by Amir Lane
I couldn’t protect Rowan.
The only person I could protect was myself, and that felt meaningless.
Indira motioned to my still-bandaged hand. “What happened?”
“I punched a locker.”
He whistled through his teeth. I felt guilty for the reflexive flinch, more so when he apologized with that bright smile still in place.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened? Think as far back as feels important, and then go back further.”
“I know the routine,” I said.
I thought back to leaving the house for the second time, back to coming home after the pool, back to Rachel Cherry leaving the locker room. The moment I noticed her already in our lane, the brief smile and wave through water as she moved upside down. Leaving home at the same time I did every Thursday, feeling too keyed up and anxious to keep wallowing. Waking up that morning, alone, Ariadne’s side of the bed cold. Crying into her stomach at night until I fell asleep. Leaving the precinct after being suspended.
“I got to the pool around 6 so I could get changed,” I began.
Indira scribbled in his small flip notepad as I spoke. I couldn’t see his notepad, and I wondered if he was paraphrasing.
“Is there anything else you remember?” When I hesitated, he asked, “Do you want me to help you remember?”
I looked into his bright red eyes and saw nothing but sincerity. Someone I could trust. Taking a deep breath, I nodded, though I was sure I would regret it.
And I did.
I expected to be taken back to the pool or the street before finding the body. I wanted to be taken back to one of those places. My subconscious had other ideas. Instead, I was back in Rowan’s apartment the day Officer Renaud had called me about that domestic disturbance.
“I didn’t tell no-one nothing about where you are, and you know it!” his girlfriend had shouted. The door had clicked shut behind officer Renaud. When I’d asked Rowan if he was okay, he’d kicked a piece of the coffee table. I’d found the metal water bowl, still wet and reeking of antifreeze. It was a common way to kill cats. According to the article I’d read online, the sweetness of it attracted them to drink it, and since their stomachs were so small, it didn’t take much to poison them. I couldn’t imagine it was a pleasant death.
The creak of couch springs had been audible from the kitchen. My eyes had moved back along the fridge when I stood, though I’d been too preoccupied with thoughts of Rowan’s cats to pay attention to what was on it. With Indira’s whistling amplifying the memory, I sifted through it now.
Cheap, dollar store magnets. A note for a doctor’s appointment. Some takeout menus. Pictures of his cats. The ripped half of a sheet of paper, black ink scribbled in what looked like assorted shapes.
Not shapes, I realized. Letters. Russian letters.
I motioned for Indira’s notepad. He handed it to me, and I took the pen from his hand. I had to write it quick before I forgot it.
Пора платить по счетам.
It could have been nothing. It was probably nothing. A reminder to call the bank, the start of a grocery list. But the handwriting didn’t look like Rowan’s. There was a good chance it was his girlfriend’s, but she seemed like she would have nicer handwriting than that. She might have been the one who had written Lucas Terrel’s name in that near-calligraphic print that was nothing like this. I had no way of knowing. Still, I couldn’t stop looking at it, so to speak.
“Can you have this translated for me?” I asked. “Off the record.”
Indira looked down at the paper. His expression was hard. It felt out of place on him. He looked more like Sabine than himself. Did he already know what it said? That was too much to hope for.
“This is about Rowan?” he asked.
Cold nervousness filled my stomach like ice water. My eyes flickered to the remaining personnel around the crime scene. Vance had long since disappeared, and the couple had been escorted home by a uniformed officer. The neighbours had all been ushered back into their respective houses. Kieron was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, half outside it, hanging his head in his hands. Ariadne was still by the curb where she had been, worry wrinkling her forehead, but the rest of the Medical Examiner’s team was gone. It was just us.
“I’m worried about him,” I said.
“Is that a reason, or an excuse?”
That sounded like something my mother would say.
“Something happened to him, Indira. Something very bad. I’m afraid he might be in danger.”
“Okay. I don’t know any Russian, or whatever this is. Most alkonosts are from that region, but I’m not. If it was Punjabi or Urdu…” He sighed and shook his head a little. “I’ll see if my dad knows Russian. He knows more languages than I do.”
Bless Indira’s adoptive father for being incredibly wordly. He pat my shoulder and told me to call him if I remembered anything else. As he walked away, Ariadne came to take his place. I pressed my face to her shoulder. I could fall asleep right here with her arm around my waist. This moment, this feeling of comfort, was everything I wanted in life.
“Move in with me,” I said.
“What?”
“Let’s move in together, and get married. Life is short, and I want you to be Mrs Ariadne Arshad-St—” I stopped myself, frowning. “Ariadne Arshad-St…”
Son of shit.
“Did you forget my last name?” She was not happy and I did not blame her.
“Not on purpose. Indira—”
“Let’s just go home.”
The cold took the opportunity to creep back into my skin when she pulled away. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. This night wasn’t getting any shorter.
