Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

“You have my undivided attention,” FireWind said, the words pointed and stiff, like a stick to the eye.

I sat on the edge of the table, laced my fingers in my lap so I’d present the most nonthreatening image possible. I looked up at him and turned on church-speak because it was disarming. And a disarmed enemy was the best kind. “See, Ayatas FireWind, it’s like this. I like being a cop. I like solving crimes and helping people. I like my job. I like this team and they are dang good at what they do. I consider them friends.” I leaned in to make sure he was listening to what I was saying. “You’un come in here and take over because you’un consider yourself the peacock with the biggest tail. The best of the best. And things didn’t go like you’un planned and now you’un’re scrambling in the aftermath of unexpected disaster. And you’un, right now, are trying to take it out on me because you need a release valve and I’m handy.”

FireWind’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Please continue,” he said, “and address why a probationary employee should not be released for insubordination.”

“Last part first, then. This team’s got no one who can read the land. No one.” I let a little more church into my voice. “‘Acause whatever I am, I’m whatchu call a one-off. A one-of-a-kind.”

“Your sister scents of yinehi,” Ayatas said, eyes shrewd.

“My sister don’t grow leaves. She can’t read the land. She can’t do what what I do.” All true. Sorta. I mentally promised myself to keep my other siblings away from Ayatas’ yinehi sniffer and continued on my attack. “In fact, PsyLED can’t do its job thoroughly without me. PsyLED needs me more than I need it. Also”—I dropped a fraction of my church-speak and let my tone go hard—“I was the only special agent to get off a shot at Jason Ethier when you let him inside and he attacked HQ. So you don’t scare me when you huff and puff and blow the walls down by threatening my job. I got a job offer outside of law enforcement anytime I want, so I wouldn’t suffer financially if we parted ways. I ain’t insubordinate. None of this unit is. Jo and me was making a joke.”

“Job offer?” he asked.

The angst had begun to clear from his eyes as I talked. Start as you intend to go forward. Challenging him seemed to be effective. I said, “With Clan Yellowrock.”

There was no way to miss the shock that jolted through him.

“Yeah. Your sister’s … court, I guess you call it. As part of the Dark Queen’s retinue. I know my value. I ain’t got the big head, but I know who I am and what I got to offer. So don’t threaten me. You can ask nicely or you can fire me. Until such firing, PsyLED has my total, undivided loyalty. We’uns clear?”

“Perfectly. As clear as when you kicked Rick LaFleur in the crotch.”

“He had it coming,” I said, unrepentant. That had been early in our acquaintance, before I joined PsyLED.

“Hmmm.”

That hmmm was pretty good, but I’d been hmmmed by churchmen. FireWind was an amateur compared to that kind of censure. I leaned in even farther and smiled my sweetest churchwoman smile. “I done been threatened by burning at the stake since I was five years old. Being fired from a job ain’t nothing.” A small expression of surprise flashed across FireWind’s face. He hadn’t known that part of my history, which meant he hadn’t spent much time looking over my personnel papers. That was interesting. I eased back, resettling my weight on the table. “Now. You got a plan of action or you gonna waste our time testing us to see what we’re all made of, ’cause frankly I think you’d do better to wait till all this is settled.”

With a bite to his words, FireWind said, “PSY CSI is delayed. Before you stop for the morning, I’d like you and Kent to go back to the stockyard and see what you can find out by daylight. Wear Tyvek uniforms.”

“Good by me. I gotta drop my sister and her dog off at home first.” I stood and walked to the door. Put my hand on the handle and stopped. “I ain’t hard to work with. I’ll support you and your decisions to my last breath, even when you get your butt kicked. But”—I looked over my shoulder at him—“you and me got off on the wrong foot. In fact, you and the rest of the unit got off on the wrong foot. I’m betting you’re used to working with white male human teams. Unit Eighteen is composed predominantly of paras, not humans, a mixed male-female team, too. You can’t treat this team the way you treat others and still have a fully functioning unit. This team has a lateral organizational structure, not an old-timey vertical one. Going forward, I’d like to be polite and respectful. I’d like the same from you.” I started to open the door.

“Jane offered you a job?”

I stopped. Jane Yellowrock. “Yeah.” I opened the door and left the icy room that tried to melt my own magic in my bones. But … I noticed that the hunger, the bloodlust, was completely gone. Breathing was easier.

In the conference room, I told T. Laine our orders. “We’ll have to take your car because my truck is too small for the three of us and the dog.”

As we were walking down the hallway, I heard FireWind say to Rick, “You were a willing sacrifice when you were tattooed. Loriann used you, then also made you a slave to protect her brother and to track him. Would you be insulted if I asked you to stay near your cage for the duration of this case?”

“I’ve already addressed that,” Rick said. “And I’ve been bunking here.”

“I see. I think that was a wise move.”

I made a soft humph. Seemed FireWind could learn new tricks after all. I woke my sister and gathered her things and the dog, thinking about Rick and everything he had gone through. As we headed down the stairs, FireWind shouted to us, “Be back at four p.m. Full crew. We’re going to breach and contain the house where Jason and Godfrey and the vampires are lairing before the local Mithrans even wake up for the night.”

“Ten-four,” T. Laine said.

? ? ?

We left Mud at Sam’s house, outside, playing with her dog and trying to stay out of the way of the new baby and the mamas and away from the virus that had gripped the church. She was alone, but in line of sight of my brother, as safe as she could be with Larry Aden free from jail and a danger. It wasn’t safe on church grounds, but it was safer than with me for now, despite the future possibility of her growing leaves and being burned at the stake. And that was a distinctly uncomfortable thought for me, who wanted to get custody and take her away from the church. Mud was in danger no matter where she lived.

T. Laine was driving and I was resting. I was way more tired than I admitted, and when I was tired, I went quiet. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation seemed to have the opposite effect on the unit’s witch, and Lainie was running on thirty-six hours with little or no sleep. She finished off a thirty-three-ounce coffee on the way to the stockyard and talked my head off, asking questions about me and what I’d said to FireWind off the record, none of which I answered. That didn’t stop her chatter.

She looked wide awake when she braked the car in front of the crime scene tape and got out to speak to the deputy guarding the site. I followed more slowly, my feet kicking up puffs of dust. I could hear the flies and, in the heat, the stench of rotting meat and blood was already strong. My bloodlust was awake and eager, but more like a curious puppy than a slavering starving hellhound. So far.

T. Laine chatted with the lone deputy as we both dressed out in Tyvek uniforms, the onesies worn by evidence collecting teams. The two were gossiping, agreeing that guard duty was boring and we really needed rain and it was hotter than the opening to hades. Lainie had thought to bring cold Cokes and some ice, and that made them best friends. I showed my ID, signed in to the official record, and moved into the heated, reeking stockyard, my paper uniform stifling.

It was still and silent in a locale that was probably usually loud with animals and machinery and the occasional worker. A hot breeze blew through, sweeping up dust devils. Flies buzzed like a chorus of buzz saws. Turkey buzzards were everywhere. A kettle of them soared overhead. I had no idea why a flock was called that, but all the names of buzzard groupings were bizarre. A committee, a venue, or a volt, they were perched on the rooftop, with the braver members of the scavenger pack sitting on the outer pen walls of the covered areas. A flock of feeding buzzards was called a wake, and three of the most brave, or the most dominant, were having a wake at the carcasses. It wouldn’t be long before the stench drew multiple species of predators and scavengers from everywhere if the cleanup crew wasn’t allowed onto the site.