Sins of the Demon

He retreated to write up his notes while Carl put the body of Barry Landrieu back into the cooler and got Evelyn Stark prepped and ready to go.

Carl laid the woman’s body out on the table and snapped pictures, then removed her clothing and took more pictures, expression emotionless and clinical. He wiped away the blood on her face, but I could still see it clotted up in her nostrils. Evelyn had been an attractive woman, but it was clear she’d been awfully close to that point in life when even the best of genetics weren’t enough. She had a slim, leggy build, but the skin of her belly sagged and her thighs were flabby and had no muscle tone.

He glanced up at me after he set the camera aside. “Can you give me a hand?”

“With what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him in distrust. He had a habit of asking me to do gross and nasty things during autopsies.

He silently held out a syringe. His face was expressionless, but humor danced in his eyes.

He was asking me to get the vitreous—the fluid in the eyeball. The process for this involved sticking a needle into the side of the eye. Needless to say, it squicked me out big time. I usually shied away from this. Emphatically.

But this time I took the syringe from his hand. He cocked an eyebrow at me in mild astonishment, then smiled and gestured to the body. “You know how to do it?”

I gave him a stiff nod. I’d seen it done a few dozen times. Time to stop being a weenie. The needle slid in with barely any resistance. A shiver raced down my spine at the sight of the needle tip going through the pupil, but it came with an absurd sense of satisfaction. I’d finally won a round of “make Kara do something nasty.” I carefully drew out the fluid, pulled the needle back out, and then carefully handed it to Carl.

“Don’t ever ask me to do that again,” I said.

He burst out laughing, then quickly squirted the fluid into a tube. “I won’t. I promise.” He put the tube away, then turned back to me. “Do you want to try cutting the head open?”

“No!”

He grinned. “Your loss,” he said.

“And on that, I will gladly accept defeat,” I told him.

We suspended our banter as Doc returned to the cutting room. He remained largely quiet during the autopsy of Evelyn Stark. I had the feeling that his mind was already running through possibilities on why Barry Landrieu’s brain had exploded, so to speak.

I watched his face as he began to cut through Evelyn Stark’s brain, could see the instant he saw it from the way his face went still and pale. He gave his head a slight shake of disbelief, then yanked his gaze up to me. “What’s the connection?” he asked. “There has to be some sort of connection. This isn’t possible.”

I could completely understand how he felt. “I don’t know, Doc,” I said, the lie bitter in my mouth. “But I gotta say, I’m glad to know my hunch was right.”

His gaze grew hard for an instant, then he shook his head again. “That was one hell of a hunch, Kara.” He gave me a smile, but it had a guarded, curious edge to it.

I spread my hands and tried to look baffled.

“Hunh.” He turned his attention back to the body. “Maybe it’s some sort of designer drug. Something that’s not showing on the quick test. Or a virus.” He grimaced. “Of course, if it is a virus, we’re all fucked.”

“I was on both scenes and gave CPR to her,” I jerked my chin toward the body. “And my brain hasn’t exploded yet. So we’re probably all right.”

Doc gave a humorless chuckle. “It’s also only been one day. Hardly enough time for anything to take hold.” He blew out his breath. “I have a feeling I’ll be spending the rest of the day looking through a microscope.”

“Barry Landrieu was a known drug user,” I said. “And Evelyn Stark was an alcoholic.”

He gave a nod. “My investigator told me that Landrieu went to jail a few years ago, and when he got out he supposedly cleaned up and was doing the whole straight-and-narrow thing.”

“You don’t see that very often,” I said.

“Well, apparently his little sister died of an overdose while he was in prison. Guess that was his wakeup call.”

Shock and regret coiled through me. I made it out of that life and never looked back. But what could I have done for her? Given her pep talks? Pressure her to get into rehab? No way to know if anything would have helped, but once I had my own act together surely I could have tried.

Doc was still talking, thankfully oblivious to my reaction. I yanked my attention back to him and did my best to shove down the guilt.

“Anyway, I’ll put a rush on the tox screen. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that’s what it is.”

I gave him a dutiful nod in response. He had his avenues of investigation, and I had mine. Now I knew for certain that the two deaths were related and not simply by coincidence. My next hunch was that the presence of the graa was connected. Now I simply had to hunt down a summoner.

Easy.

Chapter 9

I left the morgue, still wondering how the hell I was going to accomplish my grand goal of finding this other summoner. We were private people out of self-preservation, and there wasn’t exactly a local directory. I fully intended to check and see if my aunt had any leads, but other than that I didn’t know what else I could do except wait for the summoner to tip his or her hand again.

By the time I made it to the station the sky had cleared to the kind of brilliant blue that only happened in southern winters when it was stupid-cold outside. No snow anymore, which was a relief, but the chill wind that swept around the building was anything but brisk and refreshing. Stabbing-icy-knives-of-death wind was probably a better description.

I made sure the cuff was concealed under my coat sleeve as I hurried up to the building. The last thing I wanted was to deal with questions about it. Actually the last thing I wanted was to have to keep wearing the damn thing. This whole mild nausea thing was a real downer.

I gave myself a mental slap and scowl as I entered the door marked “Investigations.” Yeah, I didn’t care to feel crummy. But getting summoned to the demon sphere? That was a whole ’nuther level of Do Not Want. I could deal with a bit of queasy stomach.

Warm air wrapped pleasantly behind me, and I quickly pulled the door closed to block out the wind.

“Damn, Gillian, afraid of a little cold weather?”

The nasal tenor startled me. I spun to see Detectives Boudreaux and Pellini sitting in the cramped waiting area usually reserved for people who had appointments to see one of the investigators. I straightened, instantly annoyed that I’d allowed my surprise to show.

“I’m a delicate southern flower, Boudreaux,” I said to the detective who could best be described as weasely. Skinny to the point of emaciated, he looked like a meth addict, but not as healthy. It didn’t look like he’d shaved in at least two days, but he was in no danger of growing anything resembling an actual beard. The patchy stubble on his chin looked like a fur coat left for a month in a moth factory. The stains on his khaki pants indicated he was in the long habit of wiping his hands on them instead of a napkin, his shirt had more wrinkles than a smoker’s lips, and his tie looked like it had been knotted with a square knot. Yet despite his complete lack of professional demeanor, he managed to close enough cases to stay on in Investigations. He was lazy, couldn’t investigate worth a shit, and was annoying as all hell, but rumor had it that he was a brilliant interrogator and could finesse information and confessions out of the most hard-core and stubborn types. “The chill does terrible things to my sunny disposition,” I added.

Pellini shifted on the ancient couch and pulled his belt further up under the pudge of his belly. “Delicate, my ass,” he said with a snort of sour amusement from beneath his mustache. “You could take Boudreaux here down with your eyes closed.”

I blinked. Had that been a compliment? From Pellini? Our conversational exchanges usually involved various