A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  Tasha glanced at her notes and continued. “Samples of hair, cardiac blood, and vitreous fluid have been sent for toxicology screening. Given the possible context of death, I recommend that thin-layer chromatography be used in order to determine potential drug interactions.”

  All I wanted to do was run back home, crawl into bed, and medicate myself into a deep, dreamless sleep. Instead, I opened the door.

  “Hey, Tash.”

  “Tess!” She smiled. “Just in time. I’m closing him up now.”

  “Yeah, I saw.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t be squeamish. If you can’t get used to the sight of a little viscera in the morning, you won’t be able to look past it and see what’s really going on underneath the skin. Just treat it like another puzzle.”

  “I object to the phrase ‘a little viscera in the morning.’ ”

  She chuckled. “Very well. No more poetry. But do come take a look.”

  I leaned over the body. The patterned abrasion across his chest was darker and more visible now—it almost looked like a cross between a bruise and road rash. The bruising around his feet and wrists had stayed the same.

  “I guess cause of death is easy,” I said.

  Tasha nodded. “Incised wound to the left side of the neck, just above the clavicle. The cut is roughly six inches long, and it transected the left common carotid artery. Very sharp and very precise.” She pointed to the edges of the wound. “No tissue bridging, and no abraded borders. This was done with a sharp, double-edged blade, rather than a serrated knife.”

  “So not your average kitchen knife.”

  “It would have to be a dagger of some kind. No hilt mark, so it’s more of a slice than a stab—the blade was drawn once cleanly across the flesh.” She frowned. “In cases like this, you usually see that surrounding structures have been nicked or damaged, especially the subclavian artery which is nearby. But this cut is surgically precise.”

  “You think the killer’s trained in anatomy?”

  “Not necessarily, but you’re dealing with someone who’s incredibly detail-oriented, someone with a very steady hand. Not a rookie.” She turned the boy’s neck slightly, so that I could see the undamaged side, still traced with stubble. “The underlying musculature is untouched. Hyoid bone is intact, and there’s no bruising on the rest of the neck. No trace of manual asphyxiation.”

  “It doesn’t look like the killer touched him at all, except for that odd bruise across the sternum. And that could have been done with magic.”

  “I was thinking that as well.” Tasha traced the edges of the bruise with her gloved fingertip. “It has all the characteristics of a restraint, but I didn’t find any fibers that might indicate a rope or a belt. It’s possible, I think, to manipulate certain kinds of materia flows to such a degree that you can apply gravitational force to something—an object, or a body.”

  “Well, he was floating when we found him.”

  “Yeah, I saw him before you did. I had to release the scene.” Tasha shook her head. “A real gruesome tableau. Whoever the killer is, he likes to show off.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, “he’s a real impresario.”

  “Usually,” she continued, “in cases like these, you’d see a clean incision across the neck, transecting both common carotid arteries. The standard position is to grab the victim from behind, usually by the hair, elevating their neck and slicing horizontally. But in this case the killer was very careful to only cut one side of the neck. And even that cut is shallow.”

  “We think that he wanted the kid to die more slowly. A shallow wound like that would take a while to bleed out.”

  “God.” Tasha sighed. “You know, animals, I get. They make sense to me. Even insects. But people are beyond me sometimes. What we do to each other, on a daily basis, is so much worse than science fiction.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” I forced myself to stare at a space just above the body, not actually seeing it. “You—ah—mentioned some potential drug interactions?”

  “We won’t know for sure until the tox screen comes back, but I imagine that he was on something. His liver temp was higher than normal.” She lifted up his right arm, revealing the track marks. “These are old. I noticed some damage to the alveoli and bronchioles as well—the kind of trauma to the lungs you might see in someone who smoked crystal meth. It turns your lungs to hamburger eventually.”

  “And what about that fresh puncture mark?”

  “I sent a sample to histology. Could be any IV drug, really. And there’s also the hybrid drugs out there, the kind that mix heroin with processed materia. You might as well freebase with napalm. It’s a real one-way ticket.”

