and felt only leather, no death and decay. “Nothing,” I whispered. “I got a feeling that were-creatures can’t get it.”
“You know why?”
“I got no clue, cat-man. But the cats in the barn were fine too, so maybe it’s a species thing? Tell the big boss that this location is part of the death and decay recipe. It’s too strong here to be anything else.”
He touched my shoulder and walked away. I studied the scene before me.
The death and decay and an ax had killed a small vampire tree. I honestly wouldn’t have thought it possible. Did the Green Knight know? Did it know it had lost part of itself? Did it know I had a part in its death? Would it retaliate?
Three witches from the North Nashville coven walked around the side of the shed. They were here to contain and shield the death and decay energies. They had to be getting tired of all this. But they were probably making a huge amount of money each time they had to do magic, so I didn’t worry about them being tired.
I walked after Occam, to the staging area where someone had already set up a field stove and put a metal percolator on for coffee. I took a paper cup and poured a cup of weak coffee. Trudging back to the parking area at Holy Bear’s farmhouse, I sat in my car and drank down the coffee and tried to read updates and reports.
I got as far as reading a report from JoJo stating that the box of sabotaged tour T-shirts had been hand delivered after Stella Mae’s band had left for the tour. They had what they thought was the delivery on security cameras, though the suspect was wearing a hoodie and loose pants and they were speculating it was a man, simply because Cale was so clearly involved in the death and decay. Visual inspection and chemical testing showed that the shirts were from the same company, the same dye lots, and the silk screen ink was the same lot number as all the other shirts.
That seemed really important, but my brain had done all it could. I fell asleep with the laptop open on my lap and the empty coffee cup in my hand.
* * *
* * *
“We’ll see that my car is taken back to Knoxville HQ,” FireWind said.
I jerked awake, some inexplicable dream ripping to shreds. The big boss was standing near my car, talking to me; he had been talking for a while, probably, as the dream had been about cars that could fly and FireWind had been flying them. “Huh?”
His face expressionless, he said again, “You are too tired to drive. Move over to the passenger seat. Occam will drive you back to Knoxville HQ in your car while I follow in his car. He’ll see that you get home.” A faint smile lit his face. “I’ve been informed that you haven’t slept sufficiently and that I’m endangering this case by allowing my agents to work forty-eight-hour shifts.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Who told you that?”
“Jones.”
“Mmm.”
“And Kent.”
I squinted at him.
“And Occam.” His smile was wide enough now to be a smile without qualifiers. “You have become an excellent team.”
I made the same noncommittal noise, crawled across the seats, and strapped myself in. And promptly fell asleep. I didn’t wake until Occam pulled onto the mountain and Soulwood welcomed me home.
* * *
* * *
Occam had stopped for a few groceries at some point, a stop I had slept through. While Occam unloaded the car, I dragged my body to my new shower and turned on the water as hot as I could stand it, letting it beat the filth of Cale Nowell’s shed off me while the scent of maple-syrup-cured bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and tea filled the house. Bacon. Occam was fixing maple-syrup-cured bacon on the new hot plate. My mouth watered and my belly clenched at the aroma of heaven in my house.
I pulled on sweatpants and a roomy sweatshirt and tied my hair back in an elastic. It grew so fast, and the curls were like spirals of vines, bushy, heavy, and springy. In the mirror, my eyes looked more emerald than they had a week past, my skin darker bark brown. My fingernails were more woody and leaves curled out here and there. I plucked three, but there were too many and food smelled too good.
I made it to the table and we ate in silence, me picking at leaves in