by Faith Hunter
Minutes had passed. JoJo was scanning multiple files and photos and her hands were clicking and clacking all over multiple keyboards. I said, “Jo?” She grunted; I took that as permission to continue. “I wondered what I would feel if I tried to read Erica. In the hospital.”
Her hands went still. “You didn’t.”
“I did. That was part of the reason I spent so long in the null room. I didn’t get much from the read.” I described the awful, burning cold sensation when I touched Erica’s bare flesh. “I’m wondering what I’d get on a deep read on Erica’s body. And now I’m wondering what I’d get on a deep read on a dead body.”
“No. You will not do that, girl. You get me? No. People are dying,” she added, as if I hadn’t noticed.
“I’m not planning on trying it. But what if I could read who the culprit is. I’ve never read that deeply into a magical working on a human body, but I’ve followed magic through the land. What if I could track a magical working back to the originator? What if I could do it through the air, so I didn’t grow roots? What would that do to law enforcement? To a case?”
JoJo had never been able to resist a puzzle. She pulled on her left earrings, five gold hoops that dangled up the curve of the ear. “Under current law it couldn’t be used in court, and it’s possible that it could be ruled as a form of magical attack. It might also be contested as a loss of civil rights if you did that to a suspect. There would be no way to use illegally obtained evidence as part of a case.”
“But people are dying. Isn’t stopping that magical attack more important than gathering evidence for a case? If it’s a witch, the local witches would take the death witch into custody under witch law anyway, and we’d never hear from her again. Nothing we do in a death-witch case would be used for the courts. And if it isn’t a death witch, the person responsible will still never see a courtroom. Not with that kind of power at their fingertips. The person who did this will be destroyed by other means long before that can happen.”
We both fell silent. The air conditioner came on, a soft, nearly noiseless whir. Into the hush a mechanical voice said, “CLMT2207. Please provide appropriate file heading for the previous discussion.”
JoJo cursed and said, “Clementine, Jones. Preserve previous conversation under heading ‘Death Magics, Ingram, Temp File.’ Then go off-line.”
The voice-recognition program repeated the orders and went off-line.
We stared at each other. “Sometimes I hate computers,” JoJo said.
Which was a terrible lie. Even with Clementine listening in, she loved that the program had the ability to do all the cool stuff.
Jo said, “Seriously. Do not read a person until you have this convo with FireWind. I’m sending you back to the Ragel horse farm. You need to reread the land around the house to see if it’s less contaminated. FireWind left for Cookeville while you were in the null room, and we’ll have people and equipment and probably body parts in and out of here all day and night now that the null room has proven so necessary to the survival of the victims.”
“FireWind wanted two people here in HQ at all times.” I frowned at her. “You’re trying to keep me from reading the hospital patients.”
“You can thank me later.”
I frowned harder and pulled off a twisted leaf trying to open at my hairline. I stole a gesture from Mud and gave a teenager’s whatever shrug, gathered up my gobags, my vampire tree, and extra magazines, and left. On the way, I alerted my mama where I’d be, possibly overnight, and arranged with Sam to drive my sisters wherever they needed to go. I also added teaching Esther to drive to my mental Esther To-Do list, along with opening a bank account and discussions of getting a job. My list was getting quite long.
* * *
* * *
I left for Cookeville in the very late afternoon, fighting traffic, listening to my onboard computer reading the other unit members’ case notes. I learned nothing new and gained no new insights. Having learned the probie’s lessons about showing up at a crime scene without bearing gifts, I stopped at a sandwich shop and bought a half dozen varieties. I didn’t stop at the hotel to drop off my gear. Occam was at the farm, and that was where I wanted to be.
Clouds were moving in and it got dark before the sun set. I switched on my lights as the farm’s fencing came into view. Dusk pooled in deep shadows, murky darkness, lightless gloom, profound enough to hide the monsters and demons used by church folk to scare their children into obedience. Today there were very few cars blocking the road. I took the turn past the wilted flowers and showed my ID to the bored guard before continuing up to the house.
