by R. L. King
Stone shifted to magical sight again. Hezzie’s aura, a deep purple, showed signs of tension, but even without that extra clue he could tell she was uncomfortable. “Well,” he said briskly, “we’d best be going, then. Thank you, Hezzie. I appreciate whatever you can find out.”
“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
Verity gave her a quick hug. “I’ll see you soon. Still on for next week’s session?”
“You got it.” She glanced at Stone and Jason again, and it couldn’t have been clearer that she wanted them out.
Jason waited until they’d left and were heading back toward the car before he spoke. “What’s her problem?”
“She’s not crazy about guys,” Verity said.
“It sure looked like she wasn’t crazy about havin’ Al and me in her place. I kept expecting her to shove us out the door.”
“Yeah, it’s nothing personal. I’m not gonna say much about it because it’s not my place, but she had some bad stuff happen to her when she was younger. She’ll do a good job on the sample, though, so don’t worry.”
Stone picked up the pace. “Come on—it’s more than an hour once we get out of San Francisco, and I want to get there before it’s too late to talk to the authorities about the body.”
They got on the road again, picking their way through the typically heavy San Francisco traffic toward the Golden Gate Bridge. “What do you suppose Raider was trying to tell us?” Verity asked suddenly from the back seat, gazing out the window at the Bay as they crept across the bridge.
“Huh?” Jason asked.
“He was scratching at a particular spot on Doc’s study wall today, but we were in a hurry so we didn’t get much chance to check it out.”
“You think he was possessed again?”
“Probably,” Stone said. “It was quite odd—he kept stretching up like he was trying to reach something, but there wasn’t anything there. Verity checked—no seams, hidden compartments, or magic.”
“We were in a hurry to get the ritual going, though, so we didn’t look too closely,” Verity said.
“Weird,” Jason said. “I wonder what Dr. Benchley is tryin’ to tell you.”
“I still think somebody killed him.” Verity shifted in her seat and leaned forward. “Why else would he stick around all this time?”
Stone was silent, visualizing the area of the room Raider had focused on. He hadn’t been in the study for that long so he didn’t know it as well as the Palo Alto place, but Raider’s interest had definitely been on part of the wall where no bookshelves covered it. Was there perhaps something hidden behind the wall—something he’d need to break through to get to? Given the craftsmanship that had gone into the woodwork in the house, he wasn’t fond of destroying or even defacing it on a vague hunch. It wasn’t that bad to have the echo of a long-dead professor occasionally taking his cat for a joyride, was it? Raider didn’t seem to mind, and even if Benchley had been murdered, it wasn’t as if Stone could prove anything. Hell, the murderer was probably dead too. In any case, he’d have to deal with it later. Right now, if they could ever get out of this gods-forsaken traffic, he had more important things to concern himself with.
Still, his mind kept going over the way Raider had stretched, almost as if Benchley were straining to reach something too high for the cat’s body to touch.
“Maybe somebody poisoned him,” Jason said. “You know, like they did to you. You don’t need alchemy for that.”
“The authorities would have caught it, though,” Stone said, but the nagging thoughts wouldn’t stop. Jason’s words only set off another flurry of them. “Wait,” he said suddenly.
“What?” Jason and Verity asked at the same time.
“I think there might be a vent high up on the study wall—you know, for the air conditioning.”
Verity leaned forward further, gripping Jason’s seat. “Oh, wow. That might be it! Maybe Benchley’s trying to point out something in there.”
“What, though?” Jason asked. “You think something in a vent could have killed the guy and nobody detected it? The report said he died of natural causes.”
“Chemistry!” Stone said.
“Huh?”
But Verity got it too. “Yeah! Dr. Benchley was a chemistry professor!”
It only took Jason a couple of seconds to catch on. “Holy shit, you could be right. There’ve got to be chemical compounds that could mimic a heart attack, and nobody’d think to look too closely because he was an old, chubby guy who smoked too much.”
“We need to look in that vent,” Verity said.
“First things first,” Stone said. They reached the other side of the bridge, and traffic began to thin. “As curious I am about what’s going on with Dr. Benchley, Dr. Garra takes priority.”
36
The hiker had found the woman’s body a short distance outside a small town called La Rosita, about five miles from Guerneville. Jason called ahead and talked to the police as they drove.
“They’re not crazy about draggin’ the ME out after hours to let us see the body,” he said when he finished. “They wanted me to come back tomorrow, but I convinced them. We’re meeting him at the police department, then he’ll take us to his office. That’s where they’re keeping her for now, hoping somebody will come forward and identify her.”
Stone remained tense as they drove into town and located the police station, a small, single-story building surrounded by trees. It was unlikely the body would be Garra—he was fairly sure, with the power he’d put into the ritual, that they couldn’t have faked the result he got. But if he was wrong—if it was Garra who’d been dumped in some rural area—then his options became severely limited. If he couldn’t track her, he had no idea where to begin looking for her killers. And the chalice, he reminded himself. If Garra had died searching for it, the least he could do was make an effort to find it and get it back to her clan.
First things first, though. Let’s make sure she’s not dead before we do anything else.
