Chapter 18
18
ELLIOT CRANE
How’s your friend?
SETH MAYS
She’s getting better, but still sick.
Thanks for asking.
At work though, gotta go.
I was on edge, and not only because Quincy wasn’t here with me. I’m not a big people-person—I can get along with people just fine in general, but I don’t like getting close to them. I’m close to Noah. Close-ish to Quincy. Close-ish-ish with Hart and Ward and Mason. Who the fuck knows what with Elliot.
I could get along, therefore, with Dara Aimes, the CSI tech who was subbing for Quincy. Aimes was competent enough—I had no complaints about her work or her work ethic. She just wasn’t Quincy. We didn’t have an easy rapport, and I couldn’t trust her to just do the things that Quincy did automatically. Because Aimes usually worked with Eddie Young, and she and I didn’t have a set routine.
Until Quincy came back—which she was absolutely going to do—I was playing a round-robin game with the rest of the techs. It put me on edge, because I was constantly having to adjust and readjust to someone new. Even if they were all perfectly fine people, they each worked a little differently, so I felt perpetually off-balance.
Yesterday, I’d brought over pizza for both Quincy and Aaron, and I’d met him for the first time. Not really my type, but attractive enough, I guess. Dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. Taller than Quincy by a handful of inches, but shy of my six-three. He’d looked utterly exhausted, and he’d hugged me briefly when I’d handed over the stack of three pizzas, which meant he was strung out and worried, and really, really grateful that he wasn’t going to have to be responsible for dinner on top of everything else. I knew other people from the lab had dropped off food or placed orders in the first week or so, but—as with everything—people tended to lose interest in being good Samaritans once a few days had passed, which is when things got really rough.
But even though she was definitely on the mend, Quincy still had a few days before she was up to actually working—and even then she’d probably stick to the lab for a week or so before they made her go back out into the field. Either way, I was looking forward to having her back.
Because then Aimes and I wouldn’t be about to get out of the CSI van at a crime scene. It would be Quincy, instead. And I wouldn’t feel like my nerves were completely shot. Like everything was horribly wrong .
I’d felt this way… I wasn’t even sure how long. Maybe even before Quincy got sick, although it had definitely go tten worse after that. I’d been unsettled for long enough that I couldn’t remember exactly when it had started. I thought maybe it was as early as that first Arcana case. But maybe it was the second?
Maybe it wasn’t the cases, maybe it was the whole thing with Elliot.
Or maybe it had already started before that, even. It was hard to say.
I frowned behind my mask, bunny suit already getting hot in the midday sun. A crime scene was hardly the ideal place to have an existential crisis, but my life had never been particularly convenient. If I’d been able to make life choices based on convenience, things probably would have been a lot different.
But was convenience really a reason to do things? To be things?
It certainly wasn’t convenient to be gay. But would I want to be straight? Honestly, no, not really. Not if it were something I could choose. I liked who I was. Maybe not everything I’d been through, but I wouldn’t change anything about myself now that I’d gotten here.
I’d never asked Noah if he ever wished he hadn’t become a shifter. Shifter or not, I certainly wouldn’t have ever wanted not to be Noah’s twin, even though we’d had to go through hell. I’d choose Noah every time, even if it wasn’t convenient.
“Mays!”
Maza’s sharp bark drew me out of my own thoughts. “Sorry, detective,” I apologized. “It’s been a rough few weeks.” I didn’t say the part about being without Quincy, mindful that Aimes was within earshot. It wasn’t her fault Quincy wasn’t here. Or that I was in a absolutely foul mood .
“How is she?” Maza asked, understanding exactly what I hadn’t said. There’s a reason he’s a detective, I guess.
“Better. Not a hundred percent, yet, but she’s on the way.” A week, maybe two, I reminded myself. Then things would be back to as normal as it ever got.
Maza nodded, the corners of his eyes shifting as he presumably smiled behind the masks we were now required to wear at all homicide scenes, regardless of whether they were inside or, like this one, outside. The uniforms especially bitched about it nearly constantly.
Then Maza turned his attention—first, instead of last, this time—to the body on the pavement. We were in an empty part of a parking lot of some industrial building off Robin Hood Road. There were a handful over here, and since we’d pulled up from the back, I hadn’t seen the company sign identifying it.
