Halfblood's Betrayal, page 22
After four years of school, a cross country move, and a name change, she wasn’t going to let a spoiled brat ruin her career. Not when it was just starting to take off.
“Who else would want to do this?” Kasey muttered to herself as she caught her reflection in the polished aluminum examination table. Normal people feared death but for Kasey, death was a part of life. The part that she chose every day, due largely to her unnatural connection with it.
Unlike the poor man lying on the table before her, she could see it coming.
That edge had given her an unfair advantage over her fellow examiners. Her findings were second to none, often uncovering insights into cases that other seasoned examiners had overlooked. It wasn’t their fault, really.
Kasey simply wasn’t normal. She was not a ‘normal.’
Kasey sat the scalpel aside and tucked her fingers into the large Y-shaped incision. With practiced hands, she lifted and rolled back the flesh, revealing the cadaver’s rib cage and vital organs. As she did, a green mist descended, completely obscuring her sight.
When the mist cleared, she was no longer in the morgue. She found herself in a loft apartment somewhere in Manhattan. From the view, she guessed she was in SoHo, or at least her consciousness was.
Born a witch, Kasey had inherited the gift of magic from her parents. Old wizarding stock, their blood carried with it the arcane gifts of the Welsh Druids. While the ancient sects had all but faded from the public eye, they were well remembered in the World of Magic—a formidable bloodline once feared for their blood magic and ritualistic sacrifice.
No, Kasey was no normal, but even among the magical community she was an oddity. She had been born prescient. The ability to see the future was rare, even in the magical community. Her true sight manifested as it willed, sharing invasive and often unpleasant views into the lives of those she came in contact with, and that included cadavers like the one whose chest cavity she had just opened.
Now she found herself floating in a New York City loft, as a wine glass hurtled past her face into the exposed brick wall beside her. The glass shattered, its contents running down the brickwork.
In her incorporeal form, Kasey was invisible, so she knew she wasn’t the intended target. She turned, searching for the source of the flying wine. A brunette in a tauntingly high split obsidian cocktail dress stomped through the loft. Mascara ran down the woman’s red face as she cried.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Tina,” the woman sputtered, “Tayla’s just a friend from work.”
The woman stomped over to the couch where a man lay comatose, his mouth hung open as his head dropped over the back of the couch.
“Well, Jim, just how many of your work friends sext you?” the woman, presumably Tina, held the phone over him, as she scrolled through a sea of images. “There are hundreds of pictures of her on here, Jim, and most of them are nudes!”
Jim didn’t stir.
“She’s very cute, Jim,” Tina said scrolling through the messages, “and impossibly flexible. But we’re meant to be getting married next month, you unfaithful ass.”
Tina hurled the phone at Jim and stormed into the kitchen.
“What am I meant to tell my family? They’re flying in for this sham!” she shouted as she opened a drawer and began rummaging through it.
Kasey’s heart ached for the woman. She hadn’t had a great deal of luck with men herself but finding out your fiancé was cheating on you weeks before your wedding had to be soul crushing.
When Tina re-emerged from the kitchen, she held a set of silver scissors. She sniffed as she strode across the loft, her eyes red and puffy as she stood over her wayward fiancé.
“I know what I’ll tell them, Jim. You had a terrible accident and we’ve had to postpone the wedding. I just hope Tayla will understand.”
Sticking the scissors between her teeth, she crouched down and began fiddling with Jim’s belt. Still, he didn’t move. Kasey was beginning to suspect he’d had a little more than just the wine.
Tina unzipped his pants and yanked them off, leaving Jim in his boxers.
As Tina reached for the boxers, Kasey whispered, “Oh Tina, don’t do it.”
There were some things Kasey never wanted to see, and a castration was one of them. Unfortunately, her second sight seldom gave her much of a say in the matter.
This time, however, it seemed her gift was listening, as the familiar green mist descended just as Tina raised the scissors.
When the mist cleared, Kasey was back in her morgue, standing over Jim’s body, her sympathy for him dissipating by the moment. Unfortunately, Tina had gone too far. There would be a price to be paid for her drunken revenge. As much as she sympathized with the bride-to be, justice had to be served. Otherwise what was the point of the wretched visions if not to balance the scales?
Justice was a dish that seldom served itself. Often, it needed a little help.
That’s where Kasey found herself: a foot in either world, just trying to make the best of it. She had not always been at peace with her gift. As a child, seeing a continual stream of agony and death had been torture, but in time, that panic turned to purpose. In a world of suffering, her macabre visions and medical expertise could grant a measure of peace and justice to the families of her clients.
The World of Magic seethed and bubbled below the surface of the natural world. Witches and wizards living in secret, their presence concealed by the hustle and bustle of a busy world. In a world that worshiped technology, the arcane had faded into myth. The world was divided between witches and wizards; those who understood magic, and everybody else. The normals. They lived in blissful ignorance of the supernatural world that surrounded them on a daily basis.
Her gift could be fickle though. Feast or famine. There was little middle ground and even less explanation as to why. There was no Doctor On Demand for psychics, not real ones anyway, so she did what she could with the cards life dealt her.
