noise, then took her hand, and the two women shook. “Astrid Grainger, of the Grainger clan, coven leader of the North Nashville coven.”
“We can use some help,” T. Laine said. “And that null room you trailered in is desperately needed.” Gesturing us to the side, Lainie lowered her voice and we all gathered around her as she filled the coven in on the situation. She ended with, “I can’t guarantee full funding for your services, but I can guarantee you great PR.”
Astrid gave a mighty frown and T. Laine pushed on, fast. “You need something to work past the long-standing witch phobia in the rural parts of this state. This case could be it. It’s garnered national media attention and, if witches are part of solving it, part of saving the victims and deputies, you’ll be heroes. We need you. The site’s not reading like witch energies and we don’t know what it is or, frankly, if there’s even been a crime committed. Needless to say, that part can’t reach the media. Not yet.”
Astrid Grainger made a harrumphing sound that conveyed a sour acceptance of what couldn’t be changed, but her shoulders relaxed. “First let’s set up a circle and recharge the null room, which it needs after travel. Then we’ll see if we can spot anything clinging to the humans.” She waved her arm at the band members peering out of tents. “They’ll have to remove the null suits and aprons. If something magical’s clinging to them, we can then decide if a stay in the null room would help or make things worse. And then we can recharge the null pens, if you know the working.”
“I do.” T. Laine pointed to a flat place on the back lawn, away from potential horse droppings, a spot that would make overviewing by drones difficult. “Circle there?”
“Good,” Astrid said. “I’ll take two of my people and recharge the null room trailer. Etain,” she said, louder, “get the chalk, the chalk spreader, and the implements.”
“Aye,” one of the witches said. With the single word, I knew she wasn’t from around here. “String and stick, bell and candle too?” She was Irish. I had never met an Irish person before and I loved the way the lyrical sounds fell from her mouth. She had freckles the color of light brown sugar, pale skin, and straight brown hair with just a hint of red. She was wearing a black Stella Mae tour T-shirt, with the white and scarlet logo of a silhouetted Stella Mae and her guitar on front and the tour dates and cities on the back.
Astrid waved a hand in a whatever motion and, except for Etain, the witches followed her away. I bent back to the timeline database I was building. There were dozens of names already attached to the potential crime scene. One of the pitfalls of Unit Eighteen covering such a large region was that we didn’t know the law enforcement officials or the microculture of the small towns we visited on official business and we were always playing catch-up. It meant starting from scratch with each out-of-town case. Databases were the stuff that kept us on top of cases.
“Ingram. Hang on,” Occam called out, loping from the direction of the barn. I hadn’t even noticed he had slipped away. Cat stealth, cat grace. He looked so much better than he had. Hunting every full moon on Soulwood meant each time he shifted back to human he was more healed. “We got company,” he murmured. He nodded his head toward the car moving slowly up the drive. “One of the deputies says that’s FBI from the local office. Evidently he was here with the feeb senior special agent earlier.”
“Then he’ll know about ma sister,” Etain said, stepping away from Astrid’s trunk, her face going hard.
He was driving an older-model government car, a skinny black man with close-cropped dark hair, a thin mustache, and a goatee shaped like an arrowhead pointing at his chest. The door opened and he lifted a hand in a wave as he left the vehicle. He looked fit, determined, and tense as he strode to Occam and me, perhaps because of the way the deputies on-site were watching the newcomer. Like he was dangerous. Or particularly unwelcome.
Etain, Occam, and I met the new arrival in the open area between the parking and the house. The tall man extended his FBI ID. “Special Agent Gerry Stapp, FBI.”
“Special Agent Occam, PsyLED.” Occam thumbed at me. “Special Agent