Carnal Sin

SIX

Moira had never been to a morgue before.

She’d seen dead people, but she hadn’t hung around to see what happened to the bodies after they died.

And she kinda, sorta-okay, absolutely-wished she did not know now.

Skye didn’t seem to have the same problem Moira had walking through rows of the dead in a very cold, very large, very sterile room in the Los Angeles County Morgue, following a petite black girl with a nose ring named Fern. Fern … something. Moira had been so floored by the atmosphere, she didn’t even remember the girl’s name. Fern called this cavernous room the crypt-just the name freaked Moira out. Dead people covered with sheets, gurneys stacked three high that could be summoned by the touch of a button.

“I want to be cremated,” Moira said suddenly.

Fern shot her a glance and a grin. “You’d still probably have to come through a place like this first.”

“Great.” She plastered a smile on her face, but it didn’t feel natural and Skye shot her an odd look. Somewhere between concern and surprise. Moira could practically hear Skye saying:

You nearly died facing down an incarnate demon, but a few dead people freak you out?

Moira didn’t know why she was getting the heebie-jeebies. She wasn’t normally skittish. But the hair on her arms rose, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the dungeon her mother had locked her in, the first time she’d tried to escape Fiona’s coven. It had been cold-not this cold, but cold enough. And the smell was similar-not the antiseptic, overly clean scent of the crypt, but the underlying, subtle scent of death. Of decomposing bodies. That they were in a room that could be easily locked, where they could be trapped with the dead, terrified her. Another type of prison. A place Fiona would love to keep her while she mentally tortured her.

“Moira.” Skye put a hand on her shoulder and Moira jumped.

“Fine. I’m fine.”

Skye didn’t believe her; who would? Moira was probably as pale as the corpses. She mentally closed down her senses-Rico would be pissed, but Moira didn’t want to feel any of the spirits that might be lingering. She was too jittery, like this morning when she came within inches of hurting Rafe after her vision. She didn’t think she would have-she’d been acting on what Rico called her mental muscle, instincts plus training that kept her alive.

But something was off here, and while it wasn’t magic, it creeped her out. So she’d turned her senses off, flipping a mental switch. Rico could go pound salt for all she cared. He’d stolen her blood, after all; she could shut off the power to keep her sanity in this place of the dead.

I should have stayed with Rafe and Dr. Fielding. They’d gone to meet the M.E. who had identified anomalies in a brain similar to what Dr. Fielding found in the victims of the demon Envy. But a room full of human organs had sounded worse than the crypt.

Fern said, “I still have two of the bodies, but I don’t know how long I can keep one of them. The family is calling, it’s been two days, and the autopsy ruled heart attack, though we’re running additional tox screens because the detective in charge thinks it might be drug related. We don’t normally keep the body once we’re done, and the family wants to ship him back to Michigan.”

“Two-I thought you said you had three bodies,” Skye said.

“Two bodies, but I have photos from a third that came in last week. The body I called you about is scheduled for autopsy this afternoon.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m prepping him in an hour.”

“Would it be all right if we observe?” Skye asked. Moira suppressed a shiver at the thought of watching a body being cut open.

“I don’t see why not, but I gotta clear it with my boss.”

The first victim still in the morgue was a twenty-two-year-old who’d been found dead in an alley behind a local nightclub with his pants down around his ankles. No visible sign of death, and the first officer on scene had called it a possible OD. Not unlikely, Skye had told Moira, considering the prevalent drug use among college students. His alcohol level was only a fraction above the legal limit.

“Drugs are bad news, but add alcohol to the mix and there’s a brain-cell-killing cocktail that’s damn effective.”

Fern pulled the sheet off a corpse. “This is Craig Monroe, the twenty-two-year-old college student from UCLA.”

Skye said, “He was found partly naked in an alley behind a club?”

“Velocity, a club in Westwood.”

“Have you gotten the drug screen back yet?”

“Not the secondary screen. He was cleared of the obvious-no nose candy, no needle marks, his lungs were clear-not a smoker, legal or illegal. Nothing in his stomach but a few beers, nuts, and a well-digested pepperoni and mushroom pizza.”

Moira was never eating pizza again.

