“The claims got so bad the company asked the Cocke County Sheriff’s Department to take a walk through the facilities eight months past. The investigators discovered no paranormal sentient beings. The detective I spoke with suggested that the conspiracy stuff could be kids or smear tactics from a political or business enemy. But basically he said no crimes were currently taking place on-site.”
“Probably a waste of time, but send the address to our cells,” Rick said. “Occam and I can check it out tonight.” He meant in cat form.
I glanced at the corner of my laptop screen as we all worked through reports and files and updated everything pertinent, checking the phase of the moon on the little icon there. The full moon was only days away. I looked up at JoJo and her tight lips indicated that she knew why the cat-boys wanted to go skulking around in cat form. Things always got kinda crazy around PsyLED in the nine days of the moon. There was a quote about moon tides for were-creatures, though I had no idea who had said it originally. It was part of were-lore. The urge to shift and to hunt waxes strong three days out, abides the three days of, and wanes three days after. Nine nights of pleasure and nine days of hell. We were getting close to the craziness.
Rick continued, “The sheriff was invited in. We haven’t been, and we don’t have probable cause to get a warrant. But we can get close enough to get a good sniff, just to rule out weres and vamps.”
“Uh-huh,” JoJo said, typing furiously. “If the sheriff missed something and you get close enough for werewolves to catch your scent, things could get dicey. I respectfully suggest that you put this plan of action on the back burner, boss.”
Rick tilted his head in a gesture that said, I hear you and I’m ignoring you. “PsyLED’s mandate is any and all crimes committed by, perpetrated on, or related to paranormal creatures. We’ll go in downwind.”
Tandy, who had been awfully silent, said, “We know that several werewolves were never captured after that recent were-taint outbreak in Asheville. Law enforcement has been working under the assumption that not all the infected persons were caught. If you go in downwind, and stay several hundred yards away, you should be okay. However, it might be smarter to send in an RVAC. And safer.”
JoJo raised her eyebrows at Tandy, shooting him a look I couldn’t interpret. But then, the two were probably in a sexual relationship, hiding it from Rick, in opposition to PsyLED standard—but not enforced—protocol, and outside of proper marriage.
Proper marriage. There was a holdover from the church teachings of my youth. These days people didn’t get married to have sex; they just went ahead and did it. And in the church they married only to have sex, in the past with underage girls. It was evil. If I dated Occam I’d be in the same situation as Tandy and Jo. Now that I was out of Spook School, dating a coworker wasn’t exactly forbidden, but it wasn’t smart either.
Rick said, “Nell, I want you to go back, again, to the Holloway home, to Justin Tolliver’s burned house, and then to the senator’s home. I want you to read the earth for two reasons. One, to specifically search for paranormal energies other than the assassin who burns things. All we have is the anomalous reading on the psy-meter 2.0 and the scorching or chemical burns to the land, and there isn’t anything in the histories or mythos that pinpoints a creature who does that. We need more to go on. Read deeper. Find us something to work with.”
I didn’t sigh, but I wanted to. Being a paranormal investigator might sound exciting on the surface, but it really wasn’t. It was a lot of repetition, of going over the same evidentiary ground (literally, in my case) over and over again. It was paperwork, rereading paperwork, comparing paperwork, and a whole lot of brainstorming and interviews. I was getting tired of going over the same ground, but that gift was why I was part of PsyLED. Rather than share my litany of complaints I repeated, “Other paranormals. Like what? Witches? Vampires? Weres?”
“Anything. Any magical signature that doesn’t belong. And then you pull night shift on the senator’s grounds.”
“Okay. If we’re done, then I’m outta here.” At Rick’s nod I grabbed my bags, taking off for my trusty rusty truck.
• • •
I ran a few errands and then started my investigation with Justin and Sonya Tolliver’s burned home, where the security guards and one lone FBI agent—not my cousin—gave me access to the grounds. It was impossible to smell anything other than the ruined house, stale water, and the heavily scorched lawn, but the trail of the assassin was clear and unquestionable, brown and burned trails through the grass. The guards had seen nothing and no one since the fire except for scaring off some kids out exploring, with beer, the night before. They had raced off before the guards could get a vehicle tag. Not that the uniforms had tried very hard to catch a few drunk kids.
I did a quick read on the dead grass and on the living lawn, with the psy-meter 2.0 and with hand-in-dirt, and texted my impressions to JoJo. I found nothing new—no weres, no witches, no vampires, no unexpected paranormal signatures. Feeling the night and the long guard duty ahead, I drove to the Holloways’ house. The ruined windows had been replaced, the crime scene tape was gone, and a neat For Sale sign was out front. Not that I blamed the family for moving.