As I took the first turn, I spotted something in the tall, fall pasture grass and hit the brakes. The thing scuttled away. No. Not something. Someone, crouched, skulking. A white head dropped below the tops of the grasses and then darted off. Soul and Rick had white hair. No. They were nowhere near here; Soul was off doing director-ish things and Rick LaFleur was on a case in Chattanooga.
Pulling over, I gathered up my flashlight and my weapon, wishing for a null pen, but I had none. I sent out a group text giving my exact location and saying that I was checking out something. I slipped from the car and maneuvered between the boards of the fence, into the grass, my torso higher than the grass near the road. I moved slowly through the pasture, the leaves shushing against my pants.
The acreage had been planted at some point in a perennial natural mix of tall fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, big bluestem, and a dozen other native grasses for natural grazing. As I moved deeper into the pasture, the grass grew higher, the shadows deeper around me. For the grass to be so high, few horses had grazed it, maybe since early summer. The night breeze blew, the grass whispering. Owls called in the distance. Bats darted overhead. I had left the driveway behind.
I found an open place where a deer herd had slept at some point, the grass pressed down in circular areas as big as their bodies, like dimples of safety. I stepped around and over old horse droppings and fresh deer pellets. I startled a bird off her nest. But nothing unexpected was there. No white-headed person. There were no footprints in the soil, no hairs caught in the grass, no indication that a human had raced through here. Had the white thing I saw been the rump of a white-tailed deer? Feeling foolish, I moved in a semicircle around and back toward my car, a sudden gust at my back.
Just ahead, I spotted a sleeping horse. Not wanting to get trampled, I stamped on the ground. But the horse didn’t leap or climb to its feet. It didn’t move at all. I edged closer, parting the grass, scanning with my flashlight. The beam fell on the horse. It was dead and decomposing. Melting like wax. Its coat looked reddish brown beneath the green froth. I shined my flash all across the horse and settled the beam on its face. Beneath the green goo, the lightning blaze shone white. It was Adrian’s Hell, Stella’s stallion. I whispered an anguished, “Nooo. Oh no.”
My flash fell on its lips and tongue. They were green.
The horse wasn’t female, but it was decomposing like one.
I stood there for too long, uncertain, grieving, before I marked my location and turned away, tracing my way back to the car. I debated calling Occam, who, according to the group text reply, was interrogating riders in the barn with T. Laine. Calling him felt like a girl asking her boyfriend for help. If I wasn’t dating him, I would call my boss, so I sent a group text that I was okay, then called FireWind.
“FireWind. Ingram, is there a problem?” he answered. I realized how softly, how quietly he spoke. Much like Jane Yellowrock spoke. Maybe a Cherokee thing?
“Dead horse near my twenty,” I said, meaning near my current location. “Same symptoms as the humans. And I saw something or someone moving in the grasses, but it’s gone. Who do you want me to notify for a search?” I could almost feel him assessing my request.
“Stay put. I’m on my way.”
FireWind was coming. I remembered the sight of him st
anding, arms out at his sides, as Adrian’s Hell pranced and danced and challenged. And then slowly accepted the man. His arms around the horse’s neck as they embraced. I needed to tell him first. Not let him recognize the stallion, dead.
Moments later, FireWind appeared at my side and placed his gobag on my car hood. I holstered my weapon and stood in the dark, silent.
“Ingram?”
I cleared my throat quietly. “Something you need to know. This horse is decomposing like the female humans at UTMC and here. But he’s a he. Was a he.”
“I understand,” he said. But he didn’t. Not yet. The vision of FireWind with the horse, his stillness like part of a dance.
“He’s Stella Mae’s stallion.”
It was too dark to see my boss’ face, but his body went preternaturally still. His voice held no emotion when he spoke, but his words were too soft, too crisp. “I see.”
