Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (47 page)

“And as you have refused the medicine of your
salvation, we have summoned you to answer for the said crimes
before us, but you, led away and seduced by a wicked spirit have
refused to appear.”

Eddies of the thick mist swirled around the
huge silhouette as it advanced toward me. Looking up from my prone
position, he appeared to me as an absolute giant, easily dwarfing
Ben by several inches. I shuddered with an involuntary start as I
pressed myself into the cold metal fencing and reached upward to
the rail. Gritting my teeth against the aches criss-crossing my
body, I fought to drag myself to my feet.

“Whereas the Holy Church of God has long
awaited you up to this present day of kindness and mercy.” He
continued his recitation of question thirty-two as he moved closer
still; verbally applying the razor to the guilt he had already
confirmed. “That you might fly to the bosom of her mercy,
renouncing your errors and professing the Catholic Faith, and be
nourished by the bounty of her mercy; but you have refused to
consent, persisting instead in your obstinacy.”

My knees were weak with terror as I
unsteadily gained my feet. His imposing figure was stationed
directly between my still idling truck and me, making that avenue
of escape unattainable. I seriously doubted that I could outrun
him, and as he loomed through the fog, my options were growing
slim.

The man was haloed in backlighting from the
oddly canted headlamp on my truck reflecting from the damp sheen
that coated the bridge. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the odd
scheme, and I could just make out his long, haggard face. His eyes
were set back in deep shadowy wells and were framed by a shoulder
length hood of stringy white hair that blended into his colorless
pallor.

His thin frame was clad entirely in black
with a priest’s collar encircling his craning neck. With each word
he spoke, his throat would undulate as if he were swallowing hard.
His freakish appearance served to propel the already soul-chilling
fear deeper into my core.

He was directly before me now, and as had
happened in my vision, that fear became an all-consuming visceral
terror. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare back
in stunned horror.

In a sudden flash, the man brought his hand
up and thrust it downward. Out of pure reflex I brought my arm up
and twisted quickly away—but unfortunately, not quickly enough. The
cold steel spike of an ice pick bit hard into my shoulder, and I
could feel it scrape along the bones that formed the joint. I
howled in agony as he mercilessly ripped the stiletto back out and
plunged it once again into my upper arm.

His voice boomed imperiously against the
backdrop of the music and my agonized screams. “Therefore,
following in the footsteps of the Blessed Apostle Paul, we declare,
judge and sentence you to be a stubborn heretic and as such to be
abandoned to secular justice!”

The sharp pain slapped me out of my
quadriplegic stupor, and I lashed out, throwing my uninjured arm
forward and into his midsection. Twisting my weight into the
motion, I connected with a solid punch that took him by surprise
and staggered him backward. I didn’t believe for even a brief
second that I would get that lucky again, and I bolted for the
first opening that presented itself.

I could feel the ice pick still buried to its
handle in my upper left arm, and my hand was tucked into a deformed
claw that shuddered with pain. Hot tears were streaming down my
cheeks, and the wet mist of the fog felt even colder wherever it
touched my bare skin. My attempt at escape lasted for a half dozen
frenzied steps around the front end of my truck before I felt the
bony hand clamp like a vise on my shoulder.

I was jerked violently backward then
immediately thrust back forward at an angle where I made an
instantaneous stop against the railing on the south side of the
bridge. The air leapt from my lungs, and I gasped as I pitched
forward. The erupting stigmata on my forearm intensified to compete
with, and then overshadow, all of the other pains that racked my
body. At some point my glasses had gone the way of the cell phone,
and I cast an unfocused gaze at my hand and saw the small streams
of blood dripping from my clawed knuckles.

I fought to regain my breath, and I was once
again grasped by the neck and pushed sideways. As the killer held
me against the chilled metal, I felt something rough and
plastic-like dragged across my face. Looking down with bleary eyes,
I saw the nylon rope hanging about my neck bound with a coil of
thirteen loops in a perfect hangman’s noose.

“Rowan Linden Gant,” the deep voice began
once again. “By this our definitive sentence we drive you from the
ecclesiastical Court, and abandon you to the power of the secular
Court, that having you in its power now moderates its sentence of
death against you.”

In a sudden sense of motion, I felt my feet
leave the ground and my body being lifted forcibly upward. I tried
to grab for the rail, but my hand slipped from its slick surface
and I continued to rise.

The killer proceeded with the passing of my
fate, “Whereas you, Rowan Linden Gant have duly and properly
admitted your crimes, and having before us the Holy Gospels that
our judgment may proceed as from the countenance of God, by this
sentence we cast you away as an impenitent heretic and
sorcerer.”

He had now lifted me over his head, as one
would press a set of barbells. As strong as he was, he was
struggling against my weight and was unable to fully extend his
arms. I could feel him shaking as he held me there and stepped
against the rail. I almost froze in panic, fearing that if I fought
against him he would drop me over the side. I knew beyond a shadow
of a doubt that just such an action was what he had planned, but I
certainly didn’t want to help him accomplish it.

“In accordance with the thirty second
question we do hereby deliver you unto the power of our most Holy
God…” His voice cracked as he strained to hold me.

My mind raced in search of a way out, and I
realized that in his haste to end my existence, he had neglected to
bind my hands. If it was, as it appeared, his intention to hang me,
the opposite end of the rope had to be secured. I could think of
only one thing to do.

Trying my best not to attract his attention,
I quickly hooked my injured left arm up against my chest and forced
my bloody fist up through the noose encircling my neck. As I
pressed upward, I was able to slide the nylon rope over my head,
and the loop dropped down along my arm to encircle it just above my
elbow.

“As you, Rowan Linden Gant, are damned in
body and soul, your sentence on this day is death. The sentence, to
be executed immediately and without appeal in the manner of
hanging.”