  “If this is a serial killer, he may be using drugs to subdue his victims. Especially if they’re already users.”

  “This kid definitely used. He may have been just starting out, but he obviously smoked and injected drugs. And there was some dried blood in his nasal passageways.”

  “So he was snorting, too.”

  “The story doesn’t get any happier.”

  The door to the morgue swung open, and Selena walked in, carrying a file. It would have been more accurate to say that she stormed in, if people actually could “storm” in real life. Her expression was something between chronic fatigue and complete mental breakdown. I unconsciously braced myself against the nearby steel counter, as if I were standing on a subway train that was about to lurch forward.

  “Close him up,” she called, her long legs rapidly bringing her across the room. “Cover up the wound on his neck. Do anything you can to make him look presentable—I don’t care if you have to use mortician’s makeup. Just do it now.”

  Tasha frowned. “What’s up? You located next of kin?”

  “Did we ever.” Selena looked at me, and I could actually feel her vibrating from a few feet away. “Tess, it’s been nice knowing you.”

  “Are you quitting?”

  “I just might be.” She closed her eyes momentarily. “We ran the ten-card of the boy’s prints that we got last night. There was a hit in AFIS.”

  “So who is he?” I rolled my eyes. “Some celebrity’s kid?”

  Selena’s look was grim. “His name is Jacob Kynan.”

  “Kynan?” I felt the color drain from my face. “As in, the Kynan family?”

  “His mother is Devorah Kynan.”

  “Oh fuck.” I gripped the edge of the counter. “Oh holy—fuck. Is she coming here? Is she on her way?”

  “She’s a bigwig, right?” Tasha asked. “I mean, I don’t exactly read the community tabloids, but she’s a big deal as a mage, if I remember.”

  “The Kynan family is one of the oldest empowered clans in North America,” Selena said. “They settled in Vancouver at the turn of the century, and half of the Mystical Crimes Division was built with their money. Technically, Devorah Kynan owns this morgue—and this building.”

  “Well, if she wants a viewing, she’s going to have to look through the closed-circuit camera like everyone else. She’s not allowed in the autopsy suite.”

  “Tasha, we’re talking about a woman who could level this whole building if she wanted to. If Devorah Kynan wants to see her son’s body, we don’t have much of a choice. Hell, she could drag him out of here on a gurney, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

  Tasha folded her arms across her chest. “That boy’s body is not leaving here. This is still my morgue, Selena. I’m chief medical examiner. She’d be breaking at least three laws by removing him from this facility.”

  Selena raised a hand. “I know, I know. No offense implied, Tash. I’m just trying to prepare you for the inevitable. This woman is used to getting what she wants, and she’s got friends in powerful places. Other dimensions. Things that you don’t want crawling through your window at night.”

  “Does she know about the other two girls who were killed?” I asked.

  Selena shook her head. “She only cares about Jacob. And the less
she knows right now, the better. I don’t want her going to the media. Politics, Tess. We have to be careful.” She looked around, as if making sure that nobody else was listening. “We just got funding to bring in a profiler, but you can’t tell anyone. Especially not Devorah Kynan.”

  “The guy from Toronto?” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I see that Siegel has been shooting his mouth off. That’s the last time I let him eavesdrop on a departmental meeting.”

  “But this is good, right? If the department is willing to bring in outside talent, then they’re taking the case seriously.”

  “I get it.” Tasha smiled. “We deny that we’re hiring a profiler at first, so that it looks like we’ve got everything under control in-house. But if anything goes to trial, we whip out the documents proving that we did outsource, and that we had outside talent on the case all along.”

  “You should be on the selection committee,” Selena told her blandly.

  Tasha’s smile widened. “I’m very active at my kid’s PTA meetings.”

  I momentarily pictured Tasha, fresh from an autopsy, showing up at a middle school classroom to discuss bake sale strategies. It was a mind-bending thought.

  “What about the drugs?” I asked.

