“Yes.”
I heard another click and Tandy said, “Affirmative, Ingram. Deputy to remain in her vehicle unless shots fired.”
“Good,” I said, and sent my consciousness into the earth again.
The huge warhorse was shoving through tall grasses. Dark trees appeared ahead. Oak, maple, poplar, spruce, fir, all in various shades of green, summer trees, not winter trees, but known to me. I oriented myself to his location. He was approaching the bottom of the hill, closest to the main thoroughfare that headed into Oliver Springs. The horse changed leads and shoved his way into the trees. The vision shifted and altered. These were real trees. Trees on Soulwood, along a narrow trail with cut and splintered saplings. As if his ghostly image moved through them in reality.
My own connection to the land sharpened. I recognized the birds and squirrels and sensed a fox hiding in a den.
The greens of our shared nonreality changed and grew inclarity. I saw and felt everything through the eyes of the Green Knight, who must be combining the visuals of every animal and the sensation of every plant in the area to share this view. This was new. A change in the way we sensed the land. Together. This was…fearsome.
I concentrated on the interloper. The human was closer now. He was angry, frustrated. He was also armed with a handgun and multiple mags, which I hadn’t sensed before. Not breaking my concentration, I informed Tandy of the weapon.
The man sweated, droplets flinging from his face as he swung his arm back and down, to cut and cut his way through. He bled from abrasions against tree bark and the punctures of thorns. He grunted for breath in air that was cold and damp, and with each step, wrenched his boots from earth that had become sucking mud, though it hadn’t rained enough in the last weeks to be muddy.
The trees and undergrowth around him grew more tangled as vines erupted from the ground. He stopped and held out his cell phone. Then a mechanical compass. He tried to adjust his position, but the trees were too tangled. He was lost. Soulwood was creating barriers, all without my assistance.
A vine snagged his pants from behind, thorns piercing through to skin.
I had blood. I had sweat. The land was claiming him. Itshungergrew.
But what if he was simply trespassing to find a place to hunt? Deer season had opened only weeks ago.
I studied the man’s clothing through the eyes of birds, a disorienting experience as they cocked their heads and looked at the man from one eye.
Jeans. Jacket. Hoodie. Boots. Not the strange black clothing of the men who had accepted Yummy’s challenge. He looked like a hunter. No rifle, but still, a hunter.
On his cell phone, he punched buttons and sent a text. Nothing I could see or hear. But overhead and all around him, the tree canopy began to whisper and shift, a soft susurration of threat. The birds fell silent. The fox curled tight in its den.
I felt a car pull onto the road and roll up near Esther’s home. A stranger, a vehicle the land didn’t recognize. The Green Knight looked back and I saw an officer pulling her vehicle to a stop.She lowered her windows. Female cop. Following orders. Esther stepped out on her porch and exchanged words with her. Esther carried a glass of tea out to the officer and then stood at the unit, the two women chatting. The mamas’ vehicles were already gone.
I reached out to the Green Knight. I thought at the vampire tree—sending mental pictures of a man wounded, lost, forced out of the forest, to take back word of an impregnable plot of land, asking him to let the human go. The Green Knight sent back images of humans throwing burning torches into the woods. Of fire and destruction and death everywhere.
If this man was with the vampires looking for Yummy, following the orders of the vampires who attacked at Ming’s, the tree might be right.
The knight sent me images of the intruder disappearing into the earth as Soulwood ate his energies, body and soul. Then another of the man eaten by the tree.
I was a cop now. I couldn’t. Not even if it was in my best interests. I sent back images of the trespasser being trapped, then handed over to local law enforcement for questioning.
The knight stopped moving through the trees. Information was important. This was a negotiation he could consider.
To seal the deal, I added details. I sent the knight a vision of caging the man with the machete. Taking his phone. Using vines to carry him from the property to the road, where he would remain trapped until the officer could arrive. Holding him still. If he was a hunter, the officer could confiscate his weapons, arrest him, or send him on his way.
The Green Knight turned his head to me, nodded once, and began to move through the trees, slower this time, until he saw the man on Soulwood land. The man was hacking at the undergrowth. Behind him, vines and small trees shoved through the ground, weaving together. From the sides they grew around until they had made a curved wall, a woven, impenetrable prison. And then the vampire tree began to grow thorns.
Power arced through the ground in slow waves. Vines elongated.
Two thorned vines snatched out and wrapped around his arms, yanking them to the sides. Stretching him out.
He shouted, grunted, fought. He dropped the machete. His cell phone was pulled from his fingers.
A third vine slid around his waist, found and removed a handgun.
The man screamed in pain and terror, the sound echoing.
The officer started to open her door.
“Tandy,” I said into my phone. “Tell the officer to stay in her car. A bear woke up and is chasing the man back out to the road.”
