by Faith Hunter
I was draped in an unfamiliar sweater. Cold shook me. Nausea rose in my throat, acidic and rancid. I was alive. In some kind of exhausted fugue state from healing the land at Hugo Ames’ and defeating an attack of death and decay at Carollette’s home.
Leaves rustled and fluttered across my fingers and through my hair.
Ambulances and first responders were everywhere. There were gas leaks from the small, localized earthquakes. People all through the town were injured. A fire was spreading down the street and residents were being evacuated. As if he knew I was awake, Occam’s arms tightened about me.
T. Laine was on a stretcher, wheeled past me to an ambulance, Margot trotting at her side. “Where?” I croaked.
Occam cat-growled in my ear, “Heading to UTMC. She suffered a crushing injury. FireWind called Gonzales to meet her there.”
“He’s turning into a softie,” I whispered. I was cold. So cold. I closed my eyes, pulling the sweater around my shoulders with my leafy fingers. I didn’t know when or how the sweater had gotten here, but it was warm and fuzzy and comforting. The heat blew across me. I slept.
* * *
* * *
“Nell?”
I woke again, this time from a confusing dream full of angry people teetering on the edge of violence. I got my eyes open and blinked, confused. I was at HQ. I didn’t remember getting here.
“Nell?” FireWind asked. He had used my first name. That was enough to wake the dead from sheer shock. He was kneeling in front of me.
Occam’s arms were no longer around me, but he knelt beside my chair, his paws—paws—on my hands, his eyes the brilliant gold of his cat. He was . . . part cat. That was strange.
I looked around, discovered I was in HQ’s conference room, with no idea how I had gotten there. “Occam?” I whispered. He cat-hissed. “Boss?” I whispered.
“Kahwi. Asvhvsga,” he said.
I smelled coffee. There was a mug of coffee in FireWind’s hands, extended to me. Kahwi. Cherokee for coffee? I had no idea of the other word. I accepted the mug, warm in my icy hands, and drank. There was sugar and creamer in it, a lot of both, and the sweets and the caffeine and the fat of the creamer went to work. When the mug was half-empty, I looked around the room to see JoJo, Occam, and my boss, who was still kneeling in front of me. “I’m okay,” I said. I wasn’t. I was lying. FireWind knew that. “T. Laine? And Rick? And . . . Carollette?”
The skin around FireWind’s eyes tightened ever so slightly.
I remembered the vines wrapping around her neck. “Did I kill her?” I asked.
Occam’s arms tightened around me. He snarled silently at our boss.
FireWind stood and moved away from me. “No,” he answered. “Lainie is alive, at UTMC. After undergoing treatment she will be spending a few days here at HQ in the null room.”
He called her Lainie, not Kent. Did that indicate she was in very bad shape? Or was FireWind softening?
“LaFleur was down, but shifted in time to survive,” FireWind said. “Carollette Ames survived, with six rounds in her and her throat crushed by vines. She is in custody. And we are all alive, thanks to you.”
“Where?” I managed, sipping again. My throat was raw, and my hands were leafy, though not so leafy as I remembered them being. Occam must have groomed me. Cat mating ritual. I softened all over and rubbed my jaw against his furry forehead, knowing I’d have to deal with this weird partial-cat-state at some point.
“She is on her way to New Orleans. Catriona and Etain borrowed the portable null trailer from UTMC, put her in it, wrapped her in a dozen null cuffs and all of the unit’s null pens.”
“She shouldn’t have been able to survive being shot.”
“No.” He smiled slightly. “Which is why she is being trailered directly to New Orleans and the null prisons kept by the witch council there.”
“No trial?” I asked.
“No,” he said again, the word sharp. “She admitted nothing, but our investigation amassed enough evidence to make sure she is never released.”
“The deaths had nothing to do with Stella,” JoJo said. “And everything to do with her. Everything went back to the commune and the relationships that Stella forged there. And the kind of human jealousy that kills instead of walking away.” Jo pulled on her earrings, stretching her ear. “Carollette deserves to be dead, not in a null room.”
