“Okay.” She didn’t remember any Marcus and didn’t think she wanted to talk to him anyway but turning off customers was something she tried to avoid.
She drew close enough to see his face, or she could have if he hadn’t just pulled a stocking cap down to his chin.
Poppy spun around to run, but the man took her by the neck, pressed his fingers into the soft flesh on either side of her windpipe.
She couldn’t shout or scream.
The pressure grew and her head spun.
Her arms didn’t work the way she wanted them to.
Harder, he pressed and she started to choke. Kicking back at him did nothing. The grip was an iron vise.
Sound faded and her legs buckled. She fell straight down, her sight flickering out.
38
Gray was not surprised to see Nat walking toward him outside the morgue. It wasn’t usually necessary to have both of them there at the same time, but these were extraordinary circumstances. Blades had called Gray when he was taking Marley back to their flat.
“Hey,” Nat said. “Command performance, huh?”
“Seems like it.”
They went in together. This was not a place that was ever convivial and welcoming, but in the evening it seemed particularly somber.
“Nat? Gray?”
Sykes came through the door and walked briskly to join them.
“Looks like a party,” Gray said.
“Yeah,” Nat said. They all turned their mouths down. “Let’s find the man. I’ve got other things to do.”
“Hot date?” Sykes said, and Gray winced.
Nat’s face lost any expression. “Let’s get on with it.”
Gray peered through the reinforced window into Blades’s domain. “Shucks,” he said. “I thought he’d called us down to show us what the new interior decorator did.”
At that, Nat laughed and pushed the door open.
White light, stainless steel, chrome and white, white, white met them. And even more sheeted bodies than earlier, even though many of the ones they had seen must have been moved by now.
The night watch must have started because there were only two men present, both in scrubs, masks and caps. They washed their hands at a row of sinks behind the autopsy tables.
“Can I help you?” one of the men said.
“Dr. Blades asked us to meet him here,” Sykes said.
“He’s having dinner,” the guy said. “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Gray muttered something and “Dr. Death” was mixed in with whatever he said.
“There’s a lounge. Last door on the right. Wait there, if you like.”
Nat thanked him and they filed out. “I don’t like,” Nat said. “He’s an arrogant bastard to call like it’s an emergency, then not be here when we arrive.” But they found the unappealing room the lab assistant had indicated and settled into green plastic-covered chairs with stuffing poking through slits and punctures.
“Look on the bright side,” Sykes said. “He probably has something really important to tell us, and we’d all like that.”
“He’s getting as frustrated with these cases as we are,” Nat said.
“No, he’s not,” Sykes told him. “He doesn’t have the kind of personal involvement some of us do. And I’m not talking about you. I figure you’ve got a lot riding on this, too.”
The sight of David Millet walking in silenced the rest of them.
He skidded to a halt, his black duster almost at ground level. Gray noted that he had a faint bristle of dark red hair visible on his scalp. The dark glasses were in place.
“Blades called you?” Sykes said. “Why the hell would he do that?”
“Who’s Blades?”
Gray gaped at the kid. “What are you doing here?”
David swallowed loudly. “What are all of you doing here? What’s happened? I saw…felt. Um, I caught sight of Sykes coming in here, so I followed. The guy down the hall sent me here. This is the city morgue.” He glanced anxiously around. “Who did you come to see?”
“Dr. Blades,” Nat said dryly. “He’s the head honcho around here, the chief chopper-upper.”
David neither shuddered nor laughed. “Just tell me who it is.”
Gray realized the boy was even more pale than usual.
“Settle down,” Sykes said. “No one you know, thank God. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You think we came to identify someone we know.”
David fell into a chair and let his head hang back. “Yeah. Stupid but I thought it could be…my…Pascal. He gets so mad about things he could have a heart attack.”
“Well, he didn’t. This is police business.” Sykes gave him a significant look. “Have you been following my—you know?”
David’s mouth set in a firm line and he didn’t answer.
“Nat,” Gray said. “Sykes has forgotten his manners. This is David Millet—Pascal’s son, Sykes’s cousin.”
There was no missing the disbelief on Nat’s face before he covered it up and nodded. “Hey, David. Your dad’s quite a guy.”
“I know,” David said and actually smiled.
“So where’s Blades?” Gray said. “I don’t want to be too late back to Marley. She worries.”
Gray was just as worried about her. She had calmed down but there was no question about how she hated his new career development.
Silence became long and awkward.
Gray cleared his throat. “Did you know Pascal got himself a cat?” he asked the other men. “Damn great orange thing. Marigold, if you can believe that.”
“That’s because she’s the color of marigolds,” David said defensively. “She’s a great cat. Slept on my bed all day. I like her and so does…Dad.”
Gray hid a smile.
“I met her,” Sykes said. “I still bear the scars on my legs.”
“She didn’t scratch you on purpose,” David said, frowning. “She paws because she’s happy. Dad thinks she had a hard time before he found her.”
“That’s probably why she weighs about twenty pounds,” Sykes said.
“Only eighteen,” David cut in. “I weighed her.”
