He shook his head and sent me a vision of the bodies being dismantled and pulled into the earth. Soulwood’s work. Not his. The landhungered; I couldn’t stop it.
I blew out a frustrated breath.
“You talk to the land. And it talks back,” Yummy whispered.
“More or less,” I said, withdrawing from Soulwood and the Green Knight. I opened my eyes and saw her face, curious, grieving, conflicted. Shivers gripped me and I realized I was probably hypothermic from the cold; the wet ground, which I hadn’t noticed until now; and shock. My throat was sore, but not as bad as the last time. Not as bad as it had been just a few minutes past. “You’ll tell me about whatever has you so upset later?” I asked her.
“Yes. I’ll tell you everything.”
Together Yummy and I stood and walked to the road, side byside. I stopped at John’s truck and pulled out his old work coat. It was filthy and way too large for me, but it would warm me up. Eventually.
Every on-duty member of PsyLED Unit Eighteen was showing up, along with a few who were off duty. Their vehicles parked in an untidy line, up and down both sides of the narrow lane, and when they got out, they all uniformly adjusted their weapons and holsters from the discomfort of driving in a harness. And getting ready to draw their weapons if needed.
Occam strode down the center of the road and up to me. He put an arm around me and pulled me close. Gently. “You’re bleeding, Nell, sugar,” he said.
“Not my blood. The other’s guy’s blood.”
He exhaled a quick breath of relief, gave me a squeeze, and reluctantly removed his arm. This was work. He knew our boundaries. “Is he gone?”
“Very gone. Heart and soul.”
FireWind and T. Laine stopped in the center of the street, blocking traffic, their vehicle headlights and flashlights illuminating the yard where the bodies were decomposing.
Tandy walked right up to the edge of the greenery, a look of confusion on his face. Tandy could feel the land and he knew it was feeding, satisfied, and maybe a little smug. “It’s happy,” he said softly, the Lichtenberg lines on his skin bright in the headlights all around. “Proud.”
“Yes.” Proud it helped to save us. Proud it was eating three sacrifices, body, blood, and soul.
More people spilled out of vehicles. Official chatter. Introductions. Acknowledgments. I overheard a tech say that the PsyCSI team was on-site so fast only because a unit had been driving through town after working a scene in Chattanooga. The team of three were already pulling on sky blue P3Es—paranormal personal protective equipment—gathering evidence bags and tweezers and kits of various kinds.
Though para crime scene had funds approved to build in town, doing anything at all in government took forever, and all we had in town was a local office with minimal testing and evidentiary space. All the real testing on trace evidence went back to Richmond to the main PsyLED offices.
From the way they moved I could tell they were confidentand experienced, but they weren’t ready for this site. I’d done my own evidence collecting before. This site was going to present some problems.
I nodded to FireWind and then to the CSI team.
He understood instantly and walked over to them. “There’s some kind of active energies on this place. If the vines try to trip you or hurt you, get back to the road fast. Whatever you do, don’t sit or lie on the ground.”
“It’s got a curse?” a woman asked, stepping into the light of the units all around. She looked vaguely familiar, a black woman with broad shoulders and a shaved head. I moved closer. The tech wore a name tag that saiddora wincome, head tech. I remembered her from the “death and decay” crime scene, but she hadn’t been in charge.
“Yes,” FireWind said. “Some kind of plant curse. Congratulations on the promotion, Wincome.”
“Thanks. I worked hard for it.” She gestured at the small yard with the moving plants and vines. “We got null sticks. Will that help?”
FireWind said, “Interesting thought. We haven’t tried it. Kent?”
T. Laine walked over, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Just for the record, you’re authorizing me to risk losing a null stick on an experiment?”
“Good point. Let’s try this first.” He pulled a Swiss Army knife from a pocket and tossed it into the yard. In seconds, vines pulled it underground and it was gone.
“Ingram. If we lose a null pen here, can you get it back?”
“I don’t know.” I had never gotten gold or old farm equipment back until now, and I was pretty sure some of the victims who had disappeared on Soulwood had been wearing gold wedding bands, and had pocket change on them. I wondered what I’d find on the surface if I went to the places where the men had been absorbed by Soulwood. And then I wondered how Soulwood had learned that gold was important. Had it had something to do with the fact that Esther had been wearing her wedding band when I introduced her to the Green Knight? Had he gleaned something from her?
I thought about the pocketknife FireWind had tossed onto the ground. Nothing happened. The knife did not reappear. But…
“I can try,” I said. I accepted a null stick—one of the costly and difficult-to-recharge null sticks used by law enforcement to keep us safe at paranormal crime scenes—and sat on the edge of the yard. I placed the stick on the ground, and instantly thorned vines attacked. I yanked the stick out of the vines and rolled off the property. “Nope. It sees them as dangerous magic.” I looked at FireWind. “And maybe it liked the taste of your knife.”
His lips crinkled on one side in amusement.
