Allison Brennan - Carnal Sin

“Stay out of it.”

“I-”

“I don’t need your help. You’ll fuck things up if you go pissing around the club and my investigation. I’ll let you observe the autopsy, and if you can provide any further information about this supposed cult-give me something to follow up on-then great. But after we’re done here, I expect you to be heading back up north.” He glared at her pointedly. “I wouldn’t want you to get stuck in rush-hour traffic.”

Rafe could speak, read, and understand Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, but he couldn’t decipher the complex medical conversation between Rod Fielding and the L.A. head pathologist, the tall and appropriately cadaverous Don Takasugi. The smell of formaldehyde didn’t seem to bother the pathologists, but Rafe felt slightly ill-though he wasn’t sure whether his discomfort was from the cloying scent of preservative or the visual of human organs soaking in it.

As soon as Rafe walked into the room he felt uneasy. He tried to convince himself it was the sight of the organs and the smell, but even that stopped bothering him after a few minutes. As his senses adjusted to the overpowering visual and olfactory assault, he accepted that maybe it was something else that disturbed him.

Static was the only way he could describe it. Very faint, as if a radio was tuned to a distant station in the next room, barely audible, the occasional half-heard word more grating than the static itself. When he tried to listen to the sound, his head ached. When he didn’t consciously listen, it was like fingernails on the chalkboard: every skin cell tingled.

He tried to hide his discomfort while half listening to the scientists discuss the anomalies in the two brains that Fielding had brought with him.

One came from Chris Kidd, a high school senior who’d died of a brain aneurism, though Fielding wasn’t confident in that diagnosis. The other belonged to Mrs. Barbara Rucker, the high school secretary who’d pushed a pregnant woman down the stairs, then crashed her car at high speed, seemingly on purpose. Because Fielding was a scientist, and his boss, Sheriff Skye McPherson, believed in evidence, they were both seeking scientific, medical answers for the deaths in Santa Louisa two weeks ago. While they acknowledged on the surface that a demon had been responsible, neither completely accepted that answer. It was as if they wanted, or needed , to know exactly how the demons affected their victims.

As far as Rafe was concerned, he had all the necessary answers. The Seven Deadly Sins had spread far and wide, drawn to people or places that celebrated their vice. Perhaps they were connected to the missing coven, which would mean Fiona and her minions were nearby. Or, if they were free from the bondage of Hell and the witches who’d summoned them, they may have another reason for targeting the areas they did. Either way, the demon touched a victim-physically or simply by proximity-and the individual’s conscience was stripped away, resulting in the deadly sin taking over all thoughts and actions. In Santa Louisa, Envy had created chaos. Looting, riots, and violence. Once the demon was trapped, however, those affected seemed to regain their restraint and were able to withstand the temptations of unrestrained envy.

But the town wasn’t the same as before. Skye wouldn’t admit it, but Rafe saw it. He’d lived there as an outsider for months before the demons came to town, and he saw-and felt-the changes. Before the demons swept through Santa Louisa, the quiet community nestled between the ocean and the Los Padres Mountains had been filled with kindness. Neighbors helping one another. Picnics in the park. Kids playing ball in the parks and riding bikes down the street, carefree. Rafe had been comforted by the small-town normalcy of Santa Louisa, the way everyone knew everyone else.

Now? The violence the demon Envy created had torn families and friendships apart. The jail was full, the court docket nearly exploding as people were held accountable for the crimes they committed after Envy stripped away their conscience. The distrust and lingering sense of envy and the anger it spawned among so many people, even those not directly affected by the demon, cast an invisible shadow over everything.

Rafe felt it, even if Skye was in denial. And it greatly disturbed him.

“Amazing,” Takasugi was saying. “And you didn’t notice this on gross examination? I’ll need to go back and look at the craniums of my other bodies.”

“This first victim had pronounced neovascularization of the brain stem with secondary aneurysm formation. He collapsed two hours after a basketball game, and died approximately thirty minutes later. In the second victim, I didn’t see anything to warrant the same diagnosis, until I did a micro exam two days ago. But both seem to have new blood vessels feeding into the brain stem, and an enlarged amygdala.”

“The brain stem?” Rafe spoke up for the first time.

The scientists seemed to have forgotten he was in the room. “Yes,” Fielding said, eyeing Rafe curiously.

Rafe shook his head. He had a thought, but his training was in psychology, not forensics. He waited for more information.

“The amygdala has a primary role in the processing of memory and emotional reactions,” Fielding explained. “That there are new and extensive blood vessels going from the amygdala to the brain stem is unusual.”

“Highly unusual,” Takasugi concurred.

“And that might make someone act irrationally?” Rafe said, carefully choosing his words. Psychology was an imperfect science-human beings couldn’t be pigeonholed in established boxes-but there was always a cause for human sociopathy. Sometimes hereditary, but usually environmental. Sometimes nature, but mostly nurture. Or lack thereof.

Human conscience helped people overcome their primal urge toward violence, lust, and greed. But without such restraints, there’d be no end to the anarchy. It made the release of the Seven Deadly Sins even more nefarious. Demons on Earth were bad, but what if people acted just like them? There would be violence without remorse, scorched earth, destruction across the globe.

Chaos. End-time.

Takasugi said, “The brain is the most complex organ in the human body and there’s more that we don’t know than we do know. The amygdala is also involved in pheromone production, epinephrine, and other natural chemical responses. A deformed or damaged amygdala could manifest any number of presentations, from headaches to irrational behavior to chemical imbalances-”

“And death?” Rafe said. Chris Kidd, the senior, hadn’t committed any envy-related crimes, but he had the same demon mark as the other victims.

“Possibly.”

Fielding said, “Mrs. Rucker acted irrational and out of character prior to intentionally crashing her car. Her death was due to the trauma of the crash, so I only did a cursory exam of her brain at the time. But when the other bodies came in with similar marks, I went back and reexamined what I could. One of the victims had already been cremated, another buried, but these two I still had access to.”

Fielding glanced at Rafe. Ned Nichols had been cremated-or, technically, salted and burned in a crematorium-after Nichols manifested as a vengeful spirit. Fielding had never felt right about doing that, not only because it was against the law without next-of-kin authorization, but because he had jeopardized his career and reputation by acting without said authorization.

Takasugi removed Mrs. Rucker’s brain from its container and placed it in a sterile tray. Rafe stepped back, queasy. He didn’t generally have a weak stomach-he’d fought off one big-ass demon that wasn’t pretty-but this was different.

“Amazing,” Takasugi repeated. “I have a brain that looks remarkably similar to this in one of our recent corpses.”