by Lyra Evans
Chapter 6
The medical examiner’s office was always relatively quiet. At least, it had been in the past when Niko had found it necessary to go. More often than not, the ME’s reports were sent automatically to the police department, with detectives never having to present themselves in person. But given the circumstances of the case, Niko escorting Cobalt through the wide, grey double-doors of the morgue was hardly unusual.
The temperature dropped noticeably as they passed into the corridor viewing area along the wall of autopsy rooms. There were curtained windows to each room, all of them shut, along the length of the viewing area. Padded but ultimately uncomfortable chairs lined the opposite side of the hall. Niko had witnessed not a few aggrieved and overwhelmed next-of-kin collapse into those chairs, having identified someone they loved through the window. With a glance up at Cobalt, whose jaw was set, his shoulders straighter than before, Niko couldn’t quite decide if he was going to see that same thing again today.
Stopping in front of the last door in the corridor, marked Autopsy Room 3, Niko turned to Cobalt. Cobalt met his eyes, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke. Niko considered the Selkie.
“Are you going to be all right to go in there?” Niko asked.
Cobalt’s expression gave little away, his skin shining with a faintly blue undertone in the artificial light of the viewing area. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Rolling his jaw, Niko said, “It’s hard enough to see someone you know lying dead on the ground. It’s another thing entirely to see them laid out on an autopsy table.”
“You would think the former would be the more traumatizing,” Cobalt answered without answering.
Niko searched his eyes. “Covered in blood you can still trick yourself into thinking they might be okay, they might be alive,” he said. Not something he would ever have said to another witness or next-of-kin, but Cobalt reacted little. “Washed and cleaned and cold as stone, that possibility vanishes. I’ve seen people deny identifications because the victims looked too sombre, too cold, too—well, dead. It’s not easy. If you need to stay out here, there is no shame in that. I can go in alone.”
Cobalt looked beyond Niko, to the door. He seemed as though he was looking through it, for a moment, and for all Niko knew, maybe he was. When he looked back at Niko, the light in his eyes had changed. Where before it had been lively and full of mischief, now it was one-tone, almost vacant. Again, Niko was struck with a sense of just how powerful Cobalt was and could be.
“I have seen my fair share of death,” Cobalt said. “Dry death is no more terrifying than wet death. I have a job to do, and I intend to do it.”
Unsure what to make of that, Niko nodded once and knocked on the door. There was a faint scrabbling on the other side, along with some muted cursing followed by much louder cursing. Finally, as Dr. Aspen approached the door, her voice came through loud and clear.
“—getting ridiculous; I’m going to fire whoever let you people in. I’ve said time and again, I will not comment on an open investiga—” Her words fell off as she opened the door to find Niko and Cobalt standing alone in the viewing area. In the short time since they’d seen her last, her appearance had become alarmingly dishevelled. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun atop her head with locks falling out and looping awkwardly in unexpected places. She wore a set of magnifying glasses that had begun sliding down her nose, the maximum magnification lenses in place. Her lab coat was pristine, but there were black nitrile gloves falling out of her pockets, and the ones that had been on her hands were pulled off and balled in one fist. Her eyes were wide and slightly bloodshot. “Oh! Detective! Ash and Oak, I’m sorry.” She glanced beyond the two of them, as though suspicious someone else was hiding in the empty corridor. “I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Who did you think was knocking at your autopsy room door?” Niko asked, mildly concerned by her appearance.
She sighed heavily. “Bloody reporters,” she said. “Well, I don’t know if you can call tabloid writers ‘reporters’ necessarily, but here we are.”
Niko frowned. “Why are you being hounded by reporters?”
Aspen glanced at Cobalt. “Why do you think? Someone apparently leaked something about a case involving a Selkie, and suddenly I’ve got all sorts of maniacs who can’t take no for an answer blowing up my phones and trying to break in.”
“Trying to break—” but Aspen cut him off.
