Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(42)

“Your nose ain’t any better than a human’s, Nell, sugar.”

I shrugged and passed the zip bag back.

Rick said to Occam, “If you get a chance to read the senator’s house, I want you to sniff around. In case there are paras passing as human living there too.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna go over real good with the Secret Service. ‘Hey, you, Texas boy werecat,’” Occam said in a passable nasal Jersey accent. “‘What da hell you doin’ sniffin’ da senator’s laundry?’”

Rick didn’t laugh. “Don’t get caught. Nell’s right. If Sonya really is a paranormal, and still in the closet, then we might have an intra-or interspecies war brewing. The senator is working for pro-paranormal legislation. We need to keep him safe. And if someone in his family is paranormal and he knew it and didn’t reveal it to the Senate Ethics Committee—”

“He could lose his position, which would hurt paranormals everywhere. It’s to our benefit to keep him alive and healthy. Got it, boss.” Occam winked at me and walked away.

I looked back and forth between the two werecats, absorbing the possible ramifications of the senator’s family having a paranormal. In the middle of an internal or external war. Or launching a war. Or . . . Or I was too tired to think. I turned on the truck and the heater, and went home. Somehow I made it home alive, which meant Mama musta been praying for me because I’m sure I slept the whole way.

? ? ?

It was three p.m. when I woke to the sound of banging. I half fell out of bed, grabbed my shotgun, and stumbled to the front of the house, where I spotted Mud through the window, on the front porch, no coat, arms crossed over her chest, and three cats weaving around her legs. I put the gun away, located my service weapon hanging in its holster and shoulder rig on a kitchen chair, to make sure they were secure, and opened the door. The cats ran in, silent, twitchy, irritated. I’d left them out all day. “Mud?”

“You’uns need a dog.”

“A dog,” I said, feeling as if I’d missed something.

“To bark. To tell you’un when company’s here.” She looked at me as if I was stupid.

“I had dogs . . .” I stopped. The churchmen had killed my dogs, leaving the dead bodies on my front porch, about where Mud was standing. If I looked closely at the grain, I could still see the blood. Was Mud too young to know that? I decided not. “The churchmen killed them as a warning that I had to come back to the church and marry in.” When she only frowned at me and hunched her shoulders harder, I asked, “Why are you here without a coat? And how did you get here?” I leaned out to verify that there was no car in the drive, no dust hanging in the air. “What happened?”

“I walked over the hill. It’s gotta be some ten miles,” she hyperbolized. “And your’n tree happened,” she said.

She had to be talking about the vampire tree. The one that used to be an oak. When I got shot the tree had access to my blood and recognized my imminent death. The oak had healed me. Had changed me somehow. And my blood had changed it, making it . . . something more. Something scary.

“It killed another dog,” Mud said, leaning in toward me, pugnacious, truculent. Truculent was one of Daddy’s words. “It was a puppy,” Mud shouted. Tears gathered in her eyes, welled up, and spilled over, down her cheeks. “One a the Jenkinses’ puppies. Mama said I could have it. And your’n tree killed it!” She screeched the last two words. Tears splashed on her dress.

And . . . I realized her hair was up. Bunned up. High on her head. Like a woman grown.

“Ohhh,” I whispered. “Oh no.” I held the door wide and Mud rushed inside. I stared out into the glare of day. My mind blank. Empty.

Mud had started her menstrual cycle today. That was the only reason she would have her hair up. According to the way the church used to be run, that meant Mud was now old enough to enter the marriage market. Mud was only twelve. Had the church changed enough that she would be safe? Were the church elders still marrying off young girls in what was legally and morally statutory rape? Would Daddy say no? Defend her? Daddy was sick. What if he died? Who would protect the young Nicholson girls?

Moving woodenly, I closed the door. Followed Mud into the house, my feet icy on the wood floor. I put wood in the firebox, on top of a few glowing coals. Put on water to heat for tea. Wrapped an afghan and a warm blanket around Mud on the couch and tucked it in tight on her legs. Gave her one of John’s old handkerchiefs. It was soft and neatly folded, frayed around the edges. She blew her nose, honking like a goose. I almost reached out and touched her bun, the way I might touch a thorn that could prick me. Jerked my hand back and raced to my room, threw on clothes. Trying to think. Trying to figure out what to say. What to do. The tree. The puppy. Mud with her hair bunned up.

I pulled on wool socks. For the first time in forever, I put my hand on the wood of the floor and said a prayer, to God, this time. Not to Soulwood. Asking for wisdom. Trees, no matter how ancient, weren’t good with words. Maybe the Divine would be better.





SEVEN




I sat on the couch next to Mud. Pulled the blanket over my feet. Caught a glimpse of my fingernails. I had leaves growing out of the tips. I curled my fingers under. I had read the earth a lot lately. It had been two days since I’d clipped my leaves. I reached back to my hairline at my nape and encountered the peculiar sensation and shape of leaves sprouting there too. They were small yet. I could hide them. For a short while.