Curse on the Land

by Faith Hunter

  I walked closer, my shoes the only near sound, shushing, shushing softly. As one, the crows turned to watch me. Black beaks looking knife pointed and razor sharp. There was something about their regard that was more than simply intelligent, that was also wise and crafty, two murders and a third of tricksters, watching me. Unpredictable as lightning.

  One lifted his wings and leaned into a downward glide, off the wire, ahead of me. The others followed, still equidistant, in a floating line of seven, wings outstretched. They glided past the deputies, to my truck, and, one by one, alighted on the hood of the C10, or the roof, fluffed wings, and settled. Stared at me.

  The deputies looked from the crows to me and back. The younger one finally found his voice, and asked, “Ma’am, you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I came to a stop and peeled off the uni, stuffing it into the biohaz bin.

  “What about them?” he asked, tilting his head to the Chevy.

  “Those are crows,” I said, deliberately obtuse. I opened the truck door and got in. Closed it. One crow walked to the windshield and leaned in, toward me. He pecked there gently. Three times. Three times. Three times, with pauses between each set of three. Like in the Poe story, “Nevermore, nevermore, nevermore.” Then he flew off, and the others followed, back, I presumed, to their telephone line. I drove away, watching them in the rearview.

  * * *

  It was after midnight when I finally took the road’s last rising curve to home. It had been a long day and I needed rest, my brain needed sleep. But as I pulled into the drive, all I could think was how bedraggled my garden looked in the truck lights. Weedy, even after the attack by machete. The soil had not yet been turned over. The mulch that had been delivered while I was away at school was still in a pile. My garden had suffered from neglect. I was exhausted, but I promised my garden that I’d get up early and work in the land for a few hours in the morning.

  So tired my body felt as if it had tripled its weight, I made it to the cold, empty house, turned on lights, added wood to the stove and coaxed it alight, poured kibble into the cat bowls and onto the floor and didn’t care that I made a mess. I showered in the tepid water left after the long day with no fresh wood to heat it, added water for morning, crawled into pajamas, and fell into bed, a zombie for sure. But just as I was falling to sleep, I remembered something someone had said about a self-perpetuating energy spell. Which the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense would fight over like angry wolves, an alphabet soup of battles. Fortunately I was able to shove the errant thought aside and slide into dreams.

  * * *

  A scream slashed rents in dreams and sleep. The mouser cats leaped from slumber into acrobatics, including one backflip, off the bed and underneath it. I slapped my hand onto my Glock and racked a round into the chamber, wondering when that muscle memory had formed. Silent, I rolled from the bed to the floor, bare feet on the cold wood, and reached into the earth. Deep and deep, into the warmth and contentment that was Soulwood. There was nothing on Soulwood that didn’t belong, except two pools of blood and two carcasses of deer, one in a tree, one in a holler, near the clay-bottomed pool in back. “Ohhh,” I whispered.

  The cry screamed again, echoing down the hills and through the hollers. Enraged wereleopards. Or . . . a wereleopard in trouble? Hurt? Needing my help? I slid into a pair of slippers, walked through the lightless house, and outside. There were two wereleopards lying on the grass near the quietly turning windmill. And a naked man in my backyard, near the clothesline.

  Rick.

  Standing in a pool of moonlight, he saw me, or heard me, or maybe even scented me, when I left the back door for the porch. He crouched, his olive skin silvered pale, black hair over his legs and lower arms, much thicker than what seemed normal. The hair on his chest was clearly defined, a mat that covered his pecs and upper abs, and then tapered down into shadows. On one shoulder, four gold circles shone. I knew they were the eyes of the magical spell of binding, the only things still recognizable from the black-magic tattooed spell that kept him from shifting.

  He sniffed, his nostrils quivering, and a low growl came from his throat, guttural and rasping. He wasn’t wearing his moon music, the music spell that helped him to survive the pain of the full moon, a time when the lunar tides called his body to shift into his cat form, but his tattoos wouldn’t let his human body go, trapping him in insanity-inducing agony. I had the music on my tablet. Which I had left in the truck. Which was stupid.

