Stormrage (4 page)

"Find anything in the other bedroom?" Raven asked, walking toward him.

Levac shook his head.
"Not really. Looks like it was being used by a guy, my guess would be Shevlin, but there was nothing in there to prove it," he said in a dead voice.

Raven looked at her partner and then turned to follow his gaze
. The bathroom was pristine with a new white vanity, black and white tile and a new-looking claw foot tub. A young blonde woman lay in the tub, her hair plastered to her skull, one hand trailing in a pool of red on the tile floor. She stared accusingly at the two detectives with blank, white eyes.

"Shit," Raven said softly.

Levac nodded.

"I think we found
Christina," he said. "Looks like a suicide to me."

"I don't think so," Raven said, pushing past Levac. "I don't smell any blood, do you?"

She stooped and ran a finger through the red pool.
It was thin and grainy, full of red particles like the ones in her evidence bag.

"Thirst," Raven said, holding up one red-coated finger.

Thirst? What's that?"

"A drug,"
Raven said. "An expensive designer drug I came across when I worked in Narc. I thought we'd gotten it off the streets, but I guess not. Think of it a sort of predecessor to Bath Salts."

Levac frowned at his partner.
"You mean that stuff that made that guy eat someone's face off down in Miami?"

"The very same,"
Raven said. "Only this shit is one thousand times worse."

"Why are her
eyes all white like that?" Levac asked, leaning over Christina.

"It is the l
ast stage of Thirst addiction," Raven said, her voice tight. "In most people it causes a type of madness and thirst for blood, hence the name. In others, complete blindness. You end up in your own private little hell. And if there is no one to feed your addiction, you die as your organs shut down one at a time. It’s a horrible way to croak."

"Did you see a lot of this in Narc?"
Levac asked, putting away his pistol and laying a hand on his partner's shoulder.

Raven flinched
, but didn't move away. "Yes. It's why I got suspended and why I transferred to homicide. I beat a Thirst dealer to death with my bare hands. When I realized what was happening, there was nothing left of his face, but meat and bone. I was acquitted for 'extenuating circumstances' but something like that sticks with you for the rest of your life."

She shook her head and turned away.
As she entered the hallway she called to Levac, "Rupe, can you call Aspen and have her get her team down here? Maybe we can get a firm ID on the girl and some clues as to what Thirst has to do with Shevlin. I need some air."

"You got it, partner,"
Levac replied. Raven felt his eyes on her as she walked down the stairs, the railing creaking in her grip.

* * *

The noonday sun was high overhead, burning the morning chill away into a bright afternoon. Raven leaned on the hood of her Shelby sipping black coffee and watching the crime scene technicians come and go from the house through her aviator sunglasses. Aspen came out at the end of the parade with her kit and a disgusted-looking Levac. The young woman stopped next to Raven and started to set her kit on the hood of the Shelby. Raven lowered her sunglasses and glared at the younger woman. Aspen pulled her kit away as if the car was on fire and held the case to her like it was her favorite stuffed toy.

"So what did you find that connects all of this to Shevlin?"
Raven asked.

Levac opened his notepad and began flipping through the crinkled pages.

"The woman's name was Christina Shevlin," he said. "She was Zack's little sister. Her birthday was last night. Shevlin ordered the flowers and had them delivered before noon yesterday, Christina ordered the Chinese at 7:00pm last night.

"So we can place her death after t
hat," Aspen interjected. "It's hard to get an accurate time of death though. The water was still warm so her liver temp is going to be off."

"After seven
is at least something to go on. Run a calculation on how fast the water should have lost heat, that should give us a better T.O.D.," Raven said. "Anything else?"

Aspen nodded and opened her own notebook, which had a pentacle on the front.

"I found hair that matched Shevlin's perfectly. The doc will want me to run it through the stereo microscope, but I am certain it was him sleeping in the guest room. And I found something else."

"What?'
Raven asked, looking down at the diminutive technician.

"You're not
going to like it, Ray," she said.

Raven lowered her sunglasses
again and glared at the smaller woman, her eyes flaring green. "Spit it out, kid!"

"I didn't find any Thirs
t in Christina's body," Aspen said without taking a breath.

Raven blinked in surprise and raised her sunglasses.
"None? None at all? But she shows all the signs of an overdose!"

"I know!"
Aspen said, backing away slightly from the angry detective. "But she tested clean. Whatever killed her, it wasn't Thirst addiction. I will run another test when I get back to the lab, but I would bet anything she was clean as a whistle. Not even caffeine in her system."

Raven shook her head and glared at the house from behind her sunglasses.
It was supposed to provide answers, not more puzzles.

"Aspen, rerun the tests and have Shevlin
double checked as well," she said. "I want to be absolutely certain there is no Thirst in his system before I go opening old wounds."

"You got it boss,"
Aspen replied.

"What's our move, Ray?"
Levac asked, stuffing his notebook back into his pocket.

"I need a hotdog,"
Raven replied, walking toward the driver's door. "You coming?"

Levac laughed and climbed into the
Shelby. Raven started the engine and pulled away from the curb. As they drove, Levac leaned closer to his partner.

"You going to tell me what is eating at you?"
he asked.

"Part of me really wants this to
be Thirst related. Those dealers and I have unfinished business," Raven replied. "That shit put a thirteen year old girl in the psych ward, stuck in a nightmare with no way out. There is nothing I or anyone can do for her, but put a bullet in her brainpan."

"
You knew the girl, didn't you?" Levac asked in gentle tones.

