I closed my eyes, and the scene flashed haphazardly through my mind. I could see her struggling.
Fighting.
Kicking.
Wrestling to free her hands so that she could claw at the constriction around her neck, until finally, the lack of oxygen to her brain won out, and she slipped into darkness.
“I realize it’s the weekend but the sooner you can get the labs started the better,” Ben was saying in the background. “We’re still followin’ up the lead on the Roofies.”
“I can have samples ready to go to the lab first thing Monday morning,” the coroner replied. “But other than that I…”
Once again, I forced the distant conversation out of the forefront and focused entirely on the corpse in front of me. I knew how Sheryl Keeven died. I even knew the twisted reasoning behind why. What I now desperately wanted to know was who had killed her… And Kendra Miller… And Brianna Walker…
But what I wanted most desperately of all was for him to stop.
Without even thinking I reached out my latex gloved hand and laid my palm across her cold forehead. The connection that formed was as immediate and piercing as if I had just wrapped my hand about a frayed electrical cord. The jolt that followed exploded through my consciousness with blatant disregard for the here and now, ferociously replacing present with recent past.
Pain.
Why are you doing this to me?
I can’t stop crying.
The pain again.
Please!
Please stop stabbing me! Just take what you want and leave! Please!
I cannot scream.
There is tape across my mouth.
I cannot see.
Something dark covers my head.
The pain again.
“Sir?” the voice of the coroner’s assistant echoes in my skull. “Sir, what are you doing?”
I am so cold.
What is that hissing noise?
Paint?
I smell paint.
“Sheryl Renae Keeven, in accordance with the thirty-third question, in as much as you stand accused of the heresy of WitchCraft by another of your kind, and as you have admitted these crimes and remain still impenitent, and that on this day evidence of your heresies has been found in this very dwelling…”
That voice.
I am so cold.
I still can’t see.
Where am I?
Something is wrapped around my neck. It is uncomfortable. I can feel wind.
I cannot scream.
I want to scream.
“…In as much as you have been found guilty, and that you are damned in body and soul, you are hereby sentenced on this day to death. The sentence to be executed immediately and without appeal in the manner of hanging. May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your soul.”
Guilty?
Sentenced to death?
Help me, someone! Please help me!
I don’t understand.
What is happening?
Why are you doing this to me?
I feel something brush my face, and suddenly my tear-blurred eyes can see.
Outside?
We are outside?
Black.
Black fabric.
Dear Mother Goddess, he’s a giant.
Someone please help me.
Wait…
He is picking me up. What is he doing?
Oh no!
The balcony?
He’s going to throw me off my balcony?
He’s going to hang me?
NO!
Someone please help me!
Black and white.
Collar.
Black and white.
Collar.
Black and white.
Black.
“Mister Gant?”
I looked up to see Doctor Sanders kneeling on the opposite side of the gurney and peering at me curiously across the open body bag. Her fingers gently encircled my wrist and held my hand out away from the corpse.
“You doin’ some of that hocus-pocus stuff, white man?” Ben asked from his position next to her.
I looked up at him and blinked. He and Agent Mandalay were staring back with mildly concerned expressions creasing their faces. My eyes were dry and itching, which told me I had been staring. My throat was parched and seemed almost obstructed by a hard lump. The welts on my forearm were on fire.
“Yeah…” I answered in a faint voice. “Yeah, something like that.”
“What did you see?” Constance asked.
The vision replayed in a sandpapery loop, abrasively dragging itself over and over through my mind.
Black and white.
Collar.
Black and white.
Collar.
“A priest,” I finally whispered. “The killer is a priest.”
“A priest?” Ben echoed. “You mean like a ‘bless me father for I have sinned,’ communion givin’ and all that jazz kinda priest?”
“I think so,” I croaked.
The pain from the ethereal markings on my arm had intensified twofold, and it was beginning to radiate up through my shoulder and spread dully through my torso. I knew without even looking that the welts were now full blown wounds.
“What do you mean you think so, Rowan?” Constance pressed. “What exactly did you see?”
Noting that I didn’t outwardly appear to be repeating the performance she had witnessed at the morgue, Doctor Sanders released my hand and proceeded to re-zip the body bag. I stood and backed out of her way, taking a moment to try and clear my head. The vision was there, but it was starting to blur, and I didn’t know why.
What I did know was that something definitely wasn’t right, and I was the only one who seemed to
