The team was set up in a new hotel, not far from the old one, at Mainstay Suites. Seems they hadn’t heard about the guns and the damage. Or didn’t care.
It wasn’t quite as fancy as the suite in the other hotel, but at least it wasn’t all shot up either. Sweet Pea’s was packed with a weekend lunch crowd, so we stopped at a mom-and-pop pizza place and picked up four large pies on the way to the hotel. Pies. Not pizzas. I was learning how the unit spoke, the jargon they shared. I was beginning to think that they were pizza addicts.
The team was on the fifth floor, and had taken three rooms, the one in the middle with a large seating area for group sessions. The overpowering scent of pizza filled the suite as JoJo opened the top box and dug in while Rick passed around colas. Everyone ate in the kind of silence that was dedicated to appeasing hunger. The moment he was finished with his part of the pie, Rick dried grease off his hands and said, “Update. I’ll go first. As of three hours ago, the family of Girl Four received a ransom demand and proof of life. The money was transferred to the account in the Turks and the FBI is waiting to hear back on a recovery location. The family of Girl Two received a call that their daughter could be found in an abandoned storefront on Fletcher Luck Lane. Local LEOs and FBI went in and found the girl in the store, exactly where stated, alive and physically unharmed, if traumatized. There has been no demand for Mira Clayton.
“Crime scene techs are still at the Stubbins farm and the church compound, taking samples. Simon A. Dawson Jr., Nell’s church outcast, has not been found. Boaz Jenkins is still missing. The Stubbins family is missing, except for the boy, who’s confused and uncooperative. The feds are still questioning members of the church, but so far, it looks like no one knew any members of HST except the Dawsons, the Stubbinses, and Boaz Jenkins, and they didn’t know that they might be/were involved with HST. No one recognized any members of HST in the photo lineup identification, and no one assisted with the abductions. This leaves us with a tangled mess that makes no sense. We clearly have kidnappings for money, likely by the HST and few church members, for three of the four girls taken. We just as clearly have one kidnapping for other reasons by members of the same group.”
Factions, I thought. Maybe factions of both groups. Factions make us think one thing, and then another. Factions make it tangled.
“The farm was deserted except for a young boy, Jael Stubbins,” Rick went on, “but there had been significant gunfire at the church and plenty of time for anyone on-site to get away before he got there. Tracks in the yard suggest that a few RVs and one eighteen-wheeler were parked there for some time, and hadn’t been gone long.”
“What about all those people by the cattle trailer?” I asked.
“The trailer was a different matter. There was blood spatter there. The feds think the space had been used to keep a prisoner but the dogs went squirrelly—which seems to be a clue if Nell’s hypothesis about three times being more than coincidence. Crime scene did find a bloodied scarf that belonged to Mira Clayton, so we have our proof that HST, or a splinter group of HST and a splinter group of the church, had her at one point. I’m trying to get the scarf and samples of the blood spatter for scent comparisons, which will be much faster than waiting on DNA. They also found a shoe that matches the one Girl One was wearing when she was abducted.”
I remembered the shiny blue shoe. A girl had died. A girl had been stolen from her family. A girl had been killed. And someone, or several someones, from God’s Cloud of Glory had been involved. I had survived. I touched my belly, the odd rooty scars there hard and uneven.
Rick spread out the satellite and RVACs surveillance maps. “The Stubbins farm wasn’t part of the satellite photo reconnaissance, but by piecing together edges of the shots, we now have photos of the Stubbins farm.” He tapped the papers he had printed and taped together. “Note the RVs and the eighteen-wheeler. All now gone.”
JoJo said, “Rebel flags on this RV roof. Looks like that one has a missing AC cover. Should be easy to spot from above.”
“The feds have eyes in the sky looking for the vehicles in the hope that they stayed together in a convoy that will allow us to pick them out of traffic. So far, we have nothing. The fear is that they went to ground and/or covered the RV tops.
“Inside the Stubbins house we found evidence of people living there for some time, with enough trace to keep the techies busy for months. We found a manifesto of sorts”—he nodded at me and I gave him the book—“a treatise on how to kill paranormals with extreme prejudice, published by HST. The forward demands all nonhumans be put in concentration camps and eventually destroyed, with the exception of the ones that are ‘useful to humankind.’
“We also found a list of paranormals.” His voice went toneless, though his words were still steady. “I’ve come to understand that the CIA created a formerly top secret list of paranormals. It seems that somehow HST stole or was provided a copy of the spreadsheet and added to it. The HST list is even more comprehensive than the original. Every paranormal member of this PsyLED unit, and every paranormal creature in the nation, is on the CIA list, with contact information and personal data, including every one of us, except for Nell.” His mouth flashed me a smile that never touched his eyes. “Staying off the grid worked for the government. However, you are on the HST list, you and your sisters.”
Sudden fear gripped my throat with skeletal fingers, and tears filled my eyes. HST knew about my family. But Rick didn’t give me time to let the fear take hold.
“We at least know that HST spent a lot of time in that house, and it’s the first direct link with HST that we’ve found. Credit for that goes to you, Nell, and your idiotic foray into the compound that allowed us access to the surrounding areas, looking for suspects. The Stubbins farm was not on the list of places the FBI had been trying to get warrants for.” His tone suggested satisfaction that PsyLED had one-upped the feds. “However, if you go off again without orders, you are off this unit. Understood?” I nodded, my face flaming. Rick poured himself some cola and drank before continuing.
“One good thing came of the interviews on the church grounds. Your sister’s family has been cleared of working with HST. Their passports were part of mission trip the church was planning, to Haiti, to dig wells and teach microfarming. And share the word of God according to God’s Cloud.” The last was said with a dose of sarcasm, and I didn’t object. But a sense of relief feathered through me, alleviating my breathlessness, knowing that Caleb and Priss hadn’t been part of HST.
