She nodded and followed him out. She tucked the stray hair behind her ear again. She wasn’t sure if she was really ready to meet her new team. Before she came, she had read up on the members of the OCU. A couple of vampires, a couple of witches and a lycan.
She wondered what else was on this team. A two-thousand-year-old mummy with bandages still hanging from its decaying body? She expected Bela Lugosi to jump out from around the corner any minute and say, “Good evening,” in a thick Romanian accent.
Caine led her to a large, glassed-in room. The only one, she noticed, that didn’t seem so cramped and stuffy, an obvious reminder that they were underground beneath the police station. Her own lab back in San Antonio was bright and cheerful, despite the fact that they dealt with violence and death every day.
There were three people in the room when they entered. One at the table eating, one lounging on a sofa with a huge textbook opened on her lap, and another with a tattooed bald head, tattooed arms and bright pale blue eyes, standing at the sink eating what looked like take-out Chinese.
They all stopped their various activities and stared at Eve when she walked in, still battling the hair coming loose from her hurriedly done French braid.
She knew she would be facing animosity when she volunteered for the job, but had no idea of the level of hostility until she entered the room. She could feel it physically, like a clammy fog floating over her when she stepped over the threshold. She found it difficult to breathe from the cloying thickness of it.
“Good, you’re all here,” Caine announced as he stepped back, allowing Eve to fully enter the room. “This is Eve Grant, from the San Antonio lab. She will be working with us on this case.”
Eve smiled and tried to meet everyone’s eyes. She managed to until she came to the tattooed man at the sink. He was grinning at her like a maniac. Pursing her lips, she nodded to him and then turned her attention back to Caine.
“I’ll do the introductions, and then we’ll get down to work.” Gesturing to the petite dark-haired woman on the sofa, Caine said, “This is Lyra Magice. She specializes in spells, potions, poisons and healing.” He nodded to the table. “Jace Jericho—bites, wounds, metals and audio and video analysis.”
Eve nodded to them both, noticing that they both looked very normal. She’d never guess they were Otherworlders. Caine gestured to the man at the sink, noodles hanging out of his mouth.
“And this lunatic is Kellen Falcon. Specialties include explosives and ballistics.”
Kellen slurped the last noodle into his mouth and grinned. “Chief, you forgot social director. I’m a frigging awesome party planner.”
“Right.” Caine smiled at Eve. “So, that’s the team. You’ll meet Gwen McKinley, she’s in the lab, and Dr. Givon Silvanus in the morgue.”
The one called Jace pushed up from the table, and tossed his paper plate into the garbage.
“Welcome to the Boneyard,” he barked. Making a wide path around her, he walked past without a smile and left the room.
Kellen approached her and rolled his eyes back into his sockets. “Welcome to the nuthouse.” He stuck out his tongue and waggled it back and forth, his metal piercing flashing at her.
“Kel, go do something constructive,” Caine chided.
He bowed his head and walked backward out of the room. “Yes, Master.”
When he was gone, Caine turned to the woman still lounging on the sofa. Her head was buried in the thick volume of text on her lap. “Lyra, could you please get Eve up to speed on the case?”
“What? Why do I have to?” she whined.
Eve bristled inside. She knew why Caine had asked Lyra to be her guide. She was as close to human as an Otherworlder got, and the only other woman. A witch was essentially human, just with magical power and connections to other planes. Personally, Eve had never put much stock in witchcraft. Her best friend in high school had been a practicing Wiccan, and it didn’t impress her much.
“Don’t whine, Lyra. It’s unbecoming for a witch of your station. What would your grandmother say?”
“She’d open a portal to another dimension and blast your butt through it, is what she’d say.”
“Well, it’s a good thing she’s not working here and on my payroll, now is it?”
She stood and set her book down on the sofa. “Fine.”
Caine smiled at Eve. “Lyra will also show you where you can put your things.”
“Okay.”
“Great.” He nodded to her again, and then backed out of the room as if he couldn’t leave fast enough. She had a feeling that Caine Valorian, despite his forced charm, wasn’t too keen on her being here, either.
When he was gone, Eve looked at Lyra, who was standing glaring at her from across the room. “So, um, where can I put my bag?”
The woman opened her mouth and it seemed to Eve that she was about to tell her exactly where she could put her bag. But she closed her mouth and walked toward Eve. “Follow me. I guess I’m your tour guide.”