Mercy Blade (23 page)

“Please observe your actions in the footage and explain.”

Tyler nodded once, faced the monitor, laced his fingers together across his lap, and waited. Angel pointed to the specific camera image and set it in motion. Tyler moved across the screen and I heard a single hard heartbeat from his chest as he watching himself engage the werewolves in conversation. Then Tyler smiled at the monitor. “She looked gorgeous, boss, what I could see of her. And you said to be nice to the guests. I figured that included the uninvited ones. I took the opportunity to see if she was available. Hey,” he placed an open palm on his chest and grinned widely, his eyes twinkling, “I’m just a guy. You can’t fault me talking to a good-looking lady.”

Leo watched him for a long moment, evaluating. Tyler just sat there, relaxed and waiting. “You may go,” Leo said, “but leave your weapons here, and do not leave the compound.”

“Got nowhere else to go, boss.” Tyler stood and left the room.

Leo’s eyes followed him, barren and remote. Softly, he said, “I have never fed from him. Who feeds my second?”

Bruiser said, “Alejandro, boss.”

Leo nodded, his face empty, his eyes distant. “Alejandro has been with me for more than a hundred years. He has my blood.”

It sounded arcane and archaic, a feudal lord claiming one of his own.

Katie Ate Dead Meat

An hour before dawn, Peter Richoux had a preliminary ruling on cause of death and it wasn’t what any of us expected. He entered the security room, where we were going over more digital camera footage, this time from Derek’s low-light cameras, where we were trying to trace the movements of the grindy, who seemed to appear and disappear on different floors like magic. So far as we knew, teleportation wasn’t possible, so that left speed, and the grindy had that in spades. Derek froze the footage and we turned our attention to Peter.

He looked as tired as the rest of us, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair mussed, as if he’d rubbed his hands through his hair and not smoothed it back down. As if to prove the point, he ran one hand from his nape, over his skull, and with the other hand, pinched his temples between thumb and fingers. When he dropped his hands, he leaned forward and placed his fingertips on the table like ten body stabilizers and focused on Jodi. “I’ve done as much as I can here. We’ll move the body to the morgue where I’ll do a full PM, though not until after I’ve had some sleep. For now—”

“No,” Kemnebi said. “There will be no postmortem, no desecration of the body. Such is not permitted by my people or by our religion.”

“Sorry, sir, but the police department will require a forensic autopsy to pursue a murder investigation. The Department of State isn’t likely to disagree,” Peter said. “And justice can’t be done without one.” When he spoke, I felt the pull of weak magic. Peter Richoux was not a sorcerer, but he had natural gifts of persuasion that were all his own.

“No,” Kemnebi said, implacable. And then I got it. Scientists had been trying to get their hands on a dead vamp to dissect for years. Marilyn Monroe’s body had mysteriously disappeared prior to hers, and no other research-based autopsy had ever been accomplished. The bodies of supernats always disappear before a single scalpel can be applied.

“Sir,” Peter said respectfully, casting his cousin a hooded glance that I wasn’t able to interpret, “I’ll have to leave that decision between you and DS. For now, I’ve collected a few samples from the bod—the scene, and we’ll get preliminary results back in a few days. Final results when all the tox screens are done. This isn’t TV, so we’re talking a couple of weeks. But I can give you a preliminary, presumptive COD now.”

Jodi pushed a rolling desk chair to him with her foot. He sat hard, and the chair cushion sighed, faster and harder than the matching sigh of exhaustion that Peter gave. “Anyone got coffee? I smell coffee.” Jodi signaled; a guy in technician blues went to a coffeepot in the corner and poured a cup of the three-hour-old brew. It smelled scorched and toxic, but it wasn’t my stomach. I watched as the man poured, something in his obsequious demeanor that drew my attention and repelled it at the same time.

Peter spoke and it pulled my eyes back to him. “The victim took two wounds and each appear to be equally mortal.” He lifted a finger. “One. A single bullet wound to the left front chest, midclavicular, ascending between the third and fourth intercostals. May be a nine mil or .385. The trajectory suggests that she was in the air or her attacker was kneeling. The bullet nicked either the ascending aorta or the subclavian artery. I won’t know until or
if
I get to open her up,” he glanced at Kemmy and back to Jodi.

