Dark Descent (Codex Blair Book 3) Page 9

  I didn't want to get anything, I didn't see the point in café's if I was perfectly honest. Brew your own stuff at home, that was my opinion. But I was working on this whole 'don't be rude' thing, and this was a good example.

  So, I got in the line, shoved my hands into my jacket pockets, and waited.

  It's harder than it seems to be patient and wait your turn to do something when you don't even want to do it. I just wanted to get in and out of here. Who even knew if this place was going to have any of the clues that I was after? What if the next place on the list had all of them and they were going stale while I waited in line for people to get their drinks?

  The door behind me opened and blew in a cold blast of air yet again, and I started to think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to get a hot drink. Something to warm my insides up.

  I could just warm myself up without any of this, I thought with a smirk. That would be a difficult, not to mention dangerous, spell. To pull forth just enough heat so that I warmed up without overdoing it and roasting myself. I had never tried to regulate my temperature like that, most of the time when I used magic I made it a point to limit its effect on me as much as possible. The fire I used didn't burn my skin, the ice didn't give me frostbite. If I tried to turn it the other way around, there were no guarantees it wouldn't go wrong.

  I kept my mind busy thinking about all the various different ways I could do a spell like that until it was my turn at the counter.

  "How can I help you?" A peppy teenage boy asked me with a bright smile on his face.

  "Uh..." I looked up at the menu board, realising that I should have been thinking about this instead of spell work. "I'll just have a chai tea latte, I think," I said.

  "One chai tea latte coming right up!" He said, punching the order into his register.

  I held my breath, realising that it was more computer than register and not wanting to fry it. That had happened to me too many times to count, and I didn't want to be the reason that this line got any longer. Not that anyone would know it was my fault, but it would certainly make the workers day that much harder to get through. I had a lot of sympathy for people who worked jobs like this; retail, customer service, food service. They were the jobs that no one wanted but that everyone had to take just to get by.

  They sucked, to put it bluntly. But someone had to do them, and they paid at least some of the bills. There was no reason to make them suck any more than they already did.

  "So, hey," I said as I pulled out the money to pay him. "There's a girl who comes here frequently, Sara Clements, she's about my height, brown hair, blue eyes. Have you seen her lately?"

  He frowned at me, looking behind him at one of his co-workers for a second before he looked back at me. "I, um...why?"

  Oh, yeah, that probably sounded creepy.

  "Sorry, no, her sister is looking for her. She's kind of missing, we're just trying to track her down." I didn't think it would do any good to say that I was an investigator of any sort; I didn't have any credentials to back that up, and he seemed the type to ask for them.

  "Oh!" His mouth opened a little in what might have been a gasp, but no sound came out. "No, I don't think I've seen her. But I was off yesterday. Here, could you move to the side? I'll have Tammy come over."

  I nodded and stepped to the side, not wanting to get in the way of the line.

  I waited for this Tammy person to come out, and she took her sweet time emerging from the back room.

  "Hey, Tammy, this girl's looking for Sara. One of our regulars. Always orders a mocha coffee with chocolate chips."

  I had to smile at that. It made sense that they would remember customers by their orders, but it was funny to hear them talk about it like that.

  "Sure," she said and walked over to edge of the corner where I was stationed. "What can I do for you?"

  "Like he said, I'm looking for Sara. Her sister's worried about her."

  "Well, she was in here yesterday, got a coffee kind of late at night. She seemed like she was in a bit of a rush, but I don't know where she went."

  That didn't do me a lot of good, but I finally had a timeline to start with. She had been seen last night.

  "Around when was this?"

  "I think seven o'clock?"

  "Thanks."

  "No problem," she said, smiling. "Is that all?"

  "Yeah, sorry to hold you up."

  I turned and started to leave.

  "Miss! You forgot your latte!" The man who had been helping called after me, holding a to go cup in one hand.

  "Whoops," I said, chuckling. I took it from him, thanked him, and then turned around and walked out the door.

  I made my way down the pavement, taking a sip of the tea as I pulled the notebook out again and flipped it open.

  So, the job and the café had been a bust. The only thing left on the list was a bookstore, and call me crazy, but I didn't think it was going to turn up a lot of information. If she had last been seen at the café last night, it didn't seem likely that she would have gone to a bookstore afterwards. I mean, I had gone shopping that late at night, but the last time I remembered getting a book that late at night had been when I'd gone out to grab something for Fred. It wasn't the type of thing that I saw someone doing frequently.

  And she hadn't been to the café this morning, or to her job. If she had been around this morning at all, she would have gone to her job, or at least called out of work. According to Jo, we were still in the time parameters for her shift.

  It was time to stop dicking around and get down to business.

  I was going to have to check the mortuary.

  14

  I drained my latte and tossed it in the nearest available rubbish bin once I walked outside, my lips set in a grim line. I pulled out the little device that passed for a cell phone and punched in Finn's number. This was not going to be a pleasant call, I already knew that, but I didn't see a lot of other choices here. Either I called him and got a jump on things, or I put off informing my police friend of the crimes going on under his nose and continued stumbling about in the dark.