Chapter Fifteen
I didn’t sleep that night, and not only because I slept on the couch. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Rachel Cherry’s eyes staring up at me. At one point in my dreams, we were swimming together and as she passed me, her organs fell from her torso and onto me. I was vaguely aware of Ariadne tucking the pillow back under my head and pulling the blanket around me on her way out for work. I remembered reaching out for her, though I wasn’t sure if she really squeezed my hand and kissed my hair, or if I imagined it. At some point, I must have wandered back upstairs because I woke up in my bed, the rhythmic buzzing of my phone on the bedside table matching the throb between my temples. I answered with an incoherent sound before my eyes were open enough to see the caller.
“Did I wake you up?” Ariadne asked. Her voice sounded apologetic.
I pushed myself up, rubbing my eyes. Squinting, I could only just make out the time on the clock. It was almost ten, which meant I’d been asleep for less than three hours. That felt about right.
“No, I was just getting up,” I lied.
“Can you bring me lunch?”
Ya Allah, she woke me up to ask me to bring her lunch?
“Isn’t there a cafeteria in the building?”
“Fairuz, I want you to bring me lunch.”
There was a deeper meaning in her voice. Hope that I was forgiven flourished in my chest. It was almost lunch time anyway.
“Is there anything specific you want me to bring you? I can make you something, or…”
“I don’t care. Anything is fine.” She paused. “I found something weird.”
Weird? What—
Oh! Weird!
I bolted out of bed. My insistence that we needed a flat sheet under the duvet almost killed me as it caught between my legs.
“Fairuz? Are you okay?”
“I’m here. I’m okay. I’ll be there in—” I ran my hand through my hair. “Give me an hour.”
Ariadne liked Wendy’s. I may have forgotten her last name — I had a late Christmas card addressed to us both to thank for reminding me — but I remembered that. There was no real secret to Indira’s powers, no meaning behind what was remembered and what was forgotten. The strongest memories — either the most recent or the ones being focused on in
that moment — were the easiest to access. Other than that, there was no hard rule to it. I had heard of people forgetting their own names, let alone their loved ones’.
What had been so important about that note that I’d been focused enough for Indira’s powers to make me remember it? It clearly hadn’t been that important at the time. Nothing had been more important than making sure Rowan was okay. He had notes in Russian — or Belarusian, I still wasn’t entirely sure there was a difference — all over his desk. Why was that one so important?
Because it wasn’t his handwriting.
He must have had Russian-speaking friends, one who might have written a reminder for him that he’d stuck on his fridge. It could have been his girlfriend. It was probably his girlfriend. I was fixating on something that was probably nothing, when I had so much more pressing things to fixate on.
Like why he has birch skin and not oak.
No, I told myself, no. Like what Ariadne found.
Only Rowan had the answers to all my questions about him, and since I didn’t plan on asking him yet, I had to push it out of my sleep-deprived mind. I had to. I was driving myself crazy and I knew it.
And yet, I couldn’t stop myself.
From Wendy’s, it only took me 15 minutes to drive to the Forensic Services and Coroner's Complex. It was nice for both of us to live so close to our respective offices. The building was five stories with high windows covering the walls and a crisp, clean interior that certainly made it feel like a science centre. I scrolled through my text messages from Ariadne to find the one where she told me which autopsy room she was in. The receptionist smiled at me when I approached and told me Doctor Starpert was waiting for me on the second floor. He handed me a visitor’s badge. I had a good idea where I was going, since this was the only coroner’s office in Toronto, but I still had to ask someone in a lab coat where the room was when I got to the right floor.
The smell of burgers mixed with the smell of chemicals turned my stomach.
Light flooded in through the frosted windows, filling the autopsy room. All the lights were on, but I doubted they were necessary. Ariadne stood beside Deva, their backs to the door. I coughed and rapped my knuckles against the door. The smile she gave me said she forgave me for forgetting her last name, even if it was just because I brought food. I moved toward them, my high heels feeling especially loud against the floor, and gave her a quick hug.
“I brought you lunch,” I said before giving Deva a nod, which she returned.
I had a hard enough time imagining people eating in this building. Watching Ariadne peel the wrapper off the burger and sink her teeth into it made me a little light-headed. I turned to what was left of Rachel Cherry’s body. Her broken ribs held her empty chest cavity open for me. Scanning the organs on the second metal table, I couldn’t tell what was missing. I didn’t want to be able to tell.
This was why I never wanted to go to medical school. I saw enough of the human body as it was, thank you.
“You had something to show me?” I asked.
I tipped my head toward Ariadne and immediately regretted it. Burgers and bodies did not belong in the same place.
“There’s two things,” Deva said. “The first is this.”
Deva waved their hand for me to come closer, and I did. She grabbed the overhead light to pull it closer. With her free hand, she motioned for Ariadne to turn off the light. The room went dark a moment later, illuminated only by the black light. At first, I didn’t see anything. I covered my face with the surgical mask Deva offered out to me and leaned in until I could make out the pale blue markings that ran along the insides of her ribs.
“What the…?”
“I said the same thing,” Ariadne said. “Show her the rest.”
The advantage of having only one examination centre was immediately clear to me when Deva pulled two more tables over, both holding bodies open just like Rachel Cherry. I recognized both as John Does from our suspicious deaths pile.
“Ariadne had the idea of opening some of the bodies that had parts missing,” Deva said.
