"The Darkest Edge of Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gay Kelly)2Liz made it in fifteen minutes. Not bad for her day off. But then, Liz was one of those people always prepared, always organized, and always on time. I’d hate her for it, except that she’d weaseled her way into my heart a long time ago with her wry sense of humor, dedication to the job, and pitbull tenacity. I’d learned just as quickly as the other new officers, when meeting the chief medical examiner for the first time, that the small-framed doctor and licensed necromancer with the striking Asian features had balls of typanum-infused steel. Everyone respected her. And a natural-born necromancer like Liz was rare—only one in every major city, if you believed the statistics. Having her on the ITF payroll was a major bonus to the department. I remained crouched near the nymph’s body as Liz’s telltale footsteps—quick and determined—grew louder. She stopped behind me as I glanced over my shoulder to see her in a plum-colored velour jogging suit, her large black duffel bag hanging off one shoulder and a canvas gurney rolled up under her arm like a yoga mat—she always kept one in her trunk because, hey, you never knew when you might need to move a body, right? “That knot on your forehead is the size of an egg, Madigan. Kind of looks like a third eye.” “Don’t you ever say hello? You know, actually She squatted down next to me. “Eh. Greetings are a waste of time. You know a person wastes seventeen hours of an average lifespan just on greeting people they already know?” Her bag rested on the floor between us. Her straight black hair fell forward, curving just under her chin, but held away from her vision by the corners of stylish horn-rimmed glasses. “No kidding, really?” The faint scent of gardenias tickled my nose, a welcome break from the decay all around us. “No. I just made it up. But I bet I’m close. You also smell really, really bad. Could use a charm like the one put on these corpses.” “Thanks. Your honesty is touching, really.” “Mmm. So I take it the fact I’m here on my day off means you don’t plan on calling the ITF?” “By the time the ITF gets here, secures the scene, and debates on whether or not to raise the dead, our victim wouldn’t have anything left to tell us. I’ll make the call after we’re done.” Unable to argue the truth of my words, Liz turned her attention from the pile back to the intact victim on the floor, leaning closer and closing her eyes as she ran a flat palm a few inches over the body. I was antsy. Every moment we waited was another moment Daya’s last memories slipped away. Liz couldn’t bring back the nymph’s spirit, but she could reanimate the corpse long enough to engage what was left of those final memories. The longer the dead stayed dead, the less of a chance one had to learn anything useful at all. “Patience, Madigan,” Liz murmured, sensing my energy. “Have to sweep the body, get a good look at everything first. You know the drill … No energy signature on her. Never seen this kind of drain before; looks like she’s been sucked dry. Practically mummified, and she’s stiff, yet her skin isn’t cold. Bizarre. You do know,” she said, tilting her head to look at me, “the ITF has been working the Adonai missing persons case …” “I know. “You mean take out the killer. That still doesn’t bother you, does it?” We’d had this discussion before. Liz was privy to our cases and the truth of what we did because we needed her and we trusted her. But from the beginning she’d made it clear she was uncomfortable with the power we’d been given. “Depends,” I answered, “on who or what killed these people. You know as well as I do some things can’t be locked up, or reformed, or tried in a court of law. Hank and I do what needs to be done.” A heavy sigh escaped her red lips, and her attention went back to the body. “And so do I.” There were no illusions about what Liz was referring to. Raising the dead came with a hefty price. Every time a corpse was raised, it cost the necromancer a little bit of life force. And once it was gone, you couldn’t get it back, couldn’t recoup it like blood loss. How much loss depended on a lot of factors: how long the victim had been dead, how long the necromancer kept the dead animated, and how skilled the necromancer. Fortunately for Liz, she was the best. But still, I asked, “You sure about this?” A soft snort came with her answer. “Serial killer powerful enough to prey on Adonai? Yeah. You need me. I’m sure. Where’s Hank? We need to get started.” “Checking the perimeter.” I stood and brushed off my palms. “And the hellhound you told me about?” “Over by the