1.
I smelled the girl's blood and saw her body in
a pool of neon light. Neon signs from a bar facing the alley
painted the scene dreamlike, the pavement slick and bottomless
and the body's skin pink and hard.
I could smell her blood because I'm a werewolf.
I had gotten the call because she was dead.
A uniform stopped me with an upraised hand. "Ma'am?"
I drew my jacket aside and showed him the Nocturne City Police
detective badge clipped to my waist. He squinted at it in the
ineffectual light and then nodded. "Sorry, Detective...Wilder.
Go ahead."
He even lifted the tape for me. I rewarded him with a smile.
"Call me Luna, Officer…?"
"Thorpe, ma'am." He smiled back, tired blue eyes lighting
up. I tend to have that effect on men, even when it's 3 a.m.
and I'm wearing raggedy blue jeans and a t-shirt stained with
fingerprinting ink. Not my off-duty attire to be sure, but you
try cleaning blood out of a silk halter.
Thorpe called after me, "Hope you didn't eat dinner. She's
juicy!"
Fantastic.
I walked into the red light from the beer signs, moving between
CSU techs and a photographer snapping a digital Nikon. I stopped,
the pointy toe of one boot just shy of the body, and looked
down at the girl. Her throat was opened in a wide gash, obscured
by dried blood. What hadn't been left inside her--and that wasn't
much--was coating the blacktop, giving oily life to the ground
below her. Her left index finger was severed neatly at the knuckle,
a raw red-white disc with the blood coagulated.
Someone spoke from below my line of vision. "Another night,
another dead girl. Nice to have a routine, isn't it?"
Bart Kronen, one of the city's three medical examiners, crouched
next to the body, his bald head as red as everything else. I
mimicked his posture and bent over the girl's corpse.
"Nice wouldn't be my word for this." Closer, the blood
wasn't the only smell rolling off the girl. A sharp, musky odor
lay under it, and that only meant one thing. I slid a glance
to Bart to see if he'd figured it out yet, but he was busy with
a thermometer and a stopwatch.
"Killer took time to get a souvenir, so make sure you print
her skin before the autopsy. Any idea what made that gash in
her throat?" Other than the obvious, course--the musky
scent was the panic of a trapped were, panicked because she
had wandered down the wrong street and been jumped by a rival
pack.
Kronen chuckled, plump cheeks crinkling. "If this happened
before the Hex Riots I'd say you've got an outlaw were that
needs to be put down, but as it is..." He shrugged and
began packing away small evidence bags filled with cotton swabs
taken from the body. He didn't pick up my instinctive flinch
at the phrase "put down."
Weres don't kill people, and never did, except the few that
can't take the phase and go insane. Were attacks were the fuse
that lit the bomb of the Hex Riots over Nocturne City in the
1960s. If you got the bite, you pretty much resigned yourself
to living with the constant, twitchy fear that someone would
discover your secret and take matters into their own hands.
Witches and weres don't enjoy many civil rights in this day
and age. On paper, sure, but when a self-righteous plain human
with an aluminum bat is after you it's another story.
"Detective."
I put my attention back on Dr. Kronen. "Hmm?" Great,
could I manage to seem like more of an airhead? Maybe if I showed
up for work tomorrow in a pink sweater set.
Kronen gestured to the dead girl's hands. "You may want
to take a look. She's got some nasty defensive wounds."
I slipped on the proffered glove and took her right hand in
mine. Her fingers dangled limply, flesh stripped off the tips,
nails torn and broken. Good girl. You fought like hell. You
scratched him and kicked him, and made it hard for him to hide
what happened.
"I'm also guessing we'll find evidence of sexual assault."
"Why do you say that, Doc?"
He rolled his eyes at me and stood up, brushing nonexistent
dirt from his khakis. "Cause of death appears to be peri-
and post-mortem mutilation, and coupled with the ritual of severing
the left digit, I'm guessing this is a sex crime."
"Isn't mutilation usually a secondary trait in sex crimes?"
Kronen nodded. "Usually, but I can't find another obvious
cause. I'll know more when I can screen her blood for drugs
and cut her open to have a peek at her internals. Your skin
may lie but your guts never do."
"Kronen, your reverence for victims never fails to amaze
me."
"In this line of work, Detective, if we didn't laugh we'd
all be prey to the wolves of insanity before the night was out."
Wolves again. What was it with this guy? Well, as long as he
was harping on it I might as well put my talents to good use
and see if I could find anything he missed.
I took a second look at the girl, inhaling deeply as I let my
eyes focus in on her skin, her hair, the creases and crevices
where trace evidence could hide. The telltale sting told me
my eyes were starting to turn from their normal gray to deep
were gold, and I blinked fast to clear them.
