away from me. “No,” he answered. “Lainie is alive, at UTMC. After undergoing treatment she will be spending a few days here at HQ in the null room.”
He called her Lainie, not Kent. Did that indicate she was in very bad shape? Or was FireWind softening?
“LaFleur was down, but shifted in time to survive,” FireWind said. “Carollette Ames survived, with six rounds in her and her throat crushed by vines. She is in custody. And we are all alive, thanks to you.”
“Where?” I managed, sipping again. My throat was raw, and my hands were leafy, though not so leafy as I remembered them being. Occam must have groomed me. Cat mating ritual. I softened all over and rubbed my jaw against his furry forehead, knowing I’d have to deal with this weird partial-cat-state at some point.
“She is on her way to New Orleans. Catriona and Etain borrowed the portable null trailer from UTMC, put her in it, wrapped her in a dozen null cuffs and all of the unit’s null pens.”
“She shouldn’t have been able to survive being shot.”
“No.” He smiled slightly. “Which is why she is being trailered directly to New Orleans and the null prisons kept by the witch council there.”
“No trial?” I asked.
“No,” he said again, the word sharp. “She admitted nothing, but our investigation amassed enough evidence to make sure she is never released.”
“The deaths had nothing to do with Stella,” JoJo said. “And everything to do with her. Everything went back to the commune and the relationships that Stella forged there. And the kind of human jealousy that kills instead of walking away.” Jo pulled on her earrings, stretching her ear. “Carollette deserves to be dead, not in a null room.”
“Not our call,” FireWind said. “She may not read as a witch, but she is ajasgili. She is death and decay and they think only the strongest witches are capable of restraining necromancy.”
“The trigger in the T-shirt box?” I asked. “Was that set by Ethel?”
FireWind shifted his position on the edge of the conference table where he was propped. “Similar elements of the trigger were found in the remains of Ethel Myer’s house, her fingerprints on a bottle of absinthe. Kent believes that Ethel helped Carollette build the power sink to contain her death energies at puberty. If so, that was a brilliant, though temporary solution to control such dangerous magics.” His mouth turned down, a frown that said he was thinking. “It worked until Carollette was betrayed and found a use for her magics, to get back at her cheating husband. Conjecture. But it seems to fit the evidence that Carollette took the power into her own hands and Ethel assisted. But we may never know everything. Death and decay is destroying the evidence.”
JoJo said, “The witches will probably study Carollette for the next fifty years, until she dies. Let me play my tiny violin.”
There were still things that didn’t add up. I knew I’d be asking questions for a while, as would all the team. “What about the dead plants?” I asked.
FireWind said, “Verna Upton cared for the houseplants. I am speculating that Carollette brought contaminated dirt from her death and decay circle and sprinkled some in each pot in the studio to act as a focal, to contain the energies to the house.”
The part of me that was attached to Soulwood wanted to shrivel at the very thought. I should have been able to sense the soil in the pots. I looked at my fingertips. They were leafy yet still not fully healed from touching the death and decay.
Gingerly, FireWind asked, “Will you be able to dissolve all the shielded energies?”
Occam growled and moved as if to attack. I caught his hair in one leafy hand, stopping him. “I think so,” I said. “Maybe?” I put my head on the conference room desk and yawned. Closed my eyes. “Eventually. After I get some sleeee . . .”
* * *
* * *
Less than a week later, Occam and I pulled up to Stella Mae’s horse farm. It looked the same as the first time I’d come, except for the pasture where I had found Adrian’s Hell covered in green froth. That entire field was barren, brown, dead. I may have groaned in pain because Occam took my hand.
“You could say no, Nell, sugar. Or that you need a break. You don’t have to fix this. Not today.”
“If not me, then who? If I don’t fix it or at least help to fix it,