by Faith Hunter
Near the boundary of the property, I found another circle. This one was newer, perhaps only ten years old, located near a narrow gravel road. Like the others, the circle was overgrown. Or it had been. Now it was laced with death and decay. A thin trail of the energies led off beneath the ground.
I pulled back to my body, wrapped a tendril of Soulwood around my wrist, and followed the trail. It didn’t lead far. The connection circled back to the land near Crossville, where Cale Nowell had lived, where the kettles had been kept, and where the dissolved bodies had been poured. There was a third circle there, buried beneath almost two feet of . . . graveyard dirt and lye chemicals, stones I hadn’t been able to discern when reading from the site itself, due to the intensity of death and decay there. I’d nearly died, trying to read there. Now I was coming from underground, and the circle near Cale’s was obvious, two feet beyond the shed.
Someone had dug out the soil within the circle and filled it in with graveyard dirt. Liquefied bodies had been poured into it, several of them. Three? Five? More? The liquefied bodies and magic had created a strange, dark place. A place of shadows and sparking power, black and deep and murky. I studied it and realized that the place where the potted vampire tree had died was a place to store power. Power that felt a lot like death and decay. A lot like, but not exact. Not quite. The energies had been gathered there, stored there, for years. Perhaps as long as a decade.
I circled around the . . . power sink was as good a term as any. A place where unused power had been sent to . . . what? Do nothing? And then it hit me.
This was more than storage for dark energies. It was a battery for power that could be used to kill.
A vibration thrummed through my connection to Soulwood, and I allowed it to draw me back and back to the small circle on the far edge of the Ames property and then farther, back to my body near the house. I took a breath. Another. Before I allowed myself to stop, I reached out and felt the warm magics inside the stone circle that was so close. I circled the twelve stones. Placed my awareness against the stone at the north point, and pressed. Nothing hit me, nothing grabbed me.
A stone witch had lived here. Considering the placement of the stones, also maybe a moon witch. I slipped inside the circle.
Shock spiraled through me. Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t this. In the center of the circle were bones. Buried. Wrapped in roots from long-dead trees. Or . . . No. Not exactly.
Her bones held old magic. Old energies. I reached for them. They tasted faintly of death and decay, or something very like it. Something very like the power in the energy sink I had just left behind.
And also, something very like my own energies. Familiar.
A frisson of shock quivered through me.
I studied the bones wrapped in wood roots and buried in the circle. The roots looked odd. And I realized the bones were not wrapped in the roots. The bones were roots.
Like me, she had put down roots and become part tree. She had died, a long time ago. Seventy-five years? Longer ago than that? I had no way to tell.
I didn’t want to understand what I was seeing. But I did.
One of the Ames witches had been an earth sprite, a yinehi. Like me.
Within her belly, the fragile bones of a baby lay. The yinehi had been pregnant.
My whole soul stilled, my spirit shaking and withering. The yinehi had been pregnant.
Her blood had been spilled here.
I sank into the ground, all of what I was and all of what I might become centered on this curled ball of bone-wood. I circled her, my power reaching out. Touching the fragile remains.
Buried with her, beneath her left hip, was the rusted knife that had killed her.
She had been sacrificed.
Or murdered.
Or . . . Or she had killed herself here. A yinehi was buried here, in a witch circle. Her bones had turned fully to wood, to roots. She had become a tree.
Had she lost control of her bloodlust? Had she been put down like a rabid animal?
I trailed the trunk up toward the surface and saw where the tree had been cut down, ages ago, the stump splintered and broken by an ax blade. Tears gathered and I watered the earth here, crying, my grief trickling down as I understood. As I accepted what I was seeing.
The magic of death and decay. It was my magic, but turned and taught to destroy. That was why my bloodlust had been so quiescent. That was why it was taking so long for my fingertips to heal. Unlike the Green Knight, Soulwood hadn’t recognized the energies as a danger.
The power of the dead yinehi in the circle, the death and decay, had reappeared now, in the modern world. There was another bloodline similar to mine.
