as Felicity O’Brien was now little more than an amalgam of two opposing personalities. Unfortunately, the darker of the pair was in full control and obviously intended to stay that way. With each passing moment, my wife was allowing her own spirit to become a mere undertone. In fact, I doubted that her psyche was even aware of what was happening to it at this point.
I had only seen her channel to this extent twice before, and in both instances the ethereal presences had been those of friends-first, one who was dead and then, another who was living. That last time, like this one, the spirit that was still rooted on this side of the veil had assumed almost complete control of Felicity’s corporeal self.
I knew that giving herself over so fully to an ethereal force wouldn’t be a conscious decision on her part. Not unless she believed it would make a difference in saving a life, and I knew that wasn’t the case at this point. Under these circumstances she would fight it, just as I had seen her do before; of that I was certain. However, I also knew that there was an extenuating circumstance. Taking into account what she had done the day before, the sexual energy I had felt at the crime scene, and the aura she was exuding at this very moment, it wasn’t hard to figure out exactly what that circumstance was.
I unlocked the Jeep and pulled the door open then guided her toward the passenger seat. She was starting to breath heavily, and since I was gripping her wrist, I could easily feel her pulse quickening.
As she climbed in through the open door, she turned toward me then pitched slightly forward as if she’d slipped. Out of reflex I moved in to steady her. As I came in close, I heard her giggle but didn’t realize my mistake until her open palm met the side of my face with a resounding smack. I immediately cursed myself for letting her sandbag me, but I was still stunned enough that she managed to get in a second hard slap before I could backpedal out of her reach.
“Get back here,” she ordered. “I’m not finished with you yet, little man.”
“Maybe not,” I muttered as I broke the seal on the water bottle and twisted off the cap. “But I’m sure as hell finished with you, whoever you are.”
With a turn of my wrist, I poured out some of the water onto the ground to make some headspace in the bottle then reached into my pocket and withdrew a handful of salt packets. I fumbled the crimped edges of the paper together and gave them a quick flick before tearing them crosswise and pouring their contents into the open mouth of the plastic container. Out of the half dozen or so that were in my hand, I managed to get the equivalent of maybe two into the vessel. I had to hope that would be enough.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Felicity snipped, her voice now thick with the Southern affectation.
I replaced the cap and gave the water bottle several vigorous shakes as I replied, “Mixing you something to drink.”
“I’m not drinking that,” she spat.
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I am not.”
“We’ll see.”
Still shaking the container, I moved toward her. She immediately reached for the door, but before she could pull it shut, I stepped in and caught it with my upper arm.
Falling back into the seat, she twisted and kicked her legs out toward me. I sidestepped the first thrust but caught a hard jab from the second as her pointed heel dug into my thigh. My leg was still throbbing from her earlier attack, and this didn’t help matters at all.
I twisted to the side as she kicked again. This time when she connected it was only a glancing blow and not enough to slow me down. I managed to slip in between the door and her as she fell back against the console, and I used my weight to pin her legs on the seat. I insinuated myself almost directly over her as she continued taking short swings at me, actually landing more than one blow against my ribs.
If I hadn’t been sure about the salt water before, I was now. Her violent resistance was more than enough to tell me that I had hit upon something that frightened the entity she had become.
“No!” she screamed, wildly twisting her face away from me.
My determination was renewed by my revelation, so I slipped an arm in and managed to twine my fingers into her hair at the back of her head. I didn’t want to hurt her, but my options were even less than limited, and she certainly wasn’t about to offer me any new avenues to take.
“You… Obey… Me… Damn… You…” she growled defiantly through her clenched jaw as I held her fast and used my teeth to pull the cap from the bottle of still-swirling salt water.
I tightened my grip on her hair and pulled her head back as I put the bottle up to her mouth. She twisted and bucked against me, trying to turn her face away while keeping her lips tightly sealed. I leaned farther in, trying to position myself better and lowered my elbow across her left arm, pinning it against the console. Her right, however, was still free, and she grabbed onto my ponytail then yanked hard to the side, pulling me off balance and wrenching my neck.
“Dammit, Felicity!” I yelped. “Just take a drink!”
Her only reply was a nasal whine of rage as she kept her lips tightly sealed.
She brought the sharp heel of her shoe hard against the back of my calf and drove it downward as she struggled. Continuing to kick, she then pulled hard on my hair again while twisting her other arm from beneath mine. In a flash her fingernails dug deeply into my cheek and raked across my face. I gritted my teeth as I actually felt the warm blood beginning to run down my face. I jerked upward, splashing water all across the interior of the Jeep as I tried to escape her claws.
My mind was racing, trying to figure a way out of this corner. In retrospect I knew I should have waited until we arrived home before trying to deal with this, but then, we all know what they say about hindsight. With everything that had been going on the past few days, it was obvious that my own judgment had become severely impaired. Of course, whenever it came to my wife’s safety and well-being, impaired thinking seemed to be my constant downfall.
In a moment of lucidity, I decided to cut my losses and back down before any more damage could be done, and more importantly, before I accidentally hurt Felicity. I started to push myself up, but my wife still had me by the ponytail and wasn’t letting go.
“All right,” I told her as I struggled to turn my face enough to make eye contact with her. “You win. Let go of my hair.”
“Beg me,” she instructed, but her eyes seemed to be focused elsewhere.
“Dammit, Felicity,” I groaned. “Let go.”
I kept watching her face and realized that by her continuing to hold my head to the side, she was able to see past me to some extent. Unfortunately, I was blind to what she was staring at. I could, however, hear a car engine running behind me, and it suddenly dawned on me that the scene we were creating must not look good at all. Embarrassment now became another factor in this fiasco of my own making, as if I needed any more.
Of course, being a participant and not a spectator, what hadn’t seeped in was exactly how bad it truly looked; or, more importantly, that the clerk witnessing it from behind the windows of the store had chosen this particular moment in time to be a good Samaritan and get involved.
“POLICE!” A commanding male voice struck my ears. “Turn around slowly and face me with your hands clasped behind your head!”
I stopped pulling against Felicity and froze in place, afraid to make any sudden move. Even so, she still hadn’t released my ponytail, so I wasn’t exactly able to comply with the instruction.
“Let me go,” I told her again.
She didn’t reply.
