A Local Habitation

Oh, Jan, I thought. I am so sorry.

She was crumpled like a discarded rag doll, head bent at an impossible angle, with a series of uneven gashes splitting her torso from waist to shoulder. Another gash cut across her throat. Her eyes were open behind her glasses, staring at nothing. Blood pooled on the floor around her, dried brown and ugly; she could never have lived after losing that much blood. Bloody handprints climbed halfway up a rack of stacked machines and trailed down the wall beside it.

The others died without fighting, but not Jan. Several cables had been yanked loose in the struggle, and the machines they connected to were beeping, telling us that power had been compromised. That wasn’t all that had been compromised. She had time to try to get away. That meant she also had time to suffer.

“Toby . . .” Quentin said unsteadily.

“If you need to be sick, do it in the hall.” I moved toward the body, studying the blood splatters on the floor. The footprints were all hers—wait. No, not all. There were smaller prints around the body, made by doll-sized feet. The night-haunts had been and gone, and they’re not normally clumsy enough to leave signs of their passing behind; this was a message. There is nothing for us here. Jan’s body was still fae, her unnatural beauty left intact. Whatever hunted the dead at ALH, it took her, too.

Quentin’s retreat was followed by the sound of retching. I ignored it, kneeling next to the body. The wounds on her chest and throat were the most obvious, but they weren’t the only ones; she’d been hamstrung, probably while she was still moving. Whoever cornered her took no chances. I turned her head to the side, exposing her neck. The expected puncture was there, on the other side of the larger, more garish wound, and similar punctures marked her wrists. This wasn’t a second killer; Jan had surprised our original murderer into breaking his pattern.

Three of her fingernails were torn, and one sleeve of her sweater was ripped nearly off. Whatever she did, it was almost enough. “Good for you,” I whispered, and pressed my fingers to her cheek, pulling them away slick with blood. It was cold; she’d been dead since shortly after she disappeared. That’s when she’d have been easiest to catch—morning, when people would be most distracted by exhaustion and the dawn. I brought my fingers to my lips, licking them, and scowled. The blood was empty, just like all the others.

Alex shifted his weight, saying, “Well?”

“Let her work,” snapped Connor.

I ignored them, looking over my shoulder toward the door. “Quentin, come over here.”

Still pale, he stepped back into the room, walking over to stand next to me. He avoided the blood on the floor. Good boy.

“Now what are you going to do?” said Alex.

“Look, can you just give us a minute? We need to work.”

“Haven’t you had enough minutes?”

I looked at him calmly, too exhausted and heartbroken to be angry. “Connor, get him out of here. We need to concentrate.”

“I’m not leaving!”

“Yeah, dude, you are.” Connor hooked his arm around Alex’s throat, catching the taller man by surprise. While Alex was coughing, Connor continued, conversationally, “Now, we can stand here until you stop breathing and I drag you out, or we can go out to the hall. You’ll like the hall. It comes with oxygen.”

Alex managed to gasp, “Hall,” and Connor smiled.

“Clever. Toby, shout when you need us.”

I offered a half-salute. “Got it. Now get out.” I bent forward, concentrating on the body until I heard the door close. Without looking up, I asked, “They gone?”

“Yes,” said Quentin. I looked up.

“I know this is hard, but we don’t have a choice. I need your help. Can you do that?” When he nodded, I forced myself to smile. “Good. What’s wrong with this picture?”