by Ким Харрисон
No one was talking, though, and I figured I'd better say something before I fell asleep at the table. "What's the run, Glenn?" I asked, taking a sip and wishing the caffeine would kick in.
Glenn stood, his thick hands adjusting his ID badge on his belt. Square jaw tightening, he gave Ivy a wary glance. "I left a message last night. Didn't you get it?"
The depth of his voice was as soothing as the coffee he'd brought, but coming back in through the pixy hole in the screen, Jenks did an about-face. "I think I hear Matalina," he said, vanishing to leave behind a sifting ribbon of gold sparkles. My eyes went from the haze of pixy dust to Ivy, and she shrugged. "No," I prompted.
Ivy's eyes switched to black. "Jenks!" she called, but the pixy didn't show. I shrugged and gave Glenn an apologetic look.
"Jenks!" Ivy yelled. "If you're going to hit the message button, you'd damn well better write it down!"
I took a slow breath, but Ivy interrupted me. "Glenn, Rachel hasn't been to bed yet. Can you come back about four?"
"The morgue will have changed shifts by then," he protested. "I'm sorry you didn't get my message, but will you look anyway? I thought that's why you were up."
Annoyance tightened my shoulders. I was tired and cranky, and I didn't like Ivy trying to field my business. In a sudden wash of bitchiness, I stood.
Framed by her new haircut, Ivy's oval face looked questioning. "Where are you going?"
I grabbed my bag, already packed with a variety of spells and charms, then snapped the top back onto my coffee. "To the morgue, apparently. I've been up this late before."
"But not after a night like you just had."
Silent, I pulled my bracelet from around Mr. Fish and wrangled the clasp. Glenn slowly stood, his posture holding a wary slant. He had once asked me why I lived with Ivy and the threat she posed to my life and free will, and though I knew why now, telling him would make him worry more, not less. "Jeez, Ivy," I said, aware he was analyzing us professionally. "I'd rather do it now. Consider it my bedtime story."
I headed into the hall, trying to remember where I'd left my sandals. The foyer. From the kitchen Ivy said, "You don't have to go running whenever the FIB crooks their finger."
"No!" I shouted back, fatigue making me stupid. "But I do have to come up with some money to resanctify the church."
Glenn's steps behind me faltered on the hardwood floor. "It isn't holy anymore?" he asked as we emerged into the brighter sanctuary. "What happened?"
"We had an incident." The darkness of the foyer was soothing when I found it, and I sighed when I scuffed into my sandals and pushed open the heavy door to the sanctuary. Good Lord, I thought, squinting at the bright glare of a late-July morning. No wonder I slept through this. It was noisy with shrieking birds, and already hot. If I had known I was going out, I would have put on shorts.
Glenn took my elbow when I stumbled on the step, and I would have spilled my coffee if I hadn't replaced the top. "Not a morning person, eh?" he teased, and I jerked away.
"Jenks!" I shouted when my sandals reached the cracked sidewalk. The least he could do was come with me. Seeing Glenn's cruiser parked at the curb, I hesitated. "Let's take two cars," I offered, not wanting to be seen riding in a FIB cruiser when I could be driving my red convertible. It was hot; I could put the top down.
Glenn chuckled. "With your suspended license? Not a chance."
The scuffing of my sandals slowed, and I looked askance at him, bothered at the amusement in his dark eyes. "Crap, how did you find out about that?"
He opened the passenger-side door for me. "Duh, I work for the FIB? Our street force has been running interference for you every time you go out for groceries. If you get caught driving with a suspended license, the I.S. is going to jail your ass, and we like your ass on the street where it can do some good, Ms. Morgan."
I got into the front seat and set my bag on my lap. I hadn't known the FIB had even heard about that, much less had been distracting the I.S. "Thanks," I said softly, and he shut the door with a grunt of acknowledgment.
Glenn crossed in front while I buckled myself in. It was stuffy, and I fiddled with the window control to put it down. The car wasn't on yet, but I was irritated. I jammed my coffee in the cup holder and kept messing with the window until Glenn folded his height into the front seat and gave me a look. My brow furrowed in frustration. "It's not fair, Glenn," I complained. "They had no right to take my license. They're picking on me."
