21 Shades of Night, page 190
“Hmm.”
“Hmm doesn't sound good. What's hmm?”
“A few of the organs are definitely gone, consistent with the paperwork from his first stay here, but the burns, and the damage to the organs that are left definitely show that he had contact with the same current that killed her. We still don't know where that would have come from, though. These aren't 'stuck a finger in an outlet for a fraction of a second' kinds of injuries. And he most definitely was not walking. ”
I shrug. “It was a busy day at the mall. Cameras got him, or a lookalike him, sitting there, alone. No one near to huck the corpse at her, and vanish.”
Weirder and weirder. But sometimes that's how it is. I should set it aside, accept that I answered what questions I could about it.
I nod a quick goodbye, and step out into the hall. I do have one lead I can follow. The henna. Casey picks up on the first ring. “John. Who died?”
Admittedly, I'm not the most social person in the world, but that still seems like bad luck for the beginning of the conversation. “No one you know. Do you know anything about henna?” My sister, Casia, works in a lab refining cosmetic compositions. If anyone has an idea, it will be her.
“Substance used for temporary tattoos, some kinds of natural hair coloring. Fades within a few weeks of application, depending on the wearer's shower habits. Why? We both know you've got the balls for the real thing.” She never liked my tattoos.
“No reason I can talk about. Background for a case. Thanks, though.”
So I'm back to the markings, but the henna only confirms that it's new since Krieger's death.
I go back to my desk, pick my brains and my old case files.
Eventually, I find it on a different corpse from thirty years ago, and on several cases in neighboring police departments in the same time frame. One of them was cited during my training—I've got a vague memory of it. Homicide doesn't tend to respect departmental jurisdiction, so I've liaised with most of the departments in the area. I have friends who are sometimes willing to help out, when it looks like a case might be wider than my net.
But the markings are the same, and no one has deciphered them yet. A gang marking? Some kind of religious thing? I want to find someone who was actually there for those investigations, but no detectives' names are listed. Just initial evidence from the crime scene, and then... nothing.
I tell myself I'm being crazy; likely a particular tattoo artist had a hard-on for the design, or someone saw it on one of the other bearers, and requested it without knowing why. I've seen more than enough characters on college girls' backs, and tribal armbands on twenty-something frat boys to know that not everything has the meaning it seem like it should.
I haven't been sleeping well lately. The security video of my dead man walking haunts me, as I try to pinpoint the exact moment when he was replaced with a half-embalmed corpse. The mall contact is a dead end. I went to her home address, and discovered that her body was already cold. The only lead on that one was flakes of something brown and powdery, almost the same color as the stains on Krieger's skin.
A hunch hits me, and I send an email to the higher ups to request that I be allowed to pursue outside testing on a few of those flakes. Casey won't be happy for the extra workload, but I have to hope she'll come through, without asking too many questions.
I've only been with Homicide here for a year, a bumpy one, and this is the largest case I've had. Guy who had my desk lasted half as long before he caught his first big fish of a case... screwed it so bad he'll never get off the street beat they exiled him to. And he was at least twice as well liked as me. So if I bungle this one, I'll be sidelined the rest of my career.
To be honest, it's not the idea of riding that desk that bugs me, or even walking a beat.
It's the idea of letting myself down, and the people counting on me to connect the dots. People fundamentally want connection. I'm a shut-in, outside of work, and a misanthrope besides. But those moments of rapport, with the survivors, with the victims, they provide something more intimate than any partnership or mentorship. Jennifer's parents deserve to know why she died.
This is why I hate doing the meet-the-family bullshit. When you have to look people in the eye through an experience like this, all of that rhetoric about learned or professional distance just evaporates.
It flees, leaving all of us naked, holding ourselves for comfort.
Exposed.
