Blood of the Earth

by Faith Hunter

  The smell of Mira was buds and flowers and blossoms, all in the midst of anthesis—the midst of opening. Her scent filled my head, and for a moment, I thought this must be what dogs experienced when they took a scent. That bit of fancy faded away and I let myself flow into the root and the tree and into the ground.

  An instant later, a rootlet snapped around my wrist, holding me still. Another root, one shaped like a thorn, pierced my thumb, drawing blood. I yelped and Occam cut me free with a knife I hadn’t seen on him. With a spurt of adrenaline, I backed away from the tree, Occam beside me. He had his knuckles in his mouth, sucking his blood off them. I stuck my finger in my mouth and did the same. “Your tree? It’s got teeth, Nell, sugar.”

  “Maybe we need to be at my house to try this,” I said.

  “Maybe so,” he agreed, leading me back to the vehicles.

  “But honestly, even if this would work, I think I’d need blood to track anyone except on Soulwood land.”

  “What about . . .” Occam looked back the way we had come. “What about trying in the winter cave? Where Mira was kept. Where we found the blood droplet.”

  Mira had been kept in the church compound. Vampires had been kept there. The things I had learned about the church—or, rather, about some of the people in power—were worse than anything I had ever imagined. There were few things in life I wanted less than to go into the back room of the cave and touch the blood and gore accumulated there. I wrapped my arms around myself. “I can try.”

  * * *

  I was sitting in the dark, on a blanket Occam had spread on the cement slab. The metallic scent of the dogs’ blood was all around me. The rotten stink of vampire blood. And death. I wasn’t surprised the cats hadn’t been able to detect a single drop of blood over the stench here. It was horrible to my human nose, and I didn’t know how the werecats stood it. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be anywhere but here. But Occam and Rick, standing nearby, seemed to think I might help.

  As if he knew I was dithering, Rick said, “If you can just give a direction to start looking. We have land deeds and bank records for Jackson Jr. We have local law and sheriff deputies out searching each of the properties, and the Stubbins farm is locked down for CSI. We don’t have time for standard, mundane law enforcement and evidence-gathering methods. We need to narrow and accelerate our search.”

  I placed my palm flat on to the slab, beside the speck of blood at Occam’s fingertip. An icy chill flashed up, into my palm. I pushed beyond the cold, into the earth, through the concrete. The cave floor was limestone, like the walls, but pitted and dry, no longer a place for water to flow from glacier melt, or for water to drip through and slick everything with minerals, but a place where the earth breathed in fresh air. The earth beneath the stone floor was primeval soil and ancient broken stone and rounded boulders made from the creation time of the Earth. Streams flowed through the ground and across its surface, pooled below and above, the heart’s blood of the earth. There were copper-bearing rocks in the stone and soil, and a huge fractured section of energy-sparking quartz carrying traces of gold. The heart of the mountain range and the soul of the valley arched up, then out and around, and it was . . . almost aware. Centered on Soulwood. Seen from here, the earth on and around my land was different from the land elsewhere. It had become responsive, interested, discerning.

  But even the land away from Soulwood was different from what I expected. It was . . . awakening. As if sensing the new energies of man—nuclear, hydro, and electric. It was stirring, the energies changing the way the land thought and felt and communicated with its various different parts. The earth was awakened to the new energies as they buzzed through the ground, alien and annoying and itchy. And the earth was intrigued. I pressed through that awareness and searched for the life force of the dogs, the metallic scent of the foul blood. The awareness in the ground turned toward me, the way a blind slug turns toward its food source. Searching and seeking, slow and ponderous as lava pressing through cooler rock. The tree out front, near the church, was a dark thing, full of venom and anger and need. It turned to me too. The mutated tree . . . The tree I had changed and had no idea how to fix it. But I had other responsibilities just now.

  “Okay,” I breathed, so soft I was certain that nothing but the earth heard me. I returned through the rock and sand and clay and water to the limestone floor, rocketing from the ground into the concrete.

  I hunted through the slab, with its myriad proteins and decaying effluvia. And I found the single drop of Mira’s blood.

