The Voodoo Killings (30 page)

Aaron nodded. Probably wondering how to explain a paranormal killing spree to his boss. “Don’t touch anything you don’t have to. Forensics needs to come through here again.”

I frowned at him, but he’d already turned away. I knew not to touch anything. It hadn’t been that long since I’d worked a crime scene.

As soon as I heard the back door close, I went back to scanning the yard. It took me less than a minute to find an intact symbol lodged on one of the lower cherry tree branches. I spotted a second intact symbol burned into the grass. The ground was still wet. Was she out here watering the tree and garden maybe? Waste of water with all the rain we’d been having.

I pulled out Lee’s Jinn textbook and flipped to the Ifrit pages I’d flagged, then on to a section on Manids, Water Jinn. I found the symbols from the cherry tree on the second incomplete ring, along with one of the ones I’d found at Marjorie’s, and another I recognized from the zombie’s murder in the tunnels. The water found near all three victims was starting to make sense….

“Shit.” Someone was trying to create a Water Jinn, the most powerful and dangerous of the lot. And whoever it was had just graduated to live subjects.

I stood up, stuffing another wave of nausea.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I got it out and checked the ID, then dropped my globe.

Max.

I don’t think I’ve ever answered a phone that fast in my life. “Max, you lying son of a bitch.”

“Kincaid, please, you’re loud enough to wake the dead.”

“Who the hell is Gideon Lawrence?”

After a moment, Max said, “An evil, troubled spirit.”

“Troubled? Try homicidal. And by the way, he wants to be paid for whatever the hell you bought from him.” I proceeded to fill Max in on my run-in with Gideon, then told him about Cameron’s binding instability. “Anyone pulls a globe in Cameron’s vicinity, he drops like a rag doll. You were almost out a zombie last night. Again.”

“Tomorrow morning at sunrise. Bring Cameron to me then.”

“Not tomorrow—
now
.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath. If I hadn’t been so pissed off, I might have toned it down.

“I’m sorry, Kincaid, but I can’t take him now. I have my reasons—”

“Max, you’ve never messed up a zombie like this. Hell, you’ve never messed
anything
up like this.” I glanced at the kitchen window. “I’ve got a good mind to tell Aaron.”

“No! Kincaid, you mustn’t—”

“Then give me a non-bullshit reason.”

He took another sharp breath. “Kincaid, I think I know what went wrong, why Cameron’s bindings are not right….”

“I’m waiting.”

“I believe Cameron’s death was not accidental.”

I just about choked. “He was murdered?” Shit. If Cameron had been murdered, someone out there knew he was dead. What if that someone had seen me with Cameron and put two and two together about the fact he was a zombie?

Max interrupted my panic. “I’ve been consulting with ghosts, trying to track down one who might have seen something. It has been very draining, which is why I am only now returning your calls.”

“In what universe did I not need to know about Cameron being
murdered
? Someone could be looking for him. They could be looking for
me
.”

“I didn’t want to worry you unduly with an old man’s suspicions. If I had known sooner…”

“Max, have you ever played a game of dominoes? You line these carefully balanced rectangles up until they
all fall over
. You should try it sometime.”

“Kincaid, these events have been beyond my control.”

I sighed. Yelling would make me feel a hell of a lot better, but it wouldn’t get me closer to a fix. “All right, so who murdered him? Maybe I can figure out a way to broach this with Aaron so that neither of us ends up in jail.”

“The ghosts are foggy on the details. Whether by coercion or otherwise, I am not sure. I need more time.”

“Not what I want to hear!”

“I do not know what Cameron’s killer wants, but I do know that he or she has not exposed Cameron’s death.”

Yet
being the operative word.

Max hurried on. “It is possible they do not understand what Cameron has become. I doubt the killer will show himself to you—there are always people around you. But I live in the middle of nowhere. Cameron is safest with you.”

That made sense, but now I was covering up a murder. “I never thought I’d say this, Max, but you need to call Aaron. We’ll tell him—I don’t know what we’ll tell him, but we need to fill him in.”

“Give me until tomorrow morning, please.”

“
No
, you need police protection—I need police protection.”

“Kincaid?”