“But we have a time crunch. According to Mrs. Clayton,” Rick said, “Mira doesn’t have long. We still don’t know what species Mira is, and for all we know, she’s a singularity, something that made it through, or fell through, one of the liminal lines’ weak spots, the places where there’s a weakness in reality, but whatever the girl is, she’ll be dead in just hours. That brings us back to looking at Nell’s suspects, Simon A. Dawson Jr. and Boaz Jenkins.”
Rick looked at me for a moment before continuing. “According to statements made to police and FBI, and Sister Erasmus’ statement, both Dawsons were on church property, visiting with family and friends, including Boaz Jenkins and the preacher, Ernest Jackson Jr., prior to the attack on us. Dawson Sr. was found dead, full of silver shot. No one’s seen Dawson or Boaz Jenkins for forty-eight hours. We have the photos of them in the SUV at the shooting, Dawson’s rehab, and his presence on church property. All that shows they are involved with HST, but not who, exactly, among our list of possible suspects, took Mira Clayton. The involvement of the Dawsons and Jenkins in the kidnapping of Mira Clayton is circumstantial at best, and what we have now would never hold up in court. Circumstantial also won’t help us find Mira, if indeed they took her.”
I didn’t know what liminal lines were, or weak spots, though both sounded like the church’s description of entrances to hell. Now wasn’t the time for an education, however, and I didn’t ask. I said, “So, there are four kidnappings, three by one group, Mira’s by another group, probably a faction of the bigger group?” Rick nodded his head, and, encouraged, I went on. “A few churchmen are part of group two, the smaller group. And at the Stubbins farm, the two groups met, and maybe divided, leaving behind a boy who was away and a dead body?” Rick nodded again. “And we don’t know where any of them, from either group, went?”
“Remind me to let you do summations from now on,” Rick said with that tight smile.
“You said chasing suspects led you into the Stubbins farm.”
“Joshua Purdy.”
“What happened to Joshua?” I asked. “Last I saw, he was leaping through the air, right at you.”
That tight nonsmile pulled Rick’s face down into an emotion I didn’t have a name for except it wasn’t happy. “In the initial phases of the action, we had an . . . altercation. He shot a little boy, so I shot Joshua, cuffed him, and threw him in the back of a squad car. While I was applying pressure to the boy’s wound, Joshua ripped apart the cuffs, tore the door off the squad, and got away, down toward the Stubbins farm.”
My mouth hung open in front of a new slice of pizza. It stayed that way.
“The kid will be fine,” Rick said gruffly. “But I lost the one person whose questioning could tie everything together.”
I was now able to translate the expression on his face. It was loathing, for himself, for not being able to do everything right. “The boy’s life is worth more than Joshua,” I said. “We’ll catch him.”
“I don’t need platitudes,” he spat, fury crossing his face.
“I’m not offering platitudes,” I said back, just as mean. “I was speaking fact. If you want to wallow in guilt and misery, by all means have at it. But wallow later. Right now you have a job to do. So do it.”
The people in the room went still and silent, as if they’d never thought to tell Rick what he needed to hear. That was a shame. And it was something I seemed to have an unexpected talent for. That and summations.
A ghost of a smile crossed Rick’s features and his shoulders relaxed. He shook his head and scrubbed his hands through his hair before dropping them to the chair arms. “Good advice. Okay. We have files on all the known HST members, and the info hasn’t resulted in a single arrest. We have new squares, and those squares are Simon Dawson Jr., Joshua Purdy, Boaz Jenkins, and the dog scent at multiple sites. We need deep background on them all. They’re connected to HST, and we need to find how they intersect with Mira Clayton. Mira is our single paranormal taken; she’s the only abductee whose family hasn’t received a ransom demand. It’s possible that she was taken by an offshoot of HST for a reason different from the other girls. And based on the locations of the dog scent, it’s also possible that the churchmen are that offshoot.”
JoJo said, “Boaz was living on the church compound with his wives and children until two days ago, when he disappeared. He had zero intersection with society outside of the church. He had no property, no job, no friends, and no family outside of the church. His wives are clueless, but it’s presumed he’s with Joshua.”
I thought about Mary, but there was nothing I could do to help my old childhood friend.
“I want JoJo and Tandy to visit the Master of the City, Ming, at the Glass Clan Home and talk to the vamps who used to feed Dawson. See if Ming’s people showed him or told him anything about secure places where they kept blood-meals, a place he might keep an abductee. I want T. Laine and Occam in research, taking over all the intel from the feds, and paying attention to anything they’re keeping from us.”
Rick turned his full attention to me, “I want you on the church premises, talking and making nice-nice with the natives. Find out if we’re on the right track with this. Get any locations Dawson or Jenkins might have gone to family property, hunting cabins, that sort of thing, and what weapons they have. They’ll volunteer things to you, Nell, that they might not to us. You’re our ace in the hole with the church.”
I put down the pizza slice and pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling the gnarled scars. A pit opened in my middle at the thought of going back inside, but I understood the need. Until the young girls—human and not—were safe, my own lack of security was unimportant. I wondered if Mary would talk to me. If my family would. “Okay.”
He said, “Check your e-mail on your laptop periodically.”
I understood that the others would get dinged on their cells or tablets as needed, but my cell wasn’t as smart as theirs. And I needed to get the stolen cell phone I had given to Sam back to the owner. “I will.”