“Though there should be an exit wound, there isn’t.” He took a sip of coffee, nodded gratefully to the man who brought the cup. “And so we should be able to get the bullet for comparison.” He lifted a second finger. “Two. Triple parallel wounds—maybe a blade, maybe a claw, severed her carotid arteries, external jugulars, her trachea, and esophagus, delivered from left to right, the killing strike likely delivered with the attacker behind her, though I may change that when I get a better look. It’s also possible that she was on her hands and knees and the attacker was over her.”

I instantly pictured a shape-changer trying to change forms, as if after a nearly mortal wound. Safia, in my imagination, had been shot and was bent over, kneeling on the floor as she tried to force a change to save her life. Kemnebi closed his eyes, his dark face ashen. His breath was slow, uneven; he shouldn’t have to hear this, but I could think of no way to exclude him.

“Barring anything on further analysis,” Peter said, “COD is likely to be from exsanguination from the throat wound. She probably bled out in a matter of seconds. Prior to that, she fought an attacker and displays several premortem defensive wounds and abrasions. Postmortem, she was mauled in what looks like an animal attack, similar to a scavenger. But I’ll have to verify all this back at the morgue. Again assuming I get the chance,” he said. I thought of Katie and the fresh blood that had fallen on her chest.
Crap. Katie ate dead meat. Would that make her nutso longer?

“I’ve collected physical evidence, including fibers, dust, hair, and saliva from her postmortem attacker, and particulate matter, all of which already went back to HQ. I figure the DS techs, if they bring any, will want some sent to Quantico, so I collected a matching set for them, everything in duplicate, where possible. Jodi, I know that the crime-scene techs will take a lot longer at the scene. When they’re done, I’d like the rugs from the area around the victim.”

Jodi drummed her fingers on the table. “I’ll see they’re sent to you once CSI has a chance to go over them. And we’ll keep the room sealed until further notice. Thanks, Peter.”

The coroner stood and left the room, his empty coffee cup on the table. I had a feeling the caffeine wouldn’t keep him awake once he got home. A CSI tech poked her head in the room and located Jodi, a big grin on her face. “We found a shell casing in the office. It might be a match for that other case we’ve been working on.” The two women held gazes and my radar perked up. I didn’t know about another case, but if it intersected with this one, I wanted to know. “And Detective? We found another way into and out of the office. A doorway hidden behind an armoire. It has an antiquated locking system—lever and bolt—and there’s blood on it.”

Jodi spun her chair to Leo and leaned forward, forearms on her knees, her head jutted forward and her expression totally focused. If she’d been a wolf, she would have been hunting. “Mr. Pellissier, you didn’t think it relevant to mention that there’s another exit from the room where a murder took place?”

“Many rooms in Mithran institutions and abodes contain additional, concealed egress. We have needed such for two thousand years, to protect us from Christians and from vampire hunters.” He slanted a glance my way but I didn’t react to the barb. I had wondered if the room had a second outlet when I first saw it. Leo turned back to Jodi, who looked like she was trying to digest something noxious. Maybe the coffee. Leo went on, “I will not allow you access based on diplomatic security considerations.”

“I’ll find a judge who will grant me access,” Jodi ground out. “And until then, you stay out of the office.” Leo just smiled at her order, showing a hint of teeth, but no fang. Unless Jodi left an armed guard on the place twenty-four/seven, Leo would go where he wanted when he wanted. And with his ability to mesmerize humans, even an armed guard might not keep him out.

Someone set a ceramic mug beside me and I drank, noticing that it was tea, green and smooth with a floral top note. Good tea. Helped me think. I was trying to arrange the threads of the case and make a coherent picture, but nothing was fitting together. Which might make sense if it was more than one case, overlapping in time but not really a part of one another. That wasn’t likely, but that didn’t make it impossible.

The last hour of the night went by quickly with nothing much accomplished in terms of apprehending a suspect. I did find a moment to pull Jodi to the side to ask a few questions, leading with, “Your people found a shell casing in the office. What other case are you working on?”

Jodi had no reason to answer; most cops don’t share information. However, Jodi had been agreeable about info sharing from the moment I met her. She nodded to the nearest hot coffee, this pot set up by the staff in a hallway, on a small, white-draped table. She poured one for herself and sipped. I was nursing a second cup of tea and I sipped with her, my movements a mirror image. “I don’t know how you live without this stuff,” she said.

