14. Chapter 14 #2
“The north star. It was a gift from my sister when I was a naval commander.” Cassandra had always been the softer of us four while simultaneously enduring the most. Which in return had hardened her into something stronger than steel.
She could always put on a brave face when needed.
Always there with the right words. Knowing the right way of things.
My brothers and I would call her our north star.
When we felt lost, she was always there to guide us back.
And then she died. Stuck me with a two-month-old baby and died. Just like that.
My attention lifted from my wife’s breasts when she tentatively brought the pendant to her lips, pressing a soft kiss on it.
“I was thinking,” she said, gently lowering the pendant over my chest and brushing her fingers over it.
“I want to come with you tomorrow to the city hall. None of the notes you’ve given me are any good help to me.
I need to see bodies. Blood. Samples. Toenail clippings.
Hair that’s preferably from their head. Their bath water too, if you have it.
Anything that can hold some connection to them. ”
“We dispose of the bodies as quickly as we can.”
“That’s your first mistake.”
“We can’t risk it. But the crown coroners have collected samples.
I’ll take you tomorrow. I do have to warn you—they have found no valuable answer or result in their tests.
The coroner said the madness almost presents itself as part of our biology.
All tests they have run appear to be within normal parameters. Nothing unusual physically.”
“They haven’t looked far enough,” she said, sitting on the arm of my chair, and I had to wrap an arm around her waist to stop her from slipping off.
“You think this is the work of the occult, but we can smell magic. Hexes, charms, potions. It is why we haven’t come to any conclusion that this could be the work of a witch or the fae.”
She spun a coil of grey hair between her fingers. “And curses? Could you smell a curse?”
“You think this could be some sort of curse on my kind?”
She shrugged. “You didn’t answer me.”
“Maybe.”
She swallowed hard, evading my gaze. “Chaos is not magic. You’re accustomed to chaos because it exists everywhere. In you, too. There are things that affect chaos. Things you can use to trigger chaos within one’s body to react.”
“Like?”
“Poisons being one of them. Toxins, harsh chemicals, heat. There’s a lot.”
“I’ll call in a favour. Have them keep a body for you.”
She squealed, warm dark eyes eating almost the entirety of the white sclera. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“Better than Christof’s bones?”
She slowly undid my tie and stood, wrapping it around her neck. “I know it was you who found them for me.” She poked her head through the doors before she drew them shut. “Thank you. I love them. They make me happy.”
My wife seemed to be the next Mortdale celebrity. Every vendor knew her by name. They'd stopped and chatted with her all the way to the city hall.
“I thought you weren’t good at making friends,” I said, following her at a distance, watching her hop around the streets and make small talk with the city folk.
Her head had tipped up to the grey, stormy skies as she smiled, took a deep breath in, and twirled around.
“The stares are still there, but they’re not the same here.
They understand I am strange, but not for the reasons they did back in Meridian.
And besides,” she said, wiggling her brows at me.
“My husband will cut ‘em up to tiny little pieces if someone says the wrong thing to me. I’ve only been reaping the benefits.”
“I’m not this thug you seem to think I am.”
Grasping my tie with both hands, she got on her toes to stand face to face with me. “The dressmaker had only one hand the second time I went to see her. And surprisingly, she was very pleasant to me. Terrified, but pleasant.”
Liam had told me the woman had grabbed and dragged Willow. The most reasonable thing had been…well, taking away the means for her to repeat that same action.
Leaning in, I pressed my lips against her soft ear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her eyes were narrowed on me as she walked backwards with her hands fastened behind her. “No more threatening people with dismemberment.”
There hadn’t been any threats. Why would I announce my intentions? “Whatever my wife wants,” was all I said.
With a huge smile plastered on her face, she nodded and wiggled her fingers in salute at everyone as we stepped into the grey-walled city hall building crowded by office workers in their black suits, pacing like ants up and down the long stretch of a red and white gingham corridor.
The coroner had stopped to stare at her, blocking the door to his laboratory.
I pushed the door open, stepping into his work room. “I don’t have all day, Alfred.”
“You brought a witch.”
“Ta-da!” she said, flashing him her best smile.
“My wife, Willow,” I said. “Alfred, the head coroner and currently in charge of this investigation. He’s human.”
