The security lights were on at the barn and close to the house. Occam loped in from the shadows and joined us as we poured coffee. T. Laine appeared from the back of the house, where the portable null room was sitting, hopefully stopping the working on the contents. Astrid and Etain followed her halfway, but stopped when they saw us, their eyes on FireWind. They turned and walked away from the big boss. He had that effect on people, drawing eyes everywhere he went, but making people pause and reconsider any possible interaction.
FireWind had golden skin, peculiar yellow eyes, and long straight black hair, currently in a single braid down his back. At six-three or more and very slender, he was gorgeous, according to the others in the unit, but not my type. Nothing like Occam. “My car for debrief?” I asked when we were all in hearing distance.
“Yes,” FireWind said. “Flights would have taken me until midnight to get here from New Orleans, so I rented a car and drove. The only rental was an older Honda Fit, which will notfitus all. It barelyfitme.”
“Yeah, well, the first person to spill something in my car has to detail it.” I looked at the big boss. “You too.”
He gave me a small smile. Some time ago, FireWind figured out that he terrified me, and that my way of dealing with terrifying men was to attack first, not back down, and refuse toapologize later. He put up with my insecurities and my social awkwardness, which I appreciated, albeit wordlessly.
As T. Laine filled the night air with a sotto voce update, we trooped through the dark to my car. FireWind reached for the driver’s door, his body language saying that position of power was his by right. As he opened it, I swooped in front of him and inside, said, “Why, thank you,” and pulled the door shut. My boss blinked and tried to regroup. I lifted the potted tree from the passenger seat and placed it on the dash. FireWind walked around the car, took the now-empty passenger front seat, and closed his door. T. Laine was trying to hide a smile. Occam looked cat-complacent as he joined her in the backseat.
Silence settled in the enclosed space. FireWind’s eyes rested on the tree in its pot, but he didn’t comment on it. Occam extended a box of donuts toward us, but FireWind shook his head. “Ingram, I understand you might have some protein bars? Something you made?”
I dug in the side pocket of the car and handed him the zipped plastic bag. Inside were the rest of the commercial salmon jerky and my homemade bars, two made with dried fish flakes, cornmeal, and dried fruit, one made with peanut butter, oats, and powdered milk, one made of nuts, seeds, honey, dried fruit, and salt. He broke all the bars and the jerky in half and offered them to us. It was a formal gesture, like breaking bread at a peace treaty or something. I should have felt bad about beating him to the driver’s seat, but I didn’t. It was my car, after all, and just because he was a man didn’t mean he got to take over my stuff. I took half of the peanut butter bar. T. Laine made a face and shook her head. Occam accepted a fish-flake bar and a salmon jerky strip. We all watched FireWind as he sniffed the ones he had left.
“This one”—he held up half a cornmeal bar—“is like something the Tsalagi would prepare in autumn. Traveling food. Dried fish and cornmeal and dried berries. Every clan and every family had its own recipe.” He bit in and tasted, chewing slowly. “I like the taste of sweet and salt together.” He inclined his head at me.
I inclined mine back and said to FireWind, “We have a lot to tell you, and I know you stopped at the police department on the way in, but for everyone here, I recently finished a prelimquestion and answer with the mother and the two sisters. Heirs to Stella’s land, personal properties, and liquid assets are the three of them and Catriona Doyle, who Stella knew for only a year. Catriona is a very weak witch, a musician in the band, and her sister is the stronger witch, Etain Doyle, currently allied with the North Nashville coven.”
“Yes,” FireWind said, licking his knuckle to get a salmon crumb, an unexpectedly inelegant gesture, but one that made me like him more. “Money, power, and passion, the roots of all murder. I spent an hour watching Catriona’s interrogation through an observation glass and she keeps her secrets well, though I gathered that there was something more than friendship between Catriona and her employer. I am currently assuming that they were lovers, not something she needs to hide in this day and age, but not a relationship that Stella’s more right-wing fans are likely to approve.”
Surprise flashed through me. Stella and Catriona were lovers? The odd comments by her mother and sisters suddenly made sense. I was an idiot for not understanding them, but homosexuality was severely punished in the church. It wasn’t the kind of relationship that was easy for me to recognize, falling into the unfamiliar.
