Spells for the Dead

by Faith Hunter

  Shaking my head at all the strange things that were stomping around in my brain, I got in the car and drove to the house. As ordered, I left the car unlocked and the gobag on the passenger seat. Occam was standing at the side door of the barn, haloed in the security light, watching me, a grindylow on his shoulder. I hadn’t seen any of the cute neon green killers since we arrived and I had put the absence down to the were-creature judges and executioners being with Rick LaFleur and Margot Racer in Chattanooga. The black wereleopards were young weres and the ones most likely to make a mistake and spread the were-taint. And need to be killed. I had to wonder why one had returned here, but Occam didn’t seem upset by its presence, one hand stroking along its back and tail as if it were a cat.

  As I walked toward Occam, he smiled. A sense of utter well-being fluttered through me as if a thousand butterflies had just taken flight. I followed him inside and slid into his arms, my head on his chest.

  “Nell, sugar. I’ve missed you like a fish misses water.” He breathed in my scent and I scrubbed my fist along his jaw.

  “I’ve missed you too, cat-man.”

  The grindylow leaped away and up, into the rafters of the barn. There was a cat up there already, a gray-striped, green-eyed cat. Behind it were more cats. I tilted my head, my face scraping against Occam’s work shirt, and counted four. I sighed happily. I hadn’t seen cats until now and I had wondered why. Except that cats had a strong sense of self-preservation. It was likely they had smelled death and decay and taken off. It was the same reason there had been few flies. The smell had been evil mixed with rot. Not good to eat; not a good place to lay eggs. But I wondered why the cats weren’t melting. Perhaps the same reason Occam couldn’t feel the death and decay?

  The cats accepted the grindy, or perhaps ignored it was the better term. Cats were always welcome at a barn, even the most feral. Most barn owners set traps, got the cats spayed or neutered, gave them shots, and put out dry food in return for the cats keeping pests out of the grain and feed.

  Occam propped his chin on my head. “You gonna tell me what happened between you and FireWind out there in the dark?”

  I smiled against his shirt, the buttons pressing into my cheek. “You ain’t jealous, are you?”

  “Jealous of tall, dark, and deadly? Not any more than I am of anyone who gets to spend time with you. Heck, woman, I’m jealous of your cats, your sister, and your family. I’m jealous of every moment that takes you away from me. And if that sounds a little too much possessive and old-school toxic masculinity, well, I do apologize for saying it.”

  “But not for feeling it?”

  “A man can’t help what he feels. He can only help what he does about those feelings. And I’ll never hurt you, Nell, sugar. Not ever, in any way, not even by my natural jealousy. I’ll cut off my hand before I let myself harm you. I’ll cut out my tongue before I let myself speak words that hurt you.”

  Tears gathered in my eyes as he spoke. “I love you, cat-man.”

  “I love you too, plant-woman.”

  “You two finished saying hello and rubbing noses?” T. Laine called from the back door of the house. “I need to update Nell.”

  “We’re mostly done,” Occam drawled. “Though that might be speciesist, suggesting we rub noses just because I’m a wereleopard.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Write me up. Turn me in to HR.” T. Laine backed into the kitchen. “I’m making fresh coffee,” she called. “Did you bring anything to eat, Nell? I’m starving.”

  Occam and I separated. I said, “There’s a bag in the trunk with sandwiches. I forgot to bring it in. And Occam will have to go get it.” At Occam’s odd look, I said, “FireWind’s clothes are in the passenger seat. He turned into a St. Bernard and is chasing scents in the front pasture.”

  “You do realize how weird that sounds,” T. Laine said from the house.

  “Yes. I do. And when he’s done, he’ll have to shift back to human and he’ll be naked as a jaybird. I already had to see too many coworkers naked. I don’t particularly want to add FireWind to that list of people I’ve seen in their naked glory.”

  There was a chuff of amusement, quickly silenced. “Back in a sec,” Occam said and vanished out the door. I moved across the open space to the house.

  “Naked glory,” T. Laine said. “Yeah. I’ll bet he is glorious naked.”