“The more legitimate publications don’t seem to have taken the leak very seriously,” she went on, waving off the concern. “So it’s only people for rags like The Incoming Tides and Stock and Trade trying to get a good story about Selkies luring unsuspecting Fae into the water and how some fishermen managed to harpoon one or something. Ridiculous. Next they’ll be asking about Vampires and the Walking Dead.” She stopped abruptly, offering Cobalt a suspicious look, adding, “Unless you know something we don’t?”
Eyebrows raised, Cobalt held up his hands. “I’m afraid as far as Selkies know, neither of those are real.”
She stared at him a moment longer, her eyes narrowed, before sniffing conclusively and opening the door wider for them to enter. Niko followed her in first, wanting to assess the situation before Cobalt, should he need to bar him entry for any reason. Part of Niko wanted to let Cobalt go first, to watch his reaction to whatever he was about to see, to glean some detail about the truth to Cobalt’s relationship to Prince Indigo, to understand something without Cobalt having to tell him. But even the coldest part of Niko was not cruel enough to actually go through with it.
The room was cold and sterile, as expected, but there was a dryness to the air that Niko never quite got accustomed to. It was humid everywhere in Maeve’s Court, even indoors with the air conditioner blasting. But the morgue was particularly dry and intentionally so. The runes etched into the perimeter of the room and along the edges of the glass of the window made sure that all the climate of the autopsy room was carefully curated. Against the back wall was the refrigerated cadaver storage. A wall of square, steel doors, each with a small plate on the front to indicate the name of the deceased, the case number, or both, framed the storage area. The side walls of the room were lined with steel counters for forensic study and tests. In the centre of the room was the autopsy table, also steel. Suspended above it was what looked similar to a shower head of sorts, connected to the pipes for the sinks. Meant to facilitate cleaning the body.
Normally the table was shiny and clean, clear of any debris or dirt, and expertly maintained to ensure no cross-contamination. But now, as most of the other times Niko had seen it, the table elevated the broken body of their victim. A pedestal putting him on display, under the clear, white lights of the room, the autopsy table was meant more for practicality in examination, not so much for the solemn presentation of the dead. He looked so much more vulnerable, so much smaller and delicate laid out on the elevated body block, his arms falling back from his chest. His head tilted back, thanks to the body block, and exposed the length of his neck. All his vital organs were open to assault in this position, but with the gaping hole in the centre of the victim’s chest in plain view, Niko reminded himself that the damage was already done.
Cobalt halted just behind Niko, standing tall enough to see the body over Niko’s head. Realizing his plan to shield Cobalt if need be was essentially pointless, Niko stepped out of the way to allow Cobalt a clearer view of the body of the prince. Aspen handed them both surgical masks to cover their faces, and Niko donned his obligingly. Cobalt, momentarily distracted from the body, took his mask and adjusted it over his mouth and nose, though it was clear he didn’t quite know why he was doing it. When he looked back up, his expression closed again, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. Except, perhaps, that he meant to conceal them.
“I assume you’re actually here for an update,” Aspen said from beyond her own mask. She stood next to the autopsy table, leaning over Indigo with a pair of silver forceps, examining the edges of the woun
d in his chest.
“Have you found anything new?” Niko asked. The prince’s body was clean and clear of dirt, sand, and blood, which, in addition to the body block beneath him, indicated to Niko Dr. Aspen had already concluded her external examination.
Aspen tilted her head to the side, studying the wound closely. A scalpel lay in a tray next to her. She would need to perform the tell-tale ‘Y’ incision eventually, but it seemed as though she was trying to decide where to start, given the nature of his wound. Part of her job was also reconstitution of the body after the autopsy is performed. But given the circumstances—that Indigo was a Selkie with possibly different cultural norms, and that the thoracic cavity was already somewhat destroyed—Niko didn’t know what she would actually do. Would Cobalt even allow her to try? Or was it something he would want doctors from Azure’s Court to perform?
Niko gave Cobalt another sidelong look, trying to discern his thoughts from the half of his face that was visible beyond the mask. But still nothing came.