The victim was lying on his back, eyes staring sightlessly into the sun, pale skin already starting to get oddly waxy in the warm April day. There was a dark stain on the light-colored button-down over his lower abdomen, another on his chest, although I couldn’t make out any cuts in the fabric. To my admittedly unqualified—although not inexperienced—eyes, it looked as though he’d been dead for a while.
Except that he didn’t look like he’d been out here for a while. His skin looked almost chill, clammy, as though it were sweaty, but dead men didn’t sweat. I frowned.
“Let’s have a look, then, shall we?” came Tierney’s familiar, grandfatherly voice.
I stepped out of the way to let him approach the victim, then took a few more forward, curious about what Tierney was going to say .
His brow furrowed immediately. “This man has been moved,” he announced.
“How do you know that?” Maza asked.
Tierney waved a hand. “He’s condensating.”
“He’s what ?” Maza replied.
“Condensating,” Tierney repeated.
“Like a glass?” Maza said, incredulously.
“Exactly,” Tierney confirmed. “This body was cooled, then brought out here, where it’s much warmer.” He touched a gloved finger to the skin of the victim’s cheek, lifting it and showing us the wetness there.
“So how long has he been dead?” Maza asked.
Tierney shrugged. “It becomes very hard to tell when refrigeration has been used. I’ll be able to give you a window after the postmortem, but it’s going to be wider than either of us is going to like.”
Maza sighed, a long-suffering sound. “Great.” It was clearly sarcasm.
“We work with what we have, detective,” Tierney told him sagely.
I was about to turn to ask Aimes if she had a preference for fingerprinting or marking off possible evidence, when an odd gurgle came from near the body. Under it, maybe? Or… inside it?
“What was that?” I asked Tierney, who was looking down at the victim with some alarm.
“I honestly have no idea,” the usually unflappable ME replied, the furrow in his brow deepening as he leaned closer. I took a step forward?—
And was thrown backward as a blast of copper-smelling heat hit me in the face, soaking through my mask. My ears began to ring as the back of my skull hit the pavement, sending stars cascading through my vision .
Some part of my brain was screaming—maybe I was, too—and some other part had, very clinically, informed the rest of me that something had exploded. No, not something—the victim. The victim must have been concealing a bomb or other explosive device.
And the thick coppery wetness on my face was blood.
Mine or the victim’s or someone else’s— Tierney’s? Maza’s? —I didn’t know.
There must have been screaming. Shouts. People calling for backup or ambulances over the radios. Noises other than the long steady ringing note that was all I could hear. My head hurt. My eyes hurt. It was hard to breathe.
Don’t take off the mask.
I was supposed to wear it. I needed to wear it. But now it was covered in blood. Inhaling blood—especially if it wasn’t mine—was a bad thing.
I tried to fumble in my pocket for a clean one.
My arms weren’t working very well, my fingers feeling like thick sausages that couldn’t quite manage to grasp things. My one arm ached fiercely. My back stung. My head throbbed .
I choked, the blood saturating my mask making it hard to suck in air.
I couldn’t figure out how to find my own pocket.
Someone else ripped the mask off my face, their own still hidden behind RPD-issue navy blue fabric. The eyes over the mask wide with fear? Pain? Confusion? Concern? I couldn’t tell. They were a light grey-green, the skin around them pale with a few freckles and dotted with blood. Schitikova.
His mask was moving. He was talking, but I couldn’t hear him.
I still couldn’t breathe .
Things were getting dim, the world tilting, colors not quite right. I tried to suck in a breath, to make the darkness at the edges of my vision recede. I tried to reach my pocket again, my scrambled brain convinced that somehow a clean mask would help me get more oxygen, but my arms didn’t work, and I passed out before I managed to get at the damn thing.
I woke up as they loaded the gurney I was strapped to into an ambulance, the metal under the lumpy mattress pad rattling as the legs folded up beneath the bed. The medic walking next to me glanced down. “Welcome back,” she said, her voice muffled by her full medical-grade N95 mask. Her voice had the soft, familiar vowels of rural Virginia, and I wondered where she was from. If it was anywhere near where I’d grown up.
