Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
They ended up back at Major Crimes, all packed into the conference room Nick had been in earlier. The pictures looked even more gruesome because now every time Nick looked at one, he saw Gile. Every bloody remnant was what would happen if they failed to find the others.
“How much time—”
“The public has the right—”
“What sort of circle could even begin—”
“I’m going to contact my teacher and then see if the alchemy council has any—”
Everyone was talking on top of each other, captains and detectives. Zahide strategized with Tate, her eyes going to Nick, trying to get his attention, but Nick was watching Parker. His husband had walked over to the pictures, his eyes focused on a headshot of Cayo Durkavic.
“How did Durkavic get infected?” Parker asked.
His question cut through the noise in the room. McArdle turned away from her captain to stare at him.
“What?” she asked.
“Cayo Durkavic. He’s the first one we know of, right?
Our patient zero, the guy who won’t admit he smuggled a monkey into the country, the guy who got bit by a zombie and doesn’t tell anyone back at the human-only zone?
How did he get infected? The CSI and Gile only showed evidence of it after Durkavic.
That tells me they got it from him or what was left of him, so how did Durkavic get it? ” Parker asked.
“It feels like you have an idea,” Tate said. “Spit it out, Ferro.”
“No, that’s the thing—I really don’t have any idea.
I am a blank slate, no daily specials written on this blackboard,” Parker said.
“Durkavic wasn’t a practicing alchemist. At least, nothing in his car or house indicated that he practiced on the side.
” Parker shrugged. “So where did he pick up an alchemy spell so complicated that it became a parasite able to speak?”
“And how exactly do you know what’s in his car and home?” Owens, the Major Crimes captain, asked.
“The important thing is he didn’t practice alchemy,” Parker said loudly. “So…”
“So who in his life did?” McArdle asked. She walked over to the board.
“Some of us haven’t become familiarized with the case yet,” Rios said. “Could you read us in?”
“Of course, sir.” McArdle straightened her shoulders, hands clasped behind her back.
“Yesterday, we received a call at 1:17 p.m. about a murder. The initial response indicated that there was only one living person found—Parker Ferro. From what we can determine, based on evidence left at the scene, Cayo Durkavic arrived, entered the facility, and exploded within two minutes. A lack of blood spatter on his clothing indicated that Mr. Ferro was not in the room at the time.”
“Or he had a shield like his husband used to save both of us,” Murtola said.
Rios raised both eyebrows and turned to Parker. “Can you tell us what you saw?”
“I already explained to Major Crimes, but I’d been following Durkavic for a few weeks.
He had some honeypot scheme with an older lady who lives in the hills.
I haven’t quite figured out his angle yet, but the daughter seems absolutely convinced that he wants Mom’s inheritance.
” Parker shook his head. “This guy is a fitness freak. I can’t see him going into a smoke shop, even for cannabis.
He got Mom off of most of her medications, convincing her that ingesting any chemicals would only shorten her life. ”
“So what was he doing there?” Nick asked. “Did you find whoever was working the counter? Or who called 911?”
“The 911 call came from a prepaid cell phone.” Murtola shook his head. “We called the owner of the smoke shop. He gave us the name of his employee, Frederick Learn, but the guy is in the wind, gone.”
“Or we’re about to find a puddle of person soup somewhere else in San Amaro,” Parker muttered.
“That’s a possibility.” McArdle turned, frowning at the board. “But we had 911 operators tag anything with unusual blood evidence. Nothing has come in so far.”
“So a fitness freak walks into a smoke shop. We don’t know why.
The man working the counter is gone.” Tate crossed his arms. “We don’t know if Durkavic came in infected with the alchemy circles or if he got infected in the shop.
We need nine points of contact, but we don’t know if Durkavic is the first one—”
“Or someone else infected him,” Nick said. “Durkavic would have had to come in infected. Parker, you said he was only in there a couple of minutes, you heard shouting, and you came to the door.”