“Coroner is ruling a heart attack, but it’s by process of elimination. With fifty or so bodies coming through here each day, sometimes that’s the best we can do.” Fern motioned to Skye. “Help me turn the body.”

Moira stepped back. She wasn’t going to touch the corpse. The thought nearly paralyzed her. The fear was highly unusual, and she didn’t know why. Did it have anything to do with burying Father Philip last week?

Don’t think about that, don’t go there, don’t remember that he’s dead. That he’d been in a place like this.

She turned away and breathed deep, calming breaths. That made it worse. She had sharp senses, and couldn’t help but breathe in the preservatives the coroner used to keep the dead from rotting. And the slow decay in the cold room. And the vile antiseptic that kept the place as sanitary as possible with hundreds of dead bodies lined up like B-movie zombies ready to rise and conquer the world.

You’d better stop it, girl, or you’re going to puke all over the place.

Right. Big, bad demon hunter Moira O’Donnell scared of a couple hundred corpses. She was okay. If she repeated the mantra enough, maybe she could buy in to it.

She heard them moving the body behind her and couldn’t block out the sound. She closed her eyes.

“Dammit,” Skye mumbled. “Moira, look.”

Moira forced herself to open her eyes and turn around. She tried to avoid looking at the bluish-white skin, and focused only on the demon’s mark on the dead guy’s lower back.

“See? The birthmark is freaky on its own, but it matches the photo I sent you, and it matches the mark on the new guy,” Fern said.

“Can we see the new corpse?” Skye asked.

“It’s the same, but if you want to, sure.” She gently rolled the body back to its original position and covered it again. They returned to the front of the crypt.

Fern removed the sheet and turned the body attached to the tag that read Erickson, G. followed by a number. The mark on Erickson’s body was exactly the same, in nearly the same place. “So what is it?” Fern asked the question she’d been itching to ask from the beginning.

Skye looked at Moira. “It’s not identical to the others.”

“Of course it is,” Fern interrupted. “Just like the stiff over there and the photograph.”

“I mean to the bodies in Santa Louisa.”

“So you have seen this before?” Fern was curious. “What does it mean? It’s not a tattoo; I can find no ink in the skin graft. But we’re considering a type of caustic material may have caused the mark, like a brand, but there is no dead skin to indicate a burn. And then-”

Two men entered the crypt and swiftly strode toward them. One was black and broad, well over six feet tall; the other, of average height, was a white guy with an athletic build and a pissed expression across his GQ face. They both wore plainclothes with a badge on their belts and guns at their side.

“Takasugi said you brought in another cop to view my body? Without my permission?” GQ said.

Fern bristled but didn’t back down. “Detective Nelson, I followed morgue protocols.”

Skye said, “Ms. Archer didn’t know that I was coming down. She spoke with my medical examiner, and I came with him to verify information that may be related to one of my cases.” She stepped forward and extended her hand. “Sheriff Skye McPherson, Santa Louisa County.”

“Detective Grant Nelson; my partner, Detective Johnston.” He shook her hand, glanced at Moira, then looked at the uncovered body. “What’s that tattoo? I haven’t seen a gang tat like that. Jeff?”

Detective Johnston shook his head.

Nelson said to Skye, “Proper procedure would be you calling me or my superior if you want information on a case, not dropping by the morgue. Long drive just to look at a tattoo when we could have sent you photos.”

“I called the Sheriff’s Department,” Skye said, “as a courtesy because I didn’t know anything about the case or who had jurisdiction.”

Fern stood up to the cop, though she couldn’t be more than five foot two. “I called Santa Louisa. And it’s not a tat. It’s a birthmark.”

“You tested it? I’ve never seen a birthmark like that.”

“No ink, though I’ve sent the grafts to the lab. But the odd thing is that the birthmark matches the college student who came in yesterday, and the guy last week who died while in custody.”

“What guy?” Nelson said.

“Galion.”

Nelson blanched. He held it back well, but Moira was watching him closely. She was trying to gather the courage to open her senses again. She didn’t know if he was just a powerful personality or if he was driven by something supernatural. This cop may not have worked the second victim’s case, but two out of three? Warning sirens shrieked in Moira’s head.

Nelson turned to Skye. “And you know what this is?”

