Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

“All the empaths I know are frazzled nutjobs. It’s as if their sensitivity to other’s emotions makes them more volatile.”

  “Danyael’s a defense-class mutant—his empathic powers don’t penetrate non-organic obstacles, like walls—and his psychic shields are strong enough to fend off multiple simultaneous attacks from alpha telepaths. Since his emotions have a nasty tendency to grow exponentially if he projects them, he was trained by the Mutant Affairs Council never to let his emotions control him or the situation. His exquisite equilibrium is real, and it’s a beauty to see it in action, especially when he’s dealing with Zara.”

  “You’re fond of him…of them.”

  “Of course. It’s hard not to be. We’ve been through a great deal together. It’s hard to do better than to have Danyael consider you a friend.”

  Yu Long’s gaze was thoughtful. “How long do you think this will take?”

  “The autopsy or winning Danyael’s friendship?”

  “Both.”

  “The autopsy? Less time than you think. Danyael’s an exceptional doctor; he’s both quick and thorough. Winning Danyael’s friendship? I don’t know. Feels like it took forever—with more steps back than forward.” And with the biggest step back still out there—the fact that I sent him to ADX Florence. Hell, it wasn’t just a step back. That revelation could shatter Danyael’s hard-won trust and sever their friendship forever. She did not know why Zara had not told Danyael the truth about what she had done, but whatever the reason, she was grateful. He could never find out; their friendship would never survive it.

  Xin looked up to find Yu Long’s quizzical gaze on her. He made no mention of her sudden introspective mood as he pointed down the corridor. “The medical examiner’s office is down this way if you’d like to take a look at the other forensic records.”

  “How much data do you have?” she asked as she walked beside him.

  His face tightened. “Too much. Too damned much.”

  In the silence of the medical examiner’s office, beneath a blast of cold air pouring out of the vents in the ceiling, Xin worked on the initial stages of classifying and culling the hundreds of forensic reports on file. The first part of the challenge was cleaning the data, making sure that the murders she analyzed were the act of a single person, or perhaps a gang, although the latter seemed unlikely. Murder on a vast scale was hard to keep quiet, and the more people involved, the greater the likelihood that someone would make a mistake and get caught. Copycat murders also had to be removed from the list, since their data would corrupt her analysis. The work was slow, painstaking, and—to Xin’s frustration—not necessarily accurate. It would require many iterations before the data became coherent enough to provide answers.

  A soft knock on the door drew her attention away from the large computer screen. Yu Long and Danyael stood at the door with matching disposable cups in their hands. Xin tilted her head. “I didn’t know you drank coffee, Danyael.” As an alpha empath, he habitually avoided alcohol and caffeine, which impaired both mental judgment and emotional control.

  “Decaffeinated green tea. But Yu Long brought a coffee for you.”

  She accepted the cup from Yu Long with a nod of thanks. “Are the autopsies done? What did you find out?”

  Danyael spoke. “One is a woman, mid-forties. Her lips and throat were torn out. The wound ripped through the jugular; she died from blood loss. She was also beaten with fists; her skin raked by nails.”

  “But she was attacked by a human, as opposed to say, an animal?”

  “Yes, definitely a human. There’s nothing superhuman about the injuries inflicted on her. They were just inflicted by an angry human. We managed to get cellular samples that may have come from her assailant. The lab’s working on them now.”

  “And the second?”

  “A boy, eight or nine years old. No physical injuries.”

  Xin straightened in her seat, and her eyes narrowed as Danyael continued speaking. “His heart stopped. He went into cardiac arrest from extreme blood loss.”

  “But you just said he had no physical injuries.”

  “None, other than deep bruises where the veins are closest to the surface.”

  Could there be something after all to the rumors of vampires? Only half-joking, she said, “Don’t tell me you found teeth marks.”

  Danyael shook his head. “I found needle marks.”

