Ким Харрисон - The Good, The Bad, And The Undead

My legs felt heavy as I forced myself to rise up the stairs. A sharp clattering of feet drew my attention up, and I stood sideways as the first of the vacuum guys hustled past me. A rank smell of decayed flesh trailed after him, and my gore rose. Forcing it down, I continued, smiling sickly at the FIB officer standing beside the door.

The smell was worse up there. My thoughts flashed to the pictures I had seen in Glenn's office, and I almost lost it. Dr. Anders could have only been dead a few hours. How could it have gotten so bad so quickly?

"Name?" the man said, his face stiff as he tried to look unaffected by the cloying stench.

I stared for a moment, then saw the notebook in his hand. There were several names on it, the last followed by the word "photographer." The remaining man on the outside walkway snapped his suitcase shut and dragged it thumping down the stairs. By the doorway was a video camera, its sophistication somewhere between that of a news crew and the one my dad used before he died to record my and my brother's birthdays. "Oh, um, Rachel Morgan," I said faintly. "Special Inderland consultant."

"You're the witch, right?" he said, writing my name down with the time and my temporary badge number. "You want a mask with your boots and gloves?"

"Yes, thank you."

My fingers felt weak as I put the mask on first. It reeked of wintergreen, blocking the stink of decayed flesh. Thankful, I looked in at the wooden floor, shining polished and yellow under the last of the sunlight. From around the corner and out of sight came the snick snick snick of a camera shutter. "I'm not going to bother him, am I?" I asked, my words muffled.

The man shook his head. "Her," he said. "And no, you won't bother Gwen. Watch it, or she'll have you holding tape measures."

"Thanks," I said, resolving to not do anything of the kind. My gaze flicked to the parking lot below me as I snapped the paper covers over my shoes. The longer I stayed there, the more likely it was that Glenn would realize I wasn't where he had left me. Stealing myself, I pinched the clip of the mask tighter, jerking as the pungent fragrance hit my nose. My eyes started to water, but I wasn't going to take it off for anything. I put my gloved hands in my pockets as if I were in a black-charm shop and entered.

"Who are you?" a strong, feminine voice challenged as my shadow eclipsed the sun.

My attention jerked to a willowy woman with dark hair tied in a no-nonsense ponytail. She had a camera in hand and was dropping a roll of film into a black bag tied to her hip.

"Rachel Morgan," I said. "Edden brought me in as a—" My words cut off as my eyes fell onto the torso tied to a hard-backed chair partially hidden behind her. My hand rose to my mouth and I forced my throat closed.

It's a mannequin, I thought. It had to be a mannequin. It couldn't be Dr. Anders. But I knew it was. Yellow nylon ropes bound her to the chair, and her top-heavy upper torso sagged, sending her head forward to hide her face. Stringy hair caked with black hung to further hide her expression, and I thanked God for that. Her legs were missing below both knees, the stumps sticking out like a small child's feet at the end of a chair. The ends were raw and ugly, swollen with decay. Her arms were gone at the elbows. Old black blood covered her clothes in a fantastic rivulet pattern so thick the original color couldn't be guessed.

My eyes flicked to Gwen, shocked at her blasé expression. "Don't touch anything. I'm not done yet, okay?" she muttered as she went back to her photographing. "God bless it. Can't I have even five minutes before everyone comes traipsing in here?"

"Sorry," I breathed, surprised I could still talk. Dr. Anders's slumped body was covered in blood, but there was surprisingly little of it under the chair. I felt light-headed, but I couldn't look away. Her lower cavity had been opened at her belly button, a perfectly round patch of skin the size of my fist propped open with a silver knife to show a careful dissection of her insides. There were suspicious gaps, and the incision was entirely bloodless, as if washed—or licked—clean. Where the flesh wasn't covered in blood, it was white, like wax. My gaze went to the pristine walls and floors. The body didn't match. It had been mutilated elsewhere and moved.

"This one is a real sicko," Gwen said, camera chattering away. "Look at the window."

She pointed with her chin, and I turned. It looked like a little cityscape was arranged on the wide shadowed sill. Squatty buildings were set out in straight lines in no apparent order of size. Small lumps of gray putty held them upright like glue. They were arranged around a thick class ring, placed like a monument among the city's streets. I looked closer, horror tightening my gut. I spun to the limbless corpse and back again.

"Yup," Gwen was saying as she clicked away. "He put them there on display. The larger parts he tossed into the closet."

My gaze shot to the tiny closet, then back to the shady windowsill. They weren't buildings, they were fingers and toes. He had cut her fingers off knuckle by knuckle, arranging them like Tinkertoys. The putty was bits of her insides, the viscera keeping it all together.

I felt hot, then cold. My stomach went light and I thought I might pass out. I held my breath as I realized I was hyper-ventilating. I was willing to bet she'd been alive during it.

"Get out," Gwen said, casually framing another shot. "If you spew in here, Edden will have a hissy."

"Morgan!" came a faint irate shout from the parking lot. "Is that witch in there?"

The outside officer's answer was muffled. I couldn't take my eyes off the wreck of a body on the chair. The flies crawled among the city streets the mutilated digits made, climbing the buildings like monsters in a B-movie. Gwen's clicks were like my heartbeat, fast and furious. Someone grabbed my arm and I gasped.

"Rachel," Glenn said, spinning me around to him. "Get your witch ass out of here."

"Detective Glenn," the officer by the door stammered. "She signed in."

"Sign her out," he growled. "And don't let her in again."

"You're hurting me," I whispered, feeling light and unreal.

He dragged me to the door. "I told you to stay out," he muttered fiercely.

"You're hurting me," I repeated, pushing at his fingers encircling my arm as he pulled me out. I hit the setting sun. It struck me like a goad, and I took a huge breath, snapping out of my stupor. That wasn't Dr. Anders. The body was too old, and it had been a man's ring. It looked like it had the university's logo on it. I thought I'd just found Sara Jane's boyfriend.

Glenn dragged me to the stairs. "Glenn," I said as I stumbled on the first step. I would have fallen but for his hold on me. Another FIB vehicle was easing into the lot. A mobile morgue this time. Glenn, not taking any chances, was bringing everything there.

Slowly my legs lost their watery feeling as I put distance between me and what I had seen upstairs. I watched the FIB officers joking among themselves, not understanding. I was clearly not cut out for crime scene work. I was a runner, not an investigator. My father had worked in the arcane division where most of the bodies showed up. Now I knew why he never said much about his day at the dinner table.

"Glenn," I tried again as he pulled me into the open room between the stalls. Trent stood in a corner with Sara Jane and Quen, quietly answering questions. Glenn jerked to a stop as he saw them. He looked at his father, who shrugged. The FIB captain sat before a laptop resting on a bail of straw propped up on its end. Someone had run a line from the crime van, and Edden's stubby fingers skated over the keyboard as he played subordinate so he could stay.

Irritation pinched Glenn's face and he gestured to the young FIB officer with Trent.