office. We should have enough time to do this before Animal Control gets here.” Liz surged to her feet. “All right then,” she said, unrolling the canvas, “let’s do this while it’s still worth it.” Hank’s footsteps echoed through the lofty space as I helped Liz roll out the canvas and place it on the floor alongside the body. “Perimeter is clean,” he said, approaching. “Doubt the killer uses this for anything other than a dumping ground.” He gestured to the corpse. “We’re not going to do it here?” “No,” Liz said. “We need to raise her away from the others. That empty storage room I passed up front should work.” Her voice dropped to a low mutter as she bent to grab Daya’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t want any residual power to raise a body part … or a dead cockroach. Trust me, that’s Hank and I exchanged incredulous looks over the sunken, dead body we were about to raise, not sure if she was serious or joking. Liz tossed us two extra pairs of gloves. “Charlie, get her ankles.” I cleared my throat, pulled on the gloves, and then grabbed both ankles. They felt wooden; no shift or give. The only thing that moved was the tangled mass of dark hair that dropped away from the shoulders as we lifted Daya onto the gurney. Hank took over Liz’s spot, threading his fingers through the canvas handles as Liz picked up her large duffel—the bag, I knew, held all of the ritual equipment needed to raise the dead—and began leading the way to the front of the warehouse and into the empty storage room. Once inside, she bolted the door and then set to work, using a canister of salt to make a large circle on the dusty floor. Then she used what looked to be a very old compass to draw a salt pentagram inside the circle, three of the points touching the circle at what I guessed to be the north, east, and west compass points. At each point of the pentagram, she placed five black candles. “Now,” she said, straightening to survey her work and shove her eyeglasses back up the bridge of her nose, “we need to lay her on top of the pentagram, head on the east point there.” I’d seen enough dead bodies in my line of work, ones in worse shape than this, but knowing what we were about to do … Hank let out a heavy sigh, his expression resolute. It didn’t take a genius to see he was about as thrilled as I was with the prospect of disturbing the dead. As Liz removed her ritual bowl from the bag and set several additional items on the floor, we stepped over the salt circle, careful not to touch the lines, and placed the nymph in the center of the pentagram as Liz had instructed. As I straightened, the sight made me shudder—the way the body remained mannequin-stiff, not melding against the floor like a living body would. “Out of the circle. Here.” Liz held out a lighter. “Charlie, light all the candles.” I removed the gloves, swiped the lighter, and tried to shake off the willies. Necromancy had the uncanny ability to spook the hell out of the most seasoned officers. And I was no exception. When I finished lighting the candles, Liz took back the lighter, tucked her black bob behind one ear, and proceeded to light a bundle of belladonna. Once the dried leaves caught, she blew the flame out, letting the ends smoke and propping it in the ritual bowl. “If something goes wrong, break the circle immediately.” Hank and I nodded. “There’s a video recorder in my bag. Hank, please set it up and turn it on. I’ll ask her questions. Sometimes I’ll get a vision in my head, too, so don’t get discouraged if what she says doesn’t make sense. Once we’re done, we can piece together her death, and hopefully get a lead on her killer.” Hank stepped to an empty, built-in shelving unit and, after rolling the recorder around in his big hands and doing a fair bit of frowning, he found the on button and made sure everything was functioning properly. He set the camera on one of the shelves at the correct angle before returning to stand at my side. Liz took the bowl, the smoking belladonna, and a sheet of papyrus paper into the circle, sitting just inside the north point. A curtain of confidence and serenity fell over her as she centered herself. A low hum began in her throat, which slowly turned into a deep, resonant chant. The room grew cold. So cold that my breath floated into my line of sight. Liz selected a stem of the smoking belladonna, and used the charcoal end to scratch out symbols on the paper, all the while chanting her dark, necromantic song. When done, she leaned forward, pried the corpse’s mouth open, and matter-of-factly shoved the paper inside. Very much like a medical examiner who’d seen it all. The mouth stayed