A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 22

Some of the bodies were in body bags, plastic cocoons from which nothing would wake. But they'd run out of body bags and just started laying the uncovered bodies out. I could not count at a glance how many there were. More than fifty. Maybe a hundred, maybe more. I couldn't bring myself to start counting, to make them just things in a row, so I stopped trying to estimate. I tried to stop thinking at all.

I tried to pretend that I was back at court and this was one of the queen's "entertainments." You never dared show distaste, disgust, horror, or least of all fear at one of her little shows. If you did, she'd often make you join in on the fun. Her shows ran more to sex and torture than true death, and suffocation wasn't one of Andais's kinks, so this little disaster wouldn't have pleased her. She'd probably see it as a waste. So many people who could have admired her, so many people she could have terrorized.

I pretended that my life depended on keeping a blank face and feeling nothing. It was the only way I knew to walk among the bodies and not have hysterics. My life depended on not going into hysterics. I repeated it in my head like a mantra — my life depends on not having hysterics; my life depends on not having hysterics — and it kept me moving down the rows, kept me able to look down at all this horror and not scream.

The bodies that weren't covered all had lips almost the same shade of blue as the girl on the beach, except this obviously wasn't lipstick. They'd all suffocated, but not instantly. They hadn't dropped magically and mercifully in their tracks. There were nail marks on some of the bodies where they'd clawed at their throats, their chests, as if trying to get air into lungs that no longer worked.

Nine bodies seemed different from the others. I couldn't figure out what it was, but I kept pacing in front of the nine, scattered in a row among the others. Frost had paced beside me at first, but he was back at the edge of the floor, trying to stay out of the way of the hurrying uniforms, plainclothes, paramedics, and all the extra people who seem to accumulate at any murder scene. I remembered being surprised the first time I saw how very many people tracked through a murder scene.

Behind Frost was something covered with a tablecloth but it wasn't a body. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a Christmas tree. Someone had covered the artificial greenery, covered the entire Christmas display. It was as if someone hadn't wanted the tree to see the bodies, like hiding the eyes of the innocent so they won't be tarnished. It should have seemed ridiculous, but it didn't. Somehow, it seemed appropriate to cover the decorations in this room. To hide them away so they wouldn't be spoiled.

Frost seemed unaware of the covered tree, or much of anything else. Rhys, on the other hand, seemed aware of everything.

He stayed right at my side. He wasn't humming or even smiling now. He'd been subdued since we walked in on the carnage. Though carnage seemed the wrong word for it. Carnage seemed to imply blood and flesh ripped and torn. This was strangely clean, almost impersonal. No, not impersonal — cold. I'd seen people who enjoyed slaughter, and they literally enjoyed the act of cutting someone up, the feel of the blade in flesh. There was no savage joy in this scene. It was just death, cold death, as if the Grim Reaper had been brought to life to ride through this place.

"What is it about these nine that's different?" I hadn't realized I'd spoken aloud until Rhys answered me.

"They went quietly, no nail marks, no signs of struggle. These, and only these nine, just. . dropped where they were dancing."

"What in Goddess's name happened here, Rhys?"

"What the fuck are you doing here, Princess Meredith?" We both turned to the far side of the room. The man stalking toward us through the bodies was medium build, balding, obviously muscular, and even more obviously pissed.

"Lieutenant Peterson, isn't it?" I said. The first and last time I'd met Peterson I'd been trying to convince the police to investigate the possibility that a fey aphrodisiac had gotten out into the human population. They'd informed me that aphrodisiacs didn't work, and neither did love spells. I'd proven that it did work, and nearly caused a riot in the Los Angeles Police Department. The lieutenant had been one of the men I'd use to prove my point. They'd had to handcuff him before they could drag him off me.

"Don't be pleasant, Princess. What the fuck are you doing here?"

I smiled. "It's lovely to see you, too, Lieutenant."

He didn't smile. "Get out, now, before I have you thrown out."

Rhys moved an inch closer to my side. Peterson's eyes flicked to him, then back to me. "I see your two gorillas. If they try anything, diplomatic immunity or no diplomatic immunity, they're going to jail."

I glanced back just enough to see that Frost was drifting closer. I shook my head, and he stopped. He frowned, clearly not happy; but he didn't have to be happy, he just had to give me room.

"Have you ever seen this many dead before?" I asked. My voice was quiet.

"What?" Peterson asked.

I repeated my question.

He shook his head. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's horrible," I said.

"Yeah, it's horrible, and what the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

"You'd be friendlier if it wasn't such a horrible crime scene."