I turned to see Aaron standing on the back porch, frowning at me.

I swore under my breath. “Look, Max, I need to go. But we are going to talk about this.”

“Tomorrow morning, sunrise,” he said.

“No fucking way—” The line clicked. “Max?” The dial tone cut in. He’d hung up on me. Again. Like hell was I letting him get away with this. I hit Redial.

“Something wrong?”

I hit End Call, took a deep breath and turned around. Aaron was a few feet away, studying me.

“That depends,” I said. I shoved the phone back into my pocket.

“On?” Aaron said.

I pointed to the tree. “On what you think about a serial killer using Otherside to try to make an undead mythical monster.”

—

I edged closer to the door as the coroner pulled a second body out of the cooler. I figured Dr. Heathcliff Blanc had to be in his late thirties to early forties. He was tall, almost as tall as Cameron, but carried himself awkwardly, as if he’d never quite caught up with his teenage growth spurt. He tended to hunch over everything, which made him appear more quirky than he really was. He’d been with the Seattle coroner’s office well before I’d started, but I’d for the most part managed to avoid him. Dr. Blanc had an unsettling interest in the undead.

I shouldn’t be one to talk. I work with the dead, I talk to the dead, I raise the dead—hell, I even hang out with the dead. You’d think a coroner would be right up my alley.

Think again.

I swear it’s the smell of formaldehyde and bleach. I felt like a pet going into the vet’s office. And Dr. Blanc wouldn’t stop talking….Aaron and Sarah had both ducked out. Damn them.

“Huh?” I’d missed whatever it was Dr. Blanc had said.

“I was saying this is a fascinating case, Ms. Strange.”

He opened two metal fridge doors and slid out two bodies: Marjorie, whom I’d known, and the person whose home I’d just been in, a paler and older version of the woman in the picture. The only obvious marks on either body were from the autopsy cuts.

Okay, a zombie dying, sure, unique. But
fascinating
?

The doctor continued. “This woman—the zombie—beautiful preservation by the way, a completely intact and functioning nervous system. Not something I see every day, and I consider myself somewhat of an animated-dead expert. Her cause of death is unique—”

“I’m sorry, did you just call yourself an animated-dead expert?”

He broke into a smile. “Yes. My research thesis was on the effects of long-term animation on the body.” He turned back to Marjorie, pointing. “You can see where she was restrained, here and here.”

I peered at the white depressions on Marjorie’s wrists and ankles.

“She’d been running the coffee house for years, no one ever the wiser she was a zombie, a seamless integration. In fact, when the police did some checking, they found she’d owned the place since 1898. She disappeared every few decades, left a family member in charge. She kept in close contact with her nieces and nephews. They had to be aware of her condition. I wonder how many families have a similar relationship with an undead relative?”

And people wonder why the undead stay hidden? “Marjorie,” I said.

He gave me a blank stare.

“The zombie on the table? Her name was Marjorie.”

The realization hit, but maybe not the right one. “You’ll have to forgive me. The detectives mentioned you were acquainted with the victim.” Dr. Blanc moved around the table and carried on. “On first inspection, although the zombie and human victims were both restrained, there is no other superficial trauma.”

I knew I shouldn’t tap Otherside again so soon, but I was impatient. I tapped the barrier and focused through the nausea until traces of hazy Otherside gold appeared on Marjorie’s body. Her bindings hadn’t been removed, they’d been massacred; not even a single gold thread remained intact. I glanced at the human victim, Rachel McCay. Even though there’d been no bindings to undo, the same hazy Otherside glow encompassed her as well.

Dr. Blanc was watching me intently. I dropped my globe and nodded at the bodies. “Marjorie died because her bindings were ripped off. The same method seems to have been used on the human victim as well.”

He inclined his head. “I will defer to your expertise on the zombie—I mean, on Marjorie. But I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on cause of death of the second victim. She was most definitely drowned.”

Dr. Blanc brought over a metal tray and showed me two lungs, not pink, as they would be in a living person, but an in-between white. They were filled with water.

“When I determined Ms. McCay had been drowned and considered the similarities between both scenes, I moved Marjorie’s autopsy up on my list of priority cases. Though I doubt that was the cause of her ceased animation, she too had been submerged long enough for her lungs to fill with water.”

