Blood of the Earth

by Faith Hunter

  “And John never said nothing about your family and your womenfolk suggesting you marry him?” There was heat in Sister Erasmus’ voice. Anger.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Men. Sometimes they got nothing between their ears and too much between their legs.”

  The sound I made was more sob than laughter, but it eased the terrible pressure that had been building inside me. I curled both lips into my mouth and bit down on them with my front teeth to keep from making the sound again.

  “You need to talk to Maude and Cora,” Sister Erasmus said. “We can make that happen at market next week. But iffen you want to come on church grounds and bring some a your friends to hear a sermon, you let me know. I’ll tell your people, and my husband will arrange it.”

  I caught my breath. “Thank you, Sister Erasmus.” A sense of relief spread through me. “You are warrior for God, Sister, equally proficient with Bible quotes and a shotgun, and full of wisdom and grace.”

  The sister made a sound like “Pashaw,” but I could tell she was pleased.

  I held out the note. Sister Erasmus took it and opened it. Read it. I said, “I think Jackie left it for me. To threaten my sisters.”

  She nodded stiffly and said, “I done heard he was after Esther in particular. I’ll see your daddy knows. He’ll handle that little whippersnapper. I can keep this?” I nodded. She stuffed it in her skirt pocket, and changed the subject. “Mrs. Stevens has twenty-seven dollars for you from sales last week. She’ll be bringing it today.”

  “That’s right fine,” I said. “I need some gas for the truck and a few groceries.”

  My heart felt inexplicably lighter when the next car pulled up, and two other women, including Old Lady Stevens, climbed out with loads of stuff to display. I helped set up extra tables, and it was only when I drove away in my truck, much later in the day, that it all came back to me. My family hadn’t abandoned me. And—John had known, had always known. And he hadn’t told me. He had lied to me directly and for years. Suddenly I realized that my safety from the colonel had come at a much higher price than I had ever realized. And that John had spent our entire lives hiding the truth from me. Using lies to control me.

  After the morning in the vegetable stand, I drove into town and went to the library. It wasn’t my regular day, but everything was different and off schedule this week, and I had books to turn in, even the nonfiction books that I wouldn’t have time to read, not now that I had a temporary job. Kristy was off and so I made it quick, answering e-mails from some repeat customers, including a spa in town that purchased my cucumber cream for facials, took some new orders for herbs, vinegars, and infused oils, and had the payment money sent to the group PayPal account owned by Old Lady Stevens, who used to be in the church but had broken away some years before John and I did. She handled all the churchwomen’s (and my) noncash Internet financial transactions. She gave us cash when we sold something online, and when we needed to buy something, we gave her cash and she did the paying. It was handy for us “off the griders.” I did some more research on PsyLED, but didn’t learn much more than I had already.

  I sent Rick LaFleur an e-mail, telling him that I had information, possibly pertaining to the case. He sent one right back, asking for a meeting out on I-75 outside of Knoxville. In a hotel. A business meeting. In a hotel! I’d never been in a hotel.

  Excitement fluttered under my breastbone, displacing the disquiet that had settled there from the conversation with Sister Erasmus. I checked out and drove sedately to the hotel. It was called the Hampton Inn and Suites, Knoxville North. And it was amazing. There was shiny stone on the floor and carpet all over—and not handmade rag rugs, but big carpets made on commercial looms. It wound through the lobby and down the halls, perfectly woven. When I finished goggling, I asked for directions to the room and gave my name. I was given a little plastic card, like a credit card. I had no idea what to do with it, but I accepted it and the directions that came with it. I had ridden in elevators before, at the hospital where Priss went when she had trouble birthing her baby. I went to see her baby boy, looking through the windows into the nursery. After hours. When no one from the church might catch me there. So I knew how to get to the fourth floor, and followed directions to the suite at the end, where I knocked to be let in.

  Tandy opened the door, his reddish eyes perplexed, until he looked down, to see the plastic card in my hand. Smiling, he left the room, closing the door behind him. “The room key works like this,” he said softly, taking the card in his red-lined hand and demonstrating the way it fit into the slot and the little green light that said go.