The La Rosita police station reminded Stone a bit of the one from Ojai, down in southern California. They probably didn’t get much crime around here normally, so it wasn’t necessary to have a significant police presence. A uniformed cop leaving the building eyed the three of them with curiosity as he passed, but said nothing.
Jason introduced himself to the sergeant on duty, a stocky, blonde woman whose name badge read COREY, and showed her his investigators’ license. “This is my sister Verity, and our friend, Dr. Alastair Stone.”
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “When you called, you didn’t say anything about three of you. Are they part of your investigation too?”
“Verity’s assisting me on the case. Dr. Stone is a friend of the woman we’re looking for. I’m hoping he can identify whether this is her.”
For a moment, it looked as if she’d turn down their request. Then she sighed and tossed her pen on her desk. “We don’t get cases like this very often, Mr. Thayer. In fact, it’s been years since there’s been a murder here, let alone a Jane Doe.” She glanced up, past them. “Ah, here’s he is. Evening, Carlo. Sorry to drag you out for this. Mr. Thayer, this is Dr. Carlo Menendez, our medical examiner.”
Carlo Menendez was about fifty, barely taller than Verity, with light brown skin, a receding salt-and-pepper hairline, and a burly frame. He wore a plaid shirt, jeans, and athletic shoes. “You’re the ones who wanted to see the body?” he asked, looking the three of them over.
“Yes, sir,” Jason said. “Thanks for letting us have a look—we’re up from the San Jose area.”
“It’s okay. Wasn’t doing anything important anyway. I can’t stay long, though. If you need anything more extensive, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“We shouldn’t need much of your time, Dr. Menendez,” Stone said.
“Good, good. Come on—you’ll have to come to my office. It’s just up the street. It’s good you called when you did, since we won’t be able to keep her for long. If n
obody identifies the body in the next day or so, we’ll probably have to send her to Santa Rosa.” He shook his head ruefully. “I feel terrible for the poor girl—someone’s got to be missing her somewhere.”
As they got back in the car and followed his battered tan station wagon, Verity’s phone rang. She pulled it out.
“Hey, Hezzie. What’s up?” She listened a few moments, then sighed. “Yeah. Thanks. I owe you one.”
“What did she find out?” Stone asked without taking his attention from Menendez’s car.
“That stuff you drank was definitely alchemical. And definitely nasty.”
“Well…yes. We knew that already.”
“No, you don’t get it.”
Stone glanced at the rearview mirror. Verity’s expression was grim. “What don’t I get?”
“It was some heavy-duty stuff—something it would take a powerful alchemist to create, mostly because of how hard it would be to conceal otherwise. I shouldn’t have had time to heal you.”
“But you did. I think you underestimate yourself, Verity.”
“Maybe.” She let her breath out, and didn’t sound convinced. “But anyway, she also said the components for it were really rare, and only found in parts of the South American rainforest.”
“That’s…interesting,” Stone mused.
Jason pointed. “He’s pulling off.”
Stone had been about to say something else, but instead he quickly turned the wheel and made a sharp right to follow Menendez into a small parking lot.
The medical examiner pulled into a space. “This is it. We don’t even have a hospital here,” he said when he got out. “Closest one is in Guerneville, about five miles away.” He looked the three of them over as he unlocked the front door. “By the way, what did you say your connection was to this woman?”
“We’re investigating a missing-persons case,” Jason said. “Her description sounded enough like the one we’re looking for that we figured we should check.”
“You came all the way up here from San Jose for that? If you’d called, I could have emailed you photos.” He flipped on a light and led them down a hall past an empty reception desk.
“No, we wanted to see her in person. It’s…complicated.”
Menendez flicked a sharp gaze toward Jason. “Well, in any case, I’m not going to say I hope she’s who you’re looking for, but it will make my job a lot easier if you can provide an ID.”
He unlocked a door at the end of the hall, switching on another light.
Stone looked around the small, neat room. A stainless-steel examination table with a drain at one end dominated the center, flanked by a series of cabinets on one wall beneath a counter and sink on the near side, and two steel doors he recognized as body lockers on the far one. The upper door was open, the lower closed.
“All right, let’s do this,” Menendez said. “I can’t let you take any of your own photos, you understand.”
“We don’t need photos,” Stone said.
“Good.” He opened the locker and pulled out the stainless-steel platform. A body, shrouded in a white sheet, lay on top of it. With a quick glance to make sure his visitors were ready, he folded the sheet down to reveal the body’s face and shoulders. The roughly stitched top ends of the Y-incision from the autopsy peeked above the cover.
Stone let his breath out.
“That’s not her,” he said, surprised at the sudden intensity of the relief flooding his body.
“You sure?” Jason asked.
It was a fair question. The body had clearly been damaged to make identification more difficult—and if the hiker who’d called in the discovery had seen someone dumping her, that meant it hadn’t been done by time or animals. The woman had black hair and light brown skin; her face and shoulders indicated she was slim and athletic, like Garra. The superficial resemblance was strong enough to allow some doubt.
But Stone had no doubt. “I’m sure. That’s not her.” He shifted to magical sight, knowing he wouldn’t get much time to examine the body.
