Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

I expanded my criteria. On the personal side, Unit Eighteen needed to talk to old girlfriends, like Jane Yellowrock and Paka, and recent enemies, like members of the Party of African Weres and the president of the International Association of Weres, Raymond Micheika. Rick and Jane Yellowrock had made a lot of people mad while I was busy being a tree, and Jane had instigated legal action to keep Raymond out of the United States. The Dark Queen had taken possession of some African werelion cubs when the pride alphas died. She hadn’t given them back to Micheika.

Rick was, in effect, the second-ranking were-creature in the country, both as Jane’s beta and by being a part of Clan Yellowrock. He had come to that position in the Party of African Weres through some arcane machinations by Jane. What any of us knew about that situation was limited, and there was nothing in the databases detailing how his promotion came about. Rick was also chief cat over a leap of black wereleopards somewhere in Africa. Rick was, or could be, politically powerful. His cat was cat-dominance-powerful.

But …

I stopped. My thoughts were treading off in a dangerous direction. I had an in with Jane’s business partners. Admittedly, I hadn’t talked to them in a long time, seeing as how trees were seldom verbal. Instead of a phone call, I sent a text to Yellowrock Securities. That seemed easier, though it may have been social reluctance, aka cowardice.

I hauled my thoughts back to things I could delve into tonight—all those situations and cases. They made Rick a target to bad guys and government spooks alike. In one criminal investigation recently, there had been indications that someone in the CIA had been passing along classified info to a para-hating homegrown terrorist group. He or she had to be high up, maybe an overseer, as no busywork agent would have had access to all the info. The responsible person or people at the CIA had never been identified, and so they were still out there, and they might still be unhappy with Rick and other paras guarding Secret City. But since hunting federal agents would require a higher security clearance than a probie had, I passed the overseer concept up to JoJo, who could use her hacking skills to find out more than I could. I’d have to concentrate on criminals.

A short time later I had lists for all the people Rick had arrested, human and otherwise: either out on bail, on parole, still incarcerated, or having served their full sentences and released from incarceration. Most were easy to locate and I started a search to verify the location of each one. I made a call to find that the witches were still being held in witch jail—null rooms run by witches. They were accounted for. I made a note for JoJo to check out the vampire. A significant number of the case notes on the Mithran were redacted, showing that even this was over my pay grade.

I needed to also consider any NOLA and local vampires Rick might have irritated.

There were hints that Rick was related to a very important vampire Blood Master, perhaps Katie Fonteneau, the Master of the City of Atlanta. Katie’s enemies might be Rick’s enemies, and if the circles were indeed targeting Rick, that would go a long way to explaining the maggoty feeling at the circles. But all I had so far were questions and not very good questions either. I kept coming back to Tandy’s suggestion that I talk to Rick.

I tracked the waning arc of the moon on a lunar calendar on the Internet. It wouldn’t set until afternoon but Rick was no longer in pain, and back in his office. Margot was in the break room. It was as if the episode in the dark of the night had never happened. But I still remembered the pained moans of my boss as a spell reached him. In the null room. Where no spell should reach. Ever.

I was finished at five, before sunrise, and I could have left, but I didn’t, pecking out my summation report, blaming my dawdling on not wanting to wake Mud. But I knew that I was waiting for the day shift to arrive. Occam in particular, since I was determined to be honest with myself. I didn’t have anything to tell him, but I just wanted to … see him. It was an attitude I’d noted in the church while growing up, women or men loitering in a place they had no real reason to be, until someone else showed up. It was courting behavior. I wasn’t sure I liked seeing that emotionally needy part of myself, but there it was. I was waiting on Occam.

