Chapter 39
Wade returned and mumbled something to Angel, who nodded and tugged me up.
“Can you talk with our DB if he’s not in the morgue?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. I think so. I can try the morgue again…” Though I couldn’t even bring myself to look over his shoulder where the door stood in the distance.
“We’ve got a viewing room ready,” Wade said. “If it’s too much, let us know and we’ll make Sarge call another SV in. I don’t know what the fuck the hospital did to you, but traumatizing SVs is not the way to improve our staffing levels.”
“I’ll be okay,” I promised, without really knowing if I could help at all. Angel kept himself between me and the far door, holding me up. His warmth and magic made me sleepy, soothing away the worst of the anxiety as Wade led us away from the morgue.
We entered a small, brightly lit viewing room.
The wall of glass overlooked a large, familiar, empty space in which they often rolled in gurneys with bodies for identification.
But inside stood the figure of a man, unmoving, head down, harsh lights blazing over him from above.
The zombie—our DB—stood unnervingly straight, as if held by invisible strings.
I approached the window, taking in the tattered and torn clothing, the gray/black cast of his skin, or what was left of it.
Had he been dead that long, or was it a burn?
Some of the worst murder victims I’d reviewed over my career had been burned to try to cover up the crime.
I tried not to stare as my stomach did a wobbly roll, threatening to regurgitate my morning coffee and breakfast sandwich.
The DB moved, head tilting up as if he could sense us close, or maybe just me. But his milky eyes stared at us through the glass. I catalogued his features, trying to overlook the physical damage and see beyond what had been done to him, to find things to use to identify him.
His death hadn’t been easy, that much was clear.
And since he was still somewhat fresh, having eyes—and enough juice left to leave fluids leaking from his ears and mouth—I figured, maybe a few days dead?
Had there been any recently reported missing males between twenty and forty?
What remained of his outfit appeared to be a polyblend that made me think it was some sort of workout thing; running pants, or leggings of some kind.
I swallowed, throat dry, as my gaze roamed over blood stains—or was that candle wax?
Tightness lingered in my chest, Angel’s presence keeping the heaviest wave of anxiety away as I catalogued the man’s many injuries.
Not that the ME wouldn’t give me a long list down the road, but sometimes seeing it all helped put together the puzzle pieces and reveal the whole picture: beaten, bled, and burned.
At least part of that while he was alive.
“Do spells…” How did I ask without sounding like a total, clueless piece of shit? “Require torture?”
Angel squeezed my hand. “Some of them, yes.”
“They almost always require blood,” Wade agreed.
“And fire?”
“Could be a cover up,” Angel offered. “Can you sense him at all? Get any information from him? Or is it just a shell now? Without any actual memory?”
I sucked in a deep breath, praying silently that whatever made this man who he had been had escaped the horrors.
A whisper of something lingered, and I wasn’t certain if it was an actual voice or simply a sensation of one.
I stepped closer to the window—my reflection showing apprehension as I raised my hand to rest it palm open on the glass—and focused on the zombie.
Not zombie, I reminded myself. Victim. Someone had done this to him, and as always, it was my job to be his voice.
A connection flared between us, sharp and electric.
I gasped as the DB turned his head to stare directly at me, locking my gaze with his vacant one.
Only, it wasn’t completely vacant. Images crashed into me, fragmented and chaotic: running—at first it seemed a normal jog, then one of racing for his life filled with panic, then pain and blood, terror, screams drowned out by chanting and candlelight.
A fire that grew, and pain that erupted into pure torture.
I ripped my hand from the glass, stumbling back into Angel, who wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Holy fuck.” I gasped for air.
“What did you see?” Wade asked.
“Give him a minute,” Angel said.
The DB stared at me, and I sensed for a few seconds that something of who he had been remained.
No. That was beyond cruel. One of the things I always reminded myself when viewing a body in a morgue was that it was only a shell.
What made them who they were was gone. Was it me holding him here?
Had I dragged him back, or had part of who he was been stuck inside the rotting flesh because of the spell?
I stepped up to the glass, putting both hands on it this time and meeting his gaze. “Give me what you need for me to know,” I said. “And let go. There is no need to hold on to this pain.”
The connection flared, my world swirling in an array of images.
I knew what he’d looked like before the murder.
The idea of his name trickled through my mind, and a long glimpse of his last few hours, as painful as they’d been.
He recalled something wriggling through the dark as if the spell summoned it.
A symbol etched through the night and a pinprick of stars overhead to unleash something.
