Right here. Beneath Esther’s yard.
I rose higher, following my sister’s mental voice, back up through massive rocks and broken boulders, through water tables, limestone, loam, and deposits of pure clay. To a place in the earth that was filled with energy, energies trapped beneath a shelf of granite a hundred feet or more below the house.
They were red and electric blue, thorny and sharp, a burning green the color of olives. All the energies were indeed screaming. I knew what they were. I had seen trapped souls before, and I knew the land couldn’t quite digest them, and the afterlife they should have entered couldn’t quite accept them, not in this form, for whatever reason.
I thought at Mud,The energies are the souls of the vampires that died here a couple nights past. They’re still present in the earth and are fighting being absorbed into the next life.
Hell? They’re trying to avoid hell?
Wouldn’t you? If that’s where they’re going? And would heaven be any better for souls like theirs? We have to help them to cross over.
Why?Mud asked.
Because when energies are trapped, they cause problems. Ancient lore tells us that when the deepest spirits of the life ofthe Earth are roused we get earthquakes, tsunamis, shifting of the poles, even the shifting of the Earth on its axis. But I’m not sure how to make the souls go on. It’s different every time.
I was trying to figure out how to exorcise the spirits, when a ball of energy dropped into the unbalanced, erratic, screaming souls. The ball was composed of burning energies brighter than my own, brighter than Mud’s, brighter than all the vampires taken together, like a ball of lightning, plasma and power, but with intent. The sureness of the energy ball, the pureness of its light, should have meant safety, but it didn’t. Something about the fierceness of it meant fear and pain.
I pulled Mud and myself away, darting behind a shelf of granite, to watch. The ball cracked open, into a clawed hand. Lightning ripped from the fingertips in jagged lines and slashed across the screaming souls. The lightning clawed into the damaged life forces. Shredded them to strips and fragments. And fed them to the earth.
They were bad,Esther said.They wanted my babies. Can’t nobody evil be near my babies. Not now. Not never.
They didn’t have time to make peace with the afterlife,I thought.
Don’t matter for the willfully evil.The lightning in the clawed electric hand sizzled again.Not on my land.The last four words thundered into the earth.
Yes,I thought. But didn’t let her hear the question on its heels. The uncertainty, doubt, and maybe the fear of what my sister was becoming.
We all three eased out of the land. We were still sitting at the table, holding hands. Mud’s hands were cold and shivering, her eyes wide and fearful.
Esther released us and got up to check on the babies. “Holy Moses,” Esther cursed. “My babies got leaves.”
Mud and I looked at each other and nodded. We had leaves too, but we could groom ourselves later. We walked into the twins’ room and found them lying in their bassinets, sound asleep. From their bald scalps grew tiny forests of scarlet maple leaves.
With little pinching motions, Esther nipped off each leaf. Silent. Her face tight with anger and worry. The babies slept through the shearing, and when she was done, my sistergathered up every leaf and carried them to the kitchen, where she tossed them into the woodstove.
Esther had leaves too, but I didn’t say that. I couldn’t think of what to say that wouldn’t make things worse and Esther had always hated platitudes. “Get your’un shoes on. It’s time for bed.” She shooed her hands at both of us, her eyes not meeting ours.
Esther had just sliced and destroyed the souls of vampire priests, with a power stronger than any I had ever seen.
I had one other thing to tell Esther before I left. “Zeb ran away. An invading group of vampires got him. We don’t know if he’s alive or dead. An Amber Alert went out on him.”
Esther stilled. “I like Zeb. Hope they find him.”
“Me too,” I said softly.
* * *
The truck made it up the road, and Mud, silent and troubled, went inside, carrying her things. I put my gear on the third step with a clomp and dropped heavily onto the second one, which had been shoveled and swept clean while we were busy at Esther’s. Occam was a treasure.
The wood step was frozen and chilled my backside through my clothing. I was tired and frightened and breathed deeply, seeking the calm of Soulwood, waiting on the visitor I had felt when I pulled my own spirit from the land after reading Esther’s and watching her kill.
Yummy, who had been patrolling, walked up across the hill from the south, across the three acres I kept clear of trees, her strides strong and steady, crunching through the snow and ice. She settled beside me with that vampire grace I sometimes envied. My breath made clouds in the darkness. Yummy didn’t breathe.
“Nice night,” she said after a time.
When she spoke, her words still made no clouds of vapor. She had been outside on my land long enough for her body to acclimate to the ambient temperature. Which meant she was likely below freezing to the touch. Did vampire bodies freeze in the cold? Did they have some mechanism that kept them from freezing?Antifreeze?How rude would it be to ask?
Frantic nervous laughter tried to rise through me, but I shoved it down.
