Chapter 3

With Lacuna handling things, my afternoon was spent working on projects while I waited for nightfall. Like Bob recommended, I ran the rod through its paces. Afterward I worked on some of my other projects, until it was finally time to get some actual work done.

As it was the end of February, the sun set fairly early. Even so, I waited until well after business hours before starting out for the morgue.

It didn't take me long to get there. Traffic was light for that time of night, and I drove past first to make sure the place had cleared out. Only the handful of cars driven by the night shift were present.

Despite the lack of a crowd, I parked a block away. No point in advertising where I was. Especially since I'd be trespassing in the process.

Not wanting to attract attention, I left my staff in the jeep and approached the building on foot, my hat pulled low as I kept my head down. I'd taken to wearing an old wide-brimmed Stetson whenever I was up to no good, which was pretty much every time I went out of the house. There were too many surveillance cameras everywhere, which was a pain in the ass for those of us that wanted to slip by unnoticed.

Just such a camera had recorded the events at Bianca's mansion, which is how the blood-sucker had given the Council the 'proof' they needed to label me a warlock.

I'd put an enchantment on the hat that emitted a subtle magical field. Only those with some serious talent would detect it, as there was no outward sign of its effect. But the spell wreaked havoc with cameras. If anyone took a picture of me, or captured me on video, all they'd see atop my shoulders was an unidentifiable blur.

While my raid on Bianca's mansion had ended disastrously, it had at least taught me some good lessons. Lessons I'd worked hard at remembering.

As I approached the medical examiners' building, I knew the distortion spell on the hat wouldn't be enough to see me in. So as I turned into the alley, I whispered a hasty, "Obscurata," allowing me to disappear behind a veil of shadows.

I'd never been particularly good at veils. There were as many ways to create them as there were forms of magic. Air mages could make reflective bubbles that made them all but invisible; those talented with light and fire could manipulate the electro-magnetic spectrum to bend light; there were even some earth mages that were good enough to make themselves blend into the environment around them, although it didn't work as well in an urban setting.

Mind mages, rare as they were, could simply make you think they'd disappeared. But seeing as that type of thing got you beheaded, it wasn't all that common.

As someone with a talent for fire magic, I'd always bent the light around me. Doing so would put me out of sight, but it also meant I couldn't see as well. And if I moved, the veil would flicker, revealing my location. But as I stepped into the alley, my spell was perfect, allowing me to hide behind a veil that hid me both visually and audibly, while leaving my own senses unhindered.

There are advantages working for the Queen of Air and Darkness.

The Winter Knight was expected to be an assassin, among other things, and the mantle had magics worked into it for those that new how to use them. With the mantle aiding my spell, I moved to the door, sight unseen.

At the side door, I fired off a quick hex, shorting the alarm unit. A gentle kinetic spell on the push bar from the inside popped the door open, and I slipped into one of the rear hallways of the facility.

It was an old place, one that I'd visited once or twice over the years. I hadn't spent much time there as an investigator, seeing as the dead don't pay well. But I'd been there enough to know where the freezers were, and headed that way.

My progress was slow, as I had to avoid the guard that came by to check out the short in the door alarm. Then there was the cleaning staff working their way through the building, not to mention the night staff handling the remains of those unfortunate souls that had the ill misfortune of dying after business hours. I worked my way through the rooms, avoiding everyone that came my way, while my senses looked for any trace of the dark magics Snakeroot had detected.

I eventually located it in one of the locker rooms, which consisted of a wall of retracted slabs and a couple examining tables. An ancient computer sat in one corner, which I took care to avoid.

Using a bit of magic, I poured some power into my pendant, which began to glow with a soft blue light that was enough to see by. It helped me find my way across the room, where my senses led me to one of the cold lockers. I pulled it open slowly, trying to avoid making any noise. Cool air rolled out with the body, but despite the refrigeration, the air was potent with the smell of the corpse.

That might have been due to the fact that the thing was horribly, unbelievably desecrated.

The first thing I noticed was that the body had been sliced open in a grid-like pattern. It took me a second to figure exactly what I was looking at, as the head had been removed, along with his hands. One arm was missing almost from the elbow, while the other ended in a jagged stump closer to his wrist.

Between the cuts and the missing pieces, the corpse was almost a formless lump of shredded flesh. It looked almost as if he'd gone through a bread slicer, and I wondered if pieces would start sloughing off if I touched it.

Not that I would. Through the gruesome cuts, I could still see the obvious signs of disease.