“Their answers might give you an idea who to talk to and what additional questions to ask. One thing,” Rick added. “How many times did you shoot the preacher, Ernest Jackson Jr.?”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Tandy sat up straight, staring at Rick. Occam growled softly. My chin went up. “I shot him four times with one of Daddy’s shotguns. Point-blank. Dead center. I reckon the FBI will want to question me. Am I gonna face charges?”
Rick leaned in, closer, into my personal space, his pretty black eyes staring into mine, his nostrils fluttering with scent. “No. Because Jackson Jr. got up from the crime scene and walked away.”
I blinked, feeling as if I was on the brink of something, like a high cliff with nothing beneath me. Possibilities flitted and stung at the back of my mind like angry hornets, but nothing settled. When I didn’t answer, Rick placed a series of crime scene photos in front of me. Three were photos of the place where I’d left Jackie lying, the blood pool looking as if a mop had been swished through it. A single set of bloody footprints raced away from the dais in the chapel. I studied the photos. No one had picked him up and carried him away. He had gotten up and run.
Jackie wasn’t dead.
No one could have survived being shot four times with a shotgun at close range. It wasn’t possible. I touched my shoulder. The recoil bruises told me it hadn’t been a nightmare. I hadn’t missed, and the gun hadn’t been loaded with foam pellets or paintballs. I said, “I only got a glimpse of him after. His blood was pooling around him on the floor. His clothes were shredded, and pulped flesh showed through. His skin was going gray. He was dead. Deader than dead.”
“Concur,” Occam said. “Bowels had released. He smelled dead.”
Rick said, “Yet he was seen running through the compound, bloodied and wild-eyed, according to some of the people questioned. Running toward the Stubbins farm. In the same direction as Joshua.”
I remembered the woods’ awareness that Jackie was running away, before Brother Ephraim died, moving faster than human. I remembered his note about the way my sisters smelled. I remembered the sense of awareness of something inhuman stalking on the far side of the new wall of thorns at the boundary of the Stubbinses’ property and mine. The sense that the darkness that was Brother Ephraim had been trying to get to that inhuman entity. The sense of something not right about Jackie. I took a slow breath, tight and painful.
Were Jackie and Ephraim inhuman? Nonhuman? I sat back, hands open and empty in my lap. Was Joshua nonhuman? The same kind of nonhuman? Joshua had gotten away from police custody, and in pretty dramatic fashion. Jackie had come back from the dead. And . . . Brother Ephraim was a shadow in my land. Were they all—
“Nell?” Rick said, and there was a demand in his tone, his body leaning in toward mine in a fashion that reminded me of him prisoning me into my chair at the FBI headquarters.
I almost flinched, until I realized that was a churchwoman response. Rick was pushing my buttons, a phrase T. Laine had used during a card game when somebody had bluffed a hand. I leaned toward him, so close my nose was nearly touching his, and asked, “Did Paka get close to Jackie’s blood? Close enough to smell if his blood smelled like Brother Ephraim’s?”
“No,” Paka said. “I am not officially PsyLED, but a consultant as you are. Pea and I were not at the crime scene.”
I looked at Occam. “How about you? Did you smell his blood?”
Occam inclined his head as if processing memories. “There was too much GSR and too much human blood scent, but . . . yeah.” His eyes were half closed, like a cat, thinking. “Something was off, now that I think about it.”
“Metallic?” I asked.
His cat eyes found mine, glowing slightly in the hotel lights. “Yeah, Nell, sugar. Like metal and acid.”
I nodded and thought of all the evidence, the odd things that didn’t fit, and the one thing that stood out most was that Dawson Sr. had been killed with silver shot. “Can you get some of Jackie’s blood to sniff?” I asked Rick. “’Cause I’m guessing he isn’t human. Like Brother Ephraim wasn’t human. And the Dawsons probably aren’t, and weren’t, human. Like maybe all of Jackie’s closest cronies aren’t human. I’m thinking this because Jackie had been biting his concubines and drinking their blood.”
The senior agent had that strange expression on his face, the one where he was putting things together, connecting disparate elements into some kind of cohesive whole. One small part of what was going on in his brain had to be the legal aspects of everything that had happened, including the part where the FBI kept trying to keep us out of the investigation and the CIA had compiled a list of paranormal names.
I said as much and added, “Or factions of the CIA too. A few people here and there, with mutual prejudices, getting together to do a particular type of evil.”
Rick flipped through the pages in the HST listing of nonhumans. “Jackie isn’t listed. Neither are any of the other men from the church.”
I said slowly something that had been percolating in the back of my mind. “If Brother Ephraim wasn’t human, then human laws and grindylow laws didn’t apply to him.”
Rick’s eyes crinkled and he tilted his head in acknowledgment, indicating that he had just come to the same conclusion as I had. If Brother Ephraim hadn’t been human, then, because he was committing violence, his death would be considered self-defense. Paka would never have been guilty of breaking any law, not a were-taint law upheld by Pea, and not any law that Rick, as a PsyLED agent, had to uphold. Neither would I, at least about Brother Ephraim.
That did, however bring to mind the curiosity that Pea hadn’t recognized the nonhuman blood of Brother Ephraim when he lay dying in the trees. Hadn’t noted the odd smell of the man’s blood. Or Joshua’s blood in Paka’s claws. Or . . . had she? She had allowed Joshua to be led away. She had given me a drop of Ephraim’s blood. An offering. What did that mean?
Rick leaned back in his seat, now holding a travel mug of coffee, the smell strong and fresh. “Presuming Jackson’s crew were a nonhuman faction, working with Dawson. Dawson Sr. was shot with silver, indicating that maybe the Dawsons aren’t human. Also suggesting that there are problems in that faction or with the part of HST that they aligned with.”
