Daddy blinked, his blue eyes unexpectedly growing wet. “I’m sorry, Nellie. It’s always easier to blame others than to take responsibility. Welcome into your’n home, and your guests with you’un.”
He turned and thumped back to his favorite rocker. He sat and said, “Family council. Beccah, take the young ones upstairs. Everyone sixteen or over stays, boysandgirls. We got trouble. And we’ll face it together, as we always do.”
Zeke murmured, “Throw them into the cold?”
Harry joked like the teenager he was, “That’s cold, man.”
Rudolph whispered to me, “You’un’re talking about the Lost Boys, ain’t you’un? No one will tell us about them. And Zeb done took off looking for ’em.”
“Yes, Rudi, I am talking about the Lost Boys and the devildogs. And the plant-people like me.” I plucked off a leaf from my head and held it out for them to see before I stuck it in my leaf pocket. “Put them rifles on safety and back where they go. You’uns ain’t shootin’ nobody today.”
A silent human-shaped wereleopard and a Cherokee skinwalker at my back, I walked into my childhood home.
After the necessary introductions were made, coffee was poured, and pound cake had been offered and politely refused, Rick said gently, “Thank you for agreeing to speak with us. Some of the Lost Boys were captured by vampires for food.”
All the mamas and most of the kids gasped softly.
I spotted my brother in the background. Sam wore a hard expression on his face, as if he already halfway knew what was about to be discussed. When he saw me looking at him, he nodded once.
LaFleur didn’t wait for questions but plowed on. “Somehow they got away, and the vampires pursued them. We think Gad Purdy was captured and killed by vampires last night, though full identification is still pending. His death forced the others in the group to shift shape intogwyllgiand run. Two of those are under your house.”
“Two devil dogs…are underour house?” Daddy repeated.
“Yes. They stink of shame and confusion,” Rick said. “They are afraid of what they have become and what is happening to them. They are seeking shelter. And hospitality. They are not inherently evil. They simplyare.”
Daddy accepted a cup from my half sister Sabtah, then sipped his coffee and rocked for a while, the runners not quite smooth on the old floors, thumping softly. The mamas and the elder boys and girls watched him, their eyes drifting often to my leafy hairline and odd woody fingernails, to the black wolf now lying at my feet, and to the beautiful, white-haired, Louisiana-born, Frenchy-looking man sitting in the chair at my side. “And who are these shape-shifters beneath my family home?” Daddy asked.
Sam turned his blue eyes to me, his gaze affirming that he already knew who we were talking about. His lips thinned into a hard line.
“Zebulun Nicholson, for certain, and a boy we think might be Uriah Lambert are under your house. They are, we think, in dog form.”
FireWind chuffed agreement.
LaFleur said, “Special Agent Occam has sent word that Harmon Stubbins came through the Stubbins property and may be hiding in one of the outbuildings there. All the boys we have identified except your son, Zebulun, were among the last group of Lost Boys ostracized by the church.”
I moved in my seat to catch Daddy’s attention. “Zebulun is only half Nicholson, through Mama, so really half Vaughn. His other half is through Brother Ephraim,” I said gently, “from the Jackson side. Had he been your’un, he mighta been a plant-person. Or not. Or he mighta never changed at all, because maybe he’da stayed here safe, and not been forced to fight for his life on the streets. Fighting for one’s life seems to force the change on us, plant-people and devil dogs both.”
All the mamas looked down at their laps. Their hands were tightly clasped, the stress showing in their faces.
“You said they had to fight. Them dogs we let you’uns send to the werewolves for training?” Daddy questioned, his eyes on FireWind and then traveling up to Rick. “Some were real young. The Colonel’s faction let them be attacked? Made them fight until they shifted into abomi—” He stopped. “Until they shifted into devil dogs?”
“Yes,” LaFleur said. His pure white hair caught the light like a halo, his black eyes sparkled, and his prematurely lined face caught the shadows and the light. I watched a few of my half sisters eye him as potential husband material. Rick ignored the interested looks from girls young enough to be his daughters, maybe, and continued. “Or subjected them to biting and other…exceptional means…to force the change.” He meant torture, like the Boot, but he didn’t say it. “Except for the very few who were born in dog form, even the very young children had been traumatized to force the shift.”
Daddy shook his head, the motion weary and despondent. “I made a decision and a promise to Carmel when we first married that we’d never let our own go to the Lost Boys without our help. We’uns put away money jist like we done for the girls as dowry, so I could find a place for them in town, get them jobs, help them join the military, or help them go to trade school if the church forced them out. We figured when the next batch came up to be transported away, some of our’uns would beforced to make a decision what they wanted to do with their lives.” Daddy looked at his sons, love in his eyes. “Sam was a keeper. Amos and Rufus too. But that was my three, all I could keep as my own. Zeb, Zeke, Harry, Rudolph, Rethel, and Narvin woulda been among the ones to be judged and removed come spring.”
My half brothers exchanged startled looks, and Rethel and Narvin looked to be getting mad.
Sam stared at the floor, his jaw working as if he silently chewed words he wanted desperately to say aloud. He had already known his younger half brothers would be sent away. From the tension in his shoulders, I could see he had fought against it and lost.
“It might yet kill me,” Daddy said, his voice breaking, his eyes welling and going red, as if the tears burned like acid. “Kill me to let my boys go. But I won’t be able to fight the ruling of the other church elders.” He pulled his handkerchief and blew his nose, wiped his face, and rocked again, the runners thumping, thumping on the wood floorboards in the silent house. He watched the five of the six sons he had named, as they took in their likely fates. Didn’t any of them look very happy about being thrown out. “You’uns’ll have a start. Best as I can do. But I never thought about one of mine being a devil dog.”
“But Zebulun isn’t yours, sir.” Rick turned his attention to Mama. “What do you want us to do with your son, Mrs.Nicholson?”
Mama flinched just the tiniest bit and focused on FireWind. “Mr.Wolf Man. Nellie trusts you’un. Can you’un take him?”
FireWind shook his head no, the motion odd on his wolf body.
“FireWind is not always a wolf, Mama. He has no pack.”
