Evolution (The Divine Series Book 5)

by M. R. Forbes

  We were standing across the street from the Chief Medical Examiner's office. It was a plain, six-story square building located next to NYU, on the east side near the FDR Drive. We'd made the walk in good time, taking the direct path across 26th. It was early enough that it was still quiet, late enough that most of the staff had already trickled in.

  "Just follow my lead," I said. "What was the victim's name?"

  "Cheryl Paulson."

  We crossed the street, my clothes shifting and readjusting into a tweed suit with leather elbow patches and a heavy raincoat as we did. When we reached the front I held the door open for Rose and ushered her through.

  An older woman was sitting behind a glass-partitioned counter, looking over some paperwork.

  "Excuse me," I said.

  The woman looked up.

  "Detective Mills. I'm on the Paulson case. Is she still here, or was she transferred out?" I didn't know if that was how a real detective would have said it. It sounded legit.

  "Just give me one second." She looked over at her computer and started tapping the keys. "Paulson... Paulson... brought in two nights ago. The autopsy was already done, and the paperwork was sent over to the precinct. We're just waiting on the fax so that we can send her remains back to her family in Tulsa."

  I smiled. "Well, I'm glad I made it in time. I was hoping to get a look before she was gone. This is her roommate's girlfriend, Alison. She might have some important information about the case, but she needs to see the body to verify."

  The woman looked at me, and then at Rose. Then she reached over and handed me a clipboard. "You'll have to sign in. Just put your name and badge number, and I'll call the assistant to escort you."

  "Thank you, Miss..."

  "Wells."

  "Miss Wells."

  I smiled at her again, and took the clipboard. I scribbled John Mills as poorly as I could on the blank sign-in page, and added Obi's former badge number at the end. I handed it back to Miss Wells and waited while she picked up the phone and dialed an internal line. She worked the computer at the same time, glancing back to the clipboard and then to the screen.

  "Hi, this is Erica. Can you come up to the front and escort a Detective Mills back into the morgue to view the Paulson cadaver? Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Michael." She hung up. "He'll be with you shortly."

  Rose and I retreated away from the desk to wait.

  "Roommate's girlfriend?" she asked. "How do you know she had a roommate?"

  "I don't. I doubt they do either."

  "You're lucky they didn't ask to see your badge."

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small leather case with a gold badge pinned to it, also sporting Obi's number. "You mean this?" It was really a simple square of plastic, the kind used in 3d printers. Like my clothes, I could mold it and alter it to be whatever I needed. It was more than passable for a quick flip.

  "You're like a regular David Copperfield."

  "I have better tricks than that hack."

  The door next to the glass partition opened. I was expecting a white-coat. Instead, I got a security guard. His gun was drawn, aimed squarely at my chest.

  "Don't move," he said.

  "What is this?" I asked.

  "I don't know who you are, but impersonating an officer, especially a deceased officer, is a serious crime," Miss Wells said from behind her desk.

  She had run Obi's badge while we waited. Damn.

  "I can explain."

  The guard kept the firearm steady. "Just stand there."

  The front doors opened, and two police officers walked in.

  "Turn around, spread your arms and legs," one of them said. "Both of you."

  Rose glanced over at me, a hint of fear in her eyes.

  I started turning, and Rose did the same. I was powered to fight demons and angels. I could kill all three of them without too much effort.

  That didn't mean I was going to.

  "Show me what you can do," I whispered to Rose, at the same time I leaned forward and put my hands up against the wall. I needed to see her toughness, to know she could take care of herself. The Turned, the Touched - they were humans, stronger and faster than most, but still mortal. If she couldn't handle a cop...

  Her eyes registered surprise at the statement. She responded with a short nod. The officers came up behind us, cuffs in hand, and I felt a foot push against my ankle, spreading me a little wider.

  "You have the right to remain silent-"

  Rose's elbow snapped back, catching her target in the shoulder with enough force and surprise to knock him off-balance. Before he could recover, she turned and wrapped her arm around his neck, lifting her legs from the ground and using her weight to pull him over. My guy saw what was happening and grabbed me tight, shoving me hard into the wall and pinning my arms behind my back.

  My head was turned to watch Rose, and I saw she had the officer's gun in her hand by the time they hit the ground together. She put it up against the side of his head, dropping the safety with practiced expertise. "Drop it," she ordered the guard.

  He stood still, his weapon aimed at her. She was beneath the policeman, his body blocking any kind of shot at her. My first impression of her move had been raw force, not much form. Seeing that every part of it had been intentional, that she had planned to wind up below him in possession of his sidearm - I was impressed.

  I pushed the energy out, wrapping it around the guard's weapon and ripping it away, snapping it against the officer holding my arms, breaking his grip and turning. I put my hand around his neck and held him lightly.

  "We just came to see the body," I said. I stared into his eyes, waiting to see any kind of spark that might signal he understood that little bit 'extra' that set the Awake apart from the Sleeping.

  There was nothing.

  "Get off me," Rose said. "One wrong move and I'll kill you."

  I watched the officer get to his feet, Rose springing up behind him. She kept the gun trained on him, and then guided him over to the guard.