"Just take the driver's-ed class and get it over with."
"But it's not fair! They're intentionally making my life difficult."
"Golly, imagine that?" The key slid into the ignition, and Glenn paused to tug a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on to up his cool factor by about ten. Face easing in relief, he looked down the quiet street shaded with trees almost eighty years old. "What do you expect?" he said. "You gave them an excuse. They took it."
I drew a frustrated breath, holding it. So I ran a red light. It was yellow most of the way. And I went a little fast on the interstate once. But I suppose letting my ex-boyfriend run into me with a Mack truck to help a vampire start his undead existence might be cause for a few points. No one had died but the vampire, though—and he wanted to.
I fiddled with the button again, and Glenn took the hint. Warm air sifted in as the window whined down, replacing the scent of my perfume with the aroma of cut grass. "Jenks!" I called as he started the car. "Let's go!"
The rumble of the big car hid the clatter of Jenks's wings as he zipped in. "Sorry about the message, Rache," he muttered as he landed on the rearview mirror.
"Don't sweat it." I stretched my arm along the length of the open window, not wanting to ream him out over it. I'd taken enough flak from my brother for doing the same thing, and I knew it hadn't been intentional.
I settled into the leather seats as Glenn pulled onto the empty street. It would stay empty until about noon, when most of the Hollows started to wake up. My pulse was slow from the early hour, and the heat of the day made me sleepy. Glenn kept his car as tidy as himself; not an old coffee-stained cup or clutter of paperwork marred the floor or backseat. "So-o-o-o," I drawled around a yawn, "what's at the morgue besides the obvious?"
Glenn glanced at me as he yielded to a stop sign. "Suicide, but it's murder."
Of course it is. Nodding, I waved at the I.S. cruiser behind an overgrown bush, then made a bunny-eared "kiss-kiss" to the small Were in fatigues dozing on a bench in the sun watching them. It was Brett. The militant Were had been kicked out of his pack for having failed at kidnapping me a few months ago, so of course I was the one he wanted to pack up with next. It made sense in a warped sort of way. I had bested his alpha; therefore I was stronger.
David, my alpha, wasn't having anything to do with it, seeing as he hadn't wanted a pack in the first place. It was why he'd bucked the system and started one with a witch in order to keep his job. And so Brett was reduced to lurking on the outskirts of my life, looking for a way in. It was flattering as all hell, but depressing. I was going to have to talk to David. Having a militant Were attached to my chaotic life wasn't a bad idea, and Brett truly wanted someone to look to. It was how most Weres were put together. David's protest that Brett was trying to get in good with his original alpha by spying on me to see if I had the Were artifact that had instigated the kidnapping attempt was crap. Everyone believed that it had gone over the Mackinac Bridge, though in truth it was hidden in David's cat box.
Jenks cleared his throat, and when I glanced at him, he rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal indication of money. My eyes followed his to Glenn.
"Hey," I said, shifting in my seat, "this pays, right?" Glenn smiled, and, irritated, I sharpened my voice. "It does pay, right?"
Chuckling, the FIB detective glanced in the rearview mirror at Brett and nodded. "Why—" he started, and I interrupted.
"He wants into my pack, and David is balking," I said. "What's so important about this body that yo
u need me to look at it? I'm a lousy detective. It's not what I do."
Glenn's square face was heavy with concern as he looked back at me from the Were behind us. "She's a Were. The I.S. says suicide, but I think it's murder and they're covering it up."
I let the air pressure push my hand up and then down, enjoying the breeze in my shower-damp hair and the feel of my bracelet sliding against my skin. The I.S. is covering up a murder? Big surprise there. Jenks looked happy, silent now that we were working and the question of money had been raised, though not settled. "Standard consultant fee," I said.
"Five hundred a day plus expenses," Glenn said, and I laughed.
"Try double that, ketchup boy. I have insurance to pay." And a church to sanctify, and a living room to repair.
Glenn's attention on the road went distant. "For two hours of your time, that would be what? Two-fifty?"
