Curse on the Land

by Faith Hunter

  The others, including Rick, gathered around. Paka stretched out on the couch with Pea and closed her eyes, looking bored. JoJo watched the werecat with something that might have been disdain in her eyes, but the emotion vanished when she caught me looking. She gave me a bright smile. I had seen fake before, and that smile was fake.

  I said, “Like the original model and the smaller units that we had been using in the field, we have to set the device for interference. The werecats and witches will have to compensate for their own background readings, which means that JoJo, Tandy, and I will find it easier to fine-tune the more delicate parts of the device. We now can measure psysitopes one through four, and all four have to be zeroed for ambient magic.” I zeroed each level on the device. “Once a day we calibrate for standardized readings of known paranormals. That would be T. Laine for witches, JoJo for humans, and Occam for were.” I read each of them—except Rick, who would read differently because of his magical tattoos—and touched the button pads to standards. “Then we take a different known reading for quality control.” I aimed the sensor at Paka, and psysitope three rose into the high midrange. Psysitopes one and two rose about half that much, and psysitope four stayed nearly at zero. “Perfect for a werecat,” I said. I zeroed it and again extended the sensor to T. Laine. Psysitope one measured higher than the others. “Perfect for a witch.”

  I set the device down and passed out the handbooks that came with it. “Hard copy for the Luddites among you, provided by Q. I already sent you the e-files.”

  “Q,” T. Laine said. “Ms. Marsters still hate the James Bond nickname?”

  “More than ever,” I said cheerfully.

  “What do you read as?” Rick asked.

  I shrugged and touched my belly, an instinctive reaction, feeling the rooty sensation beneath my fingers. His question didn’t surprise me, but he could have asked me private-like. “I read essentially human, with a little elevation of psysitope four. I can feel the roots, but the medical scans show nothing but thick scar tissue.” The roots had grown into me when a tree healed me of gunshot wounds. This was the newest part of my magic, and one I had no idea how to control. “The medical team scanned me top to toe and everything looked perfectly human except the PET scan. On positron emission tomography, my belly is full of inexplicable green energies and red blobs that look like full-blown systemic cancer. Except I’m healthy, as proved by the other tests and scans.”

  “Poked you full of holes, did they?” T. Laine asked.

  “You have no idea.” I rubbed my inner left arm where most of the blood draws had taken place. I had been bruised black and blue for two weeks as they worked me over before labeling me street safe. That wasn’t the PsyLED term, but it was what I heard the techs call me. Spook School wasn’t for the faint of heart or the politically correct. It was more like boot camp for the military, where they insulted you and tested you and studied you and tried to knock you down so they could see what you were made of and if you’d pick yourself back up.

  “Okay. Let’s see the land, Nell,” Rick said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because our case is about land and a paranormal event. I want readings from all around Knoxville. Here is a good enough place to start as any.”

  Tandy said, “And besides, we’re curious. We all feel something magical on your land.”

  I frowned at the boss, but I had made a promise to do everything I could to be an equal part of Unit Eighteen, and that meant being open and honest about everything. Well, almost everything. I had been honest about Soulwood being a spiritual, powerful place that I could commune with, but I had never offered information—what was called “full disclosure”—about feeding souls to the land, or my desire for blood. I had just told people that I could kill attackers if I had to.

  I had learned to lie by omission. The church taught that that was a sin, but I had never felt bad about the lie. I knew that said something unscrupulous about me, but some things were going to remain my secret. Well, Rick’s, Paka’s, and mine. We were inextricably tied together with the feeding-the-earth one. Together we had killed a man, who’d turned out to be a Welsh gwyllgi, a creature called a dog of darkness—a creature that had been Brother Ephraim, a churchman from God’s Cloud of Glory—and I’d fed him to the earth.

  This wouldn’t be the first time Soulwood had been scanned with a psy-meter, but it was the first time with the newer, more efficient, powerful model. Even I was curious. I didn’t have to zero the device between scans, but it didn’t hurt, so as we traipsed outside, I aimed at the sky and went through the zero-and-cal process again until I was satisfied that the background readings wouldn’t interfere.

