as the fire was out. The uniforms with Osthoff were first on the scene.”
No one had noticed that I was drifting closer to the sheet-covered corpse. Even Felicity was so involved in listening to the conversation that she had missed my slow but steady movement as well. I wasn’t even consciously aware of it until I found myself kneeling next to the body.
“Don’t suppose there was an ID?”
“No, she was nude, just like the others, and the fire didn’t help of course… but from what we can tell she does fit the description of Amanda Stark. We’ll have to wait on the coroner for a positive.
“We did find a Bible.” She pointed at the stairs where another tented marker, this time adorned with the number one, stood next to a book.
“What’d the asshole have to say this time?”
“Pretty straightforward,” Detective McLaughlin replied. “Exodus 22:18. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
“At least he’s consistent,” Ben spat. “I hate ta’ ask, but did the victim say anything before she died?”
“Actually yeah. Didn’t make much sense, and to be honest I’m not sure I heard her right considering what the fire did to her throat and all, but I’d almost swear she said ‘truck.’”
I barely heard her utter the word before my own scream of agony exploded into the foggy night.
CHAPTER 24
“Amanda Marie Stark, 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…”
Terror, cold and absolute punctures my bowels.
I don’t know how long he has had me captive, but it seems as though it has been forever.
I don’t know how I have endured all that has been done to me.
My mind races…
I remember the taste of a lime green snow cone on a sweltering summer day when I was seven.
I remember getting caught cheating on an algebra exam.
I remember that I have dry cleaning to pick up.
I don’t know why I remember the things I do.
I just do.
I still feel the fear.
Why did I answer the door that night?
I wasn’t expecting anything.
Delivery trucks don’t run that late anyway.
What was I thinking?
“In as much as you have been found guilty, and that you are damned in body and soul, your sentence on this day is death. The sentence is to be executed immediately, without appeal, in the manner of expurgation by fire.”
A single spark in the night.
A faint flickering glow.
A bright explosion fills the darkness.
Fire billows upward across my nude body.
The heat is beyond imagination.
I remember burning my hand as a small child.
I remember the fear.
I feel it anew.
“May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon your soul.” The angry voice reaches me through the rush of the fire.
I hold my breath.
I twist against my bonds.
I want to scream.
That damn truck.
A cold steel talon rips into my shoulder, and I feel myself wrenched violently backward. Cacophonous screaming pierces my eardrums as I hurtle upward.
Downward.
Forward.
Backward.
I no longer know.
I spiral through nothingness.
I am blind.
I am omniscient.
Colors bleed and disappear. Greyness blooms and contrasts itself against the backdrop of space.
A random chord plays out of sync with the universe.
My heart stops.
My heart races.
My lungs tighten and burn.
Hot yellow fire explodes past me.
Thick fog douses the flame.
Reality slams into me full force as dull color erupts into view.
“ROWAN!” Felicity screamed my name as she shook me hard.
I gasped in a deep breath as I snapped my eyes open and stared back at my wife. Ben and Charlee were kneeling on the ground with her, and everything was moving in a mad rush. I saw Charlee gesturing at the paramedics and Ben frantically saying something I couldn’t make out.
I could feel the warm barrier of Felicity’s own shields as she cast them around me to ward off the vision I had inflicted upon myself. My earlier ground had been severed the moment I allowed the veil between life and death to be pierced. I would never have been able to cling to this plane of existence had she not intervened.
Though the supernatural connection between Amanda Stark and myself was effectively cut, the stream of consciousness that had been set into motion was forging ahead unhindered. Memories I might otherwise have considered random flashed before me in an endless stream, repetitive and disorganized. Folding one into the next like an insane exercise in origami.
“… Tracy gived it to me. Did’ju see thuh truck too?”
Delivery trucks don’t run that late anyway.
“… I’m not sure I heard her right considering what the fire did to her throat and all, but I’d almost swear she said
‘truck.’”
I’m crossing the street. A large, black panel van rolls past. A patina of grey and white from salt and road grime dusts its dark exterior.
A sudden roar mixes with the rush of the fire and marries with a high-pitched grind before fading away on the night.
Flames consume all that is.
A multi-pitched, mechanical groan emits from beneath the van, audibly announcing the improperly meshed gears.
A cold tingle dances up my spine and my scalp tightens painfully.
My head is killing me. The thick rush of blood fills my ears in pulsing time with the hammering inside my skull. The sound of a metal sliding door, badly in need of adjustment and lubrication forces itself past the din…
A sudden roar mixes with the rush of the fire and marries with a high pitched grind before fading away on the