Chapter 7
Little Pig, Little Pig, Gene
ABEL SHOWS UP after the last round of physician checks. He's hooked to the night-shift nurse, reading as she waits for the phone to ring. He helps me remove the tubes the doctors insisted be kept in, and offers me a set of scrubs. Normal clothes would tip the night shift staff who don't recognize me off, and the hospital gown would be disastrous for all involved.
I try my best to avoid looking at myself as I change. Somehow it feels disrespectful. Plus, wrinkly old man balls. Not exactly my finest moment.
Abel smiles at me as I emerge from behind the curtain. “Beautiful as ever.”
I roll my eyes. “Let's get this thing going, shall we?”
I focus on keeping my steps even on the way to the car, despite the limitations of my current form—weakened muscles, a flawed sense of balance, and heavily slowed reflexes. Abel shunts his presence from person to person, until at last we're alone in front of a car. He offers the keys to me, and I climb in the back and turn on the overhead lights.
There's a small piping bag full of dark paste in the front seat, still warm from the mixing. I strip off my scrubs and recline in the seat as best I can. Abel leans over me awkwardly in the cramped confines, etches marks on my meatsuit to match the marks on my own body. The clefts and hills the paste makes on me dance in the light and shadow as he moves.
The paste is warm against my skin, and I'm momentarily relieved we didn't get a stiffie meatsuit for me this time. For those, we need a hair drier, or hand drier, to get the mixture to sink into my skin better. And it is so much more calming when it's just his fingers on me, and the little wax piping bag.
He traces his fingers along the bare patches of skin, as they become fewer and further in between. “Soon we'll make your outside match your inside. Breathe gentle, okay?”
It's old habit, at this point. But his tenderness is touching, and I'm a little mortified to realize that my meatsuit has picked up on that too. The warm ones are so much more responsive to my underlying state, as though they're still hungering for the connection they used to have with the spirit inside them.
He carefully avoids making eye contact with my burgeoning erection, though the little smile lets me know he's well aware of it. His fingers linger on my hipbones, over birthmarks and liver spots. “Don't lose that thought; that's for after we get done.”
I smile, chapped lips stretching painfully with the sensation of a thousand shards being ground into them. But with every piped line of paste that Abel applies to my skin, the pain fades somewhat. We take care of each other.
He adds the finishing touch, stroking lightly down my happy trail, and draws a little heart on the last mostly bare patch of skin. “So that you don't forget that train of thought.” My balls tighten and my cock flexes, though the desire in my head is not one we can execute with me in Grandpa Saggy's body.
I blow Abel a kiss and flip him off. We have to wait for his work to set before I can drive, as he won't have anyone else in the car to piggyback off for the trip. His hand rests on my knee as we wait. “It's still so beautiful to me that I can see you in there, no matter how you're clothed. I've worked closely with, what, five Reapers, over the years? None of them has manifested themselves that sharply.”
I am the weapon. I never thought I'd be proud of that. It's a weird world.
“I'd just rather not be here. His wife hugged me.”
Abel laughs. “And you didn't defenestrate her?”
“Well, I couldn't, not if I wanted to be on time for our work tonight.”
“Such restraint.” His fingers tease higher, toward my inner thigh. But the sensation of all my meatsuit's hair there just makes it tickle. “You look dry enough for the drive. I might just leave your shirt off 'til you're closer, if you're worried. You ready?”
I nod. “As I'll ever be.”
“I'll see you on the flip side, then.” He squeezes my fingers one last time, and is gone, leaving me to slide my scrubs and shoes back on, and climb into the driver's seat.
As I lean to start the ignition, the movement isn't as fluid as it should be. It's somewhat better than the walk to the car, but not what I'd have expected for having done full bindings. This will be fun, in the most sarcastic sense of the word. Sometimes, when the body is too warm, or hasn't fully separated from its original occupant, there's a passive resistance.
This guy must not have been out of it that long—either that or he was trying really hard to come back. His body doesn't like me inhabiting it, unity rituals or no. It won't last long, not once the action gets going. Any physical exertion, including gripping the steering wheel, feels like it's happening against a massive pushback. I swear under my breath.