  “Excelsior…”

  Danyael grimaced. “Unfortunately, needle marks don’t come with names. The boy also showed signs of severe anemia. Anemia doesn’t happen overnight; this child was short on blood for a long time. In fact, whoever did it may not have intended to kill him.”

  “So these two deaths are not related.”

  Danyael shook his head. “Definitely not.” His expression tightened. “There’s more.”

  This wasn’t going to be good. “All right, hit me with it.”

  “The child was suffering from degenerative diseases that usually only afflict older people.”

  “What?” Her lips shaped the words through the glaze of numbing shock.

  “Thin, crepe-like skin. The beginnings of cataracts in his eyes. His cartilage was thinner and his ligaments far less elastic than they should have been in a child his age.” Danyael pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

  The list was three or four times longer than the few symptoms he had mentioned. Her fingers tightened on the sheet of paper. “Excelsior is conducting live-blood transfusions with children?”

  Danyael’s shoulders slumped on a silent sigh. “Possibly. More than likely.”

  Yu Long frowned. “These are serious accusations. Is there any possibility that the transfusions used non-live blood instead of a live vein-to-vein transfusion?”

  “Blood, removed from its host, loses its transformative ability within minutes, certainly no more than an hour,” Danyael explained. “I’m convinced this child received live blood, which meant that he also gave live blood.”

  Xin drew a deep breath. Somewhere out there, an old person had been given a fresh lease on life, and a child had paid the price. “The people at Excelsior would be fools to track this research in their standard databases—databases that the IGEC can subpoena in an instant. If there are any records at all, they would be on a non-networked computer, accessible only at Excelsior. We’d have to break in.”

  Both Yu Long and Danyael winced, and Danyael shook his head. “It’s going to be hard to keep research on this scale quiet, but I didn’t pick up the slightest flicker of guilt from Brandon Richards. He may not know what’s going on.”

  “Or he just doesn’t feel guilty about it,” Xin murmured.

  “It’s worth another conversation with him. I want to hear what he thinks about his research and operations in China. I’ve an invitation to dine with him and Dr. Shen tonight, at his penthouse. I trust your read on people. If I can arrange to bring a date, will you come with me?”

  “Of course.”

  Danyael stepped out of the office to make a phone call, and returned moments later with an electronic tablet in his hand. Xin caught a glimpse of an anxious-faced lab technician standing in the corridor before the door closed. “Dinner’s at six,” he said tersely. “And the lab report is back.”

  Judging from his expression, she did not think she would like the latest update any better. “What is it?”

  “The cellular samples from her assailant. Either they deteriorated profoundly, which is unlikely given that her body was found within an hour of her death, or—” He shrugged. “—or they’re not human.”

  “But you said her attacker was a human.”

  “The wounds are consistent with an attack from another person, but the cellular evidence tells a different story.” Danyael glanced at the tablet. “Its genetic structure matches many human genetic markers, but there are enough differences to imply that it’s a different species.”

  “Species? Seriously, Danyael?”

  “I wish it were a joke.” H
e handed the tablet to her. “And that was the good news.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “The woman’s cells around her open wounds were transforming.”

  Xin blinked. “What the hell do you mean by transforming?”

  “Her cellular and genetic structures were in a hybrid state, bearing some resemblance to her original cells, but also gaining resemblance to it, whatever it is.” Danyael’s face was grim. “Before she died from blood loss, she was in the process of rapidly transforming into it.”

  A quiet corner of the staff cafeteria provided a much-needed change of scenery from the four walls of the medical examiner’s office. Yu Long slumped in the seat across from Xin. His fingers worked at the rim of the disposable cup, peeling it back and rerolling it, until Xin placed her hand over his. He raised his head; his eyes were glazed with exhaustion and darkened by guilt. He shook his head. “I don’t know how we missed the fact that the person responsible for all the violent murders wasn’t human.”