“Not a whole lot,” Aspen said with a sigh, finally placing the forceps down on the tray next to her and straightening. “I’ve collected all the trace evidence, obviously, and that’s off for analysis. Whatever that might reveal. But beyond the obvious here, there’s not a lot to go on. The skin did exhibit a strange reaction to water when I washed the body,” she said, and Niko perked up, but Cobalt seemed unsurprised by this. “The blueish tone to the skin intensified and the body temperature changed dramatically.”
“That’s not strange,” Cobalt said. “It is natural, even in death, for a Selkie body to adapt to the touch of water.” He looked with a faint fondness at Indigo’s face. “In his Waterdancing form, he was a shining blue in tone.”
Aspen’s eyes widened, and she immediately turned around to scribble down details on a report behind her. Niko tried to remember noticing a difference in Cobalt’s skin tone from when he was standing in the ocean to now. But as much as he searched his mind, he couldn’t identify a change.
Cobalt seemed to notice this and said, “It’s much more controllable in life. When I came to face you, I had already made my transition to Landwalking form. But in death, control is lost. The skin changes without resilience or sustainability.”
Niko studied Cobalt’s face, the deep blue-brown of his skin, and wondered how different he might look in the depths of the water, in his full Selkie form. Catching himself, Niko shut his eyes and turned away, already bracing for the onslaught of sexual imagery that washed over him. Gritting his teeth, he cursed himself and tried to focus on the case.
“Are there any other details you’d like to share?” Aspen asked. “Anything unique to Selkies that might aid in my examination?”
Cobalt considered this a moment. “Not that I’m aware of at the moment,” he said finally, and Aspen wilted slightly. “Only that the disappearance of his Soul Stone is unique. To my knowledge there has never been a Selkie death without presence of the Soul Stone.”
“What do you mean?” Niko asked, still unclear on the meaning of this Stone or what missing one might imply. He stepped closer to the body, his eyes on the vacant design below Indigo’s collarbone, the spot apparently missing his Soul Stone.
“Well, in all my experiences with death, the Stone was either still attached to the body, or returned upon discovery of the death for the rites of passage.”
Niko looked up at Aspen to find her eyes full of as much confusion as he felt.
“Is it possible to understand every word and yet nothing of the sentence?” Aspen asked, and Niko turned to face Cobalt.
“What?” Niko asked, unable to quite formulate a more eloquent question.
Cobalt stared at them both a moment, then unbuttoned the top of his shirt to reveal his own shining Soul Stone. “A Soul Stone is part of a Selkie like—” He stopped, searching for an adequate comparison. “Like a Wolf is part of a Werewolf, I suppose. It is the medium by which we may shift forms, from Waterdancing to Landwalking. There are many legends and myths attached to our Soul Stones and how they came about, how we came to have them, but most Selkies believe they were gifted to us by the Great Reef, the source of all the Ocean’s life.” Niko cast Aspen a look. None of this explained anything much yet, and he wasn’t sure he was terribly invested in learning about another Court’s religious beliefs. Not at this particular moment, anyway. “But apart from allowing us to transform, it serves another purpose in our culture.” Then he pressed his fingertips to the edges of the Stone, digging into his skin. The Stone shone a bright, blinding light for a fraction of a second, and then it was gone. And the Stone was no longer attached to Cobalt’s chest but sat in the palm of his hand. Niko felt his lips part slightly, but Dr. Aspen’s mouth was fully open, even visible behind her mask. “Selkies can exchange Soul Stones, offering them up to one another as a sign of eternal devotion and trust. Handing over your Soul Stone to another means abandoning your ability to transform. It also means giving that person a certain amount of power over you.”
Something flared in Niko, akin to panic, and chased a cold sweat down his spine. “Why would you do that?”
Cobalt considered him, as though somewhat surprised by the question. “It is our most vulnerable gesture of love. The truest expression of trust. And a promise that you will remain forever with whomever you gift your Stone.” He held his own Stone up, staring into the smooth, glittering surface of it. The light refracted in his eyes, illuminating them in an ethereal way. Niko felt the wind swept from his lungs. Then Cobalt pressed the Stone back to his chest, it glowed once more, then remained in place. “As such, when a Stone isn’t present at death, it is quickly returned to the body by a lover or partner, as the Stone must be returned to the Great Reef to ensure the cycle of Life is maintained.”