  When I didn’t attack or shoot him, Rick stood upright and glided, catlike, a few feet closer. The pale light softened the harsh lines of pain on his face. His expression was shaded with brushstrokes of the night. His hair hung in a black tangled mass, nearly to his waist, far longer than normal. He was clawed like a leopard, retractile claws on fingers and toes. The eyes of his cat glowed, greenish and bright in the gloom. The four golden spheres glowed on his shoulder, the eyes of the cats in his tattoo, the scar tissue knotting them into an unrecognizable mass of blues and greens and reds. Silver moonlight caressed his shoulders and stomach and thighs, shadowing darkly, brushing each muscle, each fissure, with harsh blackness, his body chiseled and slicked with the sweat of a long, hard run. And he was erect.

  I had never seen a real, live naked man. “Ohhh,” I said again.

  I had been married. I had submitted to my wifely duties with John. But that was all under covers, in the night, a sweaty, groping unpleasantness that left me more empty than satisfied. But this . . . this was lean and muscular, raw and somehow fierce, despite the stillness of the night, and Rick’s unmoving form.

  I stepped to the porch door and pushed it open, calling, “Rick?”

  He growled again, and snarled at me, hissing, as if showing me cat canines he didn’t actually have. He raised his head and words came from his lips. “Bloody tree,” he growled, the syllables garbled and slow but recognizable. Cold shivers raced from my spine out through my limbs. As if remembering how to speak he said, faster, “Bloody, bloody, sick tree.”

  My breath unsteady, I said, “Rick?” I walked out the door, onto the winter-stunted grass, icy on my soles.

  The two watching cats rose to their feet. Slowly they paced to me. Hunting stance, eyes on prey. “Um . . . Occam? Paka?”

  Both werecats showed me their killing teeth in matching snarls.

  “Bloody, bloody,” Rick growled. “Bloody dead man sick tree.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You sense the dark thing over there?” I pointed to Brother Ephraim’s little niche and back to the place in the woods where he’d died. “And there? Underground?”

  Rick grunted. Hunched his shoulders. Raced at me. Inhumanly fast.

  In the same instant, the two wereleopards leaped. The black shadow arched for Rick. The spotted leopard leaped at me.

  The impact slammed me down. My elbow hit the ground first. My back. Head.

  Breath grunted out. Pain shuttered through me, lights flashing in my brain. My weapon spun into the shadows from nerveless fingers. The spotted leopard landed over me. I struggled, but the leopard held me still, front paws on my upper arms, one back paw on my abdomen. I managed to take a single breath and focus on the werecat.

  From only a few feet away I heard a catfight. Yowls and grunts and curses. But I didn’t look away from the cat on top of me.

  His claws were sheathed. Body held off mine, but hunched over me. His eyes glowed a brownish, bright golden yellow. His mouth was slightly open, the glint of teeth in the moonlight. We were nose to nose. I breathed. He breathed. On his breath I smelled the fresh blood and meat of his kill. I wanted to curse, but I had too little air in my lungs to do so. Seconds passed. His whiskers tickled my face. A vibration rumbled through him and into me.

  Pea peeked over his shoulder. She had been clutching the pelt on his back and shoulders, hidden in the shadows. The odd little green thing chittered at me and leaped away, into the n
ight. Her lack of interest in what Occam was doing had to mean he wasn’t about to bite me, chew me, or snack down on me.

  Occam lowered his head and nuzzled my jaw. Rubbing the silky soft pelt that covered the bones of his skull and his coarse whiskers over my face. Rubbing hard against my cheeks and jaws, neck and collarbones.

  He’s scent-marking me.

  He’s claiming me.

  Like a house cat. Or like a kill.

  I tightened in fear reaction. Occam stopped. Eased back. Stared at me. Chuffed into my face. Again nose to nose, he breathed my breath. His chest rose and fell over mine, his weight held off me. Near us, the fighting had stopped, and I heard footsteps sprinting into the woods. Then there was only silence, broken by the creak of the windmill.

  Trying for irritation and nonchalance, I said, “Occam. Get offa me, you big ol’ dang cat.”