  “Oh,” I said, embarrassed. They must think I was a little country bumpkin. Which I was, I realized. Face burning, I said, “My thanks for demonstrating the proper methodology.”

  He pulled the door back closed. “‘How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?’” he quoted. “‘And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?’ Or a teacher.”

  “You quoting Acts to me, Tandy?” I said with a small smile, feeling better, which had to be what the empath had intended. “You don’t look much like any preacher I ever saw.”

  “The church where you grew up would burn me at the stake should I presume to preach to them,” he said, showing a disturbing knowledge of God’s Cloud’s politics and reaction to outsiders. Especially outsiders who looked so different.

  I nodded slowly. “Maybe so.” I inserted the key card and pulled it back out, the little green light showing. I entered the suite, Tandy behind me, and heard the door close. The others were engaged in heated discussion, which I ignored as I surveyed the suite. It was wonderful, like a tiny little house but all modern and electronically up-to-date. Beyond the entrance door was a seating area with a sofa, too many chairs for the small space, a coffee table, desk, a huge TV, a small refrigerator, and microwave. A curtained window opened out onto the hallway beside the door.

  Occam was seated on the sofa, his ankles crossed, feet on the coffee table, encased in thick socks. Paka was curled on the sofa’s other end, one hand holding the toe of Rick’s boot possessively. Rick sat in a cloth-upholstered chair with one ankle folded on the other knee, where Paka gripped his boot. T. Laine, the witch, was curled up in a chair beneath a blanket. JoJo, with her multiple piercings and tattooed dark skin shining in the lamplight, sat on the floor with her legs crossed like a guru, barefooted and slouched, wearing multiple T-shirts and a patterned skirt. There were two vacant chairs, one for Tandy and one, I guessed, for me.

  A hallway opened into a bathroom, with a stone cabinet top and tub big enough to lie down in. Through the opening I saw a bed that could only be a California king; I’d never seen one that big, but I’d read about them in my novels. Doors hung open to other rooms, and I wanted to wander through and look in, but such nosiness was rude in the homes of the church, where a man and his several wives and children all lived under one roof. I guessed it might be rude here too.

  “We have a laptop for you,” Tandy said. When I didn’t turn around, he said, “Nell?” And I realized he was speaking to me.

  I shook my head and clasped my hands behind my back. I didn’t have the money for a laptop.

  “We each get one. From PsyLED,” he added, still picking up on my emotions, which should have been unnerving, but I seemed to be getting used to it. “It’s part of everyone’s gear,” he added. “They provided one for your use for the duration of the case.”

  “Oh,” I said, and I couldn’t help the delight that suffused through me.

  Tandy opened a laptop and punched a button, making it come on. I eased between all the knees around the table and took my place on the end of the sofa, beside him, watching.

  “This is your log-in and password,” Tandy said, passing me a small folded piece of paper. “Change your password and memorize it.” The small paper
contained a user ID and a list of numbers and symbols, nothing easily memorable. “It will get you into the case files, the HST files, the Internet, FBI.gov, and PsyLED intranet, but not much else. Consultants don’t have full access.”

  I nodded, following his directions, typing quickly, not caring that I was on the outside. I’d been there all my life. “I’m in,” I said, surprise mixing with the delight.

  “Good,” Rick said, all business, in distinct opposition to Tandy’s gentleness. “You said you had an update.”

  “An update on the church and on my safety,” I said, “and two men Sister Erasmus saw in the compound.” I started with what Sister Erasmus had said about the backsliders and the stranger boy with the automatic assault rifle, likely the one who had threatened me. I told them about the secret meetings and conspiracy papers not being shared among the entire congregation. I mentioned the overly wasteful target practice last evening. Told them that I had laid the groundwork to get back inside, if needed, and concluded my report with, “Nothing she noticed is unusual. Backsliders repent and go back to live on the compound all the time. Boys shoot and target practice and hunt all the time, on church lands, even off season and against the law,” I concluded.

