“Soul?”
She turned from the window and the brightening sky, which had held her unfocused attention. She raised her brows in a gesture that said I could continue.
“What if someone killed the real-life real wife Clarisse and the real Devin, and replaced them with shape-shifting pyros?”
“If so, then why burn up Sonya in the limo?”
“Hmmm. Unless Devin accidentally set off the fire. Or unless Sonya was a problem and she had to die for some reason, say, to protect them, or Sonya was like them and it was time to replace Sonya’s pyro identity?”
Soul gave me a head-shaking shrug that suggested I was guessing and my guesses were getting too complicated to make sense, and she was right. I sent my lists off to JoJo and went back to work. But something kept nagging at me. Something about the timeline and the sequence of the deaths through three generations.
Rick put a cup of coffee at my elbow, the steam curling up. Hot enough to burn my mouth.
I stopped, my fingers motionless above the tablet. I remembered the burned and dead plants at the senator’s house, and the cooked fish in the water below. My mouth came slowly open. “Ohhh,” I said. “I need to go to the senator’s at dawn.”
“Why?” Rick asked, the question low and concerned. I’d heard my cats use that specific interrogative tone.
“Something I saw. It was dark. It might be nothing so I’d rather not say. But I want to see it again, in the daylight.”
“Fine. Work on the timelines and try to narrow down the species of pyro. Take off near the end of your shift. I’ll send Occam with you.” I wasn’t sure that I wanted Occam with me, not with so many things unknown and undecided between us, but I shrugged. There wasn’t anything I could do about my wants.
I spent the night in the conference room, the Christmas tree and a sleepy grindylow keeping me company. Just before dawn, I heard Occam come in and I left the conference room to pick up my gear bag. We headed out, Occam behind me, his gait limber, supple, and flowing, more so than other days, as his cat rose with the lunar cycle. Small hairs lifted on the back of my neck, the way they might if I was being pursued, tracked by an apex predator. Which, of course, I was. But I didn’t give in to that awareness, instead carrying my gear down the stairs to my truck. Standing out in the warm air—winter in the South was changeable at best—I said smartly, “You got Pea with you?”
“Yep. In my shoulder bag. Why you asking, Nell, sugar?”
“I’d rather she kill you if you go off leash. The paperwork for shooting a teammate has gotta be a pain in the backside.”
Occam started laughing, a purring chuff of sound that brought a smile to my face and made me tease further. “You cat-boys are hard to get along with in your time of the month.”
“Time of the— Nell, sugar, that is an appalling insult.” Occam was still laughing as he got in the truck beside me and we drove off together.
• • •
“You didn’t tell me we’d be climbing down a couple thousand slippery, slimy, and stinking stairs to the river,” Occam said to me.
I’d known about the stairs but not their condition. They were vile, sticky beneath my field boots. Even the handrail was sticky and slimy and I couldn’t make myself touch it. It was no wonder my cousin’s clothes had been so filthy when he came back up. In the dark, Chadworth Hamilton had to have touched everything. I bet he had to throw his expensive suit away. “Didn’t think I needed to. What do you smell?” I figured his senses would be heightened in the moon-time.
“Dead fish. Some cooked, some raw. All of it rotting.”
“Mm-hm.” We reached the bottom and I looked back up. The stairs were the only way down or up without some kind of parachute or a rappelling rope. The vegetation at the top was brown, desiccated, dead. Below the deck, there was greenery in spots, rooted in the rocks.
On the beach, the sun was warm, casting short shadows on twisted, broken driftwood. The water was placid, reflecting back the sun. There were fewer dead fish and a lot of animal tracks from raccoon to ’possum, to bird tracks. There were crows perched nearby on the rocks and the scant vegetation. Seagulls calling, flying overhead, watching. There were also a lot of flies on the rotting fish, all of them showing the effects of scavenger predation. The sand was a dun color here, the bank narrow, the gray rocks in small piles, each rock ovoid, about the size of a basketball, but . . . cracked, and broken. I walked to the water’s edge, bent, and picked up a broken piece. It was pale gray with small white and brown specks, lightweight, thin, and hollow. The inside was white, with a dried film stretched around the concave curves. “Shell,” I said softly. I looked out over the water. “Salamander eggs.”
