Spells for the Dead

by Faith Hunter

  I started down the ladder and paused with my head above the opening. FireWind padded the rest of the way to me and leaned in until we were nose to nose. He breathed in my scent. I breathed in his. “If you snort right now? I’ll be ticked.”

  FireWind’s eyes sparkled with mischievous delight, but he didn’t snort, and he was clearly back under control. He lay down atop the trail of Soulwood soil and breathed out slowly. The now-familiar silver mist rose from his fur and I went down to the barn proper. Luckily, his clothes were again in my car, in his gobag. I carried the bag and his shoes back to the barn and up the ladder. I could feel the magic tingling on my skin as I reached a hand up over my head and deposited the shoes, and then the bag, before going back down.

  In the office, Pacillo was still passed out half under the table. I really, really needed a cup of coffee. Which I was not going to get from the contaminated coffeemaker.

  * * *

  * * *

  FireWind was fully clothed and his hair rebraided when he climbed down the ladder and entered the office. He looked at me, at the camera parts, which I had placed into evidence bags, the used gloves, the laptop, my paper chart, my gobag, a half-completed chain of custody, and the potted tree. “Why are you carrying the plant?”

  “To eat bad guys.”

  FireWind shoved Pacillo all the way over and made sure he was on his side in case the man threw up. With a breath that sounded like a tired sigh, he sat across from me and dug through his gobag for his snacks. I figured that meant he was done with the plant Q and A.

  I pulled the last of my homemade protein bars out of my bag and placed them on the table between us. I wasn’t sure why, but FireWind smiled when he accepted the last fish-flake bar and the last salmon jerky strip. In return he handed me the null pens that T. Laine had woven into his dog fur. I took them all into my hands and the pain of my fingers eased a little. He glanced at the coffeemaker, reading the sign. “Contaminated?”

  “The coffeemaker, a few other things in here, the camera that was mounted directly below the dark wax that sucked you in, and the hay and water in that stall.” I pointed to the stud stall. “It’s closest to the bench upstairs.”

  “Someone put the death and decay into his feed?” FireWind asked, too softly.

  “I think so.”

  He looked away, though I had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing anything. When he looked back to me he said, “Your hands look bad.”

  “My hands are bad. Sitting in the null room with you helped, but I need time sitting with my hands and feet in Soulwood soil.”

  “Will you heal?”

  “Probably.” If I don’t become a tree first, but I didn’t say that. Half of becoming an adult, for me, had been learning when to keep my mouth shut. The other half had been learning how to shoot a gun, defend against my attackers, and say what was on my mind. I was aware of the contradictions. “The null room should be available again at dawn. I don’t really want to go in with a dead woman and a decomposing horse.”

  FireWind smiled again, leaned over, and lightly pinched my thumb, lifting my hand from the table with his index and thumb, as if inspecting something dead. “I think we can’t wait.” He dropped my hand. “Come.”

  I said, “Are you ordering me around like a dog because I ordered you around like a dog?” FireWind’s rare laughter echoed through the barn. He stood, picked up Pacillo and tossed him over a shoulder as if the man weighed nothing, and walked away. It was . . . impressive. I gathered up my things and followed. “Hey, FireWind. Do you have the scent of the creator of the death and decay?”

  “I’m not certain,” he said over Pacillo’s rump. “I have the scent of the person who placed all the death and decay–contaminated things in the barn loft. I have the scent of the person who is death and decay. I am not convinced the creator and the delivery person are one and the same.”

  I caught up with FireWind and handed him my laptop to carry. “So we have a conspiracy? Or a death and decay coven?”

  “Either one would be very bad.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The stench was not to be believed, so bad I coughed or gagged with every other breath. And that was after Ing’s body had been zipped into a cadaver pouch for quick transport to UTMC for a para postmortem, and Adrian’s Hell’s chopped-up body, which had been rolled onto a heavy-duty tarp in the pasture, was pulled out of the trailer. The decomping bodies were gone, but the air was still poisonously rank. For an hour, I sat in the enclosed space with the big boss, the bench from the loft, the puddles of dark red wax, and an unconscious Pacillo, who had a snore that rattled the null room. And the stench.