She passed the lamp over the bodies. Both had the same markings inside their ribs.
“How many?” I asked.
“We found four so far, including the siren you told me about,” Ariadne said. “But who knows how many there are? We have hundreds of bodies downstairs that have been unclaimed. That doesn’t include bodies that have been claimed, buried, or cremated.”
I crouched down to get a better look. There was a box of purple latex gloves on one of the operating tables. My rings safely in my pocket, I yanked them on to avoid accidentally touching anything with my bare hands. I moved my finger along one of the closest John Doe’s ribs, not quite close enough to touch. The closer my hand got, the colder I got. It wasn’t the cold that came with low temperature; there was something heavy and almost sinister in it. It felt like Wesley Cohn’s apartment. I shuddered and pulled back, straightening up as I did. One of my feet moved back to keep my balance. An old First Aid habit took over as I took off the gloves; pinch the middle of the palm and pull it off, slip the bare fingers under the elastic, use the second glove to hold the first. No contamination. Veins were visible in the backs of my hands, the pale purple lines glowing faintly.
“What is that?” I asked, looking between the two medical examiners.
“Shade markings,” Deva said. When I frowned, she continued. “You know what a shade is? They aren’t common, but some people say they can steal either powers or life forces from people. These markings are what get left behind.”
“Djinn leave similar marks on their prey,” I murmured, remembering the old stories my mother used to tell and the ones I’d seen on my first Special Crimes case.
“There’s more.”
More? What more could there possibly be? Deva held up the John Doe’s hand. A small mark on the back of his hand glowed under the black light.
“Three of these corpses, all men, had these stamps on their hands. They were faded, probably left a few days before they were killed.”
As Deva spoke, I squinted at the stamp. I knew that one. It was the logo of a gay club an ex-girlfriend of mine used to like. Though I didn’t have many memories of the place, the ones I did have didn’t make me want to revisit it.
“Do you recognize it? What does it mean?” Ariadne asked, excitement in her voice.
“It means I’m going clubbing tonight.”
I don't know how Ariadne talked me into letting her come with me. There was an argument about backup that made no sense. If I wanted backup, I had three detectives I could call. Except Kieron was hosting a sleepover and couldn’t leave his boyfriend alone to watch half a dozen sugar-rushed girls, Indira was at a fundraiser for his foster father’s cause of the month, and Rowan was home resting. So, as much as I hated the thought that I might be putting Ariadne in danger, I let her tag along. I couldn’t tell if she was more excited about helping with this case or going clubbing. I had to admit, it had been a long time since we’d gone out.
While I usually loved the excuse to get dressed up, I kept things simple tonight: loose jeans, a nice t-shirt, a jacket, and sneakers. I even kept my jewelry to a minimum, only wearing what I felt was absolutely necessary to protect myself from a potential shade. Not that I had any idea what I would need for that. I took my best guess.
“Remember, we’re just looking,” I said as we inched forward in line.
There were a few people ahead of us. By this point, I was starting to worry we were never going to get in. Just as I was about to shrug my jacket off to give to Ariadne, who had insisted she didn’t need one, the bouncer stepped to the side and motioned to us.
As soon as we were inside, I wondered why I’d thought we could figure anything out. I scratched at the fresh stamp on my hand, smudging the ink.
“I’m going to walk around a bit,” I shouted.
“What?”
“I’m going to walk around a bit!”
“What?”
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“I—” I pointed at the bar to make things easy. Ariadne nodded.
The whole place smelled like sweat and beer. I was getting too old for clubs. As much as I tried, I couldn’t get a good look at anyone’s faces. Even if I could, what was I expecting to see? Someone with the words, I’m a serial killer tattooed on their forehead in bright, fluorescent ink? The smart thing would have been to come back during the day and pass around pictures of the John Does who had stamps on their hands. Without my badge, though, I probably wouldn’t have gotten much farther than I would tonight. At least I was getting a feel for the place.
I leaned over the bar where my ex-girlfriend had told me she was moving back to Syria and ordered a Sprite. The bartender barely had time to set the glass dripping with condensation in front of me before a man filled the small space next to me.
“Can I buy your next drink?” he asked.
“I’m gay,” I said.
“Me too.”
I looked up to see if I recognized him. I didn’t know every gay man in the Greater Toronto Area, but I knew enough of them. He wasn’t familiar, but I shrugged and let him buy me a drink anyway. After the week I’d had, I needed it.
Back to the wall with my drink in hand, I scanned what I could of the crowd. There were mostly men here, and only a few women. Habitual disappointment was drowned with the reminder that I had a girlfriend. Every now and then, my eyes flickered to the exits. The guy who’d bought me the drink chatted away, and I gave an appropriate amount of nods. I was about to go find Ariadne when I caught sight of the compass tattoo on the side of one of the men in the crowd’s neck. Specifically, on the left side.
I excused myself mid-sentence and, pushing my drink into whatever-his-name-was’ hand, forced my way through the crowd toward the phoenix. Our eyes met, and he froze. It was too dark in here to see what colour his eyes were, but I could certainly see them widen in a mix of surprise and panic.