“What’s that?” Occam asked.
“One of the potential pyro paras was a salamander. According to mythology, salamanders were created in volcanoes but live in freshwater environments.” I looked around. “We got freshwater. Water that was heated somehow, enough to parboil the fish swimming in it. We got eggs. Someone—something—hatched babies here.” I looked up at the cliff face and the slimy steps. Slimy from salamanders coming and going? “The entire yard above is dead, burned at the roots, though still greenish in places. The trail of dead vegetation leading to the river is a lot more dead, as if it was injured more often, for a longer time, as something went back and forth to the river.” Still holding the shell, I bent and placed my fingertips in the water. “The river water’s heated. Warmer than good dishwater.” I shook my head as disparate and formerly unrelated bits of evidence began to settle in place. “Perfect for keeping eggs warm to hatch? Or maybe the eggs hatch on the shore and the warm water is just a result of their physiology? Pyros who live in water at least part of the time. Pyros who are attacking the Tollivers. Maybe trying to take their places. Maybe already took their places, long ago.”
I walked up the beach. On the sand, I found a matching part to the shell in my hand and pieced them together. The creature that had been contained in it, assuming it was boneless like a tadpole, shaped like one, and could curl up tight, might be a slender five feet long with a small, narrow head, or three feet long with a wider head and body. I could imagine it weighed anywhere from ten to twenty pounds, but if it wasn’t an Earth creature, then weight-to-mass ratio might be different. If the substance from which its body was composed was more dense than an Earth organism, then gravity, while still a constant, might make it heavier than similar-appearing material.
Weight-to-mass ratio. I was surprised I remembered that. I had tried to educate myself on mathematics while Leah was dying, but a lot of it was hard to understand without a teacher. I had given up on lots of learning for just that reason.
Out in the water, about two feet deep, I spotted something pale. Ovoid. Solid. An unhatched egg? I handed Occam the broken shells and my jacket, then pulled off my field boots and socks, tossing them to the beach. Rolled up my sleeves. Pea leaped from Occam’s gobag and raced up and down the beach, chittering at me as if she found me amusing or alarming.
“Nell, sugar, what the Sam Hill you doin’?”
I rolled up my pants legs above the knee, conscious that no one had seen my knees since I was twelve. Even John hadn’t seen my naked legs. I felt embarrassed, shy, and daring all at once. “Getting that.” I pointed at the shell. “It might be whole. And what’s inside would tell us everything we need to know.” I stepped into the water. Warm, bathwater warm.
“Nellie, stop,” Occam said. No. Demanded.
I flashed him a look. Pretty sure it was Mama’s look when one of her young’uns got uppity. I took a deeper step, the water to midcalf, then deeper to my knees as I walked out.
“Nell, let me do this.”
I ignored him. This little woman did not need protection from a little water. The river temperature rose to uncomfortable as I stepped deeper. Then one more step, the water just above my knee. The egg was only about a foot away
. With the toes of one foot, I scooted the egg closer to me, the warm water wetting my pants where they were rolled. Pea chittered again, sounding less amused now.
“Nell!”
“Don’t bark at me like a dog,” I said, ignoring him otherwise.
“I smell something. Something bad.”
“It’s rotting fish.” The egg was heavy, twirling in a circle instead of inching closer. I wriggled another inch out, my foot now buried in the sandy bottom, my pants legs quite wet. But I got a firmer toe grip on the shell and pulled it toward me. Stepped back and pulled it again. “Got it,” I said, easing it closer to shore. I stood on two feet and bent to pick it up.
Something sliced through the water, fast as a fish. I felt it touch my wrist and I jerked away. Splashing the water. I held up my arm. My wrist was bleeding. Three distinct, but not linear slashes.
“What the . . . ?” Occam growled.
The water splashed and swirled. I turned to race from the river.
