All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (33 page)

The footsteps are near now, just outside the
door.

I wait.

I listen.

And, I wait.

But, the telltale creak of the hinges never
comes.

Then I hear her feet shuffle, and the hard
noise begins again.

The cruelty is there, but the excitement is
gone. It is, instead replaced by annoyance.

This time they fade, growing more distant
with each step.

Until, finally, they are no more than a fresh
memory of an endless nightmare.

I rolled over in the bed and opened my eyes
but found myself staring at nothing. I pondered this for a moment
in my groggy state as I listened to my heart thumping. It was
beating faster than it should for someone at rest, or so it seemed.
But, it was quickly slowing, and with the afterimages of the
nightmare still lingering in my head, I thought maybe that was a
good sign.

This was the first time the terror had
invaded my sleep since the night before Felicity’s arrest. My
ongoing headache had actually lessened to a dull throb over the
past few days, and with the advent of several decent nights sleep
in a row, I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I had
been wrong. That perhaps by some miracle of the Gods, this was
going to all fade away for a change and leave us alone.

Of course, I knew better, but I could always
hope.

The stab in the back of my head was working
its way forward, but for the moment it was bearable. I was sure
that I couldn’t count on that lasting for long. I sighed and went
back to considering my lack of visual input. I knew I was awake, so
it wasn’t part of the nightmare. As my eyes worked at focusing, it
became apparent that the nothing I was seeing was actually a dark
pattern. I shifted slightly and the pattern moved, brushing softly
against my cheek.

Raising my arm, I pushed the pattern away and
found that it was the comforter, which at some point I had pulled
over my head. Blinking, I now found myself face to face with a
pillow on the opposite side of the bed. The only problem my brain
found with that picture was that my wife’s head wasn’t on it.

I pushed myself up on one elbow, eyes
drowsily searching the room. Before any unwarranted panic managed
to set in, however, my ears caught the sound of rushing water and a
porcelain throated burp as the toilet was flushed.

Dropping my head back onto the pillow, I
mentally chastised myself for letting my fears get the better of me
and then rolled over to face the wall. I was tired, and it
obviously wasn’t morning yet, so I closed my eyes.

The nightmare hadn’t been so bad this go
around. Maybe it really was just a product of my overactive
subconscious.

This time.

* * * * *

The reprieve had been too short, but then
they always were. It’s just that this one was even shorter.

Footsteps advanced once again up the stairs,
pausing only for a moment, then proceeding, coming closer with each
hard strike against the wooden planks. The sobbing filled in the
short voids between them.

But, there was something different about
their sound.

They were still excited.

They were still cruel.

But there was something acute about their
tone. No longer the familiar thud, they had become a sharp clack.
However, different as they were, I knew they belonged to the same
monster.

And, the fear they brought with them bit deep
into my soul, for this time I knew they were coming for me. How I
knew, I couldn’t say. But, there was no doubt that I was to be her
chosen victim, and there was no escape.

I began to pray, but my request had changed
drastically from what it had once been. Instead of asking to be
spared as I had countless times before, now I prayed to die quickly
and not linger, suffering for days—even weeks—like some of the
others. I could hear myself whispering in the darkness, even above
the growing cries and awful footfalls.

When they stopped outside the door, I was
more than just simply aware my time had come. I could feel it deep
within every inch of my body, and that just made the panic
grow.

The door creaked on un-oiled hinges, allowing
a swath of dim light to fall across the room. I couldn’t keep
myself from trying to raise my head, but try was all my weakened
muscles could manage.

Terror made me strain and pull, trying to
escape, even though I knew I was held fast. The flight reflex made
me try yet again, but my wrists and ankles screamed with pain as
something bit sharply into my flesh. I was left with no choice but
to give in to my fate, horrific, as I knew it was to be.

The door creaked again as it swung wider,
then the steps clacked closer, stopping near my head, just out of
my sight. I felt my stomach tighten, then heave, as it tried to
expel contents it didn’t have. The bile rose in my throat, burning
and making me gag. But even through that, I continued to pray.

There was a shuffle, and then the steps
continued, clacking away across the room. But, I knew they would be
back.

The moans of the others hummed in my ears,
punctuated by animalistic wails that were born from the bowels of
hell.

A sudden, loud clunk sounded in my ears, and
bright light flooded into my eyes. I had been in darkness for so
long that the luminance brought only pain. A searing pain that made
me squeeze my eyelids tightly shut.

The footfalls came again as they moved across
the plank floor, returning to their station at my head. I continued
to hold my eyes shut and struggled through a gasping breath as I
began to sob with the others.

Now, instead of the acrid stench of rot and
excrement to which I had grown so accustomed, the sweet smell of
perfume burrowed deeply into my nostrils. Its thickness caused me
to gag again, and my chest began to tighten.

Another shuffle and pair of excited steps met
my ears. A moment later a pressure settled across my belly making
it even harder for me to breathe.

I began to beg. God wasn’t listening to my
prayers, so I had no other choice.

As the mumbled words started tumbling from my
mouth, a sharp sting lashed across my cheek, and a feminine voice,
dripping with false sweetness drawled, “Wake up…”

I was jolted awake by the intense feeling
that someone, or something, had just struck me hard in the face. My
heart was pounding and my chest was tight. I felt as if a weight
were resting on my stomach, causing me to labor for each breath. My
head was throbbing with unnatural pain, and I was beginning to feel
sick to my stomach.