  He chuffed again and lifted away first one leg, then another, and stepped away from me. But he lay down, belly to the ground, so close I could feel each breath he took. Could feel the heat of his body at my side.

  Cold mountain air drifted over me, and I shivered. “If I sit up, you ain’t gonna eat me, are you?”

  Occam shifted his head left and right, in a human gesture for no. It looked odd on his cat body.

  “I’m holding you to your word.” Which was useless, since he had claws and teeth and fangs and I had two bare hands and Pea was gone. I got my elbows up under me and asked, “I reckon Rick lost his music when he lost his clothes?”

  Occam dipped his head and raised it, nodding. The moonlight caught the shaded pelt colorations, lines from eyes to nose, along his jaw. Dark-as-night ear tips and eyelids. Still moving slowly, I sat up straight. “You sure are a pretty thang, ain’t ya.”

  Occam chuffed and butted my side with his head, just like a house cat demanding to be petted. I obliged. He rested his head on my thigh and sighed out a long breath. And he started purring. The vibration was so strong my bones were shaking. I smoothed the hair of his ears and along the back of his skull. I pulled on his ears gently, soothing them. Occam closed his eyes.

  “I ain’t doing this to your human self, you know,” I said. Occam chuffed again and rolled over, exposing his belly to me, like a dog. Or like a cat—testing. “Un-uh. Nope. I ain’t rubbing your belly.” I stood and looked for my gun, finding it immediately, only feet away. Occam watched me from his upside-down position as I ejected the mag and removed the round from the chamber. “I coulda shot you by accident,” I said. Occam said nothing, but he rolled back upright, stretched out in the grass like some ancient god the Egyptians mighta worshiped. He was beautiful, and I had a feeling he knew it.

  Suddenly I realized something was missing. “Your gobag. It’s gone.”

  Occam nodded.

  “Paka’s was gone too. Along with Rick’s music.”

  Occam nodded again and this time he stood, looking into the trees.

  I put together the missing gobags, Rick’s missing music, his comments about the bloody tree, and the direction of Occam’s gaze. “Oh. I have problems, don’t I?”

  Occam nodded once.

  “And my problems contributed to your problems?”

  Occam nodded again.

  “Is this the classic ‘disturbance in the force’?” The Star Wars marathon weekend at Spook School had provided me with a lot of cultural references.

  Occam snorted and tilted his big head back at me.

  “Lemme get some warm clothes on. And some gardening gear.” I dashed to the house, making it about ten feet before I realized I was acting like a rabbit. I stopped dead and looked back. Occam’s golden eyes were latched on me. But despite my prey action, Occam didn’t pounce on me. I held perfectly still until the wereleopard looked away. I let a held breath go and moved very slowly to the house. I’d been stupid. I had been taught better in Spook School. Rule number one in were-creature class was “Never run near, around, or from a were-creature. That will get you eaten.” Thank goodness Occam had better control than some weres.

  Inside, I pulled on warm outer clothes over my pajamas, added a pair of Farmer John overalls, and tied on sturdy work boots. I put my personal .32 in the bib and made sure the tab was buttoned. The mouser cats were still nowhere to be seen. Little cowards. I tucked my faded pink blanket under my arm and selected two boxes from the kitchen pantry before I left the house for the screened porch. There I piled my load and set the limb lopper on top. I went to the truck for my electronic tablet and the P 2.0. It was getting colder, and the security light illuminated my breath in small clouds.

  Carrying the supplies around the rear of the house to the concrete-floored shed beside the porch, I unlocked the door. In the dim light, I set down my load and studied the stored tools, all neatly hung on sixteen-penny nails or resting tidily on shelves. I shook frozen spiders and several years’ worth of dirt and filth out of John’s old heavy-duty canvas rucksack, tucked the tools I had already gathered into the pockets, and set aside a strong flashlight that turned night to day.

