by Faith Hunter
Through Yummy, I learned vampire gossip. Lincoln Shaddock had retaken his clan home and hunting lands with a minimum of bloodshed. Or so he had reported to Ming. I interpreted the statement as meaning that he had drank down his enemies and thrown out the drained husks, but I might have been wrong.
Cai had survived as a human, though he was now both dreadfully scarred and particularly powerful.
Ming was upgrading her clan home’s security systems, and had discovered cameras in the walls. Alex Younger’s backdoor into the vampire’s lair had been compromised. Yummy seemed to think I would know all about it, and I managed not to lie in any meaningful way, or in any way she could smell.
It had been strange to have a vampire in my home, especially considering that she and Occam had dated before I joined Unit Eighteen. Dated meaning sex and blood. But Yummy assured me that she had no claim on the wereleopard and she begged my forgiveness for trying to “poach your lover on your land,” as she put it, when she was injured and bleeding to death. It was a very strange conversation. Even stranger that I liked her.
Occam had been healed in the burst of magic. Not totally, of course, but vastly improved, and while I never did learn why he had been so shy about his scars, he had a full head of hair growing in, his ear had grown back, his smile was no longer twisted, and his fingers were no longer fused. They didn’t bend. He still had scars, but as he said, “I don’t scare small children on the streets.” He looked pretty good to me.
I was different too. I had scarlet hair. Flame bright. My eyes were the deep, vibrant green of emeralds. I had a full line of leaves around my hairline. My fingernails and toenails had turned to wood—polished, beautifully grained wood, and one woman who noticed them at the grocery store wanted to know how I achieved the look. I had to pluck my leaves every morning and sand back my nails at night. I could still pass for human if I worked at it, though I hoped the effects would pass with time and I’d look more human. I was just glad I hadn’t grown thorns.
I laid my head back on the swing and scratched at my leaves as the day lightened around me. Waiting. The full moon would be setting soon. The wereleopards would shift to human form and come visiting as they had every morning of this first full moon—a spotted wereleopard and two black wereleopards in human form. I would offer them coffee, eggs and bacon, and we would chat. And I would share some of Soulwood’s peace with them all, soothing their pain and their spirits.
Rick (and his cat) were more self-controlled than I had ever seen him, exuberant because his magic was stronger, yet pained because his blood had turned Margot. Margot was still grieving her loss of humanity. Occam just liked being soothed. He said it made his cat happy.
Over the last two weeks, Rick and Margot had spent a lot of time together and that shared time as cat and human had begun to develop into what looked like the beginnings of an office romance. From New York, FireWind had called and offered the former FBI agent a position at PsyLED and Margot had accepted. She would have to attend Spook School, and she had accepted that too, though starting out as a probationary officer had hurt. I, however, was no longer a probie, but a full-fledged PsyLED special agent. With the concomitant raise in pay, a bump in security level, and a move to day shift, which made child care nearly effortless.
The vampire tree had put roots down in the stockyard with a huge, massive tree in the center of what had once been a blood-witch circle. It hadn’t talked to me since it took on the guise of the Green Knight and went to war. That suited me just fine. Talkative trees were just scary.
I pushed off on the swing. Time passed. The dawn sky brightened. I felt the energies of were-creatures shifting in the woods, faster than once before.
From the edge of the woods three forms emerged. Margot was nearly invisible, her dark skin blending into the gloom. One was still cat-like, lithe and healthy, his blondish hair visible, long and swinging, his blondish beard scruffy, the way I liked it. The last one was easily recognizable. Rick LaFleur’s white hair and beard were a beacon. He had aged in the magic of the new moon curse, but we thought the aging had stabilized and, what with the were-taint in his veins, he’d still live a much-longer-than-human life span. As JoJo said, Rick was craggy and harsh, but still gorgeous, a chick magnet. At his feet two grindylows gamboled and then took off for the woods again.
The human cats reached the porch and I poured coffee into four mugs. Margot and Rick slid two chairs close together and sat. Occam walked up the steps and kissed my lips sweetly.
