Spells for the Dead

by Faith Hunter

  “I asked Daddy to build my house fast. I want to give birth in my own home. Until then . . .” She took a breath and her tone changed, taking on a stronger timbre, a bargaining pitch, firm and persuasive, one I was familiar with from growing up in the church. I held in a smile. “Until then I want to buy that plot of land you mentioned and build a house on it. I plan to be back and forth from the Nicholsons’ and here if you’un’ll have me. I can look after Mindy and I’ll do my share of housecleaning and cooking and suchlike. Sam said he’d put my chicken coop here temporary like. I’ll take care of the hens and your’un—your—chicks ’cause I got me a way with ’em. I’ll contribute my own eggs to our living if you’ll have me.” She glanced at me to see if I was in agreement. I didn’t change my expression, waiting her out. “I promise not to be such a whiny-pants,” she said. “I promise to help and not complain. And I’ll find a way to pay rent.”

  A smile of delight pulled at my mouth, but I held it. Our bargain wasn’t done yet. “You’ll not pay me a penny for rent or for the land. It’s a gift. We’re family. But you can do laundry and cook. Your cooking is wonderful.”

  “To die for,” Mud said.

  “I ain’t never kilt nobody with my cooking. Mighta thought about it some with my hus—my ex-husband. But I never did it.” I chuckled and Esther shot her eyes to my face. “Is that a yes?”

  “You can stay here until the baby is born,” I said, “or until your house is finished if that happens sooner and you need privacy.”

  Esther frowned and pulled at the leaves trailing through her hairline, smoothing them in her fingers. “I don’t rightly know what privacy is. But I reckon I better get good at it.” She sounded pensive, uncertain. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I put a chicken on at Mama’s. It’s stewed and sitting on the front porch. Mindy, go get it and let’s us eat.”

  Working together, a team for the very first time, we set the table. I knew it wouldn’t last, but while it did, I was more than content, and Soulwood warmed its way all through me, my land as happy as I was at so many plant-people in my house.

  Dinner, eating and sharing our days, laughing at Cherry’s antics as she licked crumbs from the floor, was wonderful, just the three of us girls, seven counting the dog and the cats. I felt an unexpected and welcome sense of peace. It was family. I had always planned to save my sisters, to offer them a better way. I had done the right thing taking Esther in, getting custody of Mud, I knew that. But I also knew that my time with Occam would be different and I wondered how he’d feel about spending time here with three plant-women. And maybe a plant-baby. And I wondered how my sister would feel about having wereleopards wandering the grounds and hunting at the three days of the full moon.

  A mental image leaped from the deeps of my brain. Occam in spotted wereleopard form, curled around a plant-baby, green with leaves. I couldn’t help the smile that softened me, from my heart out to my face.

  This was an experiment. I hoped Occam and I would survive it. Did he like babies? Maybe our babies? Did he want one? More than one? Did I? If we managed to have babies would they be leopard plants? All these were questions I couldn’t answer.

  * * *

  * * *

  I slept again until five a.m. and woke with that heart-dropping fear of falling in a dream. I got up to find Esther walking the floors in the dark, rubbing her back, breakfast laid out to cook. It was fast, oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon and dried cranberries. While I ate, I dressed, repacked my gobags, and made a trip to the garden. Apologizing, I left Esther my nasty dirty clothes to clean, the ones that still stank of death and decay and that I had forgotten to wash. Without complaint, she threw herself into cleaning.

  Someone must have picked up Occam, because my car was in my drive, so I loaded up my gobags and gear and a new plant and bag of soil. The sky was graying when I drove out of the drive and down the mountain.

  I parked my car next to Occam’s in the parking lot, happy to see it there, and gathered my things, including the small purple cabbage I had dug up from the garden and potted to carry around. I wouldn’t be carting the vampire tree again. In hindsight it hadn’t been the smartest thing I could do, and I had begun to wonder if the Green Knight had influenced me to carry it around as a way to keep tabs on me. Was the tree that smart? This was a question and a worry to add to the worries about Esther and her future, both short term and long term, worries about Mud living with me, worries about whether I’d be a good mother figure, worries about money.

