But while the physical stuff was easy, describing Lenny’s transformation was a lot harder. Even with a doctor’s vocabulary for describing bodies and how they broke, she just didn’t have the words for the way Lenny’s shape had shifted and changed into something that didn’t even look human. By the time she got to him throwing her around, Lauryn was sure Will thought she was out of her gourd, but the conversation really broke down when they got to her unlikely rescuer.
“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” Will said, his voice locked in that calm “I don’t want you to know how much bull I think this is” voice Lauryn herself used with truly delusional patients. “While you were being attacked, a third party—a man carrying a sword—came out of nowhere and saved you from Lenny using Bible verses and holy water?”
“Yes,” she said, cheeks burning. “He was going to fight Lenny, but I didn’t want him to hurt my patient, so I stopped him. He used the water after that, and then again on my hand once Lenny was down. That’s how I got burned.”
She held out her bandaged hand for him to examine, but Will didn’t give it more than a cursory glance. “I think it’s safe to say you were hallucinating,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “And honestly, given what you touched, we should be damn happy that’s all it was.”
Lauryn sat bolt upright in her chair. “It was the new drug, wasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Officially, we don’t know anything until we see your blood work. Off the record?” Will sighed and leaned forward in the creaking chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “This is bad, Lauryn. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but a new group’s been muscling into the Chicago narcotics business.”
“I don’t need to follow the news,” she said. “I’ve seen the results in the ER. So is it a new gang or something?”
“Not sure yet,” Will admitted. “Whoever they are, though, they’re thorough. You wouldn’t believe how many dead gangsters and cartel members we’ve fished out of the river in the last two months. At this point, these new guys have to control most of the drug business in the city, if not all of it, simply because there’s no one else left. But that’s not even the weird part. Where things really get strange are the drugs themselves. Over the last few months, we’ve had product flooding into Chicago. Meth, heroin, coke: the whole pharmacopoeia. I’ve busted enough stockpiles to make the whole city high twice over in the last three weeks, and I don’t think we’re even making a dent. And that’s still not the worst part.”
“What’s the worst part?”
“The quality.”
“Is it tainted?” Lauryn asked, biting her lip. Laced drugs were even worse to deal with than normal ones. With common drugs, you knew what to expect and how to treat it, but when junkies started shooting bargain drugs cut with who-knew-what into their arms, all bets were off. But while she was already making a mental checklist of complications from compromised drugs to look for, Will was shaking his head.
“The opposite,” he said. “Every cache we’ve seized has been some of the purest stuff I’ve ever seen. I’m talking expensive, pharma-grade dope, and they’re selling it for dirt cheap.”
Lauryn frowned. “Why would they do that?”
“That’s what we don’t get, either,” Will said, frustrated. “Generally cartels take over the drug trade in a city to eliminate competition so they can raise prices, not drop them. But these guys have been pushing cheap pharma-quality drugs on the city like they’re on a mission to get the whole city hooked.”
“That would explain the rise in overdose cases we’ve seen lately,” Lauryn said. “But what does this have to do with Lenny? I mean, he didn’t OD, and certainly not on heroin or coke.”
“He didn’t,” Will agreed. “But I’ve been working this case for a month now, and over the last twenty-four hours, all hell has broken loose.” He stood up and started pacing around the room, his face distant. “It started this morning. One of our informants—a homeless man we were paying to keep an eye out for new dealers in the area—went beserk. Ripped the door right off a patrol car before officers took him down. Not three hours later, another guy we’ve been following did the same. Before he bled out, one of the witnesses claimed he saw the junkie tear two bystanders to pieces like they were made of paper. He also said that his eyes glowed red the whole time, and that his mouth was dripping with green slime.”
“Green slime?” Lauryn repeated, her blood running cold.
“Now do you see why I got here so fast?” Will said grimly. “We’ve had six incidents so far today, all homeless and, except for Lenny, all known addicts connected with the new cartel investigation. As of right now, Lenny’s the only perp who’s survived. All the others were either shot by cops or died from heart attacks at the scene. When we searched the bodies, the one connection we’ve made is finding traces of green slime you just mentioned in your report.”
“And you think that’s what’s making them go nuts?” Lauryn said, leaning forward. “Is the slime a new kind of drug or something?”
“I don’t know,” Will admitted. “But if my hunch is right, you’re damn lucky a wandering swordsman street preacher with magic water’s all you saw after you got it on your fingers.”
Lauryn was starting to get that impression, too. “Well, whatever it is, the drug has to still be in their blood,” she said authoritatively. “Nothing that causes such huge changes can be flushed that fast. Your morgue must have done autopsies on the other cases by now. What was their toxicology?”
Will glanced back down at his notebook. “As I mentioned, all the perps were habitual junkies, so their blood was a cesspool. Since they all seemed to die of the same thing, Forensics’ plan was to look for a common denominator, some chemical they all had in common that we could use as a key. So far, though, they haven’t found jack. The only condition they all had in common was . . .” He trailed off, squinting at the paper in front of him before turning it around so Lauryn could see. “I can’t pronounce this.”