“Not our call,” FireWind said. “She may not read as a witch, but she is ajasgili. She is death and decay and they think only the strongest witches are capable of restraining necromancy.”
“The trigger in the T-shirt box?” I asked. “Was that set by Ethel?”
FireWind shifted his position on the edge of the conference table where he was propped. “Similar elements of the trigger were found in the remains of Ethel Myer’s house, her fingerprints on a bottle of absinthe. Kent believes that Ethel helped Carollette build the power sink to contain her death energies at puberty. If so, that was a brilliant, though temporary solution to control such dangerous magics.” His mouth turned down, a frown that said he was thinking. “It worked until Carollette was betrayed and found a use for her magics, to get back at her cheating husband. Conjecture. But it seems to fit the evidence that Carollette took the power into her own hands and Ethel assisted. But we may never know everything. Death and decay is destroying the evidence.”
JoJo said, “The witches will probably study Carollette for the next fifty years, until she dies. Let me play my tiny violin.”
There were still things that didn’t add up. I knew I’d be asking questions for a while, as would all the team. “What about the dead plants?” I asked.
FireWind said, “Verna Upton cared for the houseplants. I am speculating that Carollette brought contaminated dirt from her death and decay circle and sprinkled some in each pot in the studio to act as a focal, to contain the energies to the house.”
The part of me that was attached to Soulwood wanted to shrivel at the very thought. I should have been able to sense the soil in the pots. I looked at my fingertips. They were leafy yet still not fully healed from touching the death and decay.
Gingerly, FireWind asked, “Will you be able to dissolve all the shielded energies?”
Occam growled and moved as if to attack. I caught his hair in one leafy hand, stopping him. “I think so,” I said. “Maybe?” I put my head on the conference room desk and yawned. Closed my eyes. “Eventually. After I get some sleeee . . .”
* * *
* * *
Less than a week later, Occam and I pulled up to Stella Mae’s horse farm. It looked the same as the first time I’d come, except for the pasture where I had found Adrian’s Hell covered in green froth. That entire field was barren, brown, dead. I may have groaned in pain because Occam took my hand.
“You could say no, Nell, sugar. Or that you need a break. You don’t have to fix this. Not today.”
“If not me, then who? If I don’t fix it or at least help to fix it, then who will? And if it enters the water table, then what?” What if it kills the somnolent presence in the deeps of the Earth?
I shoved my viny scarlet hair out of my eyes, shifted my body away from the devastation, and looked at Occam. His eyes were glowing the gold of his cat. His emotions were high. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in the office in the last few days, traveling with one or another of Unit Eighteen’s agents, healing various energies, and sleeping a lot in between. I had lost track of the phase of the moon, but I knew the werecats had hunted, taking down a big buck.
My magics and the magics of Soulwood had healed him. His blond hair was lighter. His scars were gone. His movements were the lithe and graceful speed of the were-creature fully integrated with his cat, like a ballet dancer but faster, stronger, with far more stamina. People watched him when he stalked down the street. He drew the eye. When he and Rick were together, were-magic sparke
d, the leftover magic of Soulwood giving them a keen awareness of each other. They no longer seemed to be sparring for alpha status. They seemed content. When Margot was with them, they had magic even humans could feel.
“Play your antishift music,” I suggested. “I have work to do.” I opened the car door, my feet crunching on the gravel as I slid under the fence boards and into the dead field.
I didn’t bring the faded, patched, and sewn blanket, which I had salvaged, nor did I bring a potted plant, but I had brought a lancet and a plastic bag of Soulwood soil from the garden. I had figured out the procedure to heal the earth of the necromantic energies. It wasn’t easy, but I could do it, and without turning into a tree.
I found the place where Adrian’s Hell had died and I sat just outside of the depression of death where his body had lain. Unlike last time, the grass crunched beneath my feet and my backside, dead, as I wriggled into a comfortable spot.