I had asked him to stay over today. In my bed. Not sleeping. I had been very clear about what I meant, so as to satisfy his promise to let me do all the asking. He had promised to show me all the tenderness and love in his heart—to the full moon and back. I was looking forward to it, my human heart beating fast as his lips met mine, my leaves shivering in delight.
My life wasn’t safe, but as William Shakespeare had written, “Security is the chief enemy of mortals.” At least I’d never be bored.
Read on for an excerpt of the third Soulwood novel
FLAME IN THE DARK
Available wherever books are sold!
I walked the length of Turtle Point Lane near Jones Cove, my tactical flash illuminating the street and the ditch, trying to keep my eyes off the lawn and runnel of water and mature trees to the side. I should be in the trees, not here in the street, wasting my gifts on asphalt. I hated asphalt. To my touch, it was cold and dead and it stank of tar and gasoline.
But the K9 teams had dibs on the grass and were already in the backyard, the mundane tracker dog and the paranormal tracker dog, with their handlers, and lights so bright they hurt my eyes when I looked that way. As a paranormal investigator, I had to wait until the human and canine investigators were finished, so my scent didn’t confuse the Para-K9s. Standard operating procedure and forensic protocol. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Armed special weapons and tactics team—SWAT—officers, on loan from the city, patrolled the boundaries of the grounds, dressed in tactical gear and toting automatic rifles. Knoxville’s rural/metro fire department patrolled inside the house along with uniformed cops, suited detectives, and federal and state agents in this multiagency emergency investigation.
The PsyLED SAC—special agent in charge of Unit Eighteen, and my boss—had put me to work on menial stuff to keep me off the grass and out of the way until the dogs were completely done. As a probationary agent, I did what I was told. Most of the time.
My steps were slow and deliberate, my eyes taking in everything. Crushed cigarette butts stained by yesterday’s rain, soggy leaves, broken auto safety glass in tiny pellets, flattened aluminum cans in the brush and a depression: an energy drink and a lite beer. A gum box. Nothing new, from the last twenty-four hours. I was surprised at the amount of detritus on a street with such upmarket houses. Maybe the county had no street sweeper machine, or maybe the worst of the filth ended up hidden in the weeds, hard to see, making the street appear cleaner than it really was. Life was like that too, with lots of secrets hidden from sight.
I had already searched the entire street with the psy-meter 2.0, and put the bulky device in the truck. There were no odd levels of paranormal energies anywhere. A small spike on level four at the edge of the drive, but it went away. An anomaly. The psy-meter 2.0 measured four different kinds of paranormal energies called psysitopes, and the patterns could indicate a were-creature, a witch, an arcenciel, and even Welsh gwyllgi—shape-shifting devil dogs. I had nothing yet, but I needed onto the lawn to do a proper reading. I’d get my wish. Eventually.
I searched the area around a Lexus. Then a short row of BMWs. I took photos of each vehicle plate and sent them to JoJo, Unit Eighteen’s second in command and best IT person, to cross-check the plate numbers with the guest list. The air was frigid and I was frozen, even though I was wearing long underwear, flannel-lined slacks, layered T-shirts, a heavy jacket, wool socks, and field boots. But then, along with uniformed county officers, I’d been at the gro
unds search for two hours, since the midnight call yanked me out of my nice warm bed and onto the job at a PsyLED crime scene. Field examination was scut work, the bane of all probie special agents, and we had found nothing on the street or driveway that might relate to the crime at the überfancy house on a cove of the Tennessee River.
To make me more miserable, because I had drunk down a half gallon of strong coffee, I had to use the ladies’, pretty desperately. I stared at the Holloways’ house, trying to figure out what to do.
“I just went to the back door and knocked,” a voice said.
I whirled. I’d been so intent that I hadn’t heard her walk up. A young female sheriff’s deputy grinned at me. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.
“Oh. It’s okay.” But it wasn’t. I was jumpy and ill at ease for reasons I didn’t understand. There were woods with fairly mature trees all around, water in the cove nearby, and well-maintained lawns the length of the street, all full of life that should have made me feel at home. Instead I was jumpy. All that coffee maybe. “I’m Nell. Special Agent Ingram.” I put out my hand and the woman shook it, businesslike.
