Need.Want. I reached out to touch the blood, the woman.
“Ingram!” FireWind shouted.
I jerked back. Swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth. Curled my fists and hugged myself.No, I thought, shoving down the bloodlust. No.No. The need receded. “I’m okay!” I shouted to my boss, breathless. “Three women and I are on the far end of the bar. No one is crushed against the wall.”
The bodies beneath me began to move, struggling to free themselves from the pile. I reached up and caught the bar, lifting myself so they could crawl from beneath me. So that I wasn’t touching them.
“Clear the site!” FireWind said, suddenly inside, his long black hair wild and windblown. “We have a melter.”
A melter. A dead person inside the truck who was melting. Contaminated by thedeath and decay. Yet who had been driving a truck. Like Cale Nowell.
***
“It was a 1967 Chevy short-bed,” JoJo said to the gathered members of Unit Eighteen. “One owner, bought new. Brett Hudgins, sixty-nine years of age, five-seven, two-forty, retired farmer, widowed in 2010. No relation to Stella Mae Ragel, to the poly marriage, or to the band. No relation to the church. Norelation to anyone. The owner was a deacon in his church, tithed regularly, didn’t drink or smoke. According to his son, he went into town this morning to look over a new saddle for his granddaughter’s birthday. He didn’t show up for lunch and didn’t answer his phone. His son activated tracking on his cell and discovered it on the side street half a block from HQ. He had just called police to check it out when he saw it start to move on his cell. He tracked the chase virtually.” Jo looked up at me. “He says there’s no way his dad was responsible for the attack. He says someone did something to his father to make it happen.”
“I believe that,” I said.
T. Laine nodded. “Agreed.”
“Yet he attacked Ingram,” FireWind said. “When did the truck park there? How did a dead man know she was in the building? How did he see with dead eyes?”
“He arrived and parked at eleven-oh-two,” Jo said, “according to nearby cameras. Nell was the first person to leave the building after that.”
“It may have been opportunity and not a specific target,” FireWind said.
I wasn’t sure if that made any difference to me. I was still picking pebbled safety glass and sharp shards of bottle glass out of my hair, clothes, and shoes. I had myriad cuts (none requiring stitches) and a few bruises. I was bloody and sticky. Horribly sticky. I smelled like sugar and caramel and hazelnut, splattered by the crashing flavoring bottles. But my bloodlust had gone silent at the sight of the dead melting man behind the truck windows.
I realized that my bloodlust had not risen at all on this case until now, when I was exposed to the blood of a healthy human. Soulwood didn’t wantdeath and decaybodies. Soulwood knew they were... unclean. That was a religious-sounding word, a church word, but it felt right here. They were fundamentally unclean. They didn’t belong here or anywhere. They werewrong.
“There were four injured, including Nell, one seriously,” Jo said. “If Nell hadn’t shoved people out of the way it could have been much worse.”
“Yes. You did well to get so many patrons away from the door,” FireWind said.
“I’d have done even better if there had been time to find a good place to hide. One without a storefront, glass, or civilians,” I said, bitter guilt in the words for the woman with the broken leg and no insurance. “He was targeting me, whether by opportunity or personal intent. I led him straight to them.” Not that I had had other options. I hadn’t known until too late that he was going to crash into the store. I had thought he just intended to shoot me, not take out others too. None of us had been thinking worst-case scenario. None of us had thought that far ahead.
FireWind said, “You did as you were instructed. You followed orders.”
I scowled at him. “Following orders without thinking is stupid.”
JoJo grinned. T. Laine gave a quiet snort. The hallway door blew open.
Occam, who had been on the road for the last ninety minutes trying to get here, practically flew down the hallway and into the conference room, cat-smooth, cat-fast, his eyes glowing yellow. He dropped beside my chair and ran his hands over me, barely touching. It was too fast, too much like a churchman claiming, and I tensed. Fought off a flinch. Slammed down on fear. Knowing he was searching for wounds, for broken bones, for blood. Knowing it wasn’t sexual or demanding but his own worry in tactile form. Knowing that but still reacting.
Suddenly he stopped. Eased his hands back. Occam’s eyes met mine and he swallowed hard, breathed, fighting his own battle, as I fought mine. “I’m sorry, Nell. Sorry I wasn’t there for you, to protect you. You okay?”
I saw FireWind from the corner of my eye, watching the public display. He was frowning. I caught my breath, needing to remind Occam where we were, and calm his cat. “Special Agent Occam, I’m fine. Unit Eighteen gave me exceptional backup and kept me safe.” I pushed him away with one finger and pointed to the chair beside me. “Have a seat and you can watch.”
Occam blinked once, slow, and when he opened his eyes, the cat-gold was less bright. He swiveled to the chair and sat. “Occam present,” he said, and gave the time.
“Jones,” FireWind said in a long-suffering tone, “put up the first footage.” Above us, in the conference room, the security camera footage appeared. “This is the moment you saw thevehicle was headed toward you. Note his increase in speed. Note the woman with the baby in a sling just in front of you. Note the elderly woman with the cane behind you. Had you stopped, tried to run in any other direction, these three people would likely have been in the path of the truck. You entered the building under orders because none of us expected him to use the truck as a weapon, not until he corrected his angle for your position and attempted to ram you. Next footage, please,” he said.
The angle of the view of the street changed, this camera showing only shades of gray, a grainy, indistinct view of the street, taking us back to before I entered the coffee shop. I was on the sidewalk. Running. A hand was visible at the lower corner, as if someone was reaching for me. I saw the woman with the baby.
Occam was breathing harder, faster, as if he ran with me. He reached over and took my hand and I didn’t pull away. We were getting close to the full moon. He needed contact. JoJo must have realized that too because the music created by an air witch to control or ease were-creature shape changes began to play softly through the speakers.
“Next,” FireWind said.
The next footage showed me dashing into the coffee shop. On the street, twenty feet ahead of me were the mother and child. Behind me hobbled the woman with a cane. Before me and after me were more people who would have been killed had I not turned in to the store. The final footage was inside the coffee shop. I saw me grabbing people in each hand and yanking them out of their chairs, my mouth open, shouting, my face furious, urgent, screaming. Me sliding across the bar, shoving the baristas farther along the way.
