Rift in the Soul by Faith Hunter

Author:Faith Hunter [Hunter, Faith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

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* * *

At four a.m. my cell dinged. I heard Occam’s ding from upstairs. Middle-of-the-night texts to both of us meant HQ and problems. I rolled over and picked up my cell.

The text said: LaFleur, Rettell, and FireWind are en route to a new body found at a site. There’s significant blood spatter, and the locals seem to think it should be our case. Are you available to respond?

I tossed off the quilts, shoved my sock-covered feet into slippers, and pulled on a robe, making my way through the chilly house and out onto the front porch. The world was black and icy, the road down impassable. Strange pearly lightning still flickered here and there in the clouds. The only way down would be if the road melted by midday, which was usual in passing winter storms.

I considered the knowledge that I could bring heat from belowground and melt the ice. That would require a true emergency because that risked pulling the magma I had once accidentally disturbed closer to the surface. I really didn’t want to be responsible for a volcano in Knoxville when it wasn’t life-or-death.

Occam opened the door and stepped out behind me. He was fully clothed, wearing his coat, a gobag in one hand. When he saw the landscape, he said, “Huh.”

I called Tandy on speaker and said, “Ingram and Occam here. The road down is impassable.”

Occam said, “I could shift and meet transport at the bottom of the hill. If there’s a marked city or county unit nearby, they could provide transport.” He looked up at the sky and added, “Dawn would be here before I could reach the address on your text.”

“Stand by.”

“Stand by” could mean for seconds or hours, so we went back inside and closed out the cold. Cherry padded silently down the stairs, the cats trailing slowly behind her, Jezzie braving the handrail in the unlit house. Occam’s cat eyes could see better in the dark than I could, and he shucked his coat and began the process of reviving the stove’s fire, moving as silently as the cats, to keep Mud from waking. The house batteries were fully charged, but if the power went out we would need them for computers, cells, heat, and hot water, so I lit a lantern and carried it with me to dress.

When I went back to the kitchen, Occam had started coffee and water for tea and had a cast-iron skillet heating on the stovetop. According to the church that was women’s work, and I figured that no matter how long I lived with the man, his willingness to do things around the house would be a surprise. He had no idea how I reacted when I caught him doing something in or around the house. Or maybe he did. Cat nose and all that. A man doing housework was pure-T-sexy.

“I put another quilt over Mud and pulled her door shut so we could work.” Humor in his voice, he added, “The cats are on the porch using the litter box, but Cherry might need a little encouragement.

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