My feet flew out from under me. My ankles in a vise. I hit bottom on one hip. Was dragged under. Deeper. Into blacker, hotter water. The current caught me as I flailed. Fighting. Pulled deeper. Blacker. Hotter.
Something gripped my wrist, slicing, multiple times at once. Something else caught my short hair. Pain cut at my abdomen. Above me, a three-fingered hand slashed down. I jerked back my head. Claws caught my collarbone. Different sizes of clawed tadpoles.
The need to breathe strangled me. Water burned. Need to breathe. Breathe. Breathe!
Deeper. Hotter.
I pulled my gun. Shoved it hard against one of the things that held me. Squeezed the trigger. Heard a thump. Saw nothing.
Suddenly the things let me go. They were just gone, in a frenzied mass. I whirled in the water. Face-to-face with glowing eyes and killer teeth. The fangs reached out and snagged my shirt at the shoulder. Tugged me upward.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe! I needed to breathe! I swallowed water. More water. Gagged.
I kicked hard. Harder. Desperate for air. Caught in a current that pulled me down. I swallowed more water fighting not to breathe the water in. The teeth pulled me upward, toward the light.
I broke through.
Coughing. Gagging. Vomiting water.
The fangs broke through beside me. Took my bleeding wrist between them, fangs clasping and meeting on the other side. Occam. Occam had saved me. His sleek spotted body, as supple and graceful on the water as on land, bumped my side as he swam me to shore while I coughed and gagged and spat. When we were knee-deep he let me go and splashed back into the water and under. Where the egg was.
Something long and quick swirled through the water and grabbed for me. I spun in the shallows and scratched it, my fingernails catching it on the . . . face? Its blood boiled into the water and over my hand. Blue blood. Heated. Bubbling. Metallic and sour. It felt wrong on my hand. Wrong under my nails. Wrong, wrong, so very wrong.
But it was blood. Bloodlust gripped me. I reached out and the blood spewed over my hand and I . . . I fed it to the water. Drained it. Knew it. Salamander. Flaming being. Very nearly immortal. Fishy. Scalding. I killed it. Broke it into its composite parts. The cells floated away. Disintegrated. Others of its kind were caught in the bloodlust. I pulled them apart and broke them down, taking as many of them as I could. The rest of the tadpoles took off for deeper water, leaving us safe. The water cooled.
I pulled away and back to the shore.
Occam’s head emerged from the water, his nostril flaps opening and blowing, breathing and closing, and dipping back underwater. Shock zinged through me, followed by relief so intense it made me shiver. He hadn’t noted my killing the salamander tadpoles. My bloodlust had bypassed him. He was batting the egg across the bottom to the sandy beach. I crawled on my hands and feet out of the water and far up the bank against the rock wall. I threw up again, losing all the water I had swallowed. Heaving, losing everything I had eaten in the last hours. Dry heaving when that was gone.
Exhausted, I rolled over and sat where I could see the water. Now heaving breaths. Nothing had ever felt so good. Air. Blessed air. Pea curled up beside me and made worried moans.
I had thought I didn’t need Occam—a man—to do this thing for me—a woman. I needed to listen more and not let my preconceived notions make me do something stupid. I lay on the sand in the sun and breathed.
I was still holding my gun. Guns aren’t designed to shoot in water. Normal bullets aren’t fabricated to fly true through water. Useless underwater except for the one shot, which I had somehow missed. I pulled the holster to me, around my waist. I needed to service it, give it a good cleaning and oiling. I holstered the Glock. Bloody water squirted out of the hard plastic holster. I was bleeding freely from so many places I didn’t know what to put pressure on. And I didn’t care. I breathed. Just breathed.
Occam came out of the water, pawing the egg before him, up onto his clothes, his pants and jacket and shirt that were scattered in a small area. They appeared to be in ruins. Occam had shifted. Faster than I thought possible. That had to have been an agony.
He had tried to stop me. In the way of cats, he had scented danger on the air. He had saved me when the things—the young salamanders—had taken me under. Had tried to drown me. Occam had saved me. Tears spilled down my cheeks.