Crap. He wanted to go hourly. I frowned, and Jenks's wings slowed to nothing. That might pay for the paneling and the guys to put it in. Maybe.
"'Okay," I said, digging through my bag to find the calendar datebook that Ivy had given me last year. It wasn't accurate anymore, but the pages were blank and I needed somewhere to keep track of my time. "But you can expect an itemized bill."
Glenn grinned. "What?" I said, squinting from the come-and-go sun.
He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "You look so… organized," he said, and when Jenks snickered, I flung my hand out and bopped Glenn on the shoulder with the back of my fist.
"Just for that, no more ketchup for you," I muttered, slouching. His grip on the wheel tightened, and I knew I'd hit a sore spot.
"Aw, don't worry, Glenn," Jenks teased. "Christmas is coming. I'll get you a jar of belly-buster jalapeño that will knock your socks off if Rachel won't pimp tomatoes to you anymore."
Glenn shot me a sideways look. "Um, actually, I've got a list," he said, fumbling in an inner coat pocket to bring out a narrow strip of paper with his distinctive, precise handwriting on it. My eyebrows rose as I took it: hot ketchup, spicy BBQ sauce, tomato paste, salsa. His usual.
"You need a new pair of cuffs, right?" he said nervously.
"Yeah," I said, suddenly a lot more awake. "But if you can get a hold of some of those zip-strips the I.S. uses to keep ley line witches from invoking their magic, that'd be great."
"I'll see what I can do," he said, and I bobbed my head, satisfied.
Though Glenn's stiff neck said he was uncomfortable bartering law-enforcement tools for ketchup, I thought it funny that the stoic, straitlaced human was too embarrassed to walk into a store that sold tomatoes. Humanity avoided them like the plague, which was understandable, seeing as a tomato had carried the virus that killed a sizable portion of their population four decades ago and revealed the supernatural species previously hidden by the sheer numbers of humans. But he had been forced into eating pizza, real pizza, not the Alfredo crap that humans serve, and it had been all downhill from there.
I wasn't going to give him a hard time about it. We all had our fears. The fact that Glenn's was that he craved something every other human on the planet shunned was the least of my worries. And if it got me some zip-strips that might someday save my life, I thought as I settled back into the leather seats, then it's a secret well kept.
Four
The morgue was quiet and cool, a quick shift from July to September, and I was glad I had jeans on. My sandals popped against the dirty cement steps as I descended sideways, and the fluorescent light in the stairway only added to the bleak feeling. Jenks was on my shoulder for the warmth, and Glenn made a quick turn to the right when he reached the landing, following the big blue arrows painted on the walls past wide elevators and to the double doors cheerfully proclaiming CINCINNATI MORGUE, AN EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY SERVICE SINCE 1966.
Between the underground dimness and Glenn's coffee still in my grip, I was feeling better, but most of my good mood was from the honest-to-God temp name tag Glenn had handed me when we started down the steps. It wasn't the bent, nasty, yellow laminated four-by-six card everyone else got but a real heavyweight plastic tag embossed with my name. Jenks had one, too, and he was obnoxiously proud of it even though I was the one wearing it, right under mine. It would get me into the morgue when nothing else would. Well, besides being dead.
I didn't do much for the FIB, but somehow I had become their darling, the poor little witch girl who fled the I.S. tyranny to make her own way. They were the ones who had given me my car in lieu of monetary compensation when the I.S. called foul after I helped the FIB solve a crime that I.S. hadn't been able to. It had since been ruled that because I wasn't on the FIB's payroll, the FIB could hire me much as any corporation or individual could. Na-na, na, na-a-a, na.
It was the small things that really made your day.
Glenn pushed open one of the double doors, standing aside so I could go in first. Flip-flops plopping, I scanned the large reception room, more rectangle than square, half of it empty floor, half upright file cabinets and an ugly steel desk that should have been thrown away in the seventies. A college-age kid wearing a lab coat was behind it, his feet on the paper-cluttered desk and a handheld game in his hands. A sheet-draped gurney holding a body waited for attention, but apparently some space aliens needed taking care of first.
