Jax flanked me on one side, sidearm in hand as I scrambled to my feet. I barked a quick, “Get back out!” and pushed the slack-jawed Dixon ahead of me. Jax kept his head and didn’t open fire as the thing that had been Saul Petrevisch flopped and twisted like an unmanned fire hose. Instead he kicked the door shut and kept his weapon drawn.
Donna screamed at us from the chair, “Was that Saulie? Is he alive?” From the ragged timbre of her voice, she’d begun to scream as soon as Saul’s body had transformed.
Dixon had fallen back halfway between us and the handcuffed Donna. Jax’s weapon was pointed at the bedroom door, but he flashed his eyes my way. “What happened? Did you,” his voiced dropped, “do something?”
“What could I do that would cause that?” I demanded, though I knew it was a fair question.
“Saulie!” Donna was still screaming. “You have to help him, he’s not dead!”
There was silence from the bedroom, and that made me more nervous. What if whatever had happened only occurred when I was in the vicinity?
I pointed at Dixon. “Get to the street. Find the nearest patrol with a radio. I don’t care if it’s your car or you flag another officer down. Just get hold of Dispatch. We’re gonna need an ARC team out here.”
“Oh, you think?” Dixon was a smartass, but he didn’t argue the point. And he wasn’t smart enough to ask why, if it was so urgent, weren’t we using Donna’s phone? A moment later he was gone, and that left Jax, me, and the confessed killer. But I was already beginning to believe that although she may have been the hand that swung the weapon, she wasn’t the intellect behind the attack. I motioned Jax over closer, and spoke in a whisper.
“The body moved as soon as I poked it.”
“You what?”
“I was looking at the wounds.”
“Is poking a body with a stick ever part of official procedure?”
“Fine.” My words grew sharper. “I examined the victim’s wound with an instrument to determine the relative depth of impact. Now are you going to shut up or do you want me to give you a written report?”
He waved me on, and I supposed that permission to continue was as close to an apology as someone whose life had just been threatened by a spasming corpse is likely to get.
“He’s not alive,” I said.
“I got that much.”
“Did you ever do that thing in junior high, when they stick electrodes in a dead frog and zap it, to see the muscles contract?”
He nodded. “You think it was some kind of reflex?”
“Like having electricity pumped through it. Or magic.”
“No one’s gone in there with manna,” he said.
“The snake oil—”
“Has a fraction of a drop. It’s not enough to actually do any sorcery, especially not by untrained users. Unless,” his speech slowed as he thought through the scenario, “someone in that room was a battery for magic.”
“Not you, too? Guyer’s bad enough.” I wiped a hand across my mouth, one lip swollen where I’d bitten it during our fast retreat. “I wasn’t even in the room when we first heard noises, remember? And I’d have known if I’d done something to the body. Trust me, I’ve had every variation of this conversation already.” And I had, mostly with Gellica, the woman who’d been my support beam as I realized I’d had some kind of connection with the next gen manna. Or she had been, until she trusted me and I let her down so hard that it’d shattered the relationship. My people skills have never been what you’d call polished.
“Get comfortable,” I told Jax, “we’re gonna be here a while. Because Sheena may have killed Bobby Kearn and Donna may have killed Saulie, but something or someone drove them to it. And it might not be done.”
11
THE ARC TEAM ARRIVED IN nice cars and taxis. Like the Special Response Teams, they were always on call. But instead of responding to hostage situations or barricades, the ARC teams dealt with manna, magic, and madness. Their clear mandate was “do whatever you need to, just get there fast.”
Two divination officers walked in, one black-cloaked human, one Mollenkampi in a red and black fishbone suit, the shimmering iridescence of the weave indicating his importance and potential power. All sorcerers kept manna close to them in some way or another, the exact style depending on their preference and bankroll.
“Is Guyer here?” I asked.
The Mollenkampi didn’t slow down, but the human paused long enough to shake his head and adjust his thick-rimmed glasses. That was a relief—I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing her at another of these crime scenes.
“You’re Callahan, right?” I’d crossed paths with most of the DOs at one time or another, even if those meetings usually degenerated into a screaming match over the use of manna and whether a given death warranted the expense.
“Yes, thank you.” His attention was off me already and he walked down the hall humming an off-kilter tune, before vanishing into the apartment where Saul Petrevisch had lost his life.
“Guyer’s not here, Carter.” I turned to face the new voice and found a third DO in the hallway. Tall and with a buck-toothed, boyish grin, Harris approached with his hand extended. A repeat of the first time I’d met him. “But she had a message for you. She asked you to call her when you get a chance.”
I frowned, but nodded.
“Actually,” he continued. “She didn’t so much ask as insist. And she didn’t use the words, ‘when he gets a chance.’” He paused. “I think it was much more of a do-it-now insistence. If you get my meaning.”
“I do. And I’ll call her.” Hands in my pockets, I looked down the hall at the other DOs. “Three of you, huh? I’d almost think you didn’t trust me.”
“Trust but verify.”
