Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(7)

“And that places this under our jurisdiction,” Rick murmured.

“Discussion is taking place at high levels about who will take lead on this case,” Soul said, her voice calm.

By discussion, I knew she meant arguments. Every branch of law enforcement wanted this case except the sheriff, who had too much political acumen to want anything to do with a United States senator, three rich dead VIPs, multiple wounded, and vampires.

“Ingram,” Soul said.

I jerked upright, away from the wall where I had slouched, and said, “Yes, ma’am.” It was time for whatever job Soul had for me. Her eyes flashed darkly in her olive-skinned face and she smoothed her platinum hair, twisting it in its long, curling coil.

“K9 is finished. CSI has completed their outdoor work. Walk the grounds. Sit for a while. Look things over. Tell me what you find.”

“Yes’m.” I turned and hightailed it out of the security cave and outside. I was being told to use my gift, to read the land. As I fled the house, my gift crouched and licked its lips. Metaphorically speaking. Not in reality. Or that was what I told myself.

I buttoned my jacket as I walked to the truck again, getting out the psy-meter 2.0 and my faded pink blanket, and then back to the window where the shooter had stood. Turning, I viewed the grounds and the drive and the darker smear of the cove. The air smelled icy and rivery—that peculiar odor of the Tennessee River at normal levels—and my nose felt frozen. My breath was a white cloud in the security lights. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted. Farther off, a dog barked, distressed.

The K9 dogs and handlers were gone. SWAT was gone. The coroner’s vehicle pulled away with the woman’s body as I watched. The lights illuminating the backyard went out, which made me smile. Rick, or maybe Soul, was making sure no one could see me when I went to work. I saw Hamilton walking back from the street up the drive, my flashlight still brightening his way. He didn’t see me, and went on inside. Three sheriff deputies’ cars pulled away. Two couples and a group of five guests left, walking down the road for the cars parked along the verge. Three of the BMWs left too. Overhead, the sky was still black, but it wouldn’t be long until it shifted into the gray of predawn. I closed my eyes, letting my night vision return. I breathed the air and let my body relax. It was easier to read the land when I wasn’t hyped up. That was JoJo’s term for excited and nervous—hyped up.

I set the folded blanket on the grass and calibrated the psy-meter 2.0. I did a quick scan of the area under the window and then across the yard, getting only small psysitope spikes on level four. Nothing definitive. Not even anything I could point to and say, maybe. And when I checked a second time, they seemed to be fading, reading slightly lower on the scale than before. Anomalies?

I wouldn’t be determining the species of creature just now, but that couldn’t be helped. I turned off the unit and sat on the blanket. Blowing out a breath, I placed my hands down, palms open, on the lawn and pressed down. Scratched my fingertips into the thick grass until I touched the dirt below. Instantly the discomfort I had been feeling all night eased. This was where I belonged. I breathed for a few minutes, letting my body settle and my gift quest free. Down. Into the earth. With a job to do and earth to read, my bloodlust settled too.

Grass leaves, crisp and dormant, the roots thick, well fed, and satisfied, was the first thing I read. It had been grown as sod and placed atop soil that had been enriched with mushroom compost and a good mix of supplements. Roots of trees, shrubs, and plantings intertwined. Insects and grubs and earthworms were hibernating. Down into the ground, I quested. Deeper. Rocks were here, the rounded stones of a much larger river bottom. Limestone below that, holey and shattered. The first water table was only a few yards deep.

I pulled back and let my interest settle on the grass. Plants didn’t tend to notice things outside of rain, abundance or lack of nutrients, abundance or lack of sunlight, fire, seasons, and the phases of the moon, so I didn’t expect to sense anything. But I did.

I found a path of damage. It trailed from the trees near the cove, to the window and back. Both paths crossed a runnel that fed the water in the cove. The path of wounded plants extended beyond that, all the way to the asphalt. I rechecked with the psy-meter 2.0, which showed next to nothing, now.

The shooter had left a trail. One only I could follow.





TWO




The grass was dying, its leaves injured, the roots failing. The shooter had damaged them all. By next week the path he—it?— took would be brown and dead. There was no way that the shooter was human. But I had no idea what it was and that was the first thing that Rick and Soul would want to know. If I could identify the type of paranormal creature it was, that might place the entire investigation into the hands of the PsyLED team. Without that, no federal agency would consider relinquishing control.

I stood and carried the psy-meter back to the truck, where I locked it in, and then took my blanket into the darkness, toward the trees, following the trail of the . . . whatever it was. Every place where its feet touched down was dead. To the sides, spreading out, was less damage, but I didn’t think that grass would survive either. It was a type of injury I could follow even without having my hands in it, yet the dormant grass didn’t even know it had died, as if passing away in its sleep.

I walked through the yard, my fingers freezing, my toes frozen. My cheeks felt even colder, and I realized that I was crying, crying for the death in the ground. I reached the trees at the back of the property and moved deeper into them, into the darkness. The roots along the shooter’s pathway were wounded, but I thought the trees would survive. All but one little scrub oak. It was maybe five feet tall, only a few spindly branches to either side, and it was nearly dead.