Chapter 7
I took a few minutes to explain to Lash what was going on while Det. Grisham took Simone to get some snacks and drinks from the vending machine downstairs. After talking to Lash and the nurse we found that she was to be released in a few hours but had to wait for the doctor and administrator to arrange and bring in her release paperwork.
I was sitting on the edge of her bed, holding Lash's hand when Simone and the detective returned.
"I'll be back soon so don't go taking off without me." I teased lash and patted Simone on the top of the head. Simone giggled and Lash gave me a sweet smile and a nod.
Then looking at Simone she grinned, "That's fine, we have girl talk to get to. I wasn't sure how to get rid of you so we could chat, so this works out great!" Lash took Simone's hand and gave her a warm smile and Simone giggled harder.
"I just hope it's not about me." I said softly to myself as I closed the door behind me.
"The bodies are here in the morgue, I've let them know that we're coming to take a look at the bodies." Detective Grisham said in a matter of fact tone. "Try not to do too much talking when the attendants and doctors are around, about the theoretical stuff I mean." He said in a more confidential tone as he turned right and I turned left.
"Where are you going? The elevators are over here." The detective said jerking his thumb towards the hallway to the right.
"True enough, but the stairs are to the left." I said lifting my hand to the left as if to usher him down the hall.
"Stairs? We're on the fourth floor, the morgue two floors underground. Why would we want to use the stairs?"
"Because electrical things and wizards don't go well together, so unless you'd like to get stuck in said elevator, we use the stairs." I explained.
His brows knotted for an instant then one rose as he clicked his tongue at me, skeptically. "Then I'll meet you at the morgue. Don't keep me waiting too long…" He said and turned to the right and began marching down the hall.
"Must be an old war wound…" I chuckled to myself seeing the awkward gait of the detective as he sauntered down the hallway.
I quickly turned and headed down the hall and navigated the maze of hallways and stairwells to get to the morgue. He was right it was 6 floors down to get to the morgue but on the first floor you had to cross to near the center of the building to get to the stairwell that headed to the subfloors and not the parking garages. The portly detective was sitting down as I entered the room.
"You made good time." He said seemingly impressed.
"You get used to it." I told him with a smirk.
"Harry?" a familiar voice came from the door to the autopsy area. "What are you doing here?" Butters asked confused.
"What am I doing here? What are You doing here?" I asked surprised. Butters is one of the county's medical examiners and typically worked out of an office farther downtown in a nondescript building.
"I was called in on this one since nobody else wanted to touch it." He said shaking his head looking somewhat defeated. "You know these cases that you're involved in aren't helping my career advancement." He said shaking his head and opening the door, waving us in.
The detective and I grabbed gloves and masks from the counter as we came inside. Butters took his place at one of the large stainless steel tables. The body that was on the table appeared to be that of a very old man, the skin was thin and papery, not to mention winkled and sagging. However, in contrast the hair on the head of the ancient looking body was jet black, short and spiky, the result of a lot of hair product typically used by younger men. The look of the corpse and hair together made me think of the black court vampires.
"This guy makes no medical sense what so ever." Butters said turning to the body. "According to his medical files he's 23 and in perfect health. His organ tissue is aged but don't show the typical signs of 90 years of abuse. The plaque buildup in his veins is that of a 23 year old, but they are as brittle and thin as that of a 90 year old man, possibly older." Butters said using his probe to point out various parts of interest. "To top that off, there are no drugs, poisons or other unexpected chemicals in his blood work." Butters finished, setting down his probe and turning to the detective and myself.
"Is there a chemical or biological weapon that might do this?" The detective asked.
"Not that I'm aware of and like I said his blood and tissues samples came back clean. If it were a bio-weapon I'd expect to at least see a high white cell count or signs of a fever, but that's not the case." Butters looked between the two of us while Det. Grisham rubbed his chin looking uneasy.
"Can I have a few minutes alone with the body?" I asked nodding towards the door.
"Why what are you going to do?" Det. Grisham asked in his default cop voice.