“You don’t remember me,” she said, “but we met at the hospital during the outbreak of the slime molds back a few weeks. You gave me your keys and let my partner and me get unis out of your vehicle. I never got the chance to thank you. May Ree Holler, and my partner, Chris Skeeter.” She pointed to a taller, skinny man up the road.
“Your mother escaped from God’s Cloud of Glory Church, like I did,” I said, referring to the polygamous church I grew up in. “I remember. Her name was Carla, right?”
May Ree grinned at me, seeming happy that I remembered. “That’s my mama. Hard as nails and twice as strong.” She indicated the dark all around. “Us females always get it the worst on these jobs. The male deputies can just go in the woods, but it isn’t so easy for women. The caterer let me in to use the bathroom. Even gave me a pastry.” May Ree was short and sturdy with a freckled face, brown hair, and wearing her uniform tight, showing off curves. She had a self-assuredness I would never achieve. Her hair was cropped short for safety in close-combat situations, but her lips were full and scarlet in the reflected glare from my flash, and she was fully made up with mascara and blush, even at the ungodly hour. “Go on. And if they offer you something to eat, bring me another one of those pink iced squares. I missed supper.”
“I will. Thanks,” I said. If I couldn’t get her one I’d give her a snack from my truck when I came back out, presuming the bread wasn’t frozen. Still moving my flash back and forth, covering my square yard with each pass, I walked from the street, up the drive, and to the back door, where I snapped off the light. I thought about knocking, but I had learned it was easier to apologize than to get permission. Not a lesson I had learned at the church where I was raised, but one I had learned since coming to work with PsyLED. I might get fussed at or written up, but no one would punish me for an infraction, like the churchmen did to the churchwomen.
Opening the door, I slid the flash into its sheath and stepped inside. The warmth and the smell of coffee hit me like a fist. I unbuttoned my jacket so my badge would show and blinked into the warmth. My frozen face felt as if it might melt and slide off onto the marble tile floor. I breathed for a few moments and tried to unclench my fingers. My skin ached. My teeth hurt.
The arctic front had no regard for global warming. It had hit, decided it liked the Tennessee Valley, and decided to stay. This was the second week of frigid temps. Snow I liked. This, not at all.
Once the worst of the personal melting was done, I looked around. The kitchen was empty, a room constructed of stone in various shades of gray on the floor and the cabinet tops and the backsplash. The owners must have taken down a whole mountain to get this much polished rock. The ceiling was vaulted with whitish wooden rafters and joists. Cabinets with the same kind of treated whitish wood rose ten feet high. A ladder that slid on a bronze rail was in the corner. The stove was gas with ten burners and a copper faucet over the stovetops, which looked handy unless one had a grease fire and thought to use water to put it out. There was a commercial-sized coffeemaker with a huge pot half-full, two big, double-glass-door refrigerators, and a separate massive two-door freezer. I spotted the small powder room off the kitchen and raced into it before anyone could come in and tell me to get outside and use the trees.
I was one of maybe twenty-five law enforcement officers and investigators from the various law enforcement branches and agencies called in to the shooting at the Holloway home. The FBI was here to rule out terrorism because a U.S. senator had been at the private political fund-raiser when the shooting started.
PsyLED—the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security—was here because a vampire had been on-site too. The fire department was here because there had been a small fire. The local sheriff’s LEOs were here because it was their jurisdiction.
Crime scene investigators were here because there were three dead bodies on the premises, though not the senator—he was shaken up but fine. The grounds search was because the shooter had come and gone on foot. It was complicated. But dead and wounded VIPs meant a lot of police presence and a shooting to solve, especially since the shooter got away clean.
When I came back out, the kitchen was still empty and I decided a bit more of the “ask permission later” was called for. Most anything was better than going back outside to search the road and paved areas for clues into a crime I had not been informed about. Two automatic dishwashers were running softly. The pastries were taped under waxed paper, including little pink iced squares. May Ree would be disappointed. There were four ovens, and all but one was still warm to the touch. I inspected the planters under the windows. At first glance they appeared to be full of herbs—basil, rosemary, thyme, and lemongrass—but the leaves were silk. Which was weird in a kitchen that looked as if someone loved to cook.
