"Starting to snow," I said, announcing the observation for lack of anything better to say.

"Yeah." Ben nodded as he shrugged off his coat, keeping his voice low. "Gonna get bad out there. They're callin' for three to six inches.""They were saying just one to two last night."

"Yeah, well you know how it is," he answered while looking around the foyer.

"Nice digs."

I took his coat and hung it from an available hook on the dark, bentwood tree, then slipped out of mine and did the same.

"Randy is..." I caught myself and reformed the sentence. "Randy was a real estate agent," I continued the explanation as I turned back to my friend. "He picked this place up back when property down here was going for pocket change. Gutted it and rehabbed it himself. Kind of like you and Allison did with your place."

"He did a hell of a job."

"Yeah. Yeah he did." I frowned as I nodded. The past tense references were sickening reminders of why we were here.

"So," Ben spoke after a moment of awkward silence, still keeping his voice at low volume. "How's she doin'?"

"Nancy?" I raised an eyebrow. "She's asleep upstairs. Everyone else is in the back."

"Probably good for 'er," he replied.

"Yeah, for now," I agreed before proceeding into voicing a worrisome thought.

"Cally said someone from the department was already here. They aren't going to descend on this place and turn it into a circus are they?"

"Nahh." He shook his head. "They shouldn't anyway. Copper outside said it was Murv from the CSU and Osthoff from Homicide. Matter of fact, we just missed 'em.

They couldn't find anything though. Looks like Porter didn't grab him from here."

"A clue would have been nice," I said. "But in a way, I'm glad they didn't find anything. Here anyway. Nancy doesn't need them crawling all over the house right now."

"Yeah. Prob'ly not," he agreed.

"So is the officer outside going to hang around or what?"

"He's stayin' put. There'll be someone assigned to watch these kids 'round the clock."

"That's good."

"Ya'know, Rowan." Ben reached up and massaged his neck for a moment. "You once told me that there's a huge number of Pagans in Saint Louis..."

I gave a vigorous nod as I confronted his unspoken comment. "There are, but I suspect that they will be safe this go around. For now, anyway. Porter is after me personally, and the only reason he killed Randy was to bait me."

"Yeah, that was kinda obvious. So, I don't wanna sound crass or anything, but considerin' your track record, couldn't he have just killed any Pagan on his list?""Yes and no," I answered.

"You think he's really plannin' all this that deliberately?"

"I don't know. He's not stupid, Ben. I'm betting he's done his homework. He knows that re-initiating the spree he went on a year ago would draw me out, but I think he wants more than that."

"Yeah, he wants you dead, white man."

"Exactly, but just getting me out of hiding isn't going to make that happen. He has to get me vulnerable and unprotected."

The look on his face told me that my comment was merely verbal corroboration for his own theory. "So killin' Randy was his way of tryin' to piss you off then. Just like the note about Felicity."

"And knock me off balance. That's how I see it, anyway," I agreed and then continued with an explanation of Coven dynamics. "Groups like ours are literally a family unit within Pagan culture. There is a bond within a core of a Coven that can often times be stronger than blood relation. Going after any one of these kids is the same as going after one of my own. It's the difference between killing a stranger and killing a family member."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I had a feelin' that's what this was all about. I just wanted to hear it from you before I opened my mouth."

"Glad I could help," I replied, my voice short on emotion.

"You're right," he told me. "He's not stupid. You came after him by yourself once, so he figures he can make it happen again."

"Yeah. Simple as it sounds, I'd have to say that's his plan."

"Well, he's screwed 'cause you ain't gonna do that, white man."

"That remains to be seen."

My friend took on a hard expression and thrust two fingers stiffly against my chest. "That wasn't a question, Row. It was a statement of fact. You're NOT doin'

it. Not this time."

"Okay," I returned in order to appease him.

"I'm serious as a heart attack, white man," he detailed, still trying to keep his voice low as it developed a stern edge. "This ain't Hollywood. The sonofabitch wants to kill you."