  “I thought you were dating Mr. SWAT-Wonderful.”

  “I’m not dead,” she said. “I can still dream.”

  I decided that was not something I needed to discuss. “The house smells odd,” I said, “dank, like a damp basement. Less like death and decay.”

  “Yeah. We cut out the carpets and put them into the portable null room, which is why the trailer isn’t at the hospital anymore. But the North Nashville coven got a shield around the slab of the house, and around I-40 where the transport unit died, so the energies aren’t spreading down.”

  “Someone might be calling you soon about how to get a null room installed in the para unit at UTMC.”

  “’Bout time. We got PsyCSI and a specialized military para hazmat team on the way from Maine. FireWind is worried and wants another set of trained eyes here in case CSI is missing things.”

  Occam reentered, his gait cat-smooth, the bag of sandwiches under his arm. “Food. Let’s eat.”

  As we demolished the sandwiches, I told them about FireWind and the very expensive dead horse and that we needed to get the paranormal hazmat team to take care of Adrian’s Hell as soon as they got here.

  “Can’t wait. We’ll have to handle this ourselves,” T. Laine said, “and put a shield around the energies to contain them. I don’t want the death and decay to reach the groundwater.”

  A fresh shaft of horror lanced through my chest. “You know for sure that the energies are moving down into the water tables?”

  “The shields we set up seem to be holding, but with magical energies like this? I don’t know. Too bad you can’t burn a melting body. We could set it on fire in situ instead of shoveling it into containers and carting it into the null room.” T. Laine stopped with a meat-filled bun halfway to her mouth. “Wait. That might put the working into the air. Never mind. Astrid and I will put something together.” She took a bite ravenous enough to qualify as a werecat bite. Through the food she added, “We’ll put a shield around the death site until we figure out how to kill it. Because right now, I can’t do jack.”

  After that bit of frightening news, we ate and filled each other in on case notes and info we hadn’t had time to read. After we ate, I said I was going to read the houseplants. No one argued, no one suggested the probie should do something else. It was, maybe, the first time I felt like an equal member of the team, exerting power over my own investigative techniques—exciting and a little dangerous.

  ELEVEN

  There were lots of houseplants on every level, all in the south-facing windows to give them the best sunlight. Someone knew their plants. After a trek through the house to get an overview, I started by reading the plants on the upper level, flipping lights on and off as I moved. The attic library was full of paperbacks, mostly romance and fantasy, with a few thrillers, all by people I had never heard of. There were comfy chairs and two recliners, cozy furniture you could put your feet on. The plants here were flourishing in little blue clay pots in the south dormers, alive and healthy. They were happy plants, the soil the right composition and drainage for species, moisture, and nutrients. I felt like I was getting what might be called a baseline of what the houseplants had been like before the death and decay energies.

  Stella had been gone for weeks, but the plants were fine. Someone else took care of them. I assumed it was the housekeeper, but she was dead too so there was no confirming my guess.

  Thinking about that, I went down the stairs. Reading plants, touching the soil, occasionally sticking my fingers deeper, invading the root-space. On
the bedroom level the plants were less healthy. They drooped even though they didn’t need water. They looked sadder. They felt sadder too, when I touched their soil. I gave each one a little boost, hoping it would be enough. On the main level, all the plants were dying. When I touched the soil, it felt dry and . . . weak wasn’t exactly the word, but they needed nutrients and water.

  As I touched the plants off the kitchen area, I began to feel nauseated. My head started to ache. As I neared the basement stairs, my fingers started to tingle and felt cold to the touch. But I forced myself to dress out in a spelled uni and gloves, requested a null pen from T. Laine, and went downstairs.

  The plants near the basement’s French doors, close to where the bodies had been found, were brown and dead. I thought back. For once I hadn’t noticed the houseplants consciously, my attention on the bodies, but in my memory, they had been green when I was here last. I didn’t touch them, curling my arms around myself in a hug.