  “We’ll have to wait a day for the tox panel to come back.” Tasha was bent over Jacob’s body now, stitching up the Y-incision with coarse thread. I felt my stomach flip, and looked away.

  “No talk about drugs until we know something definitive,” Selena said. “I’m not about to tell Devorah Kynan that her only son was a junkie.”

  “But the evidence is all over his arms. She’s going to see it.”

  “She’s a mother.” Selena’s eyes were dark. “All she’s going to see is her little boy lying on a cold autopsy table.”

  “How much time do we have before she gets here?”

  Selena shrugged. “She lives in Shaughnessy, but if traffic is good on South Granville, she could be here in ten minutes.”

  “If it was my kid,” Tasha said, “I’d speed the whole way.”

  Shaughnessy was one of Vancouver’s oldest and richest neighborhoods, with massive, three-story estates guarded by high hedges. A land of gated communities and tree-lined streets, with Mercedeses and Jaguars parked on every curb. The only time I ever saw it was when I was speeding down South Granville on the 98 B-Line Bus, which went all the way to the airport. I wondered if Devorah lived in a mansion, or if she was one of those wealthy landowners who leased out a number of properties, graciously allowing students to live in converted basement suites for nine hundred bucks a month.

  “What about this profiler?” I asked. “Is he good?”

  “His name is Miles Sedgwick.” Selena shuffled through some papers, squinting as she tried to read her own notes in pencil. “Bachelor’s in psychology from Dalhousie, and master’s from the University of Toronto. With honors. He works on contract with our Toronto office, and he worked at both the Hamilton and Scarborough scenes.”

  “Can’t we find a profiler from Vancouver?”

  She made a face. “You picked a fine time to show civic pride. From what I’ve been told, Sedgwick is the best. And he’s working for very little compensation.”

  “What—out of the goodness of his heart?”

  “Who knows? He gets a living wage and a hotel room, but that’s about it. You and Siegel can make sure that he gets settled in.”

  Great. The last thing I wanted to do was play errand girl to some uppity academic from Toronto. Secretly, I was afraid that he’d ask me to use the photocopier, since I still hadn’t figured out how to change the toner.

  “You can’t even give him an apartment?”

  She spread her hands. “We’re not made of money, and besides, he didn’t ask for anything like that. Just a space for his computer and files.”

  “Is he single?” Tasha asked, still holding the scissors and thread.

  Selena glared at her. “You’re married.”

  “I wasn’t asking for me.” She smirked in my general direction.

  I shook my head. “Oh no. I’m off the market.”

  “Oh, please.” Selena sighed. “This isn’t The View. I don’t give a shit if he’s single, married, gay, straight, or into animals. All I care about is whether he knows how to profile a killer.”

  “Profilers are always straight and single,” I said. “It’s hard to maintain a relationship when you’re constantly making flow charts about dismemberment and ritual killings. Not that it would bother me.”

  “No, you’d probably like it,” Tasha said.

  “This discussion is over,” Selena said. “Right now, all we have to worry about is what Devorah Kynan’s going to do—”

  At that moment, the door to the morgue opened. It was like we’d called her into existence by saying her name. I felt a chill go down my spine.

  Devorah Kynan was short. Almost petite. She had close-cropped black hair with a hint of silver, and dark, almost blue-black eyes. Her features were angular and severe, as if they’d been sewn into a tapestry. She had high cheekbones, and her mouth was compressed to a thin, expressionless line. No wrinkles, but I doubted that it was due to Botox or some other form of creative botulism. Maybe she just didn’t age. And with the level of power that I could feel emanating from her, that seemed like a distinct possibility. The air all around her body was crackling like a frying pan. Flows of materia coiled along her arms, coursing between her fingertips, invisible but no less deadly. I’d felt the like of it only once, and that was when I’d met Caitlin, the former vampire magnate of the city.

