What the woman wanted, I didn’t know. Was she a witch? Or was she something else?
Pain exploded through me. Shivered through me, stinging and sharp. The light/dark silk/hemp tightened. A blade sliced into me, beneath my flesh, pain that shivered up through my nerves and flesh, flaying me. I heard something cadenced. A woman’s voice. T. Laine, chanting. A working, using the energies of life and of the earth. I could see the energies of a tearing, cutting spell, a freedom spell. I had learned about spells in Spook School. Learned not to fear them, not when they were used by people I trusted. Like T. Laine. I reached for the power in the spell even as it reached for me. Words hammered me as steel cut me. The blade cutting me free was silver plated. And coated with my blood.
My blood flowed over my skin and onto the earth. The light/shadow silk/hemp saw my blood and twirled into it, where it spread on the ground.
I was ripped out of the earth and lifted into the air. “I got her. I got her. Nell. Sugar. Talk to me.”
It was Occam. I blinked at the sky. Bands of scarlet streaked across the western horizon. Sunset. It was sunset. I had been inside the earth for hours. Darkness took me.
THREE
I woke fast, struggling to sit up. Fighting. Trying to get free.
“Nell, sugar. I got you. I’m here. It’s okay. You’re fine.”
“Occam?”
“Yes, Nell, sugar. I’m here. You’re okay.”
I sobbed and realized that my face was damp with tears and snot and sweat. My short hair clinging to my skin. My heart was racing, and my chest and belly ached. Memory returned. The light-and-shadows dancing in the earth. Evolving to light/shadow-silk/hemp—concepts that almost, but not quite, described what I had seen and felt and experienced.
The blacker-than-night thing so far below, separated from everything by a membrane of . . . I didn’t know what.
But the light-shadow dancer had been trying to eat me. Or merge with me. Or become me. My heart rate spiked. I jerked upright, crying out, “Noooo!”
“Nell, sugar!”
“No!” I screamed. I forced my eyes to open. The world outside my head was murky and dim, cloudy as if a fog surrounded me. I tried again to sit up and realized I was tied to a hospital bed. “You’uns lemme up,” I shouted. “Lemme up!”
“Panic attack,” JoJo said. “Let her loose. The restraints are just making it worse now.” A voice murmured something and JoJo said, “You set her free or I’ll cut your expensive restraints myself.”
And suddenly I was unbound. I scuttle-walked on butt and heels and the pads of my hands to the head of the bed. I was gasping, crying. Sweaty with exhaustion. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly.
The lights in the room were low, medical devices attached to me, beeping, all crazily now, with my awareness. With my fight.
“Nell, sugar?” Occam. His hand was out in front of me, palm up, offering an anchor.
I slipped my hand into his. My whole body shuddered at the contact.
“You’re okay, sugar. I gotcha. I gotcha, girl.”
“You cut me free,” I gasped. “You and T. Laine.”
“Yes. You remember.”
I fell back on the mattress, the sheets wet with sweat and other bodily fluids. My heart rate and breathing steadied. Slowed. Occam’s hand was a sturdy moor, like a piton in a mountain of rock, or an anchor in a stormy sea, though I’d never seen the ocean. “I remember. I remember. I was trapped. You cut me free.”
“Yeah. About that. I’m sorry, Nell, sugar. You got some stitches. A lot of stitches.”
“You coulda cut off my arm and I’da been good with it. I was trapped.” Tears started again and Occam tightened his grip. I placed my other hand over our clasped hands and would have tightened my fingers but for the pain that ratcheted along my flesh.
“Stitches,” Occam said again.
“Oh. Ow?”
“Pretty much ‘Ow,’” he agreed.
I blinked my eyes clear and asked for water. When someone handed me a Styrofoam cup, I released Occam, drained it all at once, and took another. This one I dumped over my face. The cold felt wonderful on my flushed and sweaty skin. Pea peeked out of Occam’s shirt and darted back inside. The wereleopard chuckled at us both and someone dressed in scrubs patted my face dry with a rough towel.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“University of Tennessee Medical Center, the paranormal room of the emergency department,” Occam said.
“Why?”
“You weren’t breathing right when we got you free. Your heart rate was racing. There was the little matter of the blood. And someone had called an ambulance. Rick said to put you in it. Boss’ orders.”
“I’m not complaining,” I said, again holding his hand as if it were the only stable spot in my universe. “This ain’t the first time you cut me free from the earth. Thank you.”
“Welcome.” There was humor in his tone and I focused on his face. His blondish hair was pulled back in a tail, his eyes amber and gold, the gold of his werecat.
I was suddenly aware of the rank smell that came from my body and my state of dishabille. My nakedness beneath the thin hospital gown. I almost let go of his hand, but he said, “It’s okay, Nell, sugar.” And encircled our clasped hands with his other one, his grip tightening. I realized that I felt safe with his hands on mine.
Scrubbing my face with my shoulder, I scuffed my hair back and looked around.
