Loriann fell back against the wall. Blood pulsed through her clothes. She dropped next to me, and even over the deafness caused by the gunfire, I half heard her say, “Transport spell. He did it. He really did it. Oh shit. He shot me.”
And I had shot Jason. As my body returned to my control, I felt his blood on the floor.
FireWind sucked in a breath and said the words again, words that might have been cursing, or maybe angry prayer. He shoved to his feet and stumbled down the hallway, glancing at Loriann, stepping over the injured grindylows. Disappearing into Rick’s office. I wondered fleetingly how FireWind and I were able to breathe on our own.
I struggled up. Couldn’t find a way to make my hands holster my weapon. I didn’t have that much finesse yet, so I carried it with me to T. Laine, where I placed it on the floor. Lainie was still not breathing. She was turning blue. I rolled her to her side and slapped her on the back. With each slap, a sensation of icicle electricity rocketed through my hand, up my arm, and down my spine. Ithurt.
On the third slap, T. Laine sucked in a breath that was partscream, part moan, and all pain. I made it to Occam and slapped him too. Then Tandy, and last I slapped JoJo, who cursed long and foul as she caught her first breath. Then I remembered the training I got at Spook School, to help someone breathe—to make a fist and rub their sternum, in the upper center of their chest. Too late now. I picked up my weapon, holstered it, and fumbled my way to Rick’s office.
I passed T. Laine, who had scrambled on all fours to kneel beside Loriann, opening a first-aid kit. She pressed a wad of gauze against the wound on the other witch’s chest. JoJo was calling for backup and medic for “multiple victims with GSWs.” GSWs.Gunshot wounds.Occam and Tandy were clearing the floor, weapons out, ready to fire, to make sure Jason was really gone, and not hiding.
I picked up a wad of bloody gauze from Loriann’s side and put it in a pocket. If I needed it, if I needed to feed her to the land... I stopped that thought and went to the opening to Rick’s office.
Rick was out of his cage and shifting back to human. He was naked, his lower half cat, his upper half human, and he was whispering, “Nononononono, sweet Mary, Mother of God, nonononono,” in a steady lament. I didn’t think were-creatures shifted halfway. It looked painful and anatomically impossible, but it was perhaps due to the wound in his human-shaped shoulder. It looked like a half-healed gunshot. The werecat would heal.
Margot was frozen in place. Hunched in the small space behind Rick’s desk and his cage. She had a GSW too. FireWind was bent over her and looked fierce. An expression I couldn’t have described except for intense, inscrutable, and detached—vibrantly emotionless. He was sniffing Margot’s arm wound, the action dog-like. He eased back and pressed a handkerchief to the bloody place, which looked like a long graze. Margot looked... horrified.
FireWind murmured, “It make not take. There may not have been enough.” Margot sobbed once, the sound arid and petrified. Rick continued his dirge.
I didn’t understand what was going on. Her wound wasn’t that bad.
I swiveled and saw the grindylows, curled up together likeneon green kittens against the wall.Grindylows. Something stirred in the back of my brain. Grindys were the judges and executioners of the were world, and though there had been no grindylows in the Western Hemisphere until the last few years, it was thought that a litter had been born in the United States. The fuzzy little green killers were now changing the way were-creatures passed along the taint. When a were shared the were-taint, the grindys appeared and executed the offender. Not always and not always right away. There had been tales of times when the grindys hadn’t shown up at all.
Twogrindys had attacked Jason. Two. One would have been enough.Why two?
I looked back at Rick’s office. Rick was shot. Margot was... The evidence settled in my mind, blooming, unfolding, revealing itself to me. Jason had fired at Rick. The round had passed through him, in cat form, picking up his blood, and wounded Margot. Margot stood a chance of going furry at the next full moon. Rick had infected her. And Jason had intentionally infected himself with Rick’s blood. Two evils. Jason was a witch; he might be able to hide himself from grindylows hunting him to pass judgment and kill him. But Rick was a dead cat walking if the grindys decided to pass judgment on him.