Skye didn’t say anything for a moment, and Moira couldn’t blame her. What could she say? That their victims had been touched by a demon and that had likely contributed to their death?

Skye cleared her throat. “I’m not sure. But I had four bodies with similar marks on their backs.”

“Naked men?” Nelson asked.

“No.”

“Then it’s not the same-” He cut himself off.

“You were going to say killer,” Moira said.

Grant Nelson shook his head. “I don’t want to get into this here. I came for the autopsy.”

“I’d like to observe,” Skye said.

Nelson just shook his head. “Are you going to share your cases with me?”

She hesitated. “Mine are a bit complicated.”

“Right. I share, you don’t. Look, Sheriff McPherson, Santa Louisa is a county of what? Thirty thousand? My division, one of twenty-one in the city, has over ten times that number. I’m dealing with multiple jurisdictions and there’s nothing to connect these victims. I just got another case dumped on me because of the possible connection, so if you can give me something that helps then I’m all ears. Otherwise, I don’t have time to play show-and-tell.”

“You’re lying,” Moira said.

“O’Donnell!” Skye snapped.

Moira shook her head. “He said that there’s nothing to connect these victims, but there is.”

“We don’t know that,” Nelson said.

“You think you know.”

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you’re not going to walk into the middle of my investigation and tell me what I know and don’t know.”

Skye straightened. “Can we take this outside? I’ll tell you everything I have, and maybe we can help each other.”

Moira couldn’t imagine that Skye was going to tell this cop the truth, but she didn’t say anything. These two dead guys were connected somehow to one of the demons-or one of Fiona’s witches. Had Fiona relocated here in Los Angeles? Definitely possible, it was a big place. Easy to blend in. Of the twelve who had been at the ritual two weeks ago, one was dead and two were in prison. One was walking freely around Santa Louisa because Skye had no cause to put Dr. Richard Bertram in prison-which angered Moira to no end. The guy was guilty of being a witch, of being party to summoning the Seven Deadly Sins from Hell, but there were no laws against these crimes. And try proving any of it in court! Skye was trying to get Bertram on something else-such as drugging Rafe into a coma-but they still had no proof of that. Rafe’s medical records were missing or had been destroyed.

Nelson agreed. “Five minutes, you first.” He glanced at Moira. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Moira O’Donnell.” He stared at her, looking her up and down, trying to intimidate her with his unblinking gaze. She straightened her spine and stared right back at him. She’d faced down an incarnate demon; no way some arrogant cop was going to bully her.

He said, “You’re not a cop.”

“Nope.”

Skye said, “She’s a consultant. An expert on cults.”

Moira barely restrained her surprise at Skye’s easy and blatant lie.

“Cults?” Johnston asked. “You think this is some sort of cult killing?”

“Outside,” Skye said.

“I’m going to prep the body,” Fern said. “Thirty minutes and we’ll begin in the main room.”

Skye had piqued the interest of the two detectives. They led the way out, and Moira whispered, “Cult?”

“I’d sure as hell call Fiona’s coven a cult, wouldn’t you?”

She had a point. Moira bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

Skye said, “Don’t get cocky, we’re not out of the woods yet. Nelson doesn’t want to share, and I can’t tell him the truth, so we’re going to have to play this carefully.” She slowed and said softly, “Did you feel anything from the corpses?”

“They’re dead.”

“But-”

“Magic? No. They’re dead. Any spell on them would have ended as soon as they croaked. But they definitely did have some contact with one of Fiona’s coven. Or-”

“Or what?”

“A demon, up close and personal. And in a city this big, I don’t know how we’re going to track the coven or a demon. I know one thing, though-I need to go to that club, Velocity.”

“Not alone.”

“Skye, I hate to tell you, but you’re a cop. You look like a cop, act like a cop. I can blend in. I’ll get a cab, meet up with you in a couple hours. And honestly, I don’t want to watch those bodies being sliced and diced. Being in that room alone freaked me out.”

“I didn’t think anything freaked you out.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“You and Rafe go, take my truck. Rod has the van, so I won’t be stranded.” She glanced at Moira. “Why did you call the detective a liar? That’s really fucking with my position. I want him to play nice; calling him on the carpet isn’t helping.”

