Dragon Justice (12 page)

“Yeah.” If he had been, there would have been some trace of it
in the tissue, even now. So long as the body hadn’t been hosed down—running
water could wash away current-trace same as it did everything else. But the
flesh was quiet.

“Damn. That would have…”

He stopped, but I could fill it in—“simplified things.” The
police generally abandoned cases where cause of death was current—abandoned
officially, that was. Unofficially they handed them over to us. Or that was the
long-term plan, anyway. For now, most of ’em went into cardboard boxes marked
“unresolved.”

I left my hand where it was, concentrating.

“Bonnie?”

“Hang on a sec, boss.”

I wasn’t gleaning, exactly. Gleaning was pulling trace from a
scene, to be used in reconstructing it later, under controlled—and less
fraught—circumstances. I didn’t want to collect anything, right now—I just
wanted to see it.

Or, more specifically, I wanted to see whatever it was what I
thought I’d sensed.

*careful* Venec warned me.

I didn’t need the reminder. Death-related emotions were
verboten, in a gleaning. Not just because they were too easily manipulated and
distorted, both on the scene and afterward, but because emotions could drag you
in, if they were too strong, make the gleaner relive the moment—and, when that
moment was death…well, we’d learned not to do that the hard way.

“There’s something there…” I was talking directly to Venec now,
barely verbalizing, but I knew that he heard me. He always heard me. “Under the
surface…in the cuts. The first ones, I mean, not the autopsy....”

“The ME didn’t find anything.”

Good ears on the tall guy. “Not physical. Not magical, exactly.
I’m not sure. There was something… ” I didn’t want to go any farther down: quiet
or not, this was still a recent murder victim. But I would, if that’s what it
took. “Huh. Under the cuts… The knife he used, did they find it?”

“No.”

Damn. That really would have made everything so much simpler.
Something the killer held, used… “I think the weapon’s important. There’s
something about whatever made those cuts. It left the faintest trace—too faint
to glean, but I can feel it.” Like a splinter under the skin, too fine to catch,
but enough to be an irritant.

Venec sighed. “Tell me we don’t have another god-damned
Excalibur on our hands.”

I wasn’t even tempted to laugh at that. “Smaller. Like a
scalpel, probably, or a fillet knife.” Magical? Maybe, probably not. But there
was something about it. Something that fit well in the hand and turned with a
twitch of muscle, cutting and sliding, searching under the skin. I might have
been projecting, but I didn’t think so. “The weapon was made by the killer? Or
he’s had it for a long time—maybe he thinks the blade is like an extension of
himself.” I was reaching, trying to figure out why the blade felt important to
me. Huh, male? Default reflex, no reason to think otherwise right now. Roll with
it, Bonnie. “Metal conducts, but it also imprints, especially used to kill
someone.” Stone, metal—go anywhere there had been ritual sacrifices over a long
period of time, and ask a Talent what they felt. We weren’t much for visiting
the really gory historical sites.

“If you find the blade we can find the killer, I think. There’s
a connection between them. Other than that…”

“Think you could get more from the other body?”

Whoa. I turned to Andrulis at the same time as Venec, and we
spoke in unison. “There’s two?”

There were two. Both male, both in their mid-forties, both
Talent. Both of them had been cut open the same way, and both of them had been
cut open, as nearly as I could tell, by the same instrument, leaving that same
tickle of current-residue.

I left my hand fall to my side, aware of an ache in my shoulder
and neck that was going to turn into a headache real soon now, if I wasn’t
careful. I looked at Venec, who had been watching me work. “Do you want to
back-check my work?”

Normally I wouldn’t ask—and he would never think to offer. But
we were on unfamiliar territory—this was the first time we’d been called in by
the Philadelphia P.D., and they were looking to Benjamin Venec for answers, not
an unknown female. It sucked like a Hoover on steroids, but that was the deal,
and I represented PUPI here, not myself. My ego would survive.

Venec stepped forward, placing his hand over the body the way
he’d seen me do. “The deep-read spell or Low Swing?”