  She had a kind of beauty. It was cold and forbidding, almost metallic, but I could see it, in the same way that you might feel drawn to a soaring, modular sculpture made of glass and steel. She wore a men’s blazer—probably Armani—that had been tailored to fit her small frame, thrown over a bloodred shirt with a high collar. The top button was undone, revealing an amber pendant with delicate golden tracery that lay against her olive skin. The soles of her flats clicked against the tiled floor of the autopsy suite. Click-click-click. And then silence.

  Even though she was standing still, it seemed as if the room itself had stopped instead, completely frozen. All eyes were drawn to her. Even Tasha was motionless, still holding the scissors that she’d been using, only a moment ago, to stitch up the chest cavity of Jacob Kynan. Selena looked ready for battle.

  Nobody said anything. I felt dizzy from the black-edged power that was coming off Devorah in waves. I’m not sure if she was even aware of it. I forced myself to meet her eyes. They were small and without feeling. I remembered that night, months ago, when I’d looked into Lucian’s eyes and seen nothing but two black orbs, revolving in a killing dance against some eternal winter. The banality of evil, or maybe something else entirely. All I could see in Devorah Kynan’s eyes was a plane of perfect steel, flawless in its consistency. A stream of codes and mystical binaries that threatened to overwhelm me.

  Try to know me, those eyes said, and you will lose.

  Finally, she spoke. Her voice was low and rich, without a tremor.

  “Where is my boy?”

  3

  Devorah Kynan stood a few feet from the autopsy table. None of us moved. We were like some eerie tableau. Words died in my mouth. The emptiness in Devorah’s eyes would have swallowed anything that I might say, any easy platitude or gesture of condolence.

  “Ms. Kynan,” Selena said finally. “You should come with me.”

  “I need to see my son,” she replied.

  “Of course you do. But there are some things we need to talk about first. It won’t take very long, and then our chief medical examiner, Dr. Tasha Lieu”—she gestured to Tasha, who was doing her best to look professional—“can arrange a viewing for you. I know this is a difficult time—”

  “My son,” Devorah repeated. She looked at Selena, confused, as if seeing her for the first time. “I need to be with him.”

  “I understand that, of course
I do,” Selena began. “But there are matters—”

  “You can leave now.” Devorah approached the autopsy table. Her eyes swept over the length of Jacob’s body. She didn’t even flinch. “I need to be alone with him. I’ll answer your questions later.”

  “Ms. Kynan . . .”

  She met Selena’s gaze. Nothing was said, but I felt a flare of power, like an electrical current passing between them. Selena took a small step backward. It wasn’t a threat, precisely. More like a reminder of who was in charge.

  Selena let out a breath. “All right. We’ll be waiting outside.”

  Tasha looked angry, but Selena raised a hand before she could say anything. Slowly and awkwardly, like students who had just been dismissed, we filed out of the autopsy suite and gathered in the hallway outside. The door closed, and I could smell industrial-grade antiseptic. We were silent except for the hum of the elevator.

  “Well, that was really professional,” Tasha said.

  “Give her what she wants,” Selena replied. “That way, she’ll give us something. Hopefully, answers. It’s just a minor infraction—”

  “She’s alone in the morgue, in my morgue, with the body of her dead son!” I’d never seen Tasha livid before. “She could be contaminating evidence! If this gets out, we could be looking at a violation from OSHA—”

  “It won’t get out.” Selena’s voice was even. “Give her the time that she needs, and she’ll be cooperative. I understand how people like Devorah Kynan work. She’s from a different time.”

  “And we’re supposed to just adapt to her?” Tasha shook her head. “Excuse me for saying it, Selena, but this is bullshit.”

  “It’s politics.”

  “Same thing.”

  I looked through the window of the autopsy suite. Devorah hadn’t moved an inch. She was standing there, an intimate distance from her son’s body, looking at him, the way you’d look at an unfamiliar painting that was beautiful but also strange.

  Slowly, she reached for the white sheet and drew it down, revealing the Y-incision across his chest. She held on to the sheet with one hand, and I saw that her knuckles were pale from clutching it so tightly. Then she let it drop.