“He knows there’s a connection.” She frowned. She wasn’t psychic; how did she know that? Rafe said she was an empath, and while she hadn’t wanted to believe it, it made sense based on various times when she sensed facts about people after meeting them. Detective Nelson had entered the room and Moira simply knew that he thought that the dead were connected. She couldn’t read his mind, it was more his emotional state; he felt the connection deep down.

Skye said to Grant as soon as they left the crypt, “We had four victims with similar marks on their bodies. Our coroner is working on how the marks were made; he’s thinking some sort of laser.”

Skye was lying through her teeth, but it sounded good. Moira was impressed.

“A laser?” Nelson asked, skeptical.

“I’m not a doctor, but my M.E. thinks a laser on a low setting or possibly ultraviolet radiation could cause those type of markings.”

Nelson said, “Possibly? So if this is a cult, are these victims members or innocent?”

“I’m not sure.”

“There’s nothing that connects the victims-nothing. Other than they are males and were involved in a sexual situation immediately prior to death.”

“They were having sex when they died?”

“Inconclusive at this point. Monroe had ejaculated minutes prior to his death. I’ll find out about Erickson during the autopsy.”

“Were there any vaginal fluids or cells on their persons?”

“Galion was about to commit felony rape when he was apprehended, but hadn’t penetrated. We have witnesses to his assault. Monroe had his pants down when he was found, and while there was no vaginal evidence, the coroner found female saliva on his penis. They’re processing it for DNA now, but that takes time. The last one, Erickson, is who we’re viewing today.”

“Anything else?”

He didn’t say anything.

Skye asked, “Did they have anything else in common? Where they ate, worked, lived, played?”

“That’s it,” Moira said, watching the detective closely.

Nelson avoided Moira’s eyes and said through clenched teeth, “All three vics have a connection to Velocity, a popular nightclub. Monroe was found dead in the alley, and Erickson had been to the club earlier the night he died.”

“Where was he found?”

“In his bedroom by his wife. The room was set up for a romantic scene, but his wife was out for the night.”

“He was having an affair.”

“They were swingers. The wife was with her ex-husband in his hotel room; he confirmed it, as did the manager and security footage.”

“And did-”

Nelson cut her off. “This is my case, Sheriff.”

“I’m not taking your case. I’m just trying to help-”

“Stay out of it.”

“I-”

“I don’t need your help. You’ll fuck things up if you go pissing around the club and my investigation. I’ll let you observe the autopsy, and if you can provide any further information about this supposed cult-give me something to follow up on-then great. But after we’re done here, I expect you to be heading back up north.” He glared at her pointedly. “I wouldn’t want you to get stuck in rush-hour traffic.”

Rafe could speak, read, and understand Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, but he couldn’t decipher the complex medical conversation between Rod Fielding and the L.A. head pathologist, the tall and appropriately cadaverous Don Takasugi. The smell of formaldehyde didn’t seem to bother the pathologists, but Rafe felt slightly ill-though he wasn’t sure whether his discomfort was from the cloying scent of preservative or the visual of human organs soaking in it.

As soon as Rafe walked into the room he felt uneasy. He tried to convince himself it was the sight of the organs and the smell, but even that stopped bothering him after a few minutes. As his senses adjusted to the overpowering visual and olfactory assault, he accepted that maybe it was something else that disturbed him.

Static was the only way he could describe it. Very faint, as if a radio was tuned to a distant station in the next room, barely audible, the occasional half-heard word more grating than the static itself. When he tried to listen to the sound, his head ached. When he didn’t consciously listen, it was like fingernails on the chalkboard: every skin cell tingled.

He tried to hide his discomfort while half listening to the scientists discuss the anomalies in the two brains that Fielding had brought with him.

One came from Chris Kidd, a high school senior who’d died of a brain aneurism, though Fielding wasn’t confident in that diagnosis. The other belonged to Mrs. Barbara Rucker, the high school secretary who’d pushed a pregnant woman down the stairs, then crashed her car at high speed, seemingly on purpose. Because Fielding was a scientist, and his boss, Sheriff Skye McPherson, believed in evidence, they were both seeking scientific, medical answers for the deaths in Santa Louisa two weeks ago. While they acknowledged on the surface that a demon had been responsible, neither completely accepted that answer. It was as if they wanted, or needed, to know exactly how the demons affected their victims.