“HST would have killed Mira Clayton the moment they realized she wasn’t human,” JoJo said. “But if someone else took her—”
“Like a church faction that liked the way she smelled,” T. Laine said. The girls bumped fists and, in a synchronized motion, they pointed all four index fingers at me.
“Factions joined with factions,” JoJo said. “Just like Nell said.”
“We talked about a copycat early on,” Rick said. “But all the inconsistences make sense if a small nonhuman faction of God’s Cloud was working with HST, and then broke away from that combined group and went out on their own. First that group tried to get Nell, then kidnapped Mira Clayton, then Nell’s sister.” Rick nodded, liking the conclusion. At one time I might have called it deductive reasoning, but it looked more like instinct.
“The colonel, Jackie’s father, kidnapped vampires for blood in the past,” I said, adding to my part of the debrief. “Word came out later that Jackie had cancer and was drinking the blood for healing.”
“So taking Mira was deliberate, thinking she was a vamp?” T. Laine asked, sounding frustrated.
“No. Her social media was full of photos of her in daylight,” Rick said. “They knew she wasn’t a fanghead. But she’s nonhuman, and her blood may be even better than vamp blood.” Rick tapped a pencil on the table, little bounding taps, like a snare drum.
“Vampires can mind-bond with anyone who drinks their blood. Unless. . . . maybe if they aren’t human,” T. Laine said. “Why didn’t we pick up on that before? Churchmen were drinking vampire blood and not getting mind-bound.”
“Except Joshua,” I said. “He got addicted.”
“Which is not, technically, the same thing,” Rick said, mulling things over.
“I’ll go by the lab first thing in the morning,” he said. “I’ll sniff-test all the blood samples. And if they’ll part with small samples, I’ll bring them with me. I’ll get them to run DNA on Jackson’s blood ASAP, for nonhuman markers.” He looked at Occam. “I want you to take Nell to the compound and sniff the blood on the floor of the church building, now that other scents have cleared out.”
Occam nodded.
“We have a lot of unanswered questions,” Rick said. “Where is Jackie? Is he with Dawson? With HST or a splinter group? More important, what is Jackie?”
I might have added, And how did Brother Ephraim maintain conscious awareness after I fed his soul to the earth? I hadn’t told them what had happened to Ephraim, hadn’t shared the dark part of my magic. And because of Paka’s involvement in his death, they hadn’t asked. As if they were afraid of what might come out if they opened that particular can of worms. But . . . if Ephraim had been inhum—nonhuman, that might explain a lot.
More pieces fell into place and my mouth slowly opened. I said, “All the K-nines went squirrelly. Sam’s hunting dogs went squirrelly. And the smell of strange dogs was everywhere. Scent-marking places. Could they be non-were, shape-shifting dogs?” Rick and the others looked at me and I realized that I was the last one to reach the potential conclusion. I pressed a hand harder to my middle and added one more mental question, perhaps the most important one. What am I? What are my sisters? Because Mud, at least, is like me.
Our meeting was over moments later, and I pondered the questions all the way back home to shower and change clothes, silent as Occam drove me, his thoughts closed to me and mine to him. He seemed content to be my personal driver. Or guardian. On my lap were my laptop and a new cell phone, provided by Rick because Sam had already returned his.
At Soulwood, as Occam waited in the unit’s van, I cleaned up and dressed warmly, in layers: my last gray skirt over leggings. This time I brought a coat, gloves, and a muffler. On the way to the van, I picked up a potted plant, a batch of geraniums I had rooted, the pot protected from the weather, hidden in the walkway and still blooming. The temperatures had gone cool, and they were blooming, bright pink and white in the same pot. Mama might like it. Silent again, we made the drive back to the church grounds.
* * *
When we got a signal, I checked text messages. It felt strange to have access to such electronic things, expensive toys, just as strange as it did to be going back inside the church compound, for the second time in one day, after so long away. I was an outsider for real now. One working with the law enforcement of the United States of America, to uphold its laws, even ones I disagreed with. An outsider with electronic toys, and protected by a wereleopard.
As we reached the bottom of the mountain, the cell dinged, and it was Rick. “I just heard from the local LEOs,” he said without greeting. “Your father is out of recovery. He’s awake and doing as well as can be expected.”
Tears blurred my vision for a moment and my heart did some strange square-dancing beat before settling. I said, “Thank you. I gotta go.” I ended the call, stuffed the cell into a pocket, and wiped my eyes. Occam, without taking his eyes from the road, patted my shoulder. It was oddly and unexpectedly comforting.
* * *
Instead of churchmen at the entrance to the church grounds, there was a double line of news vans and policemen guarding the road, two marked cars blocking access. One officer pulled his car out of the way so that Occam and I could motor through, cameras following us and reporters shouting questions that we ignored. Inside the fence, police squad cars and police were everywhere, from all different law enforcement branches, uniformed, men and women in business suits, along with crime scene vans and people in white jumpsuits, all so very busy.
Avoiding them all, Occam maneuvered toward my family’s home and braked beside my truck. Occam said, “You’ll be okay, Nell, sugar. You need me when you get inside, you call. I’ll be here faster than you can blink. And I’ll text you when I leave the compound.”
I tried to think how to reply. You are too kind was too close to the formal phrase used by a churchwoman. I settled on, “Thank you. I’ll be okay,” and hoped I wasn’t telling him a lie. I got out, placing my laptop and the potted geranium in my truck cab for now, and checking to see my keys were still where I left them, under the seat. Mama opened the door before I could knock and grabbed me into a hug so tight it hurt my recently healed belly. Unaccustomed to the contact—a contact I had seemingly missed, as my vision misted again—I hugged back briefly, and then took her hands into mine as I stepped away, trying to find something to say that wouldn’t make my action a rejection. I blurted, “Daddy’s out of recovery, Mama. He’s doing okay so far.”
