Spells for the Dead

by Faith Hunter

  FIFTEEN

  I pressed my cell to autocall HQ.

  JoJo answered with my last name, telling me that FireWind was close by. “Ingram.”

  “Yeah. I’m possibly being tailed. A blue short-bed Chevy pickup, older model, the kind with the wheel wells outside the bed. It’s been restored or well cared for. High shine, new paint. Fancy chrome wheels. Nothing too splashy, and in this town, not particularly noticeable.” I gave her the street names of the crossroads I was approaching.

  FireWind said, “Keep your pace slow. Save energy for a sprint.”

  “Right.” I slowed, not letting panic push me, realizing only then that I was breathing too fast. I slowed my breathing, deeper, the cadence steady. “The truck’s been traveling to my left. Aaaaaand yep, there it is, crossing one street over and just behind me.”

  A wry note in his voice, FireWind asked, “Jones. Can you follow her real-time?”

  He was asking Jo if she could hack into security and traffic cams. She hesitated only a moment before she said, “I have programs for some camera systems. Others not so much. Are you authorizing their use?”

  “Yes.”

  “Accessing traffic cameras,” JoJo said, her voice toneless.

  “I’m on my way, Ingram,” he said. “Are you armed?”

  “Yes. Affirmative,” I corrected. “But there’re civilians everywhere.”

  I heard doors opening and closing way faster than humans could do it. Over the earbuds, I heard nothing after that, no feet running, but FireWind moved silent as the wind, so I didn’t really expect to. “Ingram, can you see the driver?” he asked.

  “Negative. Haven’t been able to see the license plate either.”

  “Jones?”

  “Negative. Not yet.” The sound of tapping was rapid-fire over the comms.

  At the next crossing I said, “The Chevy isn’t there. Oh. Wait. I think it’s in front of me, stopped at the light.” The light changed green. “I think—” I remembered my earlier thought. Drive-by . . .

  I was in danger. Not passive hazard like on the case, but being chased. As I had been all my life. I was under attack. Instinctively, I knew there was no greenery anywhere, no bare earth for me to stand my ground. My heart sped. Something stirred deep inside me. Soulwood . . .

  My magic was rising. My leaves sprouted. Rustled.

  “I have you on camera,” JoJo said.

  “I see you ahead,” FireWind said, his words without strain, his breathing even.

  “There’s a coffee shop half a block to your right, Ingram. It has a back door,” Jo said. “See it?”

  “Yes.”

  Ahead of me, the blue truck revved its engine. Sped forward.

  There were people on the streets. I had a weapon, but if the driver shot at me, there could be collateral damage. A mother and child there. An old lady there.

  No ground. No earth.

  “Run!” FireWind commanded. “Get into the building.”

  I dashed into a sprint and threw open the door of the coffee shop. Glanced back.

  The truck turned sharply across traffic. Accelerating.

  Heading directly at me. Fast.

  It wasn’t trailing me for a drive-by. It was trying to ram me. I had nowhere else to go.

  I screamed, “Car! Get back!”

  Grabbed people at the table nearest the door. Shoved hard.

  “Get back get back get back!” Racing. Jumping over the bar, sliding across it.

  I dropped behind the bar, slamming into three baristas ahead of me. “Go!”

  The truck crashed through the glass front. Engine roaring.

  Glass panes shattered, shooting inward like rounded pellets and small slivered knives. Skimming across my arm, back, neck.

  My blood splattered on the wall, a thin trace. Everything slowed. In an instant, my bloodlust rose. Soulwood reached out to me. Need flooded through my body as if a dam had broken, jagged want tearing through me like a flood. Hunger . . . Soulwood knew my blood had been spilled. It wanted to be fed with the blood of my enemies.

  The truck hit the bar. Shattering wood, plastic, glass. Coffee exploded from bags everywhere. I shoved off the bar top. Dived along the narrow bar alley. The bar and the truck hit the back wall. Missed me by inches. Bottles of flavorings crashed down.