For a moment, Niko wasn’t sure where to look. The glittering Stone on Cobalt’s chest remained in view, Cobalt having forgotten to button himself back up, and Niko found himself strangely drawn to it. “Okay,” he said, running a hand through his hair, searching for ground. “Then that tells us something. Maybe someone got hold of Indigo’s Stone and—”
“I’m afraid that’s not how it works,” Cobalt interrupted. “The Stone cannot be stolen from a Selkie. It can only be removed willingly. As in the Selkie who removes their own Stone must decide to do so themselves.”
Well, that alters the landscape a bit.
Looking back down at the empty spot on Indigo’s chest, Niko considered carefully.
“So Indigo had to give his Soul Stone to someone?” he asked. Cobalt nodded, his expression dark. “But he’d only been in Maeve’s Court three months. And he was in his—Landwalking form. Giving away his Stone would mean he couldn’t go back to his own father’s Court. Why would he do that?”
Cobalt’s expression answered the question before he opened his mouth. “I cannot think of a single circumstance in which he would. Not even true love would make him forever forsake his own Court, his own people, without at least returning first.”
The ache at the back of Niko’s head was slowly returning. He pressed a finger to the base of his skull and rubbed in circles. Unable to make the new information make sense just yet, he filed it away instead for later consideration.
“Have you found anything else on the body?” Niko asked Aspen, who was still staring rather wide-eyed at Cobalt. She snapped to attention and nodded slowly.
“The wound track is unlike any I’ve ever seen,” she said. “At least, unlike anything I would have thought possible in this size and with this precision.” Niko raised his eyebrows, and she went on. “I need to do more examining, obviously, and I haven’t completed the internal autopsy, but from what I’ve noted so far, the wounds seem almost consistent with injuries as they might be sustained during a sonic boom.”
Niko frowned. “What? What do you mean ‘almost consistent’?”
“Well, like I said, it wouldn’t have this kind of precision,” she said. “A sonic boom is the effect of a powerful sound wa
ve on its environment within a certain perimeter. It creates compressed air that devastates a region within that perimeter. The compressed air is also extremely hot, which would burn right through organic material depending on the distance and power of the wave.” Aspen shook her head. “But it’s impossible. A sound that loud would have destroyed—probably half of Maeve’s Court. And we would definitely have heard it. We’d have noticed. Plus, it would have affected his entire body, not just this targeted area. But the way the flesh was burned and the kind of organ damage visible seems in keeping with that type of event.” She stared down at the wound in Indigo’s chest a minute. “The only other thing I can think of is some kind of laser sword or gun or something. But that’s even more ridiculous, isn’t it?” She gave a half-laugh. “And I don’t think a laser would cause the kind of pressure damage—” Placing a hand to her chin, she cut herself off and considered. “Well, maybe…”
Niko shot a look at Cobalt, who seemed equally lost in thought. “What?” he asked, and Cobalt snapped out of his pensive state.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Something about that seems vaguely familiar. Possibly from stories I heard as a boy.”
Thinking over his words, a memory triggered in Niko’s mind. “A—a Banshee?” he asked, almost more to himself than anyone else. “You think a Banshee might be responsible?”
Banshees were creatures of ancient history, thought to be essentially extinct. Though, like Dragons, they were so reclusive it was possible they still existed somewhere. The old tales told of female creatures, taking on the forms of various types of women, luring people to their deaths with a scream. Some stories said the screech of the Banshee was so loud and so high it caused death instantaneously, that it could pierce the very soul of whoever heard it. Some suggested the cry was more of a distraction, meant to trick people into falling off cliffs or into rapids or other deadly accidents. And while a scream loud enough to kill certainly seemed in keeping with Dr. Aspen’s sonic boom theory, the rest hardly seemed logical. How would no one know they were interacting with a Banshee? How would a Banshee be able to scream-kill someone without anyone else nearby overhearing even a bit of it, if it was that loud?