"The sort of thing you don't want to testify to in court or put in a report." I said thoughtfully, "This way if something nasty with horns and claws shows up and your boss's ask what happened, you can honestly say you don't know."
"Are you expecting something like that?" the detective asked skeptically.
"It's Harry Dresden; you always have to expect something ugly with fangs or claws to show up." Butters said with a bit of a bitter tone in his voice. "Harry, try to leave everything as you found it, and absolutely NO FIRE! I'm not kidding…" Butters said with a scowl on his face and unplugging his CD deck and laptop as he retrieved them.
"No worries, I'm not even going to use much active magic. I'll use just enough to check for magic and if there is any to identify what type. Nothing over the top or with flames, I promise." I gave butters an even stare and watched him back out of the room, followed by Det. Grisham with a slightly confused look on his face. Once they were out of the room Butters closed the door and then invited Det. Grisham to get coffee from the cafeteria upstairs.
Once they were gone I took a few seconds to clear my mind and draw in some power while doing some breathing exercises to calm my mind and body. I then extended my senses slowly, just touching the corpse I felt a cold tingly sensation that made my skin crawl and my stomach want to empty. He'd been touched by something fairly powerful and it wasn't from my side of the street. This was the residue of dark magic, malevolent, cruel and destructive. I got the sense like I was drowning in icy water. I felt my energy being drained away by the stinging cold that burned instead of numbing. I quickly pulled my energy back and shook off the creepy feeling, getting control of myself and my senses. This feeling was familiar, I'd felt it in the past on a job where some nut was trying to bring back an ancient deity and plunge the world into darkness. Up side was I got to ride a dinosaur during that case, but a friend of mine ended up in the body of a twenty something girl, which frankly you'd think she'd have been happy for. I'll never understand women.
Next, I removed my handkerchief from my pocket and carefully laid it over the chest of the corpse. I took a small plastic case from my duster pocket that contained various bits and bob's that I used for magical purposes. I selected a small vial of a tan powder, made from various dried herbs and lightly sprinkled some over the cloth. I closed my eyes and focused my intention on learning what type of magic was used and if possible who used it. I added power to my intention and compressed in into a little ball in my mind, then felt the power move down my right arm to my palm. When I opened my eyes there was a small bluish light about the size of a dime sitting in the center of my palm. It felt warm in my hand, seemingly made of a swirling mist that glowed gently, ready to do its job.
I turned my palm over and watched the ball fall slowly to the center of the cloth and the dissolve as the mist flowed over and through the material, stopping at the edges. It took on a more earthy tone for a moment as it interacted with the herbal powder, but then quickly turned black. The mist began to bubble as the black and purple mist swirled and twisted unnaturally over the cloth for a moment giving off a smell of rotting leaves and flesh as the mist consumed the cloth and the powder and then quickly disappeared. On the corpse there were leaf fragments and nearly a complete leaf, but all of the oils and nutrients that were left after drying were gone. The bits of leaf were brown and gray and brittle. It only took one breath to disintegrate the fragments and send their dust into the air.
I pulled some latex gloves from the bin on the wall and borrowed a pair of medical scissors and evidence bag from the tray. I took some hair and nail clippings from the corpse, hoping that I could use that to gather more information back at home in my makeshift lab in the garage.
If there was any doubt before, it was gone now. This was necromancy, which was what I'd suspected but I had really hoped I was wrong. There aren't too many practitioners of necromancy as the white council takes a very harsh line on such things and most who try to dabble in it don't live too long. However, somehow someone who seemed to know their stuff and was pretty powerful seemed to have gotten past their radar and ended up in my town of all places.
As I thought about it, Simone's story was starting to make sense. If I wanted to draw life energy for some reason, it'd be a lot less noticeable to take a little from a lot of people than to take a lot from one person. The corpse on the table in front of me illustrated what happens when too much is taken from one person, and the results are pretty hard to miss. This guy was a liability to his boss and the ME is more likely to write fiction in his report than tell the D.A. that the cause of death was black magic. I knew Butters and how he'd handled cases like this before so I'd expect him to write something like severe dehydration caused by a virulent e coli virus.
