chuckled, the sound forced and stiff, but at least polite. I said, “Thank you, Mama Grace, but I’m not the marrying kind anymore. I’ve been on my own too long.” Mama Grace frowned at her knitting, but she didn’t argue.
“And now I have to talk about something else, if you have the time.” Both women nodded, and I led the topic back to the PsyLED interests. “I need to know more about the Dawsons’ recent visit, the elder one and the younger one. Did either man spend any time on the compound? With or without Jackie?”
“They wasn’t here but a day, maybe two,” Mama Grace said. “Him and his daddy and Jackson spent some time in the winter storage cave.”
Mama said, “You know Simon was addicted to vampire blood?” I nodded. “Living off church grounds, consorting with evil. Then he done something to make them vampires mad. They cut him off.”
“He come to the church for help.” Needles clacking, Mama Grace nodded to herself. “But that was after the vampire was rescued by the Cherokee woman, and by then, wasn’t no vampire blood to be had, not around the church.”
Mama’s voice dropping, she said, “As evil as drinking blood is, if he’d a come to the Nicholsons’, I like to think we would have helped him with his addiction. Found him a rehab facility somewhere.”
Mama Grace seemed to think about that for a moment before agreeing. “Yes. That would a been the Christian thing to do. You’re right, Sister Cora. You have a dependable moral compass and a good head on your shoulders. You should marry Micaiah according to the laws of the land. You or Sister Carmel.”
Mama’s eyebrows went up so high her forehead turned into furrows. The two women chatted back and forth about marrying under the law of the land and who should do it and why. I sat and listened. At one point, I left them to their chat and made a fresh pot of coffee in the big percolator on the kitchen’s woodstove. I served us all when it was ready, trying to figure out what I needed to do next, what questions I needed to ask, when my cell rang. I retook my rocker and fumbled, hearing the strange, modern chime in the Nicholson house, then answered it. “Yes?”
“Nell? Rick. I have news about your father.”
My heart plummeted and gave a painful electric splutter when it hit bottom. I tried to keep my reaction off my face, but the mamas were too good at reading body language. Mama Grace set down her needles. Mama placed her mug on a side table and gripped the arms of the rocking chair. “Okay,” I said. “How’s Daddy?”
“I’m at the hospital now. He’s awake. He’s asking for you. Can you talk?”
“Me? Ummm. Sure?” I mouthed to them, Daddy wants to talk to me.
The wives dropped everything and were suddenly kneeling at my rocking chair. It felt wrong to have them at my feet. Worse, Mama Grace was crying big tears like a broken faucet. I covered the end of the cell and whispered, “He’s better.” And he had to be, didn’t he, for him to be talking on a phone?
I heard a change in the background noise, and then Daddy said, “Nell? These PsyLED police. You trust ’em?” His voice sounded scratchy and rough and weak, but it was enough to produce a relieved smile. I nodded at the two women.
“Daddy. Yes, I trust ’em. You can trust Rick. You okay?”
“What about Occam? The were-de . . . the wereleopard. You trust him?”
“Yes. And he ain’t no demon,” I said firmly, in church-speak.
Daddy laughed, but the sound cut off sharply as if the laughter had startled pain through him. When he started again, he sounded weaker and shaky. “If the police ain’t found it yet, tell Sam to take you to the room at the back of the winter supply cave. Tell him I said to show you and the PsyLED police everything about it. Tell him to go armed in case something is back there again. And tell him I said, ‘Gog and Magog.’ He’ll do what you say.”
“Okay, Daddy. Mama Cora and Mama Grace are here. Will you talk to them? Daddy? Daddy?” That odd background muffled noise came again and Rick said, “The nurse gave him morphine and it just hit him. He’s out of it, Nell. But your father was remarkably talkative.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, anger blazing up like fire. “You questioned my