  FireWind occupied the chair beside me, his face serene, not coughing, not reacting to the stench in any way, looking through the downloaded photos on my laptop. I didn’t know how he did it, but it was annoying. And he expected me to keep working while I asphyxiated on the stench. Protective tears gathered in my eyes. My nose filled with mucus.

  “What is the time stamp on this one?” He pointed to a photo. “And who is it?”

  “Today, make that yesterday, at three a.m. Nearly twenty-four hours ago. His name is Cale Nowell, and he’s one of the band members who was also in the commune. He spent several years in jail for an accident that I believe was Stella’s fault.” I stopped and breathed through a mentholated handkerchief. It didn’t help. I checked the timeline and said, “He was present the day Stella died, but he hasn’t been seen or heard from since except here. Due to the jail time he likely spent for Stella, Occam marked him as a person of interest and sent the local deputies by his place. JoJo pinged his cell, but they can’t find him or it. No one admits to seeing or hearing from him.”

  “Cale Nowell, Donald Murray Hampstead, and Racine Alcock are the last remaining members of the original poly marriage. I’d like you and Jones to concentrate on Hampstead and Alcock. They didn’t just fall through a hole into a pocket universe. They have to be somewhere. And based on the appearance of Cale’s fingertips in these photographs”—he expanded a photo from the day of the murders—“he didn’t spend enough time in a null room. He has been affected by the death and decay.” FireWind pulled his cell and dialed HQ. To whomever answered, he said, “Issue an all-points bulletin for Cale Nowell. He is to be brought to the local law enforcement center in whatever county or city he is found, and held for questioning until I arrive.”

  A knock echoed from the door, concluding our null time. FireWind ended his call, I grabbed my gear, and the moment the big door opened, I raced outside, fell on the ground, and nearly lost the long-ago remains of my sandwich.

  FireWind walked down the ramp to the ground looking like a fashion model, his clothes unwrinkled, his hair glinting in the security lights. It was beyond unfair for a man to be so composed and unruffled. As he passed me by, he said, “You did a good job in the loft, Ingram. Thank you for not swatting me on the nose.” He disappeared into the night like something from a fantasy movie, all magic wands and smoke and mirrors.

  Occam appeared from the darkness and held out a steel mug. My heart melted. I accepted the cup, finding it contained warm lemon ginger tea. “Thank you,” I whispered to him.

  “Anything and everything for you, Nell, sugar.” Occam left me sitting on the ground in the dark, because that was my happy place. Not something any other woman would want or any other man would know. I sipped my tea from the metal mug and let the night wind and the earth beneath my body ease my discomfort. I also scooped a little soil out of the pot and called on Soulwood to help me heal. Occam hauled Pacillo back to the barn and the remains of horse and human back into the trailer. Again.

  I sipped. My innards found their places. My nausea faded. As I sat and drank, the warmth of Melody Horse Farm rose in me, rich and content. Alive. So very alive. I could come to love this land.

  Softly, something else rose in me. A yearning. A quiet craving, so
mething like desire. Desire to claim the earth beneath me. All I would need was blood. I opened my eyes, not even aware that I had closed them until now. There was a small vine tendril curled around my ankle. This land wanted to be claimed. Wanted to be fed. A battle had been fought near here in the war, blood spilled in violence and fear and hatred. The bodies had been buried in an unmarked grave. The land had accepted the sacrifice, but no one had claimed it. And that was so long ago. And now death threatened to wipe the land clean of all life. The land wanted . . .