Mama whirled away and burst into tears. She bent over, to place one fist over her heart, and the other hand on the arm of her rocking chair before she let herself fall into the seat. Tears coursed down her face, scalding her pale flesh. Mama Grace all but flew from the kitchen and I repeated the news. And then again several more times as my full and half sibs clattered in from the children’s rooms and down the stairs, all talking and asking questions at once. I was hugged and patted and kissed on the cheek by children I didn’t know, before four of them, led by Mud, dragged me to a chair with a padded seat and pushed me into it. The din was improbably reassuring.
Mud, seeming to notice that I was reacting oddly to it all, spread a crocheted afghan over my legs and pulled a low stool to my chair, to sit beside me, holding my hand in her small one. A little boy was standing by my chair, telling me about the gunfight in the church, his words mostly unintelligible. A little girl stood beside him, and she might have been telling me the same story from her viewpoint, but I could make out only one word in three. Seemed I’d lost my affinity for understanding the speech of little’uns.
Before I was allowed to conduct any kind of business, I was plied with food—a thick slice of bread carved from one of the loaves I had brought before dawn, smeared with homemade cashew butter spiced with peppers and honey, a cup of hot tea, a sliced apple. There hadn’t been time for manners when I appeared at dawn, but there was time now, even if I didn’t want to take the time.
I ate and said my thanks and listened to the remembered babble of my childhood as I was introduced to my extended family. The little boy was Ethan and the girl was Idabel. The other names flew from my head as quickly as they were spoken. I was treated to a hymn sung by a bunch of young’uns who were no more than three feet tall, was shown embroidered samplers and newly made aprons by the girls, a newly seeded egg carton of basil by Mud, and hand-turned bowls and newel posts turned on a lathe by the boys.
As soon as seemed politely feasible, without that possible rejection I had worried about with Mama, I cleared my throat and handed my empty plate back to a middle’un. In my best church-speak, I said, “I need to talk to your mamas now. You’uns go upstairs and give us some privacy, you hear?”
When no one moved, Mama Grace said, “You heard your sister. Get on up. We’uns’ll talk shortly about what she come to say.”
The sound of retreating feet was much less enthusiastic than when they had arrived, but Nicholson young’uns were well trained and obedient. Daddy’s belt had made certain of that. Except that Mud didn’t move, a familiar mulish expression on her face, familiar because I’d felt it on my face before. Mama Grace narrowed her eyes at Mud and said, “Don’t you start that.”
Mud glowered and crossed her arms, but she stood. “It’s not fair.”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t aim to be fair. I aim to be one of the mamas. Now git.”
Our own mother sat and watched the exchange with a faint smile on her face. I wondered how they had worked out such a partnership with so many mothers in one house, so many half-related siblings. At the thought, most of my good cheer fled and I stood, setting the afghan aside and smoothing my gray skirt into place. I took the poker and shuffled the wood coals in the fireplace, adding a log. Fireplace fires weren’t as common as one might expect in the homes of the church folks. Most of the heat went out the chimney, which was a waste, and waste was a sin, but Daddy’s fireplace had been fitted with a C-shaped, passive-action steel tube grate, one that used the thermodynamic action of heated air rising to pull in cool air below burning logs and release heated air into the room, above the flames and the rising smoke. While I worked the fire, Mud stomped upstairs and the two women took seats in the rockers by the fireplace.
When the mamas were settled, Mama Grace said, “Talk, baby girl.” The words drew me further back into family, into the good memories I’d had as a child.
I sighed and pulled the soft yarn blanket back over me. “I don’t know any more about Daddy,” I said, “but I have a cell phone, and I’ll be informed as soon as possible.”
“Carmel called us hours ago on someone’s cell phone,” Mama said. “She told us that, because she isn’t legally married to Micaiah, she can’t be told his medical status,” Mama said, her lips pinched. “They’s only talking to his own mama.”
“That’s true, “I said. “One of you needs to marry him legally, and he also needs to provide you with a medical power of attorney. It’s the law.”
“The government got no right—”
I held up my hand. “Stop. I’m not here to debate the law. We got talking to do and trouble to deal with.”
That shut them both up.
“I’ve agreed to ask some questions of you and take the answers back to the federal officers. And before you can argue, you need to know that the police have connected Jackson Jr. to the Dawson backsliders to Boaz Jenkins, and through them to the organization that kidnapped the townie girls. One girl was delivered safely after the ransom was paid, two are still missing—a human and a nonhuman—and one is dead.” The two women shared a long look as I spoke.
“Simon Dawson Jr.,” Mama said with a faint huff. “That boy left the church years ago and took up with vampires, drinking vampire blood and sexing with them too. No surprise that he’d do something awful, him and them Stubbins boys. And that preacher boy has been heading for trouble for months.”
“Wait,” I said. “Simon Dawson Jr. and the Stubbins men were friends?”
“Couple of the younger men, that Nadab and Nahum Stubbins after old man Stubbins passed on. Them and Joshua Purdy and Jackson Jr. were all friends, up until the Dawson boy backslid again and left the church. Things fell apart a mite after that and Nahum left the church again, him and his son and three daughters. Broke my heart to see them all leave.”
“Today’s disgraceful troubles seem to be seated in the sin of the past. It appears that there might be a split in the church,” Mama Grace said, her tone mourning, lifting her knitting from a basket beside her chair. “A legal battle in the court of the land, over the property of the church. Evil and disgraceful,” she said. Disgraceful was Mama Grace’s favorite word.