  Standing on the lowest step, I pointed the device’s wand outward, first to the south, then east, then west, as much as I could get from the front of the house. And I was not taking a reading from the north, through the backyard, close to where Brother Ephraim and the other man had been fed to Soulwood. That would be foolhardy.

  I aimed at the ground and took three readings at the compass points again. When I was done, I climbed the steps, passed through the people, and went back inside, to the heat. “I stored all the data,” I said, setting the device on the coffee table and showing them how I had saved it. “Soulwood reads higher than normal woods on all four levels, but not by much.” I swiveled the device and the screen at the bottom was now lit, showing the three sets of readings, one atop the other. A normal land reading that had been stored in the apparatus’ memory was below for comparison.

  Rick said, “Sit, people. JoJo, open a case file for us.”

  “Black girl always has to play secretary,” she griped as she pulled her multitude of braids back in a clasp, but it was now more a wearied complaint without any real heat.

  To me, Occam said, “We bought her a cape with the words ‘Super Geek’ embroidered on it. She won’t wear it.”

  JoJo bit back a smile and her fingers flew over the keys. “It wasn’t red. Shoulda been red. Or black. Not that ugly sunshine yellow. No superhero wears sunshine yellow. File’s open, boss.”

  Rick sat back, crossing one ankle over the other knee, and Paka reached over to trap the toe of his boot in her fingers. He tolerated the contact, but his face grew even tighter, as if she sucked all the life and joy out of him with the simple touch. Paka squeezed his boot toe, her eyes on his, as if demanding his attention. Rick took a slow breath, and when he let it out he looked pained but he didn’t direct his eyes to Paka.

  T. Laine was watching the exchange and she frowned, glancing at Occam, who nodded once at her. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one to notice Rick’s change and the oddness in the relationship.

  “Yesterday,” Rick said, “Knox County Sheriff’s Department received a report of a flock of radioactive geese on a radioactive pond.”

  “What does that have to do with us? And how did the info come through? And who took the report?” T. Laine asked.

  Rick inclined his head as if she had asked the important questions. “Unknown caller on a burner phone, to the sheriff’s nonemergency line.”

  “No imagination,” T. Laine said.

  Rick gave her a minute shrug of agreement. “On the surface, it has nothing to do with PsyLED. We don’t handle radioactive leaks.”

  When I looked confused, Rick explained, “Nearby nuclear power plants and government research facilities, in the past, have been known to accidentally release radioactive materials—gas or liquids. Responsibility for the releases or the cleanups were seldom accepted until said accidents reached the public’s attention. The resultant media and political blowups usually changed things. The last three times this happened, a whistle-blower used a burner phone to report the release. KEMA was quick to respond to the sheriff’s report,” Rick said.

  I typed the initials into my laptop and discovered that KEMA was the Knoxville Emergency Management Agency.

  “
The pond is about two miles away from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, once known as the Clinton Engineer Works. It’s where Uncle Sam made fuel for America’s atom bombs during World War II. It also isn’t far—as the geese fly—from one of the nuclear power plants run by the Tennessee Valley Authority to make power for the Knoxville area. It makes sense that a radioactive leak could contaminate the geese and a nearby body of water.

  “But when KEMA’s Haz Mat team showed up, the readings for traditional radioactivity were at normal levels. They assumed it was a prank, but one of the Haz Mat crew thought the geese were acting strange, and took a reading with an old-school psy-meter. It redlined. That was at two p.m. today.” Wryly he added, “It took them a few hours to work through channels and get the information to us.” Regular law enforcement agencies didn’t like turning things over to PsyLED.

  Rick opened his laptop and showed a sat map of the area. On the satellite map, the pond appeared to be on what remained of an old farm, one likely left from the time in World War II when the government moved in and displaced all the farmers, stealing their land at pennies on the dollar, then throwing them into the cold.

