Blood Pool

oversized mug.

“Room one.”

“Who brought the body in?” Raven rose and headed for the exam room. On the way, she stopped to readjust the strap on the low-heeled pumps she’d grabbed on her way out the door. They pinched her feet. Just another annoyance that seemed to be building up to something. What? She wasn’t sure.

“ Davis brought it in,” Bianca said, lagging behind her. “He did an abbreviated preliminary.”

Raven grabbed her lab coat and headed into the cold autopsy room. “Do we have an I.D. on the body?” She never heard the answer. The light shone directly on the familiar, handsome face. She knew who it was.

His eyes, glazed over in death, were still blue.

Adonis!

Raven tensed. “Bianca!”

Bianca stood right behind her, peering over her shoulder. Desperately, Raven tried to hide her shock, but Bianca knew her too well.

“You all right? Do you know him?” Bianca’s eyes were wide with wonder.

“Yes. Please get Tracy to do the blood workup-ASAP. Thank you.” Raven quickly surveyed the body. No outward trauma that she could see. He was dressed in the same blue jeans, shirt and sweater as when she’d seen him last night. Lying there, he looked so peaceful.

“I just spoke to Tracy. She’s on her way here from the hospital,” Bianca answered.

“Did Davis take the x-rays already?” she asked impatiently while staring at the man she’d kissed less than twenty-four hours ago. “Did anyone check for trace evidence?” Raven’s heightened senses kicked up to overdrive. All she could think about was how young Adonis was and what a waste. He had so much to live for, so much promise.

“Yes. The films are on the desk. And no, I don’t think Davis went over him for trace yet. Are you sure you’re all right?”

Raven spun around and caught the look of concern in Bianca’s soft brown eyes. “Yes-yes, of course. Why hasn’t the body been cleaned? What’s Davis doing?” She fought to concentrate.

“He’s in radiology. He took a few more films. Davis just brought the body in. He thought you’d like to take a look at the corpse first, before he did the full prelim. He said he’d be right back with the other films.”

Raven walked over to check the equipment she would need for the autopsy. The dissecting scissors, forceps, scalpel blades, bone shears and saws all seemed in order and sterilized.

“The body is Derrick. His name is-was-Derrick. I don’t know his last name,” Raven stammered. Damn. When did this happen and who could have done this to him? And why?

Finally, Bianca kept still.

Raven walked over to get the films and flipped on the light box hanging by the metal table that acted as a makeshift desk. Looking from one x-ray to the next, she already knew there would be no internal trauma. Her preternatural vision showed her that. Raven’s sixth sense informed her he’d lost some amount of blood.

But how?

Her mind raced as she fired off more questions for her assistant. “Who from the sheriff’s office has this case? Bianca? When was he brought in?”

Bianca tripped as she tried to stay out of Raven’s way. “I’m sorry, boss, Joe Menendez. H-how do you know this guy?”

Raven was rattled. The room seemed to close in on her as thoughts of what might have happened snuck into her mind. Maybe if I’d brought him home with me, he would still be alive. Then Bo’s face appeared in her mind, and she knew the evening progressed just as it should have, how it was meant to have been.

Yet no puncture marks were visible. So how did he lose blood?

“I met him at Blood Pool last night,” she said. “You said Joe Menendez is working this case?”

Bianca’s face flushed at the mention of Detective Menendez. Raven knew she harbored an enormous crush on the cop. “That’s where Joe said they found the body. Solaris found him behind the bar.”

Joe Menendez was a good detective, but a human. His family tree boasted a bruja here and there, a fact he tried to deny. He and Bo often worked cases together. Raven wondered why Bo wasn’t on this case…unless…he was, and that was why he’d been so late last night.

The arrival of Tracy Polchek, forensic pathologist, jolted Raven back to the present. Tracy was a fifty-two-year-old fount of knowledge. Raven trusted her implicitly, enough so that Tracy occasionally supplied Raven with healthy blood when the blood bank was short on supplies. Raven didn’t require it often, but when she did, Tracy always came through with a pint or two.

“What have we got here?” Tracy asked, hands on hips. Her eyeglasses hung from a crystal-beaded chain that clinked against yards of colored necklaces. She wore a long broomstick skirt and a worn out pair of Birkenstocks. Tracy ’s quintessential hippy-chick attire disguised the brilliant woman lurking beneath.