I felt sick and agitated and eager all at once. We were trailing a type of yinehi.
Whoever this current yinehi was, she was of this line, part of this woman’s lineage, a great-niece or second cousin. The current yinehi had been using the darkness of her power, killing and storing those dark energies in a power sink. And she knew Hugo Ames and Cale and Stella. Somehow, she was tied into the commune or tied to one of the commune members.
I backed out of the ground and placed my hands in my lap, thinking, eyes closed. Quivering and shocky, I took several long breaths, seeking to calm myself. Tears dried on my face.
Hugo Ames had come from witch roots. Hugo was not a witch.
Hugo Ames had been married and having an affair with a college girl. Hugo was dead.
We were still searching for the killer. And that person came from a bloodline like mine.
I knew it was time to tell my friends all about me. Because this burial was . . . was what might need to be done to me if I lost control of my bloodlust. Fear and horror shivered through me.
I forced my eyes open to see Occam in front of me, on one knee, elbow propped on the other knee, his chin in his hand. I had the feeling he had been there for a while, watching over me. His eyes were warm and full of tenderness. “Hey there, Nell, sugar.”
I caught my breath. “Hey there, cat-man.”
“No vines and thorns around you this time. I’m thinking you’re learning better control.”
I reached up and touched my hairline. “No leaves.”
“Just the one.” He reached over and plucked a miniature leaf from near my temple. He slipped it into his pocket over his heart. My heart melted and he twined his fingers with mine. “But you been crying. You smell like fear, Nell, sugar. Not prey fear, but violence fear.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There is. And you’re cold. Cold as a grave.” He took my other hand and warmed them in his. When I didn’t go on, he said, “We got a circle of standing stones.”
“I saw. Black marble. Stone witch and moon witch?”
“That’s what Lainie thinks. We’ve got a lot of thoughts about suspects, but we ain’t narrowed it down much.”
“Question. Hugo Ames’ wife. Is she from a witch family?”
Occam frowned, a thin line forming between his sandy brown brows. “Revenge is a good motivator. Hugo’s dead. His ex-wife isn’t. Don’t know about his lady friend. Lainie’s trying to narrow down who Hugo was sleeping with. Maybe Hugo was sleeping with Ingrid Wayns? She’s dead. Or maybe it was another one of Stella’s riders? You think his wife mighta tried to kill her rival and him and missed on the woman? Mighta got Stella instead? Hugo ain’t on her list a lovers and he ain’t Stella’s usual type.” He shook his head. “None of the riders read as a witch on the psy-meter, but we ain’t read the wife yet, because we didn’t know she was a factor.” He frowned around his fist, thinking. “What if he was sleeping with Stella’s housekeeper?” he asked. “Or Monica. They’re dead too.”
“Ethel Myer said the woman Hugo was sleeping with was a college girl and rode horses. All the riders fit that description,” I said, pulling my tablet and checking my files. “And everyone at
the farm had access to horses if they felt like riding.”
Occam’s brow smoothed. “You mentioned early on about the possibility of the target not being Stella. But Stella . . .”
“Stella is a focal,” I said softly. “The big important person, the victim that drew our eyes. But betrayal and revenge? They cross over all the socioeconomic lines. Those feelings don’t care about stardom or wealth, just getting back, getting even, and killing.”
“Monica didn’t travel the entire tour with the band. She was back and forth to the farm. Plenty of time and opportunity to still be seeing Hugo. The housekeeper, Verna Upton, was young and she didn’t travel at all.” Occam pulled out his tablet and sat on my blanket with me, our sides barely touching. “We don’t have a signal, but I have most of the files here.” I leaned against him, thinking about what I needed to say, as he hunted through the files. “I don’t see a full job description,” he said, annoyed. “All I got is, Verna was taking online college classes. Like half the employees, she fits in with the information we got from the old woman, Hugo’s landlady.”
