Occam read the property with the psy-meter 2.0 and said, “Off the charts. Redlined. This is a strongerdeath and decayor it’s been going longer than at Stella Mae’s farm.”
“Merry Promotions said Hugo was at work yesterday,” I said. “And if he killed Stella, why is his place falling apart? And...” I fell silent. There were too many variables and nothing made sense.
“Kent. How do you want to handle it?” FireWind asked.
“Want?” T. Laine asked, sounding bitter. “I want to sit the grand pooh-bahs of the Witch Council of the United States of America down and compel them to design and fabricate a major-classnullificationworking to defeat this—this stuff.” I had a feeling she wanted to use stronger words but had managed not to. “A majornullificationworking needs to be a priority. But that isn’t gonna happen, ever, because, one, they don’t like me, and two, no witch is going to create a true antimagic working for fear it will be used against them. And three, they aren’t going to listen to anyone in law enforcement anyway, not with the antiwitch bent of most law enforcement types for, say, the last two millennia. Other than that? I want us to go in, in case there are people in there who happen to be alive.”
“Copy,” FireWind said, his tone unchanged.
We stepped forward, onto the crunchy grass, and stopped. The sound of field boots on the lawn was odd, unfamiliar. I leaned down and touched a pinkie to a single blade of grass. The cold ofdeath and decaycut through my finger. I rose up quickly and took a step back. The grass leaf crumpled. The lawn beneath us was still green, but it was dead, as if the leaves hadn’t yet figured out they had been killed.
“Move the cars back fifty feet,” T. Laine said, her voice tight. As the unit’s witch, she had been going almost nonstop, burning her candle from both ends, and not getting anywhere. This had to feel as if she needed to cut her candle in two and burn it at four ends just to keep up with the bodies and the spread of thedeath and decay. As we all reentered our cars and pulled them to safety, T. Laine spoke into her mic. “FireWind. We won’t be wearing vest cams or electronics. I don’t think they’ll hold up to the energies here.”
“Copy that,” he said back. “Limited exposure. An hour in the portable null room after.”
“Copy,” T. Laine said.
T. Laine called the North Nashville coven to come deactivate the working. Knoxville was closer, but the local covens would take a lot of hand-holding to be able to shield the energies and that was if the coven leader bothered to answer when we called her. The four witches who had helped out at the coffee shop were disinclined to work ondeath and decayagain.
T. Laine slammed her ID, badge, and vest cam into the trunk of her car, where they clattered. She raised her arms and gripped the trunk lid over her head, her face hidden by her arms. Her clothes were fresh and clean, but her skin was sallow and tired; exhaustion molded every line of her body. I could hear her breathing, anger in each breath until they slowed into a controlled pattern. She dropped her arms and went back to work. To us, she said, “Put all electronics aside, no jackets, badges, or IDs. Dress out in spelled unis, goggles, masks, gloves, no comms equipment. Vests are our only protective gear. And, God help me, no weapons.”
Over comms FireWind asked, “Why no weapons?”
“Accidental discharge,” she snarled, “as they and the ammo fall apart. Our suspect was at work yesterday. Alive. I didn’tthink about it at the horse farm, but weapons might be affected by the energies. And the chance of there being anyone alive enough to shoot at us is nil so we don’t need weapons anyway.”
Occam said, “I’m carrying a knife, but it won’t do jack against a dead body guided by a necromancer.”
There was an odd silence over the earbuds. “Copy,” our boss said. “Keep me advised.”
Moments later, every bit of our skin was covered; null pens were in our pockets. Eyes visible above the masks but behind goggles, we exchanged fast, silent looks of... that odd expression law enforcement and military exchange before potential trouble. It was part determination, part mental preparedness, part encouragement, saying things without speech, the way a good team could. Warnings, reminders, and promises to make it out okay.
T. Laine said, “This will be a deliberate clearing, victim rescue but no retrieval, non-suspect-based only. Touch nothing. Get in and get out. Fast.”
Occam and I nodded and followed our witch to the door to raid the house, though it was more like a slow, steady advance, up several brick stairs that shifted with our weight. The mortar was dusty and crumbling. T. Laine knocked. Called out, “PsyLED! Open—”
The door dropped. Toward us.
We jumped back. The door landed with a clatter and splintered into a pile.
A blast of fetid air swept out.
Moving slowly, stepping over the busted door, we entered. Staggered positions. Careful to keep a safe distance between us for two reasons: so our weight didn’t bring down the floor, and so an ambush shooter would be unlikely to hit us all at once. My breath came fast, my fingers tingling. I had no weapon. No weapon except the earth, and I couldn’t touch it even if I had wanted to, not withdeath and decayeverywhere.
It was hot, stuffy, and dark. Shadows wavered through the goggles like the tattered remains of ghosts. The ceiling had partially caved in. Wallboard was sifting down, onto the carpet, which was dusting away. Everything was disintegrating.
Hugo Ames, or so I assumed, was sitting in a recliner in the front room, facing a TV that had fallen off the wall. He was aslimy bubbling decaying thing, left fingers on the floor near his chair, right fingers in his lap, all detached from his hands. His eyes were slimed, his mouth open, jaw tilted to the side, rotten teeth visible. His ears were drooping, the lobes hanging like so much melted wax. As I watched, a green bubble extended from his mouth as if he were breathing. It popped. Another expanded in the cavity behind it. My stomach heaved.
As my daddy often said, he wasdeaddead, as if certain kinds of death made people more dead than others. Hugo wasverydead and appeared to have been dead for a while, though the curse would keep us from establishing an estimated time of death.
“Get out as fast as you can,” T. Laine reminded, her voice tight.
Moving carefully to keep from crashing through the floor, which was dissolving as fast as Hugo, we cleared the house in record time, Occam taking photographs on a cheap disposable camera that no one would miss if it was destroyed by the death energies. There were no more bodies, either alive to rescue, or dead to not retrieve. We eased out, staggered egress to prevent us falling through, and rushed back to our cars. “Clear,” T. Laine said, her voice too loud and stressed. “Accessing comms.”
The stench clung to my uni, to my mask, and even when I yanked off the P3E, the reek was still a part of me. I felt as if I’d never be clean again. I put in my earbud and heard FireWind speaking over the freq channel. “—have just spoken to the newly elected leader of the Witch Council of the United States of America. She has agreed that thisdeath and decay, though not a witch working, is a type of spell against humans, and therefore falls under the category of workings which they do and will police. They have agreed to assist in capturing and punishing the magic practitioner who setdeath and decayin motion. They have null room prisons in New Orleans that are better equipped to handle such a magic user than anything we have here.”
“How did you get them to cooperate?” T. Laine asked.
“That is a story for another time,” he said. “For now, I want you all away from the house until we determine the next course of action. Come back to the city PD and sit in the portable null room.”
