As we ate, we watched the witches back the null trailer around the house and inside the basement entrance where T. Laine and Astrid, wearing all the null pens and the very last two unis, would attempt to shovel the T-shirts inside. The hope was to break thedeath and decayso the coven could study the suspected trigger, prove this to be a crime scene, prove the deaths were intended and not an accident.
I discovered later that the energies in the T-shirt box were so powerful the shovel fell apart halfway through the chore. The bodies were mostly mush and bones scraped into coolers and tossed into the trailer with cut scraps of carpet from where they had lain. After handling the remains, the two witches also had to sit in the trailer. Astrid and T. Laine emerged deathly ill from the stink, but free of contamination, and once they were free, the coven sealed the null trailer and set a twelve-hour timer to completely deactivate the shirts, carpet scraps, and bodies.
As we ate, deputies and witches ran around like ants. Overworked paramedics took the last of the patients to UTMC. Law enforcement changed out shifts except for us; we had noreplacements. Official vehicles drove away. Etain flashed across the driveway, modern and trim and everything I wasn’t. I looked down at my hands in the dark: square, hardworking hands, calloused from gardening, hauling dirt, splitting wood, and shoveling snow. My woody nails. Occam said, “I reckon we should go see what’s happening, but”—he took a deep breath—“I’m too tuckered out to care right now, Nell, sugar.”
“I don’t care either,” I said, because I was busy thinking about the green footprints tracking through my soul. As I watched Etain dart across again, I was aware that Occam watched me.
Occam pushed the vampire tree’s crate to the middle of the dash, out of the way, and said, a soft cat-purr in his voice, “I love you to the full moon and back, Nell, sugar.” Which was exactly the right thing to say.
It reminded me that Occam had given me his heart and my own melted. But...
“You got something on your mind, woman,” he said softly, the entire state of Texas in his drawl. “Spit it out.”
I frowned, thinking. There were so many things that could or might get in the way of our relationship. Simple things like me being jealous. Or growing leaves. Or him being moon-called and needing to mate with a female werecat. Did he want that? A werecat woman?
I swiveled in the seat to face him, bending one knee under the steering wheel. “I come from a polygamous background, Occam. Jealousy was a prevalent and pervasive problem, and some men used it to keep their women in line. I understand that a lot of men need to feel attractive to younger and prettier women, and I know I ain’t a cat-woman and that you might want one someday. And I know that mating urge might, or could, maybe, be stronger than usual in you right now since you been so puny looking for the last few months and I—”
Occam coughed out a cat laugh, stopping my words. “Nell, sugar, forgive me for interrupting, but I gotta say this before you say anything that might be the beginning of our first argument.” He leaned in slightly and took my chin in his hand, turning me to face him. He stroked along my jaw with the pad of his thumb, his fingers heated and gentle. He held my gaze with his. Something that might have been lust filled his eyes and they glowedpale gold. His voice a cat growl, he said, “Puny looking? I looked like a horror movie for the last few months and it never bothered me one whit.”
“No?” I managed as a whisper.
“No.” He leaned closer to me, his nose only inches from mine, his eyes glowing the gold of his were-creature. His voice went all scratchy, like a mad cat. “More importantly, it never botheredyou. In fact, it wouldn’ta bothered you if I’da stayed as scarred and hairless as I started out. That right there is worth more than gold to me. So you listen and you listen good. I don’t now, and I never will, as long as the moon is in the sky and breath is in my lungs, need the attention of any other woman or werecat.”
His voice dropped lower, a full-on growl. “‘Doubt thou the stars are fire; / Doubt that the sun doth move; / Doubt truth to be a liar; / But never doubt I love you to the full moon and back.’” His lips twisted wryly. “That right there is a little bit of slightly mangled Shakespeare. I learned it because I know you love his writing. I don’t understand every word, but I understand the meaning. And I never have, and I never will quote them words to another creature as long as I live.”
Tears had gathered in my eyes and my mouth had opened as he quoted poetry to me, and it formed an O as I said, “Oh.”
“I said,” he said firmly, “I love you to the full moon and back. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Occam’s human nose bumped mine. “I don’t play games like your churchmen. I want you and only you, always and ever,” he said, our noses touching. He tilted his head and pressed his lips to mine, a kiss that quickly became more as the hand on my chin curled behind my head and he pulled me in. Tongues met and twisted together and things in my middle went all tight and hot and—he pulled away. He was breathing fast. So was I. He managed a deep shuddering breath and rested his forehead against mine. “Dayum, woman.”
I laughed, a strange sound filled with longing. “I wasn’t jealous. Not really,” I said, lying, but wishing it was the truth.
“Maybe not consciously. But you grew up with certain expectancies about relationships. Those childhood expectations influence who you are now. Just like my childhood can and doesaffect who I am now. Our childhoods can screw with our minds like nothing else. So know this, with the part of you that’s all thinking and logic. I don’t need nothing from another woman,” he said. “I jist need you. For the rest of my life. Now.” His yellow-glowing eyes met mine. “I have a need to hear you say it again. And often. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I love you to the full moon and back.”
He leaned in and kissed me one last time, hard and quick. He pulled away, opened the car door, got out, and pushed the door shut. The night pressed against the car windows like small, clawed paws or like serial killers in scary movies, not that I was scared.
Carefully, I tried on the words, “I’m good and ready for us to be together forever.” A peculiar heat washed through me, longing and wanting.
But Occam was gone, covering the ground in a cat-assisted lope to reappear near the house, silhouetted by the lighted windows.
Softly, I whispered, trying out the words for the very first time in the silence and isolation of the car. “Will you marry me, Occam?” The words felt strange on my lips, full of hope and fragile trust, a trust I had abused by jealousy over Etain. I had to stop letting my past, my upbringing, get in the way of Occam and me. “I’m so stupid,” I sighed to the vampire tree. Fortunately it didn’t answer.
I locked the car and went back to work.
***
T. Laine negotiated with the witches to pull the portable null room to Knoxville as soon as possible and offer it to the doctors and patients. It would be excellent PR, mitigating some of the negative social media reactions to Stella Mae dying from what an unnamed source had reported to be witch magic.
Unlike the standardized protocols for treating mundane disorders, medical treatments for magical ailments tended to be looser, more of an art than a science, and to involve arcane treatments in addition to traditional methods. Though Jo had made an offer to UTMC for patients to use the null room at HQ, no one had come yet except the two cops, possibly because it would be difficult (and a liability) to transport patients. Having the nulltrailer at UTMC would make it much easier for the doctors to utilize the treatment. Not all patients would be willing, distrusting anything that hinted of witches. The churchfolk weren’t the only people who thought all witches should be burned at the stake.
Spotting me, standing half-hidden in the dark, holding my tablet under one arm and wearing what I’m sure was a forlorn and woebegone countenance, T. Laine called me over. “Whatever it is that has you moping, put it away,” she said. “Now that the bodies and the carpets are in the null room, Astrid has sounded the all clear. I need a full and comprehensive evaluation and photographs of the rest of the house. I want photos of anything that grabs your attention even if you don’t know why it grabbed you. If you spot family, who went inside as soon as Astrid said it was safe, feel free to initiate basic Q and A. Go on. You got this.” She patted me on the arm and went back to whatever she had been doing.
“I’m not moping,” I said. Though that might be a little lie. I looked around for Occam and didn’t see him. Feeling more like a churchwoman than I had in a long time, I squared my shoulders against old emotional habits and went back into the house, muttering to myself, “I’m a special agent. I amnota churchwoman. And I amnotmoping.”