  He answered on the third ring.

  "O'Malley." His voice was brusque, I could hear his impatience through the phone.

  "Is that how you greet an old friend?" I forced a smile to my lips, hoping to get him in a good mood.

  "Blair," he said, and I could hear how he relaxed in just the way he said my name. "You know, I would know it was you if you didn't go through phones so fast I can't even update my caller ID."

  "That is so not my fault," I said, biting my lip to keep from chuckling. I went through electronics so fast that I had limited my exposure to them. Easy enough to do with the little things, but it also meant that I couldn't go to a hospital if I got injured. I couldn't risk setting off devices that other people depended on for their lives. That was why I had Shawn, he stitched me up whenever I needed it.

  Well, and other reasons.

  "What can I do you for?"

  "Well, I've got a bit of a situation, and I could really use your help."

  There was silence on the other end for a long moment.

  "Finn?" I hesitated to say anything further, afraid of his reaction.

  "Are you calling me in after the fact, Blair?"

  "Well. Not entirely, no. It's still early days. I had to confirm it was anything worth bothering you about." That was only a partial lie. I hadn't had any intention of telling him about it if I could avoid it, but I couldn't now. And it was still early, it wasn't like I had got into an actual fight with anything yet. I only knew of one actual dead body, everything else was up in the air for the moment.

  "Fine," he said, and I could hear him grinding his teeth. "What's up?"

  "It might be better to explain it in person. Can you pick me up? I'm stranded a bit out of the way. We need to go to the mortuary."

  "Yeah, I can do that. Where are you?"

  I walked up to the nearest corner and gave him the street intersection I was at. We hung u
p shortly after, not having a lot left to say now.

  I pulled out my pack of cigarettes, lighting one as I backed up so that I had my back to the nearest building. It was a comfort to me, to know that my back was covered. Not too long ago, on my last big case, I had been ambushed when I didn't have my gear on me. As far as I knew, it had either been the thralls of the vampires I'd been hunting, or else just a snatching gone wrong. I preferred to think it was the thralls, because the idea of being snatched for other reasons was...a little terrifying.

  Funny how you can be completely unafraid of things like vampires, demons, warlocks, and somehow terrified of men. Perhaps the motivation of monsters was easier to understand than the motivations of another human being out to harm you.

  I waited for Finn, mostly patient, as I puffed on my cigarettes. Cigarettes somehow simultaneously had the power to wake me up and put me to sleep—I smoked in the morning to keep myself awake, I smoked in the evening right before bed to relax myself. Don't ask me how that works, I'm sure it's a placebo thing, but I didn't want to overthink it and risk it not working anymore.

  The nicotine was working, though. Spreading through my capillaries and relaxing the muscles that were sore from not having relaxed in sleep the prior night.

  Fuck having nightmares, OK. And fuck dying young from some smoking related disease. Chances are I would die young anyway so what the hell…

  It didn't take too long for Finn to get there. He pulled up alongside the pavement after a few minutes. I dropped my cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath one booted foot, then climbed into his car.

  Finn was wearing typical detective gear. Shirt and tie, dark pants, trench coat. The white shirt was a nice contrast to his skin, a light brown with golden undertones. His shaved head was starting to see signs of regrowth, which to me showed that he had been busy lately. He was usually meticulous about his hygiene routines.

  "So, why are we going to the mortuary?"

  "I need to confirm whether I have a dead body to worry about," I said. "Do you want the full scoop?"

  "Of course I do."

  I sighed. I hadn't wanted to give it to him, but there didn't seem to be any way around it.

  "Apparently, we have a succubus on our hands. That's what everyone is saying anyway, and it seems to be targeting members of the magical community. And not just everyone, only the mages. I don't know of any full-blown Wizards around here, but we've got plenty of hedge witches and practitioners, and they're the ones who are being attacked," I said. "So far, I only know of one confirmed death, but today a young mage came up to me and told me her sister was missing. I'm trying to figure out if she can be found or not."

  "Why did she come to you?" Finn darted a quick glance at me, his lips pulled down in a frown.

  It might seem like an odd thing to say, like he was undervaluing what I did for the community, but Finn knew that I kept a low profile. It didn't make a lot of sense for anyone to come to me for anything. As far as everyone had known prior to yesterday, I had been no one. They had known of me in a general sense that they knew that a mage was doing something in the community to keep everyone safe, but they hadn't known who was doing it.

  That one mage had made the guess, though, and that was dangerous. It worked better when everyone assumed it was a Wizard doing the clean up, not a mage that they could access.

  "I, uh, I had to out myself a little bit." I chewed on my lip as I looked at him, cringing inwardly when I saw his eyes go wide. He looked back and forth from me to the road several times before he glared forward at the road, clutching the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

  "What do you mean, 'out yourself?'" His tone was sharp, but I knew that he was just concerned for me.

  "Calm down, it's not as bad as it sounds. I had to warn the community, Finn, they had a right to know what was going on. So, to do that, I had to let them know I was part of the community. I didn't say anything about what I've been doing or what I can do, I just told them what I know about the succubus."