open. I was really starting to regret ditching the ITF Necromancy Seminar last spring. Maybe if I hadn’t, my heart wouldn’t be pounding like a Charbydon drum and my skin wouldn’t be crawling like a nest of scattering spiders. Liz took the belladonna bundle and blew the smoke all over the body. As it drifted up, it stayed within the invisible dome of the circle, which was a very good thing. Too much in the air would cause me and Hank to drop unconscious onto the hard cement floor. Liz, however, was immune thanks to her unique physiology—a few gifts passed down from an off-worlder somewhere deep in her family tree. It had made her future as a necromancer a no-brainer. I chewed softly on the inside of my cheek as she grabbed a small dagger from its sheath and then sliced her palm without hesitation. Blood flowed bright and red into the bowl. After enough collected, she leaned forward and poured the blood into the corpse’s mouth. The paper inside crackled as though on fire. Carefully Liz made an unbroken blood line from the corpse’s mouth, down the neck, along the shoulder and arm to the palm. Then she sat back down and placed her own wounded palm into the corpse’s, making an unbroken blood link—her living blood flowing into the body of the dead nymph. The blood line began to glow. Very subtle, but there. The connection was made. Liz was feeding her life force through her unique blood, reanimating the dead. Slowly, very slowly, the body softened against the floor, no longer stiff but still gray and sunken and … dead. The nymph’s jaw popped suddenly, and she gasped, drawing in a long, wheezing breath as air filled her collapsed lungs. Liz continued chanting, her eyes closed, and her posture confident. Like a puppet on a string, Daya Machanna sat up straight. Several vertebrae cracked, each sickening pop echoing off the walls and making me wince. Hank’s arm rubbed against my shoulder. My fists closed at my sides as I resisted the urge to grab his hand out of pure horror. The corpse’s eyes snapped open, unfocused and grayed over. A ring of blood painted her lips, a trickle forming at one corner. “Tell us what is left,” Liz said calmly, opening her eyes. “Tell us your last moments.” Daya’s jaw worked, opening and closing with a horrible breaking sound. Her blood-wet lips smacked together like a fish. Sounds tried to come out, humming deeply through her throat, but not reaching fruition. After several disgusting seconds of smacking and moaning, she had voice. Scratchy, wheezing, but audible. “Your life was taken from you, Daya,” Liz told her. “You must remember what happened. What do you see?” After a false start and blood spurting out of her mouth like spittle, she murmured, “Then what happened? What came next?” The blood line glowed brighter. A dirty haze began to grow in the back corner of the room. “What cause?” Liz pressed. “What cause, Daya? Tell us and he will answer for your death.” A wet, guttural scream issued from the nymph’s throat. Her hair covered her face. She remained doubled over, her voice a hostile whisper. The cloud in the corner grew thicker and brighter. I leaned into Hank, sensing the presence of smut. “I don’t think that’s supposed to happen.” “Yeah. Me neither.” Daya began mumbling, her head still down, forehead against her knees, her hand still in Liz’s and the line glowing a bright, angry red. Liz’s face paled. Something was wrong. My fingernails dug into my palms. Shit. I realized we were witnessing a very rare event, one of the cons of raising the dead—the birth of what some might call a zombie. If the dead had arcane knowledge, if somehow that knowledge remained in their short term memory, they could suck the necromancer dry and raise themselves. And, in most cases, there was no way to tell beforehand if the dead had that kind of knowledge or not. “Daya must be a mage,” I said. “She still has some of those memories. She knows how to reanimate herself. Liz!” Hank and I ran to the circle, scattering the salt with our shoes. Nothing happened. “Break the link,” I said. “We have to break the link.” I grabbed Liz’s hand, smudged the line, and pulled her away from the nymph’s grip. Their hands wouldn’t budge and the blood line kept repairing itself. I got behind Liz and wrapped both arms around her slim waist, prepared to pull her entire body out of the circle, when the nymph lifted her head and glared at me. Bits of the bloodsoaked paper stuck to her lips and chin. Her dry tongue darted out and licked at the lifeblood. Daya’s eyes burned red and scornful. And then she smiled. She fucking smiled at me. A |
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