I tried to say something and discovered that there was a plastic breather over my nose and mouth. An attempt to move one arm brought a sharp pain near my elbow.
“No, don’t move, sugar,” the EMT told me, one warm gloved hand coming to rest on my arm. “We have you hooked up to an IV.”
I gurgled slightly, panic hitting. I didn’t know what they were giving me, and that was dangerous.
“It’s okay,” she soothed, the dark skin on her forehead slightly furrowed. “It’s just saline. We saw your med ID.”
I’m not big into jewelry, but Noah insisted that I wear a medical ID bracelet. My name, his name, his cell number, and the words ALPHA-GAL SYNDROME in large, all-caps letters.
This was why .
Well, not this, specifically, since I’m pretty sure that Noah couldn’t possibly have anticipated this . But some kind of medical emergency—a car accident, heat stroke, something normal that might require me to go to a hospital.
It’s unbelievable the shit I’m allergic to—anything with gelatin, glycerin, lactose, magnesium stearate, and even some forms of lactic acid. This takes out most major over-the-counter and a lot of prescription medications. No gel-caps or gel-tabs or caplets that aren’t explicitly vegan. No morphine, no oxy, none of the -pentins or -gabins, and half the manufactured brands of shit like acetaminophen.
So anybody giving me medication—or injections—needed to know that, or I’d end up in anaphylaxis, and nobody—especially me—wanted that. In the barely-aware state I was in, I probably couldn’t have remembered even half the shit I wasn’t supposed to take. I just knew that medicine that hadn’t been properly checked against a laundry list of things was potentially fatal.
But I guess my guardian angel-EMT was not only observant, but knew enough to only give me plain old salt and water.
Of course, the fact that they were giving me saline probably meant that I’d lost blood, and that also wasn’t great. Because sometimes—I don’t know if I was included in this or not, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way—people with alpha-gal can have anaphylactic reactions to blood transfusions.
But they knew I had alpha-gal, so, hopefully, that wasn’t going to be me. At least not today.
The gurney gave a final lurch as they pushed it in, my angel-EMT climbing in alongside me.
I turned my head, wanting to ask about Tierney. About Maza. About Aimes. The oxygen mask over my face turned it into a mumble. Or maybe I still couldn’t manage words.
My head was still throbbing. Breathing was still hard, although not as bad as before I’d passed out, probably because of the oxygen. My ribs hurt. My elbow hurt. My arm felt oddly numb.
The EMT patted my arm—the one that didn’t feel numb—again. “It’s okay, sugar. We’ll get you to the hospital and they’ll be able to give you something for the pain.”
She thought that’s why I was restless. I didn’t want drugs, though. Pain was an everyday fact. Not this much pain, mind you, but if you’re used to using the dissociation trick, it kicks in for major trauma just like it does for the everyday aches and pains.
I tried to pull the mask off so I could ask more clearly, but her gentle-but-firm hands stopped me. “No, sugar, we need you to stay on the oxygen.”
It was then that I remembered we had been hunting a killer who was trying to spread Arcanavirus. Stupidly, I hadn’t been thinking about it at the scene itself—because this wasn’t an early-morning call, like all the others had been. Because the body had been chilled and dumped, unlike the others. Because this had looked like a stabbing, not blunt force cranial trauma.
But why else would someone aerosolize the victim’s blood, if they didn’t want to infect a whole bunch of cops and crime scene personnel?
Blood I’d aspirated quite a lot of.
I could feel my body trembling, lungs tightening.
I’d had two panic attacks in my life.
The first, when I’d run away from home and gotten lost trying to get to the hospital where they’d taken Noah when his transformation began. Country roads look really similar to each other in the dark when you’re a kid on foot with no cell phone because your parents thought they were tools of the devil. Terrified, I’d sat down next to the highway, shaking and sobbing, praying to a God I didn’t really believe in. I’d thrown up until I had nothing left in my stomach, until the panic had wrung me out and left me lying there, a husk of a fifteen-year-old kid staring at a lightning bug blinking in the grass until I managed to get my shit together, get back on unsteady feet, and walk until I found a sign with directions—and then walked in the right one until I found another sign that pointed me toward the main highway I knew I needed.
