by Skye Knizley
“Dead people can’t pull your heart out and show it to you,” Raven said.
“No, but her followers would martyr her,” Dominique said. “Her death would become an excuse to rise against your mother and the laws she has imposed. Have faith in me, child, your mother made the best of a bad situation. We must be cautious until things die down.”
Raven shook her head. “Vampires suck. I would rather be ass deep in scumbags than deal with vampires.”
CHICAGO CITY MORGUE
PRESENT DAY
THE SUN WAS FULL UP by the time Raven pulled into the morgue building and parked next to the dented Police Only sign. The rusted scratch that read “LeStorm,” an homage to Raven and Levac’s partnership, was still there. And it always annoyed her. It wasn’t funny she and Levac spent so much time at the morgue they had their own parking spot, it was tragic.
She slid out of the Shelby and donned her black leather jacket. It matched her black jeans and sapphire blouse perfectly and hid the pistol holstered beneath her left arm as well as the silver daggers she’d sheathed at the small of her back.
Satisfied she looked okay and her weapons were concealed she slipped the chain to her badge over her head and walked toward the morgue’s back entrance. She paused outside to swallow a handful of anti-nausea pills before waving her access card in front of the new card reader and passing through into the lime-green carpeted foyer. The mint walls and white-tiled ceiling did nothing to improve her mood. What idiot had decided to try and make the morgue bright and cheery, anyway? It was a building to house carved up dead people and everyone knew it.
“Good afternoon, Detective Storm,” the guard behind the desk said. “Detective Levac is already downstairs with Doctor Zhu. Will you be needing a bucket?”
Raven grimaced in reply and headed for the stairs, her traitor nose and turncoat stomach fighting her the whole way. She reached the always-flickering light outside Ming Zhu’s office and hoped he and Rupert were inside. To her chagrin the office was empty of anyone still living and she hurried down the green-tinted corridor, checking exam and autopsy rooms until she found the one with the powdered sugar on the door handle. Levac was an amazing detective, but he trailed food like a puppy trailed drool.
She opened the door and found Levac standing next to a shorter, dark-skinned man with spectacles and a surgical mask. The doctor’s slicked-back hair glistened in the surgical lights; the aroma of his new pomade made her feel sick.
“Ah, Raven, good to see you,” Zhu said without looking. “There is a bucket to your left and I have preliminary results on last night’s victim when you are ready. Rupert and I were just discussing some most interesting findings.”
“Sounds great,” Raven said, swallowing bile. “Did the killer leave a business card with his name and a confession?”
Levac smiled. “Afraid not, Ray. But Ming has found some clues that might help us with the case.”
“Perhaps,” Zhu said. “Come, let me show you.”
Raven covered her mouth with her hand and joined the two men beside the victim. Surprisingly the woman’s breastplate was still in place, such as it was, though her skin and muscles had been pulled aside to show the white of her broken ribs.
“What the hell am I looking at?” Raven asked. She felt like she was going to be sick.
“First is this impact,” Zhu said, pointing a blood-stained glove at a section of ribs. “Whatever was used to murder Ms. Romiji entered here, not through the back as we originally thought.”
Raven looked where Zhu was pointing and frowned at the sliced bones. “Not in the back? Then what made the other wound?”
“I do not know,” Zhu replied. “Something entered through the ribs here, expanded and pulled back out there, tearing through bone and muscle.”
Zhu turned and picked up a tray of bone fragments. “These are from the victim and comprise most of the upper left portion of her ribcage.”
He placed the tray on a cart between himself and Raven.
“You can see the striations where something serrated tore through,” he said, pointing. “Most importantly you can see that the marks are on the inside of the bones where cartilage and muscle fiber should be.”
Raven picked up a forceps from the tray and raised one of the fragments where she could examine it more closely. The striations were indeed on the back, and the bone was covered in some kind of clear slime.
“What’s this goo?” she asked. “It looks like you sneezed on the corpse.”