Minutes ticked by, the sky graying. I watched as Margot and Rick left. Together. Of course, Margot didn’t have a car here, having arrived with Rick, so maybe that made sense. A grindy sat on Rick’s shoulder, the neon green cute-as-a-button killer nuzzling his shoulder. The boss looked tired, dark circles under his eyes, sweat stains on his shirt, and his hair hanging lank. Fighting turning had been hard on him. Being in the null room was hard too, the antimagic in the walls twisting all other magic into knots and making it unworkable—except for the summoning that had been trying to force him into his cat. If not for the music spell, Rick would have gone catty and fled.

T. Laine leaned out and watched as they left, coming to my cubicle as they disappeared and the door to the stairway closed. “What do you think, Nell?” she asked. “Can Rick restrain himself with a woman? I’d hate to be called to a scene to find my boss naked and dead at the claws of a grindylow and Margot bitten.”

“He never bit Jane and they dated for a while even after he was turned.”

Occam walked up the stairs and closed the door. “Somebody want to tell me what’s going on? I just passed Rick and he stank of moon magic. And Margot is all over him.” He was holding two paper cups of gourmet coffee from Coffee’s On, the scent strong, and he placed one on my desk. It had my name on it. “Your usual,” he muttered, his eyes on Rick and Margot on the parking lot camera screen. T. Laine looked at me with a You go, girl expression and I ducked my head.

Occam’s cell dinged and he glanced at the screen. His face blanched and he walked away, fast. T. Laine said, “That was rude. And weird.”

Yes. It was. It almost looked like guilt. “See you later,” I said and slipped past our witch and down the hallway to the sleeping room. I woke my sister and drove us home. Mud never truly woke, and I was tired down to my bones. But as we bumped over the entrance of the drive, I spotted a stack of very large boxes on the front porch. Boxes that hadn’t been there when we left. “Stay here,” I said to Mud. She woke up fast, reaching for the door handle. “No. Stay here. Keep down.”

I slid from the truck cab and drew my weapon. Moved around the house to check the back door, which was secure, and the small locked shed, also secure. Carefully I eased back around front and climbed the steps, halfway to the porch. The front door was still secure, no indication of breaking and entering. The windows were all intact. The boxes appeared to have packing slips on them and were securely taped shut. But I had felt no one walk onto my land.

I moved down and back to the truck, holstered my weapon, and grabbed my one-day gobag from the truck cab. Searched through it.

“What is it?” Mud asked. “Is it a body in a box? Is there blood all over it?” Curiosity and desire to take part in whatever was happening practically vibrated the air around her.

“No body. No blood, Mud. Stay put a bit longer, though.”

“But—”

“Stay put.” I climbed the steps. Removed the pocket-sized psy-meter 1.0 from my gobag. I hadn’t looked at it in forever, but it still had a charge. I crouched, so I could inspect the boxes.

Now that I was close enough, I saw that two of the large boxes were clearly marked as solar panels. A smaller one was marked as a battery, one designed to make the best use of captured but unused solar energy. The markings on the other boxes were less obvious, except for the one marked as an 18,000 BTU window-unit air conditioner and heater, suitable for a thousand square feet of space. Strangely, they were all brands I used and was familiar with, but I hadn’t ordered them.

I eased closer and saw my name and address on the boxes. The packaging slips looked real. This was neither a bomb nor a mistaken delivery. I holstered my weapon, feeling a little foolish, but I wasn’t used to getting packages. Then it hit me.

Someone who knew me well—Sam? Daddy? Occam?—had ordered all this stuff for me. That someone had taken over my decision-making power and done what Occam might call an end run around me.

I heard the truck door open and shut softly.

Mud said, “Oh. Ummm. It came early.”

I swiveled on the balls of my feet to see Mud on the steps. She was wearing her new jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, her hair down in a long tail and her tablet clutched in her hand. Her face wore an expression that was defiance with a little bit of guilt. “Came early?” I asked.

The defiance grew stronger. “Daddy told me he’d give me a dowry as good as yours when I got married or the cash now. He said I could use it for school or my wedding or however I wanted. I ain’t planning on a wedding and I can get financial aid at school, so I took the cash now.”