“If there’s any evidence at his house, it’s decomposed by now,” I said. “And Monica was a recent college grad. She could fit the parameters too.”
“We need to know whose job it was to unpack the swag. Maybe Monica was supposed to have all the deliveries unpacked already. Maybe she was too busy sleeping with Hugo to do her job, and that’s why she dove in when Stella’s body was found.”
Brainstorming was usually one of my favorite parts of this job, but not this time. I was silent. Still processing the bone-wood.
Occam said, “They said Monica was high-strung and had to be doing things all the time. They said she was frenzied, putting swag away, and they couldn’t stop her. They thought she was both grieving and in shock and doing her job.”
I nodded because Occam expected it of me.
“But maybe she saw the box of T-shirts and they were her married boyfriend’s production,” Occam said. “Maybe all sorts of emotions erupted in her, making her unpack the shirts. Could be.” Occam stood and pulled me up with him, my hand in his. He tossed the blanket into the crook of his elbow and took my potted plant in his other hand. I hadn’t explained about the root-wrapped bones.
We wandered through the grass to T. Laine, who was sitting in the center of the old circle, eyes closed, a smile on her face. She was in a yoga position, her legs bent, ankles crossed, hands on her knees. It looked an awful lot like me communing with Soulwood. When she opened her eyes, it took a while to focus on us. When she did, Occam explained our speculation on the latest suspect.
T. Laine pursed her lips, staring around the stones, seeming peaceful. “JoJo’s already started on a family background search of the Ameses.”
“Afore we do that,” I said, my voice still soft, my feet standing above the bones wrapped in old roots, “I got things to tell you’uns. And you might need to arrest me.”
“Nell, sugar?”
He reached for me, but I sidestepped away and took the blanket, unfolding it to its full size. No way could I let him be loving to me when I had a confession to make. I sat.
Occam’s eyes were on me, his body still as a hunting cat, focused with his whole being. Moving like a cat, he folded down, a nearly boneless motion, and sat beside me. T. Laine scooted closer, until she was on the blanket too, the three of us all but touching, in our own small, paranormal, three-person circle. This grouping, the three of us, together—witch, were, and yinehi—felt important, like a pact, a promise of some kind. Though I knew it meant nothing. Not really.
“The death and decay,” I said. “I thought early on that it was familiar somehow. And now I know why.” I leaned out and touched the ground, both palms flat. “Under the earth, exactly here, are the bones of a plant-woman. She was part tree when she was murdered. Or sacrificed. Or maybe when she killed herself.”
I looked at my friends. They were silent. Watching me.
“A plant-woman,” I said again. “A yinehi. Like me.” Still they said nothing. “I have killed two men in my life. The first . . .” I touched the ground again, aware of the bones below me. Had she been attacked? Was she pregnant from the attack? “I never saw his face. I have no idea who he was. He attacked me on my farm. In our struggle, I scratched him. His blood landed on the dirt. It was unknowing instinct. Self-defense. I fed him to the land.”
“Where’s the body?” T. Laine asked.
“There is no body. When I feed the land, there’s nothing left. Not a hair, not a fingernail, not a leg bone. Not a sole from a shoe. Not a belt buckle. The land dissolves and absorbs it all. Soulwood even takes the soul. That life energy makes the trees grow. And it gives me my power.”
“I see,” T. Laine said, no emotion in her voice, none in her eyes.
“The second man I fed to the earth was Brother Ephraim, not long after I met Rick and Paka.” Paka had been Rick’s wereleopard mate before she tried to kill him. “Ephraim and two other churchmen attacked me and my home. Paka, in werecat form, defended me and nearly killed Ephraim. He was dying.”
“She bit him?” Occam asked. Biting a human was an automatic death sentence. “And the grindylow didn’t kill her?” His tone was confused, disbelieving.
“Before the grindylows got to him, I fed him to the land. And though Paka had bitten him, and may have deserved to die according to were-creature law, she didn’t. The grindy let her go free.”
“No grindylow woulda let a were-creature go free after biting a human,” Occam said.
