“What’s with that look, Kinsey?” he asks.
“I underestimated you. I apologize.”
He holds up his hand. “No need.”
The waitress returns with our food, faster than I expected, but it gives me the chance I need to think about how to tell Lassiter such a long story over a short lunch. I had months of classes at the DSI academy to learn all the information I’m about to shove down this man’s throat in forty-five minutes.
As the waitress slides the last plate over to Lassiter, I decide to pick the easiest starting point, even though it’s the most painful one. My starting point. The night of the stakeout in Gloston Square. The night Mac died.
The waitress leaves, and I steel myself.
Then I pick up my fork, twirl it in my fingers, and meet Lassiter’s curious eyes. “So, a little over two years ago, I was a rookie cop…”
Lassiter listens with rapt interest in my story of a bright, hopeful cop turned slightly cynical DSI detective, and in between bites of my delicious sandwich and spoonfuls of soup, I manage to create a reasonably well-detailed framework of the global supernatural community and its dynamics in Aurora, including the recent issues with the ICM and werewolf rogues that have their respective governments throwing hissy fits. When I wrap up my tale of death, destruction, and barely avoided disasters, Lassiter leans against the back of the booth, strokes his stubbly chin for a minute, and then…starts laughing?
“Damn, Kinsey. I knew you DSI guys had it rough sometimes, but I didn’t know you were constantly running around no-man’s land, barely avoiding a hail of mortar fire.” He picks up a cucumber slice from his plate and tosses it in his mouth. “To think all this time, there’s been a guillotine hanging over my city, ready to drop the second the Kooks, of all people, make a mistake. Really sheds some light on why the mayor lets you butt in on certain cases. I guess Burbank can’t play favorites when a monster might come charging out of another dimension and raze Aurora to the ground.” He scrunches his nose, like it physically hurts him to admit that a) monsters are real, and b) the Eververse exists.
I understand that feeling.
I had the same one the day after Gloston Square.
“One question though,” he adds, gulping down the last of the tea in his glass. “If it’s such a big deal to keep this stuff on the down low, then why does DSI operate semi-publicly? You go X-Files top secret with the details, but you flaunt your fancy black uniforms and unmarked SUVs, and you frequently talk to the press—if only to brush them off. Why’s that?”
“Ah, there’s a purpose to that.” I wolf down the last bite of my sandwich. “See, if we operated only in the shadows, nobody would know to come to us when they have a negative supernatural experience. Victims of supernatural violence wouldn’t know who to call for help, and people bent on retribution, or preferably on justice, wouldn’t know there was a place they could go, a group they could join, to make a difference. A DSI rep came to me, after Mac’s death, and explained what I just told you—minus current events. That discussion is what made me quit the force and join DSI. Because if what happened to Mac could happen to other innocent people, then I wanted to be part of the organization working to protect them.”
I set my spoon down and grab a napkin to wipe my face, the next words churning in my gut for a hesitant moment. Then I take the plunge: “I’ve wanted to be a hero since my mom showed me what heroism really meant, when she risked and ultimately gave her life to save the lives of her employees. It was DSI that showed me what kind of hero I could really be, what difference I could really make, in a world on the brink of a war it can barely comprehend.”
Lassiter doesn’t reply to me for the next two or three minutes. He taps his fingers on the table and directs his attention outside, to the blustery winter day, to the nearby snow plow gearing up for another pass, to the citizens walking down the sidewalks, waiting for buses, shopping for Christmas, none the wiser to the constant supernatural threats hiding around every corner.
At last, the detective offers me another smile. This one is brighter than his others, and more deferential. “Smart words for a young kid, Kinsey. Still a tad on the idealistic side, I think, but I get where you’re coming from. You had an experience you couldn’t shake off, and you let that guide you to becoming the sort of person you wanted to be. A healthier option than many choose after trauma, for sure. And I respect that.”
He reaches inside his coat pocket and removes a folded piece of notebook paper. “Here’s my cell number. If something comes up, and you need a little extra help—the sort of help I can provide, you understand—then don’t hesitate to ring me up.”