  “T. Laine, I want you and Nell to do human and paranormal evals at the pond and on the geese after you check in at HQ in the morning. Look for any previous, current, passive, or active magical workings or any paranormal creature that might have used the area. Nell, I’d like you to take the P 2.0 on-site and take readings. And if you will, I’d like you to . . . We need another term,” he said. “I’d like you to read the land with your gift as part of the paranormal evaluation. Your help on the last case was invaluable to its resolution, and since this is a land-based, or pond-based, event, I’d like you to see what you can determine.”

  Discomfort crawled through me. I’d be reading the land in front of the others again. I’d had to do that as a consultant on the previous case, and again at Spook School, and it was difficult. Difficult to get in the proper mind-set, difficult to reach into land that wasn’t mine. It had also been difficult to have anything to tell the Spook School people except that the earth near the school was nearly dead, which would lead to eventual desertification. They had been unhappy, and I hadn’t enjoyed it. With psysitopes in the ground, this might be even worse. But that was my job now. I said, “Okay. I can do that. Where do you want me and when?”

  “Meet us at the new building at seven. You have that address?” he asked.

  I nodded. I had been provided the location of the new PsyLED offices.

  “Second floor. Door’s unmarked. You should have the keypad code as part of HR’s packet.”

  I nodded again. This was really happening. I was going to work with Unit Eighteen. Excitement flashed through me, quickly contained. But Tandy caught my emotional spike and grinned as if he thought I was cute. Like a baby is cute when it first discovers its toes or takes its first steps. I made a face at him and he chuckled.

  The meeting devolved into chatter and catching up and somehow we ate all the Krispy Kreme donuts, one full loaf of bread, and the entire jar of preserves. Like friends. Visiting. Feeling on the verge of euphoria, I saw my guests and coworkers out the door and into the night. Outside, a low mist hung two feet off the ground, illuminated by the security light, and bats capered in the glare, chasing the few flying bugs.

  I gave and received hugs from most members of the unit, just as when they entered. It was less uncomfortable this time, but only because I kept them all brief, and barely patted Occam’s shoulder when he gave me a one-armed hug. Paka walked by without a glance, holding Pea in her arms. The little killer was sleeping.

  Tandy hung back, waiting until the others left. Occam glanced back at the empath, some quip on his lips, but he did a classic double take and stopped, let me go, and walked down the steps, his gait suggesting a deliberateness in the face of uncertainty. Odd in every way, but he didn’t look back.

  “Nell,” Tandy said, taking my hands, which was more than the empath usually did.

  “Yeees?” I said, uncertain.

  His skin held a strange pallor in the porch light, the Lichtenberg lines bright and bloodred in the night. “Whatever is broken in your land, know that I’ll help if I can. And you be careful. Okay?”

  I started to deny any problem, but Tandy released my hands and took the steps to the ground. Moments later, PsyLED Unit Eighteen was rolling down the mountain.

  TWO

  I didn’t sleep as well as I’d expected, despite the new mattress and the fresh sheets and the cats snuggled all around me. I kept replaying Tandy’s last statements to me, and measuring them against the darkness of Brother Ephraim in the earth.

  Tandy could feel more than simple emotions in mundane humans. He could resonate with witches, with vamps, and with me. I had known he could feel my land, passively but deeply, from the first moment I met him. Tandy and the werecats could sense the beauty and the magic in the earth of Soulwood. It had been startling and disconcerting that first time, but now I might have to reconsider my own communing with Soulwood. Tandy could feel the malevolence too. Or . . . he picked up my own unhappiness. Perhaps that. The disquiet kept me awake.

  A little after two a.m., I rolled over in bed, into a cold place in the sheets, awake, aware of the soft hum of the new, much bigger converter on the second story. Mindful of the cats purring in their sleep. Alert to everything. Except for those vibrations, the house was dim and silent. I slid a leg out of the sheets and down, until the toes and the ball of my left foot touched the cool wood of the floor. The flooring had been cut from the trees of Soulwood before I was born, but the wood knew me, resonated to me. I sent my awareness down through the floor, into the beams and floor joists, down the rocks of the foundation and into the soil. I sent a slow, delicate tendril of my consciousness into the earth.