“Rick knew about this?” T. Laine asked.
“Yes.”
“And there are no bodies?”
“When I feed the land,” I repeated, “there’s nothing left. Nothing at all.”
“No evidence,” she persisted.
“Not a lick. Except my word.”
Occam got a strange look in his eyes. Softly, as if turning the thoughts over in his mind even as he spoke the words, he said, “If Ephraim was human, then you, a para, killing him, a human,” he emphasized, “might be a crime, especially if it could be argued that it wasn’t self-defense. But the grindylow didn’t kill Paka, therefore Ephraim was not a human being. He couldn’t get or spread were-taint. What if he was a gwyllgi? Gwyllgi, attacking you? It’s a clear self-defense, para on para.”
I nodded. It was possible. And if Ephraim was a gwyllgi, then I had killed a violent nonhuman. And human law didn’t apply to me. It was an out, a paranormal defense, a justification I had never thought others might consider. Fresh tears gathered in my eyes. My breath came in jerks and heaves. Ephraim had raped my mother. My half brother Zebulun was his son. Was Zeb a gwyllgi too?
T. Laine nodded deliberately, still not meeting my eyes. “You just now figured out this stuff about a yinehi?” She tapped the ground beside the blanket.
I wiped my eyes, the sudden relief that I, maybe, hadn’t killed a human, at least the second time, filling me the way wind filled a grassland. “Most of it, yes. I traced the body buried here to another circle on the edge of this farm, and then to a third circle. It is in the same place as the kettle of dead humans. There’s a stone circle there too, buried about a foot underground. Not so sophisticated. Not nearly so old. The dead bodies from the kettle were dumped and spilled there, giving the circle power. It’s a power sink, a place to store death energies, probably so the death practitioner didn’t kill someone by accident. But something happened and the power was used. That use turned the energies even darker. Into death and decay.” I looked at my teammates. “I gotta wonder who lived there before Cale Nowell moved in. It was rental property. We need to ask the landlord, the farmer, whose name I’ve forgotten.”
“Holcomb Beresford,” Occam supplied. “Holy Bear.”
“I have always thought my magic is a mutation from witch genetics. And those mutations may also include gwyllgi.”
�
��Did you know all this?” T. Laine asked Occam.
“No.”
“When were you going to tell us you killed people?” she asked me.
“When I had to.”
“I see,” T. Laine said. “So, from the church inbreeding, three paranormal creatures have emerged: witches, yinehi, and gwyllgi. And you think we’re chasing another para here, similar to yinehi.”
“The builders of God’s Cloud of Glory Church came from all over Europe and settled here,” I said. “Cousins married cousins. People left the church. Married out. Others married in. Powerful witches were killed or ran away. Weak witches who had a gift for finding water or making plants grow or helping livestock to birth safely were able to hide their gifts. They stayed and married in. Recessive genes that went back to common ancestors began to appear. Began to mutate. Same thing happened here and a yinehi was born. And died. But the genetics were still there, in that family. And that same line produced a creature with the magics of death and decay.”
I looked at T. Laine. My friend. Her face was closed and hard and she didn’t look back at me but kept her eyes on the trees around us. She asked, “Could you create death and decay magics?”
“At first, I worried about that possibility,” I said. “But I think it’s a separate path. Like earth witches can’t use moon magics. Your magic is familiar to each other, but it’s also very different. Death and decay is like mine but very different.” I hoped. I truly hoped.
T. Laine met my eyes. Hers carried something in them, something that made me acutely uncomfortable. “Is this the magic that helped me win the fight at the house with the Blood Tarot and the vampires in cages and blood-magic attacking? The magic that killed the blood witches, Lorianne and Jason?”
My mouth went dry as dust. She knew. Knew I had taken them as sacrifice for the land and to power my magic. “Yes,” I whispered.
T. Laine Kent rose to her feet. “I have some thinking to do. Y’all head on back. I’ll be along in a bit.”
