Kira Malone Chronicles: Vol 1 (Slaughter USA) Page 10

  At least, that was the theory. As Andy nodded that he'd found the correct sequence for the door, Kira inhaled, holding her breath as she hit the button to join the circuit it'd singled out. With a click from Andy, the lock disengaged. Keeping an eye on the digital screen, Kira relaxed slightly.

  There'd been a tiny bump, but the little gadget immediately picked up the slack and countered it. No alarms rang out. If they were silent, the two of them would be outta luck, but otherwise, it seemed as if the price tag on this thing might have been worth it. She supposed they'd find out if they heard sirens coming their way.

  "Come on, let's get in and check it out quickly, just in case. If we did trigger something, I don't want to explain to your mother why I had her precious son lurking about in a morgue at night and got him arrested. She'll never trust me again. Not that she trusts me now, mind you, but I have high hopes for the future still."

  They'd leave the bypass up until they were safely back in the van before disengaging. With any luck, the system wouldn't even be aware they were there. If the tapes were played back in the morning, they'd see two people snooping around the back door of the morgue and then disappearing, which wouldn't raise any questions.

  Without the alarm being triggered, they'd have no reason to believe the morgue had been breached. Really, who breaks into a morgue anyway? Crazy people, that's who. Which didn't really say much for their sanity, seeing as how she and Andy seemed to be making a regular habit of it.

  Hurrying into the building, Kira carefully closed the door behind them before flicking on her flashlight, scanning down the hallway. Following the signs to the morgue, they took the stairs to the basement, easily finding the swinging doors that led to the cold storage. Morgues were always creepy at night. Shadows seemed longer, the autopsy table looming from the darkness looked disembodied and even spookier than normal. It was enough to send a shiver down your spine.

  Glancing over the name tags affixed to the rows of refrigeration cells, Kira paused as they reached the one they needed. "Mr. Stefano Giovanni. I really do not want to open your door." She knew the state the body would likely be in, just from the reports.

  Yet, they needed to know if the medical examiner and first responders had missed something. Humans had an uncanny habit of refusing to see things that didn't fit with their world-view. Monsters didn't exist, so evidence would be explained away in 'human' terms.

  She and Andy knew better from experience, and were able to check for things that others just didn't see, or had overlooked. Sometimes things really were in plain sight. It was why checking the morgues was so important to do, even if neither of them relished the duty itself.

  Taking a breath, she nodded to Andy, who had the camera at the ready. Pulling the handle, she cringed at the metallic scraping sound when the body tray rolled out on the wheeled track, the frame falling into place once it'd been drawn forward far enough. Steeling her nerves, Kira tugged the zipper down, nearly gagging at the stench.

  Underneath the smell of advancing decomposition, which was inevitable even with refrigeration, was the scent of something sickly sweet and earthy. It was unusual, to say the least. "What is that? I know I recognize it, but I can't think of where I've smelled it before."

  Brows drawing together in a frown, she watched as Andy leaned closer to take several shots of some of the bruising and discoloring. He had a cast-iron stomach when it came to this anymore, he really did. He'd gotten so used to helping that this hardly fazed him.

  "I smell black licorice and something lemony, Kir. At least this close. It's weird. Kind of reminds me of an incense, like something I've smelled in church." It hit her then, what the smell likely was. If Andy was smelling incense and she was smelling something woodsy and sweet, it had to be frankincense and myrrh, purification incenses.

  The question was... why?

  Chapter Six

  Once they'd replaced everything exactly the way it'd been before they'd broken in, and gotten all the photos they needed of the body itself as well as the medical examiner's reports, they hurried to the van, breaking the bypass with a press of a button once they were safely behind the range of the camera sensors. Hopefully, no one would even realize they'd been inside at all.

  The drive back had both going through potential legends and lore, but coming up blank. As expected from the reports, Stefano's death had been brutal. It was murder, plain and simple. Still, there was no easy explanation for how it had happened. Or why Mrs. Sardoza had been directly downstairs and hadn't heard a thing. She really had no reason to lie.

  Her not hearing something was more suspicious than her actually hearing the fight taking place. By claiming to have heard nothing, she made herself look like an accomplice. She wasn't, of course, the police had already cleared her, but if she wanted to hide something, telling the truth- that she'd had no idea what had even been happening above her, was actually a more suspicious move. It was baffling, and Kira disliked baffling things. Everything had an explanation, even a supernatural one, she just had to dissect the case to find it.

  Setting up his laptop, Andy began transferring the photos he'd taken as Kira tried to outline her thoughts and what they knew so far in a document on hers. Both had their talents. She was great with data... sorting it, analyzing it. Spotting connections. Andy was the visual learner. The man could spot discrepancies the size of a pinhole at times.

  She supposed it came from being the director for Ominous Omens. He had to be on the ball and miss nothing, to keep the rest of them in line and spot potential issues before they went live. It made them good friends, and a great team. Tapping her nails on the edge of the desk, Kira pursed her lips as she scanned what she'd written so far. "I think we can send this to Noni, let her check things out?"

