Taking my own fears in hand, I gathered up my supplies and walked deeper into the woods, the trees catching stiff branches in my hair, as if reaching out to me as I passed. I knew they weren’t doing that. I knew it. But it still felt a little spooky as the fingers of dead trees touched me.
As I was detangling a branch from my hair, I heard a sound like a breath behind me, and I whirled to look back. Occam, in cat form, was crouched on the narrow path, leopard paws giving him a silent approach in the dark, his eyes glowing a golden brown. He wasn’t stalking me like food. Not exactly. I knew not to give in to the shiver that raced up my back like a dash of little spiders. I also knew not to run, not from an apex predator, even one with a human mind. Instead I aimed the flash at him, all forty-eight hundred lumens, right in his eyes, and hissed at him, “I don’t like being stalked even in fun, you dang cat. If you’uns gonna track me, you’d be a heap better in the trees.”
Occam turned his face away, squinted, and huffed.
“I need to get a little closer to the compound.” Much closer than Rick and Occam had gotten.
Occam looked toward the distant lights and back to me. He shook his head slowly back and forth, telling me getting closer wasn’t a good idea.
I ignored him. “Where’s Pea?”
He huffed again and looked up, over my head. I shifted the light that way and caught a glimpse of a tiny, neon green critter before she jerked away from the light. She chittered and leaped down, landing on Occam’s back. The big-cat dropped and rolled, the two wrestling and play-fighting with hisses and spits and slashes of claws. I shook my head, rolled my shoulders to get rid of the nonexistent spiders, and moved on down the pathway to the crest of the hollow, where the compound lights trailed through the barren and dead trees.
I spread my blanket out again. It was damp from contact with the ground, but I sat on it anyway and hugged my knees. I was cold and wished I had brought my mug with me, though the scent of coffee might have alerted any possible canines in the compound. Coffee is strong and might carry far on the night air.
I sighed quietly and tested the land with the psy-meter. Level three psysitope measured into the high midrange. Psysitope one rose about half that much, and psysitope two was erratic. Psysitope four—the one that indicated the paranormal creature burning the grass—stayed nearly at zero. The numbers were off for any specific paranormal creature, but seemed fine for a mixed bag of them.
Not knowing what this might mean, I turned off the machine and pressed the tips of both index fingers onto the ground. I slid through the land, closer and closer to the compound, careful to search out the telltale hints of the presence of magical danger, magical attacks, magical anything. There was nothing. No witches had set a working or curse into the ground. No plants or trees were burned and dying. This close, however, I could discern what had made me think of fuzzy familiarity among the presence of guards. There were four humans and a were-creature patrolling the grounds, and I thought the were-creature might be a wolf. Something dog-like at any rate.
There were more were-creatures in the basements. And the maggoty feel of vampires. The vampires were on the move, first in one room and then in another. I wasn’t able to tell if they moved by choice or by force. And then I caught the sensation/presence/feel of blood. My bloodlust woke with a start. Blood. So much blood. Enough blood to feed the land, to heal the land, to—
I yanked myself back to the surface, breathing deeply, reining in the need to take blood and feed the land. Forcing it down, gulping it back. Why would there be that much blood? Gallons of it. And not safely within bodies, but loose and free and . . . I hugged myself again, forcing down the need to take it all. When I had it under control, and the sweats had passed and left me chilled, I put one finger on the ground and checked the position of the guards again. Still in the same area. They hadn’t sensed me or smelled me or come hunting for me. It was taking too long. Too long. But I needed to be sure we were safe before we moved back to the vehicles.
I eased out of the land to sense warmth at my side. My elbow hit Occam’s ears. He had pressed up against me, the way wolves might in the alpha’s den. His body warmth was higher than mine and while I often came back to the surface to find myself feeling deeply chilled, this time I was warm. I rested my hand on his head and he snuffled my fingers, licking once. I petted his ears. Occam sighed and pressed against me. “Thank you’un for keeping me warm,” I whispered.
The wind changed, blowing harder up the hill and directly at us. Occam was on his feet in an instant, sniffing, nose in the air. He began to growl, the sound a vibration I could feel through my backside on the ground. I pulled myself to my feet and gripped the cat’s ear tab firmly to get his attention. He whined softly and tilted his big head up at me. “You smelling weres?”
Occam dropped his head and raised it in a nod that was all too human on the big-cat.
“Okay. Let’s get back to the vehicles. You lead the way. I’ll follow,” I said, to give him a job that would keep his cat brain occupied. With the flash on but shielded, I kept him in sight as we wended out through the dying woods. Minutes later, Occam jumped away from the path and I stumbled onto the road, where I spotted our vehicles.
Standing in the edge of the trees, I watched as Occam leaped over the hood of his fancy car and I felt the magic of his change start. I was tired. More tired than I expected to be. I was often full of energy after reading Soulwood, but here, I was enervated. I had to wonder if my recent healing, the dying trees at the crime scenes, the rising boiling water, and the presence of all that blood in the compound had affected my body as much as they had my psyche. And I had to wonder what kind of torture room had let so much blood pool.
I yanked my thoughts away from the possibilities and forced my feet to lift and carry me forward, knowing I wasn’t safe, not yet, not until I was back at HQ. All that blood . . . I stowed my gear, fell into my truck, and drove into the street before putting the Chevy in park to wait. I laid my head on the headrest and closed my eyes, the engine rumbling quietly up through the seat, soothing.
Some ten minutes later, Occam pulled out behind my vehicle and I led the way back into town and to HQ.
? ? ?
Occam passed the sugar for my tea. “I expected to smell blood on silver,” he said, “but the mesh pens weren’t silver-plated. They could get away. Why don’t they?”
“Maybe it’s all that blood in the place. Maybe they’ve all seen it and are scared. Maybe they’re all weak from blood loss.” I’d seen a starved vamp once and it was pitiful. Until she got free and came after me. “Or maybe their loved-ones are in danger and that keeps them from howling to the winds about the torture room.”
“Are you sure it’s a torture room?” Rick asked.