He made a sound that was almost a laugh, but too harsh to be one. "Well, hell, Princess, this is friendly. This is exactly how friendly I am to murderers like you who hide behind diplomatic immunity." He smiled, but it was a baring of teeth, like a snarl.

I'd once been suspected of killing a man who'd attempted to rape me. I hadn't done it, but without diplomatic immunity I might have gone to jail anyway. I'd have at least seen a trial. I didn't try to deny it again. Peterson wouldn't believe me now any more than he had before.

"Why are these nine bodies the only ones that went quietly?" I asked.

He frowned at me. "What?"

"Why are these nine bodies the only ones without signs of struggle on them?"

"This is a police investigation, and I am the senior officer on-site. This is my investigation, and I don't care if you are one of our civilian advisers on metaphysical shit. I don't even care if you've helped us out in the past. You've never done shit for me, and I don't need help from any goddamned faerie. So, for the last time, get the fuck out of here."

I'd tried being sympathetic. I'd tried being businesslike. When being good doesn't help, you can always be bad. I reached out toward him, as if to touch his face. He did what I knew he'd do. He backed up.

"What's wrong, Lieutenant?" I made sure to look puzzled.

"Don't ever touch me." His voice was quieter now. And, I realized, much more dangerous than the yelling.

"It wasn't the touch of my skin that drove you mad last time, Lieutenant. It was the Branwyn's Tears."

His voice dropped even lower. "Don't. . ever. . touch me. . again." There was something in his eyes that was frightening. He was afraid of me, really afraid, and that made him hate me.

Rhys stepped a little ahead of me, not quite putting himself between me and the lieutenant but almost. I didn't fight him. It's never comforting to have anyone look at you with such hatred.

"We've met only once, Lieutenant. Why do you hate me?" It was a question so direct that even a human wouldn't have asked it. But I didn't understand, couldn't understand; so I had to ask.

He looked down, hiding his eyes as if he hadn't expected me to see so far into his soul. His voice was very low when he said, "You forget, I saw what you left on that bed — just a pile of raw meat, cut to ribbons. Without dental records we couldn't have recognized him. And you wonder why I don't want you to touch me?" He shook his head and looked at me, eyes blank and unreadable, cop eyes. "Now, get out, Princess. Take your two goons and get out. I am senior officer in charge, and I won't have you here." His voice was calm now, very calm, too calm for standing in the middle of all this.

"Lieutenant, I called the Grey Detective Agency." Lucy Tate came in from the deck.

"And who authorized that?" Peterson asked.

"I've never needed special authorization to bring them in before." She picked her way through the lines of bodies, and when she got close enough, Lucy was over a head taller than the lieutenant.

"The clairvoyant I understand. Even Mr. Grey, because he's a well-known magician. But why her?" He jerked a thumb at me.

"The sidhe are well known for magic use, Lieutenant. I thought the more heads we have on this one, the better."

"You thought, you thought. . Well, don't think, Detective. Just follow procedure. And procedure is that you check with the head of the task force, and that's me. And I say she's not welcome."

"Lieutenant, I — "

"Detective Tate, if you want to stay on this task force, you'll follow my lead, my orders, and you won't argue with me. Is that clear?"

I watched Lucy struggle with his sharp words, then finally she said, "Yes, sir, that's clear."

"Good," he said, "because the upper brass can think anything they want, but it's my ass on the line here, in the cameras, and I say it's some kind of toxic gas or poison. When they finish the toxicology work on the other bodies, they'll know what it is, and it'll be our job to find out who did it. Look first for whodunit, not whatdunit. You don't have to go to fairy-tale land to solve this murder. It's just another crazy son of a bitch that's as mortal as everyone else in this room."

He turned his head to one side in an odd gesture, then looked at me, at Rhys, and at Frost beyond. "Sorry, my mistake. Mortal as all the rest of us humans in this room. Now, you take you immortal asses and get out of here. And if I hear that anyone on my watch has been talking to you, they'll be up on disciplinary charges. Is that clear to everyone?"

"Yes, sir," Lucy said.

I smiled charmingly at him. "Thanks so much, Lieutenant. I hated being here among all this death. It's been one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life, so thank you for letting me leave, when it was taking everything I had not to run out." I kept smiling as I pulled off the one surgical glove I'd put on. I hadn't touched anything, or any body, because I hadn't wanted to take the feel of their dead flesh back with me.

Rhys stripped off his gloves, too, and he had touched things. We worked our way to the bag set out for glove disposal, and I couldn't help saying just before we stepped out the door, "Thanks again, Lieutenant, for letting me go. I agree with you, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here." With that I left, Rhys and Frost trailing behind me like pale shadows.