  Andy shrugged, taking a sip of the soda he'd snagged before he sat down. "Always nice to have a new set of eyes on it, and she knows more about myths and legends than we do so far. If we've missed something, she'll point us in the right direction. We can send it, see if she's got any new ideas. Meantime, we can keep hashing away at it here, analyzing what we've got. What are we thinking so far? Demon? Ghost? If we're settling on ghost, which seems most likely, we're going to need to figure out what it's attached to. Could be literally any of those objects in that room, makes our jobs that much harder. Vengeful spirit might be upset that he's raiding their resting places and taking their artifacts to display."

  Kira agreed. There was a larger issue at hand though. "Problem. What if it's something he owns, but is in a collection somewhere at the moment? How do we handle that? Do ghosts have to stay near those objects, or could they zero in on the person that disturbed their items regardless of if the item isn't necessarily near that person? You take something like the Mummy's Curse, supposedly. Those people died of odd circumstances and weren't anywhere near any of the artifacts from Tutankhamen's tomb at the time. If that was even supernatural, really. If that's the case, our process of elimination just expanded massively. He's got stuff all over."

  It was a quandary, one neither of them had the answer to. There was no way they were getting to the artifacts in any museums. They had to hope if this was a ghost, it was due to something in his home. Otherwise, they'd have no chance of fixing this. "Do we even know how to stop a ghost? Truly?"

  Andy grinned, shaking his head. "No, we do not. Always a first time though. We didn't know how to handle an Aswang either, yet we solved that case just fine. Few bruises and scratches, nothing we can't handle. Noni should be able to give us a few hints on the lore. If they don't work and we stumble onto the ghost of artifacts past and get him all riled up, I suggest we learn to make a hasty retreat to save our own asses. Best way to go. I've become fond of your ass."

  Hitting 'send' to email what they had to Noni's laptop they'd sent her, Kira tried not to laugh. "You are incorrigible." They were best friends, the only one the other could lean on. Romance had never been in the cards for them, and they both knew it.

  It didn't stop Andy from
shamelessly flirting, simply because he knew it was safe and she'd never take him seriously. One day, she'd have to let him go to find his own woman, but she hoped that wasn't too soon. The woman had to meet Kira's high standards, obviously.

  Chapter Seven

  She barely felt like she got any sleep, the case running around in her subconscious all night, before Andy was shaking her awake. Mumbling as she tried to shove him away, she blinked at the bright light shining through the windows before focusing on his incredibly worried face. Something was wrong. That, more than anything, snapped her awake better than caffeine. "What happened?"

  Andy pointed towards the TV, sliding her a can of soda. "There's been another homicide. Same as Stefano. No way in, nothing was heard, yet he was pulverized and burned with no smoke or fire damage anywhere else. Police are cordoning off the scene now. Guy lived alone, no housekeeper or anything. Neighbors said no one was sneaking around last night."

  Shit. Another murder? They hadn't even managed to figure out the motive for the first one yet. Heaving a sigh, Kira pulled herself from under the comfortable blankets she'd rolled herself into, rubbing at her eyes.

  "Alright. We'll go to the scene, see if we can interview anyone there. We have our press badges, we won't look totally out of place. Once the police leave, we'll see if we can either sneak into the home, or maybe his family, if anyone was called, might allow us in."

  It was a long shot, but she'd rather seek permission if she could. Breaking and entering wasn't really high on her list of crimes she wanted added to her name. Texting Noni to let her know there'd been another murder, Kira gathered fresh clothing from her backpack, heading into the bathroom to change and freshen up as best she could without the luxury of taking a full shower.

  Since they'd be presenting themselves as members of the press, she added a bit of makeup as well, though she didn't usually wear it. If one was going to pass as a professional, one needed to look the part. Her clothing was clean and serviceable, the leather jacket she usually wore making the outfit look a bit more fashionable than it normally would. Eyeing herself critically in the mirror, she shrugged. It'd do.

  The drive was quick, as this victim lived closer to where they'd decided to bunk down. There were a few other cameras there, but not as many as Kira expected. Evidently a town this secular kept their contacts small. They looked like the outsiders. Still, that could work in their favor, if the family felt the locals weren't doing everything they could to do their loved one justice. Sometimes, having an outside point of view was refreshing, because it didn't come with expectations or the 'good ol' boy' trappings of a smaller town.

  Not that the town was small by any means, but the people here clearly had money, which meant they kept to themselves. Gossip likely abounded as it so often did in places like this. Everyone probably knew everyone else's business, including law enforcement and whatever media operated here. With any luck, she and Andy would be welcomed. If not, well, they'd still get in, they just would be stalled waiting for a bit.

  They had to break in. After approaching who they were told was the sister, they'd been given a short brush-off, with a clear "No Press" statement. She hadn't even glanced at their badges. They'd gone back to their van until most people cleared out, then walked around to approach the home from behind through the large yard.

