Skin Deep (A DarkWorld Novel - Book 1) (The DarkWorld Series)

by Ayer, T. G.

  Logan scowled, staring off into the distance. The flaying would've taken place somewhere else, after which the body was dumped here. A dumb place to dump a body in this condition, he thought. "Time of death?" he asked.

  "Coroner called it...time of death 11pm," Romano said.

  Logan nodded and made a mental note to have Omega double check the TOD. Couldn’t hurt to be sure.

  "Witnesses?"

  "No." He shook his head sadly. "Just a bunch of residents who heard the shots."

  "How many?" Logan asked absently as he stared out across the lot.

  Romano frowned at Logan, perplexed.

  "Shots? How many shots?" He looked back at Romano, curbing the impatience in his voice.

  "Er...seven. Ten, maybe. From what those guys told us, nobody can agree." He scanned the mixed crowd of residents straining at the police barriers and wondered how reliable they were.

  "And shells?"

  "Four so far." Romano looked over at a tech scanning the area with a material detector, the screen revealing what lay within and below the soil of the now-mutilated garden.

  "Have you checked for patterns?" Logan asked, already knowing the answer. The Chicago PD was efficient. Murdoch made sure of that.

  "Yeah." Romano hailed another tech walking by, borrowed a tablet and tapped at it, his forehead twisting in concentration. He placed the screen in Logan's hand. A map of the area glowed on the face. Little pinpricks of red lights flashed next to the outline of the body. Logan and Jess studied the screen. She pointed at the pattern, which placed the first shell a few feet away from the body and each one farther away, moving across the left quadrant of the garden.

  They both looked up simultaneously and stared straight ahead at the three-story building next to the garden plot.

  "What's that?" asked Logan.

  "Downtown drug rehab," Romano said, tucking his thumbs into his belt.

  "Have you inspected the alleyway yet?" Logan kept his eyes on the squat building. He saw the outline of a door at the top of a short flight of stairs. If there was a light bulb above the door, it wasn't working now.

  "Tell the techs to look there." He pointed at the door, as Jess hurried toward them, then added, "Check the walls for bullet holes."

  "What are you thinking?" Jess asked.

  "Don't you already know?" he quipped.

  "It is not as if I hear your thoughts clearly, as if what you are thinking comes to me in neat little sentences. I receive images and feelings and words. And sometimes they aren't easy to unscramble. I can still sense your emotions, though, even when your walls are up." She spoke the words so matter-of-factly, as if she knew he’d believe her just because she said so. She looked at him with clear, hazel eyes set in a porcelain face. She was a beautiful woman any guy would love to work with, but he wasn't any guy. Besides, he wasn't into older women. Although Jess looked about Logan's age, he got the feeling she knew a lot more than she could possibly have learned in such a short life.

  "You are having one of those 'feelings' again?" She tilted her head at the question.

  "Yeah, someone took shots from over there. They ran in the direction of that door, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they got inside. See that light?" He pointed out the light blazing from the second floor. "That same someone may be inside the building. Could be the shooter, could be a witness."

  Romano sent his techs to search the alley, and Logan turned his attention to the scene. Romano hadn't mentioned the claws yet. Seemed he was keeping that particular piece of information under wraps. Or maybe he just didn't want to know. The police would probably concoct some run-of-the-mill, gang-related cover-up to keep further questions at bay. Good thing Logan had never been the kind of person to blindly accept what someone else told him, even those in authority.

  "I will call HQ. We need a Death-talker." She made the call while Logan spoke to the police officers, then combed the scene a second time in case he'd missed anything. Logan liked to be thorough.

  He listened as Jess requested a Death-talker. They gave him the heebie-jeebies, with their pale corpse-like faces and glazed eyes. Those white eyes, the irises so milky they were barely discernible from the whites of the eyes themselves. Logan had no idea if Death-talkers were born with those scary eyes or if they were the result of the trauma experienced in each session. He'd never dared to ask. He respected them, of course. On more than one occasion, he'd seen the toll communication with a spirit took on a Death-talker.