  I peeled the vine off my ankle. I couldn’t feed this place and clearly the death and decay bodies had not been acceptable sacrifices. This wasn’t my land. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t care for it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  When I could stand, I pulled my PsyLED persona back around me like a cloak, shook my clothes in the faint wind to remove some of the stink trapped in the fibers, yanked five leaves out of my hairline and tucked them into a pocket. Satisfied that I was at least partially presentable, I went looking for Pacillo. The breeder/trainer was awake and drinking coffee from the contaminated coffeemaker. I didn’t bother to tell him he was being stupid. He had removed my note about the contamination and made coffee anyway. Occam often said, “You can’t fix stupid,” and in this case, I figured he was right. Pacillo stank of liquor, sweat, and coffee, and his hair stood up at odd angles like a punk rocker I had seen on TV. I had a feeling he didn’t even remember being in the null room.

  I sat across from him and pulled up a pic of Cale on my laptop. I asked, “You know him?”

  He blinked several times, as if trying to focus on the screen. “Cale Nowell. One of Stella’s old friends. She made him part of the roadie crew and then a backup guitarist. Haven’t seen him around much.”

  “Really? He’s been on the property.”

  Pacillo looked at up me, bleary-eyed. “Okay. So?”

  I shook my head and left the barn office. Sitting in my car, I left a message for Nowell’s probation officer, A. K. Montgomery, but it was the middle of the night and I didn’t expect him or her to get back to me right away. Shortly after that, FireWind called it a night. I found my car and followed the other cars back to Cookeville and the hotel there. We needed sleep.

  As I drove, I kept myself awake thinking about the case. For lots of reasons—mostly because it was likely he had done prison time for Stella—I had a feeling Cale Nowell might be involved, but feelings weren’t evidence and guesswork wasn’t a case. And my feelings didn’t address why a man who had given years of his life to save a lover would hire a witch to make a trigger to kill that same woman.

  And then.

  A single thought lit up my brain like a torch.

  Unless that same man came back from prison expecting that woman to be waiting for him. And she had moved on. Taken other lovers. And left him behind. Killing her by dissolving her entire body was the kind of thing a churchman might do to a wife who strayed.

  If, and that was a huge if, that man also had some kind of previously unknown magical power, would he use his power to kill that betraying woman and all her friends and lovers to get back at her?

  Oh yes. He surely might.

  Except there were two bad guys working together. And I had no idea how that fit into any scenario.

  * * *

  * * *

  The hotel room phone rang at five a.m., waking T. Laine and me. “Gaaah,” she moaned, arms flinging until she woke up enough to answer it. She said, “What. Okay. We’ll be ready in five.” She hung up the phone and said, “Get up, plant-woman, and pluck your leaves. We got a body.”

  “Of course we have a body,” I grumbled. “We always have a body.” But I rolled out of my hotel bed and stumbled to the bathroom. It took seven minutes, not five, before we were downstairs and I was still not awake. Because I was so sleepy, I rode with Occam, trying to wake up but not able to get my brain in gear. He pulled through a fast-food drive-through and I frowned at the arches, not sure what was happening until he placed a McDonald’s muffin sandwich and a cup of mocha in my hands. As I stared at the food, a peculiar warmth spread slowly through me and turned into a blush when he took the sandwich back and unwrapped it for me. It wasn’t a cat mating ritual. It wasn’t a churchman act of courting. It was simple kindness, a kindness so foreign to me that tears gathered in my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Eat. Drink the coffee,” he said as he pulled back onto the street. I ate. I drank the large coffee. By the time we turned off the Nashville highway, I was moderately awake.

  “Who’s dead?” I asked as Occam pulled onto a gravel road.

  “Cale Nowell’s car was found. FireWind said he’s dead but decomping slowly. Not fast like Stella Mae and the others.”

  “He’s male. It seems to be the females who are melting.” I frowned. “Except for the stallion.”

  “Gender-specific death working. I read your report. It’s an interesting theory.”

  “Except the stallion,” I repeated. “He was decomposing like the females. His feed and water trough were affected by death and decay, dropped from the loft. The horse was deliberately killed. Stella and her most expensive horse? Dead by the same means?”

  “We got no motive, and a suspect pool that’s going nowhere fast.” A moment later he said, “Up ahead.”

