Author: Kalayna Price

“Where’s the body?”

The woman didn’t hesitate. “The two officials on the case are currently escorting the corpse to the city morgue for an autopsy.”

I turned on my heels, running for the front door as soon as the word “morgue” crossed her lips. I dug my phone out of my purse as I ran. “Call Tamara,” I yelled into the mouthpiece, holding the VOICE COMMAND button.

Tamara’s name flashed across the display before the phone announced it was calling. It rang once, twice. I reached the street. No taxis.

Crap, I had the worst taxi karma recently.

“You need a ride, Craft?” Briar said, two steps behind me.

The offer shocked me, but I guess the enemy of my enemy and all that, though I wouldn’t come close to saying friends. Still, she didn’t have to ask me twice. As I followed her to her vehicle, Tamara’s line rang a fifth time and then went to voice mail. I hit REDIAL.

Come on. Pick up your cell.

It rang twice this time before her recorded message started. She’d sent me to voice mail.

Damn it.

I didn’t have the morgue’s direct line on my voice command list, so I had to scroll for it. We reached Briar’s car as I found the number, and I paused. She drove the biggest SUV I’d ever seen and it might as well have been an armored tank with the amount of metal I felt coming off the thing. Just standing outside it made me nauseous. I couldn’t imagine climbing inside.

I did anyway.

“Craft, you look like you’re going to retch.”

“I’ll make it. Can I open this window?” I didn’t wait for her answer but hit the window button as soon as she cranked the vehicle.

It helped only a little.

I can do this. Then another thought hit me. Iron blocked faerie’s magic, was my perception charm working? I glanced at Briar, but she wasn’t aiming any weapons at me, so I guessed I wasn’t glowing.

I hit the CALL button and my phone dialed the morgue’s main line.

Tamara picked up on the first ring.

“Alex, this isn’t a good time. I have a cop’s body coming in. People are going to want answers.”

“I know. Larid, escorted by two OMIH officials. Listen, you’ve got to stay away from the body. Keep it contained if you can. If you can’t, then lock yourself in your office.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, and in the background I heard voices. A vehicle idling. A door slamming.

“I think it will turn ghoul. Don’t go near the body.”

“It what? You’ve got to be kidding,” she muttered then yelled, “Reggie don’t—”

A masculine scream boomed in the background, then another and I heard a crashing crack. Static filled the connection.

“Tamara?”

No answer.

“Tam?”

Another scream, this one higher pitched, cut through the static.

I whirled to face Briar. “Drive faster.”

* * *

Briar managed the half-hour drive from the Quarter to Central Precinct in eighteen minutes. Every single one of which made the sick feeling in my stomach worse—and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the iron or the fact that Tamara’s phone had gone dead after her scream. The SUV hadn’t come to a complete stop when I jumped out of the passenger side and ran for the morgue. Briar called my name, commanding me to wait, but I didn’t stop. Visitors were required to go through one of the main entrances and a security check as well as sign in and get a pass. I didn’t have time for that. I jogged around the side of the building heading for the entrance funeral homes used when picking up bodies.

I wasn’t the only one.

A flock of police officers were at the scene. Of course, considering most had been in the building during the attack, it wasn’t surprising they were here. Between the press of uniformed and plainclothes cops, I couldn’t see much as I approached, but near the open doors of the body mover’s van I could just make out a white sheet with deep crimson stains. Another bloodstained sheet covered a body a few feet away. I ground to a halt, still a good distance away. I didn’t want to know, but I needed to know who was under those sheets.

Heat burned my eyes as tears threatened. I blinked them back and opened my senses. If I’d have moved closer, I wouldn’t have needed to let my awareness drift, but then, if I started crying, all the cops would see. So I reached toward the bodies.

Male. Both of them.

I let out a relieved sigh, which immediately made me feel guilty because that had to be Reggie and at least one of the OMIH officials. But I’d never met them, didn’t know them, and if it had been Tamara…I didn’t finish that thought.

A hot hand landed on my shoulder. “Craft, I told you to wait.”

I didn’t turn. “Two dead. Both males, one in his late twenties and the other late thirties to early forties.”

“Can that grave witch sense of yours tell their pants size and marital status too?”

