Free Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars Page A

illusion of being a dependable
benchmark. Of course, while one-quarter hour wasn’t exactly the
distant past, it still made a difference; for now there was no
longer darkness and peaceful quiet wrapped around me—just harsh
light and the sound of running water.
    “Really, honey, I’m fine,” I said aloud, my
voice a tired drone. The words themselves were inherently positive,
but my timbre painted them with a gloomy hue, which effectively
defeated my purpose for making the comment in the first place.
    I leaned forward with a heavy sigh, resting
my hands on top of the bathroom vanity, and looked into the mirror
as I struggled to actually believe the untruth that had just
tumbled out of my mouth. Given what I saw staring back at me, I was
going to be hard pressed to do so. On top of that, I wasn’t even
taking into account that the all too familiar dull thud in the back
of my head had finally arrived, which definitely wasn’t going to
make things easy. The symptom list of signature aches associated
with my curse was sounding off one by one. But the truth is, as
residual effects go, the headache was probably the lesser of my
worries at the moment.
    Shifting my eyes slightly, I could see
Felicity’s face reflected in the pane of silvered glass as well.
Judging from her thin-lipped frown, she wasn’t buying into my empty
reassurances at all, so it was really a waste of time for me to
even continue pretending.
    After a thick pause, she replied flatly,
giving me a verbal confirmation of her disbelief while she finished
wringing out a washcloth in the basin. “No, Rowan, you aren’t. Look
at yourself…”
    I certainly couldn’t blame her for being
disagreeable. After all, I was lying and not very well at that.
Under the circumstances, she obviously wasn’t interested in wasting
time with the game of verbal hide and seek. I had to admit that I
didn’t really feel up to playing either. I suppose I was just doing
it out of habit.
    I moved my gaze back to my own reflection and
took in the not so pretty picture once again. Smears of red still
glistened in haphazard swaths along my jaw line and down my neck. A
rusting crinkled pattern ran across my shoulder and upper chest
where my now discarded shirt had recently been plastered to my body
by the sticky wetness. I was an absolute mess by most any
standards. In my own eyes at least, I pretty much looked like an
extra from the set of a low budget slasher movie.
    I continued watching in the mirror as my wife
reached up and carefully wiped away more of the blood with the wet
cloth then folded it over and made a second gentle swipe. Since it
had already started coagulating, there were thick, crusty trails
left behind on my skin that were going to take quite a bit more
coercion to remove.
    “This is insane, Row,” she muttered. “Just
insane…”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “Tell me about it.”
    “And this was how the victim died then?”
    “Uh-huh,” I answered. “At least that’s what I
was told. Apparently, the way Ben outlined it, she appeared to have
been purposely bled to death, which would kind of explain this…” I
gestured at the blood with my free hand. “Except there was no blood
at the scene, which obviously doesn’t explain this.”
    “I see,” she returned. “I guess I should be
grateful it wasn’t something a bit more immediate or you might not
be standing here right now.”
    “I don’t know about that.”
    “I guess that last bit is why he asked you
about vampires, then” she announced, ignoring my objection.
    “Yeah, I think so. I guess I can’t blame him
too much for thinking something like that,” I said. “I mean after
everything we’ve asked him to accept on blind faith over the years,
why not? To someone like him, I don’t think he sees it as that much
of a stretch. Witch, vampire…”
    “Maybe so, but what next? Zombies?”
    I couldn’t help but snort out a half chuckle.
“I really doubt it. In his defense he was talking about the