Flame in the Dark Read online

  “Okay. I’ll decide if I want a man and babies after I’m twenty-four.”

  I smiled. We both sipped.

  “Why’nt you’un got no Christmas tree?”

  I topped up our cups. “Well, sister mine, I’ve had no time to think about Christmas. Soon, though.”

  “You’un tell me when and I’ll help you.”

  “Deal.”

  The three mouser cats raced down the stairs and leaped on the couch to curl on top of us and around us. The house warmed. And it occurred to me that . . . that maybe Mud could live here. With me. And that maybe I could give her a small part of my land. Like a land dowry. Or something. If Daddy would ever let her move in with me.

  “You know you’un got green leaves growing out your’n fingers?”

  I held out my hand, fingers splayed. “Yep.”

  “Am I gonna grow green leaves?”

  “I have no idea, sister mine.”

  “I reckon we’ll figger it out as we go, then.”

  “I reckon,” I agreed, ideas and possibilities racing around in my brain like bumper cars, all filled with excitement and delight slamming into concern and fear. All the things that could go wrong. All the things that I might have to reveal to my family. The tree I had to corral and harness and direct. Brother Ephraim to kill. Again. And all that very soon.

  • • •

  My time with Mud was short, but I let her help me clip the foliage off my neck and away from my fingernails. She seemed to find it amusing, and giggled every time a leaf went flying. The laughter did us both good, but I was going to be late to work, and so I cut it short, gathering up my gear and herding the cats onto the back porch. Then I drove my sister back to the church compound, let her out, and watched her go inside the Nicholson house.

  Not wanting to do it, but knowing I had to, I drove to the tree, parked, and got out, wrapping my coat tightly about me, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. The sun was setting, casting a red glow on the once-upon-a-time oak and dark shadows leaning long behind it.

  The tree was no longer young and vibrant and full of life. It had dark, thick bark and abundant, swollen leaves, too thick and pliable to be a live oak or a deciduous tree. The leaves were more like the foliage of a succulent, with scarlet-lined veins that, when broken, dripped a red substance viscous as blood, gooey and oily.

  The tree had grown wildly since I had used it to heal me. It now had the girth of an old-growth tree, bigger than five men holding hands could reach around, with branches that coiled and curled. Vines sprouted from the jointure of limbs and trunk, each covered with needle-like thorns. At the base lay the remains of a cement block wall, tumbled and fallen in shattered heaps, the wall the churchmen had constructed with the hope of keeping the tree confined. They had also tried chain saws, fire, herbicides, dynamite, and a bulldozer, which the tree had eaten. It was entombed inside the mass of leaves and vines and branches somewhere, the huge behemoth buried. This one tree looked like the forest of a child’s fairy tale, one capable of burying a kingdom.

  Around its base, at the wide dripline, roots had sprouted up new growth. It looked as if the tree was trying to grow an enchanted—or cursed—forest.

  “You figured out a way to kill that thing?”

  I didn’t turn around at the sound of my brother’s voice. “Hey, Sam. My last suggestion didn’t work, I guess.”

  “Couldn’t get close enough to cut it or blow it up. Thought about throwing a stick of TNT on it and hoping for the best, but I was afraid it might throw it back at us.”

  I breathed out a laugh, a sound a wereleopard might make. Chuffing. Tilted my head to Sam. He was standing to my left, at the back of the truck. Like me, he was dressed in winter layers, his hands in his pockets. A hand-crocheted toboggan in Mama’s favorite blues was on his head. With each breath, he blew a cloud of vapor.

  “What is it, Nell?”

  I shook my head, watching him in my peripheral vision. “I need to do some thinking, brother mine. On the vampire tree. On a lot of things. When I got something to say or do, I’ll let you know.”

  Sam pressed his fists deeply into his pockets, his heavy jacket pulling down. “When that time comes, am I gonna have to hold off the pitchforks and kerosene to keep some a the church folk from burning you at the stake?”

  “Would you protect me, Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded at the simple statement. “Why did you set Benjamin on me? Why did you surprise me like that?”

  My brother shrugged. “You been gone a long time, but I still miss you, Nellie. I miss your spirit and your smart mouth. I miss the way you don’t let nothing and no one stop you from doing the right thing. Even if you’un suffer for it. Daddy, he’s been fighting the mamas for months about going to the surgeon. You’un stomped him and now he’s got an appointment.” The church-speak faded as he spoke. “The family needs you. The church needs you. We need you to lead us into the twenty-first century. Into the future. It’s that or die.” When I said nothing he added, “Church membership numbers were highest in 1954, at well over twelve hundred. Now church rolls stand at six hundred fourteen, with women leaving the church all the time. The church is dying.”

  I thought about that. Thought about the cycle of life and death. Understood that all trees die eventually. All forests. So do all civilizations, all organizations, and all churches. Maybe it was time for God’s Cloud to die, be chopped up and fed into the fire of some new church. “I’ll let you know about the tree when I figure things out.” Leaving my brother staring at the mutated oak, I walked back to my truck and drove away. Thinking that my brother was a hunter. And the hunter in him had baited a trap well with Ben Aden and with the plea to bring the church into the twenty-first century. He meant everything he’d said, in the best way possible, but he was still reasoning like a churchman.

  On the way out, I slowed and studied the place where I had told the vampire tree to move; the place where I had dropped my blood to encourage it to move. All along the fence were small growths, with dark bark and heavy, reddish-tipped engorged leaves. Some of the growths had put out vines that had begun to curl into the hurricane fencing. I had a feeling that they would grow fast, winter or no.

  I had made a bad mistake asking them to grow here. Probably had made several more mistakes. I had to decide how to fix them all. Probably like yesterday.

  • • •

  I pulled up at PsyLED headquarters on Allamena Avenue, a newish road on newly developed land off Highway 62. It was three stories of government-building ugly, with the two top levels set aside for PsyLED, and for an eventual PsyCSI, whenever the government got around to fully funding the agency. The bottom floor was Yoshi’s Deli and Coffee’s On, and I stopped for a coffee. As I entered, the girl behind the counter smiled at me and said, “The usual?”

  “Oh. Yes, please.” I watched her making me a caramel cappuccino and understood that I had, at some point in the last few weeks and months, gone through a rite of passage without even realizing it. The usual. I had a usual coffee at a coffeehouse. Unlike God’s Cloud of Glory, I had entered the twenty-first century. I was a modern-day woman. Maybe even a city girl. Knowing that didn’t help much, but it did show that things could change.

  My heart heavy and my mind full of thoughts that writhed like snakes, I carried my gear and coffee inside and up the stairs. I had a feeling that the EOD debriefing was going to be long and tedious.

  • • •

  JoJo said, “Financial update. Like everyone else with assets, the Tolliver family has money invested in the Tennessee Valley Authority. They also are heavily invested in four local small industries that make parts for weapons manufacturing companies, a video/PR/talent agency that handles the careers of several Tennessee sports icons and three big country singers, and a medical corporation called DNAKeys.” She glanced up from her tablet. “Which is where it gets
a little interesting.” She looked back at her screen, her earrings swinging. “Social media conspiracy nuts suggest that DNAKeys is holding a vampire and wolves or werewolves prisoner on the premises and is doing animal experimentation that sounds like something out of a horror movie. Multiple social media sites have shared the accusations, specifying internal sources for the charges. I’m working to track down the sources so we can interview them.

  “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.”