  “Sugar,” Occam said, “what are the chances that they would make you stay if you went back inside?”

  I had never been called sugar, and the endearment sounded wrong on my ears, but he had also called my cat sugar, so maybe the word was just a Texan thing. I pressed my lips together and dropped my eyes to the laptop screen, thinking about his question. That was actually fairly likely. I didn’t want to go in, no matter what the benefit. Not ever again. Except . . . If I could get my sisters off the compound, I’d go in. I’d risk it.

  “They’d make her stay,” JoJo muttered, the rings that pierced her lips moving. “I’d like to kick ’em in the nuts.”

  So would I, but I’d never have said so aloud. An unwilling smile tugged at my lips.

  Watching me, JoJo said, “Tell you what. We get the chance and no one’s looking, I’ll hold the new preacher down and you can kick him in the nuts.” I laughed, shook my head, and covered my mouth. The others laughed too, mostly at me, not at JoJo, who clearly said such things all the time.

  But if I got the chance alone with Jackie Jr., in the proper circumstances, I’d prick his skin until he bled, and give him to the woods. Which would be far more satisfying, and far more permanent, and that thought made my insides quiver with a sense of dismay at my own cruelty. So I didn’t answer, keeping my eyes on the computer screen, where they couldn’t read my intent in my expression, and not meeting Tandy’s gaze, which might indicate a deeper understanding than I wanted. I shook my head and wished I’d left my hair down to cover my face when I tilted my head forward. “Sister Erasmus says the winter storage cave has been set off-limits to the churchwomen. It isn’t anything to do with the HST or a kidnapping, but it is different. I can show you if you have a map of the compound.”

  And boy howdy, did they have maps! Amazing satellite maps, so clear that I could identify every building and pathway, and even people who were walking. There were maps from summer, with a leafy tree canopy, and maps from winter with bare branches revealing the ground. The maps turned the focus of the meeting from me to the compound of the church. I showed the team where the three cave entrances were, all hidden beneath canopies of tall hemlock trees that were still growing when most of the Appalachian Mountains’ hemlocks were dying from the hemlock woolly adelgid. It was an aphid-like insect that fed on hemlock sap. The trees were alive, possibly because of me, though I didn’t tell the team that. It wasn’t any of their business that I’d tended the trees when I was little and willed them to live and be strong, long before I had known I had magic.

  “This is the entrance to the smallest cave,” I tapped the map. “When the FBI and the state police raided the compound, they didn’t find it, so it never got inspected or investigated. This is where the seeds and the winter supplies are kept. The canned goods, the stored grain, the stuff the women need. The others are here, and here.” I pointed to the bigger caves, closer to the main part of the compound, closer to the chapel and the home of the preacher. “They have weapons and farm equipment and generators and ammunition and suchlike in them. Survival stuff. The one in the middle has a water source and is the place where we’ll—where they’ll—hole up when the government comes to attack.” I thought for a moment before adding, “Not that it helped when the government actually did come to attack. Anyway, all three caves have reinforced poured concrete walls set just inside the entrances and steel core doors built into the walls. The plan was to bring down the cave walls outside of the fortified entrances with planted charges and then open passageways to the caves to either side. The tunnels are mostly finished, and it won’t take long to chip a ways into the other caves.

  “Some say that there’s an entrance to deeper caverns from the center cave, but I wouldn’t know. My best thinking is that only the inner circle of churchmen would know that, and I have no way of finding that out.”

  “Planted charges? And if the roof comes down when the charges go off?” Rick asked.

  I shrugged. “The menfolk debated that possibility, but they figured that wouldn’t happen because God wants them to survive. So far as I’ve seen, they might be right, because God hasn’t stopped the evil done by so many of the church’s menfolk. Not that they think of it as evil, but . . . I do.” Quietly in the back of my mind, I had always thought it, despite the Scripture that said, “Thou shalt not judge.”