  The truck came to a stop, the engine still racing, shoving at the debris and the narrow space where I had landed on top of the baristas. One was bleeding.

  Need. Want. I reached out to touch the blood, the woman.

  “Ingram!” FireWind shouted.

  I jerked back. Swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth. Curled my fists and hugged myself. No, I thought, shoving down the bloodlust. No. No. The need receded. “I’m okay!” I shouted to my boss, breathless. “Three women and I are on the far end of the bar. No one is crushed against the wall.”

  The bodies beneath me began to move, struggling to free themselves from the pile. I reached up and caught the bar, lifting myself so they could crawl from beneath me. So that I wasn’t touching them.

  “Clear the site!” FireWind said, suddenly inside, his long black hair wild and windblown. “We have a melter.”

  A melter. A dead person inside the truck who was melting. Contaminated by the death and decay. Yet who had been driving a truck. Like Cale Nowell.

  * * *

  * * *

  “It was a 1967 Chevy short-bed,” JoJo said to the gathered members of Unit Eighteen. “One owner, bought new. Brett Hudgins, sixty-nine years of age, five-seven, two-forty, retired farmer, widowed in 2010. No relation to Stella Mae Ragel, to the poly marriage, or to the band. No relation to the church. No relation to anyone. The owner was a deacon in his church, tithed regularly, didn’t drink or smoke. According to his son, he went into town this morning to look over a new saddle for his granddaughter’s birthday. He didn’t show up for lunch and didn’t answer his phone. His son activated tracking on his cell and discovered it on the side street half a block from HQ. He had just called police to check it out when he saw it start to move on his cell. He tracked the chase virtually.” Jo looked up at me. “He says there’s no way his dad was responsible for the attack. He says someone did something to his father to make it happen.”

  “I believe that,” I said.

  T. Laine nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Yet he attacked Ingram,” FireWind said. “When did the truck park there? How did a dead man know she was in the building? How did he see with dead eyes?”

  “He arrived and parked at eleven-oh-two,” Jo said, “according to nearby cameras. Nell was the first person to leave the building after that.”

  “It may have been opportunity and not a specific target,” FireWind said.

  I wasn’t sure if that made any difference to me. I was still picking pebbled safety glass and sharp shards of bottle glass out of my hair, clothes, and shoes. I had myriad cuts (none requiring stitches) and a few bruises. I was bloody and sticky. Horribly sticky. I smelled like sugar and caramel and hazelnut, splattered by the crashing flavoring bottles. But my bloodlust had gone silent at the sight of the dead melting man behind the truck windows.

  I realized that my bloodlust had not risen at all on this case until now, when I was exposed to the blood of a healthy human. Soulwood didn’t want death and decay bodies. Soulwood knew they were . . . unclean. That was a religious-sounding word, a church word, but it felt right here. They were fundamentally unclean. They didn’t belong here or anywhere. They were wrong.

  “There were four injured, including Nell, one seriously,” Jo said. “If Nell hadn’t shoved people out of the way it could have been much worse.”

  “Yes. You did well to get so many patrons away from the door,” FireWind said.

  “I’d have done even better if there had been time to find a good place to hide. One without a storefront, g
lass, or civilians,” I said, bitter guilt in the words for the woman with the broken leg and no insurance. “He was targeting me, whether by opportunity or personal intent. I led him straight to them.” Not that I had had other options. I hadn’t known until too late that he was going to crash into the store. I had thought he just intended to shoot me, not take out others too. None of us had been thinking worst-case scenario. None of us had thought that far ahead.

  FireWind said, “You did as you were instructed. You followed orders.”

  I scowled at him. “Following orders without thinking is stupid.”

  JoJo grinned. T. Laine gave a quiet snort. The hallway door blew open.

  Occam, who had been on the road for the last ninety minutes trying to get here, practically flew down the hallway and into the conference room, cat-smooth, cat-fast, his eyes glowing yellow. He dropped beside my chair and ran his hands over me, barely touching. It was too fast, too much like a churchman claiming, and I tensed. Fought off a flinch. Slammed down on fear. Knowing he was searching for wounds, for broken bones, for blood. Knowing it wasn’t sexual or demanding but his own worry in tactile form. Knowing that but still reacting.

