laughed.
I knew vaguely who was in my house and if I’d tuned in more closely I could have named them. Most of Unit Eighteen had invaded the living room and kitchen and I couldn’t remember if this was a planned visit or not. Either way I had company and couldn’t go traipsing around in my altogethers. I wrapped a robe around me and trudged to the shower, dropping off the sheets on the back porch, which served as a laundry room, cat romp-room, hammock sleep space, and catchall. Without greeting or even looking at my uninvited guests, I got ready for my day. Showered; clipped my leaves; gooped the ends of my hair; jerked on loose pants, white T-shirt. The weapons harness and weapon went into my repacked gobag, just in case. Slippers on my feet. Because I was not dressing for work on my day off in my own house. Decent, I went to face my home invaders. Though I guess I had to call them visitors since they had cooked breakfast.
• • •
“File is ‘LaFleur/Circle,’” JoJo said, referring to the report on our screens, one I hadn’t read yet. “We have a black-magic/blood-magic spell with a dead cat, and the possible presence of vampires at the site either before, during, or after the spell was cast. Rick was called to or attracted to the site, in cat form, though by the time he arrived the spell was ended. Due to the timeline, we haven’t established causality. T. Laine? You’re up.”
“From the beginning … ,” T. Laine said slowly, as if trying to sift out conclusions. She was sitting in my rocker, her tablet balanced on her thigh, with one knee thrown up over the arm of the chair, the other foot bare to the floor, pushing her forward and back. She was dressed in pants that ended at midcalf and a tank top to combat the heat. She had kicked off her shoes at the door and looked perfectly comfortable in my home. “… Rick loses conscious volition, yet somehow drives toward a site where a black domestic cat has been sacrificed in a black-magic ceremony. He shifts to cat, grabs an old gobag containing a blanket and a flip phone, which is perfect for being carried in cat fangs. Goes overland to the witch circle. He doesn’t enter the circle. He shifts to human. Texts for help. Wraps himself in the blanket. Waits for backup.
“Occam was not called to the witch circle, though he was farther away and busy.” T. Laine slid a sly glance my way and then back to her tablet.
I was too much of a tree for my blush to show, thankfully.
She went on with her summary. “Rick is a black cat. Rick has magical cat tats, though not black cats. JoJo has a big-cat tattoo and she isn’t called. And Occam, who is a cat, but not a black cat, wasn’t called to the same spell. I’m not sure what part is coincidence, but I’m thinking causality is in there somewhere. Either way, coincidence is a rare bird.”
I wasn’t certain what birds had to do with cat spells, but I agreed with the coincidence factor. I nibbled on a piece of cold toast, letting the conversation flow through me like a stream, searching for eddies and pools where logjams and detritus of thought had gone overlooked.
Breakfast had been really good, even though it was only microwaved scrambled eggs, toast, and jelly. The washed dishes were piled on the kitchen counter, except for the last of the toast and jelly on a platter in the middle of the coffee table. The work-related tablets and laptops were scattered around, as were glasses of iced cola or tea. Everyone had brought their own drink. I was sipping on my own cold mint tea to try and keep cool. It wasn’t helping much. My single-unit air conditioner had never been intended to chill down a house this big, in daylight, warmed by this many people. John, my deceased husband, may have planned to get more window units, had the children he wanted ever appeared. Living alone, I hadn’t needed them, but Tandy, Occam, T. Laine, and JoJo did.
Rick, our senior agent, was in an interagency conference all day at Knoxville FBI headquarters, with the assistant director of PsyLED—Soul—and with the regional heads of the FBI, CIA, ICE, ATF, the Tennessee and North Carolina National Guards, the state bureaus of investigation from Tennessee and North and South Carolina,