So intent was he on passing sentence, he had
yet to notice my movements. I knew there were only seconds left now
that the words of judgment had officially been spoken. In an
adrenalin edged rush, I rotated my wrist and twisted a pair of
loops around my forearm then forced my hand open and grasped
tightly to the nylon rope. The fleetingly morbid thought that it
was too bad that we Witches couldn’t really fly shot through my
mind as he pronounced my end.

“May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon
your soul.”

With his last statement, he pitched forward
and grunted as he forced his arms outward. As I began to roll and
drop away, I shot my free right hand out and grasped tightly to a
handful of his stringy hair and held fast. I heard him yelp in
surprise as he was pulled forward and levered over the rail.

Together, we fell into the shadowy mist of
nothingness.

T
he steel trusses that
make up the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge form a superstructure that
rests upon beams and piers to span the five thousand plus feet to
the other side of the Mississippi. In an angular trek they
hopscotch across the water like an undulating multi-humped serpent
before taking a twenty-four degree turn and continuing on their
merry way to the other side. It was at the vertices of two of these
truss sections that we went over the side.

In the pit of my stomach, I experienced an
instant feeling of weightlessness followed rapidly by the heavy
sense of impending death. I held tightly to the nylon rope as it
slid quickly through my bare hand like a serrated knife. My palm
burned, begging to let go, and I consciously gripped the lifeline
even tighter.

There was a loud, clanging thump as our
bodies impacted the wide steel support running beneath the joint of
the trusses. We hesitated for a moment, and I felt myself
continuing to fall as I slid between the decking and the beam. I
continued downward for a handful of inches before the rope
tightened around my forearm. Less than a foot later, I jerked to a
sudden halt as the noose tightened and the line snapped taut.

I felt muscle tear as the inertia of my
plummeting body was stopped cold by nothing more than my left
shoulder being forcibly dislocated. I had cried out in pain so
often in the past few minutes that my voice was completely raw, and
all I could manage was a pathetic whimper.

Thus far my idea had worked. I was still
alive.

Through the mist I could just make out the
lights of the water treatment plant located in the distance, just
south of the actual rock chain that gave the bridge its name. The
normally lazy river rushed over this stone anomaly to create a dull
roar below. My ever-present phobia of drowning sent a wave of fear
to pierce my bowels and was rapidly joined by the terrifying
realization that I was not all that fond of heights either.

Above, music still blared from my idling
truck, and the mournful strains of a violin added sad emotion to a
slowly rising bass hum. A heavy groan punctuated the music from
somewhere near my head.

I was twisting slowly on the end of the rope
and simply hung there trying to deal with the pain as I lazily spun
around to face north. Prickling numbness was overtaking the pain in
my hand and forearm as the tight nylon cord dammed off the blood
flow. I was almost thankful as it began to ooze downward into my
dislocated shoulder.

I could feel something in my right hand, and
I slowly brought it up to my face. A large wad of dirty white hair
was protruding from between my fingers as they remained in a death
grip. Slowly, and deliberately, I forced my hand open and allowed
the mass to fall. I watched it as it floated lightly away and
melted into the thick mist.

In retrospect, I should have been paying
attention to the activity immediately above and to my rear.

A cold palm came quickly against the back of
my neck, and bony fingers slipped about my throat from the left. I
gasped and kicked as the killer began squeezing as tightly as he
could.

Evenly, and with great purpose, bass notes
echoed with haunting measure into the night against the crying of
the violin.

The smooth tempo of the movement began its
migration toward a spastic rhythm.

I sputtered and bucked as I clawed at the
massive hand that was threatening to crush my windpipe. I struggled
to slip my fingers in behind his and pry them away, but his grip
was too tight.

“As you, Rowan Linden Gant, are damned in
body and soul,” his angry voice announced as if the words were
necessary to validate his actions. “Your sentence on this day is
death. The sentence, to be executed immediately and without
appeal.”

The back of my head rang hard against the
metal beam as I kicked the air and fought to breathe. I could hear
my own gurgling as consciousness announced it would be leaving
soon. I grasped weakly at his fingers before my arm fell away to my
side and bounced against an annoying lump on my belt.

Frantic notes plucked sharply on the strings
of a harp insinuated themselves into the ebb and flow of the music
from above…

The melody continued from above as I tried to
reason out what the annoyance could be. I told myself in no
uncertain terms that this was neither the time nor the place to
worry about such things. My arm spasmed and caught once again
against the weighty protrusion at my side, urging me to think
harder on its meaning. In a black and white silhouette against the
inside of my eyelids, the nature of the object flashed to the front
of my fading thoughts. My hand shook uncontrollably as I hooked my
fingers beneath the retaining strap on the holster and pulled. They
shuddered and numbly slid away with no effect.

A brace of violins engaged in an angry
exchange bringing ever more urgency to the pace of the melody…

The killer was hanging precariously from the
support beam, leaning out and downward to reach me. As he shifted
for a better position, his hand loosened in a quick spasm. It
wasn’t much, but it was enough. I gasped in a small slice of a
breath and felt a brief moment of clarity surge through my
body.

I pushed my still shaking hand back up to my
side then thrust my thumb beneath the nylon strap and pushed
outward. With a dull pop it released, and I immediately wrapped my
hand around the grip of the pistol.

The miniscule piece of breath I’d been able
to grasp was failing quickly, and my vision was darkening as my
eyes started rolling back in my head. The abbreviated lesson in the
use of the pistol flashed through my mind as just so much jumbled
nonsense. I could find no way to apply the instructions to my
present situation.

Being unable to aim, I centered on what was
left of my strength and pressed the gun upward at an angle across
my chest until it met resistance.

The panicked voices of various stringed
instruments blended to a thick, disharmonious crescendo in my
ears…