by Holly Rutan
"Not only is she here, but she'll be conducting the first necropsy personally," Max said, and then clamped his lips shut. With a nod, he indicated the open door of the warehouse, suggesting that we see for ourselves.
I exchanged a brief look with Charles before entering the building. My mate lifted his shoulders; neither one of us had a clue what would rattle Max. He'd been around the block a few times and seen his share of milkers shut down.
The stink of raw meat, spilled blood, and vomit leaked out the open door. My stomach quivered and cramped. Charles went inside first, and the sudden plummet in my gut told me that whatever he'd seen was awful.
Even that warning wasn't enough. I took two steps inside and saw shiny crimson puddles lit garishly by bright electrical lights. My gaze jerked up to find the source of the blood, and then I was running outside, frantic to get away from the scene before I lost every meal I'd eaten in the past week.
"Jesus, what the hell is wrong with her?" Max asked while I heaved. "Sammy's been around for a while. She's seen sick shit before. Maybe not this bad, but at least there aren't any kids in this one."
Charles knelt next to me, resting his warm hand on my back. He rubbed my back in small circles, offering me his support while I tried to get myself under control.
"Departmental conditioning," Charles answered, his voice thick with rage. "Any time the Department gets a were that is suspected of cannibalism, they put them through aversion therapy. They take away food for a whole day, and then offer the kid laced meat from a donated cadaver. By that point, they'll be half-mad with hunger, so they'll take it. The poison makes them ill. The therapists repeat the process until even the smell of a dead human makes them sick."
"It could be worse. They used to just kill us," I muttered, taking a careful breath. "Give me a minute and some water to rinse my mouth out. I'll be okay."
Several minutes and a bottle of water later, I felt ready to try again. Charles’s steady presence gave me something to lean against, and we went back into the warehouse together. Charles took my arm, and I accepted it. To hell with rules against PDA—I needed the comfort. What I saw made me want to huddle against him and hide my face, but instead, I straightened my spine and took in the scene.
The warehouse was a fairly typical industrial building, with walls lined with shelving units and metal beams across the ceiling. . The shelves were piled with corpses, and a crowd of agents surrounded a hulking body in the center of the floor. None of those corpses were human—they hadn’t triggered my nausea. I didn’t spot the source until I looked up.
The dead humans were hanging from the rafters. There were a half-dozen of them, and they had been tied to the metal beams with hemp ropes, much as Tim's body had hung from a lamp post. Their left ankles were attached to the beams, while their right ankles were tied to their left knees, and their crossed arms were bound across their chests with their hands on their shoulders. Duct tape had been applied over their mouths. Open eyes stared at us in mute, empty appeal.
All of their throats had been slit.
"Why?" I demanded, voice shaking. "Human blood doesn't have any power. What purpose could this slaughter possibly serve? Those were their own people!"
Max couldn't or wouldn't answer, but Charles sighed.
"They probably knew we were coming and cut their losses. We've seen them use their human troops as cannon fodder before. This time they must have decided that rattling us was worth more than the chance to spray us with a few bullets."
"The cult is underestimating us," I answered, a growl rumbling in my chest.
"Don't let your anger cloud your reason," Charles answered. "This is still the same hunt it's always been. We just have a better idea of the stakes."
I nodded and shook myself, settling fur that wasn't there. "You're right. We've seen dead cultists before. What in hell is that thing?"
The monstrous body on the floor was surrounded by agents, who obeyed the orders of a woman with a long, blonde ponytail and a once-white laboratory coat that was now liberally stained with rust-colored fluid. Even if I hadn't recognized Vanessa, the whisper of current that chimed around her announced her power.
"Good question," muttered Charles.
I loped across the warehouse floor and took my place with the other agents, recognizing Penny and Paul among them. Paul was taking measurements with some sort of handheld reader and reporting the results while Penny recorded them diligently. Vanessa was kneeling in a pool of brown blood at the creature's head, examining its mouth with interest.