Wary, I pluck the paper from his fingers. “I’m not sure how to read your response here. Do you want to be involved in the supernatural…or not?”
“It’s not about what I want.” He wipes his mouth with his own napkin, crumples it, and throws it on his empty plate. “Personally, I think the mere existence of the supernatural means we’re all involved, whether we like it or not. It’s less a matter of involvement and more a matter of participation. I have no intention of participating in this circus of monsters on a regular basis—because I have my own monsters to manage, the ones with the human faces and, worse, the human hearts. But if there’s a time, like this ‘Ammit’ business, when you all need some extra hands to avoid a nuclear winter scenario, then please, yes, drag me into it. I’ll participate then. Because as much as this supernatural crap weirds me out, I want to keep on living, and I want the world to keep on spinning. And if that means I occasionally need to throw in with the Kooks”—he shrugs—“then so be it.”
He reaches across the table and offers me his hand.
I take it, and we shake.
You know, I think I kind of like this guy…
“Now,” he says, pulling his beanie back on, “if that’s all, I got to get back to work. Late-night homicide down on Ram’s Head Lane. Mugging gone wrong, looks like.” He clicks his tongue. “A little mundane for you, I know, but that’s how I roll on Mondays.”
I dig around for my wallet so I can pay for Lassiter’s considerably expensive meal. “To each his own,” I reply. “If mundane works for you…Lassiter?”
He’s staring out the window, suspicion written into his narrowed eyes. “You got a tail, Kinsey. Between the bank and the hardware store.”
I freeze up, wallet half open in my hands, and slowly look toward the indicated area. Sure enough, at the end of the block, between the Bank of America on the corner and the new hardware store next door, the figure of a man stands stagnant on the sidewalk, facing Dot’s diner, his angle lined up perfectly with the window for our booth. But Lassiter, new to this whole supernatural shtick, is missing one important detail about my supposed “tail.”
“That’s not a living person,” I mumble.
Lassiter responds with a sharp, “What?”
I drop several large bills on the table without counting and slide out of the booth as quickly as I can, grabbing my crutches without taking my eyes off the familiar man in the distance. I’m afraid if I do, he’ll disappear for good. “That’s a shade, Lassiter,” I say in the same low tone, “a ghost. And I’ve seen him before.”
It’s the shade who escaped from Slate’s basement that day I accidentally blew up the clocks. I got so wrapped up in all that happened after—the kidnapping, the summoning—that I completely forgot about the one shade who refused the Call to vanish into the Eververse. And here he is now, within my reach, but also far enough away that he could very well evade me again.
“I need to talk to that ghost. Now.” Maybe this guy could shed some light on the remaining mysteries surrounding the Ammit summoning. The names of any other conspirators. The truth behind the ‘enemy.’ There’s still far too much we don’t know.
Lassiter leans in close to my ear. “Um, Kinsey, can ghosts talk?”
“They sure can, if they’re powerful enough. And that one’s been hanging around Earth too long after death to
be weak.” Sticking my crutches under my armpits, I attempt to back through the same obstacle course of tables that almost tripped me earlier—and immediately ram my ass into a chair. Ow.
Lassiter gawks at me.
“Okay, let’s try this another way.” I point a finger at him. “You watch the ghost, and I will walk forward instead of backward so I don’t fall and break my neck. If the ghost moves at all, tell me immediately.”
The detective frowns, annoyed, but relents. “All right. Whatever.”
We make our way out of the diner at a snail’s pace thanks to my broken leg, but to my surprise, Lassiter never pokes my shoulder to inform me the ghost has disappeared. When I turn the corner of the restaurant, I locate the shade in the same place he was four minutes ago, back against the brick wall joining the bank to the hardware store.
A living person, a woman, at the bank’s ATM, grabs her money and marches right on past the ghost without giving him a second glance. In the dim light of the cloudy day, I can see the shade is slightly transparent, but it’s not obvious enough to be noticed by preoccupied passersby.
