Spell Tamer, page 3
He handed her the slide and she clicked it back into place. She put her eye next to the scope and studied it again. Now she was looking for it, she could see the faint imprint of a wave in the sample. It was subtle, and she could only imagine what it looked like when the blood was flowing rather than sitting still on a slide.
"Interesting, isn't it?" he asked.
"Very." She turned her attention away from the sample and back to the other scientist. "Ten years ago, people would have hated it if we said all of our bloods were different, but it's true. There's no way around it. We're all different."
"And yet compatible at the same time."
"You say that, but neither of our blood work reveals our bond is solidifying." She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice but didn't manage.
Issac set down his tablet and made his way over, pulling her into his arms. "It'll come in time," he promised. "You just have to have some patience."
"It's been two years."
"And maybe it'll take another couple before everything looks the way it should. We have a long time ahead of us, a few years isn't going to make too much of a difference."
"Hmm."
He pulled back so he could meet her gaze. "Are you just annoyed because you don't have any necromancer powers yet?"
She considered for a moment. "Maybe," she admitted. "I can shift sometimes, it only seems right that I gain something from you too."
"But you don't have the control that Zack does?"
She shook her head.
"And you don't have the hunger Hadrian gets?"
"No."
"Then I wouldn't worry about not having any of my powers yet. They'll come in time. You know it takes a different amount of time for different mating bonds to exchange powers. And you haven't got one, you've got three. That's going to have a massive impact on how long all of this takes. Give it time."
"I will," she promised, though it didn't completely rid her of the disappointment. She wanted to be able to have control over all the different aspects of their bond now, not wait for years for it. But she supposed there were some advantages to that. She was in a unique position of having a mate with life magic, one with death magic, and one who was somewhere between the two. Given time, she might be able to do research that would change the paranormal world's understanding of the mating bond forever. She could live with waiting if that was something she could pull off, even if she personally wanted it now.
The dumbwaiter dinged, signalling its arrival.
She pulled away from Issac, a frown on her face. "Are we expecting anything else from Zack?"
"Just the bone sample, I think."
She didn't even wait for him to finish and rushed over to the dumbwaiter. At first, she'd been sceptical about using it, but there was something undeniably useful about having an easy way to send samples up from the morgue. There was a lot less danger in the mechanical contraption than there was with them carrying things up and down the stairs.
A quick push of the button and the metal doors slid open revealing a set of Petri dishes stacked on top of one another. She took them out and moved them across to their prep space.
"I'm guessing it's time to get started on these?" Issac asked.
She glanced at the clock, relieved to see that they still had plenty of time before they were clocking off for the night. Now that she had her lab set up the exact way she wanted it, she sometimes struggled with stopping, even though she needed to spend time away from work in order to not go crazy. She'd tried to be stricter in the past couple of weeks, particularly when there weren't any time-sensitive cases going on. It was only a matter of time before she'd need to stay late in order for them to catch a break.
"Yes. Although..." She glanced at the abandoned samples. She'd made notes on all of them, but hadn't done any of the cataloguing yet.
Issac chuckled. "How about I finish putting all the data into the new system, and you can start on the bone?"
"You don't mind?"
He shook his head. "It's a waste of time us both prepping the bone samples. And you'll be able to check on the blood once we've got the machines running."
"You're the best." She went up on her toes and pressed a swift kiss to his cheek.
Issac chuckled. "Don't think I'm doing it just to be nice, I'm planning on reaping the rewards," he teased.
"Oh, is that right? And you're planning on getting all of that by doing science with me?"
"Yes. Isn't it devious?"
"You're impossible," she responded. "But I'll let you get away with it because I want to get started on the bone. Perhaps we'll be able to narrow it down to a species type and start narrowing down an identity."
She didn't hold out much hope on that front. None of the people the blood had come from had died in the past twenty-four hours either, which would mean there was only so much they could get from the blood. She was able to see the make up of it, which was useful in its own way, but DNA wasn't the same. They'd be able to get it from the hard tissue.
But for now, she needed to focus on getting what they could out of the skeleton's bone matter. It might even get them one step closer to working out who he was and what had killed him.
She hummed to herself as she went about going through the process, dimly aware of Issac moving around her in the lab to get to some of the other machines. While they were doing general research, they tended to stick to their own sides of the lab, but when something as important as this was, they shared all of it, dancing around one another as if they had decades of practice instead of years. It always brought a smile to her face when they did it. As if it was something only they shared. Though it could be a mate thing, she'd never tried anything like this with Zack or Hadrian. For all she knew, things would run just as smoothly when it was the two of them in a small space.
It would be strange when other people started working here. In some respects, it excited her to think about them growing as a department, but she enjoyed it just being the four of them. Especially when it meant that if one of them had some kind of hunch or idea about how to track someone, they'd trust that person and follow the lead, even if it didn't make logical sense. Perhaps they would build up the same rapport with a new person, but that remained to be seen.