  It was quick work picking the lock to the cellar, and getting in that way. Since the police had been going in and out, the alarm system had been turned off to allow for the constant barrage of bodies through the doors. They could hear the booted feet moving above them on the floors, pinpoint where they were in the home. Since Kira and Andy already knew what the condition of the body would be, they didn't need to see it or take another trip to the morgue. They were more interested in the surroundings, what lurked around him.

  According to what information the press had been given as they waited, he was a professor at Boston University, teaching screenwriting, of all things. It was about as far from archaeology as one could get, so there didn't seem to be an overlap. There was no reason for someone who had been attacked by a ghost over an artifact to have been attacked if he had nothing to do with archaeology himself.

  They waited until the noises from upstairs had stopped before gingerly making their way up the basement stairs, cracking the door to peer out and ensure they truly were alone for the moment. Most of the footfalls had been to the right so that's where they headed. This time, they'd gotten here soon enough that Kira could smell the faint trace of burnt hair in the room.

  Blood splattered the walls, but not nearly enough to account for what they knew had gone on in this room. The carpet on the floor wasn't burnt, had no singe marks at all. There was no fireplace here, unlike the first victim's study. So no plausible reason for the victim to have been burned in a freak accident. One that didn't appear to catch anything else alight in the process.

  While Andy started videotaping the scene so they could catch everything possible, Kira used the camera to take still photos. After carefully checking the battery level, of course. She wasn't about to make the same mistake again for the second time in a row. Nothing appeared amiss, however. Unlike the first victim, he didn't have artifacts scattered around. There weren't any suspicious papers, no antiques.

  This room did appear to be the office of an economics professor. Nothing pinpointed a connection between the two, or a reason for the same creature to have gone after both. Just in case, she snapped photos of the contents of the desk drawers, filing cabinets, and bookshelves. They could look things over later and try to find a common thread between the two victims, though it was looking more likely that there wasn't one.

  Slumped in the van after they'd sneaked through the house to the cellar, re-locking the padlock behind them, Kira sighed. "Honestly? The weirdest thing I found there was a box of old books on economic theory, and a few antique Roman coins that correlated with one of the lessons. Looked like the contents had been a gift or brought from his office at the university or something. Economics are a nightmare, but I think it's pushing it to say his chosen subject to teach had something to do with this."

  Andy laughed, turning onto the street that would take them back to the hotel. "Let's eat something and regroup, check the video and photos we took. I saw a library on the way there, maybe they have a mythology section we can check. Wouldn't be the worst waste of an hour we've done, not even this week, even. Between us and Noni, we've now got two homicides to analyze. Surely there's something we've missed that connects the two. We just have to find it."

  Chapter Eight

  Luckily, the library had an extensive classics collection. Likely due to the universities teaching literature and mythology, the local libraries probably kept them in stock so people could do further research. It was helpful for what they needed. Walking back to the table with as many leather-bound books as she could carry, Kira raised a brow as she spotted Andy chatting up one of the librarians. Go figure, she was working, and he was attempting to be charming.

  It appeared he'd been turned down though, as he quickly joined her, pulling one of the books his way. As he flipped through it, she couldn't resist a grin. "I take it that conversation didn't go as you'd planned? Let me guess... lesbian? Boyfriend? It's not you, it's me?"

  He scoffed, pretending to ignore her before mumbling in the affirmative to one of her guesses under his breath. The woman had a boyfriend. Andy seriously had the worst luck. He hadn't been completely ignoring their reason for being here, however, as he'd secured the use of the photocopier. It meant they could just copy the pages they found that were of interest, instead of having to take photos and scan them.

  Turned out, there were a lot of things of interest. Some of these books were so old the writing was faded, the spines falling apart. Even if they might not help with this case, they'd certainly be helpful for others the two might come across. Kira ended up being the runner, heading back and forth from their table to the photocopy room. Andy would return the used books back
to their original spots and pick up a few more.

  Some of the creatures in these books were things she hoped they never came across. Most didn't have ways to kill them, just mythology about the monsters themselves. She supposed that was fair. Most didn't really think about these creatures as being real, something they had to fight. No one set out determined to kill them. Hell, she wouldn't have considered it possible if she hadn't lived it herself. Spotting a name she recognized, she paused.

  Skimming the page, she sighed. It was too much to hope that she'd find a how-to manual to finally put her nightmares to rest. Marking the page to be copied, she sat the book aside. One day, she'd take her revenge and slaughter the wendigo that had started her on this path of madness. One day, she'd prevent hundreds more deaths to its voracious hunger. Today was not that day, however. They had far more pressing matters at the moment.

  Like how two seemingly unrelated men had been killed in such a morbid manner. The overkill symbolized it was personal. You didn't beat the crap out of someone unless it was personal to you. The bodies weren't consumed, so it wasn't a creature that was after humans for sustenance, like the wendigo or Aswang had been. This was something altogether different. Kira felt if they could just figure out what tied the two victims together, they'd have their work halfway finished, yet so far there was nothing. It seemed impossible.