I drive to the address listed on the half-full piping bag. It's not far off, though in a quiet commuter community about an hour outside the city. Since I'll be noticed if I actually wait here, I backtrack a bit, and stare at the sky until the sun comes up. Every breath rattles in my throat, and my control over this form's muscles is getting progressively more difficult to maintain.
Finally, around ten AM, it's late enough that I can start 'er up.
I stand on the doorstep, and knock. The moment someone is within range of the door, on the inside, Abel can draw on them enough to manifest. He appears next to me, tensing to begin our work. We share one last smile, not daring to say a thing lest it break our work focus.
A woman only beginning to gray opens the door, her face concerned but guarded. She leaves the chain, though. This area is secluded enough that probably no one ever drops by who doesn't belong here. She hasn't noticed Abel draining her yet, that her reflexes are a hair slower, and that her eyes are drooping a little.
“Pardon me, ma'am, my car started smoking on the main road, and I pulled it over as soon as I could, pushed it along. Do you mind if I borrow your phone?”
Her face shows her distrust. “We're several blocks away from the main road. Why push the ailing machine that far?”
I knit my brows together and set my jowls, ready to play the old curmudgeon. “I don't trust someone not to steal it while we walk for help.”
Abel rolls his eyes, every bit the tolerant son. “This is the middle of nowhere, Dad. Who do you think is going to steal it?”
I prepare a reply, trying to think of the most egregiously out-of-date yet ineffective slurs I can think of, but the door squeezes shut, the chain slides away, and she lets us in.
Abel's grin turns wolfish as we step over the threshold, shut the door behind us, and start the show.
There's two kids in the room behind her, looking at us curiously. One's barely eight or ten, and the other must be somewhere in her teens. Abel starts toward them, as I slam their mother into the wall, my arm braced against her throat.
Every colorful word I can think of escapes my sore lips—I never got to tell Abel that this form was one of the resistant ones. He should be the one engaging the more difficult target.
Her hands scrabble at the wall, my forearm, and the endtable. She seizes a picture frame, one of those steel-edged modern ones, and smashes it over my head, corner first. It lodges in my skull, but isn't enough to kill me, though it hurts enough that I wish it would.
Children's screams assault my ears, and from the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Abel's blood spattering them, a fierce acidic burn that somehow doesn't cauterize. He's looking for the easiest way to incapacitate them, get it done, with as little attention as possible, and his blood is as malleable as the rest of him. He's already storming the next room, checking for any other presence we need to deal with.
The younger boy flails on the ground as it melts into his face and his mother fights to let out a scream. Something drops from his hand, the familiar smell burning my nose. The girl throws herself at me, a similar vial in hand. The moment it hits my eyes, I nearly lose my grip on my body.
The little hellion has good aim, and the holy water probably hurts as much as the substance burning through her shoulder and ribs. If she lives, I hope someone pats her on the back for it.
They may look like kids, but they'll douse you in holy water before you've finished cooing.
Fuck this. I drop the mother, and elbow the girl, right in the deepest section of burned muscle. Her rib cracks audibly, and she drops to the ground, wailing, the acid still eating into her.
It's beginning to burn me, too, and I whip my coat off, drop it, before it eats through the scrubs underneath, too.
Jonas is less dazed now, without me suffocating her. I pluck the picture frame from my head, and smash it over hers, knocking her to the floor. She's still, and I turn my attention to Abel's footsteps upstairs, waiting for an all clear.
Something isn't right here. They have the armament, but not the discipline. If these are demon hunters, they're the least coordinated ones I've ever seen. Shouldn't this sort of lackluster aggression be punishable by haunting or a warning, rather than a bloodbath? They must be keeping something from us. I don't have time to think about it now, since whoever's still comparatively in one piece is gonna attack us before I might get a single question out. And I've seen this rodeo before. I may not know the missing information, but it's there. The story'll come out eventually, and I'll be relieved I've gone through with it, instead of risking their wrath and my future assignments with stupid questions.
