Organ Reapers

by West, Shay

  I need a drink.

  He parked a few blocks away from the medical center, knowing he’d never get a spot any closer. He stopped by the small coffee shop in the lobby, hoping the dose of caffeine would make his headache disappear.

  “You want one?” he asked.

  “I don’t usually drink caffeine this late, but what the hell,” Ava answered.

  Eli glanced at her. “You don’t look like a detective.”

  Ava gave a small snort before sipping her coffee. “Thanks?”

  “You look more like you should be working at Bloomingdale’s or something.”

  “And you look like you belong in a gutter.”

  Eli blinked slowly. Ava met his gaze and didn’t flinch. “Yeah, well, guess I can’t argue with that.”

  Eli led the way to Sherry’s office. It was a trip he’d made so many times, he could do it in his sleep. While he walked, Eli emptied his mind, a trick he had learned while in the academy. Things came to him while he was in this state, flashes of insight that often led to collaring a perp. His colleagues called it a psychic ability, but Eli knew it was just letting his subconscious take over.

  He pushed his way through the double doors and spotted Sherry, dressed in blue scrubs, gloves covered in blood.

  “Sherry, Detective Ava Aguilar. Detective Aguilar, Sherry,” Eli said.

  Sherry nodded at Detective Aguilar. “So you’re saddled with this guy, huh?”

  “He’s growing on me.” Ava glanced at Eli, wearing her little half-smile. “You know, sort of like a fungus.”

  Sherry’s laughter echoed in the cold room. “I think we’re gonna get along fine.”

  “If you two are finished, can we talk about the dead guy, please?” Eli asked, pointing to the corpse on the table.

  “The victim died from blunt force trauma to the head. The perp cut the organs out post-mortem,” Sherry said.

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing much. Other than the organs missing, there’s not much else to report, at least until the autopsy is completed.”

  “Why would someone take organs?” Eli mumbled to himself.

  “What about the black market?” Ava asked.

  Sherry shook her head. “The organs have a short life span unless the right equipment is used. To remain viable for any length of time, they would need to be kept on ice and transported to a medical facility immediately.”

  “So how long are we talking here?” Eli asked.

  “The kidneys could last the longest, maybe thirty hours under good conditions. The heart, only about six.”

  “So someone could have taken them for transplantation purposes and done the work in the middle of the night,” Ava said.

  “Not likely. If anything was done without proper hospitalization, the person probably wouldn’t survive.”

  “Could the lights have been from a helicopter or something?” Sherry asked.

  “It would have made a hell of a racket and kicked up a lot of dust. None of the witnesses reported anything like that,” Eli said.

  “Should we contact the hospitals in the city in case someone shows up with a kidney or a heart and wanting a transplant?” Ava asked.

  “It’s unlikely that would happen. The process of organ donation and transplantation is highly regulated. A doctor would never take an organ in a chest of ice and transplant it into a patient without knowing the details of where it came from. Most of the time, the donor is brought to the recipient rather than just bringing the organ to be donated. Then there’s the issue of MHC matching. I doubt that your perp would know your victim’s DNA sequences,” Sherry said.

  “But it’s possible?” Eli asked.

  “I suppose, if he worked at a lab or had access to the database.”

  “We’ll need to check that angle. Maybe we have some vigilante taking organs to save some poor soul he deems more worthy.”

  “I’ll check and see if the victim’s DNA is registered in the database and if he happens to match anyone on the organ wait list,” Sherry said. “And it might not be a bad idea to alert local hospitals that they could be dealing with black market organs.”

  Ava nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Hey, Sherry, call us if you find anything, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Elliott.”

  “You know I hate that name,” he said as he exited the room.

  ***

  Eli’s head refused to stop hurting. The headache, coupled with zero leads on the case, left him in a fouler mood than usual. And Ava wasn’t making things any easier. The woman just sat there, not saying a word. It irked him, though he couldn’t say why.

  “Why’d you become a detective?” Eli asked, breaking the silence.

  “My father was a cop, a couple of my uncles were cops, older brother was a cop...” She trailed off.

  “So, a family of cops. Makes sense, I guess.”

  “I was the only girl in my family, so I learned to be tough from the time I was little. I never played with dolls; I played with toy guns, just like my brothers. I played sports in school, even thought about joining the military. But Papa convinced me to go to the academy. Said I would make a great cop.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Being a detective? Of course, don’t you?”

  Eli didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure how to. Being a detective was all he knew. He was good at his job, he liked nailing the perp, but to go so far as to say he liked it...

  I’ve been at this job too long.

  Ava didn’t push the question, which suited Eli just fine. He’d barely been with his new partner for a day and he wasn’t ready to spill his guts to her about his life. If the past was any indicator, he probably never would.

  “I’ll notify the hospitals to be on the look-out for someone coming in with a cooler of kidneys and a heart,” Ava said.

  “Don’t be long. We’re going back to the crime scene. I want another look around; see if I can’t spot this strange light the witnesses saw.”