The nightmare had returned, and this time the
abject terror was fully intact. I started upward as I had done
countless times before when awaking from this horrific vision, but
got nowhere. In fact, not only did it feel as though something was
pressing me back downward, an odd sensation bit into my wrists and
arms. Confusion joined the pain in my grey matter as I fought to
reason out what was happening. I was almost certain I was awake. I
didn’t have the odd feeling of disconnection that so often came
with channeling a spirit. And, I had the headache. That was a pain
that always remained within the boundaries of my wakefulness. Light
was streaming in through the thinness of my eyelids, blood red and
far too bright for comfort. I found that I was still holding them
tightly shut, an artifact of the nightmare I assumed, but one I
didn’t mind. Since it appeared that light was now also invading my
corporeal world, I knew its sudden influx would only serve to make
the headache even worse.

Still, something was definitely off kilter,
and I needed to know what it was. I was just about to take the
plunge and open my eyes at least enough to get my bearings when
another lacerating sting tore into my cheek.

This time I knew it was real.

“I said, time to wake up, little man.” The
nightmare woman’s voice rolled into my ears, heavy with a sugary
Southern drawl.

My eyes flickered open, and as I suspected,
the glare of the overhead light acted as an accelerant on the ache
in my skull. Blinking my way toward some semblance of focus, I
looked upward toward the direction of the voice. Staring back at me
was a visage that would have been comfortingly familiar had it not
been for the frightening expression it wore.

My wife was straddling me in the bed, looking
back down at me with an imperious gaze. No longer wearing her
pajamas, she was now scantily clad in something black that appeared
to be composed of tight-fitting leather and a touch of lace. It was
something I didn’t recall ever having seen in her wardrobe before,
and that told me that perhaps I was now getting a glimpse of the
contents from the overnight bag, up close and personal.

Her face had obviously been in recent contact
with more than just a touch of makeup and was accented in such a
way to enhance the severe expression lining her features. She
continued looking down at me, and I started trying to convince
myself that I wasn’t really awake.

After a long pause she gave her head a toss
then giggled and said, “That’s better.”

Even though the sentence was no more than two
words, the uncharacteristic geographical drawl was obvious and
intact.

Following the utterance, she placed a
cigarette between glossy red lips and drew on it hard. The end grew
bright, sizzling audibly as I watched the paper and tobacco slowly
burn a full one-half inch down the length right before my eyes. In
a fluid motion, she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, flicked
the spent ash at my face, then pursed her lips and blew out a long
stream of smoke.

Never once had she taken her eyes from mine,
and now her mouth spread into a contented smile. I started upward
again; knowing suddenly that telling myself this was a nightmare
simply wasn’t going to make it so. Fear was definitely starting to
work its way into my spine.

Again I found myself unable to go far and
realized that my arms were outstretched to the sides and above my
head. I cast a quick glance to the right and saw my wrist
encompassed by a wide, leather-looking cuff that was securely
fastened to the bedpost. I didn’t have to look to the left to know
it too was similarly bound. I didn’t feel anything around my ankles
so I tried to move my legs, only to find they were bound in some
unseen way.

I instantly regretted being a heavy
sleeper.

“What’s wrong, little man?” my wife
asked.

Actually, it was the voice asking the
question. It just happened to be coming out of my wife’s mouth.

“Felicity?” I questioned out of reflex.

I didn’t catch the blur of motion, but I
definitely felt the sting of her palm against my cheek as she
slapped me hard enough to crank my head to the side.

“And, who, pray tell, is Felicity, little
man?” she asked.

“You are,” I replied with a groan as I turned
my face back to her.

Judging from the force of yet another slap
that immediately followed my reply, apparently, it was the wrong
thing to say.

“You will call me, Mistress Miranda, little
man,” she commanded.

What I had earlier thought to be fear was
just a trial run of the emotion. In the grand scheme of things, it
had been nothing more than a shot of anxiety with a confusion
chaser just to get the ball rolling. Hearing the sentence just
spoken by the evil inhabiting my wife’s body was the catalyst, and
now true horror set in.

At this stage of the game, I wasn’t
sure what this
Lwa
feasted on,
but it was a good bet that pain played into that picture, and I
suspected fear was at the very least an appetizer. If that was
true, judging by her satisfied grin, I was apparently serving up
the first course at this very moment.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” she asked, feigning
concern. “Am I scaring you?”

“No,” I returned.

“Liar.”

“Guess it’s your word against mine,” I said,
mustering whatever semblance of calm bravado I could.

She sat back and regarded me coolly. Felicity
truly didn’t weigh much more than one hundred pounds, but with the
panic starting to well in the pit of my stomach, even that amount
of weight on top of me was making it hard to breathe.

After taking another long drag on the
cigarette, she pulled it slowly from her mouth and smiled then let
the smoke out in a thin stream.

There was no way I could read what was going
on behind the still pretty, but frighteningly severe, mask her face
had become. In retrospect, given what I knew from the crime scenes,
I should have been able to at least predict what she was going to
do. Unfortunately, a by-product of terror is that one doesn’t
always think straight.

I suppose that’s why it came as such a
complete shock to me when, without a word her smile grew even
wider, and she began to slowly grind out the burning cigarette
against my bare chest.

Something kept me from screaming out in
response to the pain. I wanted to in the worst way, and in fact, I
even tried. However, the yelp instantly caught in my throat and
remained there, emitting little more sound than a soft groan. The
only reason I could imagine for the abrupt stifling was that I knew
the spirit was feeding on my pain and fear, and I supposed it was
just my subconscious attempting to deny it the meal. Of course,
whether or not I screamed probably was a moot point. It knew I was
afraid, there was no doubt of that, and my body definitely betrayed
me in the pain department.

I tensed in reflex even as the sound stuck in
my windpipe, gurgling quietly through my clenched teeth. As she
continued to grind the burning ember into my flesh, I sucked in a
quick breath, steeling myself against whatever might be yet to
come. I couldn’t help but notice the odor of singed hair and skin.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it had joined the spicy scent of her
perfume, mixing on the air to become a peculiar, sweet funk that
did little for my already queasy stomach.