“Jackson Jr. ain’t been right in the head in months, not since the Avrils and the Bascoms took back their girls,” Mama said. “Jackson Jr. had claimed them as concubines and there was whispers of mistreatment, though”—Mama took a breath that sounded painful—“though nothing as vile as the biting and bleeding Jackie done to Havilah and Henrietta Sanders and my own Esther.” Mama picked up a cup of coffee I hadn’t seen her pour and sipped the scalding black brew, her downcast gaze not quite hiding the tears in her eyes. I looked away in proper church etiquette, respecting the privacy of another.
“How is Esther?” I asked.
“Back home from the hospital,” Mama said. “Hurtin’ in her body and her heart. We talked about how a woman survives such things. How to live with the memories. We’ll talk some more. Micaiah will talk to her man, see he knows how to help her through. She’ll . . .” Mama firmed her lips. “Esther will survive and find joy again.” Unsaid were the words, but she’ll never be the same. Mama knew that better than some.
After an appropriate amount of silence, as according to the way churchwomen did things, Mama Grace cleared her throat. “You was asking about Jackie. Two of his wives left him. They said he was perverse and unnatural, just like his daddy done growed to be in his later years. Wanting only young’uns. Wanting more than one in his bed at a time. Disgraceful. Unnatural. Sinful.”
“Wait,” I said, catching up slowly after Mama’s revelations. “Someone took some of Jackie’s concubines away? And his wives left him too? How? Women can’t—”
“We women ain’t without power, baby girl,” Mama Grace interrupted. “Once upon a time we had as much power as the men, in our own ways and in our own responsibilities, and we women are taking back what we let slip away.”
My mouth opened in shock and stayed that way. Mama smiled slightly, and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve. “Flies,” she murmured and I closed my mouth, remembering the saying about flies getting into a mouth that was open too much.
“No longer are we letting our girls and womenfolk be punished,” Mama Grace continued, her needles clacking softly. “Enough was too much a that.”
“But let’s go back a bit and start at the beginning of the trouble,” Mama said. “Back some few years, maybe eleven or twelve, word come that Jackson Jr. got cancer.” I remembered my words to Rick earlier about the colonel’s reason for drinking vampire blood. Mama sipped her coffee, holding the cup close, shaking her head, steam rising against her face. I had never known how Mama could drink nearly boiling coffee without being blistered. It looked painful. “Jackie got better. Then he got worse.
“About the same time, the colonel got to being all secretive. Going hunting with outsiders. Making changes here on the compound, working inside the storage caves, updating the security system in the compound with cameras and suchlike. The Jacksons and the Stubbins men, especially the young ones who come back and settled down and stayed, started spending time together. Then one night, the colonel went to every one of his wives’ beds. All four of ’em. In one night. His wives said he hadn’t visited the marriage bed for some time,” Mama said.
“It continued every single night, him and all four wives.” Mama Grace’s tone said that was disgraceful too. Her voice hardened. “And sometime around then he asked for you as a fifth wife. That started a commotion, ’specially with you making such a scene in the church when he declared for you. Your mama and us, we got you to safety.”
“And with you gone,” Mama said, “and the women united against him taking a fifth wife, he went after young concubines. Took hisself four young ones by force. Too young. Sinful, evil, and disrespecting of the helpmeet.”
“That’s when we realized we churchwomen had let things go, hadn’t taken proper care of our duties to the covenant of marriage and to the sanctity of the marriage bed.” Mama Grace shook her head, her eyes on her knitting, and I could see her thinking, Disgraceful.
Mama cradled her mug. “We’d let ourselves down and now we were suffering for it. Had been suffering for it for decades. But it looked like we was too late to effect changes. The men was considering deposing the colonel.”
I felt like I was watching a Ping-Pong game, back and forth between them, letting them talk. I had to wonder how long they had kept it all dammed up inside, the way it was spewing forth. I kept my mouth shut and let them, nudging them only a little, with, “How did the colonel’s taking new concubines create factions in the church?”
“Some of the older men wanted whatever the colonel had that gave him such . . . stamina,” Mama said, “and that started dissension, as others of the men wanted him to leave their daughters alone. Groups was forming, gathering, and talking, not all together as the Scripture demands, but against church charter, one group here, another there. Church was close to splitting. Rancorous talking.”
“Jackie was well by then, but he’d become a hellion, running all over church grounds, day and night. Then one night there was an uproar on the church grounds.” The needles clicked and clacked, adding an emotional commentary to her story, sounding agitated.
“Shots fired. No churchmen hurt, except that they had to bury a body the next day. Not a church member. And not buried on consecrated ground.” Mama glanced at Mama Grace, who took up the narrative.
“We heard it was a vampire what got staked. That the colonel had been keeping him chained and drinking from him. Disgraceful,” Mama Grace said with a fierce frown. “The men called themselves together for a meeting. We’uns wasn’t there, but we heard. Some of the churchmen allowed as how they’d had a demon chained up more ’n once, and they begged forgiveness. The colonel once again stopped going to his wives and sent his concubines back home. And things settled down some, seemed better for a few years.”
“Until the colonel started getting old again,” Mama said. “And he began to remember what it had been like when he had vampire blood for the taking. That was when some a his cronies decided to steal them another demon and drink her blood.” Mama punctuated that statement by drinking down a good portion of her coffee. Neither of them seemed to want to speak for a long time, and I heard the ticking of the big grandfather clock in the hallway, a counterpoint to the rhythm of the knitting needles.