  “You weren’t looking for it. You heard Danyael say that there were many human genetic markers in the attacker’s cellular sample. Your people were trying to match genetic markers with your database, and when you didn’t get a match—”

  “We just assumed the attacker didn’t have a criminal record.” Yu Long grimaced. “On the other hand, Danyael went looking for a monster, and found it. How did he know to look for it?”

  “I told him.”

  Yu Long’s narrow eyed gaze fixed on Xin. “And how did you know?”

  “By assuming that your people were competent and covered every logical avenue in their attempt to crack the murder cases. It left only the improbable.”

  “The non-human monster.”

  “Exactly. And we were right.”

  Yu Long sighed. “And I don’t suppose Danyael will be able to tell us exactly how inhuman is this non-human monster?”

  “He can guess, but it’s impossible to say if the cellular sample retrieved off the victim’s body was contaminated. The only way to know for certain is to get a sample directly off a monster.”

  “No one’s seen them. No one knows where to find them.”

  “They’re somewhere. Can’t you call in the military and have them assist in searching the sewers, empty buildings—”

  Yu Long scowled. “You make it sound simple.”

  “Isn’t it? Even in America, it’s not that complicated.”

  He sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Damn it; I didn’t want to ask those guys for any more favors.”

  “Those guys?”

  “Wang, the general of the nearest military base, and Chen, the chief of police here in Zhengzhou.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  He chuckled, the sound without humor. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  Yu Long set his administrative assistants on the task of summoning Wang and Chen to city hall before driving himself and Xin over to the meeting place. Instead of ushering her into the conference room, he led her up the stairs to a much smaller room with an observation mirror into the conference room.

  “You can watch from here,” he said. His jaw was taut.

  Xin decided not to make his day harder by insisting on joining him. Some things were better enjoyed from a distance.

  Yu Long left her and within minutes stepped into the conference room where the general and chief of police were already waiting.

  Neither stood to greet him as he entered.

  A scowl marked Chen, the police chief’s, flushed face. He dragged a chubby hand over his sweaty brow. “Make it quick. I have work to do.”

  Wang, the general, snorted, his lips set in a sneer so deep set that furrows had folded into his face. “Yes, make it quick. His police force cannot function without his personal direction.”

  Chen turned on Wang, but Yu Long held up his hand. “Enough. I have new information on the unsolved murders in Zhengzhou. We have reason to suspect that the culprit may not be entirely human.”

  Chen rolled his eyes. “We need arrests, not wild speculation.”

  “Exactly,” Yu Long agreed. “And we’ll need to search the city—its quiet and abandoned places—where the culprit may be hiding.”

  Wang’s eyebrows shot up so high they almost vanished into his graying hairline. “We?”

  “I’ll need your help.” Yu Long’s steady gaze rested first on the general and then on the chief of police.

  Chen pushed to his feet, his ponderous movements somehow seeming stately rather than clumsy. “We do not need help from the military. Neither do we need someone from the central government telling us what to do.” His tiny eyes fixed on Yu Long. “I told the mayor it was a mistake to contact Beijing. We have a real problem here, but Beijing sends over a young pup without a single wrinkle on his forehead—”

  “Could have been worse.” Wang’s sneer deepened. “Beijing could have sent a woman.”

  “Right.” Chen laughed. Hilarity jostled his heavy jowls. “And when you arrive, the best you can come up with is some kind of monster hiding in our city?” He snorted. “We are not children. We are not afraid of ghost stories. We have real jobs and real problems. We don’t have time for your fanciful tales.”

  “I have evidence—”

  Wang stood, too. Both men towered over Yu Long, who remained seated. “You want us to find the evidence for you by turning our men over to your command.” He shook his head. “This is Zhengzhou, not Beijing. We don’t leap when some baby-faced officer from the Mutant Central Division starts throwing his weight around. Here, the things we do by the strength of our backs and hands count more than the tricks of the mind.”

  “Are you done?” Yu Long asked, his voice quiet.

