of it, yes. I traced the body buried here to another circle on the edge of this farm, and then to a third circle. It is in the same place as the kettle of dead humans. There’s a stone circle there too, buried about a foot underground. Not so sophisticated. Not nearly so old. The dead bodies from the kettle were dumped and spilled there, giving the circle power. It’s a power sink, a place to store death energies, probably so the death practitioner didn’t kill someone by accident. But something happened and the power was used. That use turned the energies even darker. Into death and decay.” I looked at my teammates. “I gotta wonder who lived there before Cale Nowell moved in. It was rental property. We need to ask the landlord, the farmer, whose name I’ve forgotten.”
“Holcomb Beresford,” Occam supplied. “Holy Bear.”
“I have always thought my magic is a mutation from witch genetics. And those mutations may also include gwyllgi.”
“Did you know all this?” T. Laine asked Occam.
“No.”
“When were you going to tell us you killed people?” she asked me.
“When I had to.”
“I see,” T. Laine said. “So, from the church inbreeding, three paranormal creatures have emerged: witches, yinehi, and gwyllgi. And you think we’re chasing another para here, similar to yinehi.”
“The builders of God’s Cloud of Glory Church came from all over Europe and settled here,” I said. “Cousins married cousins. People left the church. Married out. Others married in. Powerful witches were killed or ran away. Weak witches who had a gift for finding water or making plants grow or helping livestock to birth safely were able to hide their gifts. They stayed and married in. Recessive genes that went back to common ancestors began to appear. Began to mutate. Same thing happened here and a yinehi was born. And died. But the genetics were still there, in that family. And that same line produced a creature with the magics of death and decay.”
I looked at T. Laine. My friend. Her face was closed and hard and she didn’t look back at me but kept her eyes on the trees around us. She asked, “Could you create death and decay magics?”
“At first, I worried about that possibility,” I said. “But I think it’s a separate path. Like earth witches can’t use moon magics. Your magic is familiar to each other, but it’s also very different. Death and decay is like mine but very different.” I hoped. I truly hoped.
T. Laine met my eyes. Hers carried something in them, something that made me acutely uncomfortable. “Is this the magic that helped me win the fight at the house with the Blood Tarot and the vampires in cages and blood-magic attacking? The magic that killed the blood witches, Lorianne and Jason?”
My mouth went dry as dust. She knew. Knew I had taken them as sacrifice for the land and to power my magic. “Yes,” I whispered.
T. Laine Kent rose to her feet. “I have some thinking to do. Y’all head on back. I’ll be along in a bit.”
Following orders, I stood, shaking. Occam stood with me. I gathered my blanket and my potted cabbage and trudged to my car. Got into the passenger seat. Occam got into the driver’s seat. He didn’t start the car. Instead he took my hand, his warm and strong. I clasped it back. “I’m hungry. Want a steak?” he asked.
I turned to face him. He was watching me, a small smile on his face. “You’uns not mad at me?” I asked.
“Nell, sugar, I’ll love you forever. Someday I’ll tell you about the time I killed and ate a man.” He turned on the car. Smiled a satisfied cat smile. “For the record, humans do not taste like chicken.” He turned the car and drove back to the law enforcement center, sharing a silence that felt . . . amazing. And terrifying.
SEVENTEEN
On the way back to HQ, we stopped at Tina Ames’ house. Tina was Hugo’s mom, and the sheriff himself was standing with her on the front stoop, one arm around her shoulders.
“Looks like they just told her about Hugo,” Occam said. “Gimme a minute and let me read her for death and decay and witch magics. Unless you can tell just from looking at her?”
I shook my head, making a negative sound, and he left me to my thoughts, thoughts pulling me deep inside myself. They were thoughts about Soulwood and about the bone-wood that we had just left. Thoughts about