I dumped out the soil and pricked two fingers, index left and index right, and let blood collect in my palms. When there were tiny pools of thick, bright red, I slammed my hands against the earth, one against the dead dirt, across the dead grass. One against the Soulwood soil. Pushing with my magic.
I called on life. I called on the green, green, green that was life. I fed the faint spark of life in the deeper roots, in the faraway roots, in the rare still-living grasses that had once been so plentiful and healthy here. I pushed my own life force into the land. Pushed. Called on life. Gave the land my own. I reached out to Soulwood, to the life that was twined with mine. I wrapped the death and decay in the life of Soulwood. I claimed the land, but with only the faintest of leashes. I pushed with my magic. And I made the land grow.
NINETEEN
Mud had taken the bus to school. Esther was at the church, packing up her belongings, probably ordering all the Nicholson menfolk around, telling them how to load things into the moving van Daddy had rented, driving everyone crazy with her complaints. It was just Cherry and me on the front porch, sitting in the swing in the cold and fog of morning, my human-skin hands wrapped around a warm tea mug. Cherry put her head on my thigh and breathed out in contentment. “Me too,” I said to her. “It’s nice to be alone.”
I was wearing flannel pants, wool socks, fluffy slippers, and layered sweatshirts against the cold, having learned how comfortable store-bought, modern clothes could be. Inside, my gardening bib overalls were folded neatly on my bed, my work boots beside the back door. I was off for a few days, healing my own body before I would try to heal the land at the power sink. I needed, almost desperately, to have my hands in Soulwood soil, my spirit in Soulwood’s warmth and power. But first, strong tea and quiet time.
Cherry yawned as I rubbed behind her ears and along her skull. She closed her eyes in bliss. And I felt his car turn onto the road at the bottom of the mountain, Soulwood warning me, and then curling like a contented cat. Heated warmth spiraled up from inside me. “My cat-man is here,” I told the dog. “Musta come straight from work.”
Cherry didn’t seem impressed.
I thought about running inside and putting on makeup, pulling on a dress, but I had brushed my teeth and combed my ridiculously curly hair. I had groomed my leaves. I wasn’t a girly-type girl. I was a plant-woman. This would do. Coffee and a pot of tea waited. And eggs if Occam was hungry.
But that warmth grew, and when he turned into the short drive, I felt as if I was glowing with it. My cat-man was here.
He stood from his fancy car and walked around it, his long legs steady, his blond hair bright in the foggy day. Cherry dropped to the porch and met him at the top of the stairs, where he paused, one foot on the top step, one on the porch, leg bent, stroking her head the way she liked. He was wearing jeans and a denim jacket, and his eyes were glowing gold. “Morning, Nell, sugar.”
The warmth inside me unfolded and spun and whirled and gamboled across my land. And I was ready.
“Morning, cat-man. I like the fog.”
“I like it too.”
“And I like tea in the mornings, sitting on the porch.”
“I like that too.”
“I’m getting chickens.”
“I’m right fond of eggs, chickens, and eating both.”
“I’m gonna have Mud living here. She’s a handful. You okay with that?”
He chuckled and my skin rose in goose bumps. “Yeah. She is. And she belongs here. So does Esther, God help us, her and her baby, when it comes.”
I remembered my vision of a spotted leopard curled around a plant-baby. “Occam? Will you marry me?”
His hand stilled on Cherry’s head. His smile went from amused and happy to blazing. Softly, as if he was scared I might run away or change my mind, he said, “Yes. Right now? Tomorrow? I’m free the day after too.”
I laughed. “Let’s get through the full moon and then we can pick a date. Jist a warning, though. Even though I’m a widder-woman, Mama will want a full God’s Cloud of Glory Church wedding. They’re kinda overwhelming.”
“I’d fly to the full moon and back if that’s what it took to marry you, Nell, sugar. Besides. I’m marrying your family too. I’m smart enough to know that.”
I held out a hand. He took the last step to the porch and sat beside me on the swing, sliding an arm along the back of the swing to cradle me. He pushed off with a toe and I rested my head on his shoulder. We rocked. The day brightened as the sun rose.
