Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

The cells dinged again, this time from JoJo’s personal cell. It read, If your cells were any closer they’d be making cell-babies. I hate to say stop, because I really hope you two are getting busy, loud and long and satisfying, but I need you at HQ. Both of you. Days off canceled.

Occam pulled me to my feet, still cat-strong, though not so flexible as before the fire. That part of his were-taint abilities hadn’t been affected by the instinctive and peculiar healing I had managed the night he was burned and had died, and my up-line boss nearly so—the night I’d hauled them back from the claws of death. Occam might look a mess yet, he might move slower than before, but he was getting better, bit by bit, every time he shifted into his spotted leopard. That was a natural part of the were-taint gift. I helped where I could, when he shifted on my land, drawing on the power of Soulwood, feeding him the way I did the land when it was injured. If I could see his scarring, see what he needed, maybe I could help more or better. But Occam was stubborn about me seeing the scars on his body. Which was why my secret wish on the shooting star had not yet been fulfilled. Dang cat.

“Gear up,” he said. “I’ll drive.”

“And that means I’ll have no form of transportation back here in the morning.”

“‘At sounds about right.”

I hid a smile in the darkness and let him lead me to my own front porch. And wondered if sounding about right meant he intended to pick up where we left off.

? ? ?

We walked into HQ together, Occam at my six, protecting me or heading me like a cat after prey. I didn’t know. Didn’t rightly care. I’d learned at Spook School that the most experienced fighter/shooter always came last. If an enemy was waiting and attacked the first person in line, then the man at six was able to take the bad guy out. If the most experienced is at point and is ambushed, then the bad guy will likely get the second person in line too. Perfect logic.

Second in command of PsyLED Unit Eighteen, Special Agent Josephine Anna Jones—JoJo—met us at the top of the stairs. She was supposed to be writing the final summation report on a possible sighting of a devil dog in the hills east of Knoxville, but from her expression, this call-out was more than that. She said, “Where’s Mud?”

It was a strange question. “She’s spending the night with Esther and Jedidiah.”

“Jedidiah Whisnut, right? She safe with him?”

Safe was important. The men of God’s Cloud of Glory Church, a polygamous cult from which I had escaped, weren’t known to protect women. My sister Mud was twelve. That was close enough to make her prey to some of them. “She’s good.”

“Better be. You two are making a run. Rick sent a text and needs … hell, I don’t know. Backup? Help in some nonlethal situation? Kent’s gathering Rick’s four-day bag, backup weapon, extra key fob, and extra cell. I’ll text you the coordinates.”

T. Laine was visible at the end of the hallway, loaded down with gear.

JoJo, scarlet skirts swaying, whirled and rushed back along the hallway, part of the full moon and leopard tattoo on her neck catching the overhead lights, her turban glistening. There were gold and silver threads woven through the fabric. JoJo did not dress by PsyLED dress codes, and so far no one had told her she had to comply.

“Rick’s in trouble?” Occam asked as we weaponed up.

JoJo shouted back, “He didn’t send a nine-nine-nine, so I’m assuming he’s ruined his clothes and gear. Went for a swim. Something. But he texted from an old, outdated cell number, and now I can’t get through to it. So wear your vests. Just in case.”

Code-999 was for officer down, urgent help needed. No 999 meant things weren’t dire. Request for his gobag and gear? Yeah, that sounded like he fell in the river.

“Specifics?” Occam asked, seeming irritated that he was having to ask for details.

JoJo read from her screen, shouting down the hallway. “‘Need pickup. Weapon. Gobag. Cell. Car fob. ASAP. Send Occam and Nell.’”

T. Laine said, “Rick’s bag, packed with backup weapon, extra official cell, charger, car fob, shoes, and a change of clothing, as ordered.” She tossed Rick’s gobag at Occam and he caught the bag with catty reflexes, though still not as fast as once before. “Move it, CC.”

