by Jes Battis
“Did Lucian come?” I tried to keep my tone neutral.
We weren’t talking. Lucian and I.
I mean, that’s not entirely true. We watched movies and had sex and sometimes we even made dinner at my place. All the things you’re supposed to do when you’ve been dating someone for a year. Everything was great, except for the fact that we couldn’t be seen together in public.
And the sex was starting to get kind of habitual. We could ring all the bells in less than fifteen minutes now. Then he’d get distant, and I’d get busy with something else. Or I’d find myself huddled on the balcony, nursing a beer while I watched him work, getting more and more paranoid until I just wanted to jump up and down and scream: We’re two incredibly hot people. Do you really have to return all those fucking e-mails right now?
“His team arrived first,” Selena answered.
“Lucian has a team?”
“Of course. Lawyers. Techs. A pathologist. I had to keep him away from Tasha the whole time, in case she decided to get territorial.”
“What about Miles?” Derrick asked. We both looked at him. “I mean, I heard he was coming, too. There’s materia damage to this place. We need someone who can analyze it. Competently. Right?”
She rolled her eyes. “You can stop twitching, Siegel. He’s in the master bathroom. Working.”
Derrick’s eyes drifted toward the bathroom. Jesus. If he thought he could hide in there with Miles and “take samples,” he had another think coming. If I had to scrape blood off the walls, he was going to be right there beside me.
“Where’s the body?” I asked.
“Right over here. Underneath the painting.”
Ordeño was lying on his side, half-pressed against the wall. He was facing away from us. I couldn’t tell if his body had been positioned, or if he’d simply died that way, staring at nothing.
“He’s wearing armor,” I said.
“Yes. He is.”
Ordeño was wearing a delicate suit of golden plate. I could see what looked like wings carved into the surface of the armor. As I looked more closely, I saw that the wings had eyes. Creepy. Some of the blood had seeped into the grooves and contours of the breastplate. The rest of it decorated the wall behind him in rising and falling arcs, like sine waves. Arterial gush. The drying fluid pooled on the hardwood floor, clotting into clumps that browned, almost caramelizing, as the serum and heme separated through oxidation. I saw dozens of large parent stains on the baseboards, scattering out and forming satellites with partially skeletonized fingers. Many of them had been disturbed while drying, suggesting that something heavy had moved across them, creating a swipe.
There was a painting hanging above him, as Selena had indicated. The subject was a small girl with blond hair. At least, she seemed to be the subject. There were a lot of people in the frame, including what appeared to be the painter himself.
“Las Meninas,” Derrick said. “By Diego Velázquez.”
He leaned in closer to the body. Over the last two years, he’d lost some of his shyness and become far more comfortable around crime scenes. And his powers had sharpened. I still had no explanation for what he’d pulled off last year, when Miles was temporarily possessed and Derrick cured him. Derrick’s power had etched itself onto the surface of the air in flaming silver lines, and for the first time, I could feel what we called dendrite materia. It wasn’t just wispy thought-magic, or the jarring buzz of telekinesis.
Whatever Derrick had access to felt structurally dense and perceptibly vast, like gravity, or a weak nuclear force. I understood it only slightly more than I understood Lucian’s necroid materia. I was a miner. I oriented toward earth materia. The earth was something I could get behind. Raising the dead was an entirely different dance, and I wouldn’t have ever wished for Lucian’s power.
I mean, I’d like to think I’d never wish for it.
“Look at his neck,” Selena said. Her voice remained neutral, as if she’d just invited me to check out a new kind of artificial sweetener. I crouched next to the body and stared at Luiz Ordeño’s face. All I could really do was stare.
The face was a ruin. Part of his throat had been torn out, and the musculature was exposed, along with the hyoid bone, a white sliver against the dark red of the muscle tissue. There were two visible wounds, both triangular, which had avulsed most of the left half of the jaw and mandible. The skin around the wounds was marbled purple and red; fatty tissue showed through the uneven borders of each wound, with muscle flaring underneath. A clump of black hair was stuck over his left eye, caked in blood. His right eye was closed.
“There’s bloody froth,” I said, swallowing. “Around his mouth. And the borders of both wounds are jagged.”
“What else?” Selena asked.
“Blood around his neck. Spatter on his shirt, and more drops on his face. Looks like contact spatter, mostly.”
“There’s more blood on his left hand,” Derrick said. “I can see it from here.”
Grateful for the chance to turn away from Ordeño’s face for a moment, I looked to where Derrick was pointing. There were dried bloodstains on the knuckle of his ring finger, and more on his thumb. A smear on his wrist may have been caused by the larger parent stain on the glass, which would explain the wipe pattern.
“There’s multiple splash stains here,” I said, “and a possible contact transfer with the glass. None of the stains are over four millimeters in diameter, at least as far as I can tell.”
“What does that suggest?”
“I don’t know—that you should hire a bloodstain analyst? That’s not my field.”
“But you took a class on it. Everyone had to.”