Even without putting hands to soil, I could tell that the ground around the repaired house was dead along the trail used by the assassin. Dead under the window where he stood to fire the gun. Dead through the path to the road in back. The only advantage to an additional read was the ability and opportunity to pinpoint exactly where the shooter left the land for the road. And where he disappeared. That and the fact that here, where the overriding stench of house fire was not present, the dead grass and plants smelled very slightly scorched, more certainly a chemical burn, rather than a flame burn. The smell was odd but not definitive of species origin, not anything I could pinpoint from Spook School class, Paranormal Physiology 101 or even 202. Nothing recognizable. And the psy-meter read baseline normal. I made a mental note to get a cat nose out here to sniff around.
To avoid comments from the lone guard patrolling the grounds, I went to the edge of the lawn at the back of the property, near the stand of trees, close enough to see the dead sapling in the security lights. I placed my old pink blanket, folded, on the ground, then sat and stuck my fingers directly into the dirt at the base of an undamaged tree. I sank my consciousness lightly into the ground.
Where I found maggots. Instantly they crawled and wiggled up my fingers to my wrists.
I yanked my fingers out, shot to my feet, and danced away. My breath came fast. Tingles ran up and down my whole body. My stomach roiled and I thought I might gag.
My most fearsome maggot memory squelched under my bare foot again, as intense as the day it had happened, when I stepped into that dead possum, covered with maggots. They slimed onto my bare foot and wriggled. I had screamed and screamed.
The only other maggoty memories were vampiric in nature.
Standing a good ten feet away, I forced calm into myself with some deep breathing exercises and then forced myself to pick up my pink blanket and carry it back to the C10. I dropped the blanket into the back and sat in the cab, the heater on high, cleaning my hands with baby wipes, which I had discovered were essential to any investigation. Though the baby-scent fragrance was awful, it did help to clear my head. Rick had sent me here to check for paranormal presences. I had found one. But what if it wasn’t from a bad guy, the shooter?
When I was less panicked, I found Yummy in my contacts and punched call.
She answered with, “Well, if it isn’t Maggoty.”
More than you know, I thought. “I want to know what you or one of your pals has been doing at the Holloway house, hiding in the edge of the woods.”
There was a hard silence and I thought my cell might have dropped the call. I wanted to say, Hello? But I needed to appear strong and that one interrogative might ruin things. After a good few Mississippis, Yummy said, “You are able to detect that a Mithran has been to that house?”
“Yeah. Walking the edge of the property. Standing long enough in one spot for me to sense it. You wanna tell me what you folks have been up to out here?”
Yummy blew out a breath, one I know she didn’t need, and so it was either muscle memory, emotion, or for effect. “I policed the grounds last night, searching for the attacker, trying to sniff out if it was a Mithran.”
“And what did you smell?”
“The attacker smells neither like Mithran nor like cattle,” she said, her words precise.
It took a moment for me to understand that she meant the shooter didn’t smell like a vampire or human. Vampires drank humans, so they ended up thinking of them as food sources and pets, hence the cattle term. It was as insulting as my maggot term. I decided to ignore it. “Why do you keep asking—worrying—if the shooter is a vampire?” I heard a soft uneven tapping on Yummy’s end, like a fingernail or pen against a hard surface, as if she was thinking.
She sighed again. Definitely for effect. “A small group of Europeans carried out an attack against the Master of the City of New Orleans. There’s been a retaliatory challenge to the European emperor, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, a challenge of Sangre Duello.”
That wasn’t news, nor was it surprising that she should know so much. The surprise came because she shared it so freely. “I’m aware of that. Go on. There’s gonna be a fight.”
“We await the schedule. If Leo Pellissier loses, then all the Mithrans within the borders of the United States and Canada are at risk of extermination.”
That bit was news to me, but Yummy was on a roll, so I let her talk.
“There’ve been whispers that others of the Europeans came ashore during the attack, and found shelter and safety. Rumors that they called those they sired or bound. Mithrans have gone missing.”
“Some of yours?” Yummy didn’t reply to that one. “And you think they might come after you and Ming of Glass, to harm or kill.”
“It’s not an impossibility.”
I debated telling Yummy what we knew about the arson and the shooter. Vamps were flammable, much more so than humans, so the likelihood of the attacker being vampish was not very high. However, she had told me about the situation in New Orleans and her fears for the Knoxville area. Rick would call it quid pro quo. “For your ears only. Would it help if I told you, without question, that the attacker is not a vampire?”
“You’re so certain?”
“Yep. There’s no maggots at any of the sites except yours.”
Yummy gave a low, mocking laugh. “I’m not sure if I’m happy at the information or insulted at the comparison.”
“Whatever it is, he, she, or it burned the foliage everywhere he moved, with what reads like a chemical burn. You ever hear of a creature able to do that?”
“No. Chemicals strong enough to kill foliage might damage a Mithran’s flesh. I have access to Ming’s records. I can do a search.”