He looked truly confused. “Every woman wants babies.”
I closed my eyes. Breathed. Though I feared the stupid might be in the air, something contagious. “No. They don’t. Lots of women don’t want kids.”
“Well, sheeeit. These modern women jist don’t make no sense.” He shook his head and looked over my shoulder. “Incoming,” he said.
I looked where his eyes led, to see Sheriff Jackett striding toward us, between us, and up to Unit Eighteen’s witch. T. Laine had just dropped into a chair on the side porch, frustrated, tired, and worried, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers, eyes closed. “I want access to that basement,” he demanded.
T. Laine dropped her hand and looked up at the sheriff. She said nothing. I had a feeling she was counting to a hundred. Or mentally using the sheriff as target practice for ninja throwing knives. “Oh?” she said.
“Wiggle your nose or blink hard or whatever you do. But make it safe to enter. We need our crime scene.”
It was an insult based on old TV shows. Softly, T. Laine said, “Really.” Her face was cold, expressionless.
“I can’t see that you’re doing anything at all but wasting my time.”
Occam, sensing or hearing the ruckus, appeared from a tent and ambled closer. Unit Eighteen closing ranks.
Lainie stood and pocketed all her null pens. Every face in the yard was turned to her, waiting as she arranged things in her pockets to her satisfaction. I couldn’t see Jackett’s face, but his body language suggested he was getting riled. Ruminatively, T. Laine said, “While you’ve been running around glad-handing, getting ready for the next election, and chatting with the press despite your own gag order, I’ve been evaluating the efficacy of the spelled unis and the null pens against the things happening in the basement. I think I’m close to a conclusion, but I’m not there yet. You got spelled unis? No. You got null pens? No. You don’t. So, go on in, but you and your deputies go in without my gear. Which means your people may die. Otherwise, you’ll wait on my evaluation. Now. Get outta my face and take your insulting witch comments, and let me do my job.” T. Laine pushed past Jackett and gestured to Occam and to me.
We met in the grassy area and I said, “You are my hero.” It was something I’d heard people on TV say to anyone who stood up to unfairness.
T. Laine blew out her frustration. “I look like I’m wasting time, but I’m taking readings every five minutes. Which is what I should have told him instead of mouthing off.” She shook her head. “Men like that push my buttons. Anyway. It looks as if the unis and null pens, when used together, create a narrow circle of protection around the wearer/holder. But the pens drain fast and need a three-person coven to recharge them, which I don’t have, and I’m down to one box of unis. I haven’t yet determined how wide the protection is, if it totally encircles the wearer, how long the protection lasts, and how much gets through to responders the closer we get to the victims and the bodies. I’m thinking about limiting access to the patients and the basement to twenty minutes, with a sixty-minute break between stints, unis hanging in the sunlight, to reduce recontamination. Then, after sixty minutes total in the house or with victims, the wearer and his gear have to spend time in the null room. If it ever gets here.”
“The North Nashville coven said yes to bringing a null room here?” I asked.
“Yes. But now I can’t raise them on their cells, so I don’t know what to do next or if help is really coming.”
I said, “Maybe pulling a null room messes with the signal?”
“A better answer than them not coming.” She took a deep breath, pulled a water bottle from a pocket of her uni, and drank it down. “And I have to keep everyone away from the basement until I know I have a way to treat their contamination. Stupid-ass sheriff.”
“Your plan sounds good,” Occam drawled. “Sounds like the appropriate thing to do, if not the politically correct way to do it.”
T. Laine made that breathy irritated sound again. “Politically correct? Are you saying I need to apologize?”
“Hell no. He was an ass.”
T. Laine grinned and looked at me. “You got a good one here.”
Occam propped his hands on his hips and agreed. “I am a right fine specimen of manhood.”
T. Laine gave a soft snort.
I fought a smile, looking down at my hands, clasped in front of me. Occam was . . . Occam was my cat-man. Accent on the word my.
“Jackett,” T. Laine called out. “I have a compromise between speed and safety.”
Jackett ambled over, his face saying he wasn’t sure how to act but didn’t want to look as if he was being difficult or as if he was giving in to a federal cop and witch.
“The unis we’ve been using,” T. Laine said, “are antispelled unis made by the Seattle coven especially for law enforcement and crime scene techs at paranormal hazardous crime scene sites. They are expensive and hard to come by. We went through an entire yearly supply of them on the last big case we worked and after today, I’m dangerously low. I have twenty null pens and they drain fast. I need a coven to recharge them, and before you ask, no, they can’t be charged with electricity. Your agency does not have access to a coven, correct?”
“Correct. I’m listening,” Jackett said.
“I’ve determined the most likely time parameters to keep the gear working and the people safe.” She explained the time on, time off, and time in a null room protocol. “That’s based on us having access to a portable null room, which is supposed to be on its way from Nashville. If it doesn’t arrive, then your people will have to drive to PsyLED Knoxville and sit in ours, according to the protocol I’ve outlined.”
Jackett nodded, still listening.
“While we’re talking supplies, equipment use is specified and coded by budgetary demands. PsyLED’s eastern regional director is talking to the governor to declare this an emergency, which will free up people and equipment, but I haven’t heard back and I need to order and overnight more unis and equipment for this scene. We need to talk jurisdiction and money.”
I was inordinately proud of T. Laine, standing up to male authority figures without getting all prickly. I wanted to give her a hug, but I figured that should wait.
Jackett looked out over the property, clearly seeing a high-profile situation he wanted to be part of but didn’t have the resources to handle. He frowned, thinking. “I ain’t ready to turn over full jurisdiction just yet. Hell, my own investigators ain’t even sure this is a crime, and my hazardous materials response team ain’t sure what this is either. Let’s keep working together. I got a budgetary line item for paranormal investigations I can put toward the supplies. It’s never been used, since we don’t have witches or weres or fangheads in this county.” His tone said that made his county superior to others.