Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation Read Online Free PDF Page A

repeated. “A ritual
to rid yourself of guilt and regrets—a way of asking forgiveness
from yourself. I’m not finding it...” I stated hurriedly. “Was
there a cup or goblet there? It would have had wine in it. Or maybe
water.” Only silence met my ears. “Ben?” I queried again, looking
up.
    He was staring at me across the table, face
ashen, the spellbook held loosely in his hands.
    “Are you okay?” I asked, growing mildly
concerned.
    “Yeah, we found a wine glass all right,” he
said quietly. “But, it wasn’t filled with wine.”
    The look on his face told me that which I
needed but didn’t want to know.
    “It was filled with blood wasn’t it?”
    “Yeah,” he replied. “We think the bastard
drank her blood.”
    The two of us shared a wordless stare as we
were simultaneously bludgeoned by the revolting possibility he had
just voiced. I swallowed hard and slowly forced my eyes back down
to the permanent visual records of the abomination. Five
photographs later, it was my turn for the greyish pallor to
overtake my face. The glossy color image before me showed a bed
with the nude body of a petite young woman draped across it. Her
mouth was frozen in the oval shape of an agonized scream, her dull
eyes staring horrifically into space. The wall next to the bed was
spattered wildly with blood. Her throat had been cut, and her long,
strawberry-blonde hair was matted into the sheets, which flowed to
the floor like a crimson waterfall. From the ragged incision at her
throat to a point just below her waist, and from shoulder to
shoulder, she was nothing but bare exposed muscle. She had been
skinned.
    As if that weren’t enough, there was
something else that made me hold my breath a beat longer. That
something was the fact that her face held more than just a passing
familiarity to me.
    “An invocation rite,” I stated flatly,
fighting back insistent waves of nausea.
    “What’s that?” Ben asked.
    “A ritual used to call forth someone or
something from another plane of existence.”
    “You mean like a spirit or somethin’?”
    “Yeah,” I answered, “it’s the ‘or something’
that bothers me.”
    “How can ya tell that’s what it is?” Ben
pressed. “All the symbols were with that Expiation thing.”
    “The flaying,” I answered. “Skinning and
mutilation are considered parts of a ritual sacrifice for
invocation in some old religions. Have you gotten a report from the
coroner?”
    “No, not yet...Why?”
    “Whoever did this...” I caught my breath and
started again. “Whoever did this probably skinned her alive. The
sonofabitch performed two rituals. One to invoke who knows what,
and one to forgive himself for doing it.”
    “Jeezus,” Ben whispered.
    “I need to see this crime scene, Ben,” I told
him, still staring at the two-dimensional horror.
    “I don’t know, Rowan...” he began to
protest.
    “No, Ben,” I shot back, “I’m serious. I don’t
know for sure what this guy is up to yet, but you’ve already told
me that your expert can’t find his way around the block. If this
bastard is really trying to do what I think he is, then I doubt if
he’s going to stop here. If I’m physically on the scene, maybe I
can find something that will help.” Without realizing it, I had
stood up from my seat and had begun pacing. “Besides,” I stopped,
looked down at the picture for a moment and then back to Ben’s
face, “I know the victim.”
    “You know ‘er?” He stared back at me
incredulously.
    “Her name’s Ariel Tanner,” I stated quietly
and then turned away as if having the photographs behind me would
make them magically disappear. I took a deep breath before adding,
“She’s a... was… a Witch.”
    “How did you know her?”
    “I was her teacher. I instructed her in The
Craft.”
    I could hear him scribbling quickly, making
notes like a good cop was supposed to do. I had started him on the
road to solving one of his mysteries, but an entirely new one