Cause of Death: Unnatural (The Cause of Death Series) (6 page)

"You're so tense, Em. What's up?"

She stepped out from under his hands and
faced him. "Just work," she said.
"This case
and the other one.
They're related and I can't figure out how. I
can't..."

She trailed off. Over his shoulder she could
see a man approaching the scene. He was tall, thin, slightly dishevelled, with
messy British looking hair - the neo-quiff - and an ill-fitting suit. Converse
shoes, a leather satchel slug over one shoulder and a long coat over the other
arm. He had a slightly confused look on his face, but Em recognized him
instantly.
Jarek.
What game was he playing now? Hadn't
she told him to stay away?

"Can I help you?" she called, as
rudely as she dared.

The man smiled gratefully at her and bumbled over. In
her head Em heard Jarek's voice:
Play
along now Emilia. You don't want to spoil my fun.

"Jarek Edwards," he said, sticking
out his hand awkwardly, shuffling his coat to his other arm as he did so.
"Medical examiner on loan from London."
He smiled
a goofy grin. "My plane got in this morning and it was too early to check
into my hotel so I came by the office instead. They said I'd find you
here." He paused, and looked expectantly at Em.

Nick frowned, but shook the man's hand.
"Em?" he turned to her. "I haven't heard about any..."

Em slapped her forehead. "The
conference!" she exclaimed. "I'd totally forgotten. Sorry, Jarek, was
it? We were going to have someone meet you at the airport, but, as you can
see..." she gestured to the bodies, "we got a bit tied up."

Em turned to call out to Robert. As she did
so she slipped her mind into both Nick's and Robert's. The rest of the team's
too for good measure. A few false memories here, a neuron tweaked there, and
viola - instant
backstory
.

Nicely
done
,
said Jarek into her head.

I'm
not finished yet
, she answered.
When
was the last time you played 'medical examiner', Jarek?
How
about a crash course.
And as roughly as she could she dumped
everything she knew about forensic pathology into Jarek's consciousness with a
jolt.

She was pleased to see him wince slightly.

Robert came over and looked confused but
pleased to see Jarek. "Do you have your things, Mr Edwards?" he
asked. "We were wondering why our usual guy wasn't here. I guess that
explains everything then. Good to have you with us."

He
lead
Jarek over
to the first of the bodies and began relaying the details. "We're just
about ready to move them. If you can get your bit done with we'll be
away."

Em watched with amusement as Jarek knelt
beside the first of the bodies and rummaged in his bag for some gear. There was
only one person Jarek knelt to. To see him working at the feet of her human
boss, on the remains of a human victim was too much fun. She made sure Jarek
could hear her laughter in his mind.

"I'd like to turn this one over,"
said Jarek. "Have you moved them yet, at all? I'd like to see what
hypostasis there is."

Em was amused. He was playing the part well.

"I'm not sure that will help you,"
said Robert, joining Jarek on his knees beside the victim, a good dash of
professional enthusiasm showing in his voice. "All four of them are exhibiting
extreme pallor. We saw something similar last week, but with a great deal more
violence. I'll be surprised if you find any coagulation at all." He
stopped talking abruptly as the body was rolled over. "Good lord," he
said.

Nick turned away and gagged. Em pulled face,
and even Jarek looked disturbed.

The nape of the victim's neck had been...
chewed... right down to the bone.

Em shuddered. There had been teeth marks in
the flesh of the other victims too, but whereas they looked as if they had been
mauled by pit bulls, whoever had snacked on this man had a very tiny and very
precise mouth.

"Em?
You still with us?"

"
Hunh
?
I mean, yes," said Em, quickly taking a swig of her drink.
It was a tall vodka and lime - the usual. Every Thursday the girls gathered at
the Corner Bar after work. It had become a bit of a tradition and even the
bartenders had the drinks lined up when they saw the group approaching.
Jennifer was there and a few of the girls from the office - again, the usual.
Em was thinking about Alina and the killings. Well, she was thinking about
Jarek, and Nick, and Robert, and trying to think about Alina and the killings,
but either way she was not paying much attention to the gaggle of girls sitting
around the table.

"So, how was it?"

Em stared at
Bec
for a second. She gently slipped her mind into the recesses of
Bec's
memory and tried to read the question while it still
lingered in her friend's mind.
Something about the burlesque
club.
She couldn't escape it, could she?

"It was cool," said Em.
"Flesh and feathers, muscles and leather - just what you'd
expect.
The show was actually quite good." She stopped.

"And?" said
Bec
.

"And the vibe was ... well ... I have to
say it was pretty dark and mysterious." No point in
lying,
thought Em. The girls all looked at her. "It was a moody sort of
place," she said.

"What does that mean?" said
Georgia. "I get moody when I don't get enough chocolate. Is that what
we're talking about?"

Em tossed a peanut at Georgia and grinned.
"No, idiot.
I mean there was an awful lot of eyeliner -
on the blokes! You know what I mean. It was like Berlin in the 1930s crossed
with acid techno. Or something," she finished vaguely. Really, with a
thousand years more experience than the others she should be better at this
kind of thing, but clubs had never been her scene.

"It's alright, Em," said Georgia.
"You're just such a geek, honey.
A pathologist on a date
with her boss.
Trust you to completely miss the celebrities who were
there that night and instead give us a lesson on European history."

They all chucked.

