Curse on the Land

  I didn’t spend any time looking at them, instead staring at the water. “Look. Look at the bodies. They were swimming in a circle. Idiots went for a swim in the pond. T. Laine?”

  She had lowered her weapon so it pointed at the ground, held in the lax fingers of one hand. She took a step toward the pool of water.

  “T. Laine?” I said again. She took another step. And another. I called her name, louder. When she didn’t turn, training took over. I rushed her. Dropped. Tackled her at the hips. One hand ripping the gun away from her. And to my feet.

  She came up swearing, fists swinging, and she shouted, “What the holy hell do you think you’re doing? Gimme my gun!”

  I held the weapon at her, centered on her chest.

  T. Laine’s face underwent a series of changes. “What the holy hell. Nell?”

  “Are you back in your right mind?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who is president of the US? Who is the leader of Unit Eighteen?”

  She answered both questions, her expression shifting from anger to bewilderment. “What happened?”

  I lowered the weapon. Uncurled my finger from the trigger and placed it along the slide. Dropped my shoulders, which had hunched up at the stress of watching T. Laine fall under some weird kind of compulsion from the pond. “You were walking to the water. Just like the other people. So now we are walking away, back to the main road, to warn the local LEOs answering your call that there is an MED here. A big one. Directed or not, it’s not disintegrating, but spreading. And people are dying. Do you understand?” She glanced over her shoulder and I shouted, “Do you understand?”

  She flinched and ducked. “Yes.” She started back down the curved road, away from the pond. “I got it. I hear you. And more, I feel the pull beneath my feet. There’s a come-hither spell going, or something like it.” She brushed off her clothing, where the dust from the ground had mussed her. “I never thought I’d say this on the job, but thank you for tackling me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You okay? About”—her hand waved back behind us—“all that?”

  My eyes followed her waving hand to take in the pond and the dead. There were dead humans . . . adults and teenagers . . . children. In the water. Faces just below the surface. Or floating on their backs, arms out, hair out in spirals. Dead. Dead all around me. I had worked so hard, given up so much, to protect and save children at the church. And here other adults—not churchmen, but regular people—had brought children into a situation and made a party of it. And children had died. And I wasn’t feeling a thing that I thought I should. Not a hint of fear. No remorse. Nothing. Except fury that it had happened at all. Anger. A boiling rage that I swallowed back down, acidic and burning.

  I released a breath. “No. I’m not. I’m not okay about anything.”

  T. Laine reached over slowly and took her weapon from my hands, removed the magazine and the round from the chamber, replaced the mag, set the safety, and holstered the weapon, the tiny snap telling us both it was seated in the Kydex holster. The sound of sirens coming down the road made her pull her cell and tap on a call. “Rick? Problem. Big-assed major problem.”

  I shifted my jacket so my badge was showing and got out my ID. I moved ahead of the moon witch and her report to our boss. I signaled to the sheriff deputies as they pulled up, to gather with me, and when I had all three out of their cars, I told them what had happened, all except the holding-a-gun-on-my-partner bit. I kept that to myself. I ended my report with, “We need to make sure all the roads and trails into and out of this entire area are covered. No one in or out. Not even law enforcement.”

  “Not a problem, in theory,” one of the deputies said. “How do we keep the buzzards and rats out? And how do we recover the bodies and how do we ID the bodies? Huh? You got an answer to that?”

  I looked at him for the first time and I laughed. The sound was a little shaky and frantic to my own ears, and it must have sounded odd to him too because he backed up two steps before he caught himself. “How?” I repeated his question. “PsyLED has protocols on the books. All kinds of protocols on the books. Someone will figure out what to do.” I blinked, and on the lightless flesh of my lids I saw the bodies in the pond. Bodies all in a circle. And only in retrospect did I see the geese. All dead. As if they had swum and swum and swum until they’d died. Okay, maybe I was more shocky than I had thought, but at least the bloodlust was gone. Voice steady now, I said, “Someone will make sure we get the proper paranormal personal protective equipment. Then we can do our jobs.”