Mama Grace spoke again but her voice was low. “The Cohens had a blood drinker in the family. Everyone knew it. So the colonel locked up two of the Cohen sisters in the punishment house and made sure the vampire knew. Then they took the blood drinker. Chained her up with silver chains and had their way with her. Cruel they was, according to what we’uns heard. And they drank her blood.”
“Didn’t give her none back to drink, neither. Starved her.” Mama finished her coffee and shook her head. “But that weren’t all.” She nodded to Mama Grace to get her to take over the narrative while Mama went to the kitchen for another cup of strong brew for herself and poured one for Mama Grace, as well, adding cream to that mug, and a big spoonful of sugar. She didn’t offer me one, just as she wouldn’t have offered me cup when I was a child, and I didn’t ask. I was gripping my hands tightly in my lap and had to force myself to relax and remember to breathe.
“No. ’Twasn’t,” Mama Grace said. “Jackie continued to change after that, in ways that seemed unnatural, growing more untamed and out of control, running the woods like a wild animal, half-naked, him and some of his friends. Disgraceful, they all was. And we’uns got to thinking that maybe Jackie was sick again and he was the real reason that the colonel done took the demon prisoner, trying to heal his son with the foul blood of the undead, as he had when Jackie was young. But then the vampires and that Cherokee woman come and took the vampire prisoner away.”
They were talking about Jane Yellowrock. The vampire hunter who had started the changes in my life. I didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or hit her, next time I saw her.
“And the social services people come and took our children,” Mama Grace said. “And put some of us in jail, though we’d been doing our best to protect the little’uns. That’s when Boaz joined Jackie’s cronies, him and a few others.”
My new cell phone made a little burbling sound, announcing a text. I picked it up to read a note from Occam. Jackson’s blood smells like the dog at the Claytons’. Hard to tell what he is, but not human. Finished here. Call if you need me.
I realized that I didn’t know how to send a text, so I set the phone on the table nearest and shrugged at Mama Grace. “Newfangled thing. Not sure how to use it yet.”
Coming back from the kitchen, Mama said, “Then the colonel vanished without a trace. Some say them vampires come through your land. And they took the colonel.”
I didn’t respond, but it didn’t seem to matter. The mamas had a lot to say, and continued with the story.
“With the colonel gone and the blood supply cut off, Jackie got worse,” Mama Grace said, her wood needles clacking louder. “Pure scary. He come into our houses without knocking, frightening our little’uns, looking at our girls. We’uns had to lock our doors!”
“First time I remember that. Ever,” Mama said, placing a mug on the small table beside Mama Grace. She sat, and pushed off with her toe, sending the hand-carved chair rocking, sipping on her second cup.
Unable to help myself, I asked, “Is Jackie human?”
“Can’t say one way or another ’bout that.” Mama Grace set her knitting in her lap, took her mug, and stirred it with soft tinkling sounds of the spoon, her eyes on her cup, staring, not looking at me. “But he was shot in the confrontation in the church at devotionals today, and some say that he walked away from it whole and healthy.”
“Some say the same thing ’bout you,” Mama said, “and I know for a solid fact you’re human. First because you come from my womb, and second because we had you tested, and you are not a witch.”
I almost pressed a hand against my belly, where I’d been shot and tree roots had grown into me, but I refrained. “What do you think he is?”
“We’uns got no idea. I saw him in the sawmill on the full moon a few months past and he was human, working, plain-sawing logs, so he ain’t no were-demon.”
“Can walk in the sunlight, so he ain’t no vampire, even though he drank the demon’s blood.”
“But he’s disgraceful. Evil. Dark of soul.” Mama Grace’s voice dropped to a whisper, “Demon possessed?”
“Churchmen done separated into factions again and our own menfolk was getting ready to take him before the church and charge him with witchcraft. Such a charge would a ripped the church in two.”
They went suddenly silent. Even the rockers went motionless on the wood floors. A charge of witchcraft, according to church law, meant a trial and if convicted, burning at the stake. A frisson of fear shot through me. That was the eventual, likely punishment that would have awaited me, had I stayed here. I said softly, “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for talking to Leah and John and getting me out of here.” Things had taken a decidedly personal path, but I couldn’t begrudge myself wanting my own truth and history, though I had been sent to discover a totally different kind of truth.
“Humph,” Mama Grace said. “That’s women’s jobs.”
“We’uns know our responsibilities, and we knew the colonel was evil.”
Mama Grace tittered and picked up her knitting again. “That was the best thing to happen to that old coot in years, when you stood up and told him no and called him names.”
“In front of the whole church.” Mama laughed softly with her sister-wife and they exchanged knowing glances.
“Losing you to Ingram, him unable to give you babies,” Mama Grace said, “was painful. But he promised to keep you safe. And he kept his word.”
Staring into the flames, I shook my head. I had cleaved to John Ingram for saving me, when it had been my family all along. I had lived a lie. Knowing the truth was letting me see things inside me, emotions all snarled around, like the pot-bound roots of a captive plant, growing around and around, seeking an outlet when none was there. I took a breath that hurt, where the tree roots had entered, and imagined that I could feel them stirring inside me.
“We got a decade of catching up to do,” Mama said.
“And we need to find you a man,” Mama Grace said. “A good man in the church, one who can give you some young’uns.”
My head came up fast, a denial on my lips, but Mama beat me to it. “Nell’s a big girl. Iffen she wants a man, she can get her own, I’m thinking.”
I chuckled, the sound forced and stiff, but at least polite. I said, “Thank you, Mama Grace, but I’m not the marrying kind anymore. I’ve been on my own too long.” Mama Grace frowned at her knitting, but she didn’t argue.