“A human,” she said with mock fascination. “You have a human.” She circled him, poking him in places. “Wow. What's that like?”
She was too busy trying to creep him out to notice me laughing.
Alfred’s embarrassment tinged his ears red.
“It’s fine. Come on in.” He glanced down the hall corridors.
“You will get me sacked. Or killed, Logan Duncan!” He paced across the length of his small work study adjoined to the mortuary room.
“If they find out I have not sent an infected corpse for disposal, they will think I am working for Morngate. Trying to spread this darned thing!”
Willow shed her hat, studying Alfred’s shelf with little to no interest, getting her hands in everything she could spot.
He grabbed the jar from Willow’s hands, hugging it to his chest. “I’m one of the eldest pathologists in Epiron. My work has been studied by many, referenced by many more. My texts are used to teach new students. That is to say, there is nothing I cannot find that you can.”
“If you say so,” she sweetly said, fluttering her innocent lashes at him. “You should open a window here sometimes. You’ll trap in spirits.”
Alfred glanced around. “No such thing.”
She picked up a few of his instruments, studying them. “If you say so.”
“Why did you bring her here?” Alfred threw an accusatory whisper at me. “To pressure me or scare me? I am telling you, I’ve found nothing. They’re healthy vampires. What does a witch even know about vampires?”
“She’s an occult pathologist. Who also happens to be my wife.” I blew a cloud of smoke in his face. “Be nice.”
His brow twitched. “No such thing as an occult pathologist. Spirits, devils, fiends and demons, a bunch of poppycock. This isn't the work of the devil. This is the work of humans.”
“If you say so,” Willow echoed again, having moved to the far corner of his laboratory, her head tilted down a bin. She remained there for a while.
“What is it?”
“Does it smell sickly sweet in here to you, or is it just me?”
Leaning over the bin, I sniffed.
She was right.
“I noticed the scent lingering on the instruments.” She studied the jars of formalin storing the organs, removing the lids to lean over and sniff.
“Putrescine and cadaverine can sometimes smell sickly sweet, too, but it comes with the smell of rotting flesh, decay, sewage—not a field of flowers, that much I can tell you. Which, from my own research, doesn't happen in vampires. Your bodies petrify; they do not decay like ours do, they do not go through putrefaction.” She itched the tip of her nose as she pinned him with a playful look. “Your pet human hadn’t made a note of it anywhere in the documents you gave me to read.” Her eyes turned to him.
“I suppose sniffing formalin for so many, many, many—”
He rolled his eyes. “We get it, I am old.”
“Very old,” she sweetly said, with a huge smile. “You didn’t make a note of the level of active decay in your report.”
“As you said, vampire corpses do not decay like we do.”
“Well, something is.” She smiled with all her teeth just to taunt the poor man. “Does anyone have a saw, an ax, anything I can use to get into the corpse? A spoon maybe?” she asked, throwing him a wink.
“She has some form of qualification, right?” He shook his head. “Never mind. You should go behind the glass,” he said, pointing to the glass wall separating the mortuary room with his laboratory and study.
Willow came back with a white apron thrown over her dress, her hair tucked under a white cap, only her dark eyes and pale grey brows visible above the mask she wore.
She carefully read through the vampire’s health records which Alfred had retrieved for us, and then drew thick, dark blood into a syringe she’d stuck in the corpse’s groin.
Carefully, she inspected the body head to toe, checking under every dent, curve and crevice. She ran her gloved fingers over every inch of skin while Alfred noted down all her observations—with some reluctance and annoyance.
I couldn’t help but lean in when she began cutting into the body, pulling her scalpel down from each shoulder blade, meeting at the breast bone and then farther down to the pubic bone in a y-shape.
Things rarely impressed me, but watching her cut through the chest plate and ribs, and weigh and measure those organs was the most fascinating thing I might have ever witnessed. It was art. The patience. The finesse. The gentility as she handled each organ.
It took a few hours. Many bones sawed, much skin peeled, many organs collected later, she was done.
She set a thin, long sheet of cold iron into the vials of samples she’d collected—blood, venom, spinal fluid, bile—and sealed them all tight.
Alfred’s high-pitched voice rang out, spitting cautionary words at her when she pulled her mask off and leaned to sniff over the cadaver’s open sternum. She tipped the cadaver’s head to the side, inspecting the two bite marks on the neck again.