I was sipping tea from a warm cup, trying to follow the information and its importance. I had taken a seat where I could watch Tandy, our empath, who was relaxed, leaning back in his chair, elbows on the chair arms, his hands clasped in front of his lower face. Listening. He touched his nose for truth, lifted a pinkie finger when she lied, and twitched his thumb for a signal meaning: “Something isn’t right, but it isn’t a lie.”
Rettell had taken a chair with her back to the door, which was odd for military or law enforcement, and kept looking out the heavily smoked windows to the weather. It had stopped snowing for the moment. Over her head, above the windows, were the comms screens. Using a laser pointer to highlight a still shot of the New Orleans skyline, she clicked through to a single pic of a nighttime city sky with two rainbow dragons and two blurred human forms in the air.
“The glistening bluish arcenciel is called Opal,” she said. “The one that looks like liquid nacre is Pearl. We understand they attacked the Dark Queen personally, as well as one of the vampires, called Koun”—she put the red laser on each human form as she spoke—“in the street, in the days leading up to the coronation of the vampire emperor of Europe, Edmund the First. But we have no video.”
“Above the street,” JoJo said, her tone amused, “not in the street.Wehave video.”
Rettell lasered her eyes to Jo. “When can I see it?”
“Never. Unless you finish telling us what you want,” FireWind said. “And maybe not then.”
“Interdepartmental proto—” she started.
“Is bullshit,” FireWind said placidly, “when you wear a mic into our offices.”
Rettell’s eyes narrowed and her spine went even straighter.
Now that no one was being hit, I began to wish I had popcorn. I held my teacup close to my lips, sipping off and on. The bosses were doing what they calledpushing buttons, trying to get a rise out of one another. It was a lot like what happened when a second or third wife came into a household and positions of power were sought and staked out.
So far, Rettell hadn’t lied, and though she wasn’t happy about everything she was saying, she was good at skirting the truth. Tandy was intrigued at their wordplay and his thumb twitched often when the military woman spoke, suggesting a lack of full disclosure.
“At another time,” she said, “despite nearly killing the Dark Queen, the two arcenciels appeared at an event at the Dark Queen’s headquarters in human form. We have photos if you are interested in a trade.”
“We have photos,” Jo murmured. “LaFleur was an invited guest.”
“Of course he was.” Rettell blew out a breath that sounded real this time, and not practiced or planned. “The leader of the arcenciels is Soul, Assistant Director of PsyLED, also known as She Who Guards the Rift. That rift is rumored to be on land recently purchased by the Dark Queen. Some say the rift leads into another dimension, one through which other paranormal creatures have come and gone in the last week or more. The military has decided this rift needs to be under our protection. And if possible, it needs to be closed. Permanently.”
FireWind shrugged, but I could see a faint tightness around his eyes. It looked like unease. The big boss was usually better at hiding his emotions, so I had to wonder if he was deliberately letting emotions show that may not have been fully true. Like Rettell, he was good at avoiding the full truth.
“The military’s hopes and dreams have nothing to do with PsyLED,” he said.
“It has everything to do with you, personally. You’re Jane Yellowrock’s brother.” She swiveled to me. “And it has to dowith you, Nell Ingram.” She stabbed out with a finger. “You have some sort of power over the land. We want you to find the rift for the U.S. government.”
I burst out laughing. It was so unexpected I choked on the tea, tipped the cup, spilled it across the table, and started coughing as I laughed. It was a bad bout and I bent over to force the tea back out of my bronchial tubes. Occam patted my back. Others raced to get paper towels to clean up my mess. When I caught my breath, I said, “Your’un information is vastly overblown and outrageous in the extreme.”I might help some trees grow,I thought. Between coughs I said, “The ability to recognize interdimensional physics is out of my league.”
“Ingram is an earth sprite, as best we can determine. She helps things grow,” FireWind said mildly.
“We have reports that she grew an entire forest using demon power.”
The table went quiet. Rettell knew a lot. And she was sneaky. Usually I liked that in a woman, but maybe not when it was pointed at me. “Not my demon,” I said through my coughing. “Its power had to go somewhere. It was either let the witches shoot it up into the atmosphere, where it might spin back and land on a city full of humans, or work with the witches and send it into the land. I managed to help them direct it into the land. And I nearly died. I’m not trying something like I think you’re saying I should.”
“Maybe your sister will. We can always take her.”
Leaves rustled in my hairline, sprouting at the threat. Occam put his hand on my arm. I concentrated on calming my breathing. FireWind finally decided to take over the meeting.
“Our people will provide whateverlaw enforcementassistance you may need. You will not be taking our people off and away. You will not be abducting anyone in this county or state.”
“Abduction is a strong word. There are a few useful clauses in constitutional law relating to national defense that suggest we can…secure a citizen’s cooperation.”
FireWind swiveled in his fancy desk chair, back and forth. “Has the United States government decided how to treat vampires? Or those sworn to the Dark Queen? Or the Dark Queen herself? How about the were-creatures, like you? Or beingssuch as I? Are we human? Are we citizens? Will the United States governmentsecure our cooperation? Perhaps in a fenced-in compound on a desert military base?”
Rettell frowned.
“If not, then I postulate a lengthy and vicious legal battle would follow should the U.S. government, any of its various departments, or any branch of the military try to abscond with any nonhuman in any city where I—or my sister, the Dark Queen—might hear of such. Nell has sworn an oath to PsyLED. She works for us. She is not athingto be bartered or traded. Her sister is a citizen in this county.”
I couldn’t leave the area of Soulwood for long periods of time. Soulwood owned me as much as I owned it. I’d sicken and die if I was gone too long. It was why I carried a pot of the vampire tree in Soulwood soil with me most everywhere I went. I figured both of my sisters were equally tied to the land.
“Hmmm,” Rettell said, watching me. She turned to the screens along the wall over the windows and moved the laser pointer through a series of still shots. “Here we have a poor-quality video of a woman we believe to be Soul turning into a Bengal tiger, and another when she shifts into a light dragon, and then into a human. Her species does not conform to the laws of conservation of mass and energy, hence our scientists are of the considered opinion that she is from another dimension. Along with this thing.”