When he said nothing else, I turned into the grass. Together, we walked, our feet and bodies rustling the tall leaves, my flash lighting the way to the dead horse. The animal’s black mane and tail were tangled and damp. His eyes were whited over and weeping the familiar green froth. Again, my heart clenched in despair. I wasn’t sure why a dead animal was such a tragic thing when a dead human should surely have been more important. But I hadn’t responded to the dead people the way I was reacting to Adrian’s Hell, Stella Mae’s beautiful stallion. Not at all. And neither was FireWind.
He said something softly, in that language I didn’t know, the words sounding formal, grief in his tone. In English, he said, “I saw him the first day I arrived here. He was a beautiful animal.”
“Do you . . . do you want me to read Adrian’s Hell like I read the land?”
“Is that what you thought I would want? No. You are not to touch the death and decay. How do you know the name of this animal?”
I explained about Stella’s breeding plans and her hopes that this stallion would take her bloodline to major championships. I paused. “You don’t think this horse was the real target, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think. Days in and we still know little.” FireWind touched my shoulder and we backed away, my flash falling for a moment on his face. He was as distraught as I was, but in the moment the light fell on him, there was something more there too. Vengeance.
We reached my car. I turned off the flash and placed the gear on the hood. I let the big boss have a moment of introspection, his eyes closed, his face lifted as if he was smelling the slow breeze. I thought it smelled like rain and autumn. And then the wind shifted and all I smelled was the stench of death and decay. His face was grieving and reluctant and oddly full of recognition, as if he had been searching for answers and had found them. I said, “You’ve seen something like this before, haven’t you.”
He took his time to answer, lowered his head, and seemed to focus on me in the dark. “Perhaps. In a little town near the Mexican border,” he murmured.
I shifted to show I was listening.
“The town was supposedly cursed by a witch, though not a witch in the white man’s meaning.” I waited and eventually he went on, his cadence and cant dropping into that of a storyteller, slow and painstaking. “It began when four white prospectors came into town for a night of carousing and drinking. While there, they saw a girl from a local tribe, who was bringing jewelry to sell to a white store owner. They took her. Raped and beat her.
“Her name was Sonsee-array. She died several days later.” His voice was without inflection, yet carried weight and power in the soft syllables.
“The girl’s mother was a woman of power among her people, wise in the ancient ways, but willing to trust the white man’s law to deal with this murder. She went to the sheriff.”
I didn’t know what all this had to do with death and decay or a dead stallion, but I had no desire to interrupt. The quiet words drew me in.
“The sheriff laughed at her.”
I flinched at the stark words.
“The grieving mother fell into the trap of pain and grief and anger. She called to the spirits for vengeance. The spirits did not answer as she intended. They counseled peace and forgiveness. The grieving mother turned to the dark spirits instead. They answered her, whispering dark knowledge.
“At dawn three days after Sonsee-array died, the town woke to find the witch sitting inside a circle drawn with white chalk, in the middle of the town crossroads, beating a small drum. Her hair had turned stark white in the days since her tortured and dead daughter had been returned to her. Her eyes had gone white. Her hands had become lined and wrinkled as if she had aged into a crone.
“The townspeople gathered around her chalk circle. The mother, now a witch according to her tribal ways, stopped beating the drum and put her hands flat on the earth. She spoke in her native language, a chant that was bleak and despairing. Then she took her hands off the earth and began to beat on the drum again, while she spoke words the white man did not understand. She beat the drum and chanted those words all day, without stopping, over and over, beneath the hot sun, until sunset, when she stood and stepped over the circle. She walked away.
“In the circle where she had sat was a bone-handled knife with an obsidian blade. The sheriff stepped over the chalk circle and took the knife. Put it into his belt. The next morning, the sheriff fell off his horse, dead. The people of the town began to fall ill. The animals began to fall ill. Chickens, a pig and piglets, a milk cow, all died. The townspeople died. Within a week they were all dead, even the ones who tried to run away.”
