“And there are no bodies?”
“When I feed the land,” I repeated, “there’s nothing left. Nothing at all.”
“No evidence,” she persisted.
“Not a lick. Except my word.”
Occam got a strange look in his eyes. Softly, as if turning the thoughts over in his mind even as he spoke the words, he said, “If Ephraim washuman, then you, apara, killing him, ahuman,” he emphasized, “mightbe a crime, especially if it could be argued that it wasn’t self-defense. But the grindylow didn’t kill Paka, therefore Ephraim was not a human being. He couldn’t get or spread were-taint. What if he was agwyllgi?Gwyllgi, attacking you? It’s a clear self-defense, para on para.”
I nodded. It was possible. And if Ephraim was agwyllgi, then I had killed a violent nonhuman. And human law didn’t apply to me. It was an out, a paranormal defense, a justification I had never thought others might consider. Fresh tears gathered in my eyes. My breath came in jerks and heaves. Ephraim had raped my mother. My half brother Zebulun was his son. Was Zeb agwyllgitoo?
T. Laine nodded deliberately, still not meeting my eyes. “You just now figured out this stuff about ayinehi?” She tapped the ground beside the blanket.
I wiped my eyes, the sudden relief that I, maybe, hadn’t killed a human, at least the second time, filling me the way wind filled a grassland. “Most of it, yes. I traced the body buried here to another circle on the edge of this farm, and then to a third circle. It is in the same place as the kettle of dead humans. There’s a stone circle there too, buried about a foot underground. Not so sophisticated. Not nearly so old. The dead bodiesfrom the kettle were dumped and spilled there, giving the circle power. It’s a power sink, a place to store death energies, probably so the death practitioner didn’t kill someone by accident. But something happened and the power was used. That use turned the energies even darker. Intodeath and decay.” I looked at my teammates. “I gotta wonder who lived there before Cale Nowell moved in. It was rental property. We need to ask the landlord, the farmer, whose name I’ve forgotten.”
“Holcomb Beresford,” Occam supplied. “Holy Bear.”
“I have always thought my magic is a mutation from witch genetics. And those mutations may also includegwyllgi.”
“Did you know all this?” T. Laine asked Occam.
“No.”
“When were you going to tell us you killed people?” she asked me.
“When I had to.”
“I see,” T. Laine said. “So, from the church inbreeding, three paranormal creatures have emerged: witches,yinehi, andgwyllgi. And you think we’re chasing another para here, similar toyinehi.”
“The builders of God’s Cloud of Glory Church came from all over Europe and settled here,” I said. “Cousins married cousins. People left the church. Married out. Others married in. Powerful witches were killed or ran away. Weak witches who had a gift for finding water or making plants grow or helping livestock to birth safely were able to hide their gifts. They stayed and married in. Recessive genes that went back to common ancestors began to appear. Began to mutate. Same thing happened here and ayinehiwas born. And died. But the genetics were still there, in that family. And that same line produced a creature with the magics ofdeath and decay.”
I looked at T. Laine. My friend. Her face was closed and hard and she didn’t look back at me but kept her eyes on the trees around us. She asked, “Could you createdeath and decaymagics?”
“At first, I worried about that possibility,” I said. “But I think it’s a separate path. Like earth witches can’t use moon magics. Your magic is familiar to each other, but it’s also very different.Death and decayis like mine but very different.” I hoped. I truly hoped.
T. Laine met my eyes. Hers carried something in them, something that made me acutely uncomfortable. “Is this the magic that helped me win the fight at the house with the Blood Tarot and the vampires in cages and blood-magic attacking? The magic that killed the blood witches, Lorianne and Jason?”
My mouth went dry as dust.She knew. Knew I had taken them as sacrifice for the land and to power my magic. “Yes,” I whispered.
T. Laine Kent rose to her feet. “I have some thinking to do. Y’all head on back. I’ll be along in a bit.”
Following orders, I stood, shaking. Occam stood with me. I gathered my blanket and my potted cabbage and trudged to my car. Got into the passenger seat. Occam got into the driver’s seat. He didn’t start the car. Instead he took my hand, his warm and strong. I clasped it back. “I’m hungry. Want a steak?” he asked.
I turned to face him. He was watching me, a small smile on his face. “You’uns not mad at me?” I asked.
“Nell, sugar, I’ll love you forever. Someday I’ll tell you about the time I killed and ate a man.” He turned on the car. Smiled a satisfied cat smile. “For the record, humans do not taste like chicken.” He turned the car and drove back to the law enforcement center, sharing a silence that felt... amazing. And terrifying.
SEVENTEEN
On the way back to HQ, we stopped at Tina Ames’ house. Tina was Hugo’s mom, and the sheriff himself was standing with her on the front stoop, one arm around her shoulders.
“Looks like they just told her about Hugo,” Occam said. “Gimme a minute and let me read her fordeath and decayand witch magics. Unless you can tell just from looking at her?”
I shook my head, making a negative sound, and he left me to my thoughts, thoughts pulling me deep inside myself. They were thoughts about Soulwood and about the bone-wood that we had just left. Thoughts about the feel of thedeath and decayat Stella’s farm, that stark absence of life.
“All of earth is magic,” I whispered. “All of the land, everywhere. Even the land tainted by death. The magic of the land isstill there.It’s just been changed somehow.”
Maybe, just maybe, I could help the land to heal thedeath and decay. Maybe I could help the witches to neutralize the energies that they had currently shielded, but which were also leaking into the earth. Maybe I could do that without claiming the land or sacrificing a human. Or dying for the land.