"It's a chimera," Vanessa answered, intercepting my questioning look. "I've never seen one so seamlessly constructed. Absolutely fascinating."
"Forgive me if I don't share your excitement," I answered drily, peering at the monster.
In life, the hairless thing had probably stood a good eight or nine feet tall. Armored plating that bore a passing resemblance to the scales of a turtle shell covered its spine and a broad portion of its back, from the back of its canine head all the way down to the end of its crocodilian tail. Horns the size of my fingers jutted from between its shoulders and down its spine. I couldn't quite place the animal that they'd come from. Heavy black claws sprouted from its fingers and toes, and its gaping muzzle boasted a double row of jagged shark teeth. The chimera was riddled with bullet holes. Casings scattered on the ground suggested agents had used armor-piercing bullets to fell the beast.
I sniffed at the chimera, renewed nausea making my stomach cramp.
"Is Sparky here with those towels yet?" I asked.
"I'll go check," Max answered.
"What are you scenting?" Charles asked.
"Not sure," I answered, and held out my hand.
Charles disabled my bracelet and tucked it in his pocket, moving to a polite distance. The other agents took their cue from him, although Vanessa was more than a little reluctant. Penny and Paul backed away slowly, too, making me shake my head. Tyrant's crew were a strange breed.
I shifted into battle form and sniffed the corpse from head to toe, humming to myself thoughtfully. The scent of the monster itself was a tangled mess of beast, but under the beast, I found what had triggered the nausea.
The base was human, male, and young, I signed, leaning back on my heels. He was alive as of an hour or so ago. This chimera is not the usual necromantic construct.
Penny wrinkled her nose, but Vanessa’s eyes lit up. She looked from me to the chimera, tilting her head. "How did they manage to get the flesh to fuse so smoothly with living subjects?"
I shrugged.
More to the point, I continued, I can smell his maker on him. I highly doubt this was a toy she was happy to give up. Where the hell are those towels?
The sound Max's boots hitting concrete gave me my answer, and a clean dishrag was thrust in my hand in short order. I grunted in satisfaction, and sniffed at the bit of cloth to make sure it was clean.
I leaned over the chimera and dragged its scent over my mouth and through my teeth, filtering away the smell of human and beast to isolate the strange, alien scent lingering over the corpse. Once I was sure I had it fixed in my mind, I crooned the coaxing melody that I'd been working on as a side project, enticing the scent to multiply and embed itself in the rag. Vanessa and Paul listened to the series of notes, letting their current tasks wait until they had heard the whole thing. No mage worth their salt could let an unfamiliar song pass them by, and I had no doubt they'd memorized the short, lullaby-like melody.
There, I signed, letting Charles drop the rag in an evidence bag. Female, unknown age. Smells like fire and blood and strong emotion. This chick has anger issues. She also absolutely reeks of alcohol; this one is definitely a drinker. She is neither human nor, I signed, my hands slowing at the disturbing information, alive.
"What kind of snap is she?" Charles asked, voicing everyone's question.
I have absolutely no idea. I only have theoretical knowledge of necromancy, and the so-called dead snaps were mostly annihilated duri
ng the War, I answered. If I had to hazard a guess, she might be a vampire, since they are intelligent and known to take in liquids, which zombies and ghouls do not. What kind of snap she was before dying is beyond me, though. She is not a fire elemental, and I have never smelled any other creature that reeks of flames and coal. She smells like Darkness. I cannot explain better than that.
"I don't like this one bit," Charles said.
Neither do I.
* * * *
I spent hours inspecting the bodies for telltale scents that might identify the cultists. To my disappointment, while both Paul and Vanessa proved perfectly capable of singing the melody, neither could pinpoint individual smells to record, a stumbling block that I hadn't considered. I was stuck recording every scrap of olfactory clues.
"You could imbue the song in a fetish," suggested Penny.