  Once upon a time I had worried only about myself. Now I had people to care for. There was a big part of me that missed living off the grid and in isolation.

  I loaded up. Besides the cabbage plant’s pot pressed against my belly, I was carrying coffee in my metal travel mug and had a sealed plastic bowl full of leftover chicken stew and a half loaf of Mama’s bread in a carryall, dangling from an elbow, with a passel of fresh greens on top. I had my one-day gobag on one shoulder and my four-day gobag over the other. I was holding my ID in two fingers; I would use the same fingers to punch in the code as I made my way through the two entrance doors.

  Except that Occam met me partway down the stairs and took my gobags. “Hey there, Nell, sugar,” he said softly. “You look pretty as a picture.”

  “A still life with plants? Maybe a skull? Giovanni Francesco Barbieri did a painting with flowers and a skull sitting on top of a book. I sorta feel like that. Still half-dead.”

  Occam chuckled and looked up at the camera in the ceiling corner. I had a feeling that if it hadn’t been there we might have kissed. My face warmed at the expression on his—just a little frustrated. Just a little needing. Just the way I felt.

  My cat-man carried my bags to my cubby. Cubby was office-speak for cubicle. I kinda liked all the modern words and slang I had learned. It made me feel included, part of the team instead of the backcountry consultant I had been at first. The country hick chick I had truly been. I locked away my weapon in my desk, put the plant in the windowsill with the herbs and lettuces I grew in the office, and stashed my four-day gobag in the locker room and the food in the break room. I rejoined Occam at his desk and we drank our coffees, chatting about the weather and the cool air that was blowing in. Everything was quiet. I liked this time of day in HQ.

  Half an hour later, we joined both day and night shifts in the conference room. Everyone looked more perky than I expected, even T. Laine, who had been working day and night. She had bruised-looking circles beneath her dark eyes and her shoulders were slumped, but her clothes were fresh and her hair was clean and combed. I got the feeling that she too had slept last night. Null pens were lined up on the conference table in front of her.

  JoJo was dressed in bright reds, a silky skirt and blouse, with her braids up in a massive bun, full of beads and sparkly things, and a half dozen gold earrings in each ear. Tandy, who I hadn’t seen for what felt like weeks but was really less than one, looked dapper in khaki pants and a white shirt with a dark jacket. His reddish hair had been cut short and the Lichtenberg lines that traced across his skin, from the lightning strikes that gave him his empath gifts, were bright against his pale skin. He was sitting next to Jo, looking over her shoulder at the screens as they loaded up the files for the EOB/SOB (end-of-business/start-of-business) debrief.

  Rick and Margot were still on the case in Chattanooga. They would be back by the full moon, to shift and run on Soulwood in safety and privacy. I’d have to talk with Esther about that, and soon, if she was going to be living at the base of the hill. She might see them at night and I didn’t want her shooting my werecats.

  Occam and I took our seats and opened our laptops and tablets.

  Coffee gurgled in the coffeemaker, a full pot brewing, the red bag from Rick’s place of choice, Community Coffee, on the counter. The scent was . . . was home. My second home. HQ. With friends. As if he caught that feeling, or perhaps that scent on me, Occam slid a
look my way and smiled, his blonder hair catching the pale light from the windows. I remembered the texture of it in my hands from yesterday, more silky than it had been, as he continued to heal from being dead.

  FireWind entered last, from his back office. As usual, he looked as if he had stepped out of a fashion magazine: crisp white shirt, charcoal pants, black jacket, black shoes. I was pretty sure he owned nothing that wasn’t some shade of black or white. “Good morning,” he said. “Clementine. FireWind. Mark current date and time and open file for SOB meeting.” He dipped his head in a gesture that told us to ID ourselves and, one at a time, we stated our names. He took Rick’s seat at the far head of the table, which I didn’t like, but I kept my mouth shut. Like my sister, I’d pick my battles.