  "Cuff yourselves," I said, letting my officer go. "My partner and I are going to go and identify the corpse, and then we're going to leave. You aren't going to remember any of this."

  It wasn't completely true. They would remember putting the cuffs on. They just wouldn't know why. It would be awkward for them to explain later, but it was better than having to kill them. Rose had done well with the situation. I had been sloppy. The people here weren't the enemy, and I should have done better to avoid the confrontation in the first place.

  Once the cuffs were on I locked the front door and went back to the desk. Miss Wells was still sitting there, frozen in fear and shock.

  "Erica, if you wouldn't mind directing us back to the morgue yourself?"

  She pursed her lips and stared at me. I leaned in closer, taking a deeper look into her soul.

  "What have you seen?" I asked.

  "I don't know what-"

  "Yes, you do. Tell me what you've seen. Angels? Vampires? Things that everyone tells you aren't real, but you know they are?"

  She kept staring at me.

  "The girl, Cheryl Paulson. She was killed by a demon. You know they exist. You know they're real."

  "I... I... no. It can't be. It's just my anxiety."

  She said it. She didn't believe it.

  "I'm not going to hurt you, Erica. We're hunting it. We need to see the body, to understand."

  She pushed her chair back and walked to the door on shaky legs.

  "Go down the first hallway, all the way to the back, turn left and go down the stairs. Its the second door on your right." Her eyes stayed locked on me. "You aren't one of them."

  "No."

  She nodded and then pointed at the policemen, sitting quietly with their wrists cuffed together. "What about them?"

  "They're going to forget. You are, too."

  "Everything?" Her eyes lit up in hopefulness.

  "Not everything. I'm sorry."

  "My brother. He was..
. taken... when I was seven. We were playing outside. I can see them. I can feel them. I've been to therapy, I've taken pills. It isn't enough. I thought I was crazy. I never told anyone."

  "You aren't crazy."

  She laughed. "I think it would be better if I was."

  "I know the feeling." I turned back to Rose. "Come on."

  CHAPTER TEN

  We went down to the morgue, walking with enough purpose that none of the others we crossed paths with questioned two new faces. I had never been to a morgue before, and I was surprised to find that it was one of the things television got mostly right. The room was cold and sterile, a wall of corpse storage, a desk with a computer. The chair behind it was out and turned, its occupant currently absent.

  Cheryl Paulson's body was already out on a gurney, wrapped and ready for travel. I unzipped the body bag, whispering an apology as I did. I hated to have to disturb her.

  What I saw was disturbing.

  The body was in one piece. What was left of it, anyway. As Rose had claimed with her sister, the face was in a frozen look of ecstasy, locked with eyes rolling back, mouth open and smiling. Her neck, arms, legs, and upper body were all good, untouched. Her lower abdomen... that was a different story. It was as if a massive hand had reached in and ripped away her organs.

  "I knew it," Rose said. She came up next to me and looked down at the corpse, her face hard. "My sister's wounds were more ragged, and less of the internals were missing, but it's the same demon."

  I kept staring at the body, focusing on the wounds. "What kind of demon?" I asked, more to myself. I gathered my power and cast it out, letting it drift away from me, to settle on the flesh of the victim. When it had finished dropping I examined it, tracing the rise and fall of the mold it had made, running my attention along every edge, every fold, every missing piece.

  "The ovaries are gone. So is the uterus. The lungs. Whatever did this..." I could feel the outline of the damage with my power. Not teeth or claws like I expected. "A blade of some kind. A razor, or a knife. I don't think it was cursed." It was hard to know for sure on a human. I pulled the energy back and shook my head. "The good thing about demons is they have a general profile. Vampire bites, werewolf claws, easy to identify. This - I don't know any kind of demon that does this."

  Every part of it was getting stranger and stranger. Was Rose wrong?

  "There is, Landon. I saw it. Whoever it was, they looked just like my sister. They attacked her, mutilated her, ate parts of her... and became her." The tears threatened, but she didn't break.

  I looked down at Cheryl Paulson. Demon, human, whichever it was, she was too young to die this way. "You could have been in shock. They could have knocked you out. There are other things that explain what you thought you saw."

  Were there?

  "Bullshit. If you get knocked out you don't remember anything, and I wouldn't have been in shock before I knew she was in trouble. There's something out there. If you don't know what it is, then you don't know what it is. That doesn't make it any less real."

  I took a deep breath. She believed, and nothing was going to alter that belief. "Okay. Let's assume it is a demon. Let's say it's a new kind, or that it somehow got out of Hell. I'd venture to guess that it looks just like Miss Paulson here, and there are thirty million people in this city. How the hell are we going to find it?"

  "You destroyed a god, and you can't find a demon?"

  "Like I said, demons have profiles. They prefer certain environments. I don't know anything about this." Dante might, and if he made an appearance I would ask him.

  "What about the boyfriend? We could go and question him."

  I shook my head. "I don't know what we'd get from him that you don't already know."

  "Probably nothing, but we can't just leave him there. They think he killed her."

  "How are we supposed to change that? Go down there and tell them we think it was a demon?"

  "I was in his shoes. You don't know what it's like, to have someone accuse you of doing something so horrible."