The second I’d had, the night after I’d gotten home from Sweet Rose, the old plantation estate where a murderous cult had kept one of their oldest members as a magical revenant. Where Ward had used the dead to destroy said revenant, and a whole bunch of people had nearly been magically cannibalized. I’d been upstairs, and then I’d had to clean up the mess. I’d managed to keep my shit together around a whole bunch of other people who were having meltdowns of their own and then absolutely lost it the second I walked into my apartment.
Devin had brought me a glass of whiskey and asked me what was wrong, and when I couldn’t tell him, had told me that it couldn’t be that bad. At the time, I’d made excuses for him. He couldn’t know how horrific it had been because I couldn’t tell him. That he was trying to help me get myself under control—that his ‘tough love’ was good for me, because I’d always been too emotional.
But he’d probably just been a narcissistic dick.
This was panic attack number three.
Someone had called Noah, because he’d been ushered into my little curtained-off cubicle a few hours later, and I’d burst into tears all over again—not a panic attack this time, just a lot of stress mingled with relief. He was wearing a mask—because you had to in the hospital, whether you were a Nid or not—but I could see the worry in his eyes and the tightness across his forehead.
He immediately rushed to my side and bent over, pressing his forehead to mine, our masked noses touching despite the plastic oxygen tube coming out of mine.
I could move my arms now, my IV firmly taped in—for more saline, which they’d decided was sufficient rather than risk a blood transfusion—and I gripped his arms with still-shaky hands.
“Nono,” I managed, finally.
“Sethy,” came the answer. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “Not sure,” I replied, swallowing back the rest of the emotion that threatened to choke me. “I was standing by the… victim, and then…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain it.
“Then what?” Noah asked, pulling back, then going to grab a chair, pulling it close to the bed so he could hold one of my hands in his.
I swallowed. “A bomb? I’m… I’m not sure.”
“A bomb ?!”
“Noah, sssssh.” I didn’t know what to say. Noah clearly didn’t know anything about what happened, and I wasn’t sure how much I was allowed to share. I didn’t want to get in trouble, but I also didn’t want him causing a panic if somebody else overheard and actually took it seriously.
“What do you mean, a bomb ?” he hissed, still agitated, but at least lower in volume.
“I don’t know that that’s what it was,” I hissed back. “It felt like something hot and big threw me backward.” I didn’t mention the part about being covered in blood. I wasn’t still covered in it—the staff had helped clean me up, put me in a hospital gown. I had vague memories of that. The bunny suit and my clothes were now presumably in an evidence baggie somewhere, although I had no idea who would be collecting it.
Or who else was here in the hospital. Tierney? Aimes? Maza? I didn’t think Schitikova was, since he’d been talking to me before I’d passed out. But maybe he’d just been less injured?
“Nono,” I said out loud.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know who else they brought in?”
He shook his head, one lock of loose blond hair falling in his face, blue eyes still wide and worried. “No.” He pushed the hair back behind one ear with the hand that wasn’t holding mine.
“Did—did they say what’s wrong with me?” I asked, then.
He nodded to that question. “Cracked and broken ribs,” he replied, his voice a little shaky. “Moderate concussion. La—lacerations, bruising.” He swallowed. “Sethy, what’s going on ?”
I sighed, wincing as the breath sent stabbing pain through my entire ribcage. “Honestly? I’m not sure.” I had a guess. One that I really, really hoped wasn’t right.
Because if I was, then a lot of us were in deep, deep trouble, because the blood that I’d aspirated had been carrying Arcana.
If I wasn’t, then I didn’t want to scare Noah.
I, at least, knew that if I went home with my brother, he wasn’t at risk of infection, even if I did—which I probably did—have Arcana. Other people might not be able to say the same thing.
Did I tell the nurse? Did I tell Noah? Did I ask to talk to someone in the RPD? I felt like I should tell someone . I just didn’t know how or who—if I told the nurse, I’d have to explain why that was a possibility, which would involve me revealing sensitive information that wasn’t supposed to be made publicly available. I’d have called Maza, except…
“Nono, do you have my phone?”
He frowned at me. “You want your phone ?”
“I need to see if Maza’s okay,” I replied. “And Tierney. They were… closer than I was.” Tierney certainly had been. Maza had been about the same distance, and I was certainly fucked up enough that I was worried about him. More about Tierney, both because he’d been right next to it and because he was older—maybe that was ageist of me, but older bones broke more easily than younger ones.