“Sulfhemoglobinemia,” she read, eyebrows furrowing. “Weird. Sulfhemoglobinemia happens when there’s too much sulfur in the blood, and only in really rare cases. Sulfur’s pretty common, and nontoxic to most people, but an excess in sulfhemoglobin would explain the cyanosis.”
Will blinked. “Could I get that in English, please?”
“Extra sulfur in his blood would explain why Lenny’s skin was discolored,” Lauryn said, getting excited as the pieces fell into place. “I thought I was hallucinating when I saw Lenny turning that ugly blue gray, but that part might have actually been real. Unlike normal red blood cells, sulfhemoglobin can’t carry oxygen.”
“And that makes you dead,” Will finished with a grim smile. “See? I’m learning.”
“I don’t know how useful that is, though,” Lauryn admitted. “You said the victims died of heart attacks, not hypoxia.” At his blank stare, she translated. “Lack of oxygen in the blood. Also, too much sulfur wouldn’t explain the hallucinations or psychosis.”
“Good to know you’re just as stumped as we are,” Will said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Personally, I don’t care what the chemical compound is. I just want to find whoever’s pushing this crap and bag ’em. Street drugs are poison, but something that turns normally docile addicts into monsters? That’s a nuke, and we need to stop it yesterday.”
“No argument here,” Lauryn said. “But I still don’t get the sulfur thing. It just doesn’t make sense.” It might explain how the green stuff had burned her fingers, since sulfur was mildly corrosive, but no amount of sulfur exposure could possibly cause the other symptoms. Even if it was just being used as a chemical base for something nastier, any dangerous compounds would have shown up in the lab report way ahead of sulfur. She was still thinking it over when yet another knock sounded on her door. This time, though, it was the one she wanted.
Lauryn’s face lit up like Christmas when the girl from the lab stuck her head in. “Dr. Jefferson? I have your reports.�
�� She stopped there, casting a wary look at Will, who was obviously a police officer despite his street clothes. Even if he hadn’t left his badge lying on the bed, everything about his posture and bearing screamed “cop”—and anyone who’d been in a hospital long enough could play “cop or fireman” with 90 percent accuracy. “Is this a bad time?”
“For blood work?” Lauryn flashed her a grin. “Never.”
She reached out with both hands for the thin manila envelope. But rumors about Lauryn’s drug exposure must have been reaching critical mass, because the tech handed it over with only her fingertips, keeping maximum distance like she was giving food to a leper. That was going to be annoying to deal with later, but for now, Lauryn was too busy ripping open her results to care.
As the priority case, Lenny’s report was on top. At first glance, it looked like every other set of tests Lauryn had ever ordered run on him. He had all basic vitamin deficiencies you’d expect from someone who didn’t have access to regular meals or shelter, though no hepatitis or HIV, which was a miracle considering how long he’d been on the streets. But despite the thorough report she’d ordered, the section Lauryn was really interested in, the toxicology report, was infuriatingly blank save for a one-word note at the very bottom.
Sulfhemoglobinemia.
“That’s the same thing the others had,” Will said, reading over her shoulder. “Anything else?”
“Nothing,” Lauryn said, flipping the printout over just to be sure she hadn’t missed a page. “I told you, he’s clean.” And while she was very happy to be right about that, it made no sense. It was like the more information she got, the more infuriating the puzzle became. For example, the last report she’d had from Lenny’s nurse said that he was still hallucinating, claiming to see all kinds of horrors. For a patient with zero history of hallucinatory psychosis, drugs were the most likely culprit. Even if it wasn’t a street drug, the toxicology report should still have found something.
Frustrated, she moved on to the second report in the folder, the one with her name printed at the top. Here again, however, there were no surprises. She was slightly anemic with terrible vitamin D from never getting outside in the sunshine, but no trace of anything that could possibly account for what she was almost positive was her hallucinatory episode under the bridge. Frustration levels moving up a notch, Lauryn skipped to the end to check her sulfur levels. She already knew what it would say, but still she wanted to confirm the proof with her own eyes, which only made the whole thing even more frustrating when she opened the second page only to find it was blank.
Staring at the empty sheet, Lauryn’s first thought was that someone must have fucked up. When she checked again, though, all the toxicology tests she’d ordered were there. They’d just managed to fit the results on one page because there was nothing to report. Everything, including Lauryn’s sulfur, was perfectly normal.
And she had no idea what to make of that.
“Do you need a ride home?”
Lauryn looked up from her paperwork to see Will standing over her. “I need to get back to the station, but I can drop you off at your apartment on the way.” He smiled. “It’ll be like old times.”
Him driving her home from the hospital before heading back to work would, in fact, be exactly like old times, and that was precisely why Lauryn didn’t want to go.
After her clean report, there’d been no more need to keep her under observation, so Lauryn had abused her status as a doctor and written her own discharge. She’d already changed back into her normal clothes and checked out of her room. The paperwork was the last step, but the whole process was still taking longer than she liked. It was now nearly one in the morning, and even though she’d just have to come right back in five hours for her 6 am shift, all Lauryn wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. She was trying to decide if she wanted that badly enough to risk being alone in a car with her ex when her phone began to ring with a jangling tone she hadn’t heard in a long, long time.