"Trust me, I'm well aware of that, Ben," I told him.

"Yeah, well we're not talkin' videogame dead here, Row. We're talkin' about the real thing. For keeps."

"Yeah, Ben. I know," I answered, my hackles raising a bit at once again being treated like a child.

He splayed his hands out in a gesture that visibly told me to stop and that it wasthe end of the discussion. "Listen, don't make me lock your ass up just to keep you outta this."

"Okay, fine," I answered curtly. "You win."

Thick tension hung between us for a measured beat, eventually softening but never really dissipating entirely.

"So is there anyone else we should know about?" Ben finally asked. "Former Coven members? Anyone like that?"

"No, not that I can think of off hand." I shook my head as I ticked off the points.

"No one has left this group since Felicity and I adopted it. I've practiced solitary most of my life. And, the only other Coven I was truly a member of dissolved a long time ago."

"Any of the members still around?"

"Not in Saint Louis," I replied. "It was a small group, and we only split because everyone but me ended up moving out of state."

"What about family? Like your old man?"

"He's out of town right now. Besides, he won't go after a non-Pagan. Not intentionally."

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Pretty sure' don't cut it." He reached up to massage his neck, and was obviously pondering something. After a moment he seemed to make a decision and spoke again. "Well, if your old man is out of town, we're covered there. What about your sister?"

"Ironically, she's in Germany right now. Her husband is stationed there with the Army."

"Okay, well I think we should have someone keep an eye on Felicity's family just to be safe."

"Shamus will love that," I muttered sarcastically.

My wife's father was not exactly what you would call a big fan of mine. Truth was, he believed that I had corrupted his daughter and diverted her from Christianity.

He refused to take into account that she was already walking a Pagan path when I met her. At any rate, my dealings with the Major Case Squad investigating occult-related crimes were nothing less than fuel for his disdain. This would just stoke that fire.

"Yeah, well he'll just have to live with it," Ben returned.

The muffled but cheerful warble of a ring tone started behind me, and my friend reached around to his coat and searched through a pocket. I stepped to the side as he withdrew his cell phone, quickly perused the display, then stabbed it on, and stuck it to his ear."Yeah, Helen, thanks for calling back," he spoke into the device.

The name struck a chord, and I knew immediately that the individual at the other end had to be his sister, Helen Storm. She was a psychiatrist and probably one of the most understanding individuals I had ever met. Ben had talked me into making an appointment with her just recently when the nightmares about the horrors I had seen started becoming too much to handle. I had made that first visit under duress but quickly struck up a friendship with her.

Unlike her brother, Helen fully embraced her Native American heritage. While I was never able to pin her down on anything, something told me there was more to the woman than just the framed diploma on her wall-something mystical, in fact.

"Uh-huh, I'm afraid so," Ben continued. "Yeah, that was us. They didn't waste any time gettin' it on the air did they?... Yeah, I know... No, he's okay. For the time being anyway... Yeah... Well, he's in the middle of it whether I like it or not, so there's not a lot I can do... Uh-huh, that's what I'm thinkin'... Yeah... Uh-huh... So, what's your schedule lookin' like today? Any chance you could come over?...

That'd be great... Yeah... In the city, on Arkansas. 'Bout a block off Grand... I can give ya directions... Okay, lemme check..."

My friend twisted the phone away from his mouth and shot me a questioning look. "She wants to know if Nancy is gonna be okay with havin' a shrink show up?

Whaddaya think?"

I started to open my mouth to answer but never got that far. My lips froze as I shuddered, every nerve ending in my body jangling as though each was connected directly to an electrical wall socket. The involuntary jerking motion was immediately joined by an excruciating pain that lanced sharply through my head. The rush of blood in my ears rose and fell, only to be replaced suddenly by the violent sound of a horrified scream.

The muted light in the entryway strobed to unbearable brightness then collapsed in on itself. Color faded, leaving the scene before me a grainy black and white representation of its former self, depicted in overblown cartoon contrast.