Grease, urine, blood, garbage and the smell of wet brick from
the recent rain all mingled. It wasn't what I'd ever describe
as pleasant, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, either.
The girl herself looked about twenty, with porcelain skin and
black hair, a lighter color showing at the roots. Leather skirt,
black platform sandals and a shocking lime green halter top
made out of stretchy material that showcased her chest. No bag,
wallet, hidden money roll, or anything else that would help
me ID her. And it wasn't exactly like I could go knocking on
her pack's door for information. An Insoli like me would get
a boot in the ass at best, a torn throat to match the dead girl's
at worst.
I walked with Kronen back to the ME's van. "So, any theories?"
he asked me, tossing his gear into the back.
"Based on the neighborhood and the outfit...pro. John gone
bad. Always tragic, but it happens a lot around here."
Kronen was a good medical examiner and a decent guy, but he
shared the human attitude that Were=Bad & Scary & Okay
to Hurt. Best to feed him the party line for anonymous dead
hookers.
Kronen got into the driver's seat and shut the door. "Prostitute
murder in a downtown alley? How rare. Shocking, in fact."
"Absolutely shocking," I agreed, glad that he let
it go at sarcasm.
"I'll page you when the autopsy is scheduled."
"Thanks. Night."
"Morning," he corrected me. And it was, nearly 4:30.
I walked back through the tape and sat in my 1969 Ford Fairlane.
Black, shiny, fast and a hell of a lot better than an unmarked
from the motor pool.
I was a liar. Even as I voiced my theory to Kronen, I knew it
was a bad excuse. The torn throat, the fierce defensive wounds
and the missing finger joint all spoke to something far more
violent than a business transaction gone sour or a were pack
warning a pro off their turf. Lots of packs did street-level
dealing and sent their mates out to work the streets, but run
across one of those Puritanical pack leaders and you were in
deep crap. But usually the offending were got away with some
nasty bruises and a humiliation bite. Killing just made it bad
for all of us.
It could have been a human who killed her, a savage one, but
I dismissed that as quickly as it popped into my head. Even
without phasing, a were could fight off a human three times
their size. We're strong. Not Spider-Man strong, but we manage.
Attempts to rationalize failed, which meant I was right. She
had been killed for a reason. A heightened five senses comes
standard with being a were, but I firmly believe it gives you
heightened instincts, too. Now, I would use them to find out
why the girl in the alley was dead.
I looked at the dashboard clock as I pulled away from the scene
and turned onto Magnolia Boulevard, once the heart of downtown
Nocturne City. If it was a heart now, it was one in dire need
of a quadruple bypass and a pacemaker. Boarded up storefronts
glared at me like empty eye sockets, illuminated by broken streetlamps
and holding enough shadows to hide a multitude of sins.
The clock read 4:42 a.m. With no means to ID the girl with until
she was fingerprinted and x-rayed at the morgue, I had nothing
to do for the rest of shift except go back to the 24th Precinct,
file my report and see if any progress had been made on my seven
other open cases. That, I doubted. Working the midnight-to-six
shift in homicide does not lead to a high clearance rate, or a
lack of bags under my eyes. Some nights I swore I should invest
in the company that made my concealer and retire.
Magnolia intersected Highland and I made the right turn, crossing
over into the old Victorian district. Highland Park was one of
the few neighborhoods where the residents had been able to stop
the city from widening the street and chopping down the hundred-year-old
oak trees. It also housed the 24th, tucked neatly into a skinny
brick two-story that had once been a firehouse, back when fire
trucks were horse-drawn and the Hex Riots weren't even a puff
of smoke on the horizon.
The grazing lot for horses had been transformed into a parking
lot for cops, and I pulled my Fairlane into the only free space--if
the tiny margin between two patrol cars deserved the title. As
a detective, I had an assigned spot, but someone was already in
it. The Fairlane scraped against concrete and I winced. That didn't
sound like it could be repaired with a fine brush and a dab of
Black Magick nail polish.
I got out and looked at the license plate of the car that had
taken my hard-earned spot. The small rising moon crest told me
city vehicle, a black Lexus with tinted windows and no other identifying
marks. What it was doing at the 24th, in my parking space, was
a mystery I wasn't up to solving at the moment.
I satisfied my frustration with a kick to the Lexus's bumper,
and went into the precinct.
At some point in history, the department had decided fluorescent
lights were not only cheap but flattering to the complexion, and
installed them on practically every inch of ceiling. Other than
that small addition, the firemen had their way. There was still
a brass fireman's pole in the corner of the squad room.
Sometimes, at Christmas, we wrapped tinsel garlands around it.
My single desk, tucked into a corner, held just enough space for
my computer, a hanging file and a picture of me, my cousin Sunny
and our grandmother from when Sunny and I were kids. Sunny and
Grandma Rhoda were smiling. I was not.
