Paka seemed less human than anything I’d ever seen before, not necessarily unstable, but all claws and instinct with a taste for games and blood. Rick was with PsyLED, a branch of law enforcement, which meant he’d have a certain amount of self-control.
The Constitution, the different branches of government, citizens’ rights, and law enforcement were all taught from the cradle up in the church school, so all the church members would know how to debate the illegality of any incursion or line of questioning. But PsyLED was an organization that had been formed after I had left the church. Instead of learning about the quasi-secret agency at my husband’s or my father’s knee, I had made a trip to the local library, where I had looked up the paranormal department and discovered that PsyLED stood for Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security. PsyLED units, which were still being formed, investigated and solved paranormal crimes—crimes involving magic and magic-using creatures: blood-suckers, were-creatures, and such. They had unusual and broad law enforcement and investigatory powers. They worked at the request of local or state law enforcement, and took over cases that were being improperly handled or ignored by local law. Officially the head of PsyLED reported directly to two organizations, the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, and Homeland Security, and by request to the CIA, the chief of the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, and the FBI. They were a crossover branch of law enforcement, one created just for magic.
In the back of my mind flitted conspiracy reports, urban legends, government machinations, and treachery. Things left over from a life lived in the church. Even John and his first wife, Leah, had believed that the government was evil, and living in Knoxville, near Secret City (where the US government has its ultra–top secret research facilities, the ones that made the first atomic bombs and contributed to every other major military creation since) only made the stories more plausible.
Warily, keeping my body turned toward them, I backed into the main room of the house, sliding my bare feet on the wood floor into the great room that was living room, the eating area, and the kitchen at the back. I jutted my chin to the far end of the old table and mismatched chairs that had been John’s maw-maw’s. He’d been dead and gone for years now, but in my mind it was still his and Leah’s. Leah had been sister and mother and friend. I had loved her, and watching her wither away and die had broken me in ways I still hadn’t dealt with. When I walked through her house, I still missed her. “Set a spell. I got some hot tea on the Waterford.”
The man waited until the woman sat to take his own seat. Solicitous—that’s what the romance books called it. Stupid books that had nothing to do with the life of a mountain woman. City women, maybe. But never the wives and women of God’s Cloud of Glory Church. I moved to the far side of the table. When I was sure we were all in positions that would require them to make two or three moves before they could reach me, I set the shotgun on the table and got out three pottery mugs. I wasn’t using John’s maw-maw’s good china for outsiders whom I might have to shoot later. That seemed deceitful.
With a hot pad, I moved the teapot to the side of the woodstove, where the hob was cooler, and removed the tea strainer. I could have made some coffee—the man looked like a coffee-drinking type—but I didn’t want to encourage them to stay. I poured the spice tea into the mugs, smelling cloves and allspice, with a hint of cinnamon and cardamom. It was my own recipe, made with a trace of real ground vanilla bean, precious and expensive. I put the mugs on an old carved oak tray, with cloth napkins and fresh cream and sugar. I added three spoons and placed the tea tray on the table in front of the sofa. I took my mug and backed away again, behind the long table, to where I could reach the shotgun.
“Welcome to my home,” I said, hearing the reluctance in my tone. “Hospitality and safety while you’re here.” It was an old God’s Cloud saying, and though the church and I had parted ways a long time ago, some things stayed with a woman. Guests should be safe so long as they acted right.
The nonhumans took the tea, the woman adding an inch of the real cream to the top and wrapping her hands around the mug as though she felt the chill of winter coming.
With a start, I realized my cats, Jezzie and Cello, were both on the woman’s lap. I tried not to let my guests see my reaction. My cats were mousers, working cats, not lap cats. They didn’t like people. Annoyed at the disloyal cats, I pulled out a chair and sat.
The man held his mug one-handed, shooting surreptitious glances at my stuff, concentrating on the twenty-eight-gauge, four-barreled, break-action Rombo shotgun hanging over the steps to the second floor. It was made by Famars in Italy and had been John’s prize position. I narrowed my eyes at him. “See something you want?” I asked, an edge in my voice.
Instead of answering, Rick asked a question again, as if that was a built-in response. “You cook and heat this whole place with a woodstove?”
I nodded once, sipping my tea. The man didn’t go on and for some reason I felt obliged to offer, “I can heat most of my water too, eight months of the year. Long as I don’t mind picking up branches, splitting wood, and cleaning the stove.”
“You are strong,” Paka said, Jezzie on her lap and Cello now climbing to her shoulders to curl around her neck. “You use an ax as my people use our claws, with ease and . . . what is the English word? Ah.” She smiled at Rick. “Ef-fort-less-ness. That is a good word.”
She sniffed the air, dainty and delicate. “Your magic is different from all others I have smelled. I like it.” Her lips curled up, she kicked off her heels, and shifted her feet up under her body, moving like a ballerina. She drank the tea in little sips—sip-sip-sip, her lips and throat moving fast.