  For safety’s sake, I returned to the stairs, holding my middle, looking around at the rotted guitars, the cracked plastic casings of electronic equipment, the pile of dust and rusted wire where the piano used to stand. The metal chairs were piles of rust. The wall colors were faded and brittle. The carpet was gone and the slab cracked, as if I looked at a long-abandoned house.

  At the top of the stairs I heard a thump and shout. I stripped off the uni and other protective gear and raced down the hallway, into the kitchen, my heart in my throat, breath fast. No one was in the kitchen. And then I heard a faint panting. On the other side of the island, Occam was kneeling beside FireWind, who was still in St. Bernard form. He was panting in distress, his tail down, head hanging. FireWind’s legs quivered, his knees unable to hold his weight. He dropped to the floor in a doggy heap.

  “Nell,” Occam said. “T. Laine!” he shouted.

  I was by FireWind in an instant. I touched him and jerked back fast, shaking my hand. “He’s covered in the death and decay.”

  “I don’t feel anything,” Occam growled.

  T. Laine raced in from outside and dropped to the floor, her hands tracing over the dog in a professional manner, checking for fever against her own skin, checking pulse and respirations, shining a light into FireWind’s eyes. T. Laine had been to vet school and was the unit’s were-creature medic in the few times when shifting wasn’t enough to heal them. But what did she know about skinwalkers? Had FireWind told her about his species’ health? I told her what I thought had happened and T. Laine wove a null pen deep into FireWind’s silky coat. Nothing seemed to happen, so she wove in several more. “Don’t lose these,” she whispered to the dog. “My boss says they’re expensive and he might kill me.” She was talking to said boss and it might have been funny if FireWind wasn’t having trouble breathing. “Why aren’t you shifting?” she asked him.

  Occam sat back on his heels and watched. “What do we do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” the witch said. “The null pens don’t seem to be making a difference. I don’t know how to help a skinwalker shift. Can you?”

  “Methodology is totally different. Magics are different. If it’s the death and decay keeping him from his human form,” Occam asked, “do we put him in the null room or would that mess up his skinwalker energies?”

  I envisioned FireWind stuck in some broken shape of mismatched parts forever.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We need a manual. ‘How to Skinwalk for Dummies.’ Nell? You healed LaFleur and Occam. What do you think?”

  I studied the panting dog. He had never hunted on Soulwood. He wasn’t mine. Still, I reached out a hand again. The death and decay grabbed my fingertips as if it recognized me. I jerked back. “I need my plant from the car.”

  Occam moved out the door werecat-fast and was back in a moment with the potted tree. I scattered a little of the soil over FireWind and stuck my fingers into the pot, shoving them deep. “You try to stick your roots into me or my boss and I’ll let the death and decay take you,” I warned the tree.

  Occam raised his uneven eyebrows, a gesture that was both cat and human and would have made me smile if FireWind wasn’t in such distress, his panting growing faster. I drew on Soulwood through the soil, and my land welcomed me, warm and safe and full of joy. Through that connection, I could tell that Esther and Mud were in the house and were fighting. Cherry was inside with them, miserable at the anger in their words, her tail thumping softly on the floorboards. The cats were in the garden chasing mice in the dark. When I focused on them, the cats jerked midleap/step/crouch, and raised their noses. Cherry stopped the rhythmic thumping of her tail. I realized that the animals knew I was paying attention to them and the land and I soothed them. “It’s all good. You’uns go on about your business.” The cats tore back after the family of mice. Cherry huffed a breath and put her head down, relaxing.

  “Nell?” Occam.

  FireWind was hurt. I remembered.

  I reached for the skinwalker. And wrenched away. Yanked my hand from the pot. Found myself standing, my entire body tingling. Breathing hard. The leaves on the tree shivered. I felt some of my own leaves uncurl in my hairline. “No.” I shook my head. I’d have to bleed my blood and his onto the land to possibly heal him, and that would claim the land and my boss for me. At the thought, my bloodlust, which had been quiescent for days, raised its predatory head. So much strong blood in FireWind . . . It wanted . . . “I can’t help him,” I whispered. “I’d have to claim him and the land and I doubt he’d like that.”