Jonas's hand flutters over her son's cheekbone as she manages to get her weight to her knees. His cries have stilled, as have his limbs, his skull burned clear through, and his blood soaking the floor.
I step into the kitchen, look for a knife to finish the job. She is, and likely always was, the most threatening one, and having a moment of doubt is no reason to let her get in a position to hurt me. My grip on my form is already failing me, my knees watery, and I only have a few minutes left before I'll have to figure something else out.
The girl's eyes widen as her mother leans over her, and I hover over her mother. I can hear the girl's breathing getting weaker. The woman has no time to let out a scream as I slice the back of her neck, across her spinal cord, and hack until I know it's severed.
I listen to the last remaining wheezes a moment, before looking for Abel. “Any others?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. All clear. One bedroom looks like someone might have been there, but hasn't been, in a while. All good here?”
“I'm losing it. This is the most stubborn meatsuit I've ever worn.”
He pats my hand. “Why not swap it out, before you bat cleanup, make sure there's no one in the shed, or the rest of the property.” His dying leash won't stretch that far.
I nod. It's been bugging me since we walked in, but now that we've got a beat I can put a finger to it. The ages are wrong for these to be the kids in the photographs—the boy was older than the girl, and here that's reversed. “That should've been more of a fight. Something's not right.” I can see it in his eyes. “You know it, too. Give me a sec. I can see if she can give us any hints.” I release my form, latching tight onto the woman at my feet.
Abel settles with me as I push myself into Loretta Jonas's slumped body. I sit to a kneel, though her limbs don't want to obey me just yet.
His knees touch mine, and he takes my hands as we rest. From the girl's breaths rattling in her lungs, and her choked sobs, we may not have much time left before Abel stops being able to draw from her to maintain his physical being. We've gotta make this fast.
He knows I likely couldn't stand, even if I wanted to. Skins this fresh are always more... acute. Touch, pain, every sensation is amplified. Without the markings, the difficulties are already starting. My hips feel like glass shards are being ground into them, and with every breath, the battered muscles surrounding my new windpipe threaten to spasm shut.
Our best bet now is largely down to instinct. See, you walk around every day in your favorite dress and some parts develop wear soonest, depending what you do in it. Bodies and minds are like that. Mild changes to junk DNA, difficulty replicating particular genetic patterns based on chemical buildup from relatives' experiences or high-stress situations. A truly good Reaper can tap into that, access some of these reactions to glean somewhat of a presence in their meatsuit's former head.
It's difficult to read, but possible, especially with a fresh body like this. Almost like meditating. It's a combination of us relaying concepts to it, and reading its reactions.
Home: a momentary vision flashing between several houses. Old home. One of them, specifically, just a short distance back from a city limits sign. Abel whispers the names from the envelopes to me.
“Owen.” A vision of a young man in a graduation cap—most notably, a young man we haven't seen in the house.
We run down the rest of the list.
“Protect.” Abel's voice is harsh, and touches off an instinct in her that makes my hands shake. Stress, and depression, and the kind of fear that crosses generations. I'd bet that mark's in the little 'uns, too, if I were to test them.
I bite back her urge to hit him, and focus on the visuals. Her giving her daughter a vial of holy water, and saying, “Remember—we must protect your brother.”
We must protect your brother.
We must protect your brother.
We must protect your brother.
Her inflection creates an avalanche of other memories and ideas, and Abel looks at me, to prompt me. I whisper the sentence to him, and when he repeats it back, it touches off another flash. “They might try to use me to hunt you,” she says, eyes wide, and he nods. “If I ever come for you without the safe word, run.”
I grit my teeth, focusing on the safe word. But no matter how many times Abel and I pass it back and forth, nothing is forthcoming.