  Light. Song. Blooming things. Bells ringing. That was Mira Clayton. I had her essence now, but it was fragile, delicate, hard to comprehend and harder to chase.

  But . . . I smelled the dogs in the cage room, as well, dark and fetid, so easy to follow.

  Without effort, my thoughts traced their scents, wet and dank and hungry, flowing through the cave floor and out the open door. Into the compound, a scent the earth knew. Beneath my hand, the land began to gather itself.

  Time had passed, but time is nothing to the earth. I trailed the chemical traces of the dogs on the ground and scenting the air, all through the compound. And out. Up the hill, straight to the deer stand on my land. Then to the house. This was the last time they were all together. I backed away quickly, before Brother Ephraim noticed me, tracking the scents of Jackie and Joshua back to the compound. After that, it was even simpler to follow them away. I chose to shadow Jackie, his life force spiky and dark as lampblack, across the earth, along a path. To the Stubbins farm, where he had run after I killed him and he came back alive. Leaking blood. Then away, along a road. Harder to follow.

  The asphalt where his trail led was a poisoned vein across the face of the land, tar in the wrong places, exhaust and refined gasoline and oil, all poisons, washed by rain into the grasses and herbs beside the road. The land opened and merged with me, Nell and earth, earth and Nell, and we tracked the trail of dog stink along the road. Jackie had left the Stubbins farm in a vehicle. Bleeding. Alive again. Along a road he had taken before, his traces stronger.

  Here he and another dog had shot Old Man Dawson. A dog himself.

  Farther along, there he had thrown the body. And close by, he had washed the blood from his truck bed.

  The dog stink moved down the hills and through a town, through Oliver Springs, across Indian Creek, the waterway silted and sluggish. Jackie had slowed and stopped and parked. And then he moved across the surface of the land and into a building. He was there still. Carefully I reached out and searched all around him for the flowery traces of Mira, but all I found were potted plants, rosebushes, mums, narrow patches of greenery. If Mira was here, I couldn’t sense her. Instead I was pulled to the scent and taste of blood. Human blood, soaked everywhere, in one building. Humans were inside. Dead. Dying slowly on a blood-soaked floor. My magic reached out for the blood, warm, alive, and pulsing. Dogs and human forms paced slowly among the bleeding humans, lapping at the blood, growling softly, the vibration of their snarls felt through the earth. I reined back on my magic, pulling the need for blood, the desire to feed the earth, away, back to me, gratified with the discovery that I could control it.

  I noted where the building was and withdrew.

  I concentrated on the doglike traces back at the compound, beneath my hand. I went after Joshua’s . . . scent wasn’t the correct word. His blood’s life force, maybe.

  Joshua’s force was less spiked than Jackson’s was. Less intense. Less dark, but more poisonous in other ways, ways the earth knew but I had no frame of reference for. A comprehensive timeline wasn’t open to me, but he had left the compound before Jackson, for the Stubbins farm. They hadn’t left the farm together. Joshua hadn’t been found at the farm, and he hadn’t come back. All I got was a direction and a sense of even that fading. Except . . . he wasn’t alone. Another dog was with him. How many were there?

  The vehicle he was in had tur
ned onto Old Harriman Highway. The road was full of curves that followed the contours of the earth, and I liked the road, as it had become part of the earth. I had a general location and a direction. But of Mira I had nothing.

  I pulled away, back into myself, and I would have fallen face-first onto the concrete slab if Occam hadn’t caught me, his heated hands holding me steady. He put some juice to my mouth. Slimy, sugary, salty. Electrolyte water. I was leaning back against his chest, his body hotter than I expected. I leaned away fast and swallowed all at once, coughing on the liquid.

  “Nell, sugar? You okay?”