I'd seen enough bodies to know what natural bloating looked like. Whatever had happened to this guy, it was something else entirely. The ribbons of skin between the cuts were all discolored. Rashes had spread across the body, and I could make out several different types of sores that looked ready to burst, eager to spill their bile and blood onto the cold tray.

I physically recoiled from what I saw, and the feel of the dark magic that rolled off of it.

Whatever else had been done to this poor guy, he'd been exposed to magic. Dark magic, the kind that could only be performed by sorcerers and warlocks that had fully given themselves over to evil.

So intent was I on the body that I almost missed the sound of voices in the hallway. I hastily shut the drawer, and made for the far side of the room, crouching down behind one of the exam tables.

A second after I'd extinguished the pendant's light and put my veil back into place, the door opened. The lights came on a moment later, although the recessed strips over my head flickered and died, leaving my area shrouded in darkness.

I peered across the top of the table at the two people that had entered, the shorter of which looked up at the light with an odd scowl. "Is that normal?" Lieutenant Karrin Murphy of the Chicago P.D.'s Special Investigations unit asked.

"These days?" replied the short and scrawny man with her, one hand pushing his glasses up on his face while he reached for some face masks with the other. "Yeah."

"I thought they were building you guys a fancy new facility?" Murphy asked as she took the mask and donned it.

"Budget cuts," the man replied with a meek shrug. "With the economy tanking due to the Big Freeze, the county didn't have the funds to finish it."

As he spoke, a flicker of guilt cut through me at his words.

He was talking about the cold snap that had killed the crops. That had plunged the planet into chaos, and wreaked havoc with the world markets. All because I'd failed to stop Aurora.

Part of me knew it was all my fault. But I tended to shove those thoughts aside, casting blame on Aurora and the Sidhe. I'd done the best anyone could have expected of me. No-one would have faired any better in that battle than I had. No-one else could have stopped her from shedding her blood on the table.

I shivered suddenly, but returned my attention to the others.

Murphy nodded at the mortician, acknowledging his statement. "I can sympathize. S.I. hasn't had an easy go of it either."

Special Investigations was the division of the police department that dealt with the odd cases; the things not easily explained. The tiny blond woman was the head of the department, and had at one time been an acquaintance of mine.

I'd hesitate to call her anything more. There'd been a time I'd considered her an ally, and perhaps even a friend. But that had been before Bianca's; before my world changed.

The two made their way across the room, to the very same storage locker that I'd just been inspecting. The mortician made sure his own face mask and gloves were in place before opening the door and pulling the tray out.

"Damn," Murphy said, her face tightening at the sight of the body. I think my own hadn't looked any better.

"Yeah, it's pretty bad," the little guy said, his voice squeaking. He seemed a little pale as he looked at the body, which I thought odd of someone in his profession.

"What makes you think this is a matter for S.I.?" Murphy asked as she leaned over the corpse, or what remained of it.

"You guys deal with the odd, right?" he replied.

"Yes, Butters." Murphy replied, a hint of impatience creeping into her voice. "But with the Streetwolves, Marcone, and the other factions all fighting over territory these days, I don't see how one mutilated body stands out from the rest."

"Ah," the mortician replied, his head bobbing quickly. "Right. Well, it wasn't the scarring that made me call you. It was the things that killed him."

"Things?" Murphy asked, looking startled. "What do you mean? What killed him?"

"What didn't kill him?" Butters replied, gesturing at the body. "I ran blood tests, hoping to figure out what caused these lesions and infections. But the results they came back with were crazy."

"How so?"

"Well, for starters, this guys has traces of plagues and diseases that have been eradicated," Butters explained. When he saw her startled look, he quickly added. "Don't worry, there's nothing airborne. Just don't touch it without gloves, and leave your mask on just in case."

I swallowed nervously at that.

"You're saying this guy died from the plague?" Murphy repeated, clearly not believing what she was hearing.

"Plagues. Plural," Butters confirmed. "He's got almost everything I've ever heard of, and some that I haven't. Things he shouldn't have been exposed to unless he slipped and fell in a C.D.C. storage facility."

Murphy nodded as she began to understand. "So you're saying this guy wasn't infected by normal means."

"Definitely not," Butters confirmed. "Which is why I called you."

The detective's face twisted into a grimace. "Truth be told, there's not much I can do to run this down," she confessed. "We don't have the same resources we once had."

Which was entirely her fault, in my opinion. I'd been willing to continue working with her, had she and the city not revoked my license and declared me persona-non-grata after being accused of burning parts of Bianca's mansion.

