than five hundred feet away, the view of Hugo’s home wasn’t what we had been hoping for. The RVAC camera sent back a steady camera footage of dead trees, dead bushes, dead grass, and a dog lying in the backyard. Occam guided the RVAC closer to see that the dog was dead and oozing green goo. The deputy swore softly, leaning in to get a better vantage.
T. Laine said, “Increase altitude. We don’t know how high the death and decay reaches. You don’t want to damage the RVAC.”
Occam maneuvered the RVAC higher and circled the house from a good hundred feet up.
Over our earbuds, FireWind, who was viewing the video in real time too, said, “Bring the RVAC home. Move to the Ames’ house. Dress out in P3Es. Approach the house. Read it on the psy-meter 2.0. We’ll adjust our strategy after we know more. We are moving in now on Merry Promotions. Hold.” We heard a click, a silence that lasted for ten seconds or so, and another click as Occam guided the RVAC back to us. “The portable null is on the way from UTMC with two paramedics, but it is a good hour behind you if traffic is good. Turn on vest cams. Stay alert.”
We drove to Ames’ house, easing down his bumpy, potholed gravel drive until the house came into sight. I pulled in behind Occam and T. Laine, all of us parking far from the house, in an area still green and alive. When I got out, there was no noise, no birdsong, no dogs barking in the distance. Occam’s nose wrinkled at the faint stink of death hanging on the still air. The house might have been pretty once, cedar siding, painted shutters, cedar shake roof; now it was falling apart, the siding brittle gray, shakes falling off, paint curling from the trim. The trees and shrubs all around the house were dead. Three dead male cardinals lay in the front yard, their bright red plumage the only spots of color. Even without reading the property with the psy-meter, it was clear that we had found death and decay in an advanced state. The deputy’s car backed away and disappeared. I didn’t blame him.
“Levels?” FireWind asked over the para freq.
Occam read the property with the psy-meter 2.0 and said, “Off the charts. Redlined. This is a stronger death and decay or it’s been going longer than at Stella Mae’s farm.”
“Merry Promotions said Hugo was at work yesterday,” I said. “And if he killed Stella, why is his place falling apart? And . . .” I fell silent. There were too many variables and nothing made sense.
“Kent. How do you want to handle it?” FireWind asked.
“Want?” T. Laine asked, sounding bitter. “I want to sit the grand pooh-bahs of the Witch Council of the United States of America down and compel them to design and fabricate a major-class nullification working to defeat this—this stuff.” I had a feeling she wanted to use stronger words but had managed not to. “A major nullification working needs to be a priority. But that isn’t gonna happen, ever, because, one, they don’t like me, and two, no witch is going to create a true antimagic working for fear it will be used against them. And three, they aren’t going to listen to anyone in law enforcement anyway, not with the antiwitch bent of most law enforcement types for, say, the last two millennia. Other than that? I want us to go in, in case there are people in there who happen to be alive.”
“Copy,” FireWind said, his tone unchanged.
We stepped forward, onto the crunchy grass, and stopped. The sound of field boots on the lawn was odd, unfamiliar. I leaned down and touched a pinkie to a single blade of grass. The cold of death and decay cut through my finger. I rose up quickly and took a step back. The grass leaf crumpled. The lawn beneath us was still green, but it was dead, as if the leaves hadn’t yet figured out they had been killed.
“Move the cars back fifty feet,” T. Laine said, her voice tight. As the unit’s witch, she had been going almost nonstop, burning her candle from both ends, and not getting anywhere. This had to feel as if she needed to cut her candle in two and burn it at four ends just to keep up with the bodies and the spread of the death and decay. As we all reentered our cars