Pure Blood Part 14

"Well, I can't believe they were stupid enough to leave their parking garage unwarded," I said. "Let's go."

Yellow tape had gone up around the scene in the time I'd been gone, and Pete was scribbling a field report on his clipboard while his team packed up. He greeted me with a nod. "Detective. Ms. Wilder."

"Swann," Sunny corrected him. "I'm her cousin on the mother's side."

"Whatever brightens your aura," said Pete. "Why are you here, exactly?"

I took Pete aside. "You know Sunny's a witch, right? And O'Halloran too?"

"I've heard all the same rumors you have," said Pete in his unflappable way.

"Pete, would you consider for a minute that maybe magick was used here?" I said. He rubbed his chin.

"Detective, I haven't forgotten those weres. I haven't forgotten what happened with the DA. Magick makes a h.e.l.luva lot more sense than an invisible bomb or a CIA conspiracy."

"Sunny can tell us how they used it," I said. "If you don't mind her taking a look around."

Pete thought about that for a second, and then nodded. "I'm thinking I'll just leave this part out of my scene report."

"Smart man," I said. Crumpled in my back pocket was a bandanna stained with sweet-and-sour sauce, and also doused in the nastiest, stinkiest floral perfume I could find at Nocturnal, the snooty department store where Shelby probably spent most of her free time. "Sunny, take this." I lifted the tape and we walked forward, but Sunny froze when she saw Patrick's body.

"I'm going to be sick."

"No," I a.s.sured her. "No, you won't. Just breathe."

"G.o.ds," said Sunny, clapping the bandanna over her mouth and nose. "Does it always smell this bad?"

"Not always," said Pete. "Although last month there was this guy we dragged out of the bay, must have been floating for a good two weeks, and when we pulled him out of the water his stomach-"

"Pete," I warned in the voice I use to stop fleeing suspects in their tracks and make reticent ex-boyfriends squirm. "Let's let Sunny work in peace."

My cousin was as green as a soccer field, but she took a breath and walked closer to the car, kneeling down to trace the ground a few feet from the driver's side door. "Did you see this?"

I looked at the charred concrete, feeling dumb. "Burn marks?"

"It's a circle," said Sunny, and the niggling thing just under my consciousness snapped into place. What I had mistaken for the blast radius was was a circle, surrounding the Jaguar far too neatly to have been caused by a bomb. a circle, surrounding the Jaguar far too neatly to have been caused by a bomb.

"Simple," Sunny said. "Set your circle for an incendiary working but don't close it. When anyone else crosses your working, poof." She gestured at the car. "He never had a chance. Can I please get away from this body now?"

Pete helped her up, then stopped. "There's something s.h.i.+ny under the car."

I crouched next to him, seeing a small tube about the size of a cheap lipstick or an expensive cigar. Pete slipped on a glove and snagged the object, while I slipped on a glove of my own to receive it.

The tube was unmarred except for some soot and had a twist-off top. "What is it?" Sunny called from outside the tape.

"No clue," I muttered, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the two halves. A piece of rolled paper, thick linen or parchment, fell into my palm. I unrolled it to reveal spidery ink cursive: We see with empty eyes. We see with empty eyes.

"c.r.a.p," I said.

Nocturne City General is not the hospital you want to be in if you're sick or maimed. It looks more like the setting for a Stephen King novel than a real hospital, low asbestos tiles and green linoleum circa the early 1970s, all capped off by flickering fluorescent tubes that fill the air with a constant buzz.

It's also not the place you want to be if you're a were-the smell alone will make you faint. Bleach fumes trying to cover up thirty years of sweat and blood and dying, and not doing the job.

Shelby's room was a semiprivate on the second floor, which some overambitious contractor had tried to cheer up with hot pink paint and a wallpaper border featuring playful kittens.

"Hey," she said weakly, raising a hand trailing IV lines. "Long time no see."

I didn't respond, just tossed the note in its evidence baggie on the blankets next to her and crossed my arms. Shelby read it, her already drawn face going pale. "Where did you get this?"

"The bomber left it for us," I said. "Thoughtful of him, or her."

Shelby swallowed and I saw her eyes dart to the call b.u.t.ton resting on her nightstand. I reached across her bed, jerked the thing out of the wall in a shower of sparks and tossed it in the trash. "You and I are going to talk, and no one is going to interrupt us."

The fear in Shelby's eyes told me everything I needed-the message meant something to her, and that meant she'd lied to me. "Luna, you've got the wrong idea."

And the hits just keep on coming. "No, see, I think I've got it exactly right. Vincent Blackburn turns up dead, and a car bomb obliterates your uncle. The bomber leaves a message for us-the same phrase that I've heard other blood witches use. 'An eye for an eye' comes to mind, Shelby." I leaned in, so close I could smell the old blood from her wound, and said evenly, "There's a gang war going on between the blood witches and the casters. How long do you think it will be before the Blackburns start in on your generation?"