She put the thoughts out of her mind. It was trouble from tomorrow, and she knew better than to borrow it. Her mates were resourceful men, between the four of them, they'd always be able to make anything they wanted into their reality.
It would take a while for the bone to process even with a little magic in the mix. Hopefully, once it did, they'd be able to get some answers about the skeleton currently residing in the mortuary. If they didn't get a name soon, then she was going to have to give him a name herself. Every time she saw John Doe scribbled across the top of the notes, a pang of sadness went through her at the thought of someone out there not knowing what had happened to their friend or family member.
She sighed and set down the sample in her hands.
"You all right?" Issac asked.
She nodded. "Just trying not to let the job get to me."
He put down his own specimen dish and made his way over to her, folding him into his arms. "I know what you mean. Sometimes it's hard."
She had no idea where her tears came from, only that they were muffled by Issac's shirt. He pulled her even closer and didn't say anything while she let the emotions overtake her. She'd never broken down like this in the lab. Not even when they were faced with some truly awful scenes, but something about this one was different. The man had been buried in that field long enough to become a skeleton and they had no clue that he was even missing. Something about it was so awful that she couldn't even put it into words.
After she felt all cried out, she pulled away from Issac and wiped the leftover tears from under her eyes. "I'm sorry, I don't know where that came from."
"It's okay," he assured her. "We've all had moments like it. For me, it was that case with the young girl. Do you remember?"
She frowned. "The one who was killed by someone who was disappointed she wasn't his mate?"
He nodded. "It was the futility of it all. It's something that poor girl had no control over. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't born to be his mate. She shouldn't have died for it."
"You locked yourself in the supply cupboard..."
"I did, yes. I knew that if I showed it got to me, then I could have made things more difficult for the rest of you."
"Oh, Issac. Why didn't you tell me afterwards?"
He chuckled nervously. "We got another case and everything started moving faster than any of us had time for. The time was never right after that."
She leaned up and kissed him swiftly. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."
"I'm not. It's part of the job. We can't switch ourselves off to the horrors we see all the time. Sometimes, we have to embrace it and let the emotions take us. There's no shame in feeling so much. All of us have done it at one point or another. This is just your turn. But you have to take it for what it is and use it to strengthen yourself and motivate you to help find justice for the people who can't get it for themselves."
"Is that how you're so upbeat all the time?" she asked.
Issac shrugged. "Partly. And also because I believe we're doing something great. We're helping the world become a better place. Maybe it's not as good as stopping the crimes before they happen, but we take dangerous people off the street and give families closure. That's important too."
"It is." She had no doubt about the truth in what he was saying. They were doing what was necessary to make the world a better place, using their own unique skills to do that.
"So, let's go and do our jobs. Use the sadness to fuel you into doing the best job you can."
"I will," she promised, glancing at the processing bone. She would find out what happened to John Doe, no matter how long it took or how much extra work they had to put in.
Chapter Six
Zack leaned against the wall of the mortuary, deep bags under his eyes revealing how hard he'd been working to try and find the answers to the deaths of the skeleton and Hughes. Cassie longed to be able to order him to take some rest, but she knew she wouldn't be able to convince him. Not until he'd done his bit and could rely on the others to do the rest of the investigating. Zack was even more determined than she was to bring killers to justice. Likely because of his own past.
"What have you found?" Hadrian asked as he entered the room.
Zack straightened now all of them were there and made his way over to the pair of examination tables which took up the centre of the room. It wasn't often that he got the second one out, which must mean that he'd found a connection between the two cases.
"Cassie was right to have me check on the areas surrounding the skeleton’s heart," Zack started, throwing her a quick smile. He clicked on the big screens so they could all see photos he'd taken during his examination. "As you can see here, something has caught the sternum, presumably whatever it was pulled out the heart."
"Do you have any other proof of that?" Hadrian asked.
Zack shook his head. "If it was just on the skeleton, I'd have said that it was more likely to be some kind of stab wound. And it still could be depending on how they removed it."
"Then how are you sure?" Issac asked.
"Because of what Cassie said about Ronald Hughes. I took a look at his neck first with an x-ray, and then with an invasive procedure. I wouldn't have thought to look that closely without Cassie's input, but once I did, it became clear that his neck was broken in the exact same way as our John Doe's."
A second set of photos appeared on the screen showing the similarities.
Cassie's eyes widened. She'd suspected there was a connection between the two of them, but seeing it in front of them now was indisputable. Either two people happened to have been killed the same way, or they were killed by the same person. From what she'd experienced and learned as part of the PCI, the path of the least resistance was likely the reality. Which led them to the assumption that this was the work of one person.
"There's no doubt this is the same killer?" Hadrian asked Zack.