The ghost man must have practiced for this—appearing to me today.
But why? Why me? Why here? Why now? Why…?
It suddenly occurs to me that the shade might want to lead me somewhere. Ghosts are the silent types; they have a long history of showing more than telling. It’s a quirk that even the best ghost researchers don’t quite understand—possibly a consequence of some effect death has on the human psyche.
If this ghost wants me to follow him somewhere, then it’s possible he’s spent the time since his release from the clock training himself to stay visible long enough to make the trip. That would take a considerable amount of power for a shade, especially if the destination is a significant distance from the diner.
When I’m about thirty feet from the shade, Lassiter a few steps behind me, the ghost man suddenly turns on his heels and walks off down the street, to the nearest intersection. His pace is slow, measured, and he checks over his shoulder several times to see if I’m following. After the walk light turns green, he crosses the street, and I hurry along on my creaking crutches to keep up with him. I hear Lassiter pause behind me, unsure if he wants to follow a ghost to some unknown location, but he sighs and gives in, catching up to me with a jog.
Maybe he cares about my well-being.
Or maybe he finds this supernatural “crap” more interesting than he cares to admit.
Regardless…
We trail the ghost for eight blocks, until we reach the edge of a wooded area that separates the last vestiges of Aurora from its nearest suburb. The ghost then turns onto a narrow bike path and strolls into the woods.
Huffing and puffing at the exertion from walking eight blocks on crutches, I hesitate at the beginning of the path, which is covered is fresh, deep snow. But after just six seconds, the shade stops walking and looks over his shoulder again. Waiting for me.
As I glare at him, irritated, an odd realization strikes me: the distance between us is still roughly thirty feet. It’s like he wants to stay close enough for me to see him but not see him well. What could that mean? Is he someone I know?
A chill creeps up my spine at the thought, and I drive my crutches into the snow, continuing forward. The shade resumes walking a second later.
Lassiter groans. “Are you serious, Kinsey? This thing could be leading us into a trap.”
“No,” I say, “he’s not.”
“How can you be sure?”
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I have a feeling—a gut feeling, not like that flaky déjà vu. There’s a revelation here, on the tip of my tongue, at the edge of my mind. Something obvious I’m missing. Something important this ghost is trying to get me to understand. “I can’t be sure,” I admit to Lassiter. “So if you want to back out, be my guest.”
“Aw, hell. I see where this is going.” The detective shuffles into the snow behind me. “Got a hunch, don’t you? One you can’t ignore?”
“That a standard detective quirk?” I keep my eyes peeled on the shade, who’s now curving around a bend in the path.
“Well, I’m no Sherlock, but I’ve had my fair share of light bulb moments during my career.” He chuckles dryly. “Happens sometimes to all detectives, after they’ve been at the Homicide table long enough. Experience begets knowledge, and knowledge begets hypothesis, and hypothesis begets conclusion. Or something like that. My old partner Frank had a better way with words than me.”
“Old partner?”
“Yeah, old and gray. He retired last year. Got a rookie by my side now, who—”
“Wait!” I hold up my hand to signal him to stop.
Up ahead, the shade takes a sudden turn off the bike path and descends a hill toward what appears to be a wide, half-frozen stream running through the woods.
“Looks like we’re going off road.” Picking up my pace, I hobble to the turnoff point. I reach the top of the hill at the same moment the ghost reaches the bottom. Without stopping, he whirls to the right and starts trudging along the edge of the stream in a northerly direction.
“Uh, Kinsey?” Lassiter parks himself next to me. “You sure you can make it down there? Hill’s a bit steep for a guy on crutches.”
“Watch me, Detective,” I retort.
And he does watch me.
Trip three steps in and roll all the way down the hill.
When I come to a stop, next to the stream, my face planted in the snow, Lassiter calls out, “That was quite the show, Kinsey. Thank you for the entertainment.”
Ass.