Shelby pa.s.sed a hand over her eyes. Her shoulders were shaking and she turned her head away, ostensibly so I wouldn't see her tears. For a cop, she cracked awfully easy. I've had purse s.n.a.t.c.hers who held out longer. "I'm waiting," I said. "Tell me the truth now or I go straight to Morgan and get you suspended."

She let out a harsh sound that could have been a laugh. "The truth? This war isn't about Vincent Blackburn. It's always been there. Blood witches and caster witches. We've always fought them, and they've always hated us. It never ends, so what's the point of even trying?"

"The point," point," I said, "is that I don't appreciate almost getting turned into a chicken-fried steak because of some idiotic feud between a couple of bored old men. It stops here." I said, "is that I don't appreciate almost getting turned into a chicken-fried steak because of some idiotic feud between a couple of bored old men. It stops here."

Shelby flipped a hand at me, as if I were hopeless. "No, it doesn't. Now Seamus will retaliate and they'll scuttle back under their rock until the next stupid junkie turns up dead." She levered herself up on her elbows. "You can't stand in my uncle's way. He'll do what he has to do to protect my family. He always has."

"People are dying," I said. "Real people. They may be junkies and wh.o.r.es and the bottom sc.r.a.pings of this city, but they're people. people. Not blood witches or caster witches." I sighed. My head hurt and I wanted to go home and wash the smoke smell off me. "Don't you want to figure out who killed Vincent, bring it out into the open? Don't you want to make this end?" Not blood witches or caster witches." I sighed. My head hurt and I wanted to go home and wash the smoke smell off me. "Don't you want to figure out who killed Vincent, bring it out into the open? Don't you want to make this end?"

"It's beyond my control," said Shelby coldly. "I'm just the mutt of the family. They've always hated the Blackburns and they always will. I don't know anything beyond that. I was never privy privy to the magickal secrets. Unworthy, you know." to the magickal secrets. Unworthy, you know."

The bitterness in her voice could have been mine, when I talked about the were packs and the Insoli. I thought of my grandmother shaking her head and asking, Why couldn't you have the same blood as your cousin? Why couldn't you have the same blood as your cousin? I too knew the stigma of being normal among the witches. I too knew the stigma of being normal among the witches.

In spite of her lying to me, I felt my resolve to be hard-a.s.sed soften. "And why do the Blackburns hate your family, Shelby? I've seen enough relations.h.i.+ps go wrong to know that loathing so deep doesn't happen because of a few bar fights or stray spells."

I sat next to her and straightened out her blankets, a gesture that Sunny would often perform after I'd woken from a nightmare when we were children, living with our grandmother. Shelby sighed and rubbed at her tears with the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry."

I pa.s.sed her a tissue without comment.

"All I know," said Shelby, blowing her nose, "is that a long time ago, my family stole something from the Blackburns, and they'd kill-have killed-to get it back."

" 'It' being ... ?"

Shelby's mouth quirked without any humor. "You think they'd tell me?"

I had to agree with her there. For all I complained about my dysfunction, Shelby must have had it ten times worse. I couldn't imagine being so shut off from your own blood. Must be the were in me, that irresistible urge to form a pack.

Shelby's breathing leveled off and her eyes fluttered. "Sorry," she said again, yawning. "They're giving me a bunch of painkillers."

"Any idea when you'll be out?" I asked.

"The doctor said less than a week. The rebar missed all of my major veins or vessels or whatever."

I would never vocalize that I'd sort of gotten used to having her around, but still-it beat the h.e.l.l out of the lone-wolf act, even if she never shut up. "Good," I said aloud. "I'll let Mac know you're out of surgery."

"Luna?" she called as I headed for the door. "I really am sorry."

"I know." I waved a hand. "Forget it." If she hadn't been sorry before the bomb went off, she was now, sure as there were seven h.e.l.ls.

My phone went off and I waved to Shelby, pantomiming I'd come back later. She was already asleep. I went into the stairwell so I didn't fry someone's pacemaker and answered.

"Luna, it's Bart Kronen."

Dr. Kronen calling was odd, but not totally unfounded. "You autopsying the bomb victim? I thought for sure I'd have to deal with that p.r.i.c.k from day s.h.i.+ft, the one who looks like Eli Wallach if he was really old."

"Bomb?" said Dr. Kronen, then, "Never mind. I don't care to know. The reason I'm calling is I've turned up some unusual results from your overdose murder."

I sat down on the steps, biting my lip. "The Blackburn kid."

"His tox screen came back with some ... interesting markers," said Kronen. A door slamming sounded in the background and Kronen lowered his voice. "Could you please stop by my office? I feel these results need to be discussed in person."

The back of my neck p.r.i.c.kled at his secretive tone. "Something wrong, Bart?"

He was silent for a long time. "Perhaps," he said finally. "I'll know better when I can show you what I've found."

CHAPTER 17.

Kronen's office door was shut when I arrived, and I knocked softly after checking to make sure I was alone in the hallway. His head poked out a moment later.