Her expression didn’t change. Why was she busting my ass about this? Maybe she was still steamed about when I’d lied to her about Mia Polanski. But that was two years ago. I also didn’t want to mention that I’d missed most of my bloodstain-analysis course because Derrick and I had gotten sucked into a Gilmore Girls marathon.
“I guess it suggests medium velocity spatter,” I said. “An ax, maybe? But those wounds almost look like they were made with a piece of glass.”
Tasha Lieu, our chief medical examiner, made her way across the living room. She looked at the body and shook her head. “Wow. Someone really went to town.”
“Can you determine time of death?” Selena asked.
“No. I can take his liver temp and look at his stomach contents. But TOD is an inexact science.”
“I don’t need you to write a paper on it, Tasha. I just need a broad time frame.”
Tasha was looking at the lower wound, closest to the mandible, where the most muscle tissue was showing through. “The blood on his face looks a bit like marbling,” she said finally. “But it’s mostly contact transfer. Has anyone tried to move him?”
“No.”
Tasha placed a gloved hand lightly on his arm. She pressed two fingers against his flesh for a second. Her fingers left two blanched white marks, which took three more seconds to fade.
“Lividity is unfixed,” she said. “He’s probably been on the ground for less than twelve hours, since the blood is still settling, especially in the areas that are pressed against the glass. He’s still in partial rigor, though, which means that it’s been less than thirty-six hours. That’s my best guess for now.”
“Your best guess has nearly a twenty-four-hour margin for error.”
Tasha shrugged. “It’s all I’ve got. I’ll know more after the gross exam. I’m assuming there’s a full media blackout on this case?”
Selena nodded. “We’ll have to secure the morgue and the autopsy suite.”
“Do you think it was a glass shard?” I asked. “It kind of looks that way.”
Tasha looked at the wounds again. Her eyes weren’t cold, but they weren’t entirely engaged, either. Maybe, to her, it was like staring at an algebra problem, or a jigsaw puzzle.
“Could be,” she replied. “Like I said, I’ll know more after the post. But
it definitely isn’t conventional sharp-force trauma.” She frowned. “See here? Whatever it was perforated the larynx and thyroid gland. Left internal jugular vein is severed. The borders of the wound-track are uneven.”
I pointed at the narrow end of the second wound, where the hyoid and jugular were exposed as a mess of bone and flushed tissue. “There’s something like a notch. Just at the bottom, on the side of his neck. Caused by the weapon?”
Tasha squinted. “I’ll have to measure it, but the distance between those two notched points might correspond to the width of the weapon. Has someone already taken pictures of the body in situ?”
“We’ve nearly filled a terabyte hard drive with digital photos,” Selena replied.
“Okay. I think we can move him, then. I’ll be waiting back at the lab.”
2
I sat on a bench overlooking English Bay, smoking, watching the black water as it moved out beyond the rocks. I could see a few scattered fires across the length of the beach, along with the glowing cherries of pipes and cigarettes, hovering like fairy lights around the half-buried logs. The Rollerbladers had finally left, and were replaced by scattered couples and family pods making their way along the seawall. I liked to listen to their slightly incoherent conversations:
Yeah, but the problem with this dog in particular is that he keeps…
God only knows why she didn’t leave after he fucking went to San Diego…
I can’t get this app to work even though I paid for it and now it’s driving me…
What did I say? Popsicles later. You can have them after we…
Why does nothing ever change in this city? Why do I keep doing it over and over…
People walked by without looking at me. It probably had something to do with the halo of smoke above my head, which made me feel like the Wicked Witch of the West Coast. All I needed were winged monkey-slaves. When was the CORE going to give me winged monkey-slaves?
I took another drag. A patch of shadow to my left rippled, and a man in a black coat and blue jeans appeared. The glow from my cigarette made his face look sketchy, like an afterthought. But his lovely mouth was anything but.
Lucian smiled. “¿Alguien esperas?”
We’d been practicing a bit of Spanish over the last few months.
Mostly, I just wanted to be able to decipher whatever he was mumbling when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. After looking up some direct translations online, I soon realized that Spanish insults were in an entirely different league, making their English counterparts look positively genteel in comparison. Some of them were textual marvels, combining religion, ancestry, and promiscuity at once into a kind of profane verbal missile.
Derrick’s Spanish was perfect, of course. He’d snort whenever Lucian muttered something, and the two would exchange that conspiratorial buddy look that made me want to shoot both of them.
“I was waiting for you,” I said, putting out my cigarette.
He sat down next to me. “Pareces especialmente bonita esta noche.”
“That line doesn’t work in any language.”
He chuckled. “I had to try.”
“And we appreciate your effort.”
We sat for a while, not talking or touching. That seemed to be our pattern lately. I wanted to put my hand on top of his, but it seemed like an impossibly difficult move, something far beyond our current choreography. It made me angry and tired. I didn’t say anything, though. I never said anything, and neither did he.
The water looked like black ice. I wanted another cigarette, but I knew that he hated the smell. If I was going to be honest with myself, I hated it too. But I needed something in my hands, in my mouth, and he was no longer available. It was either Dunhills or Junior Mints, and that was an addiction I’d already laid to rest.
“What time did you finish up at the scene?” he asked.