  CHAPTER 2

  ELI PARKED CLOSE to the crime scene. There were still techs walking around, gathering evidence in the light of day. Yellow tape encircled a large area. Eli ducked under the tape and walked to where the man’s body had been located. He could hear the crunch of Ava’s footfalls as she followed close behind.

  “I’m going to do my thing. Why don’t you walk around and see what you can see, something I might miss?” Eli said.

  He stood and gazed at the spot where the victim’s body had lain for hours before being found by the witnesses. The ground was stained a reddish-brown color from the blood. A lot of blood. A picture played out in Eli’s brain, part of the process he used to feel out a perpetrator, get inside his head.

  A man stalks the victim, following his every move, staying in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. The victim walks into a large area not illuminated by the dim streetlights. Now is the perfect time. The perp lunges forward, hitting the man on the back of the head with a heavy object. The victim falls to the ground, probably dead without ever having seen the face of his attacker. The perp, without waiting for the man to die, cuts open the chest cavity, removing the still-beating heart from the man’s body. He rolls the victim over to remove the kidneys, then rolls the man onto his back.

  The perp walks away with his equipment and the man’s organs, disappearing into the dark.

  Eli walked to the investigator working the scene.

  “Did you guys recover a weapon? Or any kind of surgical or cutting tools?”

  The man shook his head. “We searched a ten mile radius and didn’t come up with anything. Whatever the perp used, he must have took it with him.”

  Eli sighed. He knew that if the crime scene investigators had found anything, he would have been the first to know. He had only asked on the chance that they had found something they had missed the night before.

  He spotted Ava walking the edges of the crime scene, pulling on plastic gloves, most likely r
equested from one of the many crime scene techs still working the crime scene. She looked out of place in her skirt and high heels, but she didn’t flinch at walking through the weeds and kneeling in the dirt.

  “Hey, I found something.”

  Eli walked over to Ava.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Not sure, but it definitely looks out of place.”

  Ava gave Eli the small object in her hand.

  “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. Wonder what these markings are?”

  “No idea. They look like something out of Lord of the Rings,” Ava said.

  “Like something out of what?”

  Ava rolled her eyes and smirked. “You really don’t get out much, do you?” She took the object and handed it to an officer so he could bag it. “Hopefully this will be the lead we’ve been looking for.”

  ***

  “You lost one of the gateway stones? How could you be so careless?”

  Keena stood with her head hanging down, shame coloring her face. The Master of Prophets’ anger was justified; losing one of the gateway stones was reckless.

  “It was just the one stone, Master Kelhar,” Tani said.

  “And if every one of you Harvesters loses a stone, what then?” Master Kelhar asked, slashing at the air with his hand.

  “I can go back, see if I can find it—”

  “It is too dangerous. That world will have their authorities in the area and you might be captured and interrogated. No, I will have our mages craft you another stone. But if you lose one of them again you will be stripped of your title and put out of the monastery, is that understood?”

  Keena nodded, relief nearly making her knees buckle. She had been sure she would be asked to leave.

  Would that be such a bad thing?

  Keena left Master Kelhar’s study before he could see the tears fall down her cheeks. She didn’t notice if Tani followed or not; her heart and mind were too heavy to even care. Being a Harvester was all she had ever wanted. When she passed the examination and physical tests, her heart swelled from the happiness coursing through her. She ran all the way to her family’s home, nearly scaring her mother to death when she burst through the front door. The whole family had been so proud, but most especially her papa.

  “You bring us much honor, my daughter,” he had said, touching his forehead to hers.

  She had only been a Harvester for a couple of moons; her partner Tani had been one for nearly two years. She had been thrilled to be paired with someone so experienced. Tani had never missed finding the target, one of the few in the monastery to do so, making him a legend on their world.

  The first couple of targets hadn’t bothered Keena much. After all, the targets possessed things people on her world required for life. She thought it was worth it.

  But the job began to take its toll. One target had had a small locket containing a picture of what Keena presumed to be her daughter around her slender throat. Guilt slammed into her like a fist and she had fallen to her knees next to the woman. Though she tried to control her roiling stomach, she had vomited as she watched Tani open the woman’s body to retrieve her insides.

  When Master Kelhar came to her and Tani for the latest Harvesting she had nearly refused, anxiety causing her to shake. Tani finally took note of her behavior, but waited for Master Kelhar to leave before broaching the subject.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Instead of seeing bags of flesh carrying something our people need, I see someone with children, a life of their own. I wonder what their family does when they see the body, ruined and broken.”

  Admitting her feelings had been one of the hardest things Keena had ever done. But her anxiety was allayed when Tani admitted he was beginning to have second thoughts about his duty as a Harvester.

  “How have you done it all these years?” Keena asked.

  “I don’t know. Didn’t think about it much, I guess.”

  “And now?”

  Tani shrugged. “Same as you. What makes our people so much more worthy of life that we take someone else’s?”

  Keena nodded. “Yes, that’s what I keep thinking. The people we kill have families, people who love them.”