CC stood for Crispy Critter, which was the term emergency crews and law enforcement used for burned bodies in a very hot fire. It was not a nice thing to say. It was also the exact thing Occam needed to hear—a reminder that his team knew he was disfigured, ugly, as far as social standards went, but still considered capable. Still part of the team. “Jo and I’ve got comms,” the resident witch added. “I was heading out, but I’ll stay over until we know what’s happened. I’ll update you on the way.”

Occam and I left the gear we didn’t need and headed back down the stairs to his sporty car, putting on comms systems as we went, our own one-day gobags over our shoulders. Occam used only one earbud, because the ear cartilage on the damaged side of his face hadn’t regrown. Yet.

“You copy?” Lainie asked over the earbuds.

“Receiving loud and clear,” Occam said as he started his car.

“Receiving,” I said. “I just plugged in the coordinates and Rick is on the bank of the Tennessee River in the middle of the night?”

“Nothing about the request or the destination makes sense,” T. Laine said. “And the request for backup came in over a nonsecured number, that old flip phone he keeps in a gobag in the glovebox of his car.”

“No other details?” Occam asked. “Grindys?”

“Not a one. No info on the grindys. I’m still trying to get back through. No luck.”

Grindylows were cute, neon green, kitten-sized were-creature killers. They appeared when a were-creature was in danger of transmitting the were-taint and killed the offending were-creature with extreme prejudice, no recourse, no appeal.

As the newest official special agent in PsyLED Unit Eighteen, and the one who had spent six months as part of a forest, on the injured and disabled list, I seldom was allowed to leave the office, my job these days being predominantly database searches and intel correlation. Excitement skittered along my nerve endings like ants in an electric current.

? ? ?

We made good time, most of the streets and pikes being fairly deserted at this hour, but finding a lone man outside of Knoxville proper, on the banks of a river that twisted and turned like the track of a snake, was difficult. Rick’s GPS coordinates were on a tongue of land between the confluence of the French Broad and the Holston rivers, where they merged to become the Tennessee River. We drove slowly along Riverside Drive, poorly lit, totally deserted, watching for Rick. Not knowing what we’d find. I normally would love a drive along tree-lined country roads, under a night sky, watching the stars and a metor shower, but I didn’t like this one. The things we were told to bring along suggested that Rick had a problem, and anytime a wereleopard had a problem it was dangerous.

“Dial his old cell number,” Occam said.

Rick had acquired a new cell number while I was a tree. Something about a problem in New Orleans, involving Jane Yellowrock, one of his exes. No one seemed to know what had happened between them, but Rick had kept the old number and the old cell. A way for Jane to reach him if she ever wanted. Rick’s love life was as broken and emotionally maimed as his psyche.

A lot had happened while I was out of commission. I had been back at work only three weeks and I was still getting accustomed to the changes. Rick answered, sounding out of breath and wary at the same time. “I see your lights. Pull over to the right,” he said. Satellite maps showed that the right side of the road was pasture or field, and beyond that was the Tennessee River. Occam braked onto the grassy verge.

A hundred feet ahead, Rick appeared in the darkness, a thin orange blanket printed with black puppy paws wrapped around his middle. His silver and black hair caught the light, too long, flying in the breeze, his face scruffy, signs of a recent shift.

His chest was bare, the headlights giving me a glimpse of the ruined, scarred tattoos across one shoulder and scars from wounds that should have killed him. A lot of scars, especially for a were-creature.

Long after the blood-magic tattoos had been applied, Rick had been infected by the were-taint, bitten by one black wereleopard, then chewed on and tortured by werewolves, and then spelled by Paka, a second black wereleopard. All that in a matter of months, which had affected the magic of the were-taint, leaving him unable to shift until the last seven or eight moon cycles.

Rick had been a were-creature only a few years, and in that time had been dragged through hell and back. Lately he had been looking what I called antsy—twitchy and agitated. Tonight that was multiplied times ten. Magic rolled off him, making the air itself seem to spark as he moved, balanced and cat-like, toward the car.

Beside me, Occam hissed in a slow breath, picking up the sizzling energy that Rick was throwing off. He gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather covering squeak softly.

“Rick doesn’t look entirely in control,” I said quietly. “Why isn’t Pea or Bean here?”