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He stood back, holding the morgue doors open for us. Sharah headed over to examine the bodies and talk to Mallen, her right-hand man, who was also an elf. He handed her a series of charts and she flipped through them.
I slowly approached the tables—five of them, each covered with a snow white sheet. Or what had started as snow white. Blossoms of blood spread across them, petals staining the undersides of the sheets, and as I watched, the patterns seemed to form the silhouettes of flowers. Or perhaps it was my imagination—like some gruesome Rorschach test.
The bodies were still, no breath, no movement. No fear they’d turn into vampires, like when Menolly had come here to identify victims. Just…dead. Cold, forever gone. I took a deep breath and looked up at Mallen.
“How bad are they?” Swallowing my fear, I tried to remind myself that I was a Death Maiden. I escorted—or would soon escort—souls over through the veil as part of my duties. I would be leaving the empty bodies of not just my enemies, but anybody whom the Autumn Lord ordered me to take.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They aren’t good. It’s not…it’s bloody. But the faces are fairly intact. I think they’re recognizable enough. The bodies were pretty mangled and burned. Four of them were right near the blast. The fifth…he never made it through the ride to the hospital.”
Menolly and Camille joined me. I reached for Camille’s hand as Mallen pulled back the first sheet. I flinched. I knew the face. “Tom. Thomas Creia. He’s a member of the Verde Canis Clan. They were a group of Weres working for environmental causes. He’s married. Two children.”
Sharah jotted down the information as we moved to the second table. Again, the sheet came down. Again, a familiar face.
“Crap. Trixie Jones. One of Marion’s sisters. Coyote shifter. Single. I think she might have been engaged, but I’m not sure.” The fire in my belly began to burn brighter. Whoever did this, I wanted to find them. Now.
The third sheet. Another man. This one, I knew by name but not to call friend. But his death had not been pleasant, and the grimace on his face told me he’d died in pain.
“Salvatore Tienes. Werewolf. He recently moved up from Arizona. I don’t know what pack he was with, but he’s been staying with a werewolf family up in Shoreline.” I bit my lip, wanting to stop. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t want to see who was left—an irrational fear took hold, that it would be someone even closer. Mallen drew back the fourth sheet.
I stared. Menolly and Camille squeezed my hands, and Camille let out a little gasp. Even Chase moved closer, hanging his head.
“Exo Reed,” he said quietly.
Everybody in the Supe community knew Exo. He ran the Halcyon Hotel, catering to Supes. He’d called us in on several jobs and was an upstanding member of the NRA and a member of the chamber of commerce for the greater Seattle area. And now, he was so much fodder for worms. Bloody…gone to whatever afterlife awaited werewolves when they died.
Tears threatened, but I sucked them back, holding myself rigid. Camille was doing the same, and Menolly had one of those horrific looks on her face that told me she wanted to do nothing less than hunt down the scum who did this and rip them to shreds.
“Show us the last, Mallen. Then we should talk to the survivors.” Chase glanced over at the elf but paused when Mallen held up his hand.
Mallen barely looked old enough to be in high school, but he was far older than most of us. “They aren’t in any condition to talk. They may not be for a long time. But I’ll do my best to have them conscious by tomorrow.”
“Crap. We need to know everything we can about this blast.” Chase looked flummoxed but then shrugged. “Whatever…we’ll play it as we go. So, who’s our last victim?”
We were all afraid that it was going to be someone else we knew, but this time it wasn’t a Were, but an elf, unfamiliar to any of us. Neither Mallen nor Sharah recognized him, either.
“We’ll have to go through the records of who came over from Otherworld recently…track down anybody who might have seen him come through the portals.” I was shaken, and I hated to admit it, but I’d been relieved that our last casualty wore a stranger’s face. Somewhere, he had to have family or friends who would miss him. But for us, he was easier to handle—a cold statistic in what had become a terribly personal crime.
“Did the fire or explosion kill them? I know it’s an obvious question, but is there anything we overlooked? That we don’t know?” Camille spoke up, looking to Mallen for answers.
“Good question,” Chase said.
Mallen consulted his charts. “Toxicology is still out, but the most obvious cause is massive trauma due to whatever explosive device this was, and third-degree burns over most of their bodies. Although…” He paused.
“Although what?” I pulled out my notebook and began making my own notes.
“The odd thing…when a bomb detonates—a homemade bomb like those commonly used by hate crime groups—they usually make sure it’s loaded with shrapnel. Now, there are injuries due to shrapnel here, but it wasn’t from the bomb. The fragments obviously came from the surroundings. Wood from the beams, metal from the tables that exploded. Whatever blew up doesn’t seem to have left much of a residue.”
“That’s because the explosive factor was canya.” I watched as Mallen’s expression turned from perplexed to horrified. “Yeah, we’re thinking sorcerers. The question is: Who did it, and how did they get hold of this crap?”
“Then toxicity results aren’t going to show anything.” He closed the folder and set it down on the table. “The fact is, the amount of canya needed to blow up a building the size of the Supe Community Hall points to some very powerful enemies. If they have enough canya for that, I wouldn’t put it past them to have other tricks like this up their sleeve. You have to find them, or I predict a body count like we haven’t seen in a long while.”
Chase let out a long sigh. “We so didn’t need that information. Okay, let’s go have a talk with the families. I know some of them are waiting upstairs.” He shook his head, looking resigned. “I’m used to breaking bad news to people, but the sting never goes away.”
Chapter 3
Chase told everybody but Shade and me to go home. There were family members out there, and it was better to avoid overwhelming them with too many faces, too many questions.
After Camille and the others left, we followed Chase, filing through the cubicles, waving to the night crew, until we reached Chase’s office. Nerissa hurried in behind us, looking a little worse for wear, but she was dressed in jeans and a pretty blouse, sober, and ready to work.
