The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation Read Online Free PDF

course, Eldon
Andrew Porter. The list was exactly that, a list. It comprised the
names of Witches, Wiccans, and various other Pagan individuals
living in the Saint Louis metropolitan area. It was, of course, by
no means a comprehensive census of persons engaging in what is
often collectively referred to as alternative spirituality;
however, the odds were that it wasn’t terribly short either. Porter
had compiled it himself by way of various sadistic tortures, such
as the one displayed above us now.
    A bookmarked Bible was his calling card and
the highlighted passage, a message. What we were being told was the
reason this particular victim had been chosen. His crime was that
of being a Witch. We’d been here before, so that much was a given.
And, just like the Bible verse said, he had been accused by more
than one witness. There was never much reading between the lines
necessary, for Eldon was nothing if not precise about the messages
he left behind.
    Basically, Porter was a single-minded killer.
What made him unique was his highly particular criterion for
committing murder. Put very simply, he executed Witches.
    That was the short answer. The long answer
went something like this: Porter was a highly suggestible sociopath
with a mild paranoid psychosis. Several years ago he committed a
crime, was caught, convicted, and sent to prison. That should have
been the end of the story, but society simply wasn’t that lucky.
While incarcerated he had been deeply affected by a
fire-and-brimstone prison ministry. Something called a “God Pod.”
Unfortunately, he completely missed the allegorical sense of
biblical text and took much of it literally. In the end, what
should have been a tool for rehabilitation had, in his case,
created a serial spree killer.
    The man literally came to view himself
as a modern day equivalent to the inquisitors of fifteenth century
Europe, and just two months shy of one year ago, he had started his
own series of Witch trials here in Saint Louis, Missouri. Far
removed from medieval Europe in a geographical sense, yes, but he’d
gone to great lengths to adhere to the tortures and execution
methods of that long ago era as prescribed in the Malleus Maleficarum .
    Roughly translated from the original
Latin, Malleus Maleficarum meant the Hammer of the
Witches. In fact, the “hammer” was a book—an
instructional manual written by a pair of inquisitors by the names
of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. In its day, it had been the
one true and official guidebook for the persecution of accused
Witches and heretics.
    The language did not matter, however. Whether
scribed in Latin or English, the tome was most definitely not my
favorite piece of literature.
    At the time of Porter’s original killing
binge, I’d been asked by Ben to consult on the case because of a
symbol found carved into the flesh of the first victim. My own
spiritual path and studies of various religious practices had
helped my best friend solve a crime before, so I guess I had seemed
like a natural choice at the time.
    The truth is that unbeknownst to me, I was
already being sucked into it by an ethereal beckoning. Once I
became directly involved on this plane, those forces came to bear
with a vicious intensity. After that, it had all been downhill for
me.
    Much to Ben’s horror, I had even ended up
becoming one of Porter’s prey; on a very foggy night, on a
pedestrian bridge spanning the Mississippi River, February last,
the self-proclaimed “Hand of God” had almost succeeded in making me
his seventh victim.
    “Yo, white man, you okay?” Ben asked.
    It took a moment for the words to register,
and I realized that I was just staring at him. “Yeah, I’m
fine.”
    “You don’t look fine. You were kinda zoned
there for a minute.”
    “Have you looked in a mirror?” I asked in
retort.
    “Yeah. Funny. Ya’know, I’m still not all that
keen on you bein’ here, Row,” was his answer. “Felicity
either.”
    “Yeah, you’ve told