  I was met with a feeling of warmth, of welcome, as if the land was awake now and waiting for me. As if it had expanded, unfolded, yawned, and reached out to welcome me. The land of my woods was deep and wide, usually a huge, slumbering entity, now stirring and wakeful. “Hey there,” I said. “Long time, no see.”

  The energies of Soulwood wrapped around me and held on, warm and gentle, powerful and content, as if it were a parent holding to a child. And, very oddly, the land felt . . . kind. I didn’t know how land could be or feel kind and welcoming, but Soulwood was. I leaned into the welcome, knowing I was protected and safe, and at long last, sleep took me.

  * * *

  Six a.m. came early. There was a time when I’d have been awake long before six, alert, sharp, my day planned out ahead of me, and already with a cup of coffee in my system. Now, with late-night guests and electricity to keep me going long into the night, I was rising closer to dawn. I was a different person, and not sure I liked all the changes, this one included. I stretched, dislodging the cats as I edged upright and turned off the cell alarm.

  It didn’t take me long to get ready for work. I didn’t wear a lot of makeup—mostly lipstick, a swish of blush, and a little eyebrow pencil. My bobbed hair needed only damp fingers with a little goop on them, rubbed through my scalp. Now that I was on active duty, the black slacks and a long, lean white shirt over a black, long-sleeved tee seemed appropriate. I added a belt to hold gear. A warm black jacket. Field boots. No heel. Easy to run in, but classy. That was the evaluation that my Spook School mentor had given of my boot choice. LaLa—more officially known as Linda Pierce—had been proud. And I looked good. Slender but tough. Capable. I clipped my badge to my belt at my waist and carried my service weapon in its oversized box under my arm, keys in the other hand. I was glad I had invested in the field boots, which were sturdy waterproof leather. Goose grease was sticky, nearly impossible to get off shoe soles, and Rick had mentioned geese where I was going.

  I shooed the cats out onto the back screened porch, into the dark. They didn’t like being out so early, and Torquil hissed his displeasure, following me to the driveway. A
s I reached the truck I said, “Watch out for the hawks and the foxes. Kill a couple of voles, okay? Kibble when I get home tonight.” Giving me a prolonged vocalization, he slid into the shadows.

  Within half an hour of waking, I pulled out of the drive onto the road to Knoxville, the address of the new offices of PsyLED Unit Eighteen entered into my cell phone’s GPS. Behind me, the woods seemed to sigh with the coming dawn, the sound of owl giving way to hawk, deer prancing across the road in front of me, a six-point buck and two does. A juvenile fox darting in front of me, skulking after the deer, eyes and hunger bigger than his size or abilities.

  I took the unlit dirt-and-gravel road down and around the low mountains, or high hills, winding my way toward the Tennessee Valley and Knoxville. Around me, the night grew lighter, a gray-on-charcoal-on-midnight tone that said day was near.

  The road merged into a two-lane blacktop tertiary county road and then into a state road. By seven, light was coming over the horizon, and I stopped at a McDonald’s for a special-order bacon, egg, and cheese on a bun. With mustard. And a coffee. I could have eaten homemade granola cereal at home. It might have been stale, but it would have been cheaper. But . . . I shook my head. I was clearly not the same person I had been.

  * * *

  The new offices of PsyLED Knoxville were on Allamena Avenue, a new road on a patch of newly developed land off Highway 62, the building ugly as only a government building can be, three stories with the two top levels set aside for PsyLED and for an eventual PsyCSI, whenever the government got around to fully funding the agency. The bottom floor was a deli and a coffee shop. There were no signs to indicate that I was at the right place, but I recognized the oversized SUV from the night before and parked near it. The second-floor lights were on. An unmarked door separated Yoshi’s Deli and Coffee’s On, with an inconspicuous keypad at the side and a very conspicuous, roving surveillance camera over the door. The security system looked high-end. PsyLED had spared little expense so far.