“It’s some kind of animal protein,” Levac said, flipping open his notepad. “Like gelatin only thinner.”
“From the vic?” Raven asked.
“No,” Levac replied. “The human body doesn’t secrete anything like this under normal circumstances. So far we don’t know what it is.”
“All I can tell you for sure is it isn’t from Ms. Romiji and it is quite viscous, like gear oil,” Ming added. “It’s all very exciting!”
“Gear oil? So a weapon that can pierce the chest and make a hole no smaller than a nine mil, then expands and rips its way out leaving behind all-natural gear oil,” Raven said.
“Mm, that’s about right, Ray,” Levac said.
“But that isn’t the best part!” Ming said excitedly. “I worked on a case like this oh, before you were born. I was new to the force at the time, it was my third day on the job and my first real body.”
“Swell. Who was the killer?” Raven asked.
Zhu shrugged. “Sadly, he was never caught. But I do know the detective who worked the case.”
Raven felt her stomach turn into a pit. “Who?”
Ming smiled so wide she could see his dimples outside his mask. “Mason Wulf Storm, your father.”
CALUMET AVENUE, CHICAGO
FALL, 1986
MASON STORM’S SILVER SHELBY DRIFTED across three lanes of traffic and righted itself a hand’s breadth from hitting a traffic pole. The engine roared as the powerful car weaved through traffic, the red light stuck to the roof winking on and off in the evening gloom.
“Slow down, Mace!” Christian Frost yelled, one hand braced on the dash.
“Not a chance,” Storm replied around the cigar clamped in his teeth. “We’ve been looking for this guy for two years, I’m not about to let him slip through our fingers again.”
“You don’t even know if the tip was valid,” Frost replied. “Besides, you won’t collar him if they’re scraping us off The Loop with a spatula!”
Storm glanced at the skinny man next to him. Frost always reminded him of the guy from Mary Poppins, Dick Van something. Skinny as a beanpole with a grin that threatened to slice through his own head. It was a blessing the man was a good cop.
“Trust me,” Storm said. “The only person getting scraped up tonight is Marlin Barclay.”
He downshifted and slid around another corner, causing Frost to reach out and grab the wire to the falling police light. He reeled it in and stuck it to the dash, one hand holding it in place.
Three blocks later, the Shelby slowed and Storm leaned down to look out at the building next to them. The four story brick edifice had seen better days. The upper story windows were barred, the lower ones were broken and mold clung to every shadowed surface like barnacles on an old ship. And somewhere inside was their number one suspect, Marlin Barclay.
Storm parked the Shelby at the curb and slid out, followed by Frost who held his service revolver in a white-knuckled grip. Storm drew his own pistol and led the way through the side door toward the stairs. The tip they’d received said Barclay was hiding out on the third floor.
Storm kicked his way through the collection of trash and debris at the bottom of the stairs and looked up into the web-filled space above.
“Maybe we should call for backup?” Frost asked.
“I’m not waiting for Bloom to come and screw this up,” Storm replied. “You’re my backup, come on.”
He took the steps two at a time, his large frame almost filling the stairw
ell. He could hear Frost behind him and hurried on to the third floor where he paused. Here, the fire door had been propped open with an old axe and a fire burned in an old drum set next to the window. The flames cast weird shadows on the wall and made the gloom seem more menacing.
Storm thumbed back the hammer of his pistol and stepped through, checking both ways. The hallway to his right was dimly lit by the fire and he could see dozens of gang tags and other works of graffiti on the walls. A body lay in the shadow at the union of the wall and floor and he crept toward it. When he got close he could see that it wasn’t Barclay, just some vagrant who had gotten in the way and had his throat slit for his trouble. Storm glared at the small pool of blood next to the corpse, then turned and headed deeper into the maze of apartments.
At every turn they encountered slow-burning fires and putrefying remains, most from animals, but some from humans, like the vagrant they’d found near the door. The deeper they went into Barclay’s domain, the worse the stench of decay, the worse the rot in the walls and the mold that clung to the walls and their skin made Storm cringe. But he pressed on. Barclay was somewhere inside the maze of corridors and Storm would chase him through every level of hell if necessary.
