“Tandy’s been through the training. We’ll see if he can requisition an RVAC and do a flyover out here,” Occam said.
Silent, we went back to our cars and drove to Kamines Future Products. The property was gated, a twelve-foot-high brick wall blocking access, a single drive-in, and a security guard in the tiny guardhouse. Occam pulled up and gave his ID to the guard, explaining that we wanted to speak to someone in charge. The guard asked if we had a warrant to which Occam politely said, “I’d rather just ask a few questions of someone in senior management than make this a legal matter. But I can get a paper, sure. It’ll be extensive and invasive and disruptive, whereas a little convo might be all we need.” I thought he sounded polite and reasoned and the guard and his up-the-line managers must have thought so too because we were granted immediate access.
Kamines was a three-story building with no windows on the sides and a steep roof. It was built of local brick in a beige-brown pattern and the roof was real clay tiles. Occam and T. Laine went to the front door and inside. I waited in the car, thinking about what I had learned today, about the case and about my abilities to sneak around underground. About my brother and his wife. But mostly about the tree I had mutated. Because I was responsible, and only I could fix it. If it could be fixed at all. I had told my brother how to kill the tree, but I didn’t think it would die easily or fast. I thought it would come back again and again, mutating as needed to stay alive. And the fact that Brother Ephraim was in touch with the tree, even through so small a line of energy, suggested that things might be more dire than even I had guessed. What I really needed to know was what the tree wanted. Which was as bizarre a question as I’d ever thought about a tree.
The passenger car door opened, Occam standing there, waiting. The sun was behind his jeans-clad legs, and I saw for the first time that he was wearing Western boots with pointy toes, and his jacket was of a Western design, made of soft leather. I wondered if he had killed and eaten the cow in his cat form, and I smiled. Occam smiled back and stepped out of the way.
“We have permission,” he said as I stood from the car and pulled my faded communing blanket out from behind the seat, “for you and T. Laine to search for wayward paranormal energies inside the lobby and in the front yard. According to the spokesperson, Kamines is involved in research for plastics that can withstand the surface condition of Mars, long-term. They said nothing about the energy research JoJo discovered in her deep drill. Lainie’s readings inside were ambient normal, and she’s ready to take more out here.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.”
I chose a spot in the sun, on the well-mown lawn, and set my folded blanket so the sun would be at my back. Just as T. Laine left through Kamines’ front door and approached, I placed the tips of my fingers on the ground and let the fingers of my consciousness drift beneath the ground. Roots and fertilizer. Grubs and beetles and ants. And then I was below the surface. The building to my side was far bigger than it appeared on the outside. It went down in the earth four stories. There were areas that suggested they had heat-producing machinery down there. Maybe very hot. Like things that would melt plastics. Or kilns for ceramics.
I dropped below the building, into compacted soil and the remains of an ancient riverbed. There were signs of water in the crevices of rocks, and something gemlike, crystalline, but there was no sign of anything golden and glowing below the building. But . . . there was such a thing not far away. I oriented my consciousness for it and pulled back up. “Not here,” I said calmly. “That way.” I indicated with my thumb toward the east.
“I got only surface readings,” T. Laine said. “Nothing anomalous that couldn’t be explained by them having witches on payroll to see if magic will work on Mars or if it’s an Earth-based-only energy form. So I agree. Not here. Though the spox was a smarmy little woman who somehow made me want to punch her. Despite my calm nature and well-balanced personality.”
Occam snorted like a cat in amusement. He offered his palm to me, but I was already rising. I handed him the ratty blanket, which he threw over his shoulder. “We can work up a grid for this site and get lunch before our next stop,” he said. “We aren’t that far from Tomato Head. I’m in the mood for a beef Cheddar Head.”
“You always want meat on full moons,” T. Laine said.
“Not me. I’m all about the ladies,” Occam said, laughing.
T. Laine shook her head and breathed a single jaded word. “Men.”
I had no idea what they were talking about, and opened my cell to a compass to orient myself. The golden glow hadn’t appeared to be that far away. I marked it on CSM-Nell, beginning step two of a PI—paranormal investigation—and drew on my map a grid of the grounds. At my side, T. Laine began to take P 2.0 readings—which were virtually zero. Nada. Kamines Future Products was not involved in the magic working beneath the ground. Overhead, the sun came out and warmed us, making me wish I had brought my sunglasses and a hat. More things to add to my daily gobag.
Tomato Head was fabulous. The beef Cheddar Head had enough meat to fulfill a werecat’s protein needs. The lamb sausage and sun-dried tomato pizza we shared satisfied T. Laine’s pizza addiction and had me writing out a recipe for a homemade version on a private laptop file. It was totally worth the hour away from the case.