  He inhaled through his nose, paused, and then pushed the air out of his mouth.

  "I don't like you borrowing trouble unnecessarily."

  "I don't either, which is why I don't do it."

  We rode in silence for the rest of the trip to the mortuary. He pulled into a parking spot and got out without saying a word to me, slamming his car door.

  I sighed as I clambered out of the car, pointedly shutting my door gently while glaring at him. He was making a bigger deal out of this than it was, talk about unnecessary.

  He didn't say anything, just led me into the mortuary. It was cold, and I was grateful for the fact that I was wearing two jackets. I pulled the inner hoodie tighter around me, contemplated zipping it up but decided against it at the last minute.

  "This is where they keep the recent arrivals," he said as we went through another set of doors, this time coming into a large room with several tables. Bodies lay on top of them, some covered with sheets and some not.

  An overweight man stood at one table, his white lab coat washing out his pale skin and starkly contrasting with the thick black hair on his head.

  "Hey, Jim," Finn said, waving a hand when the man turned around.

  "Oh, hello, O'Malley!" The man seemed pleased to see Finn.

  I lifted an eyebrow, glancing at Finn, but he subtly shook his head.

  Yeah, the guy didn't seem his type. Besides, Finn didn't like to shit in the nest most of the time. That reminded me, I wanted to ask him about Michael. Michael was one of the humans we had saved in the vampire's estate a few months back, and it turned out that he and Finn had a bit of a history. I hadn't got a lot of other information out of either of them, not then and not at any other time that I'd asked.

  But it was a ritual now, to ask about him.

  I'd wait until we were alone for that, it wasn't the most professional course of conversation.

  "Is there anything I can help you with? I didn't think I had anyone interesting down here," Jim said.

  "We're looking for a Sara Clements," I said, stepping forward. "About my height, brown hair, blue eyes."

  "Yes, yes, she came in last night," Jim said, walking towards one of the tables.

  My heart sank. So, she was dead. I didn't want to tell her sister that, I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want any of the situation to be true, but here I was, dealing with it again.

  Yet another victim I had failed to save.

  Finn and I followed Jim to the table, where he pulled back a sheet to expose the young woman lying there.

  I stared down at her for a long moment, aware of how close she looked to sleeping. Any moment now she could open her eyes, sit up, and let out a gasp of surprise that was there. But none of that was going to happen—she was dead, and no amount of hoping otherwise was going to change that.

  "Cause of death?" I felt my throat close around the words as I croaked them out. I hadn't expected it to affect me this way.

  "Mmm," Jim made a thoughtful sound. "This one was rather difficult. As you can see, no evidence of foul play. We ruled this natural causes, but it was most unusual. Heart failure."

  Yeah, heart failure. Or her soul had been sucked out from between clenched teeth as she fought for her life against a succubus too strong and too deranged to know better.

  "Um. Does she have a file? Where was she found?" I glanced at Finn, blinking against the sudden feeling of tears brimming my eyes. It wasn't fair.

  Finn looked at me for a long minute, his eyebrows coming together. I knew that he had a thousand questions he wanted to ask, but now was not the time for that. I was thankful that he didn't give voice to whatever it was he was thinking.

  "Her file would be at the station across the street," Finn said. "Jim will only have the medical files."

  "That's true, I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."

  "No, you're fine," I said. "Thank you for, uh, confirming this for me."

  "Can I ask, O'Malley, why you are i
nterested in this girl? As I said, there was no evidence of foul play. It doesn't seem your type of case."

  Finn looked at Jim, his eyes widening for a split second. "Just a favour," he said.

  "Ah. I won't mention it," Jim said with a wink.

  How could he be so cavalier around the dead? I tried to remind myself that this was normal to him, that he spent his entire day surrounded by dead bodies, but it didn't do much to make me feel better.

  We walked out of the mortuary then, having concluded our business there, and made our way to the station across the street. I didn't say anything and neither did Finn.

  It took five minutes to get across the street, into the station, and find the file room. Not too long, but that was because Finn knew where he was going. If I'd had to do this on my own, I would have been at a complete loss.

  He pulled her file, which looked exactly like every other one in the cabinet. Somehow that seemed wrong to me. Like she should have stood out. He handed it to me without saying a word.

  I flipped it open; it didn't have a lot in it, a very simple report, as there hadn't been too much of note. They found her at a strip club. One of the girls there had taken note of her 'condition' after she'd been in one of the secluded rooms for too long. No one was sure how long she had been in there, but the reporting officer hadn’t cared about that enough to press for more details.

  I tried to find my anger at that, but that there was none. That surprised me I was numb. That was a new development, rage was such an easy emotion for me to feel. I glanced at my wrist, where the mark lay beneath my cuff, but felt nothing coming from it.

  Funny how I wanted it now. I just wanted something to push away the empty feeling inside of me, but it wouldn't go away. I was too aware of my own failure to protect the people I had promised to keep safe. It didn't matter that none of them knew about the promise, it mattered to me.