“What’s with everyone in this family finding overfed, abandoned animals?” Sykes said. “If some critter comes after me it’ll be hauled off to the humane society or whatever.”
Gray smirked. “I guess you’d do that. I see how much you hate Winnie and Mario.”
Sykes looked at the ceiling. “Yeah. Mario and Marigold. Cute.”
“Where the fu—were is Blades, dammit all.” Seeing Nat’s color heighten wasn’t easy, but there was a definite bronzed glow over his cheekbones.
As if he heard the call, Dr. Blades came into the room. He carried his gray cotton jacket in one hand and a hamburger in the other. A large bite was missing from the hamburger and he chewed steadily, working the purplish hollows in his emaciated cheeks.
When he’d swallowed he said. “Company, huh? I’d offer you dinner, but there isn’t enough.” Another major bite went into his mouth and the chewing action also made the prominent bone where his eyebrows should have been move up and down.
“What’s going on?” Nat said.
Blades crooked a finger and set off.
“Bloody Pied Piper of Hamelin,” Gray muttered. “Doesn’t he need a flute or something.” They went single file.
Into the morgue itself they went, and Blades held the burger between his teeth while he shrugged into his coat.
He removed the food and waved it, more expansively than Gray had ever seen him do anything. “We’ve got another pattern and you’re not going to like it.”
“I haven’t liked any of them so far,” Nat said, deadpan.
“No nicks and scratches this time. Not a puncture or a cut like the other times. That’s different. I’ve been trying to figure it out.”
Gray saw Sykes cross his arms and frown. “Then maybe this isn’t what we thought it was,” he said. “Doesn’t have to be Embran.”
“Oh, yes. They’re Embran. You really ought to look at what’s happening to some of them. Turning into weird monsters and they’re falling apart—we’ve seen their kind before. But things have changed for them. If it hadn’t, they wouldn’t be showing up the way they are.”
Nat tapped a toe. “We were saying earlier that there hasn’t been any sign of those eggs this time. You haven’t found any pieces, have you?”
“No. I was going to mention that. You saved me the trouble.” Blades’s nostrils flared with his indrawn breath. “Remember me talking about allergic reactions. One person to another?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, don’t wimp out on me. The problems are on the inside.”
They looked at each other, and David swallowed loudly again.
Blades seemed to notice him for the first time. “Who are you?” he snapped.
“He’s my cousin,” Sykes said promptly. “This is family business and I want him with me.”
David gave a small, pleased smile.
“Cousin?” Blades said, obviously confused.
“My dad is Pascal.”
Blades actually laughed, a hollow sound, before he cleared his throat loudly. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Is he likely to pass out on us?” He directed this to Sykes.
“No,” Sykes said promptly. “Quit building the mystery.”
“Do you know what an auger is?” Blades asked.
“Like Jack and the Beanstalk,” Gray said. What was Blades getting at?
“Like a tool you make a hole with,” Blades said sounding disgusted. “Not an ogre. They come in all sizes for clearing obstructions in joined pipes. Some are big enough they’re fed down from a crane. But there are manual ones to bore different-sized holes. They look like pointed screws only usually bigger and with a handle in the middle to rotate around and around, three-sixty.”
“Oh.” Sykes nodded. “You said something off the wall about rotators or something.”
“Yeah, only now I know more about it. I know what happens—at least to the women.”
“Good,” Gray said. He always seemed to talk under his breath in Blades’s company.
Blades glanced at David and it showed that the boy’s presence made him uncomfortable.
“He can take it,” Sykes said.
Gray figured he was thinking about the kind of life David had lived and assumed he had seen a good deal.
“There was intercourse. Or it was made to look that way.”
David didn’t even blush, Gray noticed.
“So the things that have all been mutilated have been Embrons. Who’s doing this to them and making them decay? Humans? That’s the allergic reaction?”
“I’m talking about allergic reaction because of what was left behind afterward. Skin, some tissue, and it started to show unnatural signs right away. After the intercourse, that’s when the auger came in.” Gray was surprised to see the pathologist show distaste. “I think the cause of death was shock again, this time because the vagina was, er, destroyed. Same for the penis, only the tool had to be different.”
“Which is the reason for the smart comment about a pencil sharpener?” Sykes said.
“Yeah. We’re working on finding out if there’s something portable that would make a screw.” Blades had the grace to fight with an urge to make some other comment at that.
“Jesus,” Nat said. “Are you sure?”
“Wanna take a close look.”
“Not unless I have to before this is all over,” Nat responded quickly.
“Let’s pass for tonight,” Sykes said.
Gray felt sickened. Again he checked David over. He looked a little green but was holding up better than most would.
“Look,” Blades said. “It’s late and I want coffee before I clear up one or two things I’ve got to do. If you want more information in the morning I’ll be happy to talk to you then.”
Gray saw both Nat and Sykes tighten up and said, “Gotcha. We’re all past ready for dinner.” Although he wasn’t sure he’d be eating tonight.
