Blood of the Earth

by Faith Hunter

  Rick’s humor fled as well, and he studied me with steady eyes. “We’re clear. I’m sorry, Nell.”

  “Forgiven. Besides, you mentioned that word, copycat, yesterday, and I looked it up. And, logically, I understand why you have to watch me. Now what’s in the other box? ’Cause I want more.”

  Tandy smiled happily. “Nell has never tasted a Krispy Kreme before.”

  “Never?” JoJo said, incredulous, opening the second box as I finished off my second glazed. “Try this one. It’s blueberry filled.” She took another and bit down, something gooey and red poking out a hole in the side of the donut. “Thish ’uns raz’ber’. You go’ try one deese too,” she said, with her mouth full. She swallowed. “That cult is evil through and through to keep the women from eating one of God’s finest creations. ’Cause I’m betting the men eat them all the time.”

  She had a point. And it made me mad. Something to think about later.

  Rick said, “JoJo? Report.”

  JoJo said, “Two things. One, Mrs. Clayton told me that over the course of the last ten years, six of Knoxville’s fangheads have gone missing. Disappeared, like poof”—she snapped her fingers—“and never returned. I got to thinking about the men at God’s Cloud and wondered if the one suckhead they took—the one that Jane Yellowrock got back—might not have been the first or only. Something to look into.”

  She stopped talking and drank down a bottle of water in one continuous glug. When the bottle was crinkled up empty, she tossed it into a plastic garbage can and said, “You should see me chug beer. I’m only two seconds off the world beer mile champion.”

  I had no idea what that meant and jotted it down for future research.

  “The FBI has received a ransom demand on Girl Two, one million dollars for her safe return, same account numbers in the Turks for the transfer of funds. Again, they let her talk to her family. She was alive and unhurt. Call came in on a cell, but by the time the agents got a team there, they were gone. No cameras, no prints but the girl’s. They have this down to a science, just like the HST always did things, with multiple abductions and multiple ransom demands so that law enforcement is overwhelmed.

  “FBI has run all the taped calls through various kinds of software and determined that every conversation took place in a vehicle, diesel engine—unlike the kidnap van, which was gas-powered—and the engine was an older model with some kind of knock,” JoJo said. “That is the total of what they have. Our unsubs are low-tech, fast, and smart. No mistakes. Rach—sorry, Girl One’s family deposited the money they got through Clan Master Ming, but she has still not been returned to her family. The family of Girl Two has taken similar steps. The Clayton family has not been contacted for a ransom. The feds did prelim evals on the bank account number given by the kidnapper. Because it’s a foreign, private financial institution, it’s hands-off as far as getting depositor info, but they’re applying political pressure and financial leverage. The feds might be able to buy the information on the offshore account.”

  I didn’t know what the Turks were, except people from Turkey, maybe, so I tapped laptop keys to check on that.

  JoJo pulled on the earrings of one ear as she talked, something she had done before. The motion looked like something she did to calm herself or to focus. Or maybe, this time, to stay awake. “Oh. I’ll update our files as soon as I get some shut-eye. I’m too tired to type right now. Where was I?” She yawned hugely. “Oh yeah. They’re using sat maps and ALDS,” she said, “to narrow down where the next call might come from, and trying to figure out what make and model might sound like that diesel. Nothing’s been determined yet. There isn’t enough manpower in the state to cover all the possible locations.”

  “ALDS? I asked.

  “Algorithm for Location Differentiation Software,” T. Laine said. “It’s an acronym for the algorithm software used by law enforcement and the military to determine comparison of locations. For instance, if a military or civilian enemy typically uses one type of location to commit a crime, or drop off money, or make an exchange, that locale could be assigned a number to each set of parameters. Like, no cameras might get the locale a ten. Easy access to four outbound streets would get an eight. Three streets would get a five. Traffic might be accessed and numbered by time of day. But they assign a number for each facet of each similar location. It sounds fancy and high-tech, but so far, the math has shown little use in real-life sitches.”