“Low Swing.” Low Swing was a specific cantrip that looked hard
at a particular area, but didn’t dig for as much specific info as a deep read.
Really, at this point, we could just think about what we wanted to learn, and
the current would shape to that desire—that’s all a spell was, force of will and
desire shaping the magic to do what you wanted—but using the same framework made
it easier for us to ensure mostly consistent results no matter who worked
it.

Mostly, because everyone’s current was slightly different, and
everyone’s training was slightly different, but working together to develop the
spells offset that.

While Venec slipped into fugue state to check my impressions, I
turned back to Andrulis, who was waiting a few paces behind us, our technician
off in the corner doing something that looked science-y and official—if it
wasn’t so obvious he was watching us. Not suspiciously: more like he was
fascinated by the show. I guess even death could get routine, after a while.

A quick current-check told me the tech was Talent, if not
high-res, so I included both of them in my question. “Is there any record of
anything like this before? These particular cuts, this kind of killing?”

The tech shook his head and shrugged. He wasn’t going to step
on Andrulis’s toes, clearly.

“Not here.” Andrulis paused, like he was expecting me to
suddenly summon the answers out of thin air.

I waited. I still wasn’t as good at it as Pietr or Sharon, but
if you concentrated on a particular spot just below their left ear and breathed
steadily, people assumed you were willing to wait until everyone died of old
age, and gave in. Andrulis was no exception.

“There were a few murders that might have been similar. In San
Diego, about ten years ago. I’ve requested the full files, on the off chance
that they’re the same, but nothing’s come in yet.”

“Let us know when they do?” It wasn’t a request, really, and he
knew it, but the uptick at the end of the sentence made it sound more polite. My
dad had taught me that.
“You can get away with being a
demanding brat if they don’t realize you’re a brat, brat.”
I could
still hear him say it, his hands working on a piece of wood he was carving,
slow, steady strokes with the planer, ninety percent of his focus on the work,
five percent on me, and five percent in that place only Zaki ever went and he
never really came back from.

My mother must have been one seriously hardheaded pragmatist
and passed those genes on, because my dad had been born a dreamer.

“Of course,” Andrulis said, bringing me back from that snippet
of long-ago memory. My attention flickered from below his ear to his eyes, and I
realized, uneasily, that Andrulis was watching Venec with an intensity that made
me slightly uneasy. Had he studied me with that same hungry expression? Did he
even know he was doing it? I looked sideways back at the tech, and he gave me
just the slightest upturn of his lips in a wry smile and a flicker of his own
core-current, to reassure me. He saw, he knew, and he wasn’t worried, so I
relaxed.

Most Nulls didn’t even notice current. Some, though, could
almost feel it, and Talent-envy could turn into Talent-hate, easily. But
sometimes it was just casual gee-wish-I-could-do-that, the same as I felt
listening to someone sing or play an instrument.

Big Dog chose that moment to come back into the conversation.
“Definitely a current-forged instrument. There are vibrations in the flesh that
don’t come from anything else.”

Venec had finished pretty fast, making me wonder if he’d just
done it for show. The thought made me feel better, which made me realize I had
been kind of hurt by his willingness to back-check me, like he thought I might
have screwed something up.

*idiot*

The Merge-ping was a honeyed, slow rebuke, barely vocalized,
and didn’t distract Venec from picking up the conversation as though he’d been
part of it all along.

“We’re done here,” Andrulis said, and the tech came forward to
cover up both bodies, returning them to their resting places. He moved with an
economy of motion, but not brusque or uncaring. I hadn’t known either of the
corpses, but it made me feel better to know that they were being cared for, even
now.

Venec ignored him. “You said there were similar murders?”

“I went through the national database the moment I realized
there were two with similar characteristics, trying to match up the
descriptions. It’s sketchy—not everything’s been uploaded yet, and not all
departments are even online—but that’s what kicked back. Getting off-line
records will take a while longer.”

Computers. Whatever envy Andrulis had for magic, I was
developing for computers. They would make our job so damn much easier, if we
could only use them without blowing their little innards—and memory—on a regular
basis.

“I think it’s time to bring Ian in on this,” Venec said. “Is
there an office we can use? One without any tech you might want to use,
later?”