Raven took the chart from Bianca. “Male, approximately twenty-eight years old, six-feet-one-inch tall…” Raven checked the paperwork. Not much was filled in. “One hundred sixty-one pounds. I’ll need a full tox screen, Trace.

“Bianca, get Davis in here to do the prelim, please,” Raven continued as she walked out of the autopsy room and headed toward her private office. “Bag his clothes,” she called over her shoulder.

She opened the door and stepped into her small office. Diplomas lined the peach-shaded walls of the room. She’d graduated from Harvard Medical School, board certified in anatomic, forensic and clinical pathology-the perfect career choice for one so intimately and intrinsically linked with death. Wooden shelves also adorned the walls of her office. She stared at the plethora of dioramas on the shelves: crime scenes with blood-splattered walls and miniature dolls lying in pools of dried blood, albeit fake blood. At that particular time, Raven thought it would help the trainees to learn about the different types of death scenarios, to foster their ability to analyze a crime scene. It had worked.

Buttery rich leather met her sore bottom as she thought back to Bo’s relentlessness in bed the night before. The memories warmed her inside. Raven craved him more than blood, but she could not-would not-reveal too much of her heart’s desires. Not yet.

Sitting at her desk, she refocused on the situation evolving in the autopsy room. She tried to recall exactly what Adonis had said to her the night before. Raven came away with the impression that his interest had more to do with her being a Lamai rather than her potential as a sexual partner. He’d said he knew “who she was” and that he “needed to”…what? To tell her something, ask a question, kill her?

Perhaps Solaris had some useful information about the stranger in the exam room. A knock on the door signaled that they were ready for Raven. She gulped down the rest of her coffee and headed back to room one.

Three blank faces stared at her as she entered the icy room. Wide eyes and stunned expressions locked onto her. A single light shone down on the table.

It was empty.

Raven whirled around. “Who took the body?” she asked. No one answered. Everyone just kept staring. “Bianca, please tell me, where is the body?”

Bianca shook her head and shrugged, her face as pale as her lab coat.

Raven began to pace. “ Davis?” She walked over to the now empty table. “It didn’t get up and walk away, did it?”

He looked over at Raven. “I-I came to do the preliminary report for you, b-but when I got here, it-he-was…gone,” the young man stuttered.

“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“I just came in to draw blood, and Davis was freaking out,” Tracy whispered, turning toward Raven, nervously fingering her pixie-styled hair. The silver bracelets that adorned her arm clanked as she placed her hands back on her hips.

“Shit!” Raven spun on her heel and marched toward her office.

Davis ran after her. “Raven…Doctor Strigoi?” he called to her. “Should I call security?”

Jamming her hand through her hair, she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. “Good idea,” she snapped, slamming the door and grabbing the phone. She punched in Bo’s cell number, hoping he was awake by now.

Her fingers tapped the top of her desk.

“Hullo?” Bo answered.

She heard the sleep still holding him. Immediately, tension seeped out of her. “Can you come down to my office? Something’s up.”

Bo was naked, just out of the shower and trying to wake up. She knew it. They had that kind of connection. She silently wished she was there instead of smack in the middle of this disaster.

“I was going to head over as soon as I got dressed.” His voice oozed sexuality, even when his thoughts were light years from mating.

Or perhaps he only has that effect on me, she thought.

Bo cleared his throat. “What’s wrong?”

Silence. “Plenty.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I possibly can,” he reassured her.

“Great, thanks.” She let out a long sigh, pushing her hair behind her ears. She thought back to the words of love he’d whispered in that ear.

“Hey?” His voice soothed her frazzled nerves.

“Yeah, Boo?”

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered. “I wish you were still here with me.”

Raven smiled. “Me, too.”

Bianca came rushing into the office as Raven hung up the phone, practically knocking her over, her chestnut curls bouncing in every direction.

“The body is gone. It’s not here-not anywhere. The security team is still looking, but an immediate search shows nothing. What-how can that be?” Her voice lowered. “Do you think? Was he a…?”

“Lamai? No, definitely not-at least not when I was talking to him. He was human. Bo will be here soon. We’ll put our heads together and try to figure this out.” Sitting behind her desk, Raven handed Bianca her empty mug. “Could you, please? High test.” This day was turning out to be a living nightmare, complete with zombies. I should have stayed in bed.

“Of course,” Bianca answered. She filled Raven’s mug.

“How are Davis and Tracy?”