* * *
* * *
The sun was falling toward the west, scarlet clouds limned with gold. The moon was up, though clouded over. The air was cold.
My two sisters and I were sitting, carefully positioned on my mended faded pink blanket, not in any kind of circle that Esther might construe as witchy. She was propped by pillows I had carried from the house, grumpy as usual, difficult to maneuver in her huge state, but not impossible to be around.
At the edge of the blanket was a small packet of blood-drawing supplies: sterile lancets, gauze, alcohol wipes in foil packets, Band-Aids. There was a bag of Soulwood soil too, because though I could see my house if I looked over my shoulder, this wasn’t my land and I might need it.
We were sitting near the road, my house behind us, in a small copse of trees. Or tree. Vampire tree. Thankfully there were no dead animals being devoured on the thorns. Dark green leaves rustled overhead and vines seemed to wave. I hoped I was the only one to realize that there was no breeze. The tree seemed almost curious, attentive, if not helpful. I hoped this would be easier than last time I had tried to talk to the tree, when I had threated to kill it.
“I still don’t understand how I’m’a claim some trees,” Esther complained.
“We’re plant-people,” Mud said. “All you gonna do is tell it which plant is boss.”
Esther shook her head at the absurdity, but we had gone over this several times. I knew Soulwood through the wood of my house. Esther needed to know her land through the wood of her house too, so that she would know when danger was approaching, so she could call on the plants and trees around her for protection. To make sure she was safe, we were going to claim the tree, then the land where her house would be built. I had carefully considered the visions and concepts I would use to talk to the Green Knight.
I pricked my finger, dumped the soil, and let a few drops of my blood run into it. Not sure what would happen, not sure if the tree would try to hurt me, I reached out and touched the trunk with my bloody palm. Nothing happened, just my palm against the cool bark. I closed my eyes.
In my vision, the Green Knight stood in a pasture, his hand on the pale green horse’s neck, the mane tangled with flowers. He was unarmed, though still armored. Waiting. Attentive.
I showed the knight myself, my sisters, and, just across the road, two massive warcats, one spotted green, the other a green so dark it was nearly black. They were crouched on the three grassy acres, taking up all of t
he empty land, their tails coiled around the house and in the trees on the far side. Foot-long fangs; claws like curved blades, extended. This was an image of my power, my threat, the power of Soulwood.
The horse leaned down and grazed, chomping. The Green Knight stroked the neck of his horse, his hand in the mane.
Just like last time, I sent it images of the vampire trees being cut down, shaped into logs, some cut into boards. Of being made into a house, just there on the bottom of my property. Beside the house I envisioned a tiny vampire tree growing and spreading its leaves over the house, protecting it. This was my offer. The Green Knight would accept a job to do, to become a house, perhaps more than one, in return for being allowed to live.
The Green Knight and the horse simply stood there, the horse grinding tender shoots of grasses. This was not agreement, but it was better than a vision of it attacking, the vision of its anger, of dragging me under the surface of the earth and killing me.
Without opening my eyes, I said, “Your turn, Esther.”
Paper crinkled. “Ouch! Dagnabbit! You’un sure this ain’t witchcraft?”
“I’m sure. It’s simply plant power. Put your hand beside mine on the tree. Close your eyes. Tell me if you see anything.”
“Mama would be having kittens.”
“Mama ain’t here,” Mud said, her voice hushed, awed. “Ouch! Okay. I got blood too.”
I felt Esther lean near me. Place her palm beside mine. Mud’s bloody palm went beside Esther’s.
In my vision, the Green Knight looked at the hands, his helmet moving slightly side to side. He removed his gauntleted fist from the horse’s mane. Slowly, as if he feared we might harm him, he reached out with both open hands. Gently, he placed his palms against Esther’s and mine. The wood beneath my hand instantly became smoother, slicker, not quite the warmth of flesh or the smoothness of steel, but something in between.