I went for coffee before I settled into type up the report on
the dead girl. She'd be Jane Doe number three this year among
my cases.
The squad room was deserted, but the desk clerk waved at me as
I walked by.
"Long night, Wilder?"
"The longest, Rick."
He clucked in sympathy.
"Heard you caught a mutilation homicide down on Magnolia."
I've given up trying to figure out how the police gossip network
disburses information. It could give you a headache.
"That's right," is all I said.
"So, how's Sunny doing?" he asked me, smiling shyly.
Rick has been in love with my cousin ever since she moved here.
Whether he'd figured out that she's a witch or not, I don't know.
"She's fine. Teaching meditation over at Cedar Hills Community
College. How's your little one?" Rick's wife had left him
three years ago, leaving him saddled with a five-year-old son
and a job that kept him working nights. As far as I could tell,
though, he did an okay job. He was attractive, in that quiet dark-haired
way, and stable as a cement pylon. He would be good for Sunny.
But he was also a plain human, and I wasn't going to encourage
them.
"Great. He's growing like a..."
A bang from the frosted glass door down the hall opening interrupted
us. Wilbur Roenberg, captain in charge of the 24th, stepped out.
Seeing him still working at this very early hour made my gut clench.
Roenberg and I didn't get along even when I'd had a full night
of sleep and wasn't on the tail end of a bad shift.
"We'll talk, Wilbur," said a shortish man in a dark
suit, with hair and eyes to match. He shut the captain's door
and took clipped steps down the hallway towards Rick and me. He
carried a black briefcase and his shoes were highly polished.
I realized the dark suit was a tuxedo. He wore a red silk tie,
the only hint of color on his monochrome frame.
Roenberg wiped his face with the back of his hand before disappearing
down the hall towards the men's room.
"You have a nice night, sir!" Rick called as the visitor
passed. The guy turned and gave Rick an evil eye. I heard Rick
gulp. Tuxedo kept staring, his hand on the door to the outside.
His posture had the reptile quality of someone who knew how to
fight, and probably fought dirty.
"Shouldn't you be doing your job instead of flirting?"
he finally asked, pure dark eyes flicking to me.
It was my turn to provide a hostile stare. Tuxedo didn't flinch,
but his full lips curled up slightly.
"Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?" I
asked, adjusting my loose tee so that my badge and my 9mm service
weapon showed clearly.
After a long two ticks of the clock, he looked away. Point, Luna.
"The name is Lockhart. And I doubt very much that you can,
officer," he said, before turning on his heel and striding
out like he had a badger nipping at his ass.
"What a butthead," muttered Rick, punching a few keys
on his computer.
I walked over to the door and watched Tuxedo leave. I wasn't surprised
when I saw the black Lexus screech out of my space and speed away
down Highland. A city bigwig named Lockhart. I'd remember the
name. See if he got a warm welcome next time he needed someone
to fix a parking ticket.
Walking back to my desk, I almost ran head-on into Captain Roenberg.
He jumped aside, face flushed and stale coffee on his breath.
"So sorry, Detective Wilder."
"That's fine, sir," I told him. He wasn't sorry. Roenberg
was a throwback and it was apparent every time he deigned to make
eye contact that he was really seeing me in pumps and a frilly
little apron. Fair's fair. Every time I was unfortunate enough
to see him, I wanted to plant a solid left in his smug little
mouth.
"Yes…" he said absently, hurrying past me towards
his office.
"Don't get any cooties on you," I muttered, glad I
was going the other way. At least not all cops in the 24th felt
the same way as Roenberg. Most of them could deal with my being
female. It was the were part I kept under my hat. Not that I wore
a lot of hats. They make my head look like a dinosaur egg.
I decided to type up Jane Doe's report and clock out early. Those
other seven cases weren't getting any colder.
Name? the computer prompted me. I typed Jane Doe.
Age? Unknown. I filled in all the boxes for physical description
and forwarded the file to Missing Persons for a cross-check. In
three weeks, if I was lucky, they'd tell me they found nothing.
Cause of Death:
My fingers stopped. I saw the girl lying on the wet pavement,
dried blood on her tattered throat. Wet blood under her, matting
the long black hair. The tight clothes that left no room for any
ID. Torn, bloody hands reaching out to fend off…what?
I blinked. The night had been too long and too full of death.
Under the COD field I typed exsanguination and checked
the box to indicate the autopsy was still pending. The printer
spit out a hard copy of the report, and I attached the appropriate
forms and tucked it into my open casefile, which was really just
a tattered accordion folder sitting on top of my desk.
Jane Doe: filed and processed and tucked away where she needed
to be.
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