“What the—”
Lauryn dropped her pen and dug out her cell phone, eyes going wide when she saw her father’s name on the screen. She hadn’t talked to her dad since Easter, when he’d called to guilt her for skipping church. Unless there was a holy day in November she’d forgotten about, there was only one reason he’d be calling now. But while her dad was the absolute last person Lauryn wanted to talk to after the night she’d had, ignoring him wasn’t an option. On the rare occasions Pastor Maxwell Jefferson remembered he had actual, physical children in addition to the spiritual sons and daughters in his congregation, he tended to go overboard. If Lauryn didn’t answer, he’d just keep calling until he got fed up enough to come find her in person.
That would lose her even more sleep, so Lauryn gave in, hitting the button to accept the call. Before she could say anything—or even get the speaker to her ear—her father’s voice boomed out loudly enough to make everyone in the hallway turn and look.
“Why didn’t you call?”
Lauryn sighed bitterly. That was her dad. No “hello” or “how are you doing?” or “oh my God, I heard you got attacked, are you okay?” Just accusations for not living up to how he thought she should have acted. Like always.
“Lauryn!” Maxwell barked.
“Sorry,” she muttered, rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m fine. It was nothing serious.”
“Then why were you in the hospital?” His voice grew suspicious. “I heard you were on drugs.”
“Who told you that?”
“Solange Peterson from the prayer circle works at the front desk,” he reminded her. “She called to let me know the moment she heard.”
Lauryn rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She’d forgotten all about Miss Solange, which was very stupid of her. When hospital gossip collided with church gossip, nothing was safe. “Well, she was mistaken,” she said stiffly. “I was attacked and put at risk, but I didn’t actually get exposed to anything.” At least, not according to her toxicology. “I’m fine. I just want to go home and get some sleep.”
“Good,” her father said. “I’ve got your room all ready. I’m already on my way to pick you up.”
That threw Lauryn for a loop. “Wait, what? You’re coming here?”
“My daughter was attacked,” Maxwell said angrily. “Of course I’m coming to get her. At times like this, you need to be at home with your family.”
“But I’ve got my own place,” she said. “All my stuff is there. I don’t even have clothes—”
But it was too late. Maxwell had clearly already made up his mind, and nothing short of Jesus himself was going to make him change it. “Home is where your family is,” he said, his preacher’s voice booming through the phone’s tinny speaker. “I’ve already left a note for your brother. I’ll be there in five minutes. Be waiting out front.”
He hung up immediately after that, cutting off the call before Lauryn could get a word in, and she jerked her phone down with a frustrated groan. “‘Be waiting out front,’” she mimicked, seething. “I’m a doctor, dammit! Not a high schooler who needs to be picked up from band practice.”
Will flashed her a sympathetic smile. “So I take it you won’t need me to give you a ride?”
“Not unless we can leave right now and you’re willing to put the sirens on,” Lauryn said, only half-jokingly. If she’d thought a cop car or sirens would have actually stopped her father, she would have jumped right in and told Will to floor it. “Looks like I’m spending what’s left of the night at my dad’s house,” she said bitterly. “Oh well, at least I’ll get to see my brother. I haven’t seen Robbie since he was in high school.”
For some reason, that made Will’s smile turn sour. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he muttered, which struck Lauryn as a weird thing to say. When she tried to ask him about it, though, Will had already turned away. “Thanks for your help tonight, Lauryn,” he said without looking back. “Take care.”
“You, too,” she said, trying not to feel like s
he’d just been stood up again. Thankfully, the insurance section of her remaining discharge paperwork was complicated enough to take her mind off it.
Fifteen minutes later, officially discharged, Lauryn walked out of the administration office, through the darkened main lobby, and out into the covered hospital pull-through where her father’s pristinely maintained 1982 Buick LeSabre was waiting to pick her up, exactly as promised.
“You’re late,” Maxwell said when she opened the door.
Exhausted, emotionally drained, and royally pissed off, Lauryn didn’t even dignify that with a reply. “Let’s just go,” she muttered, collapsing into the couch-soft seat. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
Maxwell scowled at her language, but must not have been in the mood for a fight, either, because he just pulled out, coasting under the hospital’s glaring lights toward the empty street.
And behind them, unseen, a solitary man on a motorcycle with what appeared to be a sword strapped to the side pulled out and began to follow.
3
Someone to Devour
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
—1 Peter 5:8
The roads were empty tonight. A mercy, because Will was already late.
He made it to the Chicago PD’s main office in record time, parking his unmarked car in the vice department’s section of the icy, sprawling lot. He slammed his door as he got out, stomping through the freezing night as he cursed himself for a damn fool.
He shouldn’t have gone to the hospital.
It had made sense at the time. The new group taking over the Chicago drug scene was his case, and since the green stuff had been popping up on his informants, that made Lauryn his witness. His territory. And like most detectives, Will was possessive of his territory. This time, though, he wished like hell that he’d let someone else take the job, because seeing Lauryn again had hurt a lot more than he’d expected.
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