  “We have an update on the names of the deceased,” FireWind said. “Stella Mae Ragel, Monica Belcher, Verna Upton, Connelly Darrow, Ingrid Wayns, Cale Nowell, Erica Lynn Quinton, and one very expensive horse. Other bodies may have been liquefied at the shed behind the residence of Cale Nowell, though T. Laine has stated categorically that there are no death magics nor any death and decay inside Cale Nowell’s home, which in her mind is proof that Nowell is not our suspect.”

  T. Laine pursed her lips at the words “in her mind,” but she didn’t argue. I wanted to know who else but the suspect would have been making people-soap in the shed behind his house, but I kept my mouth shut because the boss was still talking.

  “Infected but recuperating in hospital are Thomas Langer and four others. The rest have been released from hospital. The doctors agree that time in the null rooms is the reason there are survivors at all.

  “We have a mountain of trace evidence being worked up at PsyCSI in Richmond and at the military’s PHMT. I have directed that we be updated straightaway on anything they find, even basic preliminary reports. But it will be days before we have final reports, and there is a great deal of pressure from up-line to discover something actionable. So far, we are treating as evidence: the box of T-shirts, the witch trigger that set off the working, the death and decay–treated soil of the plants in the basement studio, the liquid goo in the kettle at the shed behind Nowell’s trailer, the melted remains of the victims—” FireWind stopped abruptly and added, more slowly, “And not much else. Talk to me, people. Brainstorm. Guess.”

  “I’m looking at the poly marriage,” T. Laine said. “Out of the original seven that lived together at the commune, four are dead. Connelly Darrow, Stella, Erica Lynn Quinton, Cale Nowell. All four were also in the band. Surviving the commune is Donald Murray Hampstead, who moved to New York City, and who, when interviewed, was able to offer nothing substantive. Also Thomas Langer and Racine Alcock. Per all surviving members of the poly marriage, Alcock left the commune early, for reasons no one knew, and was not in the band. I haven’t been able to find her and neither has Jones.”

  I looked at JoJo, who didn’t glance up at me. If JoJo couldn’t find someone, they didn’t exist.

  “She has no social media presence,” T. Laine said. “For all intents and legal purposes, she vanished.”

  “What if Racine Alcock wasn’t her real name at all?” I said.

  “I thought about that and we asked Hampstead about that possibility several times. He has no idea where she is or if she was using her real name in the marriage. He has not been part of Stella’s life since he left the commune.”

  “Bad feelings?” FireWind asked.

  “He says no,” Tandy said. “I was listening on the call and I believe he was speaking the truth as he knows it.”

  “What about the photo albums FireWind and I collected from Stella Mae’s closet?” I asked. “They were old. Did anyone go through them?”

  “The albums.” FireWind stood fast and left the room, returning in minutes with a cardboard box, sealed with evidence tape. He filled out the COC—chain-of-custody—paper with today’s date, time, location, and his name, and slit open the evidence tape. “I brought them back and entered them into evidence, but I’ve been here so seldom I never got around to going through them.” He passed around the albums, three of them fancy decorated leather books, the pages adorned with cutouts made from colored paper and cut pieces of metal. There were also loose photos in the bottom of the cardboard box, which FireWind handed to me.

  “I didn’t know people printed out photos anymore,” Occam said, “let alone made albums of them.”

  “It’s a thing,” T. Laine said. “There’s an entire craft market devoted to people creating albums like this one.” The album she was paging through was devoted to Stella’s school years, with photos of her family. “We got Christmases and Thanksgivings and teenaged parties Stella attended. There are a lot of photos from Stella’s youth, from middle school through high school, but nothing that looks as if it might help us.”

  “I have the early years of the band,” Occam said. “Lots of faces. Nothing jumps out as incriminating or worthy of a death and decay.”

  “I have the commune years,” Tandy said. “And we may have photos here of the missing woman, Racine Alcock.” He turned through the book, eyes flicking up and down each page. “Unfortunately, her name has been removed from every single photo so I can’t prove it.”

