been any double-blind studies on witch energies or null energies and certainly none on whatever this is. There isn’t any money for that kind of research. The Nashville coven suggested half an hour for anyone before they start showing symptoms. After symptoms, a minimum of an hour was their suggestion, and the patients need to be read by a witch after to see if the death and decay has been neutralized. That’s what we’re calling it. But frankly, longer time in a null room won’t hurt them, and might help them. Medical personnel are absolutely essential.” I was laying down rules to a doctor. FireWind should not have put me in charge . . . “You don’t want investigators taking care of your patients.”
“The patient who died with this magic working began to decompose immediately. The body saponified a green goo and the fingers and toes fell off before we got it moved to the morgue. I hear it decomposed so fast down there they had to scoop the body parts off the autopsy table and into plastic bags.” Her eyes were hard and brittle as glass. “She was melting like wax.”
I said, “Melting. Yeah. Good a term as any.”
“Okay. I’m initiating a new protocol. The plan going forward is to take all stable patients from Cookeville to your headquarters before they come here. The EMTs and paramedics will have to stay with the patients. Then, I need a witch to read them. I have a few names and contact info on file somewhere.”
I tilted my head to show I had heard and that I didn’t disagree.
“Then we can send any patient to your office for more null time as needed. It’ll cost a fortune, and no one is gonna be happy with me.”
“Except your patients and their fingers and toes and internal organs.”
Pench whipped sharp eyes to me. “There is that.”
“You could request a budget increase next year for a null room here on the paranormal unit.”
“In-house. Yeah. Are they expensive?”
“I think that if you have a slab floor system and a designated place for it, it isn’t too bad. Construction and then fifteen to twenty-five thousand for the working?”
“Twenty-five K?” Pench made a chuffing sound like Occam often made. “I can raise the money for that myself. And we can take over an existing patient room.”
“Be careful that you get a well-regulated, full coven for the null working.”
“Suggestions?”
I handed her one of T. Laine’s business cards. “She isn’t a coven-bound witch, but she can give you good advice on the best people to call for creating a null space.”
Pench pocketed the card. “Thanks.”
“One thing I’ve noticed,” I said, “—and it might be more positional and locational than anything else—but so far we’ve had one male fall really badly ill. Thomas Langer. And he got better. All the dead and accelerated-decomp bodies are female. Well, so far. She needs to be in a null room. Like, right now.”
“Hmmm. It’s interesting but not the enlightening epiphany I was hoping for.” Pench spun and left the room.
“Enlightening epiphany,” I repeated to the comatose patient on the bed. “That’d come in right handy. Like a genie in an old lamp. So,” I said to Erica. “Is it all right if I read you the way I read the land?”
She didn’t answer, not that I expected her to. I pulled off my glove and approached the bed. I touched the bare skin above Erica’s bandages. Electricity snapped at me hot-cold, scalding-freezing, and I leaped back, rubbing my fingers on my spelled gown. The feel of death and decay was a vile hot/icy/slimy sensation and I’d be doing no deeper read at all. Erica was dying. Fast.
I tried to interview more patients and got nowhere. No one was physically able or willing to talk to me. FireWind would be unhappy, but there was no help for that.
Quietly, having accomplished little, I stripped off the protective gear, scrubbed my hands in hot water and vile-smelling soap, and left the paranormal wing for the pathology department.
* * *
* * *
It was Monday, so the office was open and working on a normal schedule. When I rang the bell in the outer office, a young woman came to the window. She was wearing an ID with the word Histologist beneath her name. I asked for Dr. Gomez; she shook her head and disappeared. Moments later, Gomez came to the window and gave me a look of distaste. It was similar to the expression I gave the cats