Parker nodded. “And you were saying that the circle takes a few minutes to jump from one person to another. It took hours for it to get large enough to kill Buford—the CSI.”
“Maybe that was it,” Nick said, slowly, working out the logic, even as it gave him a headache.
“Zahide, the circle was trying to jump to us as we were in the room. Before an explosion. But what if the reason it took so many hours to get large enough to kill him was because it started small instead?”
“You’re suggesting it was on the bone fragments,” Zahide worked out. She made a face. “How could a circle that complex be small enough to work on a bone fragment?”
“I don’t know. But if… if Durkavic was the carrier, he probably infected Learn.” Nick looked at Captain Tate, as the captain made a face.
“We need to get an APB out on Learn.” Tate turned and looked at Rios. “How public should we be with this?”
“It’s a highly contagious new form of magical parasite.” Rios rubbed his hands over his face. “We need to be as public as possible.”
“So that’s one. Now we just need to find the rest of our boy band.” Parker walked over to the whiteboard, uncapping one of the markers and writing down Gile’s and Learn’s names. Underneath, he put eight dots.
“What makes you say boy band?” McArdle said.
“So far, they’re all men,” Parker said. “But that could just be the ones we found. We need to track Gile’s movements this morning. Where was he before he came in? Was he infected at the crime scene or by the CSI before the break room got the Carrie treatment?”
“I saw the CSI earlier today, before Gile even went on shift—I checked. If it was only a small circle on me, and if I was infected when I saw him…” McArdle raised both eyebrows, looking at Zahide and Nick. “It would take more time than that to spread the way it did in Gile, right?”
Nick considered, taking into account what he had seen, trying to figure out how it was even possible.
Then again, as most things had been over the past couple of years, he needed to think less about what was possible and just accept that it was happening.
His job was to work it into his new reality.
“So both Gile and the CSI were infected at the crime scene,” Parker said. “We confirmed he was working it?”
Rios nodded, looking up from a sheaf of papers he was examining.
“Gile was one of the first people on the scene. Before you talked to him, Gile was giving his statement. It looks like he went to four different locations before coming on shift this morning. Five if you count his house. We’re going to need teams to visit each of them. ”
“Are we allowing anyone to leave the station?” Nick asked, eyebrows going up.
Rios’ lips tightened. “We’re still waiting on the FBI and the Bureau of Paranormal Threats.
If you and Zahide can confirm that no one in this room is infected, I want to go to at least a few of these spots and clear them.
If this parasite is half as infectious as you say, then we could have the whole city infected by noon. ”
Nick was already shaking his head. “I don’t feel comfortable saying anything about this parasite. It’s an entirely new variation on alchemy that I have never seen before. For all we know, it could be hiding—it could be so small that Zahide and I wouldn’t notice.”
“All the more reason that we need to figure out who the other ten targets are,” Rios said. “Can you clear the people in this room?”
Nick exhaled a long breath, thinking about McArdle and Gile. They were running out of time to find the other people infected.
“Yes.” He said it grudgingly, unhappy, but realizing that everyone was in the same spot. The BPT would take time to get caught up, time they didn’t have.
“Wait, why are we only checking out where Gile went?” Parker said. “We know two other people who were infected. Buford and Durkavic.”
“But neither one of those parasites threatened nine other people,” Rios said. “I was in that room, too, and it sounded like this one is in charge. So we need to start with his movements.”
Parker’s lips went flat, but he didn’t say anything else.
Nick and Zahide began systematically casting the magic on the people in the room, and he noticed Parker standing off to the side, eyes narrowed at the large board filled with pictures.
When he took a break, he sidled up to Parker. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that Durkavic might have been targeted on purpose.” Parker kept his voice low, but McArdle frowned, coming up close.
“What makes you think that?” she asked.
“The cop and the CSI were both at the crime scene after Durkavic exploded. But Nick, you said the circles on Gile were getting ready to jump victims before. So normally, infection happens before the soupification. Meaning that the cop and the CSI were just chance. It took advantage of the situation.” Parker frowned, leaning closer.