  “Yes.” I coughed and swallowed. “I can’t find Mira, but I found Jackie. I’m not sure where exactly, but a building in Oliver Springs. And then I followed Joshua but lost him down a road.” I started shivering, even inside my coat, and Occam picked me up bodily, carrying me to my truck, where he deposited me in the passenger seat, yelling for Rick. He turned on the engine and heater full force and joined me in the cab. I had been in the hidden room too long, and my teeth were still chattering when Rick climbed in and pushed Occam across the seat against me, his warmth, like an oven stoked with winter wood, burning bright. Occam told him what I had said, and Rick placed a tablet in my lap, a map of Oliver Springs on screen.

  “Can you narrow down the location of either man any?” Rick asked.

  With my fingertip on the screen, I followed the road into Oliver Springs, across the town, remembering the creek and the split-second feel of the road falling away to the water. “Jackie was near here, somewhere. An abandoned building maybe?” I asked, pointing to an area off East Spring Street. “Joshua was out this way, somewhere before I lost him.” I pointed farther down Old Harriman Highway.

  “The van is warm now,” Rick said to Occam. “Bring her to it.” And he was gone.

  “You’re welcome, asshole,” Occam said. “Beggin’ your pardon Nell, sugar.”

  I laughed, but it sounded weak and breathless. “You tell him, Cat Man,” I said. Occam shook his head and I bent to the floor and picked up the pot filled with geraniums, the pot I had meant to give to Mama. Instead I stuck my icy hand into the soil from home and thought about Soulwood. Instantly I felt warmer. Not a lot warmer, but my teeth stopped chattering, so that was good.

  Occam opened the door at my side and I realized I had lost some time with my hand in the soil. The truck was off, though still warm. The werecat slid his arms under me and lifted me and the pot from the truck. “Come on, Nell, sugar. Boss’ orders.”

  The van was full of the members of Unit Eighteen. Rick swiveled in his seat and shoved the laptop at me again, his finger on the screen. “Here? A churchman named Ingles owned a warehouse near here.”

  “I don’t know. But wherever it was, there were humans in the warehouse dying and a lot of blood.” And my magic was attracted to blood, wanted blood, to give it to the land, which was a horrible thing to know, but I kept that new knowledge off my face. “Sister Erasmus said three entire families had moved out of the church compound in the last year. It didn’t seem important at the time, but I think I might a found what’s left of them. Mira wasn’t there,” I added. “I didn’t sense her blood.”

  “So where is she?” Rick asked, his voice a snarl.

  “I followed Joshua’s trail. He was in an old vehicle. It felt like a truck, low and growly and powerful,” I traced my fingers over the map in the general direction. “It may have turned onto a gravel drive out here somewhere. Not anyplace I’ve ever been. Sorry.”

  Rick said, “Drive.” The van lurched into motion, the sound of keys clacking on multiple laptops, taking the road toward Oliver Springs. I closed my eyes, exhausted. In the dark, I heard voices, Rick talking on his cell, giving directions to someone, someone important, from the tone of his words.

  Sleep flowed over me like water.

  * * *

  “Nell. Wake up.” The voice was strident, harsh. My body jostled, my head lolling.

  “If you shake her again, I’ll have to hit you, boss.” Occam. Defending me.

  I almost found the energy for a smile. “It’s okay, Occam. I’m awake. What do you need, Rick?”

  “We have ten different properties to check, but Mira Clayton’s mother is adamant that her daughter has to be found before dawn. We could get warrants and search each of the properties, but that would take a good week. We’re out of time for the legal and the mundane. We need a direction. The cats can search in the dark.”

  Without warrants. I understood that Rick was willing to bend the law as it applied to paranormals, as Paka had suggested he might. I opened my eyes. It was nearly dark out, sunset hidden beneath lowering clouds. We were parked on a small flat place beside a two-lane road. There was no traffic at this time of day, on a weekend. I blinked and realized that my hand was still in the pot of flowers. I pulled out my fingers and flicked off the soil. “Where are we?”

  Rick slid the laptop onto my lap again, knocking it against the potted plant. He pointed to the screen. “We followed your directions and we’re on Old Harriman Highway.” His voice dropped low. “Nell, can you put your hand in the earth and find her?”