Noah passed me the phone that had been tucked into my pants pocket inside my bunny suit. I wondered who’d taken it out and given it to him rather than let it be packed away with the rest of the evidence. It wasn’t protocol, but I was kinda grateful to whoever that was, protocol or not.
I started with Maza, asking if he was okay and if Tierney was. I didn’t have Tierney’s number. Then, because I didn’t immediately hear from Maza, I texted Aimes.
Nobody responded.
They let me go later that night, with explicit instructions to Noah to not let me sleep until noon the next day. We were going to marathon a bunch of movies and order a late dinner—and Noah immediately got working on brewing a pot of coffee, because he said he was going to need it.
He ordered me pad thai, even though Thai food wasn’t his favorite. He also got me spring rolls, fried tofu, and fried shrimp.
“Noah,” I protested. “I’m not starving.”
“I know,” he said softly. “But you… might need it.”
Despite the fact that I hadn’t said a word, Noah clearly wasn’t stupid. I’ve never thought he was, but… I had apparently underestimated just how many pieces Noah was able to put together.
I sighed. “We don’t know anything,” I told him.
“How many times have you been traced now? Three?”
“Two this year,” I replied. I didn’t mention that we had a third victim who’d been found outside the contagion window, but who had definitely been dumped inside it.
“Two this month ,” Noah corrected.
“Also that,” I confirmed.
“And is this case related to those two?” he demanded, practically shoving a plate with Thai appetizers and sauces at me.
I took a shrimp and dipped it in sauce, moving slowly to avoid jarring my ribs. “I don’t know, Nono. I promise.” I didn’t know . I suspected. Strongly.
I wondered if they’d call to tell me if we were clear. If they’d tell me what happened to Tierney or Aimes or Maza or anyone else, or just let me find out when they showed up at the next scene—or not.
I swallowed my shrimp, not in the least hungry.
But Noah was right.
I might need it.
We were done with dinner and halfway through the second movie in our Mission Impossible marathon when my phone rang, the number popping up as Captain Villanova, the head of Maza’s precinct. Given that it was a little after midnight, I knew it couldn’t be good news.
Noah, eyes wide, nostrils flared, paused the movie.
“This is Mays,” I answered, struggling to keep the tremor from my voice.
“Mr. Mays,” came a serious baritone. “This is Captain Villanova, Precinct One of the RPD.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
He cleared his throat, and I knew it wasn’t good. Noah must have read my face—because of course he could, he’s my twin —because he made a small noise. Or maybe he could hear Villanova. He’s got shifter hearing, after all. Maybe it was both.
“Mr. Mays, I’m calling to inform you that the victim in today’s homicide has tested positive for Arcanavirus.”
I’d opened my mouth to thank him, but then he kept going.
“And that Dr. Tierney has also tested positive.”
Oh. Fuck. I forced myself to swallow. Twice. “Thank you for letting me know, sir,” I managed, knowing my voice shook. “Sir?” I asked, before he could hang up.
“Yes, Mays?”
“Detective Maza and Ms. Aimes, sir? Officer Schitikova? The others?” I didn’t know if he could tell me. Or if he would.
“They have all been or will be informed of their exposure,” Villanova said, his voice flat and even.
“But they’re okay otherwise, sir? Because of… what happened?”
“The bomb?” I suppose that confirmed that it was a bomb. “Both Detective Maza and Ms. Aimes received minor injuries and were released, like yourself,” Villanova replied. “Dr. Tierney was still being held for observation when his symptoms began to manifest.” He cleared his throat. “No one else at the scene required treatment.” But they had almost certainly been contact traced.
“Thank you, Captain,” I managed.
There was a momentary pause. Good night seemed inappropriate, given the circumstances. Have a pleasant evening seemed worse.
“Take care, Mr. Mays.”
“Thank you, sir. You, too.”
The phone beeped in my ear, telling me he’d hung up.
I glanced over at the little weather clock Noah kept by the window. A little over thirteen hours since it had happened. Symptoms typically popped up between twelve and seventy-two hours, although the virus was detectable from twelve to forty-eight. The clock was ticking.