  He'd felt sorry for them, bound to those almost malevolent rituals by the powers they'd been born with. Logan shivered. He'd be witness to another Death-talk soon enough.

  "They will send her soon," Jess said, as she walked up to him.

  "Soon" for the Walkers meant any second. The Human soon meant any time in the next few hours. Logan still appreciated those differences, being one of many mages who'd come into their powers in their early teens, old enough to remember life as a normal human.

  "She will know where to find him," she stated to put Logan at ease, as if Jess knew he'd wondered how the Death-talker would appear at this particular scene without creating mayhem herself. "She will go directly to him."

  Logan glanced at the ambulance, where a Death-talker would soon materialize right beside the corpse, drawn to it by her affinity for death.

  Seconds ticked by.

  Jess touched his shoulder and walked toward the ambulance. One door stood open. The other hid the gurney and its grisly passenger. The lights had dimmed somewhat. Shadows clung to the corners and provided enough cover for the woman who sat so solemn, like a grieving widow, beside the corpse.

  She beckoned them in with a slight tilt of her head, which remained hidden within tumultuous folds of drab gray silk. As usual, she was dressed in the same dull color as all her sisters.

  Logan had learned Demons saw color better than grays. Gray—a non-color—was safe for a Death-talker to wear. It hid them from the creatures living in the Ether—or the land of In-between. From what he knew, the Death-talkers were naturally attractive to the evils in the land of the dead, so it was a wise precaution.

  Jess leaned over and spoke low in his ear. "Pipe down and stop thinking so much. We do not want to disturb her while she works."

  Logan waited, mildly annoyed by her freakish ability to read his mind, until she crawled into the tiny space. He never complained when she used her power on a suspect or a snitch, but it didn't feel right to be on the receiving end of a mental probe. Guess he needed to be more conscious of putting up his walls. He followed and pulled the door shut behind him. He wanted no chance of anyone peeking at a Death-talker in action. Especially when they weren't even supposed to exist.

  She wasted no time, waiting only until he shut the door to begin. She lowered her hands to the chest of the corpse, heedless of her fingers sitting on raw flesh or of the congealed blood clinging to her pale digits. Her eyes closed as she murmured words in a language dead for thousands of years.

  Then she leaned over him and closed the distance between her mouth and the opening in the face of the dead man; an opening that had once been, when it had lips and skin, his mouth. Then she stopped, her lips almost touching his mangled skin in a macabre caress and drew in the deepest of breaths—deep, to the bottom of her diaphragm. The movement caused the silken shroud to billow from her shoulders, and she injected the air into the mouth of the corpse. She shuddered as the last of her breath left her. Then she paused and sat up to take another lungful.

  Minutes ticked by, and though Logan knew what would happen next, he almost wondered if the Calling had failed. Soon, a gray mist began to rise from the dead man's mouth. The snaking coil of dirty-white smoke billowed from him, twisting and turning, seeking.

  It found her. The smoke floated to the Death-talker and she cracked open her mouth. The vapor filtered through the smallest of openings, into her body and her spirit.

  She was possessed by the spirit of the dead man.

  Jess leaned forward and wh
ispered, "Can you speak awhile?"

  The gray-shrouded form nodded and lifted her face to the light. The marbled white of her skin gleamed, cold and luminescent. Blue veins raced across her skin. Gray strands of hair traced her cheek and shoulders.

  "Do you remember what happened to you?" Jess’s voice lilted, a soft lullaby.

  The Death-talker would soon speak with the voice of the dead man. Logan regretted he would be unable to ask the victim for his name. The dead did not utter their names when they walked the Ether. One's name can bind you to a Demon. Forever. Only after their fates were sealed was it safe to speak the name of the dead.

  In the Ether, they only knew their death, the time and place and circumstances, and they were doomed to experience the moment they perished over and over until their time in the In-between had passed.

  "Can you speak of it?" A nod. "Tell us. How you come to die this way?"