Trying to look as if I belonged, I wandered through a butler’s pantry, complete with coffee bar, wet bar with dozens of decanters and bottles, and wine in a floor-to-ceiling special refrigerator. Beyond the butler’s pantry, stairs went up on one side and down on the other, proving that the house had multiple levels, not just the two obvious from the outside. Picking up on the smell of smoke and scorched furnishings was easy here.
I stayed on the main level and meandered into a formal dining room on one side of the entry. There was more stone here too, and wood in the vaulted ceilings. The twelve-foot-long dining table was set for a party, though I didn’t recognize any of the food except the whole salmon and the tenderloin of beef. It seemed a shame to let the food go to waste when May Ree was hungry, but there was blood on the floor in the doorway, leading from the back of the house to here. Since there was blood, the food itself might be evidence, so I kept my hands to myself and stepped carefully.
I had seen EMS units racing away as I drove up, so I knew there had been casualties, but seeing blood was unsettling. My gift rose up inside me, as if it was curious. Not trying to drink the blood down, not yet, because I wasn’t outside, my hands buried in the earth, but more like a mouser cat who sees movement and crouches, trying to decide if this is something worth hunting.
A formal living room decorated with a Christmas tree and presents and fake electric candles in the windows was on the other side of the entry. It had real wood floors and a ten-foot ceiling with one of those frame things set in the middle to give it even more height. Maybe called a tray ceiling; I wasn’t sure. Life in the church hadn’t prepared me with a good grasp of architectural terminology. The entire room felt stiff and uncomfortable to me, maybe due to the fact that all the plants were fake. Fancy tables, tassels on heavy drapes, carved lamps, furniture that looked showroom-fresh. This wasn’t a place to kick up your feet.
The room was full of people in fancy dress, and oddly, I knew two of them, Ming of Glass, the vampire Master of the City, and her bodyguard, a vamp I knew only as Yummy. Yummy flashed me a grin, o
ne without fangs, which was nice, but she mouthed, Opossum, at me, which was a tease I didn’t really need. I mouthed back, Ha-ha. Not. Yummy laughed.
All but three of the partygoers in the room looked irritated—two vamps and a human. Vamps tended to expressionless faces unless they were irritated or hungry, both of which were a sign of danger. The human was sitting on an ottoman, and he looked devastated, face pale, his tie undone, a crystal glass in one hand, dangling between his knees. I figured he was the husband of one of the dead. There was blood spatter on his shirt and dark suit coat. A man who didn’t belong in the expensively dressed crowd stood beside him, taking notes. A fed, I figured as I slipped away, before I got caught, to wander some more.
I passed uniformed and suited LEOs here and there, two I recognized as local and one unknown wearing a far better-fitting suit. Probably another fed. The firefighters left through the front door, big boots clomping, and gathered on the street. Two crime scene techs raced into the room off to the side, carrying gear. No one paid any attention to me except to note that I had a badge on a lanyard around my neck. I hooked my thumbs into my pockets and moseyed over, probably a failure at looking as if I belonged.
The action was in the game room and the stench of fire grew heavier. Inside was a pool table, comfy reclining sofas, and a TV screen so big it took up most of the wall over the fireplace. On the opposite wall were antique guns in frames behind glass. Cast metal that might have been machine parts was protected within smaller frames. What looked like an ordinary wrench was centered on the wall in a heavy carved frame as if it was the most important thing hanging there. People commemorated the strangest things.
There were also lots of old, black-and-white photographs of stiff-looking people wearing stiff-looking clothes. Their hats and the way the women’s clothes fitted said they were rich and pampered. The men’s mustaches and thick facial hair made them look imposing, at least to themselves; they had that self-satisfied look about them, the expression of a hunter when he was posing with a sixteen-point buck. However, their expressions also made them look like their teeth hurt. Dental care was probably not very common back whenever these were taken.