The blond kid looked up at our entrance and, after giving me the once-over, set his game down and stood. It smelled in here: pine and dead tissue. Yuck.
"Yo, Iceman," Glenn said, and Jenks grunted in surprise when the straitlaced FIB detective exchanged a complicated arm-, fist-, elbow-slapping… thing with the guy at the desk.
"Glenn," the blond kid said, still giving me glances. "You've got about ten minutes."
Glenn slipped him a fifty, and Jenks choked. "Thanks. I owe you."
"You cool. Just make it fast." He handed Glenn a key chained to a naked Bite-Me-Betty doll. No way would anyone be walking out with the morgue key.
I gave him an ambiguous smile and headed for another set of double doors.
"Miss!" the kid called, his adopted colorful accent dissolving into farm-boy Americana.
Jenks snickered. "Someone wants a date."
Sandals scuffing, I turned to find Iceman following us. "Ms. Morgan," the guy said, his eyes dropping to my twin name tags. "If you don't mind. Could you leave your coffee out here?" At my blank look, he added, "It might wake someone up early, and with the vamp orderly out getting lunch, it would…" He winced. "It might be bad."
My lips parted in understanding. "Sure," I said, handing it to him. "No problem."
Immediately he relaxed. "Thanks." He turned back to his desk, then hesitated. "Ah, you aren't Rachel Morgan, the runner, are you?"
From my shoulder Jenks sniggered. "My, aren't we the famous one."
But I beamed, facing the kid fully as Glenn fidgeted. He could wait. I wasn't often recognized—and it was even more rarely that I didn't have to run away when I was. "Yes, I am," I said, enthusiastically shaking his hand. "Pleased to meet you."
Iceman's hands were warm, and his eyes gave away his delight. "Ace," he said, jiggling on his feet. "Wait here. I've got something for you."
Glenn's grip on the Bite-Me-Betty doll tightened until he realized where his fingers were, and he shifted his grip to the tiny key. Iceman had gone back to his desk and was rummaging in a drawer. "It's here," he said. "Give me a sec." Jenks started humming the tune to Jeopardy!, finishing when the kid slammed the drawer triumphantly. "Got it." He jogged back to us, and I felt my face lose its expression when I saw what he was extending proudly to me . A toe tag?
Jenks left my shoulder, shocking Iceman out of a year's growth when he landed on my wrist so he could see it. I don't think he'd even known that Jenks was here. "Holy crap, Rachel!" Jenks exclaimed. "It's got your name on it! In ink, even." He lifted into the air, laughing. "Isn't that sweet?" he mocked, but the guy was too flustered to notice.
A toe tag? I held it loosely in my hand, bemused. "Uh, thanks," I managed
.
Glenn made a derisive noise from deep in his chest. I was starting to feel like the butt of a joke when Iceman grinned and said, "I was working the night that boat exploded last Christmas? I made it up for you, but you never came in. I kept it as a souvenir." His clean-cut face suddenly went nervous. "I… uh, thought you might want it."
Relaxing in understanding, I tucked it in my bag. "Yes, thank you," I said, then touched his shoulder so he'd know it was okay. "Thank you very much."
"Can we go in now?" Glenn grumbled, and Iceman gave me an embarrassed smile before returning to his desk, steps fast to make his open lab coat furl. Sighing, the FIB detective pushed open one of the double doors for me.
Actually, I was really glad to have the toe tag. It had been made with the intent for use and therefore was imbued with a strong connection that a ley line charm could use to target me. Better I have it than someone else. I'd get rid of it safely when I had the time.
Past the door was another, to make an airlock of sorts. The smell of dead things grew, and Jenks landed on my shoulder, standing right by my ear and the dab of perfume I'd put on earlier. "Spend a lot of time down here?" I asked Glenn as we entered the morgue proper.
"Fair amount." He wasn't looking at me, more interested in the numbers and index cards slid into the holders fastened to the people-size drawer doors. I was getting the creeps. I'd never been to the city morgue before, and I dubiously eyed the arrangement of comfortable chairs around a coffee table at the far end that looked like a reception area at a doctor's office.