  I stopped and my forehead crinkled at a new thought. T. Laine had felt the pull of the pond. I hadn’t. Not even a little. The bloodlust might keep other compulsions at bay. Or maybe my species didn’t feel come-hither spells. And . . . there was a wildlife camera back at the pond. A camera with all the footage of the last two days on it. “Keep people out,” I said, and I turned and headed back along the curved drive, dialing Occam as I went. I passed T. Laine still on the phone. She didn’t look up at me.

  “Occam,” he answered.

  “We have a full category-four MED at the pond with multiple casualties. T. Laine was caught in the working, or whatever the heck it was, and I tackled her. Local LEOs are making sure all entrances and exits are covered. I’m going back in to get the camera.”

  “Nell, what? No.”

  “Yes. And I need you to talk to me through the whole thing. Keep me centered. I’m putting you on speaker and the phone in my shirt pocket. Talk to me.” I dropped the cell into the flannel plaid shirt’s chest pocket.

  “Nell, do not do this.”

  “Yeah. Like that.”

  “No. I mean it. Do not enter an MED alone.”

  “I may be the only one who can enter.” I remembered T. Laine’s slack face, her eyes wandering to the pond, latching on to the sight. And me? The plants had tried to claim me, but the pond had no effect. “You should’ve seen her. Her face went slack and she headed straight to the pond like she wanted to climb in among the bodies and go for a swim. But I seem to be immune to the spell trap, whatever it is.”

  “You’re doing it, aren’t you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How many bodies?”

  I set my legs into a slow jog and rounded the curve. Death and her dead were spread out all around me. I took a stranglehold on my desire to kill and feed the earth. And though it struggled, it didn’t fight free.

  “Nell?”

  “Counting those I can see on land . . .” I counted aloud as I ran. I reached the ladder I remembered seeing, and said, “That makes twelve total, all on shore. All adults. All dead from gunfire or blunt force trauma. In the water, lemme count.” I hefted the ladder up and over a shoulder and returned to jogging, keeping my heart rate high, my mind centered. The ladder was only about six feet long; I hoped it would be enough. “I count ten kids, teens. Two may be younger, all in the water. No sign of physical injury. No blood in the water. Three adults in the water. Ditto on the lack of visible injury. Twelve plus thirteen equals twenty-five victims.”

  I grunted as I set the ladder against the tree with the camera. Started climbing. It helped that I faced away from the death scene.

  “How do you think they died?”

  “The ones on land killed each other. The ones in the water? I think they swam to death. Drowned. Just like the geese that are still in the water with them.”

  “Jesus,” Occam breathed.

  “I don’t think he was here,” I said. “The camera looks easy to remove. It’s mounted to the tree with a strap, a thumb clip, and a small metal brace to keep it pointed in the right direction. I’ll have it down in a jiffy.” And I did, narrating my actions to Occam, listening to his angry replies. I climbed down the ladder and put the cell onto video to record the scene as I jogged across the grass, keeping my back to the dead. “I have the camera
out and I’m taking video of the scene with my cell as I walk. I’m taking the direct route back to the drive.” Which was the only reason I heard the small cry. I stopped. I stopped midsentence, whatever I was saying instantly lost. “Did you hear that?”

  Occam said, “Nell? What? What’s happening?”

  “I think . . .” I turned and jogged to my right, to the baby car seat we had seen on the way in. “There’s a baby,” I whispered. “I didn’t feel it on my scan. Maybe because it’s in a car seat on a heavy rubberized frame.”

  “Don’t touch it, Nell. Do not touch it. The baby will be contaminated.”

  “I know.” But that might not matter. I dropped to a squat at the baby’s car seat, both knees up, off the ground, touching the dirt and grass with only my rubberized field boots. The little girl was dressed in pink, and she smelled of dirty diaper and sour milk and tears. She was sunburned, dark-haired, with green-brown eyes. My bloodlust withered and died at the sight of the child. I managed a deep, filling breath and blew it out.

