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.”