  "You're right, I don't. There's nothing we can do." I put my hand on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. "You came to me for help, and to be part of this war. You need to understand, it's just us. Against the angels, against the demons, and unfortunately sometimes against the people we're trying to protect. What that means is that a lot of times we have to do things that we don't want to. Things that suck, like leaving an innocent person accused of murder. It's part of the balance."

  She stared back at me for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and nodded. She didn't have to like it, only accept it, and she had.

  "Most of the victims were picked up at colleges. We could start there?"

  I zipped the bag back up, and started for the door. "How many schools are there in the northeast?"

  She sighed. "Let's go back to my hotel so I can get my stuff. All the work I've been doing is on my laptop, including a map of every place the asshole has already been. Maybe we can narrow it down?"

  We didn't have much else to go on. "Where are you staying?"

  "Milford Plaza."

  "The lullaby of all Broadway?"

  "What?"

  "Try Youtube."

  We went back out the way we came in. The policemen were gone by then, and Erica looked confused when we exited, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. She didn't say anything, or try to stop us.

  "Walk, or cab?" I asked.

  "These attacks happen every few days. We need every minute we can get if we're going to catch up before anyone else has to die."

  "So, cab then?"

  We walked to the corner, and she flagged a taxi like a true New Yorker.

  "Hold on," I said as the car stopped against the curb. "The Divine love taxis." I opened the passenger door and peered in at the driver. "Good morning."

  He looked back at me. "Good morning, sir." He was Sikh, with a thick beard and a turban. "Where are you headed today?"

  I stared at him for a few seconds. He was clean. Mortal. I got in, with Rose trailing right behind me. "Milford Plaza."

  "Yes, sir."

  We were there ten minutes later. Rose's room was on the third floor, a small space in a random part of the hotel. It was obvious she had dropped her suitcase on the bed and gone right to my place, because nothing else had been touched.

  She unlocked and unzipped it, retrieving a laptop and flipping it open. A minute later she picked it up and turned the screen towards me.

  "Here's the map, with all the pins."

  They were spread across the New England area. Boston, Maryland, and of course New York.

  "Here's a map with pins added to all the nearby colleges."

  There were red, demon pins surrounding the city, and a single new pin at Columbia University, where Cheryl Paulson had been enrolled. A sea of green pins rested around it.

  "There are a lot of potential targets left on that map. Manhattan has more than fifty schools by itself."

  "I know. Even if we split up, the odds of picking the right place still suck."

  "We need a better approach than that. Demons are chaotic, but even chaos has a pattern to it. Are the locations all you have?"

  "You mean a history?" She sat on the edge of the bed, patting the spot next to her. I joined her there, and watched her flip screens. "I've been keeping a database of the attacks. Names, dates, locations - all correlated with any related info I could find: news articles, Facebook posts, tweets, whatever. I wrote some data analysis tools to go with it. I can step through it, if that's what you're thinking." She scrolled the data, too fast for my eyes to follow.

  "That's exactly what I was thinking."

  "Not a problem. Ready?" She hit a few keys. A loading bar popped up for a second, followed by the map again. Pins started dropping, fast at first, then slowing as the dates progressed. "You can see, there's not much of a pattern to it. At the same time, our demon doesn't typically travel too far between hits. I have a feeling they might be on foot m
ost of the time, and maybe hitchhiking the rest. The distances seem to bear that out."

  I watched the pins fall. Each one was a dead college girl whose body had been mutilated. I hadn't known anything about this. The disturbance was too small to affect the balance, and I didn't have Obi or Dante to feed me this sort of information anymore.

  I didn't normally feel guilty for this kind of thing. Then again, the consequences didn't normally show up at my door.

  I turned towards Rose, getting her attention. "I'm sorry for your sister. I should have seen this, known this was happening. I should have stopped it sooner."

  She shook her head. "Look, I don't know that much about you, other than the fact that you claim to have already saved the world once or twice. What I do know... you gave back the god power, right? That means you can't possibly know everything. You're doing something about it now, that's what matters."

  Absolution? Not complete, but her words helped. "Can you play that back again?"

  "Sure."

  She hit a couple of keys, and the history repeated.

  I watched it three more times, a fuzzy idea in my mind clarifying with each reset.

  "Can you make this thing connect the pins with a red line or something?"

  "Of course." She closed out of the map, opening up the code that powered the whole thing. She went through it in a hurry, adding lines here and there.

  Ten minutes later, it was done.

  "The lines will be straight. I can add curves if you need it, but the algorithm is a little more complex."

  "This should be more than enough."

  "What are you looking for, anyway?"

  "The points... It sounds crazy, but the pattern reminds me of demonic runes. Like our target is drawing them in their path."

  "Are you serious?" She looked back at the screen, and her chest heaved in rhythm to a rising heartbeat.

  "Let's see."

  She started the animation. I watched while the pins dropped, the lines appearing, connecting each as the murder occurred. As the series progressed, one thing was clear.

  "It is a demonic rune. A few of them. Imperfect, maybe because of the straight lines, or maybe because our target likes a specific profile."

  "What is it for?"