“It’s nasty. I like tea.” I lifted my mug to her.

“I know. It’s weird to see the vamps cater to your tastes.”

“Yeah. I kill them for a living. You’d think it would make them less likely to serve me.”

“And why hire you? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Either they think that since I can kill them I must be good, and they might as well use my talents, or they’re keeping me close to the chest.”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” Jodi asked. “Like that?”

I gave a could-be shrug. “So. What case?”

“Orleans County has some cold cases on file from the sixties that my unit has been looking into since an anonymous tip a few weeks back.”

The phrase “a few weeks back” echoed inside me. I’m not an adherent to the religion of coincidence. I wondered if the cold cases were related to the wolves’ evidence against Leo, evidence I hadn’t had a chance to investigate. Had the wolves called in the “tips”?

“The victims were chest shots, execution style, people who were close to the vamp population about the time they came out of the closet. The only evidence recovered from the kill sites were .385 rounds and shell casings, fired from the same semiautomatic weapon. The casings have the same set of prints on them, prints not listed in AFIS.”

AFIS—the nation’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System—stored and compared fingerprints and was responsible for matching up a lot of felons with crimes. I dipped my chin to show I was listening.

“There’s not a lot of evidence left after Katrina came through—all the paperwork was ruined in the storage units—and I know we may never make an arrest in the cold cases, but if we can tie the shell casings and bullets to a current murder, then we can at least close the old ones.” Jodi was watching me, gauging my reaction. This wasn’t idle chitchat or information sharing. This was leading me by the nose to some place she wanted me to go.

I said, “And the rounds?”

“The ones from the cold cases have a score mark along them, visible to the naked eye. Any gun leaving that kind of scoring would have been useless at any distance, but perfect for close-in work.”

“Like a lucky gun, kept around for special kills?”

“Exactly. We’re running the prints on the casing in the office to see if they match the old ones. As soon as we have a bullet to compare to, we’ll be able to open a new case file and merge all the old, cold ones in.”

“And who do you suspect in the old murders?” I asked. Knowing. Just knowing.

“George Dumas or Leo Pellissier.”

I hadn’t known I had feelings beyond desire for Bruiser until she said his name. And I hadn’t realized I felt protective about Leo either. Stupid. Just plain stupid to feel anything about either one of them, protective of the monster or ... whatever it was I felt for his blood meal. But there you have it. Feelings aren’t logical or sensible.

“You got any problems with that?” Jodi asked.

“No. No problems at all,” I lied with a straight face, hoping I was pulling it off. “Why haven’t you asked Bruiser and Leo to give prints for matching in the cold cases?”

“Politics,” Jodi spat, as if it were an ugly word. “After I get enough to make an arrest, and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,
then
,
maybe
, I’ll get to haul them in and chat with them and hopefully fingerprint them.”

“Have you checked their clothes for GSR?”

“They’re bagged and on the way to the lab. There was just too much to work with here.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking of Leo’s clean clothes. Thinking that whistle-blowers in a vamp organization might get drained and dead instead of just fired. Thinking that Leo hadn’t left the ballroom while Safia was being killed. I pulled my cell and saw that it was after eight a.m. on Friday. “Jodi.” Staring at the face of the cell that Leo had provided, I said, “Leo changed clothes. And Bruiser has access to every locking system in the HQ.” She didn’t answer and I stared at the cell’s face, not wanting to look up. “I’m going home to bed. Call me if you need me.”

“Jane.”

I shifted my eyes to hers.

“Thanks. If he’s guilty then he should be behind bars.”

I didn’t know which
he
she was referring to. Jodi was a law-and-order, by-the-book kinda girl, so either man, if he looked guilty, would get the benefit of her legal teeth in his leg. She’d be like a rat terrier shaking a buffalo. “I know.” I turned and left the building, taking the stairs down from vamp central, into the morning, my dress swinging and swishing against my legs. As I walked, I called Rinaldo; he was in the Quarter, just finishing breakfast, and promised he’d be with me in ten minutes. I walked on, knowing moving would make me harder to find, but needing the push of heart and lungs, the feel of blood pumping and muscles stretching and contracting.