I shot a frown at Briar, but she was already moving, hurrying the rest of the way down the steep drive. I jogged to catch up, but drew up short as we reached the back line of cops.

How the hell am I going to get through that? Only a handful of cops were actively working the scene, the rest were stuck between transfixed terror—after all, they’d known the officer-turned-ghoul—and trying to appear helpful so they weren’t sent away.

Two police dogs were present and one officer had a law enforcement grade tracking charm, but they seemed to be having trouble finding a sample for the dogs or charm.

Briar pulled her badge and muscled her way through the crowd, flashing her credentials to anyone who gave her trouble. I followed in her wake, spotting more familiar than unfamiliar faces as I moved through the throng of officers. Some nodded grim greetings with tight lips and burdened eyes; others didn’t seem to notice me at all. Only a few officers’ features hardened as they spotted me, but no one stopped me as I followed Briar.

“I’m not your ticket onto a crime scene,” she told me when we reached the front of the blockade of officers.

“Didn’t expect you to be.” I turned on my heel, walking toward the morgue’s back entrance. I almost made it too. Then a large hand landed on my shoulder, the bear-sized palm burning against the skin my top didn’t cover.

“You shouldn’t be here,” John said, and his mustache tugged down toward his chin with his frown.

“I’m not here to interfere. I just want to check on Tamara.”

He stared at me for a long moment, the deep lines around his eyes sharper today, the crease between his brows tight. “This thing was responsible for the suicides, but what the hell happened here?”

“Ghoul,” I said and his mustache managed to pull down another notch. “I think the rider was killing the victims to prevent them from turning into ghouls.”

“How humane.” He made a sound between a snort and a grunt.

Then we both stood there, not looking at each other. What else was there to say? That I’d told him the suicides were homicides and if they were treated as such this might not have happened? That he’d told me to stay out of it, and if I had, the rider would have never decided I was a threat and a lot of good cops would still be alive?

The silence hung heavy and thick, a tension that had been building one secret and small hurt at a time so that now a wall towered between us. “I’m going to check on Tamara,” I finally said.

He gave a weary nod, but I think he was relieved the conversation ended. I hurried inside before anyone else could stop me.

While cops packed the back entrance, the morgue was as cool and quiet as ever. I found Tamara in her office, one of her new interns stitching four nasty-looking lacerations. The skin around Tamara’s eyes tightened in something not quite drastic enough to be called a wince every time the needle pierced her skin.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you to the hospital?” the intern asked as I walked through the door.

Tamara shook her head. “You’re doing fine and you’re half done.”

“But the hospital would have local anesthetics for the—”

“You’re the one cringing, not me,” Tamara said, her voice sharp, which made the other woman flinch worse. It was true, the woman acted like she was the one being sewn up without painkillers, instead of the reverse. Tamara noticed me in the doorway and nodded in greeting.

“Guess I won’t be buying a short-sleeved wedding dress, huh?” The words came out tense despite her attempt at humor, and her brown eyes had the glassy shimmer of shock.

“Best charm witch I know not able to cover a couple of scrapes? As if,” I said in reply, forcing a smile, but my stomach was in my throat, or at least the taste of bile and the fact I couldn’t swallow or breathe suggested it had lodged there.

My gaze stuck to the four jagged claw marks. Ghoul claw marks. I didn’t hear what the intern said because inside my head, I was screaming. Which is probably why I didn’t hear Briar behind me. Or maybe she really was that quiet.

“Craft, I told you not to run off.”

I whirled around. I almost corrected her and told her she’d actually said she wasn’t my free pass onto the crime scene. But I remembered what she’d told me two days ago, that killing a ghoul victim was more humane than letting them turn into monsters. I couldn’t let her know Tamara was hurt.

Unfortunately, someone had already told her. “The dead are the body mover and one OMIH official. The other official survived and was rushed to the hospital. I’m told the ME was injured as well. Is that her?”

Crap.

She shoved past me, not waiting for an answer. She walked over to Tamara and examined the half-stitched wounds. The intern’s hands shook under the scrutiny and Tamara finally winced.

Without a word, Briar turned on her heel and walked back out of the room. I followed her.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“She a friend of yours?”

I nodded.