Lassiter slip-slides his way over to me, recovering my misplaced crutches as he approaches. After I sit up, the detective hands me the crutches and helps me stand. I brush the snow off my clothes, but the cold moisture has already seeped into the denim of my jeans and the fabric of my socks. As we resume our pursuit of the shade, I have to deal with the audible squishing of feet in damp shoes. Great.
Luckily, it appears this impromptu walk is coming to an end.
Unluckily, it’s because there’s a corpse floating in the stream.
Lassiter spots it first and stops short. “Shit.”
Nearly running into his back, I peer around his arm and follow his line of sight. To the partially decomposed body sticking out from underneath the icy cap on the water. Most of its skin has either rotted away or been stripped off by forest scavengers, its once nice, navy suit in tatters. Gray hair still clings to what’s left of its scalp, and there’s just enough flesh remaining on the face to determine the body is male. Middle aged, creeping toward elderly.
The shade stands half a foot in front of this body.
And it’s in this terrible moment, where Lassiter and I, for the first time, draw close enough to the shade to see his face, to see his grief, to see his horror, to see his desperation…It’s in this moment that three undeniable truths land heavy on my shoulders:
One: the body has been here for several weeks.
Two: the body and the shade are the same person.
Three: that person is…
“Oh, my god,” I say, “it’s Arthur Slate.”
Chapter Thirty
Medical Examiner Natalie Schultz is not a woman to be trifled with. She loathes the supernatural almost as much as she loathes normal people, and she’s not afraid to show her displeasure in her words, actions, and petty attempts at revenge. So when Lassiter and I pull up to the front door of the city morgue in his Crown Vic at half past one, hurry into the lobby, flash our credentials at the secretary, and demand to speak with Schultz immediately, she has no problem whatsoever storming through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door, click-clacking over to us in her high heels, and screaming in our faces:
“What the hell do you two morons think you’re doing interrupting me on my lunch break?” She shoots us her best glare. Which would be more effective if she wasn’t wearing pink-rimmed glasses and cute earrings shaped like teddy bears.
Sometimes, the personality doesn’t match the style.
Lassiter speaks first. “We need to see Arthur Slate’s body immediately.”
Schultz recoils. “Huh? Why? I sent my cause of death write-up over to DSI and Burbank’s office last week. Are you insinuating I missed something?”
Lassiter and I exchange nervous glances.
“So,” I reply, “you’re saying that Slate’s body is definitely still in the morgue, right?”
“What?” Schultz’s eyebrows draw together in confusion, and her tone degrades toward anxious. “Of course. The tech on duty this morning inspected all the bodies in storage first thing, per the procedures we put in place after”—she fake coughs—“a ghoul broke into the building and ate two of my bodies a year and a half ago. Slate’s body got a check mark like the rest. He’s in his bag, on the tray, in the fridge bank, where he belongs until Burbank signs off on his funeral prep.”
Lassiter clears his throat. “Do you mind if we…double-check?”
Schultz eyes us with suspicion. “What’s this about?”
“We’ll explain after we see the body.” I nod toward the double doors. “Please?”
She taps her shoe on the tile floor, then sighs in frustration. “Fine. But make it quick. I’ve got three autopsies this afternoon and a hot date tonight, for which I would prefer to shower beforehand.”
Yikes. Can’t say I disagree with that reasoning.
She leads us into the employee-restricted area and down a drab gray hall, until we reach a room that requires a keycard to enter. She swipes her card and yanks the door open, gesturing for us to step inside.
The autopsy room, complete with the aforementioned “fridge bank” attached to the left-hand wall, is almost as cold as it is outside, to dampen the decay rate of the bodies. There’s a bare rolling table situated off to the right, several drains cut into the floor, and a large glass cabinet on the far wall, filled with all sorts of new, packaged autopsy supplies, including scalpels and saw blades. Only two of the ceiling lights in the room are on, so it’s much darker (and creepier) in here than the hallway.
Shade Chaser (City of Crows 2) Page 28