He tilted his head, musing, “The Tsalagi have never understood the white man’s needs to regulate sexuality. My impression was a gut reaction and is perhaps incorrect. We’ll need Dyson and Racer to sit down with her.” He wanted Catriona truth-read by the unit’s empath and the unit’s probie truth-senser together. It would be impossible to hide anything from them working as a team.
FireWind met my gaze. “Thank you for sharing your food. It will hold me until we leave here for the night.”
“My pleasure.” And it was. FireWind was overbearing and aloof, a reserved man who was still deeply affected by mores, tribal culture, outdated social standings, and the way the law was interpreted and enforced during the long years of his personal and law enforcement life. Most of the time, I didn’t like him. But then he’d do something charming and my perceptions flipped. Besides. I liked feeding people. It made me happy.
He continued, “Catriona is a complicated woman. She, her sister, and her child are here in the States on visas from Ireland.Catriona keeps secrets. She is grieving her friend and perhaps lover. And because we have not completely ruled out death magics, shewillbe charged with multiple counts of premeditated murder by magical means in the morning, and likely Etain as accomplice.” He stared at the potted tree and added, “Unless we have found highly exculpatory evidence, or unless the sheriff and I provide means forcing Smythe to postpone bringing charges.”
“Smythe is an ass,” T. Laine said.
“True,” FireWind said. “However, can you absolutely, conclusively prove that this working is not from a death-witch curse, and that Catriona is not a death witch?”
“Not yet.”
“Then we must let it play out until we can prove or disprove those things,” FireWind said.
“I’d like to observe when Tandy or Margot talks to Catriona,” T. Laine said. “I want to say that she isn’t a death witch and these magics are not death magics, but there aren’t any studies on death witches, and we don’t even know whatdeath and decayis.” T. Laine’s face pulled into a peeved expression. “In the distant past, all witches were burned at the stake by humans, but death witches were put down with extreme prejudice by whatever coven was capable of it. More recently they’ve been immediately placed into null room prisons for the good of the people around them.”
“Not always,” FireWind murmured, a small smile on his face.
“Whatever,” T. Laine said. “So we have no studies and no cases where death-magic energies were read by witches or a psy-meter. What we know from oral histories is that death witches lose control of their magics and end up killing their families. Sometimes their entire towns. From what I’ve observed, Etain’s a vanilla witch. Her magics are ordinary and controlled. She isn’t capable of a magic working as complicated and original as this one, and Astrid says Catriona has less magic than Etain. No. Not death witches.”
“Original?” FireWind said, picking out one word from T. Laine’s comments. He hesitated, seeming to choose his words. “It was my understanding that most workings were builtupon others already in use. Even the unusual onesyouused recently were built upon older, existent workings.”
“Yes. Workings are almost always based on previous workings, even inside the strongest covens,” T. Laine said. “What I meant was, it’s supposed to be impossible to control or containdeathworkings. And while I’ve seen plenty of triggers, I’ve never heard of a trigger being used for a curseandI’ve never seen or heard of a trigger like this one. Triggers are for simple workings, very simple, like turning on your lawn-watering system. Not for big magic. This trigger? It’s complicated, a complete mystery to the coven and to me. Maybe the Doyle sisters brought it from Ireland, but I’d be surprised.” She described the trigger to FireWind. “The amulet was liquid based and its residue smells like licorice, aniseed, and strong spirits.”
FireWind turned in his seat and looked out the windows. Occam turned to FireWind, who held up a finger. I understood nothing about the exchange except that something was up. FireWind said softly, “Absinthe?”
I checked the termabsintheon my cell and discovered that it was a grain alcohol made by macerating herbs and spices: fennel, anise, and wormwood, among others. Until recently, it was completely banned in the U.S. and most of Europe, but the herbs made it sound like a medicinal, like something Daddy would rub on a workhorse.
T. Laine lifted her brows, thinking. “Absinthe. Could be, but it’s hard to find in this country even now.”
“Is it legal in Ireland?” he asked, stretching his body to look out the windshield and above the car.
I tapped on my tablet, searching. “Yes,” I said, and read the names of several shops that carried it in Ireland. “The reviews are mixed as to its taste and efficacy.”