“For the record,” Nat said, “you did assemble this little gathering tonight. We didn’t just barge in for a chat.”
Blades’s deep-set eyes narrowed to slits. He raised his forehead, sending ripples of creases upward into his high, bald dome of a head. “I assembled it? As in, I invited you over?”
“Yeah. You said earlier you’d want to see us again.”
“But I didn’t ask you to come tonight.”
“The hell you didn’t,” Sykes said. “I got a call.”
“So did I,” Gray said. “Marley and I were almost home.”
Looking around at them, Blades didn’t look happy. “I never contacted you tonight. I didn’t ask you to come here. Or you, Nat.”
Seconds moved like hours filled with whirling thoughts—and encroaching fear.
“They got us out of the way,” Sykes said, striding for the doors. “This was a setup.”
39
Poppy didn’t know how long she was unconscious. She didn’t think it was long because she could hear familiar street sounds, music, hawkers, people yelling.
Tied up on the floor of some sort of vehicle she tried to move her hands but they were bound behind her back. Her ankles were tied together and her head was covered, a head that ached and buzzed.
She wasn’t dead. If “Marcus” had wanted to, he would have killed her and left her in the alley.
He wanted her for something else.
Poppy’s stomach turned. Her heart beat hard and she broke out in a sweat. A gag tied between her jaws made her gorge rise.
The vehicle stopped but the engine kept running.
She saw a wash of red glow and the vehicle slowed. Had to be a traffic light. Poppy did her utmost to raise herself in hopes of being seen by someone in another car.
A slap on the side of her head sent her sprawling again. She hurt so badly all over.
“Make it easy on yourself,” a voice she didn’t recognize said. “Don’t move. Do what you’re told to do when you’re told to do it and it’ll go easier for you.”
The gag was soaked and she tasted blood. She let herself lie where she was and tried to pretend she had passed out again.
“She okay?” a different voice said.
“Yeah. But she won’t be.” The first man laughed. She thought it was Marcus. “Has she passed out again?”
A hand beneath her chin turned her covered face up and she made sure her neck was loose so her head fell back heavily when released. “She’s out,” the second man said. “You didn’t go too far, did you? The boss won’t like it if you did.”
“We never even seen this boss,” Marcus said. “Maybe we ought to get a lot more for her than he’s offering. I’m not afraid of anyone.”
“If you’re planning to roll the dice on a double cross, count me out.”
“We were sent to do this job together,” Marcus said. “If I go down, so do you only that’s not going to happen. I know what I’m doing. Don’t forget that.”
“You threatening me?”
“Take it any way you want.”
They ran out of conversation and drove without speaking. Poppy had no idea how much time passed or which direction they were headed. She didn’t expect any success but she pulled enough calm together to reach out to the mind of the man behind the wheel.
He came in loud and clear.
Almost at once she shut him off. Money was on his mind, and sex. He was seeing her legs in the dress that had ridden up beyond the level of her panties. And he was weighing his chances of fucking her before he had to hand her over. He’d let his partner have a turn, so there would be no worry about being given away.
This boss, whoever he was, wouldn’t listen to anything the woman said, not that she’d have enough wits left to try complaining.
Poppy struggled against tears. They would only help choke her and achieve nothing. But tears ran down her temple nevertheless. She had had mild success conta
cting Sykes psychically but she didn’t have any idea where to direct her efforts.
She considered all the behaviors others would have found weird. As Sykes had said, aura reading—and brain wave patterns come to that—would be useless. What else could she do?
Nothing.
Poppy held very still and fought to quiet down and think. She had strong hands, really strong. When she was little, eight or nine, her brothers had called her “numb knuckles.” It had all been a joke for a while but they had impressed on her that the only reason she could make an arm or leg—belonging to someone else—go numb by knuckling it was because they pretended it worked.
She had forgotten that but then, they were probably right and she’d given up the whole thing after a few months.
When she had pressed her knuckles into Liam’s leg he fell down. Or pretended to. They had learned as children that each of them had a method of self-defense and for a while she had thought that was hers.
But her hands were still unusually strong.
Poppy felt so sick, she wanted to faint. This wasn’t the time to make a fool of herself by pressing her fingers into desperate people and waiting for them to fall over. Anyway, they would only get up again.
She felt the little green velvet bag Wazoo had given her and wished she could touch it, just for comfort.
These apes had her completely incapacitated.
She thought about the bag and how Wazoo had told her to wear it always, which Poppy had. It comforted her to imagine Wazoo’s spirited little presence and she hoped she would see her again.
If she ever saw a friend again.
“You worked for this guy before?” the man in the passenger seat asked.
The other one grunted.
“Is that yes or no.”
“It’s mind your own goddamn business. I’m going to pull over just up here and go in behind some buildings I know. They’re abandoned.”
“Why?” The passenger sounded anxious. “I didn’t see this boss of ours, but that weird guy who talked to you said the guy he works for is a scary dude. We shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
“We’re running early—thanks to my quick work.” Marcus didn’t sound as sure as he wanted to. “We’ve got a little time to enjoy ourselves.”
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