“You used your service weapon?”
“No. I used the land.”
He was silent for a moment. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll call it in. My ETA is ten. And FireWind’s on his way too.”
“Oh.”
Occam might have heard the misery in my voice, because he chuckled. “Later, plant-woman.” He disconnected. Plant-woman. Not Nell, sugar. Not when I’d killed someone. My shoulders went back. My cat-man knew what I needed. Even when death was involved.
I trudged to Esther’s.
“Is that vampire your’uns?” She gestured to Yummy.
“Yummy. Meet Esther. Esther, meet Yummy.”
“She kilt them two vampires and then the vines and roots started pulling ’em down. Is my tree eatin’ ’em?”
“Yes.” It was the simplest explanation.
“That gold theirs? Hers now?” Esther demanded.
Trust my sister to always think about money. “Yes.” In the dark, I wrapped the necklace the vampire had worn around my wrist. Reaching the porch, I held out to my sister the gold braceletand the rings the land had given to me for the vampire I had killed. “These are yours.”
She took the bracelet in a finger and thumb as if it was covered in poison. “Real gold?” Her voice was a hint nicer now.
“Yes. Get Sam to sell them for you.”
“I reckon that would be nice.” She tucked the jewelry into her robe pocket. “What’s wrong withher?” She gestured again at Yummy.
“I don’t know. I’ll find out.” I staggered to Yummy and plopped on the ground beside her, still talking to Esther: “You go on inside and take care of the babies.”
“You’un don’t have to tell me twicet.”
I sat close to the vampire on the wet ground, vines all around her, waving as if in a summer breeze. Tears were sliding down her cheeks. Not some kind of emotional breakdown with a flood of big bulbous tears, but more like a trickling spillover, the way water ran over a low-head dam in drought season. As if she had forgotten how to cry but was having a good go at it anyway.
The necklace worn by the vampire I had fed to the earth resting in my lap, I said, “Yummy. Talk to me.”
She picked up the ax-head that had erupted out of the ground and tossed it against the foundation of Esther’s house. It landed with a softthunk. “He was here,” she said. “I saw him. He was watching as they attacked me. He didn’t stop them.”
“Okay. One of the watching vamps is someone you know and…care for?” I was guessing and way out of my league to be asking a vampire about her love life.
She nodded, dejected.
Lights pulled up the road and I recognized Ayatas FireWind’s headlights. I was going to have to tell lies to my boss-boss. Or maybe I’d just finally break down and tell him everything I hadn’t told him the last time my powers and my land did stuff I wasn’t supposed to be able to do. I’d told him most everything once before. I wasn’t sure what I’d kept back that time and the lies would eventually trip me up.
Behind FireWind’s vehicle, Occam’s fancy car wheeled in, and had to slow down to keep from hitting FireWind’s car, which was moving more slowly. Behind them was a bread-truck-type vehicle withPsyLED CSIon the sides.
Yeah. This was all going to be one batch of snarled, jumbled-up lies.
“Yummy.” I touched her arm. “Here’s what you tell the cops. My sister’s home was attacked by enemy vampires. You killed two. You think I killed one. You have no idea why their bodies are disintegrating into the earth.”
She made a pained sound that might have been laughter. “So just tell the truth. Got it.”
“Hide the gold or it might get confiscated.”
She gathered up the jewelry and put it in her pocket. I hung the crystal necklace around my neck and put my hands flat onto the ground. I told the vampire tree in pictures that we were okay. Told the tree we didn’t need his help. Told the tree to eat nothing and no one or I’d…I’d do something mean to it. I got a flash of the Green Knight. His helmet and gauntlets were gone and so was the horse. He was at the fence where he usually stood when we talked, but this time he held up his bare hand. Centered on it was a handprint in blood.
When Esther had met the Green Knight and the land of Soulwood, the one and only time she’d sought them out, the knight had appeared to her like this, one hand up, her own bloody print inside his. “Got it,” I said. “You protected her. And you protected me. And I’m good with that. Just no more eating people tonight.”