“Maybe it can only survive after the person dies for a finite amount of time. So it just jumped into two people at random.”
Nick shook his head. “No, not random. It’s a customized spell. It can’t jump randomly.”
Parker waved his hand. “But it was getting ready to jump into the three of you before Gile exploded. I think that’s its preference. If it’s like a virus, it can survive outside a host for a finite amount of time, but at a certain point, it dies.”
Nodding, Nick considered the photos again.
“So it jumps into the two people it can jump into. Given the fact that Gile hasn’t exploded yet, even though he told us his message…
” Nick’s eyes went wide as he began reconsidering his entire interaction with Gile.
“It’s going to wait until it can find a host before it explodes. ”
“Bingo,” Parker said. “So, either Durkavic was the one who spread the parasite like a modern Typhoid Mary, or the parasite wanted him goo and didn’t care that it might die killing him.”
“You think we should be tracking Durkavic’s movements,” Nick said.
“He’s either patient zero or the target of a very complicated assassination.” Parker shrugged. “I mean, a sentient, moving alchemy circle has to be twice as complicated as anything Arthur Conan Doyle came up with for Sherlock Holmes.”
“King, everyone in the room is clear,” Zahide said.
“Then here are assignments. I’m going to stay and wait for the Bureau of Paranormal Threats,” Rios said. “We’re going to put anyone available on tracking the CSI’s movements today.”
He passed out papers to everyone in the room, grouping them into pairs. Murtola and McArdle were going to check out Gile’s house. Avila and Zahide were going to the gym. A few other cops were visiting a gas station and pet store, respectively.
Nick and Parker were given a coffee shop that was close to the station. Parker made no mention of tracking down Durkavic’s whereabouts, and everyone walked out to the parking garage together, dispersing into unmarked sedans.
Avila pulled up next to Nick’s car. “Be careful.”
Nick nodded at her. “You, too.”
As he rolled up the window, he turned the keys in the ignition. “Okay. Where are we going really?”
“You said we were assigned the coffee shop.” Parker looked at him, all innocence, a small smile pulling at the side of his lips.
“But you think we need to be focusing on Durkavic, not Gile. So, where are we going?” Nick raised both eyebrows. “You can play cute and innocent—you’re very good at it—but I know you, Parker.”
“I’m not that predictable,” Parker grumbled.
“Trust me, I could set a metronome by how often you do things the SAPD has explicitly asked you not to,” Nick said.
“In this case, we weren’t told explicitly not to check out Durkavic.” Parker grinned in what Nick assumed he thought was a charming way.
“No, but we were told to check out the coffee shop.” Nick pulled onto the street, using his GPS to find the place.
“And we definitely should check it out,” Parker said. “And on our way back, maybe we make a few other stops.”
“Where?” Nick narrowed his eyes, turning to glance at Parker before returning his gaze to the street. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“I mean, that depends on how much you like the smell of stale beer and urine this early in the morning.” Parker smiled charmingly.
“A bar?” Nick asked.
“Even better. The Quarter.” Parker pulled a notepad out of his satchel, flipping to the last page he’d written on. “Durkavic’s last day was pretty busy. So if we’re going to make it back to the station in time that no one gets suspicious, we’re going to have to move quickly.”
Nick groaned. “Parker, the Quarter is all the way on the other side of town.”
“Yeah.” Parker checked his phone. “And you drive like a grandma, so they’re definitely going to wonder where we are.”
He glanced at Nick, and Nick knew he was being goaded, knew that Parker was pressing some of his buttons on purpose. Still, he shook his head.
“Grab me the light out of the back seat.” When Parker handed the temporary police light to him, Nick slapped it on the roof of the car, turning it on along with the siren. “You’d better be right about this, Parker.”
Parker’s head was turned away from him, watching the city streets as Nick flew through them, cars getting out of his way.
“In this case? I really hope I’m not,” he murmured.
Frowning, Nick drove faster.