“Hello, Detective,” said a voice by his ear.
Storm spun and spotted Barclay no more than four feet away. He was leaning nonchalantly against the wall dressed in a tattered business suit and loafers. A pocket watch dangled from his left hand. He looked tired, with red-rimmed eyes in deep sockets and trembling hands.
“You’re under arrest, Barclay,” Storm said. “Lay down on the floor and put your hands behind your back.”
“On what charge, Detective?” Barclay asked.
“Four counts of murder over the last two years,” Storm replied. “Get on the floor!”
Barclay made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Only four? You haven’t been trying very hard, Detective. You passed at least two on your way here. Maybe you should go back and try again. I’ll wait.”
“Get down on the floor, Barclay!” Storm replied. “Once you’re behind bars I’ll find the others and make sure they fry you for each and every one.”
“Good. Good. I like the conviction in your voice. And how’s your cute little daughter, Detective?” Barclay asked. “Only two and I heard she’s already a little hellion, yeah? I think I should put her on my list.”
Storm grit his teeth and glared down the barrel of his pistol. “You will never get near my family, punk! Last chance. Surrender or I decorate that wall with your brains.”
Barclay smiled wider. “You have a flair for the dramatic, Detective. I like that, too. It’s too bad you don’t even know my name.”
The thin man leapt at Storm with his hands extended, trying for the larger man’s throat. The corridor was filled with the boom of Storm’s pistol and the acrid smell of gunpowder. When the smoke cleared, Barclay stood silhouetted in the firelight, one hand clutching the wound in his throat. Barclay smiled as if he’d been kissed then dissolved into a collection of insects and worms that scurried across the floor to vanish into the walls leaving nothing but Barclay’s desiccated husk behind.
SOUTH MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO
PRESENT DAY
RAVEN AND LEVAC HAD LEFT Dr. Zhu to his work and driven across town to the district record’s department where all of Mason Storm’s casefiles were supposed to be kept. It took several hours of digging through gloomy corridors choked with dust-covered boxes before they found the 1984 files. Most of the older files had been destroyed, but by miracle or design, it looked like most of Mason Storm’s were still on the shelves.
The sun was sinking below the grey horizon and a winter storm was blowing in on a bitter wind before they found the file they were looking for; the elder Storm’s career had been a busy one and the boxes had been shelved long before the department had become computerized. Everything was a terrible jumble of paper and manila folders.
They carried their dusty and moldy prize to one of the side rooms and spread everything out on a conference table. Levac sneezed violently at the cloud of dust that rose from the box and Raven frowned at him.
“Sorry,” he said with a grin. “I still have allergies.”
“Just don’t get anything on the papers,” Raven said. “Some of this mess is over thirty years old, no telling what will happen if it gets wet or mistreated.”
“Probably not a lot, Ray,” Levac said with a laugh. “Paper is tough stuff.”
Raven picked up an old patrol record and held it up. The thin duplicate looked like an old piece of lace complete with yellowing around the holes.
“You were saying?”
“Um…well, I didn’t say all paper, now did I?” Levac replied.
Raven smiled and the pair began picking through the papers, trying to make some semblance of sense from the mad jumble.
“I found the first call sheet,” Raven said after a time. “1984...”
She trailed off, holding the sheet in her hand.
“What’s wrong, Ray?” Levac asked.
Raven handed him the page. “Check the date.”
Levac frowned and accepted the delicate page. After a moment his eyes widened.
“This is your birthday,” he said. “The first murder was on your birthday?”
Raven nodded. “Looks like.”
“Weird. Was your dad there when you were born?”
“I have no idea,” Raven replied. “Knowing him he was late, but I’ll check with Mother. It isn’t that important. Dad was almost always working when I was growing up, he hated all the vampire crap even more than I do. I thought he worked to avoid it and me.”