  Suddenly he stopped. Eased his hands back. Occam’s eyes met mine and he swallowed hard, breathed, fighting his own battle, as I fought mine. “I’m sorry, Nell. Sorry I wasn’t there for you, to protect you. You okay?”

  I saw FireWind from the corner of my eye, watching the public display. He was frowning. I caught my breath, needing to remind Occam where we were, and calm his cat. “Special Agent Occam, I’m fine. Unit Eighteen gave me exceptional backup and kept me safe.” I pushed him away with one finger and pointed to the chair beside me. “Have a seat and you can watch.”

  Occam blinked once, slow, and when he opened his eyes, the cat-gold was less bright. He swiveled to the chair and sat. “Occam present,” he said, and gave the time.

  “Jones,” FireWind said in a long-suffering tone, “put up the first footage.” Above us, in the conference room, the security camera footage appeared. “This is the moment you saw the vehicle was headed toward you. Note his increase in speed. Note the woman with the baby in a sling just in front of you. Note the elderly woman with the cane behind you. Had you stopped, tried to run in any other direction, these three people would likely have been in the path of the truck. You entered the building under orders because none of us expected him to use the truck as a weapon, not until he corrected his angle for your position and attempted to ram you. Next footage, please,” he said.

  The angle of the view of the street changed, this camera showing only shades of gray, a grainy, indistinct view of the street, taking us back to before I entered the coffee shop. I was on the sidewalk. Running. A hand was visible at the lower corner, as if someone was reaching for me. I saw the woman with the baby.

  Occam was breathing harder, faster, as if he ran with me. He reached over and took my hand and I didn’t pull away. We were getting close to the full moon. He needed contact. JoJo must have realized that too because the music created by an air witch to control or ease were-creature shape changes began to play softly through the speakers.

  “Next,” FireWind said.

  The next footage showed me dashing into the coffee shop. On the street, twenty feet ahead of me were the mother and child. Behind me hobbled the woman with a cane. Before me and after me were more people who would have been killed had I not turned in to the store. The final footage was inside the coffee shop. I saw me grabbing people in each hand and yanking them out of their chairs, my mouth open, shouting, my face furious, urgent, screaming. Me sliding across the bar, shoving the baristas farther along the way.

  Well, kicking one woman with both feet, which I did not remember doing. But she ended up on the floor and so had been safe.

  There were several still shots of me with my face contorted. I knew when I saw them that I had been in the midst of fighting bloodlust. I had won that battle and kept my magic at bay, which should have made me happy. Except that it was more likely that the presence of death and decay had more effect than my own will. The footage played again, slower.

  The woman with the broken leg had been on the way to the restroom and when I ran through the door shouting for people to get out of the way, she had stopped and looked around for the problem. Typical civilian. Once upon a time I might have done the same thing. Instead I followed orders and kept people alive. I blew out a breath that puffed my cheeks.

  I met FireWind’s eyes. “Thank you. And thank you, Jo, for picking a place.”

  “My pleasure, Ingram,” and “Anytime, country hick chick,” were spoken at the same moment, overlapping. FireWind said, “Let’s continue with Nell and me clearing the coffee shop and the arrival of the local police, ambulances, and later, the arrival of the local witches.”

  The footage showed us clearing the coffee shop, FireWind lifting the woman with the broken leg and carrying her out back. Me making calls. Local PD and medic units arriving. A fire truck, in case the revving truck caught on fire.

  T. Laine said, “Since no local coven leaders have been answering or returning my calls, and with the North Nashville coven so busy shielding multiple sites, I did an end run. I contacted Wendy Cornwall, one of the local witches who helped close the hellmouth. She got Theresa Anderson-Kentner, Suzanne Richardson-White, and Barbara Traywick Hasebe to help her, which gave us four witches. With the long-distance advice of Astrid Grainger, they managed, barely, to contain and shield the death and decay in the truck and not let it spread.”