As far as Rafe was concerned, he had all the necessary answers. The Seven Deadly Sins had spread far and wide, drawn to people or places that celebrated their vice. Perhaps they were connected to the missing coven, which would mean Fiona and her minions were nearby. Or, if they were free from the bondage of Hell and the witches who’d summoned them, they may have another reason for targeting the areas they did. Either way, the demon touched a victim-physically or simply by proximity-and the individual’s conscience was stripped away, resulting in the deadly sin taking over all thoughts and actions. In Santa Louisa, Envy had created chaos. Looting, riots, and violence. Once the demon was trapped, however, those affected seemed to regain their restraint and were able to withstand the temptations of unrestrained envy.

But the town wasn’t the same as before. Skye wouldn’t admit it, but Rafe saw it. He’d lived there as an outsider for months before the demons came to town, and he saw-and felt-the changes. Before the demons swept through Santa Louisa, the quiet community nestled between the ocean and the Los Padres Mountains had been filled with kindness. Neighbors helping one another. Picnics in the park. Kids playing ball in the parks and riding bikes down the street, carefree. Rafe had been comforted by the small-town normalcy of Santa Louisa, the way everyone knew everyone else.

Now? The violence the demon Envy created had torn families and friendships apart. The jail was full, the court docket nearly exploding as people were held accountable for the crimes they committed after Envy stripped away their conscience. The distrust and lingering sense of envy and the anger it spawned among so many people, even those not directly affected by the demon, cast an invisible shadow over everything.

Rafe felt it, even if Skye was in denial. And it greatly disturbed him.

“Amazing,” Takasugi was saying. “And you didn’t notice this on gross examination? I’ll need to go back and look at the craniums of my other bodies.”

“This first victim had pronounced neovascularization of the brain stem with secondary aneurysm formation. He collapsed two hours after a basketball game, and died approximately thirty minutes later. In the second victim, I didn’t see anything to warrant the same diagnosis, until I did a micro exam two days ago. But both seem to have new blood vessels feeding into the brain stem, and an enlarged amygdala.”

“The brain stem?” Rafe spoke up for the first time.

The scientists seemed to have forgotten he was in the room. “Yes,” Fielding said, eyeing Rafe curiously.

Rafe shook his head. He had a thought, but his training was in psychology, not forensics. He waited for more information.

“The amygdala has a primary role in the processing of memory and emotional reactions,” Fielding explained. “That there are new and extensive blood vessels going from the amygdala to the brain stem is unusual.”

“Highly unusual,” Takasugi concurred.

“And that might make someone act irrationally?” Rafe said, carefully choosing his words. Psychology was an imperfect science-human beings couldn’t be pigeonholed in established boxes-but there was always a cause for human sociopathy. Sometimes hereditary, but usually environmental. Sometimes nature, but mostly nurture. Or lack thereof.

Human conscience helped people overcome their primal urge toward violence, lust, and greed. But without such restraints, there’d be no end to the anarchy. It made the release of the Seven Deadly Sins even more nefarious. Demons on Earth were bad, but what if people acted just like them? There would be violence without remorse, scorched earth, destruction across the globe.

Chaos. End-time.

Takasugi said, “The brain is the most complex organ in the human body and there’s more that we don’t know than we do know. The amygdala is also involved in pheromone production, epinephrine, and other natural chemical responses. A deformed or damaged amygdala could manifest any number of presentations, from headaches to irrational behavior to chemical imbalances-”

“And death?” Rafe said. Chris Kidd, the senior, hadn’t committed any envy-related crimes, but he had the same demon mark as the other victims.

“Possibly.”

Fielding said, “Mrs. Rucker acted irrational and out of character prior to intentionally crashing her car. Her death was due to the trauma of the crash, so I only did a cursory exam of her brain at the time. But when the other bodies came in with similar marks, I went back and reexamined what I could. One of the victims had already been cremated, another buried, but these two I still had access to.”