Only, the DB hadn’t been alive when it finally came through, and the memories stopped abruptly.
His death had turned off the brain’s connection.
I blinked away the horror and let out a long breath. The DB tumbled. Whatever magic had held it together vanished as it fell into a heap on the floor. It lay unmoving, strings cut, the last dregs of mortality severed.
“What happened?” Wade asked.
A chill filled the room. Even Angel turned his head to gaze to our left. Could he see the man like I could? A ghost, as he was see-through, but he looked unhurt now. Free from the human remains, he was young and handsome.
“Do you remember your name?” I asked, needing to clarify the snippets my memory gave me.
Roan Michaels. The voice in my head wasn’t mine, but I nodded.
“Thanks, Roan. Can you remember anything about those who attacked you?”
He frowned, his expression morphing for a few seconds into something exaggerated and filled with terror.
Ex.
An ex was involved?
“What is your ex’s name?” I tried.
Brandon.
Fuck. It was too much of a coincidence to think there was another Brandon involved in all this. First, he’d tried to beat me to death in that field, then I’d found bodies there. It had to be one and the same.
“Brandon as in Brandon Cassidy,” I asked to confirm.
Yes.
“Thank you, Roan. Do I need to do something to help you move on?”
The ghost stared at me for a long moment, his form flickering like a dying light. Then, without a word, he closed his eyes and vanished, taking the chill with him. I sucked in a sharp breath and leaned back into Angel’s arms, my heart racing.
“His name was Roan Michaels,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “He said Brandon Cassidy was part of the group that attacked him. They used him for a ritual to summon something, but he died before it came through. I don’t know if he just didn’t see it, or if his death stopped it.”
I traced a symbol on the glass, trying to recall the intricate details I’d seen in Roan’s memories. My finger moved almost on its own, drawing jagged lines and sharp angles. But before I could finish, Angel caught my hand, his grip firm, stopping me.
“Don’t,” he said. “I know what that is.”
My gut twisted at the tension in his voice. “What is it?”
“The Shadow King,” Angel hissed, his arms tightening around me. “Erlik.”
“Who?” I asked, though the name alone sent a shiver down my spine.
Wade stepped closer, his face pale. “Erlik was one of the dark gods who tried to tear the world apart during the last war. If they were trying to summon him…” He trailed off, his jaw tightening.
“I don’t think they succeeded,” I said quickly, more to reassure myself than anyone else. “Roan died before they could finish the ritual. That has to mean something, right?” With a bunch of other bodies found, did that mean they’d tried this multiple times and failed?
“Maybe,” Angel said. “But if they were summoning Erlik, they’ll try again. And next time, they might not fail.”
Despite Roan’s absence, I shivered with a growing internal chill. The half-drawn symbol on the glass, etched and glowing, as if with magic, called to me as if I could finish it and make the darkness rise.
I shook my head and tugged Angel toward the door, in desperate need of a breather.
The revelation that I could not only communicate with the dead but also release them eased my anxiety a touch.
Was leaving the soul tied to the body part of the ritual?
Would there be enough of the other remains to give me a sense of who they were?
For the first time since I’d had my world turned upside-down at the daycare, I felt a sense of hope, a reason for this nightmare to be placed in my path.
How many times had I wished that I could magically ask the dead for answers?
Tell me who did this, help me bring them to justice.
While I’d never voiced those things out loud, I suspected a lot of the detectives who worked in homicide did the same.
At least, those who wanted to solve crimes and bring closure to the families of the dead.
We stood in the hall, my back to the far end where the morgue stood, and I wondered how to best help. Overcome my fear of going into the meat locker of the dead? Just thinking about that space made me nauseous.
“One of the MEs has an office down near the elevator,” Wade said.
“I can talk to more of the dead, I think.” Or at least try, I thought.
“Let’s record everything you just saw and experienced first,” Angel said. “I don’t want you to forget any details.”
I glanced up at him, his hand resting on my lower back as he kept firmly in my bubble, his magic a subtle wall of strength around me. Without him, I’d have been a mess, but I felt bad needing him to ground me.
“We’re good,” Angel said, as if he could sense my inner struggle.
Wade stood behind us, a silent wall to block out the distant door, waiting.
“Okay. Let’s record, and then maybe we can see the other remains in the viewing room?” I offered. To say that I wasn’t afraid of what I’d see would have been a lie. But I’d never let even the nastiest of crime scenes deter me from seeking justice for the dead, and I wasn’t about to start now.