“You mean Ordeño’s apartment?”
“Yes. The scene.”
“There are lots of scenes.”
“But this is the first to involve both of us.”
I leaned back on the bench. My muscles ached from processing trace evidence spread across the living room wall. I needed a hot shower and a handful of something with codeine. It must have shown, because he reached over and placed a hand on the back of my neck. His fingers were warm. I closed my eyes.
“I knew Ordeño.” He massaged my neck.
I kept my eyes closed. Lucian so rarely imparted personal information that I didn’t want to say anything to scare him off. Instead, I leaned forward, letting myself relax beneath his fingertips.
“He was a teacher and a friend.”
It’s weird. You didn’t normally imagine necromancers having friends. Then again, you didn’t imagine them having vinyl collections, or eating scrambled eggs with ketchup, or making sublime coffee, but Lucian did all of those things as well.
Just as I was nearing the point of absolute relaxation, with the perfect edge of horniness—the kind that begins as a flutter in the center of your body and spreads out like tisane blooming in hot water—he took his hands away.
I sucked in my breath. Great. Another sleepless night watching TV. On the up side, I could finally tear into that sealed box of Quality Street Chocolates that Derrick had hid under the sink.
I lit another cigarette, mostly just because I needed something to do with my hands. Lucian watched me.
“So you and Ordeño were friends?” I inhaled. The nicotine made me dizzy in a pleasant way. It was probably one of the only things keeping me awake.
“Smoking is a slow, ugly death,” he said. His look was neutral, but I could tell by the purr in his voice that he enjoyed ribbing me.
I shrugged. “A pureblood demon couldn’t kill me. Neither could an elder vampire. I don’t think nicotine really stands a chance at this point.”
“Maybe not. But I know a fair bit about death, and all the magic in the world can’t reverse the damage you’re doing to your lungs.”
“Christ.” I stubbed out the cigarette on the bench. “For someone who channels necroid materia, I think you’re being a tad judgy.”
“I just prefer you alive. That’s all.”
I don’t feel alive. Not lately. I just feel tired and mined out, like someone tore up my foundations and left a heap of rubble behind.
I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks. I think.”
“Besides. Your breath is sweeter when you’re not smoking.”
“Oh? What does it smell like?”
He smiled. “Like everything good. Everything that I love.”
“Go on.”
He leaned forward and kissed me, twice on each cheek. Then his lips brushed mine, and for a few seconds, I didn’t think about anything. The fluttering returned, and with it, the ache.
His thumb moved across my cheek. I could feel his nail, and for a moment, I wanted him to split my skin like an orange, paring me down until nothing but a liquid core remained. But he didn’t. He played with my hair, breathing, his mouth uncertain on mine. Then he pulled away. His expression was unreadable.
I sighed. “What kind of a friend was he?”
“Ordeño?” Now he was looking at everything but me, as if the entire beach had suddenly become fascinating. “We met a long time ago. I respected him. It’s an incredible loss to the community.”
You mean to the cult of necromancers?
Luckily, he wasn’t a telepath. I tried to comport my expression, to appear neutral, like I wasn’t actually interrogating him on behalf of the CORE.
“Selena mentioned that you arrived earlier tonight.”
“Yes. I was called to the scene.”
“Who called you?”
“A superior.”
Right. Circular answers, like always. Why had I expected something else?
“So—did your people get enough information? Will they be returning?”
“My ‘people’ were satisfied, yes.” He smiled slightly. “They’ll be sending some of their data to your
lab tomorrow morning.”
“Some?”
He shrugged. “It’s politics. You can’t expect full disclosure.”
“Of course not. That would signal trust.”
“The CORE isn’t exactly in the business of sharing information either. You can’t expect trust to operate only one way.”
“Maybe if we knew something about your ‘people,’ we’d be more forthcoming with information.”
“What do you want to know?”
“An address would be a nice start.”
He chuckled. “It wouldn’t be called the ‘hidden city’ if you could find it on Google Maps. Anonymity is part of our lifestyle.”
“Maybe that needs to change.”
“It’s not going to. Not anytime soon.”
I stood up. “I have to get home.”
“Tess.”
I stuffed the cigarettes into my purse. “I’d like to get more than three hours of sleep before I attend Ordeño’s autopsy.”
Something passed across his eyes. Pain.
Shit. This was someone he’d known. A friend. It wasn’t a John Doe demon whose body we were analyzing for trace evidence.
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. You knew him, and I’m sure he was a good person. He seemed like a good lawyer, at any rate. But we still have to go forward with this investigation, and it’ll be a lot easier if you can guarantee some cooperation from the necromantic community.”
He rose, putting his hands in his pockets. “We’ll give you as much as we can. We want to see the killer brought to justice.”
“We” meaning the community? Or just you?
My shoulders slumped. I was exhausted. I’d have to take a cab home.
“We’ll look at the evidence and see what appears,” I said. “In the meantime, keep in touch. We may need to conduct a formal interview with you.”
“Can we do it at the house?” He gave me a half smile. “Maybe Mia could do it. She’s on the debate team now.”