Fielding glanced at Rafe. Ned Nichols had been cremated-or, technically, salted and burned in a crematorium-after Nichols manifested as a vengeful spirit. Fielding had never felt right about doing that, not only because it was against the law without next-of-kin authorization, but because he had jeopardized his career and reputation by acting without said authorization.

Takasugi removed Mrs. Rucker’s brain from its container and placed it in a sterile tray. Rafe stepped back, queasy. He didn’t generally have a weak stomach-he’d fought off one big-ass demon that wasn’t pretty-but this was different.

“Amazing,” Takasugi repeated. “I have a brain that looks remarkably similar to this in one of our recent corpses.”

“Do you still have the body?” Fielding asked.

“No, it was released to the family-an ex-wife and his children. They buried him, I believe, but I’ll have to check the files. However, we kept the brain for further research considering the anomaly.”

“Ugh, that’s so gross!”

Rafe turned and saw Moira standing in the doorway behind him, staring distastefully at the brain displayed on the exam table.

“Almost as gross as the crypt,” she added.

Moira didn’t look like herself. Sarcastic, sure, but her eyes were troubled and her skin was pale. Rafe caught her eye, but her expression was unreadable.

Fielding introduced Moira to Takasugi. “Where’s Sheriff McPherson?”

“I bailed before the autopsy,” Moira said. “Main room, if you want to watch the festivities. Can I borrow Rafe?”

“What’s wrong?” Rafe asked.

“Nothing.” She smiled at the two scientists. “Dr. Fielding, don’t leave without Skye, okay? She gave me the keys to her truck.” She held them up.

Rafe snatched them from her hand. “You don’t have a license.”

“Yes I do. Just not in the States.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, so it’s expired, but I know how to drive better than you.”

“I’m driving. Skye doesn’t need any more trouble.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

Rafe thanked the men and left them to science. He had the information he needed-only he wasn’t quite sure what it meant yet. He walked out of the room with Moira. “Learn anything?” he asked.

“Plenty. I’ll fill you in on the way. You?”

“I think I know how the demon is operating.”

She stopped walking as they reached the main doors. “That’s huge! How?”

“The brain stem is the most primitive part of our brain. The most basic part, and the most important. The amygdala is bigger than it’s supposed to be in the victims, and it’s feeding off an increase of blood to the brain stem. The amygdala is responsible for human emotional responses. What if the demon takes away something-a barrier of some sort, a biological or spiritual control valve? That explains why these people have no restraint. And it explains the basketball player in Santa Louisa.”

“Chris Kidd? How?”

“He didn’t act on his impulses.”

“We don’t know that he had them. He was marked, but maybe it hadn’t manifested yet.”

“What if he was fighting the impulse? What if the process was somehow incomplete or imperfect and Kidd was resisting? What if his conscience was stronger than the others, and he fought back? His blood vessels ruptured. That didn’t happen to the others.”

“So what does that mean, Rafe? If someone doesn’t fight the urge to act on envy or lust or pride, they kill someone and then die? If they do fight the urge, they still die? Where does that leave us? Tilting at windmills?”

Rafe didn’t have the answers. “I don’t know.”

“Well, Don Quixote, that certainly makes me sleep better at night,” Moira said as she walked out of the morgue.

“Moira-wait.”

She stopped but didn’t turn around. Rafe put his hands on her shoulders. “What had you so freaked when you saw me in there?”

“Freaked? Not me.”

“You weren’t yourself.”

“Okay, fine. The corpses were creeping me out. Satisfied?”

“That just means you’re human.”

“Oh, joy.”

Rafe turned her to face him. “Give yourself a break. You’re not superhuman.”

She mocked surprise. “What? You mean I have to give back the cape and golden lasso?”

He smiled and touched her chin. “I didn’t say you weren’t a superhero.”

He’d said it to make her feel better, but she turned away. “I’m not.”

“Moira-”

“Dammit, Rafe! Look what we’re up against. I don’t see this ever ending.” She shook her head, then looked at the blue sky. “I hate this! If God wanted to help us in this battle, He’d leave clearer instructions.”

“We just need to figure them out,” Rafe said.

“I’d rather have a rule book, thank you very much.” She glanced back at him. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Velocity. It’s a club in West L.A., and so far, it’s the only connection between all the victims. Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch the demon before anyone else dies.”