She suspected Jim had been slipped some kind of sedative. Toxicology tests would show which had been administered. The results would take hours yet, but that would leave plenty of time for the autopsy she had been procrastinating.
It felt a little redundant, but not performing the autopsy would raise more questions, so Kasey set about the task. She bent down, leaning in to examine Jim. Two of his ribs showed signs of having been broken in the past. No recent bruising around the site indicated an old injury. Irrelevant, perhaps, but she made a mental note of the wound for later, just in case.
As she worked her way over the body, the pronounced click of the door being opened echoed through the silent morgue. She spun to confront her unexpected guest, and the scalpel swung from her hand. It hurtled toward the door. She stared as the world slowed. Each revolution of the blade took an eternity. With an eerie shick, the blade buried itself in the drywall inches to the right of the open door.
Her hands balled into fists as she noted John’s arrogant smile and his all too perfect teeth. His eyes traveled from Kasey to the quivering blade and back to Kasey.
Her jaw sank open, her feelings torn between regret for damaging the wall versus a small part of her that fervently wished she’d hit the unwelcome interloper. Karma could use all the help it could get when it came to John Ainsley
“Your surgical skills could use a little work, Kasey,” he said with a grin. “One of these days, you’re going to injure someone.”
“One can only hope,” Kasey muttered as she leaned back against the countertop.
John sauntered into the room. His unbridled sense of self-importance was as unappealing as the Ivy League side part he sported proudly.
At first glance, one could be mistaken by thinking him handsome, but such a notion would soon be shattered by the disappointment that would follow meeting him. John Ainsley oozed entitlement, and his behavior around the office reeked of someone used to getting their way. His Rolex served as a constant reminder of both his affluence and poor decision-making ability.
After all, who wears a sixteen-thousand-dollar watch while performing autopsies? Even more curiously, who performs autopsies for a living when they have the cash to drop on a Rolex? Surely there were more promising career paths for Ivy League graduates drowning in enough familial wealth to build a modern dynasty.
“What are you doing here, John? Can’t you see I’m busy?” She gestured over her shoulder at the open body behind her.
“I can see that,” John said, glancing down at the cadaver. His eyes widened and he took a step backward, shaking his head. “Kasey, what—“
“It wasn’t me,” she interrupted.
“Why did you cut his balls off?” John asked, ignoring her denial as he leaned forward to examine the body closer. “Where did you get your degree? Prison?”
“NYU,” she said, pushing John away from the table. “Where I earned my place. Daddy didn’t have to buy them a new laboratory to secure my spot.”
John batted away the insult as if it were a bothersome fly. “Well, if this is how they taught you to perform an autopsy, I’m glad I went elsewhere.”
Kasey rolled her eyes. “He came in like that, John, but if you don’t get out of here, I’ll see that you leave sporting a matching tribute. I’m sure I’d be doing the ladies of New York a favor.”
John grinned as he cocked his head. “Come now, Kasey. How would you know? You still haven’t taken me up on my offer.” The corners of his mouth peaked up into a grin. “Afraid you might like it?”
“Afraid I might catch something,” she said. “I’d sooner trade places with our friend on the table. Now, get out.”
“But,” John protested, trailing his hand along the autopsy table, “this looks far more interesting than the massive coronary sitting on my table.”
“Out!” Kasey bellowed, pointing at the door.
“No fun at all,” John muttered as he slipped out of the lab.
As the door clicked shut behind him, Kasey sucked in a deep breath to calm her frustration.
She looked at the scalpel still buried in the drywall by the door. Glancing around to ensure she was alone, she lifted her hand and whispered, “Gwys.”
Power pulsed through the examination room, and the scalpel twitched as strands of magic wrapped themselves around the silver haft of the scalpel. Then with a pop it sprung free, hurtling through the air back into Kasey’s open palm.
Raising her other hand, Kasey chanted, “Atgyweirio.”
The drywall bubbled, liquefying before her eyes as it simmered and knit itself together as if nothing had ever happened.
After placing the scalpel down on the table, she retrieved a fresh blade from her surgical tray.
“Yes, the last thing I need is John to have any evidence of that little outburst,” she said aloud to herself.
Her arcane gifts had certainly complicated her life, the visions in particular, but it was times like this she was glad she’d been born a witch. Not having to deal with some of the more tedious mundane tasks in life definitely had its perks.
She lifted the new blade and was about to resume her work when the lab’s phone rang.
“This is going to take all day at this rate,” she muttered as she dropped the blade back on the tray.
The clatter of the scalpel echoed through the lab.
“If this is John again, I swear...” She let the threat go unfinished as she trudged across the room, and then sighed as she lifted the phone of the receiver. “Kasey speaking.”
“Kasey, this is Dr. Sampson. Is everything alright?” There was a note of concern in the otherwise friendly tone.
Aw, crap. Dr. Julie Sampson was New York’s Chief Medical Examiner, the head of her field and one of the country’s foremost experts in forensic medicine. She was one of the only women to hold that particular office in three decades.
She also happened to be Kasey’s boss.