"I would say there was a high likelihood that was the case from the neck breaks. But once I started examining the area around Hughes' heart, I became certain. It isn't on the same part of the sternum as with the John Doe, but whatever it was that ripped out the heart was the same as what caused the scratch on the second body."
Another photo popped up onto the screen along with measurements and other factors.
"What caused it?" Cassie asked, trying to think through the previous bone damage she'd seen and if there were any that had created similar markings, but she came up blank.
"That's where I'm running into a bit of a problem," he admitted. "It's nothing we have access to on file, which rules out most human weapons unless they made it themselves. But it doesn't rule out all the talons, beaks, and claws shifters have."
"So, we're looking at a shifter killer?" Hadrian asked.
"I'm not sure. But all the current signs are pointing that way. I don't know if we'll be able to get any DNA or samples from the damage around Hughes' heart, but maybe Issac and Cassie can have a go at analysing the tissue there and seeing if they can come up with anything."
"It's doable," Issac promised.
"If you let me have the sternum of the John Doe, I think I have a test I can do that'll help determine whether or not his essence has been used for any kind of rituals or dark magic," Cassie said.
Hadrian raised an eyebrow. "You've never mentioned that before."
"I've never tried it on actual bone before," she admitted. "But I've been working on the test for a while and I'm reasonably certain it'll work."
"Will it damage the bone?" Zack glanced over at the examination table where the skeleton was laid out perfectly, a hesitant expression on his face. She could understand where he was coming from. Damaging the bone would separate the parts of this man's body, which wasn't ideal to begin with. It would also prohibit them from being able to examine it further if they needed to.
She sighed. "I don't think so. But with never having done this before, it's impossible to tell for sure. I can hold off if you don't think it's worth it."
Hadrian clicked his tongue as he thought about it. While Zack's opinion would be taken into account, he was the one who ultimately got to choose the fate of the bones.
"Hold off until you've done the tests on the tissue, so long as you don't think any magic traces will deteriorate beyond being able to be detected," he instructed.
Cassie shrugged. "I don't know how old the body is?" She turned to Zack, hoping he'd be able to furnish her with an estimate.
"Given the state of decay and the warm summer we had, I suspect we're talking about six to nine months, but it's difficult to put an exact timeframe on it. I have the computer crunching the numbers, I'm hoping it'll throw up something that can be more helpful."
Hadrian nodded. "Right, that makes sense. Cassie?"
"There'll only be faint traces anyway at this point, most magic decays quickly after the first week or so. But I might be able to get something."
"Can it wait until after you've tested the tissue around the heart?"
"Definitely," she confirmed. "I wouldn't expect to see too much degradation between now and then."
"Okay. Let's do that. Any look on finding any identification?" Hadrian asked, his comment directed at the room in general.
"No," Issac responded. "We're pulling a blank at every turn."
"I have a friend who does facial reconstructions. We can see if she's able to take a look at it," Zack suggested.
"Anyone we know?"
He shook his head. "Someone I met at that conference you sent me to a couple of years back."
"A human?" Issac asked.
"Yes. But for what we need her to do, I don't think that will be a problem," Zack assured the rest of them.
"I don't see why it would be," Cassie agreed. "We need a face more than anything. And you mentioned putting it through the human missing person database, Hadrian, so that's perfect."
"True. Zack, get on to her and get an estimate for us hiring her services. Let me know how much it is, and I'll see if we've got enough in the budget for it," Hadrian instructed.
"I'll get on it right away."
"How long has Hughes been dead?" Cassie asked.
"About a month. Given the state of deterioration when we found the body, he'd been dead a couple of weeks. We've had him for two while we wait for the family to respond and come pick him up," Zack said.
"We haven't heard back from them?" Hadrian frowned as he asked, clearly concerned about that.
"No. I sent a follow-up letter a couple of days ago, so I'm hoping they'll get back to us soon, though at this rate, it may be a good thing that we've still got his body."
Cassie walked over to the body. He was mostly covered in a thin sheet, covering up the gap in his chest where his heart used to be. "He doesn't look like he's been dead a month," Cassie observed.
"He won't." Zack came over to join her. "You remember that preservation potion I had you make me a while back?"
"Oh yes, I forgot about that."
"Well, it worked wonders. I used it on him after I did my initial autopsy. It preserved him perfectly and he hasn't been decomposing since. Before he arrived here, the freezing temperatures had a hand in it. Sometimes, the best form of preservation is nature itself."
"Hmm. So we have one body from six to nine months ago, and one from one month. If it's the same killer, are we missing victims, or are they working on a six-month schedule?" she mused.
"Let's hope they're on a six-month schedule," Issac responded. "And that they don't have classic serial killer tendencies."
"You mean with the escalation?" Cassie asked as she pulled back the sheet to examine the heart area.
She waved Issac over so he could see too. He was much better at picking where the best places to get samples from was. Probably due to the fact he'd been doing this for longer than she had, but she was eager to learn and was determined to get it right.