Raven nodded and accelerated around a slow-moving delivery truck, narrowly missing an oncoming taxi.

"She was my adopted little sister from the Big Sisters program," she said. "Her name was…is…Nicole. She's the reason I beat a dealer to death."

"I'm sorry
, Raven," Levac said. "I didn't know."

"You couldn't hav
e. Hold tight, lunch is on me," Raven said with a soft smile.

The afternoon was turning dark and Raven had turned the Shelby's lights on against the growing afternoon gloom as she
guided the car through the growing traffic. Though it was still early, it was almost full dark when Raven pulled the muscle-car into the parking lot of Wonderdawgs. She backed the car into her usual spot facing the main street and climbed out, shrugging into a leather long-coat against the increasing chill.

"You want the usual?"
she asked Levac before she closed the door.

"Yep.
I'm going to check in with Frost and let him know what we've got."

"See i
f Zhu has anything for us, too," Raven said. "I will be right back."

Raven closed the door and crossed the lot, shivering in her coat.
She barely noticed the white minivan parked to the side of the restaurant or the muscle bound man leaning against the side. She simply nodded at him and continued into the restaurant.

Inside
, the restaurant was brightly lit and smelled of grilled onions, fresh hotdogs and the sweet tang of relish. Raven smiled and stepped up to the counter where a familiar face grinned at her from behind a massive cash register that was new around 1955.

"Good afternoon
, Ms. Storm," the freckle-faced teen said with a dimpled smile.

"Hi
, Nadia," Raven said, somewhat surprised the girl hadn't called her detective. "Can I get the usual with one sweet tea and one black coffee?"

Nadia punched in the order and Raven handed over the cash.

"Keep the change, I heard about your college fund," Raven said.

Nadia grinned wider and said, "Thank you, Ms. Storm, every little bit helps."

Again with the Ms. Storm,
Raven thought.

She dismissed any questions as her to-go tray was delivered.
The smell of hotdog relish and ketchup was too good to resist. She picked up the tray, smiled at Nadia again and exited into the cold afternoon, balancing the tray in one hand and her coffee in the other.

Once outside
she took a sip of her coffee and instantly spit the oversweet concoction out, spilling the food tray as she did.

"What the hell?"
she snarled. "Nadia knows I hate sugar in my coffee!"

She turned and looked back at the restaurant.
This time she took in the man by the van, which was blocking the back door, and Nadia's strange behavior. On a hunch she turned her coffee cup over. On the bottom was written '211 Robbery in Progress'.

"Ray?
You okay?" Levac asked, joining her in the middle of the lot. "You dropped all the food."

"
Yeah. Call dispatch and tell them we have a 211 in progress, at least three armed suspects, maybe four," Raven replied, pulling her Automag.

"We do?"
Levac asked, looking at the restaurant.

"Either that or it is going to be a 187 for putting cream and sugar in my coffee,"
Raven said. "Check the bruiser by the back door."

Levac nodded and started to pull his own piece.
Raven stopped him with a look.

"Call it in then cover me through the back door,"
she said.

"Be careful,
Raven," Levac said.

Raven
smiled and continued toward the restaurant. She needed this more than she needed a hotdog. She was almost to the bruiser at the van when he turned toward her.

"Can I help you?"
he asked in a southern twang.

"Yeah, you can lay down on the ground while I arrest your buddies inside,"
Raven replied. "Payroll day, is it?"

The man laughed and pulled a snub-nosed .38 from his pocket.
It looked ridiculous in his ham-sized hand.

He got as far as "I don't think…" before Raven shot him through the forehead, spraying his tiny brain all over the side of the van.

She didn't wait for the body to fall. She was through the back door and moving, a predator in search of prey.

Ahead she could see two men standing outside the restaurant's tiny office while the owner worked at unlocking the safe.
A third man was pushing hotdogs around the grill while a fourth was watching Levac through the windows. All were armed with pistols save for the one on the grill, who had concealed a shotgun next to his legs. None of the men appeared to have heard the shot over the sizzle of the grill and the roar exhaust fans.

"You know, every week my friend
Nadia there has been making lunch for me and my partner," Raven said in a conversational tone. "I always order the same thing with a black coffee. She's a great kid, going to be a doctor someday and she never makes a mistake. But today my coffee had cream and sugar. A lot of sugar. I came back to complain and what do I find? You clowns trying to rob a Chicago landmark. Why don't you put those weapons down, lay down on the floor with your hands behind your back and say 'I'm sorry' one thousand times while we wait for someone to take you away."

Instantly the men responded by drawing their weapons.
Raven shot the man looking out the window, blowing him through the glass to land face-first on the sidewalk. As he crashed to the ground she ducked behind a metal countertop and waited as a hail of bullets rang out on the steel, destroying chopped onion, relish jars and the restaurant's famous pickles. She felt chunks of pickle and onion landing in her hair and felt her blood rise in fury. She snarled and called on her vampiric heritage. The world went blue and time seemed to slow as she sped up; she slid out from behind the countertop and shot both of the men by the office door, the thirty caliber slugs punching neat holes in their chests and dropping them like sandbags to the tile floor. She then turned and sidestepped a blast from the shotgun wielding cook. She watched as he jacked another round into the chamber in slow motion. By the time he was ready to fire again she was in his face. With her left hand she raised the shotgun, slamming the hot barrel into his face once, twice, three times in quick succession, pulping his nose and forcing him to let go of the weapon, which she let clatter to the floor. He sagged down beside it, one hand cradling his destroyed nose.