  Sitches, I thought. Situations. Got it. Info popped up on my screen. Not Turkey the country, but the islands. The Turks and Caicos Islands were a British Overseas Territory consisting of tropical islands. The larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands were in the Lucayan Archipelago, which were located between Cuba and Haiti. I had never heard of them, but they were big business in the financial world, with seven licensed banking institutions and several private financial organizations.

  I said, “Can we go back to offshore accounts? I don’t understand.”

  “The HST uses them all the time,” Rick said. “Using offshore accounts and rerouting the money through other banking institutions and countries is the best way to get through an abduction without being caught. Of course, they would need to go to the island country to open the account. So far as I know, opening an initial account isn’t something that can be done from home. Everything about the ransom MO, if not the kidnappings themselves, points to HST, which means that the Human Speakers have ties to this. They have to be in Knoxville.”

  JoJo said, “So someone in the HST—and yes, the FBI is assuming HST is behind at least some of the abductions—had to go out of the country. They’d need passports and money in hand; cash is preferred to open most offshore accounts. Dozens of HST members have passports, and the feds have to know how many have traveled out of country recently, but they didn’t share that info with me or the local LEOs. So I ran my own search, through our own databases, of known HST members who’ve traveled outside of the country. We have four.”

  All I got from that was more questions, but the only thing I could think to say was, “Leos?”

  “Law Enforcement Officers,” Tandy said gently. “Ease up, you guys. She’s . . . rattled.”

  “I want a travel mug like you have,” I said. The words came out of nowhere as I kicked off my shoes and pulled my legs into the chair, smoothing my skirt, wrapping my arms around my knees, hugging myself. “I have to use a Styrofoam cup, and you have cool metal travel mugs. I want one.” They all stared at me for too long, silent. I said, “That was a non sequitur. I needed time to think.”

  Occam’s mouth stretched slowly into a grin, his lips wide and his eyes unblinking, much like a cat—maybe his cat, his werecat. He stood and took a mug from beside the sink near the microwave. His back to the room, he said, “Non sequiturs are also very catlike.” Which made me blink. As the others watched, he rinsed the steel mug, poured coffee into it, and turned to me. “Sugar? Creamer?”

  “Both,” I said, my voice hesitant. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime, sugar. Anytime,” Occam said, his voice a deep burr of sound as he prepared my coffee. It all felt oddly intimate. John had never fixed my coffee. In my experience, men didn’t fix coffee, not even their own. He pushed down the travel mug top and held it out to me.

  I unwrapped my arms, accepted the mug from him, and drank. The coffee was perfectly heated and sweet. I smiled up at him, knowing there was relief in my eyes and, from the way his nostrils fluttered, probably in my scent. He smiled back, and I felt less stressed about being in the hotel room, with people who had been strangers only a few days ago.

  * * *

  Rick passed around several lists of HST members for all of us to study, all hard copies in a purple folder. One was a universal list, of every family and family member in the organization. There were files for each, listing crimes they were purported to have committed or been an accessory to, before or after the fact. There were l
ots of photos, some clearly selfies from social media, most taken with long-distance cameras, which again proved the church’s claim that the government was spying on its citizens. Sometimes conspiracy theories were real, but sometimes they were for a good cause.

  There were even some children, which means they were being brought up in an environment where hate was not only acceptable, but looked upon as good and righteous and proper. Which was the way the church did things. Raise up a man in the way he ought to go and he will return to it when he is old—a Bible paraphrase I had grown up with. I thought about the boy with the assault rifle, and the gunshots at night, and paid close attention to all the photos of young men, but none looked like him, which relieved me more than I had expected.

  Rick’s phone rang, that odd little tinkle sound of his cell. He answered it, “Senior Special Agent Rick LaFleur,” which meant he didn’t recognize the number. I was learning things, and that small bit of awareness made me feel good about myself in ways I didn’t understand too clearly. This time, Rick didn’t leave the room for the call, just listened and grunted a few times. He said, “Copy. Thank you.”