“By all accounts he was a good man, Ray,” Levac said. “I doubt he ever worked to avoid you. To a guy like him this was just another case.”
Raven frowned and looked at the vast collection of papers and photographs spread in front of them. It was a lot, even for a homicide. Whatever was going on in this case, Mason Storm had saved every scrap of paper, every Polaroid, everything.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “Let’s see what we can make of this pile.”
Two hours later they had a picture of what had happened that week back in ’84. The autopsy had been so similar to Romiji’s it made no difference. A Doctor Dudley Cavetti had found striations on the inside of the ’84 victim’s ribs. He had also ascertained that most of the woman’s heart was missing and she had been heavily dosed with a drug similar to Ketamine however there were traces of another chemical he couldn’t identify.
The only other evidence to the first murder had been a Betamax video tape with a sound like someone coughing. Or vomiting. They’d been unable to find a player to put the tape in, but the sound technician had been rather graphic in his analysis. It was either someone with a terrible wet cough or someone was being sick.
Storm and Frost had spent the rest of the month knocking on doors and questioning neighbors of the victim. None of it turned up anything and eventually the case was set aside as unsolved. It was linked to another six months later. Then another. All with little to go on.
“I can’t believe Dad would just give up,” Raven said after a time.
Levac picked up a photo and handed it to Raven. “Maybe he didn’t.”
It was a picture of Raven’s father at some kind of fancy dress party. Mason Storm was in the background behind another man who had been circled in Sharpie. On the back was written, in Storm’s hand: Quentin Swales party 1986. Church?
“Ever hear of anyone named Quentin Swales?” Raven asked.
“Before my time,” Levac said. “I was just a kid, too. It looks like a swanky party though.”
They continued digging and uncovered half a dozen more photos taken at such places as Wrigley Field and the Sears Tower, each with a man circled and the name ‘Church’ scrawled on the back. But in each case it was a different person, as if Storm hadn’t known exactly what Church looked like.
It was getting dark when Le
vac tossed the last photo on the pile. This one, dated 1999, was of a young man with blond hair and green eyes. He was standing outside Marie’s in Old Town.
Levac sighed and turned to look out the window.
“That’s the last one. None of them look anything alike,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
“Me, either,” Raven said, staring at a photo of her father and Frost cut from the newspaper. Her father had written ‘who?’ on the photo, which made even less sense than the ones of Church. “Dad seemed to think he was on to something, but none of this makes much sense. It looks like he was suspended in 1999, which explains why he was around to teach me to drive.”
Levac looked at his watch and cursed. “Maybe we can do more digging tomorrow. I have to meet Sloan for dinner.”
“Again? This is starting to sound serious, when do I get to meet her?” Raven asked.
Levac stood and shrugged into his old coat. “Soon, I promise. I’ll call you later.”
Raven nodded and watched her friend leave. She wanted him to find someone. She truly did, but she couldn’t help feeling a little pang of jealousy every time he had a date. Maybe it was time she had one of her own?
She ran a hand through her hair and looked at the assorted piles of paper and photographs on the table. Her father and Frost had interviewed dozens of people, all potential witness or suspects. She couldn’t believe they’d uncovered nothing but a name, and an unhelpful one at that. Church could be anyone and even if he had been one of the men in the photos he was probably long gone. Only an idiot would stay after this many murders.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She was tired of paperwork and it would all be there tomorrow. She grabbed her jacket and left, locking the door behind her and signing her name to the ledger. On her way out, she let the guard know the room was now in use and classified as evidence until she was through. No one was to enter without her. She then stepped out into the cold night air. Snow was falling in crystalline shades of white and grey; the street was already covered as was the sidewalk, but Levac had cleared off her Shelby before leaving. She smiled at his thoughtfulness and climbed into the car. The engine roared to life and she sat listening to it and letting the heater warm up. She loved the V8’s sound, it always reminded her of riding beside her father in his own classic Shelby when she was little. She didn’t have a lot of happy memories from her childhood and she cherished that one.