I poured myself a bowl of cereal as I made some phone calls. My first call was to John, but he wasn’t in. My next was to the morgue. I didn’t know the tech who answered, and unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to ask for. Tamara was on her honeymoon by now and she was my only real contact in the morgue. Typically the head ME is enough. But without anyone who might help me out just because they knew me, the only thing I could do without an official job from the police or a release from the family was inquire about the body.
I should have done some research before I made the call. I’d seen news clips on the homeless man, but I couldn’t remember his name and the tech wasn’t very impressed with my description of “homeless man who rode the unicorn.” Go figure. Thankfully my laptop was close at hand. I set down my spoon, pulled up a search, and scanned the plethora of hits that popped up on my screen.
“His name was Gavin Murphy,” I said, after clicking the first article I found. “He died about five days ago. Is he still at the morgue?”
The tech grumbled under his breath, but I heard keys tapping in the background as he looked up the status of the body.
“Huh, well, looks like Mr. Murphy is still here,” he said, and more keys clacked. “Sad case. Looks like he has an estranged sister who declined to claim his body or make arrangements. No other family can be found. If he’s not claimed in another week, he’s doomed for potter’s field.”
A week. If I couldn’t find a legitimate case to grant me access to his body, I’d have to wait a week before he was released and buried. “Where is potter’s field?” I asked, because I thought I knew all the cemeteries in Nekros. It was sort of a professional eventuality.
“It’s just an old expression. He’ll most likely be cremated at the expense of the state.”
Well, crap. Cremation destroyed pretty much everything down to the DNA, which included all the memories stored in the cells of the body. If my suspicions were correct, raising a shade from anyone who’d used Glitter would be difficult with a fresh body, let alone a cremated one. Hell, normal, strong shades were almost impossible to raise from cremation ash.
“Do you have to be family to claim a body?” I asked, casting about for ways I could get access to the body.
The tech was quiet for a long moment. “You could likely donate a burial plot,” he finally said.
And that sounded expensive. The business was barely paying out enough to cover expenses and a very small salary to Rianna and me. Most of mine went to bills. I’d started putting aside a savings, but it was a piddly amount and blowing all of it on burying a stranger whose shade I might not even be able to raise and who, if I could raise, might or might not help probably wasn’t the best option. I wasn’t going to take the possibility completely off the table, but I’d definitely hold off for now.
“You’ve been helpful,” I told the tech as way of thanks before disconnecting.
I needed to talk to John. Or find Falin. Any case connecting to Glitter the FIB could likely claim, so he could probably get me access to the bodies. But he was still in Faerie and I had no idea when he’d return. No other FIB agent would assist me. If I hadn’t already figured that out after previous encounters with them, the agent who’d shown up after Tamara’s wedding had made that fact perfectly clear.
No, I needed Falin. Not just for access to the bodies, but to find out any information the FIB and winter court had on Tommy Rawhead and Jenny Greenteeth. If Tommy Rawhead was the hobgoblin the satyr saw distributing Glitter at the Bloom, finding out as much as I could about the two bogeymen was my best lead on the alchemist. That was a big if, but the coincidence of the bartender mentioning a hobgoblin and then getting attacked by one was just too great otherwise.
Now I just had to figure out how to contact the queen’s bloody hands.
? ? ?
It was nearly noon when I arrived at the Eternal Bloom. I headed into the tourist side of the Bloom first. The satyr I’d spoken to at my first visit wasn’t working. I asked both the current bartender and the cocktail waitress about the two bogeymen, but neither had seen them. I left my card and headed to the VIP room.
I scratched out a note to Falin the same way I’d sent notes to Rianna, Kyran, and Dugan. I didn’t exactly know where Falin was, aside from somewhere in the winter court, but that didn’t matter to the magic. It would find him. I wrote simply that I needed to see him ASAP about the case, and then I headed for a table in the corner. I hadn’t even pulled the chair out yet when a pixie, no larger than my forearm, fluttered over, trailing colorful sparkles and carrying a large dried leaf.
That was a fast reply.
I accepted it and nodded my appreciation, but once I flipped it over to read it, my stomach clenched as if a pound of ice had dropped into it.
The leaf had only one sentence written across it: Attend me now, planeweaver.
Instead of a signature, the queen’s official seal looked as if it had been scorched into the leaf. I stared at it, willing it to say something else—just about anything else.
Then I glanced at the giant tree sprouting through the floorboards in the center of the Bloom. Damn, I’d been summoned to an audience with the queen.