  “Better than being dead,” said Occam.

  “Maybe not,” I said, thinking about the vampire tree and the bloodlust of my land. “He might be dead before it was done.”

  T. Laine said, “His pulse is fast and irregular at nearly one fifty and his respirations are too fast, about twenty-seven a minute. I don’t know why he isn’t shifting.” She looked at me. “We need to talk to another skinwalker.”

  She was asking if I would call Jane Yellowrock for advice.

  I didn’t argue. I pulled my phone and scanned through the address book for Jane Yellowrock, FireWind’s sister and my sorta-friend. I dialed and it went to voice mail, not that I had really expected her to answer. Jane was busy being the Dark Queen of vampires and trying to stop a worldwide vampire war, or so one of Rick LaFleur’s confidential sources had said. Jane might not even be in the country. We hadn’t been able to confirm or deny any of the rumors surrounding her. When the mechanical voice finished leaving instructions, I left a message. Then I called the council house of vampires in New Orleans and spoke to a man who identified himself as Wrassler, which was a strange name. I told him about FireWind’s condition. Wrassler said he would try to get a message to Jane but that we shouldn’t hold our breath. “She’s underground,” he said. Which made no sense at all, not that I’d come to expect sense when talking to or about Jane.

  I hung up and shook my head.

  “We might have to try the null room,” T. Laine said, “but we’ve never tried it on a skinwalker in crisis.”

  “Better than being dead,” Occam repeated.

  “I’m not so sure of that,” T. Laine said, echoing me.

  Occam got his feet under him in a squat and lifted FireWind by his front legs and upper body, up over his shoulder. “Get the door.”

  I got the door. Occam stood, easily lifting FireWind’s two-hundred-plus pounds and carrying him outside. Wereleopard strength. T. Laine raced ahead, pulling on special null gloves. She opened the back ramp to the portable null room and shoved out a roll of soggy, stinking carpet. She pointed to a folding table and I helped her carry it into the middle of the null room cargo trailer. Occam dropped FireWind onto its surface with a thump-rattle that shook the trailer.

  T. Laine walked down the ramp and closed it up, leaving us shut inside, in the silence and the dim light. I opened some folding chairs and sat, though the stench still in the trailer
was so bad I was nearly ready to lose my dinner. Occam repeated his exam of his boss.

  “When the death and decay is neutralized, can you make him shift back?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I was able to help LaFleur some, early on. But shifting won’t be the same with skinwalkers. They aren’t moon-called. They aren’t forced into their beasts. With them it’s an effort of will. They can and do shift anytime, anywhere, into anything if they have sufficient DNA for the form they want. The only similarity FireWind has mentioned is the mass-to-mass ratio and he hinted at the possibility that it might be easier to shift during the full moon.”

  Occam dialed Rick, but the call went to voice mail.

  FireWind opened one doggy eye, looked at Occam, and whined softly.

  “Don’t change shape,” Occam warned, “even when you start to feel better. We’re in the null room. I don’t know what skinwalker magics, death and decay, and a null working might result in. You could end up with three legs and a wing.”

  FireWind closed his eyes and shivered with what looked like pain.

  Occam shifted his eyes to me. They were glowing softly yellow, which I found odd since we were in a null room. “What’s wrong with your tree?” he asked.

  I looked down at the potted plant, which I was still holding, and said, “It didn’t like the death and decay energies.”

  “Join the club.” Occam pulled his chair closer to mine and sat. He put the pot on the floor, took my hands, and absentmindedly massaged my cold fingers as we watched FireWind. “I really shoulda brought in that bag of sandwiches.”

  “How can you stand the stench enough to want to eat?”

  He shrugged. “Cat.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Nearly an hour later FireWind’s breathing had evened out and slowed to what looked like normal for a big dog. Occam was satisfied with FireWind’s pupils and his heart rate, and he was awake and no longer whining in pain, so that seemed good. But he looked exhausted and his limbs were quivering as if he’d been hit with an electric current.