  The baby saw me and started squalling. “Can’t leave now. She’s thirsty. Hungry. Needs changing.” I looked around and saw a box of diapers and plastic-bottled formula, and everything I needed. “I can’t leave her here alone. And I can’t take her with me to contaminate the others. So it looks like I’m staying.”

  “Stop, Nell. Don’t do this.”

  I laughed, that odd-sounding, near-hysterical laughter that had frightened the deputies. “Too late. Hey there, sweetie. How are you?” I freed the child from the restraints and picked her up. Which made her scream more. “Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. I know. You’uns been all alone all day, ain’tcha. I got’cha now. Yes I do. Com’ere. Yeeees, you got a load full of the uglies, don’tcha? Let’s get you outta the sun and over to the car here. And let’s get that diaper off. You still here, Occam?” I added in the same baby-voice tone.

  “I’m here,” he said, sounding off somehow. Probably spittin’ mad at me for going off protocol.

  “I’m changing her diaper now. And lemme tell you, it’s bad. This little girl hasn’t been changed all day. She’s sunburned and her bottom is scalded. You’uns miserable, ain’tcha, darlin’? Oh my, there’s a load in this thing. Ugh. Here. Let’s wipe that messy bottom.” She squealed like I’d just stabbed her. “I know that hurts, but I’m almost done. There, sweetie pie. All clean, and a new diaper.” I figured out how to use the disposable one, which was a new concept for me, as the church didn’t use anything disposable, only cloth diapers, and changed often. “Yes, sweet’ums. Just like that.” I sealed the adhesive tabs. “And now let’s find you’un a bottle for the formula. Here we go. Your mama mighta swum herself to death, but up until then she was mighty organized. Oh yes, baby. That’s a good girl. Occam, I’m sitting in an ancient Toyota station wagon. Tell Rick.”

  “Oh . . . Nell,” Occam breathed.

  * * *

  The Para–Haz Mat van from PsyCSI in Richmond arrived at long last. It was shaped like a bread truck with a navy-blue-and-brown paint job in slashes and swirls like an RV and was equipped for paranormal events. The techs—and there must have been twenty or more in their POVs—personally owned vehicles—were dressed out in white null uniforms, paranormal protective suits each with an orange stripe across the front. The unis were made with heavy-duty antimagic spells worked into the fabric, and since no one seemed inclined to go for a swim, I figured that the unis were effective. The suits had been treated by the Seattle coven, a full, powerful coven that worked with the DOD and Homeland Security. The unis were called 3PEs, which stood for personal paranormal protective equipment. The coven also constructed custom-made armor, but there was no way I could afford a set of those. The suits resisted all passive spells, to appear to magic itself as though the techs were nothing more than leaves blowing across the land instead of a bunch of people tramping. The techs could be attacked by an active, direct attack spell, but as their feet moved across the land near the pond, they didn’t elicit any attention at all from the thing beneath the ground.

  Farther away from the pond, at a site T. Laine selected by taking measurements with the psy-meter 2.0, were the PsyCSI tents, for collecting evidence and ending the active workings on the bodies. And COD, TOD, and ID, where possible. Cause of death. Time of death. Closure for the families who wouldn’t see their loved ones alive again.

  The tents were white, waterproof, and had been spelled against workings and magical attack, inside and out. There was an inverted hedge of thorns working on the inside to keep anything magical inside, and a regular hedge of thorns outside, except at the doorway. The three tents were set up, facing away from the pond so the come-hither spell bounced away on the treated tent walls.

  I was the only one not dressed out in the special clothing. Well, the baby and me. She had eaten and cried and finally fallen asleep in my arms. It had been a while since I’d coddled and cuddled a baby, and though I had no desire to have a young’un myself, it was kinda nice. If I’da been at home, stretched out on the sofa, with a book to read and the Waterford Stanley wood-burning cookstove putting out enough heat to keep me toasty, Soulwood and a sturdy floor between me and the shadow-and-light dancer in the ground, I’da been mighty fine, but Rick had shown no interest in offering me any comfort beyond the basic amenities. Instead of comfort, I was sitting on a webby-aluminum chair, the frame digging into my thighs, and was isolated in one of the antispell tents, just the baby and me.

