I sat and placed my laptop on the table, glad I had brought it, because it looked as if all meals were working meals at PsyLED, whether we were all together in one place or eating alone. Everyone had laptops and tablets and cells at the ready.
Occam dropped into the chair across from me and said, “Tandy, you start?”
Tandy shook his head, his wet reddish hair slapping. “Never go into the woods with a werecat.” Drinking soup from a paper bowl, he sent a sideways look at Occam and wiped his mouth. “He kept climbing trees and sticking his nose into disgusting places. I kept waiting for him to spray to mark his territory.”
“I was gettin’ vantage points,” Occam said, sounding fake-wounded. “I was helpful.”
“He kept dropping piles of leaves on me. And once a bird’s nest. I’m sure it was full of bird mites. I wanted to wash with Clorox, but HQ doesn’t have any. You need to talk to the cleaning crew,” he added to Rick.
“I’ll get right on that,” Rick said in the tone that meant,I’ll get right on that, never.
“We don’t have a cleaning crew,” T. Laine said.
“Sure we do. Now,” Occam said, all innocent sounding.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I am not keeping up this building. I am not cleaning up behind a dirty, messy, rude, crude man again. Not ever.” I lifted my nose into the air. “And I am certainly not sweeping upcat hair.”
T. Laine jerked forward and nearly spilled her drink.
Tandy snorted loud and started coughing.
I placed an innocent smile on my face, one worthy of a churchwoman to a difficult churchman, and bit into my sandwich.
“Oh, Nell,” Occam said, a feral glint in his eye, that even I knew had to be his cat lurking. “You may pay for that one.”
“You cantryto outwit a churchwoman, cat boy. You cantry.”
JoJo said, “Thank God he’s got another one to pick on. I was getting tired of proving to him that any woman was a better practical joker than any man.”
“Ohhhh. It’s on, sugar,” Occam said to me. “And as for you”—he pointed at JoJo—“the salt in your coffee was priceless.”
“The dead mouse in your desk drawer was perfect, kitty cat. We all heard you goEeep.”
“Guys,” Rick said. “Back to the report, if you please.”
Watching the byplay, I realized that while I had been gone, the individual members of Unit Eighteen had become a team. They teased and played practical jokes on one another. They treated one another the way Occam had treated me on the run. The way my brother Sam and I had treated each other as we grew up.
Most important, they looked after one another. Someone, probably T. Laine, from the way she watched him, had been making sure that Tandy ate. The empath had been far too skinny when I saw him last, his face pale and strained. Now it looked as if he had gained ten pounds and his face was wreathed in a smile. It was a good feeling.
“I sent you all the GPS site where the deer were spelled,” Tandy said.
“It was a small wood between two neighborhoods,” Occam said. “Lot of scents, animals and people, but not adults or witches, more likely kids, smoking dope or drinking, not casting workings. It should be added to your case CSM.”
I opened my laptop and checked the info, adding a circle around the GPS location, the same size as the others I had drawn. I toggled on the touch-screen application and, with my fingers, I adjusted the circles of overlapping territory. The new site fell within the circles of six of the companies I had already earmarked.
“How close is the nearest road?” Rick asked.
“About a quarter-mile hike if you go direct, but it’s brambles and mud,” Occam said. “Why do you ask?”
“Nell,” Rick asked, “are you up to taking a quick reading today, or do you want to wait another day?”
I pretended that my heart didn’t race and my breathing didn’t wrench painfully in my ribs, and covered by opening my salad and taking a sip of my drink. “How quick of a reading?”
“Just to see if it feels like the same energies you registered at the other site.”
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I didn’t fool myself. My ability to read the land was the main reason PsyLED had wanted me, and Rick had said this casefell right into my skill set. “I can do that,” I said, keeping my tone level so that Tandy wouldn’t be affected by my fear spiking.
“I will go with you,” Paka said, her catty voice a low vibration. “In my cat form. As protection for you.” Paka had been born a black wereleopard, and I had seen her take down a full-grown man on two different occasions. She was feral and utterly without mercy or guilt. I had no doubt that she would make excellent physical protection.