I was watching FireWind’s face as he talked, his expression stark and barren.
“I found a dying man on the road to the town and from him heard of the witch and the curse she called down. I left my horse in safety and I walked into the town on the tenth day. The bodies were pools of filth and bones. Even the rats who came to eat the bodies had died.”
“Were the bodies green?”
“No. They were white, bubbling, like—” He paused, thinking of something I might relate to. “Like vinegar and baking soda.”
“So. Similar symptoms, but not exact.”
He gave a single nod and his black hair slid forward with a quiet swish. “Not exact, which is why I have not mentioned it until now.”
“When was this?”
After a too-long pause, he said, “Nineteen oh two.”
“I saw something white running in the pasture before I found Adrian’s Hell dead. At first I thought it was a white-headed human. Then I decided it was a white-tailed deer.”
“But now you question that conclusion?”
“Yes. Now I don’t know what to think.”
“I will shift to a St. Bernard and see if I can catch the scent of a human.”
“Why a St. Bernard? A bloodhound would have a better sense of smell.”
My eyes had fully adjusted to the night and I saw the flash of teeth as FireWind smiled. Amusement lightened his voice when he said, “Because of Einstein.”
“What?” I asked, startled.
“The equation E equals mc squared was suggested by that scientist. It is an equation that suggests energy and mass are interchangeable with each other, and it seems to explain skinwalker magic. The most I have ever weighed in my long life is two hundred and fifteen pounds. Therefore, I need an animal that is two hundred pounds and more in weight to shift into, but not greatly more or greatly less.” He opened several packs of stinky commercial jerky and dropped them on the ground. “Keep watch for a few minutes while I shift and then go into the house while I work.”
FireWind, my skinwalker boss, took off his shirt, folded it, and placed it on the car hood. He slipped off his shoes. Belatedly I realized he was stripping in order to change shape. There wasn’t time to drive away, so I quickly turned my back and closed my eyes. I heard the soft shush of cloth on skin and the swishing of grasses, but I d
idn’t open my eyes until long after I heard FireWind walk into the pasture. I glanced at the pile of clothes and FireWind’s shoes on the hood of my car. Oh yes. Naked.
I might be in love with a were-creature, and he and the other local weres might strip and change shape on my land three nights a month, but I had never watched. Naked human bodies were not something I ever watched.
“Yes,” I whispered to myself. “I am a prude, through and through.”
I texted the others that FireWind was shifting to search for a possible intruder and that we were both safe. From the grass came odd sounds, cracking and snapping, and then silence that went on too long. About ten minutes later, a St. Bernard dog trotted out of the pasture, a bone in his teeth. He rose up on his hind legs, dropped the bone, and nosed an empty one-day gobag near his clothes and shoes. He looked me, at the bag and clothes, and back at me.
“You want me to pack the bone and your clothes into the bag?”
The big dog gave a slow nod and dropped to all fours, gobbling up the jerky without chewing.
“You coulda put your clothes in it yourself, you know.” He didn’t respond, just kept eating jerky. I tucked the shoes into an expandable pouch on the side. Careful not to touch his undies, and feeling silly about my reactions, I packed the clothes into the bag, on top of a collection of bones, teeth, and what looked like animal claws inside, each with a drilled hole inserted with a steel ring for hanging on a necklace. The big boss carries around a stack of animal bones in his gobag.
Of course he does. He’s a skinwalker. Right. I put the bone he had carried in his teeth on top of the clothes.
FireWind looked at the house and back to me. He clearly expected me to follow his orders and go to the house.
I held up the bag. “Leave this here or at the house?”
He looked at the passenger seat of my car. And back to me. I placed the bag on the seat. “I’ll leave the door unlocked,” I said. The big dog nodded at me, trotted into the pasture with a swish of grasses, and vanished.