Like everyone else, Murphy and the others had assumed my guilt. Which was par for the course that was my life.

"What about…" Butters said, trailing off. "You know."

Murphy just shook her head. "For all I know, he did this."

Two more lights popped, leaving the room darker.

The detective looked up, her suspicious frown returning as she studied the suddenly faulty lighting. Her eyes then trailed over the room, passing over me and my veil without seeing anything.

"Well, I thought someone should know," Butters said with a shrug. "We're sending more samples off to be tested, but at this point there's no concern of it spreading. We'll have to dispose of the body before long, just in case."

Murphy nodded absently, eventually returning her gaze to Butters. "Any idea on who it might be?"

The mortician's head bobbed somewhere between a nod and a shake. "Not yet. We're waiting to see if there's a D.N.A. match on record. With the head and hands gone, there's little we can do quickly. And there's no distinguishing marks, save for this."

The mortician reached out to the body, taking care to only touch it with his gloves. He moved one of the arms, showing Murphy something on the underside.

"A tattoo?" Murphy asked with a frown. When Butters nodded, she leaned in closer, but still kept her distance. "What is that? An eye?"

"Yeah," Butters said. "I saw it while cleaning the body earlier. Looks a little bit like the CBS logo."

Murphy's frown deepened. "I'll check with some people, but I wouldn't expect much."

Butters just shrugged, and pushed the door closed, the body disappearing back into the locker. "You said to keep an eye out."

At that, Murphy's face softened. "Thanks, Waldo. I appreciate your help."

"I'll show you back up," he replied warmly, carefully disposing of his gloves and their masks. The two went through a quick scrub at the sink by the door, the smaller man making small talk about accordions or something. Within a minute, they were gone, the room once more dark.

I gave it another minute, and then reactivated the light spell and headed over to grab the last set of gloves in the box, before returning to the locker. After taking a look at the tattoo, which was just a faded green open eye of some sort, I closed up again, and washed off before heading back out the way I'd come.

As I headed for the jeep, I gave some thought to what kind of spell would inflict the damage the mortician had mentioned. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard of. There were spells that could inflict disease, but that many at once? That was beyond the skill-set of any casual practitioner.

Part of me had wanted to take samples to give to Bob, to see if he could sense anything from the lingering magics on the body. But it wasn't worth the chance that I or others might contract any of the contagions.

Once I was in the jeep, I started for home, still thinking about what I'd seen. Someone had taken great pains to hide the identity of the victim, but had missed the tattoo. And they'd certainly made the poor man suffer. Those deep cuts had blood in them, which meant the guy had still been alive when they'd been made. Although it was doubtful he would have lasted long.

No, whoever had killed him had been looking for information, and gone about gathering it in the more cruel fashion imaginable. Which meant there was a seriously sadistic magic user in town.

And if my hunch was right, it was the same person that had carved up Gaston LaRouche. It seemed unlikely that there'd be two deaths of such similar nature. Which meant that the corpse back there was tied to my case.

Distracted by that though, I didn't see the danger coming until it slammed into the side of the jeep. Something dark and massive hit the passenger side, causing the front end to swerve and careen into the corner of a building. The jeep's engine died with a sputter as I fought to clear my head. So much for being grateful for a lack of airbags.

Before my head stopped ringing, the driver's side door was ripped from its hinges, and a clawed paw grabbed me by my duster. I couldn't see much of it, other than a sense of something massive and hairy. The seat belt broke as the thing pulled me out of the jeep and hurled me into the alley.

I twisted as I tumbled through the air, my black duster flapping around me as the Winter Knight mantle enhanced my agility and reflexes. One hand thrust toward the ground and I shoved off the pavement, keeping me from landing on my ass. I spun around, landing on my feet as I slid backward, facing the thing that had ambushed me.

I had just a moment to observe the creature at the end of the alley. It was somewhat ursine, save for the sheer size of it exceeding any bear I'd ever seen. That, and the fact that it had four arms instead of just the normal two. And that it had a set of ram horns curling on either side of its head, which twitched as it exhaled a steamy breath between its two rows of serrated teeth.

Oh. And it had two pairs of glowing eyes on its face, both of which narrowed as it roared a furious challenge at me.

I blinked in surprise, struggling to recognize what I was seeing. There was a set of glowing sigils on its forehead, but nothing I could recognize. Nothing that made sense of the demon that towered over me, its arms extended out to either side as it unleashed a second roar, this one loud enough to shake the windows in the buildings around us.

And then the moment passed, as the beast barreled toward me with murder in all four eyes.