“The gang’s all here,” Occam said. I nodded to the others. They looked exhausted and frightened. For me. Something lightened inside me, and I felt almost weightless for a moment as I looked from one to another. “It’s night,” he added. “Ten hours since you first touched the ground. You’ve been sick as a dog. Now you’re exhausted and dehydrated. The doctors want you to stay overnight for observation. You’re all the rage with the interns. There’ve been about twenty in and out all afternoon.”
Telling me, in a kind manner, that more and more of my secret was out. That I had magic and it was strange and unknown, as I was myself.
“Not staying here,” I said. “No way.” University of Tennessee Medical Center was a teaching hospital, and they had one of the few paranormal units and staff in the state. The state’s other two paranormal hospitals were in Nashville and clear across the state in Memphis. And their idea of observation might be a lot more invasive and personal than I was willing to undergo so soon after the Spook School examinations.
“Figured as much,” Occam said. “Your mama’s been callin’ you. Rick handled it.”
“Oh no. I gotta go. We’uns got family dinner tonight.”
“Not tonight,” he said. “You took a rain check with your family. Rick told ’em that you came down with a raging case of the flu and that the girls’ll take care of you for a few days.”
“Oh. Oh, that was a good lie. Okay. Thank you.” Feeling steadier, I let go of Occam’s hands, pinched the damp hospital gown between two fingers, and let it fall. “Ugh.” He was right. Mama would have a conniption if I showed up looking like this and then passed out face-first in my dinner.
“Tonight you’ll bunk in with JoJo. We’ll all eat and visit and you’ll tell us what happened during the hours you were tied to the earth. And we’ll inform you what we got. Boss’ orders.”
I nodded, a knot in my throat. I think I’d have been crying again if I weren’t so dehydrated.
“Soon as you sign out, we’re going to JoJo’s apartment. We’ll feed you and update you. Debrief and pizza.”
I made a noise of agreement. “Lemme call my mama, though. She’s gonna be mighty upset.”
* * *
But Mama seemed okay, and had nothing but praise for my wonderful boss and all my friends for taking care of me with my sudden influenza. Rick had lied. To my mama. And I had approved. I was sure and certain going to hell, because I followed along and told her that I had to be careful being around the little’uns and the elders, to keep them from getting sick. The flu was a bad one this year. Mama was so fine with my lie that it was almost scary and was certainly shameful of me. But the family dinner was one problem I didn’t have to deal with at the moment, and was, in the end, a lot easier to lie about than to try to explain the truth. That must be why lying is such a common sin. It’s successful and makes life easier.
Talking to Mama turned out to be much easier than getting my sweat-sticky legs into my pants. After two tries that left me weak as well water, T. Laine brought in my four-day gobag, which she had picked up from HQ, after she’d found my extra key in the fake tree. “Stupid hiding place. Obvious,” she said.
I couldn’t disagree, but said, “In my own defense, I’m glad you were able to find the extra key.” She chuckled as she helped me into an old, elastic-waist skirt and a new sweatshirt, which had both been spooled into a tight roll, the way we were taught at Spook School.
* * *
We arrived first and JoJo kicked off her shoes at the door and turned on soft lighting that made the gray, charcoal, and concrete color scheme feel warmer than it might otherwise. I don’t know what I had expected JoJo’s place to look like, maybe a Bohemian-style cottage, to match her wildly patterned clothing and eccentric personal style. The two-bedroom duplex, with sparse furniture and a sleek modern look, made me rethink everything I thought I knew about her. She had a leather couch, two upholstered chairs, an industrial metal TV stand, and bookshelves in the front room, shelves that also supported a real turntable and speakers placed for quadraphonic sound, something I had read about but never experienced. As if reading my mind, she put on some soft jazz, an instrumental that made my feet want to move. Not that I knew how to dance. Her music collection was enormous and mostly vinyl.
A table made of reclaimed wood with a metal base and six antique Shaker-style chairs sat in the dining space. There were no rugs, just spotless wood floors and a clean scent in the house that reminded me of sage.
I stood in the middle of the living area, my arms weighted down with my gear, feeling totally out of my element. I was shaking with exhaustion when JoJo took my bags from my arms and dumped all but my four-day gobag on the coffee table. She pointed me upstairs. “Come on. Let’s get you showered. It’ll make you feel better.” She shouldered my gobag.
“Are you sure? I feel kinda funny—”
“You offer me hospitality every time I come to your house.” She tossed me an exasperated look as, one-handed, she unwound her turban and let her multitude of braids down. “I’m offering you hospitality now. Kick off your boots and come on. I’ll get you situated and see that you have any toiletries you need.”
She preceded me up the stairs, her bare feet silent. This was surreal. I hadn’t showered in a stranger’s house in . . . ever. If I hadn’t been covered with dried sweat and dried blood and reeking of exhaustion, I might have declined, despite the offer of hospitality. But I stank and I was still so dehydrated that my skin felt as if I had rolled in ground glass.