  Chen and Wang exchanged glances.

  “I do not have all the answers right now, but I know what we need to do to find them. If I catch the next flight back to Beijing, you’d be no closer to solving the murders in Zhengzhou, and you will be called to answer for your lack of initiative.”

  “But not by you,” Chen growled. “My ancestors have lived here for generations. Our blood has been poured into the land. We built this city without any help from Beijing, and we do not need Beijing telling us what to do now.”

  “I’m not an overly ambitious recruit from the Mutant Central Division.” Yu Long did not raise his voice. “I am the head of special projects—and right now, my special project includes two other top priority assignments in Zhengzhou, neither of which has anything to do with the murder spree.”

  Wang snorted. “I heard about that. Some American mutant is visiting Zhengzhou.”

  “Not just ‘some American mutant.’ Danyael Sabre—the physical template for Galahad, the genetically engineered perfect human created by Pioneer Labs, and one of the most powerful alpha empaths in the world—is here in Zhengzhou.”

  “So what?” Wang asked. “What is one mutant to us?”

  “Nothing, unless he can wipe out several city blocks just by having a bad day.”

  “Mutants are your responsibility,” Chen said. “You get him out of Zhengzhou, and leave our human problems to us.”

  “I’m human, too,” Yu Long said. “And Beijing made your problem my problem. I need a systematic search of the city—”

  “We have real problems to solve and a city to manage,” Chen said. “I’m not going to pull my men out of their daily responsibilities to send them on a wild goose chase of something you’re not sure exists.” He smoothed his shirt over his bulging stomach. “When you’re ready to have a serious conversation, call me, but not a moment sooner.”

  General Wang’s thin lips turned up in a smirk as he strode past Yu Long without bidding him farewell.

  Xin pushed to her feet and left the observation room, timing her exit to walk down the stairs at the same moment Chen and Wang turned the corner.

  She paused on the fourth step to ensure that they had to look up at her. “General Zhi.”

  General Wang stopped, likely instin
ctively at the word “General.” He opened his mouth to object to the wrong name, but her gaze had already moved on to the police chief.

  “General Hou Gao.” Her tone was matter-of-fact and subtly indifferent. It was the voice of authority—of a superior bestowing the honor of acknowledgement upon an underling.

  General Wang and Police Chief Chen blinked in astonishment and stepped aside as she swept past them without a backward glance and continued toward Yu Long who stood against the doorframe.

  She hurled out her thought—an order.

  Immediately, he lowered his head in a gesture of deep respect. “Lady Fu Hao.” He fell in behind her like an obedient subordinate and accompanied her from the building and into the waiting limousine. Wang and Chen followed their progress in bewildered silence.

  “What was all that about?” he asked as the car pulled away from the curb.

  “Establishing rank,” Xin said. “We may need them later, and I may not have the time to bring them around then.”

  “We need them now. We have to search the city.”

  “Zhengzhou is 3,000 square miles and growing. You have to narrow your search. I can help you do that.”

  “We’ve already mapped where the bodies were found. There were no discernable patterns.”

  “That’s a statement in itself. I’ll take a second look.”

  Yu Long’s shoulders slumped on a quiet sigh. He glanced out of the window before rousing himself enough to ask, “Why did you call them General Zhi and General Hou Gao?”

  “They were Fu Hao’s leading generals.”

  He straightened and turned to look at her. “What?”

  “I read it on one of the museum exhibits.”

  Yu Long stared at her for a moment longer before bursting into laughter. “And that’s why you asked me to acknowledge you as Fu Hao. You want them to believe they’re Fu Hao’s reincarnated generals.”

  “When I need work out of them, I don’t want to have to argue about it. Might as well lay the groundwork now.”

  He shook his head. “You’re playing on the Chinese obsessions with rebirth and reincarnations.”

  Xin shrugged. “Whatever it takes. Take me back to the villa. I have to get ready for dinner.” And work on my other murder case.