  “I know, but what are we to do?”

  Keena had been unable to answer then and she was unable to answer now. She only knew how wretched she felt at the thought of having to steal some stranger’s life. Part of her hoped Master Kelhar would revoke her privileges as a Harvester despite how disappointed her family would be at being forced to live as ordinary peasants once again. Keena would welcome it.

  And she thought Tani would as well.

  Though he was ten years her senior, she had been in love with him from the moment she laid eyes on him. He wasn’t what she had pictured as the man she would fall in love with. Tani was quiet and reserved in contrast to her bubbly nature. He was dark where she was light, in skin, eyes, and hair. The one thing that brought them together was their duty as Harvesters.

  But over the last few moons, she had grown to understand her silent partner. He was kind, loved his family and wanted the best for them, believed in the Prophets with an unrelenting fervor, and had a soft spot for animals. Each day made Keena’s feelings grow stronger.

  She wasn’t sure if he returned them or not. He was so difficult to read. He was as reticent with her as he was with everyone else. But she often caught him staring at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. It made her stomach do flip-flops, but she couldn’t meet his eyes in moments like those. If she was mistaken and he saw the naked hunger in her eyes, but didn’t return her feelings, Keena thought she would never be able to face him again.

  “Don’t worry about losing the stone. You know Master Kelhar likes to throw his power around.”

  Keena looked up at Tani. “I can’t believe I was so careless.”

  “You made an error. One I guarantee you won’t make again.”

  Keena gave Tani a small smile. “I certainly won’t.”

  The two stood in silence, watching the sun set over the hills from the covered porch of the monastery. A lone airship glided by, its shadow crawling over the ground. Acolytes began lighting the many torches that bordered the monastery.

  “The gateway stone isn’t the only thing that weighs on your mind.”

  “You know what bothers me.”

  Tani nodded. “I share your concerns, but I’ve been unable to find an answer as to what to do. If we come back empty-handed, we will be exiled from the monastery.”

  “Would that be so bad?” Keena asked.

  “Our families enjoy esteem that no one born into our class can ever dream of. If we fail, we send them back down to where they started. Can you do that to them?”

  Keena wiped tears from her cheeks. “I understand what we would be giving up. But isn’t our happiness important too? Are money and class the only things that matter?”

  Tani wanted to argue, but the words caught in his throat. He had seen the distress in her eyes as he had opened the last man’s body to retrieve his organs. If he hadn’t had so many years of practice at shoving his emotions to the side, he wasn’t sure he could have continued the job.

  “Perhaps your little mistake will give us a reprieve from our duties.”

  Keena smiled. “That would be nice. We have not had much time to ourselves.”

  “What would you do with a whole week, knowing you wouldn’t be called to work?”

  “Go home.”

  “I imagine your family’s mansion is quite breathtaking,” Tani said.

  Keena smiled sadly. “I would go back to the house we lived in before I became a Harvester. We didn’t have much, but life was simpler. I have a lot of happy memories in that tiny house.”

  “Surely you’ve built some good memories in your family’s new home?”

  Keena looked at Tani, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks. “Of course I have. But at what cost?”

  CHAPTER 3

  “IT’S BEE
N THIRTY-SIX hours. What do you two have for me?”

  Eli glanced up at Dean Platt. The precinct captain was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, brows furrowed.

  “Nothing yet, Captain.”

  “Fill me in on what you do have.”

  “A whole lotta nothing. No one saw anything, no fibers or prints, nothing suspicious on his computer or phone. It’s like a killer randomly targeted this guy and vanished into thin air.”

  Captain Platt rubbed his face before pounding his fist on Eli’s desk. “We need something. The press is hounding me for a statement. What am I supposed to tell them?”

  Eli shook his head and threw his hands in the air. “I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

  He looked up as Ava approached.

  “I just spent the last few hours checking with area hospitals. No kidney or heart transplants in the last week. The medical examiner confirmed that the organs would be useless by now. If someone did take the organs for the purpose of transplantation, the window has closed,” she said, and she sat on the edge of Eli’s desk.

  Eli raised an eyebrow. Ava’s position afforded him an excellent view of her legs, which he admitted were killer. He’d never understood that term until now. Always been an ass man. But Ava’s legs made him want to change his mind about his favorite part of a woman’s body.

  “What if the perp didn’t take them for transplantation?” Captain Platt asked.

  “That still leaves us with nothing,” Eli said as he leaned back in his chair with his hands linked behind his head.

  “It’s not like you to not have some idea rattling around that giant head of yours,” Platt said.

  “My head is not giant,” Eli said.

  “Between your Afro and your ego, it really should have its own zip code.”

  “Don’t be hating on a brother’s hair, now. Just because you’re a little light up top…” Eli rubbed his own hair.

  He stood and motioned Ava to follow. “Let’s go back to the victim’s work place, see if there’s anything we might have missed.”

  “Bring me something, Elliott,” Platt yelled after him.

  “You know I hate that name, Captain,” Eli shouted over his shoulder.