“Yep. Everything fine. Just a little bit of a slow start down here today, that’s all,” Kasey said, regretting her tone immediately.
“Hoping to chew through some of the backlog before lunch?” Julie asked.
“I had planned to, but things just aren’t going my way.”
Click-click. The sound of Sampson’s pen carried down the line. Sampson was cool as ice; if she was fidgeting with the pen, it didn’t bode well.
Sampson broke the silence. “I thought I might catch you in the lab. What are you working on?”
“The one with the mutilated manhood,” Kasey said, figuring the odds would be with her that it was the only case of its kind in the office.
“Oh,” Sampson said. “How’s it looking?”
“This one’s cut and dried,” Kasey said, and then grimaced.
Sampson burst out laughing. “Oh, Kasey, that was terrible.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Kasey said, pacing circles with the phone against her ear. “Now that I’ve put my foot in my mouth, what can I do for you?”
Sampson cleared her throat. “Well, I know you were hoping to clear a few files, but I’m wondering just how far you are into your current procedure?”
“I’ve just begun the autopsy,” Kasey replied. “Not a lot of mysteries here, though. Clearly someone with an axe to grind. I suspect he was sedated and then mutilated while he was out cold. All that remains is to determine what sedative was used. Hopefully it will give the police something they can use to work out who did it.”
“Good,” Sampson said. “Sounds like an easy one. No match for your talents then.”
Kasey felt the color rise in her cheeks. Praise from Dr. Sampson was hard earned. She didn’t know what to say. Her pause grew awkward as the void lengthened.
“Or at least I hope it’s an open and shut case,” Sampson continued, “because I have something else for you. Something I want you on, and no one else. I’m going to need you to give Mr. Mutilation to someone else.”
“Um, sure, I guess,” Kasey mumbled.
“Excellent, because I have someone else that needs your attention.”
Kasey felt uneasy. Something wasn’t quite right. She ran her fingers through her dark brown hair as she considered Dr. Sampson’s words.
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she asked, “So, when are they coming in?”
There was another pause. Not a good sign. “That’s the thing, Kasey. They aren’t. You’ll need to go to them. Grab a field kit and be waiting downstairs. They’ve sent a town car for you. It will be here shortly. Don’t worry, they will return you at the completion of your examination.”
Kasey scratched her head. “The field. Where am I headed?”
“I can’t say, I haven’t been given the details, but the request came direct from the mayor’s office. So, grab your kit and head down to the street. They will be there any minute.”
Kasey nodded although no one could see her, and then felt a little sheepish.
“Kasey, are you still there?”
“Yes,” she stammered. “I understand. I’ll go grab a pack now.”
“Excellent. And Kasey?”
She paused. “Yes, Dr. Sampson?”
“Tread carefully. These aren’t the kind of people you want to antagonize.”
Kasey bit her lip. What did that even mean? “Yes, Dr. Sampson. I won’t let you down.”
She hung up the receiver and pondered the bizarre phone call. Field trips were a little unusual, particularly with the city’s resources spread so thin. Medical examiner offices in two boroughs had been closed. The staffing shortages had left the three remaining offices overworked and understaffed.
She wandered back to the examination table, popped the wheel locks off, and wheeled John Doe over to the freezer. Later, the police would learn his name was Jim.
Gingerly, she shifted him onto the cool steel tray and locked him away. After peeling off her gloves, she threw them in the trash, grabbed a field kit from the supply closet, and headed downstairs.
As she stepped outside, she slowed her pace to weave her way through a crowd of pedestrians thronging the street.
A horn blared as a black town car pulled to a halt in front of the building. An angry taxi peeled around the Lincoln and tore off down the street.
The Lincoln came to a halt, and a driver stepped out. He was wearing what looked like a pressed uniform from a hotel, complete with a chauffeur’s hat.
“Are you Miss Chase?” the man called.
“That’s me,” Kasey replied, starting toward the town car.
“Marvelous. Come with me, please.” The driver opened the rear door. As Kasey approached the vehicle he reached for the kit. “Let me pop that in the trunk for you.”
Kasey surrendered the kit and slid into the back seat of the Lincoln, fastening her seatbelt.
The trunk slammed behind her and a moment later, the driver was back in his seat. Popping his turn signal, he slid back into the traffic.
Leaning forward, Kasey asked, “So, where are we going?”
The driver tilted his head, finding Kasey’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “I’m not at liberty to say, Miss Chase. We’ll be on the road for a little while though, so you just relax back there.”
Kasey nodded as if she understood, but everything about her current situation made her uncomfortable. The unusual request from Dr. Sampson, who was clearly nervous. This entire unexpected field trip, not to mention the chauffeured town car whisking her off to an unknown destination.
She settled down into the rich Corinthian leather. As nice as it was to be out of the lab, she couldn’t ignore the uncomfortable pit that was forming in her stomach.
What could the mayor possibly want from me?
Find out in A Date With Death.
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Alasdair laughed, the rich throaty rumble filling the room. In the library, I had found his laugh endearing. Now that I was the object of his mirth, the sound was quickly wearing on my nerves. Particularly after I had passed their silly little test and found the Camp.