“And now I have to talk about something else, if you have the time.” Both women nodded, and I led the topic back to the PsyLED interests. “I need to know more about the Dawsons’ recent visit, the elder one and the younger one. Did either man spend any time on the compound? With or without Jackie?”
“They wasn’t here but a day, maybe two,” Mama Grace said. “Him and his daddy and Jackson spent some time in the winter storage cave.”
Mama said, “You know Simon was addicted to vampire blood?” I nodded. “Living off church grounds, consorting with evil. Then he done something to make them vampires mad. They cut him off.”
“He come to the church for help.” Needles clacking, Mama Grace nodded to herself. “But that was after the vampire was rescued by the Cherokee woman, and by then, wasn’t no vampire blood to be had, not around the church.”
Mama’s voice dropping, she said, “As evil as drinking blood is, if he’d a come to the Nicholsons’, I like to think we would have helped him with his addiction. Found him a rehab facility somewhere.”
Mama Grace seemed to think about that for a moment before agreeing. “Yes. That would a been the Christian thing to do. You’re right, Sister Cora. You have a dependable moral compass and a good head on your shoulders. You should marry Micaiah according to the laws of the land. You or Sister Carmel.”
Mama’s eyebrows went up so high her forehead turned into furrows. The two women chatted back and forth about marrying under the law of the land and who should do it and why. I sat and listened. At one point, I left them to their chat and made a fresh pot of coffee in the big percolator on the kitchen’s woodstove. I served us all when it was ready, trying to figure out what I needed to do next, what questions I needed to ask, when my cell rang. I retook my rocker and fumbled, hearing the strange, modern chime in the Nicholson house, then answered it. “Yes?”
“Nell? Rick. I have news about your father.”
My heart plummeted and gave a painful electric splutter when it hit bottom. I tried to keep my reaction off my face, but the mamas were too good at reading body language. Mama Grace set down her needles. Mama placed her mug on a side table and gripped the arms of the rocking chair. “Okay,” I said. “How’s Daddy?”
“I’m at the hospital now. He’s awake. He’s asking for you. Can you talk?”
“Me? Ummm. Sure?” I mouthed to them, Daddy wants to talk to me.
The wives dropped everything and were suddenly kneeling at my rocking chair. It felt wrong to have them at my feet. Worse, Mama Grace was crying big tears like a broken faucet. I covered the end of the cell and whispered, “He’s better.” And he had to be, didn’t he, for him to be talking on a phone?
I heard a change in the background noise, and then Daddy said, “Nell? These PsyLED police. You trust ’em?” His voice sounded scratchy and rough and weak, but it was enough to produce a relieved smile. I nodded at the two women.
“Daddy. Yes, I trust ’em. You can trust Rick. You okay?”
“What about Occam? The were-de . . . the wereleopard. You trust him?”
“Yes. And he ain’t no demon,” I said firmly, in church-speak.
Daddy laughed, but the sound cut off sharply as if the laughter had startled pain through him. When he started again, he sounded weaker and shaky. “If the police ain’t found it yet, tell Sam to take you to the room at the back of the winter supply cave. Tell him I said to show you and the PsyLED police everything about it. Tell him to go armed in case something is back there again. And tell him I said, ‘Gog and Magog.’ He’ll do what you say.”
“Okay, Daddy. Mama Cora and Mama Grace are here. Will you talk to them? Daddy? Daddy?” That odd background muffled noise came again and Rick said, “The nurse gave him morphine and it just hit him. He’s out of it, Nell. But your father was remarkably talkative.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, anger blazing up like fire. “You questioned my daddy when he was drugged?”
“And without reading him his rights or offering him a lawyer. Meaning that anything he said is inadmissible in any court in the nation.” Rick sounded entirely too pleased with himself.
My anger was snuffed out as quickly as it flared up. “You did that to protect him and the Nicholsons and me. Didn’t you?”
Rick didn’t reply to my question, saying instead, “Occam and I are on our way back to the church again. Tell your brother to hold his fire, okay? Gog and Magog sound dangerous.”
I laughed, the sound as shaky as Daddy’s voice had been. “Okay. See you soon.” I ended the call and said, “They gave Daddy morphine and he’s out cold again. But he told me to tell Sam to tell me everything about a room in the back of the winter supply cave. And to tell him, ‘Gog and Magog.’”
Mama and Mama Grace looked at each other and stood together. Mama took Grace’s hands and they bowed their heads. “Lord,” Mama prayed. “Give us strength for the coming battles. Help us remain true to You and to Your Word. Amen.”
“I’ll send Amos and Rufus for the other families,” Mama Grace said. “You get Sam and I’ll get the middle’uns started on the weapons. ‘Gog and Magog.’ Dear Jesus, I never thought it would come to this. Disgraceful.”
“Wait here, baby girl,” Mama said. “I’ll get Sam.” Then Mama did something I had never expected in a million years. She reached into the basket of darning beside her rocker and pulled out a cell phone. It was an old-fashioned model, a flip phone, and she punched in a number. Stunned, all my senses alert, I heard Sam answer. Mama pressed the cell to her ear, cutting off his part of the conversation, and said, “Micaiah said, ‘Gog and Magog,’ to your sister Nell, and he gave her orders. Mama Grace is sending Amos and Rufus to get the others. You get here fast.” She paused and said, “Yes. He’s letting Nell and the PsyLED police run things.” Another pause followed, and Mama’s voice took on steel. “Gog and Magog, boy. Get moving.” And she closed the cell phone.
Meanwhile Mama Grace had made several quick calls on her own cell phone and then she shouted for the children to “Get down here, all a you’uns! It’s Gog and Magog!” She turned to me. “We’re taking back the church leadership. And the land. And if we have to fight to make it happen, we’re ready.”