Quietly, I told Ayatas, Rick, and Margot what Jason had done. How Rick’s blood had been used to try to give himself the were-taint. This was why Rick had been targeted. So that Jason might infect himself. I went to the sleeping room, passing the null room on the way. It had been jimmied open, Loriann having used brute force and intellect where magic wouldn’t work.
I tapped on the sleeping room door. “Mud? It’s over.”
The door wrenched open and Mud threw herself at me, grabbed me. Cherry was barking like a maniac, jumping all over me, racing up the hallway and back. Mud held me away. Her eyes searching me. “Are you’un all right? Are you shot? Turn around.” She shoved me around and back. And yanked me into a hug. “I was scared as a deer chased by coyotes.” She shoved me back and said, “Cherry, come. Stay.” The dog ignored her and I caught the small springer by the collar. Mud demanded, “I want me a gun.”
I was befuddled. And amazed at the young woman who,only last week, it seemed, had been my baby sister. “No gun. But staying with me put you in danger. I don’t care how sick the Nicholsons are, you’re going back.”
Nell narrowed her eyes at me. “Ain’t no way, sister mine. I ain’t going.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “Give me one good reason.”
My little sister showed teeth at me in fury. I realized I was going to have to pay for braces, but that thought shredded and vanished like a wisp of candle smoke on the wind. “Larry Aden is out on bail and he’s back home on church property. That there is the real reason Sam brung me to you’un.”
SEVENTEEN
“What were the bracelets?” Margot asked. Her dark-skinned face was slightly gray with shock.
The team was in the conference room, eating pizza provided by Soul, who just happened to drop by. Lucky that. Or not. Maybe something else, as if she had been notified. Or as if she knew things.
The Assistant Director of PsyLED was curled up like a cat, with her long skirts wrapped around her bare feet on the chair seat in the corner of the conference room, her shoes on the floor. She was all in silvers and grays today: platinum hair and dark eyes, silver earrings, and a shalwar chemise type dress, pants, and shawl in a gauzy fabric that looked cool and comfy. And not at all regulation. I sent a glance to JoJo, with her turban and shimmery skirts. Jo was more dance club than Indian, but there was a definite correlation.
Soul, like the rest of us, was working on her laptop and analyzing the video footage, trying to deal with the facts and the trauma of the attack, chatting with PsyLED DC and the National Guard and probably someone in the Department of Defense, trying to get us backup. Her gaze kept shifting to Rick, evaluating, worried. She had said her reason for being here was to keep an eye on her only mostly para unit. She had explained that she was here solely as an observer, but she warned us that how we handled this situation would impact future para units.
No stress there. No. Not at all.
It was a few hours before dawn and things had settled down some after the paramedics and city cops left. The emergency team—who had entered wearing double pairs of gloves andwhite Tyvek biohazard unis in the presence of werecat blood—had bandaged Margot’s arm and worked to stabilize Loriann before carting her to UTMC, running lights and sirens. Evidence had been collected by our team and by the FBI evidence collection team jointly, something FireWind worked out. No one had mentioned to any of them that Margot might go furry.
Soul had sent a request to the Dark Queen, Jane Yellowrock, requesting that one of her Mercy Blades come and try to keep the taint from taking. Rick claimed that Mercy Blades had the ability to keep a human from getting the were-taint. It hadn’t worked on him, however. Jane hadn’t responded. I had sent a similar request with identical results. Nothing. I wondered if Jane was suddenly out of range, in some arcane Cherokee ceremony, or on a ship at sea. No one knew and Alex wasn’t answering his cell either. Sudden radio silence wasn’t like Jane.
“The cuffs are similar to these,” T. Laine said, tapping a key on her laptop. Overhead, a series of photos of bracelets appeared, looking like something a museum might put together. “I contacted the leader of the NOLA coven, Lachish Dutillet. She’s in a null room prison for some reason, but her keepers let me talk to her. I had to tell her things that might be classified, and the witches were surely monitoring her calls, so feel free to write me up and bring charges.” Soul and FireWind both shook their heads and T. Laine went on. “She suggested it was possible to charm an amulet with a spell calculated to control a demon, once it was captured. She said there were old tales of amulets created for that purpose.”
