I was getting sick of visiting Chicago's morgues.

The first time I'd visited the Forensic Institute I'd been tagging along with a possessed serial killer who'd already put me on his mental menu. That alone would have soured me on the place for life. I'd been forced to make additional treks to the place since taking over for Harry as Chicago's only practicing wizard. Solving mysteries involved a lot of trips to the impersonal stone building to see the BFS' only medical examiner, one Waldo Butters. More often than not I'd find the missing person I was looking for in one of the refrigeration units.

In the beginning, I'd been forced to wait for the guards to trade shifts before I could sneak in to see Butters. Now, with the quartz earpieces I'd fashioned, I just had to pick the scab of one of my many cuts, bleed on the stone, and hope Butters remembered to put the piece in before he started work. I doubted he'd leave it off in times like these, but the possibility was still there. I sent off a quick, 'Outside, waiting at the back entrance' to Butters and then settled under a veil to wait.

Around ten minutes later Butters stepped out, holding a carton of Marlboros gingerly as if he was afraid they'd grow teeth and bite. Which wasn't honestly out of the possibility, given how hellish Chicago had become since Harry's death. His eyes scanned the seemingly empty lot behind the Forensic Institute for me, his anxiety rising when he couldn't get a lock on where I was.

"You need to find a better excuse," I sighed, plucking the carton from his cool fingers.

Butters yelped and jerked away from my touch. It took him a minute to calm down enough to speak, and his voice was still a little higher than usual when he said, "Don't sneak up on me like that! And what do you mean, find a better excuse?"

"I mean that no one in their right mind is going to believe you're a smoker if you hold it that way. It's a carton of cigarettes, not a rabid animal."

"Rabies would be faster and less painful than lung cancer. Why are you under a veil? Couldn't you just hex the cameras?"

"I could, but I think the establishment will get suspicious if your cameras consistently malfunction when you step out to 'smoke?'"

Butters grimaced and fumbled for a cigarette. "What do you suggest? I can't just go for a stroll without it looking odd. This gives me an excuse to open doors for you without raising eyebrows."

I sighed. "Light it and turn your back to the camera so no one can see you actually smoke the thing. Spritz your coat with cologne before you get back to work. The smokers I know try to cover the smell, even though it doesn't work well. I'd suggest you actually get someone around your size to actually smoke while wearing your clothes before coming in to work. It'll add authenticity."

Butters finally succeeded in freeing a cigarette from the pack, lit it, and then turned away from the camera just as I'd suggested. He was frowning at the empty air next to my face as the cigarette smoldered. I was tempted to take it from him. I hadn't smoked often over the years, and the times I wanted to were usually the times I shouldn't.

"That really stinks, both literally and metaphorically." He blew out a breath. "Now, I assume you didn't come here to lecture me about smoking etiquette. Who's dead this time, and what do we think did it?"

Butters' tone was resigned, which bothered me a hell of a lot more than fear or anger would have. He'd felt both when talking with me, depending on who I'd come to poke at. We'd almost shouted at each other when a fourteen-year-old warlock had ended up on his table because of me. I'd tried to talk the girl down, tried to take her in, but...by the time I'd gotten there it was too late. A family of five died that day, four of them at her hands. I'd done what I had to, and it still gave me nightmares.

And all I could think when I stared at the gangly teenage corpse was...it could have been me. There but for the grace of God goes Molly Carpenter. The young warlock hadn't had anyone there to give her warnings, no father who could persuade her not to sprint further down the left-hand path, no fallen angel to soak up the worst of what black magic could do to the mind. It had gotten her killed. If not by me, then by the White Council when they learned what she'd done. At least I hadn't dragged it out with a sham trial.

Butters didn't see it that way. He couldn't shake the idea that Marcone had somehow had a hand in the family annihilator case. No one believed he'd actually respect the terms of our agreement and keep me out of his side of the business. I didn't believe it either, but he hadn't pressed the issue—yet.

"I'm not sure it has anything to do with the supernatural at all," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I didn't want to cry in front of a man who already didn't like me. "This is...personal. I'm asking for a favor, Butters. I will owe you one."

That took Butters by surprise, and the cigarette slipped from his fingers, bursting into ash and orange embers. He stomped it out with a curse and tried to pry another from the carton.

"Personal?

"Yeah," I said, grateful he couldn't see my face. It was bad enough that he could hear the tears in my voice. "I hear it's customary for suicides to be handed over to a medical examiner or a pathologist before the remains can be released to the next of kin."

Butters' face lit with understanding and he relaxed a fraction. "It's the girl Brioche examined this afternoon, isn't it?"

"Her name was Rosanna. Rosie to her friends. I was hoping that you'd be the one to examine her. I wanted details."

Butters sighed. "The story was splashed across the headlines, and Brioche is on quotable material like white on rice. She should still be here if you want to take a look. The next of kin won't receive the results of the autopsy and tox screen until morning."

"Thank you," I whispered. "I promise I'll owe you one."

Butters flicked the cigarette down and stomped on it, grinding it to a smear on the pavement. "You don't have to promise me anything. She was a friend. You really think you can get anything from a corpse?"

"I know I can," I said, thinking back to my first encounter with a wendigo's victim. "It might be a waste of time but..."

"You need to know," he finished for me.

"Yeah, I do."

Butters opened the door, disabled some kind of alarm, and then allowed me a moment to walk through the door ahead of him.

"Alrighty then. You know the drill. Onward to exam room one."