  I hefted my husband’s old chain saw. It was bulky and heavy, and it was probably unwise to use the thing in the middle of the night in the dark of the woods. I replaced it and picked up the battery-powered chain saw I had bought for myself with part of my consultation check from PsyLED. The teal-and-black, ten-pound, thirty-six-volt, lithium-ion Makita saw would have made John bust a gut laughing, but I had thought it would be fine for most of the things I did around the garden and in the woods. I removed it from the charging block and checked the chain oil reservoir, which was full. I pushed the button to turn it on. The whiny roar split the night exactly like I thought it might. Like a thousand ghosts screeching from the grave. I punched the button off and felt something move behind me. I whirled and found a spotted leopard standing in the doorway, his ears flattened and nose wrinkled in disgust. “Sorry ’bout the noise,” I said. Occam tilted his head at me and chuffed, as if he found me amusing. I placed the chain saw in the biggest pocket of the rucksack and cut the overhead light.

  I swung the rucksack to my back and palmed the flashlight. Locked the door. In the night, I stopped, feeling the wind in the trees. Hearing the call of a far-off owl. Wood smoke laced through the air, a comforting scent of home. I looked at the moon, hard and cold and bright overhead. I’d get little use of its light in the woods. Even with the trees denuded of leaves, even with the flashlight and its four thousand lumens of raw light power, it would be dark.

  Occam butted the back of my knee, as if he could smell me hesitating. Procrastinating. Being silly. Scared of the night. I firmed my resolve and sent my intent into the ground through the leather soles of my work boots. This was my woods. Whatever was out there was a trespasser. I would take back what was mine. I felt the land shift, as if my thoughts were dreams that stirred through it.

  “Okay,” I said to Occam. “Lead the way to whatever made Rick so spooked that he took off his music and his clothes.” Glancing up at me once, the spotted wereleopard paced just ahead of me. Walking sedately into the woods, I turned on the flash and followed my guide along an unfamiliar path into the woods.

  Trees big around as small houses broke the land into deep shadows and silvered leaf fall. The distant owl fell quiet. The woods were silent in that time of night after the nocturnal predators had killed and eaten their fill and before the diurnal predators had woken. Through the leather soles of my old boots, I felt a small herd of deer over toward the Peay property. Another, slightly larger, group was over toward the Vaughns’ place. Rabbits and squirrels were huddling. Rats and mice still raced and trundled along looking for foodstuffs. Two coyotes or coywolves trotted along the border of the land near the Stubbins farm.

  Ahead was the clay-lined, spring-fed pool, which was where I had already guessed we were going. Beside it was a black wereleopard, and a man who was more cat than human, crouched, drinking from the cold water. I could fee
l them through the ground as we drew near, my boots loud in the empty silence. The two drinking werecats—leopard and mostly human shaped—stopped drinking, pivoted their heads to me, and slipped soundlessly into the night.

  In the new path, my light caught a glimpse of white—a broken set of earbuds, tangled and torn. A gobag appeared a bit farther on, a woman’s skirt and comb on the ground, the fabric slashed by claws and stained by blood. I moved the light back and forth and saw Occam’s gobag in bracken. And Rick’s cell phone, the screen smashed. A few steps beyond were Rick’s clothes, in the bottom of the clay-lined pool. Soaked. The water was pinkish from blood.

  We had come this less direct way, I guessed, so I could see the state of the clothing. It looked like things had gotten out of hand—violently so.

  I stepped into the small clearing, lifting both legs high over a root that curled above a rock before it found the earth. My flash fell on the sapling.

  The small tree had regrown its limbs, slender and more delicate, but longer than before. And more of them. Four limbs. The roots were different now too. Instead of the two roots coiling together, a dozen or so twined and twisted together to form the trunk. The circular place where it was rooted was a bloody mess, empty of natural life. No vines, no leaves, just a bare and bloody-greasy patch of soil. The tree was taller, ten feet or more. Its girth was greater.

  Standing back from the sapling, I placed the flash on a boulder and used rocks to position it so its light fell on the tree. In the angle of its glare, I opened John’s rucksack and unloaded it.

  I plugged in the portable battery backup tablet and set Rick’s music playing as loudly as the tablet could. The sounds of wood flute and violin filled the wood grove, and I could feel the interest of the trees. High in the branches, a breeze danced, making a low-pitched sound that seemed to breathe with the music. I angled the tablet into the trees in the direction I felt the werecats and placed all the tools where I could see them in the glare of the flash.