  "Dancing. I remember dancing. Music. Lights. And then nothing," she said, the tone deeper, voice of the dead Walker more gravelly than her normal musical cadence.

  "Then what happened?" Jess asked.

  "I don't know. I woke up and the man was there."

  "Do you know who this man is? What was his name?"

  "Don't know his name. Old man. Crazy." The Death-talker tilted her head, but it was the spirit who controlled her movements. "Something else. Spooky. Evil creature."

  "What did he do to you?" asked Jess.

  "So much pain. He cut. I watched." No emotion tainted his voice. The spirit of the dead Walker revealed only snatches of emotion.

  "You were awake while he did this to you?"

  "He gave me a drug. I was awake while...while he cut the skin off my body...wanted him to stop. I couldn't move.... I couldn’t.... I felt it all. Asked him so many times. Begged. He didn't care.... Said he wanted my skin in perfect condition." The head tilted again. "Have you seen my skin?"

  The dead were childlike, unfocused, and tended to lose their concentration often. They needed guidance to get back on track.

  "Did he say why he wanted your skin?" Jess prompted him.

  "No. Just that he had no choice." The Death-talker shook her head, her gray strands shimmying like a colorless waterfall.

  "Where did he take you?" Jess kept her questions short, knowing every minute the man's spirit remained within the Death-talkers body was a potentially deadly minute.

  "Hospital," he replied, his voice shaking, yet no fear threaded within the timbre.

  "Were there any other people there?"

  "I don't remember." The Death-talkers face crumpled with sorrow. Tears pooled in her white eyes. "I don't remember."

  "Did you see anyone else?"

  "Just the pretty girl. She was my friend. She stayed with me until the light came."

  "Where did you see this girl?" Both Logan and Jess leaned forward.

  "By the roses. Such pretty roses..." His voice trailed away into nothing.

  Then it was over.

  The Death-talker's face remained still, as if all life had left her body too. Then she began to shake as the spirit she held within fought for release. Her head fell back and her mouth opened, releasing the sinuous cloud of gray. It twirled and twisted, seeking its home back in the mouth of the dead man. He was at peace again. The Death-talker sat up straighter, an air of fragility around her as if a soft breeze would be enough to knock her over.

  "I apologize. He has been through much. When a person is traumatized in such a fashion, they are not long for this realm. Their soul cannot take the memory of their death. It seeks release from the torment and if we force him, his soul may be torn apart before he is ready to move on." Her voice undulated, musical, like soft reedy chimes floating softly on the air. So unlike her deathly pale façade.

  Then she shimmered away, dissolving before their eyes until the seat lay bare, and Jess and Logan sat alone with the corpse.

  ***

  Chapter 9

  While police, paramedics and onlookers milled around outside, I remained sprawled on the floor of my stuffy storage closet. I propped my heavy head against the wall, dozing. Pain ate at my shoulder. Vicious, gouging, merciless teeth. Gratitude for my body's ability to regenerate was exceeded only by the accursed agony I endured as damaged nerves and torn flesh reattached deep within the canyon of the wound. As excruciating as the pain of regeneration was, the process of removing the bullet had caused the deepest agony.

  I eyed my friend as he moved restlessly around the small space. The scent of my blood was cloying. Anjelo glanced furtively at me, checking if I'd seen his discomfort. A deep hunger glimmered within his eyes and his throat convulsed. The room was too small with no window to release the seductive perfume, which hovered thick and strong in the air. Our eyes met. Mine wary, Anjelo's apologetic.

  The stuffy, coppery scent of my blood would act like a drug to Anjelo's latent beast. His skin rippled, and his jaw fought to transform. But his own instinct dampened his Change. He was within snuggling distance of a powerful, injured Alpha Panther female. He wouldn't dare engage in a losing battle. Anjelo's jaw clenched as he turned his head away from me, trying to keep his hunger in check. The wait for me to recover some semblance of strength might prove to be his undoing.