  Moments later Rick’s cell rang and again he took the call. Tandy’s minute cringe told me it was bad news. Rick hung up and said, “We now have a Girl Four. She’s a little older than the others, age nineteen, a college student, working off campus. We think she was picked up when she got off work about half an hour ago, from Sweet P’s Bar-B-Que and Soul House on Maryville Pike. A group of fishermen saw her go outside to wait on her ride. Approximately four minutes later, they saw a white van pull off. Two minutes after that time, they left. When the girl’s ride got there, approximately two minutes after that, she was gone. Eight minutes, give or take. That’s a very small window of time to plan for, but someone pulled it off. When the Amber Alert hit the airwaves, the fishermen realized they had probably been paying their bills during the abduction, but by the time they called it in, too much time had passed. A team already ruled out complicity by the fishermen.”

  By the time he finished speaking, all the unit were buried in their tablets and laptops, keys tapping softly. Girl Four was named Anne Rindfliesch, and her parents were land rich, owning acres of the Tennessee countryside. No known connections to vampires.

  “We need to see the crime scene,” T. Laine muttered.

  “We will,” Rick said. “As soon as the feds are done. The family of Girl Four has no known current association to Ming, but they also have liquid funds available and won’t need to contact vamps. The feds are at the house of Girl Four, on high alert, waiting for a call.”

  “HST has never taken more than two abductees at one time,” T. Laine said.

  “Yeah. This isn’t a characteristic HST MO,” JoJo said, fingers tapping on her keyboard.

  “No. It isn’t,” Rick said, his tone grim. “The feds think they need money, and that’s why the exceptionally large number of abductions. And the family of Girl Two just paid the ransom demand to the account in the Turks.”

  ELEVEN

  With a quick look my way, Rick said, “The account for the bank in the Turks is under the name Johnson Campbell, DOB eleven twenty-five, nineteen eighty. That name is not on the list of HST members, but the bank is resisting turning over any more information than the name and date of birth. Nell? Is he a God’s Cloud member?”

  I leaned forward a fraction of an inch and then sat back against the cushions and nursed my coffee. After a bit I said, “I don’t know a Johnson Campbell of any age in the church, or any other Campbell in that age range, but Campbell is a common enough name, not solely a church name. And the churchmen don’t do offshore banking. They don’t get passports. They don’t travel.”

  JoJo stood, looking wobbly on her feet. “Looks like things will get interesting today, but I’m for a shower and bed. Clearer heads than mine can come up with our next move. Night, all.”

  “Me too,” T. Laine said, following JoJo back through Rick and Paka’s room. To her roommate, she said, “I showered at four to wake me up, so we don’t have to flip for who gets to shower first. I’m setting a silence circle around my bed. Don’t touch it.”

  JoJo mumbled something vaguely obscene under her breath and they closed the room door. Tandy studied me a moment and then smiled. “I’m going to turn in too. Have fun, you guys.”

  That left only Occam, Rick, and me in the small sitting area, Occam staring at his laptop, eyes scanning left and right as he read, his blondish hair hanging loose around his jaw. Rick was tapping keys on his. I didn’t have an assignment, so I spent the time reading online about all the kinds of paranormal crimes and creatures that fell under PsyLED’s purview, and looking over case reports from previous PsyLED investigations. And then studying about PsyLED itself. PsyLED was a semisecret government organization under the leadership of Director Clarence Lester Woods, and he was a former special forces guy, a Green Beret who had seen active duty. He had lost an arm to an IED—an improvised explosive device—and when he left the military, he’d taken a job with DoD. He’d put PsyLED together and still ran it, directly under the authority of the Department of Defense.

  Each PsyLED agent (no matter how well trained in other law enforcement agencies or departments) received more training at a PsyLED instruction facility. The person who ran the school that trained all PsyLED special agents was the CA—chief administrator, Dr. Smythe. A woman. I smiled at that. A woman in charge of an entire school. The Training Facility for the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security—called Spook School by the trainees—was located near Langley, Virginia, on the grounds of an old private school.

