The guy looked around the room, assessing. Then his gaze returned to us, studying first Briar in her biker leathers, me with my grave-wind-tossed hair and my coat on despite being indoors, and then finally his gaze moved to Falin in khakis, his jacket off so his shoulder holster stood out in stark contrast to his white oxford shirt. Falin at least looked like a detective type.
“What is this? Where am I?” the corpse asked Falin. Apparently Briar and I had been dismissed. One glance at Briar made me think this guy would probably regret that action.
“You’re in an interrogation room at Central Precinct,” she said.
The top of his lip curled into a sneer. “You can’t keep me here. I’ve done nothing illegal. Am I under arrest? I haven’t been read my rights.”
Briar gave a bark of a laugh, the sound loud and abrupt enough to make the guy actually look at her. She leaned forward, making herself impossible to ignore.
“You,” she said, moving into his personal space, “don’t have any rights. You are a corpse.”
The guy looked like he was trying to swallow something that wouldn’t go down. Then he pursed his lips and lifted his chin in a stubborn tilt as he met Briar’s gaze. “You’re trying to scare me, but it won’t work. I’m a pre-law major. There is no precedent for stripping me of my rights just because I’m . . . uh, ‘mortally challenged.’ That’s discrimination. Either charge me with something or let me go.”
The revelation about him being a pre-law major surprised me. Of course, maybe I was judging him too much by the corpse he was wearing. He was a big guy, easily six seven and wide with muscle. He had a skull tattooed on the top of his shaved head, and more tattoos peeking out of the collar and sleeves of his shirt. When Briar had been handcuffing him, I’d noticed he even had words on his knuckles, though I hadn’t been able to tell what they spelled. He was a tough guy with a big voice who filled a lot of space . . . but that was just the shell. We had no idea who the soul inside was.
Briar cocked an eyebrow. “Actually, my directive as an MCIB investigator includes terminating any zombie, ghoul, or shambling dead monster I encounter, as well as determining the potential threat of any animated inanimate creation or magical constructs that could pose a threat to the human or witch populace. I’m pretty sure it would be within my legal scope to forgo this interview and make sure you are true dead and no threat, but as you are capable of speaking, I thought I’d give you a chance to do so.” The smile that spread over her face as she spoke was wolfish, showing too many teeth. It knocked the cocky defiance right off the corpse’s broad face. She pressed her advantage. “And if you really want criminal charges, how about we charge you with possession of stolen property—which would be that body you’re wearing. Or would what you’ve done be more like kidnapping and murder?”
The man’s eyes widened, the whites showing all the way around his dark irises. “I’m the victim here.”
“Really? You’re not acting like a victim. In fact, when we found you, you were in the process of coercing a murder victim to perform crimes for you.” She was stretching it a bit, but by the way the man’s frantic eyes scanned the room as if he’d magically find some way to escape, she was making an impact.
The man looked to me and then glanced at Falin, the expression on his broad face a clear plea for help. We both remained silent, offering him no assistance. The corpse turned back to Briar.
“I’m the victim here,” he repeated.
Briar leaned forward. “Then you should be happy we liberated you from Gauhter and be anxious to tell us everything you know about him and his operation.”
The man stared at her for a long moment, not saying anything, his mouth a thin line as he considered her. Finally he said, “Of course. What do you want to know?”
I fought the urge to turn and look at Falin’s expression, to see if he felt that the corpse’s quick flip toward helpfulness was too abrupt and insincere. Personally, I wasn’t buying it, but I schooled my features blank and continued silently studying the corpse.
“What’s your name?” Briar asked, picking up her pen and pulling her pad of paper closer.
“Bruiser.”
I managed to swallow my laugh but couldn’t hold back my disbelieving, “Really?”
That earned me the smallest twitch of a frown from Briar and a glare from the corpse. I’d already started interrupting, I might as well continue.
“Your mama looked at you after birth and thought, this adorable newborn looks like a Bruiser?” I asked.
The corpse cringed, looking away from me.
“Your real name,” Briar said.
His answer was mumbled too quiet to hear the first time. It took some prompting to get him to speak up, but he finally sighed and cleared his throat.
“Tiffany. Tiffany Bates.”
Or, I guess, her throat. I blinked, readjusting pronouns in my head, and evaluating differently why she randomly kept staring at Falin.
“Just so there is no misunderstanding, with a name like Tiffany, you mean that your real body was female before your soul got shoved into that one?” Briar asked.
Tiffany nodded, the movement sharp, like it was almost a cringe.
“Gauhter really likes throwing souls into opposite-gendered bodies, doesn’t he?” Briar muttered as she jotted Tiffany’s name on her notepad. It was more an observation than a directed question. Despite that, Tiffany shrugged, lifting her huge shoulders as much as she could with her hands cuffed behind her.
“It motivates people. You put an old guy in a young man’s body and he might decide he hit the fountain of youth. But you start screwing with people’s basic identity, like whether they are male or female, and they get desperate to get back in their own bodies. Gauhter could guarantee good behavior by ransoming a person’s own body.”
We’d technically already gathered some of that from Remy, but the fact Gauhter intentionally made the souls he stole more uncomfortable than he had to fanned a new flame of anger in me.
“So that’s why you were working for him? Because he’s holding your body ransom?” Briar asked.
“Yeah,” Tiffany said, but her gaze hit the table.
Briar glanced at something in her palm. She placed the small disc she’d been cupping onto the table. It was glowing an angry red.
“Do you know what this is?” Briar asked, and when Tiffany shook her head, Briar continued, “It’s a lie detector charm. Guess what color it turns when you lie to me? If you’re thinking red, you’d be right. So you’re not working for Gauhter because he’s holding your body ransom. Want to try that again?”
Tiffany glared at the little charm. It was green again, now that Briar had been the last one to speak.
“I,” Tiffany started, and then cut off, frowning. It took her a moment to speak again, and when she did, her voice was barely a whisper, as if she couldn’t admit what she was saying too loud. “I like this body. I don’t really want my old one back.”
“So then why work for Gauhter?” Briar asked. “Why not run away and live out your life as Bruiser?”
“Because I want to keep this body, and sometimes it needs a little . . . tweaking.”