Most of the NYPD precincts had a broom closet they set aside
for that kind of thing. Turned out that morgues in Philadelphia had much the
same. Actually, it was a really nice broom closet, with chairs that were padded
and a coffeemaker that looked like it might actually work and a jumble of heavy
white mugs that looked like they could be used to subdue a corpse-turned-zombie,
if things got out of hand.

Andrulis turned us loose and left us there, closing the door
behind him.

Venec stared at the room like he was taking inventory, but I
got the distinct feeling he wasn’t seeing any of it. “This wasn’t exactly what
I’d hoped for, when I told you to come down. You were supposed to be taking time
off.”

“Yeah. You owe me,” I said, and if I put a twist of innuendo
into my tone, there wasn’t anyone there but us to hear it.

“Hold that thought.” He sat at the table, pushing the chair
back slightly so he could extend his legs, and let his eyes glaze over while he
focused on reaching Ian. I unbuilt my wall just enough that I could hear the
steady, low hum that was Benjamin Venec, the current coiled up in his core,
smooth and controlled like a masterwork. The feeling of someone else that close,
that unguarded, still freaked me out a little. The fact that he knew I was there
and didn’t mind—much—was even freakier. Your core was as private as your
thoughts and shouldn’t be that easily observed.

But the Merge made it not only possible, but actively difficult
to avoid.

*ian*

*yes?* Even in his pings, Ian Stosser’s tone was cool,
controlled, and precise. If I hadn’t seen the man angry, worried, and
sad—sometimes in quick succession—I’d assume he had no deep emotions at all.
What he had was control, a level impressive even among Council-trained
Talent.

And then there was a burst of information, like a high-speed
train roaring past, and the only reason I knew what it was about was because I
already knew what it was about.

An endless second of silence, then another, while Stosser
digested the update.

*that…sounds familiar* He hesitated, and I got the feeling that
Venec thought there was something he wanted to say, but wasn’t going to. *will
investigate*

Then, silence, and Ben’s eyes slowly refocused on the room.

“That’s it?” Even after two years, I wasn’t quite used to
Stosser’s mad swings between control-freak and hands-off management.

“That’s enough,” Venec said. “All right, the bodies.
Theorize.”

Classic Venec management. No time to stop and second-guess
yourself: decide and deliver.

“Two men, both middle-aged. Both Talent. One was white, the
other probably Latino.” The files would confirm that, but right now he was
asking what I’d seen. “Physically fit, but not athletes.” I hadn’t looked at
their faces long, so I didn’t know if they had any physical resemblance. “The
killer left their heads alone, far as I could tell. The stitches on the head and
the Y incision on the torso were neatly done, unlike the ones on the limbs and
down the sternum and spine.” A fair assumption that the killer had made the
messy stitches, cleaning up after his work. “Why would you cut someone open and
then stitch them back together? Right, I know—no questions yet.” I took a deep
breath and went on to the things I knew for certain.

“The instrument that was used to carve them up—probably a
knife, certainly a sharp edge. Metal…maybe stone or ceramic, but I don’t think
so. It was delicate, like I said. A scalpel or a filleting knife.” J had a row
of knives lined up on the wall of his kitchen, glinting in the light. One of
them was about six inches long, narrow, the blade surprisingly flexible, with
just a slight curve to the shape. I pictured the knife, imagined holding it in
my hand, how I would have to hold it in order to make those cuts, to slip into
human flesh…

“The blade would have to be very strong and very flexible to
avoid the bones but still be able to scrape the flesh… What was the killer
trying to do? If I knew that…”

“If we knew that we’d be halfway to solved. So we’ll get there.
What else about the blade?”

“Nothing. Sorry.”

It was possible to re-create an image using the space it left
behind in the current, but there needed to be more buildup, something that had
been there a long time. The knife had come and gone, and while I might have been
able to pick up an emotional trace based on its proximity to the dying… We’d
done that, once. The strength of the victims’ dying emotions had swamped us,
nearly killed us. Gleaning the emotions of murdered people was number one on the
Do Not Do list.