That and children tend to have an over abundance of life energy, just ask Charity Carpenter. So to draw a little from a group of them on a regular basis might make them seem tired or listless, maybe slow their physical development but that would be the extent of it. The symptoms wouldn't be anything unusual or too pronounced, especially at a boarding school where the adults don't pay that close attention to each child as a parent would at home.
The pieces started to fit together in my head which made me happy, but the picture that it was showing me was not a pretty one. Then I thought of Simone, scared and alone with something chasing her that would likely cause her to end up like the corpse on the table. My jaw clenched and my fingers curled into fists at the thought. I turned on my heel and headed for the door.
I was halfway down the hall when the elevator door dinged and opened. Butters and Det. Grisham stepped into the hallway chuckling. "So then I told him, 'I don't bring my work to your office do I?' and just walked away." At that they both burst out laughing… "The look on his face was priceless! It was one of those nights that you just can't tell anyone about but will never forget." Butters said almost bragging.
"So what are you guys talking about?" I asked in a irritated tone.
"We're just swapping war stories." Det. Grisham said in the friendliest tone I'd heard yet.
"Huh? Oh, noting important Harry." Butters said as he just noticed me in the hall.
"So any luck with the crystal ball?" Grisham asked in a low conspiratorial tone. I tried really hard to not roll my eyes with slight success.
"Yes," I said in a somewhat irritated voice at the silly stereotype. "and it's not good."
"Okay what does that mean?" the portly detective asked, now in his usual skeptical cop tone.
"It means that someone fairly powerful used a forbidden magic on these guys to suck the life out of them, literally." I explained.
"You can do that?" he asked giving me a surveying look.
"Technically yes, but using such magic comes with huge risks." I explained. "If the powers that be find out that you're even reading up on this sort of thing, much less practicing it, you tend to not have any future plans. Even if you don't get caught, if you screw up even a little, it's easy to kill yourself or worse. Dealing with the very essence and energy of a being's life is tricky business and it's just as easy to pull your own energy out of your body as it is to do it to someone else if you don't know what you're doing and this is advanced stuff."
"So you're saying they were sacrifices?" Butters asked confused.
"No, a sacrifice is an offering to a higher power in exchange for something, most often more power, knowledge or back in the old days a good harvest or a healthy baby. This was different. This was someone stripping the life energy from someone else's body forcibly, draining it until there was nothing left." I elaborated.
"That would explain what happened to the bodies." Butters said shaking his head. "But, why would they do that? What would they need so much energy for?"
"Honestly I don't know. I can only assume they are using it to build up their forces or saving it for something big. Whatever the case it's not going to be something good, these guys are the worst of the worst when it comes to warlocks. We need to find them and stop them before they have a chance to finish whatever they have planned." I said feeling my skin still crawling from having briefly touched the dark magic.
"What exactly are 'the powers that be' that you mentioned earlier? Can you notify them about what's going on to get more help?" Det. Grisham asked.
"I can't really go into that but yes, I can contact them and let them know what's going on but I'm not sure how much help they'll be. That and I'm not exactly their favorite person." I said with a weak smile.
"Imagine that…" Det. Grisham said with a slightly contemptuous look on his face.
"At least we know what we're dealing with now." Butters said looking no less stressed. "Harry, do you have any charms or something to protect against this guy? You know to keep him from draining us like a milk carton?"
"I don't keep things like that lying around the house, if that's what you're asking. But, I might be able to come up with something." I told him scratching my head. "You don't need to worry though, all that was left on the bodies was a slight residual magic and that can't hurt you, but to be safe I'll see if I can come up with something, just in case." I told butters thoughtfully. When I first met him I honestly didn't think too much of him. The small mousey man seemed to be little more that a victim of unfortunate circumstances. However, since I've come to know him my opinion of him has changed considerably. Although he has a healthy fear of the spooky stuff, I've also seen him step up and face those fears as well as vampires and ghouls when push came to shove. More than that he's shown he's a good man and he's been a good friend even if he is a little stand offish.
"I was thinking more of him than myself." Butters said glancing at Det. Grisham, who looked back with a stubborn scowl.