Menendez sighed. “Well, I’m certainly glad for your sake that this wasn’t your friend. I sure hope someone turns up to identify her soon, though. Such a shame, the way she died.”
“How did she die, Doctor?” Jason asked casually.
“Well, that’s the odd part.” Menendez covered the body and rolled it back into the drawer. “Everything that was done to obscure her identity was done post-mortem. The COD was actually complications from pregnancy.”
“Pregnancy?” Verity looked surprised.
“Shocked me too. I can’t tell if the baby died with her, but it’s possible it didn’t, and now it’s out there somewhere without a mother. The police are looking. Don’t say anything about that to anyone, please—they haven’t released it yet.”
“Weird that they’d do this to her,” Jason said. “Mess her up, I mean.”
“Maybe not.” Verity watched as Menendez closed the locker door. “Maybe they don’t want anybody to know who she is because they wanted to take the baby for themselves. That happens.”
“Well, in any case, I’m glad it’s not your friend,” Menendez said, clearly wanting to get out of there now. “Sorry you came all the way up here, but it’s got to be a relief.”
“Absolutely,” Stone said, still distracted. “Thank you, Doctor.”
He didn’t say anything else until they were back in the car. “Jason,” he said, “do you have a specific location where that body was found?”
“Uh—yeah, pretty close. Hold on.” He retrieved his messenger bag from the back seat and found his notes. “Not too far from here—a few miles? This is the nearest town. Why? We’re not interested in her, are we, if she’s not Dr. Garra?”
“We may be.”
“Why?” Verity asked.
“Because I’m fairly sure she was a shifter.”
37
“You think the dead woman was a shifter?” Verity demanded. “Why?”
They’d stopped at a diner up the street from Menendez’s office so they could grab a quick meal and compare notes. Stone glanced out the window as he sipped his strong, black coffee. “The body didn’t have an aura, obviously, but I saw traces of magic around her. They were faint—I probably wouldn’t have noticed them if I hadn’t seen Garra’s aura before.”
“So they don’t—I dunno—change back to their animal form after they die?” Jason asked. “Which is their true form, anyway? Human or animal?”
“I don’t know enough about them to know the answer to that,” Stone admitted. “From what Garra’s implied, the animal form is their preferred one. But perhaps if they die, they remain in whatever form they’ve assumed at the time. In any case, the fact that she was pregnant disturbs me.”
“Why? Are you worried there’s a baby shifter running around out there somewhere?”
“No, that’s not it. Remember what the purpose of the chalice is?”
“To help shifters be more fertile…” Verity said. Her eyes widened. “You think somebody’s breeding them?”
“It’s possible.” Stone set his cup down.
“But why?” Jason asked.
“Hard to say. There are some powerful and unscrupulous mages out there, though—perhaps there’s a black market in shifter cubs. I’d imagine they would bring a significant sum from the right buyer.”
“But why dump the mother, though?” Verity asked. “Even if she died unexpectedly—assuming they didn’t kill her—wouldn’t they be afraid she’d be traced back to them?”
“Good question. Remember, someone spotted them in the act of dumping the body, which they probably didn’t expect. I’m guessing they probably assumed she wouldn’t be found for quite some time, since it was a remote area.”
“Don’t mages have easier ways to get rid of bodies, though?” Jason asked.
“Not necessarily, when they’re dead. You can’t ash a dead body. Perhaps they wanted to get rid of the evidence fast, and weren’t worried about havi
ng it traced back to them.” Stone finished his coffee. “Finish up—I need to set up the ritual again. If Garra’s alive, she’s certainly in danger.”
“Doc…” Verity said suddenly, her expression turning horrified.
“Yes?”
“Jason, you said this woman was found Saturday night, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“And Dr. Garra disappeared sometime after Sunday afternoon?”
A chill that was almost painful shot through Stone as he caught her line of reasoning. “Oh, bloody hell…”
Jason wasn’t far behind. “Shit…” he breathed. “Are you thinkin’ they might have grabbed her to replace the woman who died?”
“It fits, doesn’t it?” Verity asked.
“It does,” Stone said in a monotone. “That could explain why they’ve been trying to kill her before—to keep her from finding them—but why now she might still be alive.” He stood quickly. “Come on—we’ve got to find a place to do that ritual.”
One of the main problems with doing magical rituals in unfamiliar areas was finding a location with enough space do them. The town of La Rosita was too small to include a motel, and between the chill and the light wind, performing it outside wasn’t a viable option. Finally, as Stone’s impatience grew, they found someone at the local market who recommended a series of cabins on the outskirts of town. Twenty minutes and a healthy “service fee” to the proprietor later, they parked in front of the largest of those cabins.
“Well, this is a dump,” Verity commented, looking around the wooden structure in distaste. The place looked like its décor hadn’t been updated in at least thirty years, and though it appeared clean, the furnishings were shabby and obviously well used.
“I don’t care if it’s a literal dump,” Stone said, already beginning to unload ritual materials from his black leather duffel bag. “As long as it’s got enough room to do what we need.” He gestured, lifting a sofa off the floor, flipping it on its end, and leaning it against the far wall. “Let’s get the space cleared out so I can see what I’ve got to work with.”