  I closed the search into PsyLED and started one into the accumulated case files on the church raid. I was still studying them when Rick called for lunch break to KFC. My head was filled with all sorts of thoughts and questions, none of them leading to good outcomes under the current situation. Or sitch.

  Before we could get out of the room, Rick’s cell phone rang. He answered with, “LeFleur.” Then he said, “We’ll be there in twenty.” He pressed a button on his cell and said to us, “Grab your gear. The body of Girl One was just found.”

  Body? The room went silent, and Occam and I turned to the photo of the girl. Her name was Rachel Ames. And she was dead.

  Into the silence, his voice gentle, Rick said, “I said to grab your gear. The FBI has requested an update on the abductions. In person.”

  * * *

  “HST does not kill its abductees. They always come through. It’s their rep,” Occam explained. “Even law enforcement knows it. It’s less likely that people will pay if they know their loved ones turn up dead.”

  “This changes the focus of the investigation,” Rick said, “from HST members as primary suspects to multiple potential groups.”

  “Okay.” I was sitting in the backseat, listening and eating fried chicken livers as Rick drove and talked.

  “We knew that two of the kidnap victims were related, several generations back, to Ming, the Mithran Master of the City, and of course Mira Clayton’s mother is one of Ming’s scions. Things were starting to point back to vamps on every level, which was also unusual for HST. During the night, JoJo was building lists of possible suspects from an HST Mithran perspective, trying to narrow down to any HST leader who might know all the families. She came up with several names, and the FBI found something that interested them in the lists she sent. Then we got this.” He handed his cell phone to Occam with one hand and said, “Open the note file at the top.”

  We rode in silence as Occam opened the file. He sent all the information to his own cell and passed me Rick’s. It was a statement from PsyLED Unit Twelve from an informant. It claimed that HST had a list of paranormals from all over the United States and was planning to bring their version of ethnic cleansing to the vampires, via staking and beheading. Rick took a turn too fast, making the wheels squeal. I rocked into the seat belt and b
ack upright. My cherry soda sloshed. Rick said, “Too much hinky on this case. With the vampire connection, the murder of Girl One, and the lists, this just became more of a joint effort. Everything we previously ruled out and everything we never looked at because it didn’t fit HST MO will have to be reconsidered.”

  * * *

  The FBI office on Darrell Springs Boulevard was built to impress, a fortress of a building, four stories with cameras everywhere, few trees to obscure anything or anyone who might want to approach, four massive columns at the front entrance, lots of good lighting so that enemies and criminals couldn’t hide in the shadows and the night couldn’t lessen the cameras’ effectiveness, and a five-foot-tall black iron fence surrounding the property, the fence topped by sharp points. The building was constructed atop an artificially bermed hill, which meant that there were likely more stories underground. We pulled up in front of a guardhouse staffed with an armed guard and a dog, and Rick talked to the guard through a speaker and bulletproof glass. Once Rick held up ID for all of us, the gate rolled back, more quiet than the clanking I had expected.

  Rick parked, and he and Occam got out of the van. More slowly, silently, I followed, my laptop tucked inside a tote bag under my arm. I didn’t really expect to get into FBI headquarters, but they surprised me. Even with so little background to be checked through, living off the grid, not having banking records, which could have made me out to be a terrorist in hiding, they let me inside. But that was as far as I made it—the front lobby. Without any attempt at politeness, I was told to take a seat and wait. So I did, ignoring the sign that said no food, no drinks, and finished off my KFC livers, mashed potatoes, slaw, and biscuits, and then slurped down my jumbo cherry drink.

  By the time a uniformed guard came up to tell me about the no-eating rules, I was finished and politely stuffed the greasy papers into the bag and handed it to him, while wearing my best churchwoman, I’m-too-dumb-to-know-better smile. I might no longer be among the church conspiracy theorists, but I still didn’t like big brother. Not one bit. The uniformed guard stood there holding my garbage for a few moments while I cleaned my hands on a moist-wipe and opened my computer, ignoring him. I had research to do on who might want to anger the Knoxville vamps.