  Blue lights were flashing. Lots of blue lights. I counted five sheriff’s deputies’ cars from two counties, two city cop cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance. “Why an ambulance? He’s dead, right?” I asked.

  “That’s what I heard.”

  We weaponed up and grabbed a bin of blue spelled unis from behind the seats. No one approached us, but that was because FireWind and T. Laine pulled in front of Occam’s car and went straight to the gathering of law enforcement. We went the other way and approached the side of the road.

  A deputy was guarding the vehicle, twenty feet away, standing hipshot on the uneven ground, lit by the blue flashes. He touched his hat brim as we approached, recognizing us. “It ain’t pretty,” he said.

  “Seldom is,” Occam agreed.

  The car in question was off the road, down a slight embankment, resting against trees, the front driver’s-side panel and door dented in. I flicked on my flash and shined it in through the dirty window. Cale Nowell’s face was resting against the glass, one hand trapped in the steering wheel. His lips and fingertips were green, and he was covered in a fine, glistening green froth. “He’s decomposing,” I said. My theory about it hitting women harder might be disproven.

  “One vic,” Occam said, walking around the car, inspecting it with his flash. “No sign of other vehicle damage. Tires look okay. Deputy,” he called. “Any skid marks or debris?”

  “No. Nothing. We’re treating it as a single-vehicle accident, but it’ll be worked up as a murder-by-paranormal-means investigation as soon as all your people get here. All paras should be gathered up and shot.”

  “Ummm,” Occam said. He returned to me, where I stood on the street by his car, and said softly. “Charmin’ fella.”

  “I reckon being shot is marginally better than being burned at the stake?”

  Occam chuckled, the tone harsh, and began removing P3Es from their small bin.

  “When will the para hazmat team be here?” I asked, my eyes on Cale Nowell.

  “PsyCSI and the military PHMT will arrive here by seven a.m. Soon,” Occam said, placing our protective gear in the seat of his car. “The local LEOs brought in a drug- and bomb-sniffing dog and got no hits. We need to get our workup started.”

  I had no answer to that. I accepted the sky blue P3E and dressed out.

  Clad in one-piece P3E null unis and thick gloves, masks, and goggles, we took Geiger counter readings; performed quick tests on the air and the ground beneath the car for on-scene chemical residue; took soil and air samples; photographed the street, the ground, the trees, and the
victim inside the car; sketched the scene; and started to take fingerprints from the vehicle body and door handles to send to IAFIS, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, but there was a problem. Green goo was slimed all over the outside of the driver’s door handle. Green goo started toward the end of the dying process and after respiration was affected.

  I shined my light into the car and studied Cale’s hands, where he gripped the steering wheel. Several fingers were missing. They weren’t in his lap. I borrowed a small step stool from the fire truck. Firefighters had everything. Positioning it at the car door, I got a better angle. The fingers weren’t on the floor of the car. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with autumn’s weather change.

  “Occam?” He raised his head from the back bumper and looked back at me. “I think he got into the car after he lost fingers.”

  Occam walked to me and shined his light into the car, looking for fingers, as I had. Cale’s face was sludged against the window, sliding down as gravity exerted its power. “HPD got here within minutes of the crash. The officer sent me photos.” Occam paged through his cell. “Cale’s eyes were already whited over.” He studied the goo on the outside of the car door. “This don’t make sense.”

  “Unless he was driving after he died,” I said, too softly to be overheard.

  Occam’s scarred eyebrow went up. “Like a zombie? Ain’t no such thing as a true zombie, Nell. Just fangheads rising too early, or revenants. And Cale ain’t neither.”

  “We know humans and witches can be demon ridden. Is it possible that this body was . . . being ridden? After he was dead?”

  “Like a necromancer? Necromancers have never been proven to exist either.” Occam looked back at the man in the vehicle. “But it’s possible, I reckon. Until Marilyn Monroe was staked in the Oval Office trying to turn President Kennedy, vamps hid in the closet for near two thousand years, so yeah. Zombies and necros might be real and not sci-fi, but don’t tell that to the powers that be just yet. We’d need proof.”