  JoJo said, “Hang on. I’ll put it on the screen.” She pushed a small stand over the album, a thin metal candy cane–sized and –shaped thing rising in the middle. On its tip was a tiny camera and the album appeared overhead on the main screen.

  As she worked, I said, “In all the photos from the online commune site and the marriage, her face was missing or blurred or partially hidden.” I flipped the loose photos front and back. Some had names. Most didn’t.

  Tandy said, “We have Racine Alcock’s face in focus . . .” He flipped back through the album. “Once.” He tapped a photo. “With age-progression software we can get an idea what she might look like. Change her hair color, hair length, style, weight gain or loss. We can get several versions of what she might look like now.”

  FireWind said, “Go through all of these with a fine-toothed comb.”

  “Wait,” I said. I flipped an old photo back and forth. It was a school photo, like ones used for middle school yearbooks, with a name on back. “Her name was Elizabeth Racine Alcock.”

  “Gimme,” JoJo demanded. I slid the photo to her and she went to work, keys clacking.

  “One thing I find curious,” I said, “though I think you all already know it.”

  FireWind looked mildly interested.

  “No one on this unit believes in coincidences. But you used the term liquid goo to describe the victims here at the house and in Cale’s car. We’ve been using the word melted. There was melted wax in the barn loft. And the kettles contained liquefied—melted or gooey—human remains. And we have the graveyards.”

  T. Laine said, “Some of my contacts have speculated that death and decay might use liquefied bodies and graveyard dirt as part of the curse, energies, whatever it really is. I’ll contact them and get an update.”

  Occam said, “Nell hasn’t updated her files yet, but she made a good speculation yesterday.”

  I blinked. I made a good speculation? What was it? I looked the question at Occam, but it popped into my consciousness. “Oh. Right. We have at least one man who was driving a car when he was likely already dead or so close to dead his body was falling apart before he started driving. There may be no records of such creatures as necromancers, but this practitioner has some skill sets that fall into that category.”

  FireWind made a sound that might have been a Cherokee grunt of interest. Jo’s eyes gleamed. T. Laine’s face pulled into a hard frown. “That would be bad,” she said.

  JoJo said, “To make that speculation something stronger, I have traffic cam footage of Cale Nowell’s car running a red light and nearly hitting another vehicle. The other car’s headlights gave us a good view inside Cale’s car.” A photo appeared on a
screen, showing blurry Cale Nowell behind the wheel of a car. His eyes were already starting to whiten out, which was a symptom we had noted only after a death and decay body was dead.

  “Necromancer,” FireWind said, as if testing the word on his tongue, his eyes going unfocused in thought.

  The meeting broke up soon after and Occam pressed my hand as he left the room. It left me with a warm feeling and helped to settle the worries I had about the future and the living arrangements over the next few weeks.

  * * *

  * * *

  My workday was office stuff: updating files, rereading Clementine’s dictation and making corrections, calling to schedule witness and suspect interviews, which would be conducted by T. Laine and Tandy in Cookeville, not me. I did a lot of sitting at my desk or in the conference room, and not a lot of moving around, which left me tired and a little achy, after all the exposure to death, so at three p.m. in the warmest part of the day, I told JoJo I was taking a break. She grunted that she heard.

  With a thunderstorm blowing along the horizon, I pulled running shoes, running clothes, and a thin hoodie out of my locker, decided they didn’t smell too sweaty-stinky, and dressed for exercise. My weapon covered, ID and badge in a pocket, I grabbed my cell, hooked it to my comms headset, and left the building. I had learned the hard way to check the parking lot really carefully, to watch for cars pulling out when I left, to spot a tail. Or an attacker. Which was why after two blocks, I noticed the blue short-bed truck pull out of a parking spot and follow my route. It turned to the left when I turned right, but I kept an eye out for it.

  Five minutes later, I spotted it again one block over. I was being tailed.

  It could be the church, but it wasn’t likely. The truck was an older Chevy, but it was tricked out, to use Occam’s term for a vehicle that had been restored with lots of aftermarket parts. It could be related to the case. Someone wanting to share information off the record? Or a drive-by. I wasn’t taking chances.