  Red light peppered the wall behind me, mottled my cheek. The wild spinning inside my skull faded, replaced by an intense awareness of our proximity to the cops combing the garden. An awareness which gathered my energy and forced me to make an effort to extract both Anjelo and myself from this mess. I dared not linger, dared not endanger my ally. Guilt doused some of my adrenalin. This young Panther followed in my footsteps, whether I liked it or not. I should be setting an example. Perhaps it was a good thing he was my conscience.

  Would I manage without his reluctant help?

  Fat chance.

  "We have to get out of here." The words scraped out of my throat in a husky sob.

  "You have to get out of those clothes." Anjelo scanned my blood-soaked garments with a raised eyebrow. "We don't need that kind of attention."

  Strength ebbed slowly into my flaccid limbs and I soon regained enough to stand. At the best of times, I hated being helpless. This was by no means a good time. While I sat on the floor, my wound had continued to bleed slow and steady. The wound had leaked blood down my arm, onto my fingers and dripped unnoticed to the floor, collecting beneath me. I'd been sitting in a pool of the stuff, oblivious even when it soaked into my pants.

  Before I'd gotten myself shot, I'd intended to return to my office and change out of my black camo. I usually wore high-necked tops anyway to hide my panther birthmark, which marked my spine and neck. All Alpha's bore the deep, dark tattoo-like mark of the nature of their animal, but most were fortunate enough to have them in places easy to hide.

  I only needed Anjelo to help me remove the wet, sticky clothes. Poor guy. He left me with a wad of wet towels to clean up, each square about the size of my palm. Anjelo paced while I cleaned.

  I helped him clean blood off the door handle to the storeroom after achieving a fairly blood-free state with a blanket of forcibly induced calm thrown in for good measure. Thankfully, the rest of the room looked clean. It dawned on me then, more like a lightning bolt straight into my brain, my office lights were on. Voicing my concern to Anjelo made it worse.

  "If we switch it off, someone might notice and get suspicious." Anjelo was right. "But if we leave it on, some smart-ass is bound to investigate."

  "Well, that's that. They’ll check the building soon enough."

  "We have to get out of here," Anjelo said, his pacing a dead giveaway to his tension. He was incapable of lying to the law and we both knew it. I, on the other hand, was a master at subterfuge.

  "Check the hall and the ground floor. Quick recon. Give me the all-clear and we can make a run for it." When he started to protest, I held my hand up. "Wasting time, Anjelo."

  He turned on his heel. I didn't miss the hurt expression in his eyes and immediately regretted the sna
rk, but it got him moving. Only a few minutes had ticked by when he came barreling into the room, shutting the door as quietly as he could.

  "Someone's coming."

  We were too late. Dawdled for too long. I shoved him into the closet.

  "Stay there and be quiet."

  The pained, caught-in-the-headlights expression on his face may have been comical had I not been in a murderous rush to reach the desk. Mental note—have a good giggle when we’re in the clear. Even laughing at my friend's expense seemed like a luxury at this moment.

  I switched the closet light off and shut the door, hoping to Ailuros that Anjelo wouldn't go berserk in the now dark and tiny space.

  Hurrying to the desk, I stuffed my ear buds in and turned up the volume. My eardrums vibrated. Laptop switched on—check. All wires and bits plugged in—check.

  I was ready.

  Ready to handle whoever walked through that door.

  No one would be coming to help me, not when the mess was my own creation. Even though I hadn't asked to be shot, I could imagine my father's face if he saw me now. Those cold, gray eyes would spare me the briefest of accusing glances, if he bothered to look at me at all. Corin Odel remained devoid of every emotion except for anger. And, in my case, disappointment.

  I pretended to work. The more I waited, the more stressed I became.

  And stress was dangerous.

  Stress summoned my Panther. And so far, I'd managed to keep my feline form subdued. The effort to tamp my animal down zapped more from me than I expected, and I wiped off the beads of perspiration coating my upper lip.

  My body ached, my shoulder ached more.

  Fatigue dulled my senses.

  I blasted Beethoven at full volume as I hunched over my computer. And almost missed the knock when it finally came.

  ***