"There were celebrities?" asked Em,
but the girls were off again on a new flurry of gossip about Alina's club.

The news of four young men murdered on the
club's doorstep didn't seem to feature in the gossip much at all.
Strange, thought Em.
The killings had hit the papers with a
big splash, and had just the effect Alina had imagined. The place was suddenly
the hottest ticket in town, with the nightly lines at the door snaking right
down the laneway that the bodies had been found in.

Her girlfriends had asked her about the
killings, knowing that she was likely to be working on the case, but there
wasn't much she could tell them, and Em wasn't really sure they were especially
interested in her answers anyway. They were collecting
gossip,
that
was all. Em had told them she thought they should stay away until
the killer had been found, but that advice had fallen on deaf ears too. What
was going on in her life, wondered Em, when she, one of the darkest creatures
of the wildness of eternity, should have more common sense than her human
companions?

"Well, aside from all those gorgeous bodies
that seem to be going there every night, have you heard the other news about
the place?" asked
Bec
, her eyes narrowing and
gazing at her friends conspiratorially. "I probably shouldn't be telling
you..."

"Is it the sex room?" asked
Georgia, with a quirky but definitely interested grin.

"There's a sex room?" said Em, and
then ducked as Georgia tossed a peanut back at her.

The girls all groaned and laughed.

"You're unbelievable, Em," said
Georgia. "I can't figure out how you don't hear this stuff. You're a crime
scene investigator, for heaven's sake! Aren't you supposed to have your ear to
the ground? And you were there last week, with a backstage tour!"

"It's just my innocent and trusting nature, I
suppose," said Em, and then grinned as the groans started up again. They
knew she wasn't
that
innocent.

"So, what's the scandal?" asked
Jennifer.

"The club apparently has a resident
dealer," said
Bec
.

Em
pricked
up her
ears at this.
Bec
was dating a lieutenant in the
narcotics division so she'd almost certainly be speaking the truth. A resident
dealer could complicate things a little, thought Em. The balance of power
between the existing gangs in this town was all based on who was selling what,
and where, and a new dealer in town would certainly unsettle that balance.
Enough for the gang heavies to start leaving bodies on the club's
doorstep?
wondered
Em. Maybe, but that didn't
explain the vicious nature of the killings...

Bec
was still
talking. "Apparently this dealer is just hovering at the very edges of
legal. He's not pushing crack or meth or anything that would get the local
dealer's upset, but things like steroids and morphine, and some rather quaint
old stuff like opium and poppy tea."

"Poppy tea?" exploded Jennifer with
a giggle. "That sounds ridiculous."

That sounds very, very interesting, thought
Em. "Do you know if this dealer's got a name?" she asked
Bec
.

Bec
shook her
head. "Nope, but I hear he hangs out around the old warehouses up that end
of town. Why, you looking to buy?" She smiled.

"No, but I might talk with your boy
about it. It could have something to do with those bodies we found outside the
club."

"Do you think you could get us in
there?" asked Jennifer, her short attention span showing again. "Come
on Em. You had a personal invitation, and now you've got a hundred excuses to
go there whenever you like because of the case. Surely you can get our names on
the door. I'm busting to see the place."

Em resisted rolling her eyes. She smiled and
stood up. "I'm just going to the ladies," she said. "Get me
another vodka
will you please, Jennifer, and then I'll get
the next round. I'll be back."

She needed to think. The women's restroom was
empty. Em sank into a chair in the corner next to a potted palm tree and a
small table with a selection of cheap perfumes. It looked like a suitably
comfortable place for brooding.

So, Alina had a drug dealer who specialized
in blood and its fixings, and who hung out in the old warehouses. Em was pretty
sure she knew exactly who that would be. She was overdue to pay him a call,
actually. It made sense that this might be the dealer Alina was in league with.

Will was one of those useful mortals who came
from a long tradition of serving the darker energies of the Family and the
lower vampires. There had always been humans like Will - procurers - even in
the days when life was cheaper and vampires had no compunctions feeding off the
general population. These days, people like Will were essential for any of the
Family who chose to live around the edges of a mortal existence, and for the
lower vampires who didn't want to spend their new lives running from the law.

Will was the local caterer, for want of a
better word, and Em was one of his regular customers. Sure, she could get by
without the red stuff, but a girl's
gotta
get her fix
every now and then, right?

Alina and her host of dancing vampires had
the same requirements. Poor Will
,
business must have
exploded for him lately. She hoped he was keeping up with demand. Had Alina
offered him a deal he couldn't refuse,
or
had she
coerced him into the role? Em had no idea, and that brought her to the other
mystery in this whole affair.

Until these headaches of hers had started a
few weeks ago, Em could confidently say she knew everything that went down in
this town, mortal or supernatural. To be laughed at by her own girlfriends for
not knowing about Alina's new club and its kinky secrets was not just
embarrassing, it was worrying. At first she'd thought the headaches were just
that - headaches. And why would she worry? Vampires don't get migraines, they
don't get brain
tumors
- she just thought she was
working too hard.

But when it became clearer that someone, or
something, was causing the headaches Em thought it would simply be a matter of
finding out
who
it was. That was proving to be more
difficult than she'd expected, and she wasn't used to being this ineffectual.
It was irritating, and it was worrying. The more Em thought about it, the more
she had to admit that there was someone in town who was more powerful than her.
And that thought was very unnerving.

She'd have to talk to Jarek about it. Could
he feel it too?