The spotted leopard trotted across the sand, dripping, splashing, padding, paw to paw, a sleek, killing machine. He fell at my side and dropped his huge head on my lap. Chuffed. His golden eyes met mine. He squirmed his jaw over my thigh, back and forth, scent-marking me. It wasn’t the first time he had done so. And Pea didn’t seem to care. She rolled over and turned her belly to the sun, closing her eyes.
I lifted a hand that now felt as if it weighed a ton. Placed it on his head. His wet hair was silky smooth. My blood flowed over his pelt. He sniffed. Growled. He sat up and held my eyes with his golden ones. Growled again. “I know. I’m still bleedin’,” I said. “Not having werecat healing abilities, there’s not much I can do about it.”
Occam looked surprised, tilted his head, pushed to his feet, and pawed down the shore and around a huge rounded, pitted rock that appeared to have fallen there long ago. He disappeared. “You better not shift and walk back here all nekkid,” I said. And smiled at the image of Occam, the way I imagined he would look, human and naked, stalking along the beach.
He chuffed from around the rocks. And trotted back to me, half carrying, half dragging a small green plant in his fangs. It was an evergreen, with leaves, roots, and all, pulled alive from the ground. It looked like a boxwood shrub, yanked from the dirt, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know what it was. A waterweed or rock-face weed of some kind.
Occam padded up to me and extended his claws, digging in the soft sand until he had scooped out a hole several inches deep. Water rose in the hole, but he shoved the roots in and then pushed the sand back over it. He looked at me and chuffed, saying clear as English, Draw from the land. From this little tree. Heal.
“You’re a smart kitty cat.” I reached to the small plant and placed my hands on the leaves. Dropped into the earth. And into Soulwood. Not that far away. I closed my eyes. Laid my head back. And felt pain I hadn’t consciously noted flow out of me. I dropped deeper into the earth. And breathed. Just breathed.
When I opened my eyes, the sun had moved and I was in shadow. No. Not the sun. The little shrub was a tall tree, maybe fifteen feet high. There were other trees and water plants growing all over the beach, which had been bare of greenery only moments before. I inspected my arms and ankles and bare feet. My abdomen. I was healed. I was also growing leaves from my fingertips and my toes. I reached up and felt leaves and twisty little vines, like grapevines, growing from my hairline all around.
“I didn’t know if I should trim you or let you grow,” Occam said wryly. I looked around at the voice. He was sitting on a rock, in the shade of a lower bra
nch of the sapling, dry, dressed in ripped clothing.
“I grow leaves and vines now, when I . . .” I made a small flapping motion with my hand. Noticed my fingers were brown and wrinkled like the bark of a young tree. The leaves trailing from my fingers swirled with my motion. I sighed softly. “Oh dear.”
“So I see. Your hair grew out about six inches, Nell, sugar. It’s brighter, like the heart of a cedar tree.” His voice dropped, a caressing sound. “Your skin is still soft and smooth, but the color of bark. With my cat nose, your leaves smell of lavender and cedar and just a hint of eucalyptus, but also, just before I shifted to human, the scent was threaded through with catnip. My cat wanted to roll around in the leaves, the way he might if you were catnip.” There was a laugh in his voice. He sounded happy. I met his gaze, which had gone catty golden again. “And your eyes . . .” His voice trailed away. “Oh, Nell, sugar. Your eyes are emerald and tigereye and just a little blue fire. You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
I blushed hotly and could think of nothing to say at all, thinking back to my mental image of Occam walking along the bank of the Tennessee River, naked and glorious. I shook the thought away. Pea rolled over and blinked at us. Unconcerned.
“I’m not gonna wait till that dinner to kiss you again. I know the men in your life to this point have taken what they wanted and not asked. I want to kiss you again, a possibly improper kiss. I’m gonna back you against a wall and hold you still, gentle and rough all at once. I’m gonna put my mouth on yours and I’m gonna take my time exploring.”
With my background I might have been, maybe should have been, horrified, but . . . this was Occam. And I felt my face flame and a zing of electricity flash through me at the thought of him holding me just so.