The sky was lightening by the time our part of the investigative process was complete, and those of us going off duty had descended upon a close-by Denny's for much-needed sustenance. The curfew had been lifted at sunrise, and the restaurant manager, quite the opportunist, had convinced enough of his employees to come in for work. We weren't the only ones in desperate need for breakfast; the place was booming.
My mouth too full with overdone hash browns to answer.
"What, one of those sticks you can break and the spell comes out?" an agent asked. "Aren't those expensive?"
"And all the other weres in the Southern California division are felines," Charles said. "Their sense of smell isn't nearly as strong as Samantha's."
"But far and away better than a human's," Penny said. "Who knows when something like that will make the difference between catching a perp and losing him?"
I was nodding before she'd finished speaking. Clearing the last of the crunchy potatoes from my mouth, I replied, "I have been on a few cases where a scent trail would have made the difference. Sometimes a case gets passed from one team to another and we aren't always lucky enough to have a dirty shirt to share. Take tonight—the only reason we have a scent at all is because the boss brought a were on scene."
"I wasn't saying that making a fetish is a bad suggestion," Charles said, waving his hands in front of him. "But the felines don't usually have training for scent tracking."
"Maybe that should change," I said. "Why is specialist scent training only routine for bears? They might have the strongest sense of smell of all the weres, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are chopped liver. Far from it."
"Because we work for a giant bureaucracy and some paper-pusher didn't see a point in training anyone but the best. Specialist training costs a lot of money," Penny said. "Tell you what—give me a sample fetish when you have the chance, and I'll press my case with Tyrant. He might be able to put words in the right places."
"Sure. In the meantime, some of those rags will need to be distributed to our weres on the street and some others kept for the dogs," I said.
"Max'll make sure all the right people get them," Sparky offered, her brown ponytail bobbing. "He's a meticulous bastard, probably has a list somewhere just in case something like this comes up."
"You make that sound like a bad thing," Paul said, speaking for the first time since we'd sat down for breakfast. "Attention to detail means evidence won't slip through the cracks."
"You haven't had to work with him yet, have you?" Sparky groaned, her downcast tone suggesting this wasn't the first time she'd complained. "He likes everything perfect and orderly. He bitches at me for having a messy desk, and he's outright offended if some crazy snap doesn't behave like the psych profile says they should. It's enough to drive a girl nuts."
I shrugged. "We all have to cope somehow."
"Yeah, you say that, but you're partnered with Moira. Her idea of coping involves imbibing mass quantities of beer and harassing hot waiters at a sports bar," Sparky answered. "I'm going to get back after breakfast, and he's going to bitch at me for taking a break, never mind that we've been up for a full day and the raid is over. He won't sleep until the paperwork's done, and he's not going to let me sleep, either."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I doubt any of us are getting pizza and beer until this is over," I said, not feeling particularly sympathetic. "Or much in the way of sleep. Max is a good agent, and he knows what needs to be done."
Sparky rolled her eyes, making me snort. She was very much a youth fresh out of the Academy, and in all likelihood she was driving Max just as crazy by being sloppy and lazy about the paperwork. Time and experience would knock off the rough edges soon enough, if she didn't quit or die first.
"When did your eyes go blue, Agent Davis?" Werehunter Rodriguez broke the brief pause, changing the subject.
Rodriguez pushed his plate out of the way and leaned forward, clearly inspecting my face. A faint wrinkle deepened between his bushy eyebrows. I tilted my chin so he could see my eyes clearly, unperturbed by the interruption. His evaluation was far more important than Sparky's bitching.
"Some time after midnight yesterday," I answered. "I had a traumatic experience that completely restored my memory, and for some reason, the eyes came along with it."
He crossed an arm over his chest and tapped his nose with his index finger, eyes narrowing. "And how do you feel about that?"