  The others were discussing the backsliding men Sister Erasmus had seen—the Dawson men—and how they might, or might not, fit in with the kidnappings. And how to find out more about them without having photos or fingerprints or anything else. I let them talk, learning about options that included cameras outside church property, trained on the road, drunk-driving checkpoints, again with cameras but this time on the officers’ vests, and half a dozen other ways. The churchmen would have been appalled at the legal ways to surveil the road leading into the compound. I thought it was amazing.

  We were nearly finished when Rick received a call on his cell phone. Another girl had gone missing.

  EIGHT

  He said, “No witnesses, and she may have wandered off, or taken off with a boyfriend, but no one has heard from her. And her cell phone was found a block from where she was last seen.

  “The FBI hit the twenty-four-hour window without the return of the first girl. The ransom was paid, and there hasn’t been any activity, which violates traditional HST procedure, which provides for return of the abducted within one hour of receipt. As you know from Spook School, when this window of time elapses, there is, statistically, a drastically reduced chance of warm-body rescue. After that, it usually means a recovery attempt, not a rescue.”

  “Warm body?” I asked.

  “Rick’s shorthand for living and still human,” T. Laine said. “He has personal experience in that department.”

  “Not relevant to today’s briefing.” Rick stepped into the back room. When he returned, he pulled behind him a whiteboard on a wheeled stand. It had been divided in two with a marker, and a photograph hung on each side, with pertinent information beneath, like height and weight. I knew without being told that they were the missing girls. Rick passed JoJo a sheet of paper with two names written on it and an address for an FBI Web site. “JoJo, you type faster than the rest of us. Will you merge and update our files?”

  JoJo grunted and said, “Sure. Make the black girl play secretary,” but there wasn’t any heat in the words.

  Tandy smiled as if he was feeling pleasure from her. He said, “Not secretary. Computer geek and all-around IT specialist.”

  JoJo said, “I can live with that, if I can have the superhero name of SuperGeek or SuperHacker. Or maybe Diamond Drill.” The last one made no sense to me, but I didn’t ask, continuing my practice of
sitting still and silent and learning by listening.

  Amused, Rick said, “You gave up that lifestyle, Diamond Drill.” JoJo’s full lips spread into a wicked smile, and I didn’t understand the humor. Rick said, “Because of the expired window, we’ve been asked to meet in person with the FBI.”

  He tapped the left side of the whiteboard and the photo that hung there. “Let’s recap everything for Nell and update our board. Girl One was taken from school grounds following cheerleading practice,” Rick said. “Witnesses and security cameras indicate that three males jumped out of a white panel van, no plates. Slight dent in the rear passenger-side panel. All three wore hoods and gloves. They grabbed the girl and threw her into the van. The van has since been confirmed to be a 1994 Dodge Ram panel van.” He looked at me, “This is the stereotypical kidnapping I was talking about. It fits the textbook, nonfamily, political, ransom-style kidnapping. It required planning and an intimate knowledge of the girl, her whereabouts, and her schedule, all of which was posted to social media.”

  JoJo whispered a curse under her breath, her fingers tapping on her laptop keyboard so fast it sounded like rain, a steady drumming.

  “Girl Two disappeared after ballet class. Her mother had engine trouble and was late to pick her up. No witnesses. Cell phone left behind. Private security cameras two blocks away caught sight of a panel van matching the description in the first kidnapping, no plates. There was no confirmation of the small dent, due to camera angle and low def, but it’s assumed at this point that the girl was taken by the same people. That will be confirmed when and if they get a ransom demand.”

  I remembered what I had read on the government study about stereotypical kidnappings. “So some kidnappings are crimes of opportunity,” I said, “but these kidnappers have treated this like a hunt.” Rick looked at me curiously. I lifted one shoulder and said, “The church is pretty good about planning things. They’re hunters. Hunters plan, stalk, build duck hides and deer stands to wait, watch, attack, and kill. Hunters are patient. These people are hunting humans, so they track their prey, but instead of tracks in the ground or spoor or territory marking, they track social media. Right?”