Russell Blake - The Goddess Legacy

“Looks like I should be able to just stroll in,” Drake responded. “Might not even need the mask.”

She looked at him skeptically. “You know nothing’s ever that easy.”

“I’m psyching myself up.”

“We can go in together. You can escort me. I’ll be the bereaved relative.”

He shook his head. “We already covered that. It would be harder to pull off than if I’m alone. With the mask on, they might assume I’m there on business.”

They’d discussed it in hushed tones on the way there, and Drake had argued against involving Allie. If for some reason he got caught, he didn’t want her at risk. A gust of wind blew from the direction of the large building, carrying with it a stink so powerful it made them both blanch.

“Good God…” Drake said, turning away.

“On second thought, I’ll stay here. Have fun. Wash your hands when you’re done.”

“That’s… wow. Just wow.”

Allie winked at him. “Nobody’s getting any younger. It’s showtime, Ramsey. Knock ’em dead.”

“You have a way with words.”

He crossed the boulevard and ambled to the entrance of the morgue, a pair of gloves hanging conspicuously from the pocket of his new shirt and the surgical mask in his hand. Nobody gave him a second look as he mounted the stairs to the front doors. A putrid stench was drifting from the opening, and he tied the mask in place and breathed through his mouth as he neared the darkened doorway.

Once inside the foyer, he was shocked at the temperature in the building. Drake had assumed that a morgue would be well chilled as a matter of course, but nothing could have been further from reality. The halls were stifling. As he stopped to get his bearings, two orderlies pushed past him with a gurney, upon which was the corpse of an unfortunate who’d probably starved to death, judging from appearances.

He fought back nausea at the swarm of flies that trailed the body, and watched as the men wheeled it into a room on his left. Drake checked his watch, mainly to have something to do. A man led a sobbing woman from another room, his arm around her as tears streamed down her face, and a cadaverous-looking man in a stained lab coat met them near the entrance with a clipboard and pen.

The orderlies returned from their chore with an empty gurney, the top of which was smeared with fluids from the last passenger. Sour bile rose in Drake’s throat and flooded the sides of his mouth. He choked it back and steeled himself as he made his way down the hall, gloves in hand, trying to appear businesslike. He glanced further down the hall when he arrived at the door and quickly looked away — two more corpses, their limbs twisted unnaturally, lay on the floor beside a wall, no doubt awaiting processing, stacked like cordwood in a gloomy niche.

Inside the main morgue room, his revulsion nearly overpowered him. The room was only marginally cooler than the corridor, and bodies awaiting space in refrigerated drawers were slowly decomposing in the heat. Only a few were in body bags, most of them merely covered with filthy sheets, and Drake swallowed hard at the task before him. There were at least fifteen corpses out in the open, and he counted thirty refrigerated compartments. He made short work of the exposed dead, all of whom had their heads connected to their torsos, and then began the process of sliding open drawers in the hopes of finding Carson’s remains.

He’d considered cutting the man’s thumb off, but the only tools in the room he could see were inadequate for a clean job — rusting cleavers, a blade that looked like it was from the Bronze Age, and a few tongs. His fallback position was to find the torso, and…

A woman’s voice called out to him from the entry in Hindi. Drake turned to the woman and pointed to his watch, as though that signified something, his gloved hands and mask hopefully making him look official.

Judging by her reaction, which sounded annoyed but not alarmed, he might have bought himself sufficient time. She retreated, and he slid more drawers open until he hit pay dirt halfway down the row. A headless Caucasian, the body that of an older male, lay in the cool metal drawer with a tag in Hindi affixed to its toe.

Drake slid Carson’s iPhone from his pocket and powered it on, and then pressed the corpse’s thumb against the screen when prompted. The phone beeped and the screen changed from the security interface to a desktop just as agitated voices reached him from the hallway. He dropped the phone back into his pocket and reclosed the drawer, and was almost to the door when the woman reappeared with two men. The taller of the pair barked at him in Hindi, and Drake had to abandon the act.

“What? I was given authority to look for my wife,” he said in English.

The tall orderly took a step into the room. “By whom? No unauthorized personnel are allowed in the morgue without accompaniment by one of the staff.”

“That’s not what I was told. Just to bring gloves and a mask for hygiene reasons.”

“Who told you this?” the man repeated.

“I don’t know his name. Short fellow, balding.” Drake could see hesitation on their faces, so pressed his advantage as he edged closer to the door. “Look, this has been a very difficult day. She’s been missing for forty-eight hours, and this was my last hope. But she’s not here. So at least she may still be alive.”

“Now see here. This is most irregular…”

“I know. And believe me, if I could have avoided it, I would have. These conditions are deplorable. You should be ashamed of yourselves. I’ve never seen anything worse in my life.”

The woman’s face changed to one of outrage. “How dare you—”

“How dare I? Look around you. This is prehistoric. I’m out of here. Absolutely disgusting,” Drake said, and didn’t have to pretend hard to sell his loathing for the place.

Drake pushed past the group with a shake of his head and shrugged off the smaller of the two men when he grabbed at Drake’s shirtsleeve. The man seemed surprised that he didn’t stop, and Drake picked up his pace, the front entrance now within reach.

“Now see here—” the orderly said, but Drake didn’t slow. He doubted that low-paid city employees would go to the trouble of chasing him, especially since he was on his way out. What would they do if they caught him? File charges for daring to go into the morgue without a chaperone?

“I’m leaving, all right? Just keep your shirt on,” Drake said, and then spotted a short man on his way into the morgue. “Oh, there he is!”

Drake pretended to recognize the man and peeled off his gloves as he rushed toward him, one hand outstretched in greeting. The man, clearly surprised, drew back but shook Drake’s hand as Drake babbled nonsense at him.

“Thank goodness! Have a talk with these idiots. Where do they find them?” Drake said, and then with a dismissive wave, darted out the door and down the stairs, figuring that by the time the confusion he’d caused had cleared, he’d be long gone, leaving a perplexed staff and nobody the wiser.

Drake was panting, his forehead beaded with sweat, when he made it back to the café where Allie was waiting. He handed her the phone as they hurried to the cab line, and Drake chanced a look over his shoulder at the morgue when Allie reached for the door of the first taxi. A group of morgue staff were speaking with two policemen and pointing in his direction. Allie ducked into the car and Drake followed, giving the address of their favorite market before settling back in the seat as the driver eased into traffic with a honk.

Allie scrolled through the phone after changing the security settings to no longer require a thumbprint for access.