"Disconcerted," I said, careful to give him a complete answer. "I think the only reason I stayed mostly sane after I'd snapped was because I'd forgotten everything that came before. I pushed that part of my life aside so I could have a new beginning. In the end though, forgetting did me more harm than good. When we have time to breathe, I'd like to revisit those memories and see what of my old life might be salvageable."
"We'll go find some answers as soon as the dust settles," Charles promised, taking my hand in his under the table. The corners of my mouth curled up in a smile.
Rodriguez nodded.
"I'd like to go ahead and get your evaluation out of the way now, if you don't mind," he said.
"What, in a Denny's? Isn't that a little informal?" I asked, blinking.
"You've been under stress, and we're out in the field. I've found that weres tend to score lower when we put them in an artificial setting, and there's no reason to keep the results private. Unless you would prefer it that way?"
"No, no, that's fine," I answered. Charles squeezed my hand, and I felt the warmth of his approval.
"Max reported you vomiting on the scene. Aside from the nausea, what did you feel when you viewed the human victims?" Rodriguez asked.
I leaned back in my seat, expelling a breath slowly. Tilting my head to the side, I considered the question carefully.
"Furious," I answered after a moment. "Nothing unusual."
"Hungry?"
A weight lifted from my shoulders, and I straightened as I replied, voice bright with surprise. "No!"
"Well, that's a relief," someone muttered.
I could feel Charles's sudden, angry reaction before he said a word and squeezed his hand to quiet him. Rodriguez was busy considering the next question and took no notice. I searched his face for clues about what he was thinking. While his expression offered no indications, his body was relaxed and his voice unhurried. That seemed like a good sign.
"Tell me what I feel right now," Rodriguez ordered, and smiled at me. His hazel eyes wrinkled at the corners, sparkling merrily.
"You're happy," I answered.
"Now?" The werehunter's expression changed. He continued baring his teeth, but the skin around his eyes relaxed and the corners of his mouth no longer had an upward tilt.
"Now you're showing aggression," I answered. "If you were some random human, I'd say you were faking being happy, but I know you have enough training to know what you're displaying."
Rodriguez lost the smile. "Easy to tell the difference?"
"Yeah, easy enough," I answered.
"Where might you find that second type of smile?" Rodriguez asked.
"Retail and politicians," I answered, and the gathered agen
ts laughed.
"I could go through the whole battery, but it doesn't really appear to be necessary. It's pretty clear to me that you're at the top end of normal. Congratulations," the werehunter said, offering his hand to me over the table. "The depth of your recovery is remarkable, and I look forward to working with you in the future. It's about time they added a were to the team."
"It'll take a few days before the paperwork goes through," Charles cautioned on our way out, the congratulations of our companions still ringing in our ears.
"I know, I know, and the promotion still has to be approved. But damn if that didn't feel good," I answered, knowing he could feel my delight as clearly as I felt his. "At last! What's another day or two after waiting a decade?"
"Nothing," my mate replied in a satisfied voice. "Now, I had a thought. We have only a few precious hours before we have to report back to the station, and I would like to make the most of them."
I ducked my head, feeling my cheeks warm, and did my best not to run for the car.
Chapter Eighteen
I leaned back in my chair and laced my hands behind my head, looking at the map on the wall. The red pins indicating rifts seemed almost random in their placement. Irwin had switched milking sites to green pins to keep the two types of events distinct.
A total of two post offices had been attacked, ours and one in Chinatown. The other sites included the Pasadena mall, a mall in West Hollywood, and a banking building in Downtown. An office building in downtown Burbank had also blown, the rift placed in such a fashion that it caused the building to collapse and block a major boulevard. Several hundred people had perished in the event and aftermath. Many of the bodies had completely disappeared, and some witnesses claimed they'd seen the rift pull people inside.
Each target was apparently selected to inflict the greatest amount of bloodshed possible, regardless of the significance of the actual location. People were scared. The National Guard had been called in to keep order and prevent crowds from gathering.