Allison Brennan - Original Sin

Surprisingly, Fiona restrained herself. She turned to Serena. “Bring Prziel back. We’ll find Raphael Cooper. I will have him in my possession before sunset.”

A chill ran down Serena’s spine and she once again began preparations for summoning the blood demon.

“What good is Rafe if we don’t even have Lily tonight?”

“Anthony will do anything to save him. He’ll give me Moira and the arca . We’ll have them all. Zaccardi, Cooper, and Andra Moira. None will survive dawn. If the Seven don’t want them, I’ll gladly kill them all myself.”

She crossed the room and stood face-to-face with Elizabeth Ellis, seeming to tower over her though she was only an inch taller.

“The next time you enter my sanctuary uninvited making accusations or demands, you will die.”

Anthony had been in the Santa Louisa morgue’s autopsy room once before, during the autopsy of three of the victims at the mission. It had been a wholly uncomfortable experience then, as it was now.

Dr. Rod Fielding looked up as soon as Anthony and Skye walked in. “Gloves and gowns, both of you.” He gestured toward the storage cabinet.

“Both of us?” Skye asked.

“Yes. You and Anthony.”

Skye shot him a surprised look and walked over to the cabinet. She handed Anthony a pair of latex gloves, then a gown. Looking around as she put them on, she walked over to the coroner. “You said two bodies,” Skye commented. “There are three bodies here.”

“The female over there is new, but she fits.”

“What exactly is going on?” Skye asked, impatient.

“Remember the mark we saw on Abby Weatherby? We thought it was a birthmark?” He motioned for them to approach a board in the corner where he had photographs from Abby’s autopsy. “See here?”

“Right, I remember.”

Anthony stood next to Skye as Fielding crossed the room and removed the sheet from another corpse. “That’s Nichols, the shooter from Rittenhouse,” Skye said.

“Right. Help me turn him over,” Rod said.

After Skye complied, Anthony immediately saw a red-wine stain on Nichols’s upper shoulder. It was roughly six inches, but oddly shaped. It didn’t exactly match Abby’s, but there were similarities. But unlike Abby’s there was a darker thread, almost like a tattoo, within the mark that looked familiar:

“It doesn’t match,” Skye said.

“Not perfectly, but the other two match this guy. I called Abby’s parents and asked about birthmarks-I didn’t say anything about it, just that we needed information for our files. Her mother said she had no birthmark, other than a small mole on her outer right thigh.”

“Did you show her a picture?”

“I think her mother would know if she had a birthmark, especially like this.”

Anthony stared at the mark. “This looks too detailed to be a birthmark,” he commented.

“Yeah, more like a tattoo,” Fielding said, “but it’s not. There’s no ink in the mark; I already tested a sample.” He walked over to another table. “Then I got this eighteen-year-old athlete. Basketball player. Perfectly healthy; I have all his medical files from his doctor, who was shocked when he arrived unconscious at the hospital. He was bleeding from his ears-had lost a tremendous amount of blood before he died. The doctor speculated brain aneurysm, but I’ve never heard of an aneurysm that resulted in bleeding from both ears. There was no head injury that his coach was aware of; he didn’t play much in the game. He complained about a severe headache shortly before he collapsed. Bleeding from the ear can occur in some infections, but it’s usually from a head injury or foreign object. There is nothing external to have caused such an event.”

“So what did he die from?” Skye asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t started the autopsy. I was prepping him early this morning when I saw the mark. Here, help me.” Skye and Fielding turned the body. A red-wine stain, identical to the shooter’s, was on the teenager’s back, almost in the same place.

“My assistant told me there was yet another body that came in from the hospital early this morning with this mark.”

Anthony said a silent prayer for the young man, then turned to the female corpse. She was about forty, and had a mark identical to both those of the shooter and the teenager.

“Could it be a virus?” Skye asked Fielding. “Something contagious? What’s going on, Rod?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Who’s this woman?” Skye glanced at the toe tag. “Barbara Rucker? That name is familiar-she works at the high school.”

“Bingo. Secretary to the principal. I don’t know the whole story, but she died in a car accident after leaving her husband’s office in Santa Maria yesterday evening. Her husband’s on his way in.” He put up his hand when Skye opened her mouth to protest. “I told him not to, so don’t jump down my throat. He’s distraught, wants to know what happened to her. I hadn’t planned on doing an in-depth autopsy-beyond a standard tox screen for drugs and alcohol-until he called. Based on the accident report, Barbara Rucker was speeding erratically, then ran off the road and into a telephone pole. It was foggy and the roads were slick; CSI is checking the vehicle for possible brake malfunction. Her husband said she wasn’t a drinker, didn’t do drugs, but hadn’t been acting like herself.” He glanced at Anthony. “Do you think she was possessed?” he asked quietly.

“Demons don’t want the people they possess to die. They lose the body. It doesn’t make sense.” He frowned and stared at the mark. “This is familiar, but I don’t know why.”

“Damn,” Fielding said. “I thought you’d be able to help. If you don’t know what it means-”

Skye interrupted. “This is a criminal investigation. We need to assume that these three people had something in common, so we look into each death carefully, retrace their steps. Maybe they were all at the same place at the same time.”

“Like the cliffs,” Anthony said.

“Yes.” She looked at the young man’s body, then asked Fielding, “You said these marks weren’t tattoos. Could they have been self-made? Like-” she hesitated, then said, “burned into the skin?”

Fielding considered the question. “It’s possible-I’ll need to do skin grafts, check the cells underneath for signs of intense heat and dead cells. But if it was recent, I would expect discoloration on the skin surrounding the marks. Still-I’ll check. I’ll get back to you later today.”

“You’re doing all the autopsies today?”

“Yes, I just wanted you to see this first.”

“Did the toxicology reports come back on Abby?” Skye asked.

“Not yet. I expect them early this afternoon. I’ll call you if there’s anything suspicious.”

“I’m going to wait in the lobby for Mr. Rucker,” Skye said.

She stopped next to the young man again. She looked at his toe tag. Chris Kidd. All color drained from her face. “I talked to this boy yesterday. When I was at the school-he came up to me and said his girlfriend might know something about Abby’s death. I pressed, and while he didn’t flat-out say it, I had the distinct impression that she was on the cliffs that night. I intended to follow up with her yesterday, but then the librarian stole-” She stopped. “Anthony, how can this all be happening? The librarian? Chris Kidd? The secretary … they’re all from the school.”

“But not Nichols,” Fielding reminded her.

“Maybe he’s not part of the same … thing.”