  I didn’t want to say it aloud, but he deserved an answer. “I doubt it. But if I can it’ll be only if she’s been bleeding. And easier if she’s still bleeding. And only if I have some of her blood.”

  “We’ve got her blood. Try,” he said, and slid the van door open. A frozen wind swept in, smelling of cattle manure, pigs, maybe a chicken farm, rich and pungent and earthy. “Put her on the ground, Occam.”

  I felt the werecat’s body tense, but I gripped his arm. “I want to try.”

  Occam growled again, but he lifted me from the van and set me on the ground. I was still holding my potted geraniums, and I spilled a little of the rich soil of Soulwood onto the gravel-filled ground. I pushed my fingers through the familiar soil and touched the earth beneath. “Give me some of her blood,” I whispered.

  Rick placed a bit of gauze into my free hand and I transferred it to the fingers on the ground. My magic recognized the presence of blood on the gauze. I had never used my magic this way, but I thought about the blood in my hand and about blood similar to it. Blood called to blood, and I felt the pull of the earth, faint and delicate. No more than a hint of scent on a fractious wind. I pointed. “That way.” And I fell flat.

  * * *

  “According to Nell, Mira Clayton is somewhere outside of Oliver Springs.” It was Rick’s voice, guttural with exhaustion. My eyes fluttered open. “We have three potential properties, belonging to different former churchmen out this way. You cats need to shift and check them out. Stay together. Keep away from cameras and scopes.” The van was stopped again but was angled so the cold wind whipped past instead of inside the open door. I felt Occam slide away from me, taking his extraheated body warmth. I hadn’t realized he had been holding me on his lap. Totally improper but so very warm. I couldn’t complain. And I missed that warmth. Using my magic in new ways had left me drained.

  Outside the van, I heard the snap and crack of bones breaking just before the van door closed. Paka and Occam were shifting into the their cat forms.

  I was still clutching the tiny piece of gauze with Mira’s blood on it, and had been . . . not simply aware of it, and not exactly talking to it, but . . . something. And I knew things now that I hadn’t moments ago. I whispered to Rick, “I felt something you need to know. Mira’s magic is similar enough to mine that I can feel her . . . calling to the earth and the sun, I guess is how to say it. She’s been bled. Her blood supply is depleted.” I licked my lips, which were dry and cracked, and Rick held a bottle of the slimy electrolyte water to my mouth. I drained it and asked for more. He opened a second bottle and I drank it down too. “Thanks,” I said, taking the bottle from him. “She’s weak.” I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and to rest, so exhausted by speaking that I felt as if I’d sprinted miles
at a dead run. “She’s in a shed or a hut. That way.” I pointed.

  Rick jumped from the van and shared my information with the werecats. They padded away.

  * * *

  “You did good, Nell,” Rick said when I woke again. “The abandoned building in the woods near Oliver Springs? There was an old auto repair shop near where you felt their blood. The sheriff’s department and a SWAT team raided it an hour past. They found some of Jackie’s paranormal dogs and two dozen humans, HST and church families, most of the survivors female. You did good work.”

  “But the women are in a bad way, aren’t they? Jackie and his men raped them, didn’t they? And bit them?”

  Rick didn’t answer, so I said, “Maybe killed and ate the males?” Again, Rick didn’t answer, and I got the feeling he was trying to spare me something. “Jackie and his vile dogs were using the women to breed with and to drink from, weren’t they?”

  Rick hesitated a moment and then asked, “How did you know that?”

  A smiled ghosted over my face and was gone. “Deductive reasoning. Jackie’s note said my sisters ‘smelled good.’ Joshua wanted to claim me as a mate. So did the colonel before he disappeared. Jackson senior and junior had lots of wives and concubines, trying to breed babies like they were on an assembly line. Brother Ephraim raped my mama. Had himself a son on her. Jackie took my sister Esther and raped her. All this interest in one bloodline, what you might call one DNA type.” Rick inhaled slowly, his eyes shifting back and forth as he took in what I was saying. “Jackie raped and bit his concubines. And you said the females survived, which means the men mostly didn’t. And all the dogs we know about so far are male.”