  FireWind said, “This why we need more covens on a consultation basis. You are wearing yourself too thin.” When Lainie stiffened, FireWind said, calm lacing his words, “It was not a complaint, Kent. It was an observation. I do not want you to fall apart. You are too important to PsyLED, to this unit, and to me.”

  T. Laine blinked several times as if it took time for her to process his words. As if to cover her reaction, she said, “I headed back as fast as lights and sirens let me, but I was still ninety minutes getting to the coffee shop. Astrid talked Wendy through a new working that Astrid and her coven have been testing the last few days. It was moderately successful.” On the screen, I saw the local witches we had worked with in the past. The local covens had been resistant to working with PsyLED for a long time, but the recent misfortunes had driven some of them closer to T. Laine, close enough for them to trust her and work with her even when the coven leaders were recalcitrant.

  “The circle they set up in the debris and the working that followed was enough to shield the decay of the man in the truck, and the truck itself,” FireWind said. “His body is now undergoing a postmortem examination inside the portable null room purchased yesterday from the North Nashville coven by UTMC.”

  “They bought it?” T. Laine said, startled.

  “Yes,” FireWind said. “It will be outfitted for first responders and can be transported off-site for emergency use at scenes.”

  He shifted to me. “Nell, Dr. Gomez asked after you. The forensic pathologist with a minor in paranormal medicine?” he said, reminding me who she was. “I have the impression she wants to examine you.”

  “Yeah. Probably looking forward to examining me on her autopsy table someday.”

  Occam, still too close to his cat, went all catty-still and I realized I shouldn’t have said that. I patted his hand where it gripped the chair arm hard enough to stretch the fake leather.

  FireWind tilted his head for me to continue, but I shook my head. I had been a patient at UTMC a few times before I stopped letting Unit Eighteen take me there when injured. The paranormal doctors became way too interested in me when they realized I wasn’t human and wasn’t anything they had seen before. I figured that patient confidentiality only went so far when a doctor was feeling nosy, and that Gomez had gotten into my records despite HIPAA.

  “I got something,” JoJo said, interrupting us. “
I got a name change,” she said, excitement in her voice. “Elizabeth Racine Alcock changed her name legally after she left the commune. She took the name Cadence Blue Thompkins. I show a new birth certificate, new IDs, new everything. She married four years ago and took her husband’s name, which changed it yet again. No wonder it’s been so hard to track her.

  “She’s now Cadence Blue Thompkins Merriweather. She lives in Kingston, halfway between Knoxville and Cookeville. Her husband is a conservative businessman.” Her fingers flew, her lips pursed, and Unit Eighteen looked suddenly revived. “A CEO of a large, politically active, financially successful company that makes . . .” Jo leaned in and read, “Ball bearings, sleeves, flanges, and thrust bearings, whatever they are, in bronze, copper, brass, iron, sintered products—again with the ‘whatever they are’—self-lubricated bushings and wearplate. I have no idea what most of that stuff is, but it makes them a lot of money. The couple are movers and shakers.”

  “Dollars to donuts says her new husband doesn’t know about the commune years,” Occam said, sounding more his human self.

  “If she changed her name there might be real good reasons why,” T. Laine said. “Privacy reasons.”

  Jo said, “I’ve tracked the name change paperwork . . .” Tapping on the keyboard increased in speed. “She was born in Florida, Union County. And that leads me to check the Florida system aaaand . . . Yes! She has a juvie record under the name Elizabeth R. Alcock. Sealed. Hang on.” Her fingers flew. Files appeared on the screen and were just as quickly removed. “Yeah. Got you. She came from the middle of bumfu—fart nowhere. Family on welfare and food stamps.” She typed furiously, files flashing onto the screens.

  “About six months before she was remanded into the system, there was a death in the area. A schoolteacher was shot and killed. Aaaaand yes, she was in his classes. Looks like someone tried to hush up reports that some of the kids had been abused.”