Had Lou overlooked drowning in his thirteen victims, all found near water?

“Ms. Kincaid?”

I glanced up from Marjorie’s lungs to Dr. Blanc. “Otherside might not have killed her,” I said, nodding at Rachel McCay, “but whoever killed her used the same Otherside signature that was used on Marjorie. Thanks for your time, doctor.”

I turned to leave, but Dr. Blanc stopped me. “Ms. Kincaid?”

I turned to face him.

“Don’t mistake my enthusiasm for what I discovered in the autopsy as an insult to Marjorie. My profession is the dead, and I take it very seriously. If I don’t know my zombies and ghouls, what kind of a doctor of the dead am I? Too many people come through here too young, too sick or having been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He shook his head. “I’d be happy to see all of them get up and walk off these tables.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you come off a little creepy?”

He smiled. “Frequently.”

Before he could say anything more, Aaron came in to retrieve me.

“You ditched me in there on purpose,” I said as we exited the morgue through the side entrance, the one that led into the hidden back parking lot. There was no sign of Sarah.

“You should have seen how excited he was when I said I was bringing you in.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet. At least Sarah had the good sense not to come back. You, on the other hand, forget I know exactly how you work.”

“Really?”

I smiled. “Along the lines of ‘I’ll bring the practitioner in to see you if you move my zombie autopsy up.’ ”

“Is that how it is?”

“Yup,” I said, and headed for the car.

Aaron grabbed my hand and spun me around until I faced him.

“Aaron,” I warned.

“I thought you knew exactly how I worked.”

The heat rose in my face as I realized we were alone for the first time since my apartment….A familiar smile played on Aaron’s face, his hand warm as it held mine.

My body responded in spite of myself. Just the two of us here right now, with no one else in the world watching or judging…

I wrapped my hands around Aaron’s neck and pulled his face down to mine.

He kissed me with the ferocity I’d forgotten. His hands slid under my jacket and I sighed as their warmth radiated up my back and along the skin under my breasts. My god, I needed the warmth. I had been so cold the last three months….

Aaron’s mouth moved on to my throat, finally settling on the spot below my ear. He bit it lightly, making me gasp. I was the one who kissed him this time, then pushed him back against the wall, keeping him at arm’s-length. Aaron waited for what would or would not happen next, watching me, his expression unguarded, full of longing.

It had been so long, and I wanted, no,
needed
this….

“Aaron, take me back to your place before I change my mind.”

CHAPTER 18

GHOSTS

I edged myself down the gravel path, grabbing the wet grass to stop myself sliding down to the beach…well, rocks more than beach…Why can’t the ghosts I need to talk to ever hang out in easy-to-reach places? Like an old bar, or the park? No, they hang out in condemned buildings and under the pier. The lengths I’d go to solve a murder worried me.

One hour with Aaron had turned into two. I guess that’s what happens when you avoid someone you are physically attracted to for three months. Why is it that brief moments of weakness always lead to the big mistakes?…Or was it a mistake? That was maybe the part I couldn’t wrap my head around. Aaron hadn’t pressured me for anything afterwards. I’d told him what I knew about the Jinn, and what I thought our killer was trying to do. When I’d asked him to drop me off in the square, he hadn’t even argued. Then again, I hadn’t told him what I planned to do next.

The fact that a fine drizzle had made everything slippery wasn’t helping. I probably could have gone straight to the docks and climbed down one of the ladders, since very few people were out in this weather.
But better safe than sorry when contacting ghosts….The last thing they need is an audience—derails the conversation too much.

First I’d tried the ruins of the Oriental Hotel in the underground city, but it had been a complete bust. That area smelled bad; it was full of rats and who knew what else after dark….I’d made contact with one of the crib girls and one of the three murdered prostitutes. After I’d flashed a bottle of laudanum, which I keep handy for dealing with turn-of-the-century ghosts, they’d been more than happy to tell me what they remembered. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much, only a handful of images seared into their minds right before they died. But they both mentioned the same smell: a chemical odour that had burned their noses and throats.