* * *
It was after one when we left for LuseCo, and by then JoJo had updated our info on all the companies and what she had found was crucial. I scanned the report, reading the pertinent parts aloud to Occam in a staccato rhythm I had learned in Spook School. “Privately owned business. Government contract. Primary focus is propulsion research. Secondary is energy, doing theoretical and practical experiments on a particle of magic that resulted from an unrelated test in the Hadron Collider in Cern. The lead physicist states: ‘The particle was discovered tangentially to particle theory experiments, as the field of study relates to proton-on-proton collisions.’ This mean anything to you?”
“Not a lot. Maybe that they were working on atomic particles and found magic,” Occam said, “something other than psysitopes, and now they’re researching the magic particle they discovered to make it more magical. Or more powerful.”
Which sounded dangerous and fit in with some of Rick’s theories: for the energies of a magical working to touch and mutate a creature that then evolves a way to use or perpetuate its own magical energy, or more likely, for a working witch circle to knowingly and deliberately or accidentally send psysitopic energies into the earth, and make a working become stable—a working that then begins to do things its creators didn’t plan on. At this point both seemed possible. Either one might involve the atomic magic particle and result in an accidental magical release that would look and act like an MED. I wasn’t sure which one would be worse.
I continued scanning the summary. “It was later found to be reproduced by a full coven of evenly balanced magic users raising a hedge of thorns working. End of summary.”
“You know the Collider people had to be pissed,” Occam said, “when a group of twelve witches, probably housewives and farmers and artists by trade, with little or no higher education, created the same particle that theoretical and experimental physicists did, without all the fancy equipment.”
I laughed softly and checked my cell, sat maps, the GPS, and the compass, and determined that we were headed in the correct direction. The cell rang, and I answered. “Ingram.”
“Nell,” Rick said. “Just so you know. One of the patients at the UTMC died. Adam Sayegh.”
“But he was doing better,” I said. “He was likely one of the people in the second story, away from the stronger psysitopes.”
“There was an incident overnight. He fell and hit his head, started bleeding, and they couldn’t stop it, but the blood was black, not red. After death, his body began redlining psysitopes. PsyCSI took the body for autopsy at the main HQ in Richmond and they said the other remains we sent, some of which had gone through autopsies and necropsies, were beginning to sludge into black goo. The deputy director over at PsyLED and Soul made the decision to cremate all the dead—geese, deer, and now humans, once studies are complete. The medical types don’t want to keep them around.”
Usually in cases like this, bodies were kept for study and dissection, often for years. The death followed by the decay of the bodies must have been very bad to result in cremation and loss of study subjects.
“We’re also getting an additional PsyCSI team on-site later today. The Arizona CSI team will be taking over the third floor of our building, but they have their own entrance, so we may never see them. I’ve arranged a hotel for them. Tell the others,” Rick said. “Are you on the way to LuseCo?”
“Yes. ETA maybe ten minutes,” I said.
“Wear your uni. Orders.”
The call ended before I could ask what kind of incident caused Adam Sayegh to fall and bleed, redline, and die. And which occurred first, the psysitopes or the dying. Whatever this was, it was evolving fast. I remembered Dougie asking me to save her girls. So far, I was doing a mighty poor job of that. I called T. Laine and gave her, and Occam at the same time, Rick’s message.
By the time we got to LuseCo, I had unis for Occam and me out of the space behind the two seats. He sighed but accepted his.
ELEVEN
“There is simply no way that our research or our facility is responsible for the problems you are describing.”
I heard the words as I entered the front door after the fastest earth read in my personal history. “Occam. This is it,” I said.
“This is what?” the woman demanded.
“This is the site where the . . .” Not having a proper term, I settled on “. . . the contamination originated,” I said. “I’ve notified PsyLED and KEMA. Per Rick, no one in or out.”
“This is ridiculous!” the woman said. She was tall and built like a woman weight lifter, all shoulders and almost no waist. She was African-American and something else, maybe Asian or Pacific Islander, and if ever fire steamed from a woman’s eyes, this was what it would look like. “You can’t come in here and interfere with our research. This is a privately held company. We have rights,” she said. “I’m calling legal.”
“Makayla, is there a problem?” The voice was melodious and charismatic, and though I was about to head back out, I stopped and listened, standing in the doorway. The speaker was a slender man, about my height, maybe of Swedish extraction. He was blond, that white blond that looks like angel wings, and his skin was the color of fine cream. He took the concept of gorgeous to undisputed and dangerous heights, standing with a dancer’s grace and a military man’s spine, blue eyes flashing. He held a hand out to Occam. “I’m Kurt Daluege, the principal owner and CEO of LuseCo.” He took Occam’s hand, and both men stopped, still as watching cats, assessing each other. “I will handle this, Makayla,” Kurt said.