I heard my friend's concerned voice call my name in a long, slow-motion drone as I began physically slipping downward.

My knees announced their displeasure with the situation as they thudded on the hardwood, and I continued to literally vibrate. I could feel my fingernails cutting into my palms as my hands involuntarily twisted into clawed fists. I was gnashing my teeth, and I could taste blood in my mouth from where I was repeatedly biting my tongue.

However, at this particular moment, any concerns I had for those problems gave way to the fact that the floor was now slamming itself hard against my face.

Chapter 9:.

I wasn't sure what the noise echoing in my head actually was. It was struggling to be heard over the blood rushing in my ears, which, in and of itself, was already in heated contention with an unnatural ringing sound that permeated my skull. At any rate, my violently distorted thought processes attempted to assign a familiarity to it.

One possibility presented itself as the rumble of a weak earthquake. Another was that it was a small explosion. There were several others, but in retrospect, those two were the only ones that came close to anything even remotely possible. What I later found out was that it hadn't been any of the above. In reality, what it had been were the frantic steps of several feet thudding against the hardwood flooring as everyone ran to the front of the house.

Right now, however, as far as my brain was concerned it was an unsolvable and very perplexing mystery. The vibration rolled toward me down the hallway, growing in intensity as it traveled through the polished surface. Upon reaching me, it joined with my cheek, made its way inward through some bizarre osmosis, and reverberated throughout my skull. The final effect was that of turning the sound into a tactile sensation as much as an auditory one.

I could feel myself being rolled over as my back arched and my muscles stiffened once again. Pain I can only describe as a full body leg cramp assaulted me, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. The physical sensation was accompanied by an elevation in my mental confusion-an elevation a full order of magnitude beyond anything I had experienced thus far.

In that moment, the source of the noise no longer mattered.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the seizure reached its zenith then plunged immediately to an anticlimactic end. My body fell limp, and the hot air that had been trapped in my lungs expelled in a violent rush. I wheezed loudly as I sucked in a fresh breath, at once gasping and then choking on the coolness.

Light flared in a kaleidoscope of colors and then slowly began fading back to muted normalcy. A tangle of voices competed for attention as my short-circuited neurons reset and began processing sensory input once again. Heavily contrasted shapes were moving around me, and I struggled to focus in on them.

"Rowan?" Ben's voice bled in behind the rapidly declining rush in my ears.

"Rowan? You okay?"

Felicity's concerned tone mixed in with his. "What happened? Ben? Rowan?"

"Is he okay?" Cally was asking from somewhere above me.

A male voice I recognized as R.J. weaved its way between the others. "What's going on?""Oh no..." Shari's voice began a different sentence.

"...is he okay?" Her twin sister Jennifer finished it.

I was surprised that I was able to understand any of the words, much less make any sense of them, considering that they were all speaking at once. However, I was at least able to pick out those few fragments. I blinked hard and willed my eyes to adjust to the dim light of the hallway. It still seemed darker than it had before the seizure had overtaken me, but as clarity returned, I found myself staring at the reason.

Everyone but Nancy was huddled in a tight circle above my prone body, blocking out what little illumination there was within the corridor. I felt a quick wave of claustrophobia but managed to suppress it as I focused on their faces.

"Rowan, are you okay? What just happened?" came Ben's voice once again, firing the words in a rapid staccato.

"I'vff fallen and I canth geth up?" I croaked the first thing that popped into my head. My tongue was filled with a series of sharp pains, and I took notice of the fact that when I spoke, my pronunciation was thick and blunted.

"Jeez, Row," my friend admonished as he screwed up his face. "This ain't the time to be crackin' jokes. What's goin' on here?"

"Aye," Felicity added. "Ben's right."

"Thorry," I told them as I pushed myself up on one elbow and used my other hand to massage my jaw where it had impacted the floor.

I opened my mouth and touched my fingertips to the end of my tongue. When I pulled my hand away, it was wet with saliva-diluted blood.

"You're bleeding," Cally gasped.

"I think I bith my tongue," I said.