"Come in, Detective." His office was the same, softly lit with crackling jazz coming from his computer speakers. "Shut the door," he said.

"What's going on, Bart?" I asked. "Don't tell me you found alien DNA."

He didn't smile, which I took as a bad sign. "Before I share these results, Detective, I want you to know that I pride myself and my lab on our competency. I have no doubt these results are accurate."

"Bart," I said, "I've never called your results into question." One of the first lessons I'd learned on the job was that you can teach a cop to be a human lie detector, but you'll never teach them to quantify evidence as well as a medical examiner. The MEs live for the minute and the obscure, and they're our best weapons, sort of like Batman and his utility belt.

"I just want to establish that before I share this report with you," said Bart. "Because it's odd. Very odd." He flipped open one of his ubiquitous plain brown folders and handed me a toxicology report labeled with Vincent Blackburn's name and case number. I pretended to make sense of the squiggly lines on the chart and the periodic abbreviations showing what chemicals had been in Vincent when he died.

"This," said Kronen, pointing to one line, "is the victim's blood type-A positive, as you can see. This"-he slid his finger to the next line-"is a second blood type found around the puncture mark and in trace amounts throughout his circulatory system."

"I thought they only doled out one blood type per body," I murmured.

"They do," said Kronen. "Someone injected this into him."

I felt a warning brush of sickness in my gut. "G.o.ds, what would that do?"

"For someone with A-positive blood, injecting him with another type in sufficient amounts would cause anaphylactic shock," Kronen said.

I closed my eyes and imagined Vincent Blackburn suffocating as his airway closed off and his heart went into overdrive to expel the poison. You only killed someone that way if you truly wanted them to suffer.

"There are some other trace elements," said Kronen. I turned the page and saw his neat, cramped handwriting next to the chemical signatures. Charcoal. Lead. Copper. Charcoal. Lead. Copper. The throbbing between my eyes returned with a vengeance. I'd seen the list before, in my grandmother's slanted script. The throbbing between my eyes returned with a vengeance. I'd seen the list before, in my grandmother's slanted script.

"Any of this hold significance, Detective?" asked Kronen. "Because frankly, when I screen a man's blood expecting to find heroin and turn up trace metals instead, I become a bit puzzled."

"They're ingredients. I sighed. "Ingredients for a caster witch brewing a spell."

Kronen's eyebrow crooked. "What does this mean?"

"It means we're right," I said, blood pumping in my ears a little too loudly. "The Blackburn case is a murder, someone planned this out carefully, and he sure as h.e.l.l wasn't a random OD." d.a.m.n Shelby to h.e.l.l. She could have prevented this by telling me the truth about the feud after we found Vincent. She could have saved her uncle's life.

"These results are also consistent with the OD case you brought to me," said Kronen. "Although in lesser amounts, and a slightly different composition."

Trying to grasp at the threads was like being blind in a roomful of cat's cradles. But then, the switch flipped, and I saw it. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" I said, louder than Kronen was comfortable with, because he shushed me.

"Bryan Howard was a f.u.c.king test," I muttered. "They dosed him to perfect their working. Edward, that f.u.c.king jerk, they must have paid him off..."

"Do I want to be privy to what you're theorizing, Detective?" said Kronen.

I was angry, so angry I could have kicked a hole in a steel wall. A man died for nothing-a f.u.c.king academic experiment. An innocent man, for all intents and purposes. A sacrifice. "No," I said finally. "No, you don't, Doc."

I thrust the report back at him. "For now, keep this under your hat. Can you rule Vincent's death as a murder without the report?"

Kronen stroked his chin. "I have a feeling showing this to anyone else will merely prove unwise. Am I correct?"

I thought of the ma.s.s of officers who had responded to Patrick O'Halloran's bombing, versus the dozen or so who had shown up when I'd found Vincent's body. Would Matilda Morgan believe for one second that a pillar of the community had offed a drug dealer because of a magickal rivalry?

Of course not. She'd have me fired. Or committed.

"You're absolutely correct. Thanks, Bart," I said. He gave me a nod and shuffled the report to the bottom of the listing pile on his desk. I figured it was as safe there as anywhere else.

"Be careful," I told him in parting. Not that I could do anything against the financial pull and good name of the O'Hallorans. When I tangle with magickal ent.i.ties like Alistair Duncan, I at least know I'm on reasonably equal ground. When it came to attacking people so powerful in both the shadow and light aspects of the world, I was as helpless as the next pavement-pounder with a badge.

I didn't like that, not one bit. People who kill because they think they can can fire my rage like no other. I decided then and there that the O'Hallorans were going to answer for starting this domino-fall of deaths. How I'd do it would be another issue altogether. But then again, I never let the little things bother me. That's probably why I spend so much of my life in trouble. fire my rage like no other. I decided then and there that the O'Hallorans were going to answer for starting this domino-fall of deaths. How I'd do it would be another issue altogether. But then again, I never let the little things bother me. That's probably why I spend so much of my life in trouble.