  A single portable toilet booth had been brought in and set up near the trees. A food truck had come by the street several times and provided tacos and hot dogs and burgers at inflated prices. I had been allowed a meal and bottled water and a Coke, which T. Laine had brought in, set on the gurney, and walked out. Without a word, without eye contact. I knew I was in trouble, but I couldn’t seem to care. The baby had been without attention long enough to be burned and dehydrated, and no way was I leaving her alone. Period. She had drunk down three bottles of Pedialyte and formula and gone through three diapers. I had found cream to smear on her sunburn and her bottom and she was asleep, finally.

  No one was talking to me, but I overheard everything that was spoken nearby, since no one was using their library voices, but rather nearly shouting to be heard between the faceplates they wore as part of the 3PEs. Therefore I knew a lot about what was going on: Access to the entire area had been shut down, with cops on every possible line of entrance. The scene had been set as a no-fly zone, which went for drones and kites, as well as the usual planes and helicopters. The press was gathered on the roadways and conspiracy and antiwitch sentiments were flying in the media.

  A senior member of PsyLED HQ had come in to handle the magical incident and talk to the press. Soul, Rick’s mentor, was to be the PsyLED PR spokesperson for this magical event.

  There were lots of initials in my new life. They called it “alphabet soup,” which was funny until I had to actually use the letters in a report.

  Anyway, Soul had been in the area—not that any of us had been aware of that—and she arrived at the site within half an hour of Rick himself, to oversee the investigation.

  I had met Soul at Spook School. She was a legend among the graduates, and though she was tiny and curvy and made you want to protect her to your last dying breath, she scared me on some level I didn’t have words for. Soul, no last name, just like Occam had no last name, was all of five feet four inches tall, with long platinum-silver hair that she wore loose and down to her hips, as long as I had worn mine, before I’d whacked it off.

  I hadn’t touched the ground with my boots since the first tent was set up, but I felt Soul enter the site. Or, rather, the land felt something different, and it sucked its presence away from the bottom of the tent I occupied, back to the deeps. I had known that the dancer consciousness was hanging around, aware of me but not able to get to me through the tent’s spells, and I was suddenly lighter, an unseen weight gone from my shoulders and ri
b cage. Quickly, even before I took a single breath, the shadow-and-light was back, fast as a reflection of sunlight on the pond. It . . . tapped was as good a word as any, on the bottom of the tent, and raced back to Soul, back and forth between us, like the puppy I had compared it to. But now its greatest attraction was Soul. Interesting. The land, especially the puppylike dancer in the land, liked Soul. A lot. The spell could be designed to search for magical energies and creatures and then attack them and take their power for itself. That would require it to have the AI capabilities that had been mentioned. Without letting my feet leave the protection of the tent, I leaned out and watched the legal and CSI goings-on in the acres of cut grass.

  Even on a dangerous paranormal crime scene, Soul was wearing only the spelled cloth/paper booties the rest of the LEOs wore. No uni with attached faceplate and gloves. Rather, she still wore her street clothes, a flowing georgette dress that reminded me of the gorgeous clothes worn by Hindu women, this one in shades of lavender and purples and orchid, with jeweled and beaded fringe, sparkling like her eyes. She was gorgeous. But mostly, to the cavorting thing in the land, she was a creature of significance, and its attention to me and the baby continued to lessen as the dancer centered its devotion on Soul.

  I took my first deep, easy breath in hours. Not that I had told the others that I was having any problems. No one had asked. No one had spoken to me. I was learning the hard way that when one bucked the system, one suffered all the consequences.

  But even if they fired me, I was glad I had saved the baby.

  Unconcerned by the possibility of contamination, Soul walked around the site, talked to people, made decisions. I heard her request that T. Laine contact the Knoxville coven leader, Taryn Lee Faust, and ask her to come down as part of the ongoing paranormal evaluation. T. Laine told her that request had already been issued. Soul told her to reissue it forcefully, and send a police escort from her house to here. I heard Soul ask Rick if protocol had been followed.