"I won't be needing any potions or talisman's. I don't believe in magic…" He grumbled looking skeptically at Butters.
"Tell me, will not believing in bullets do you any good against a .45 round officer?" Butters asked in an equally skeptical and stubborn voice. "If he has one, use it. Doctors orders." Butters said giving him a hard stare, that was somehow out of place on Butters face. The fact that it was out of place for him only made it have that much more impact.
"I suppose I could keep it in my pocket if you insist." Grisham said in a diplomatic tone, deciding it wasn't worth arguing over here and now.
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me I have to be going. I have a pile of work waiting for me on my desk and spent half the day down here trying to figure out how to spin this one." Butters said shuddering thinking of the mountain of paperwork he had waiting for him when he got back to his office. He reached out his hand and shook Det. Grisham's , "It's been a pleasure meeting you."
"Likewise." Grisham said as Butters quickly turned and headed into the temporary office to gather his things.
"So where does that leave us?" Grisham asked.
"I have some things I need to look into and a few phone calls to make. I'll get back to you in a day or so. I'll see if I can get a line on who could pull of something like this and see if I can find out who's officially in town that might have something like this on their agenda." I told him patting my pocket. "For now I have two women waiting for me that I need to tend to." I said thinking of Lash and Simone.
"You do that. I can have some men sent to tail them, just in case these guys show up again. They'll never know they're there unless someone starts something." Grisham offered in an unexpectedly kind tone of voice.
"Thanks, but if something did happen I'd hate for them to get caught in the crossfire. That and Lash is a very capable woman, she can take care of herself." I said with a half smile.
"Last time it didn't turn out so well. If there is a next time, I'm sure they'll come better prepared. Given the child involved, even if she's capable a little unexpected help couldn't hurt. Worst case you can rest easier while you're out knowing they're being protected." He said with a look that could pass for concern on his weathered face.
I thought about what he had said and I honestly didn't think it was necessary. Then again I would have never thought that two thugs could put her in the hospital either. Then there was Simone, regardless of what she meant to the White Court she was an innocent. Simone was just a little girl caught up in a nightmare crafted by a monster who would gobble her up in an instant just to shut her up and make her go away. Although I respected and trusted Lash with my life and knew she was one of the most capable and strongest wizards alive, I still worried. I'd brushed offers like this off in the past whenever Murphy would offer, but this time it wasn't just my life and wellbeing on the line.
"Do what you think is best. Just make sure your men understand that if someone does come after them, they won't be common crooks. So they may want to carry heavier weapons than normal and wear their Kevlar." I said finally, reluctantly.
With that we parted and he headed to the elevator and I headed back up the stairs.
When I got to the main floor I found Lash and Simone waiting for me.
"That took longer than expected." Lash said, walking over to me from one of the small tables in front of the gift shop. Simone quickly followed behind her.
"Sorry, Butters was there and Grisham had a lot of questions." I said shaking my head.
"We saw Waldo a few minutes ago. I invited him to dinner but said he'd take a rain check." She said with a slight pout.
"Well Charity has already taken care of dinner so you aren't to lift a finger tonight. You need to get your rest and recover." I said stepping next to her and slipping my arm around her waist.
"She doesn't have to and it's not like I'm an invalid." Lash protested.
"You were hurt and now you need to stay in bed and rest! That's what the doctor said so you have to do it!" Simone piped up. "I'll be your nurse and help you."
"I'm sure you'll be a wonderful nurse. I guess I don't have a choice then. Two days of bed rest and only limited exercise for a few days after that." Lash said smiling and taking her hand as we headed for the exit.
"I'll give it a day at best." I said with a smirk. Lash replied with a quick jab of her elbow to my ribs. Nothing more was said on the matter.
Simone sat between us as the truck rumbled down the streets of Chicago. The trees and light posts slipping past as people hurried through the city, each one with their own set of worries and plans. None of them knew of the danger that had come to their city. They were oblivious to the terror and destruction he had in mind for them. Tearing them from their 9-5, normal lives and plunging them either into a living hell or an obedient oblivion.