The smell of kielbasa suddenly, violently turned Caren’s stomach.
A half-second later, she went pitching out of the booth. Set her legs churning. The red stools next to M&M’s bar, the kitschy Christmas decorations blurred past her.
She barely made it to the toilet. Her knees hit the floor the same instant her stomach gave up what little she’d managed to put in it.
She came up heaving and gasping for air. Fire exploding in her chest. The walls of the stall reeling wildly around her.
She couldn’t stop seeing it. Smelling it.
Dead meat.
Caren retched again, but there was nothing left in her. Dry.
She slumped over the toilet, panting. Zoned out on the pinkish chunks floating in the water.
The sound of Grenville’s voice jerked her back to herself. “Navarrete, which stall? I have something for you that might—”
“Get out!” Caren croaked. “What the fuck? This is the girls’ room.”
“It’s okay, no one will care. People always think I’m a girl.”
“I don’t want you in here.”
Seconds later came the sound of the bathroom door swinging open and shut.
Caren staggered to her feet, dusted off her knees.
Stared down at the contents of the toilet.
Swallowed another dry heave.
Can’t think about it.
Can’t think about it.
Can’t think about it.
Flushed.
She returned to the booth to find her plate gone, and a glass of pale-blue fizzy liquid perched in its place.
Grenville sat paging through the file. Didn’t look up at her approach. “It’ll help with your stomach.”
“Where did you get…?”
Grenville opened one side of his coat, displayed a bunch of pockets sewn into the liner, nozzles of flasks poking out of them. “I’m a walking pharmacy.”
Caren took her seat. Eyed the glass, then drained it.
“Tastes like chalk.” She plunked it back on the table.
“Somebody blew up my mom,” said Grenville.
Caren stared at him.
He looked up at her, briefly, then back down at the file. “It was when I was a baby, so I don’t remember it.” He paused. “My dad and I know who did it, but we can’t prove anything.”
Caren couldn’t think of anything helpful to say, so she went with the obvious. “Who did it?”
“It wouldn’t be prudent to name them.” Again, Grenville paused. Then, “Another First House. Enemies of my family.”
“Christ. You Old-Worlders go hard.”
Grenville tilted his head in a way that seemed to signal agreement.
After a pause,
“Should we relocate now?” he asked. “Continue our review of the case at your place?”
Caren waved down Margaret for the ticket. “Sure. But my apartment’s a sty. Don’t judge.”
Grenville raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’d judge?”
“Dunno.” Caren opened her wallet, slapped her debit card on the table. “Something gives me the feeling you’re a neat freak.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
“So that’s everything?”
Caren stood in the middle of her cramped one-room apartment, between her cluttered computer desk and her half-flayed cork board, which was crowded to every edge with the contents of the case file. Grenville perched opposite her, on the corner of her futon—the only part that wasn’t covered in Caren’s stuff—the manila envelope resting in his lap, both arms tight against his sides in an apparent effort to avoid touching either the tall pile of Caren’s dirty laundry on the futon next to him or the dusty guitar parked on its stand on his opposite side.
“There’s one more thing.”
“Hit me.”
Grenville pulled a stack of eight-by-ten photos from the file. “These are graphic,” he said, then caught her eye. “None of them are of Langit.”
Caren nodded, pawed the air dismissively. “Hand ’em over.”
Grenville passed them to her.
Caren stared down at the topmost one. She’d thought she’d be fine, but suddenly her asshole brain kept trying to superimpose Luke’s face. “Were all the victims like this?”
“Except for Langit.”
Caren leafed through the photos. There were eleven—each of a human head. Some she could have believed were peacefully sleeping, if not for the fact that they ended abruptly at the neck. Others were misshapen beyond recognition. Caren thought she knew which one was Sten, but she didn’t ask.
Each of the severed heads photographed was encircled by a laurel wreath.
“Fuckin’ creepy.” Caren handed the photos back to Grenville.
Grenville got up, set to work rearranging the documents Caren had haphazardly affixed to the cork board to make space for the photos. “It’s the only consistency among all the slayings, with the exception of Langit—all beheaded, all fitted with a laurel crown. Actual causes of death varied: blunt force trauma, exsanguination from puncture wounds and/or dismemberment, internal bleeding, organ damage. Depended what modus operandi the tranquilized mundanes happened to choose, I guess, based on whatever means were available to them.”
Caren paced, flexed her fists. “This Lex bitch was trying really hard to send some kind of message, I guess. Real drama queen.”
“That, or it was all part of a massive ritual.”
Caren had considered this. Giant pentagram, after all. “Having what effect, though? A ritual that big…I mean…we would know by now if it did something. It’d be pretty damn hard to miss, right? Shit would be fucking apocalyptic.”
Grenville shook his head faintly, I don’t know. “It’s possible you’re right and Lex just has a flair for the dramatic. It would be consistent with their rumored tendency to leave behind a ‘calling card’ at all of their crime scenes—a written or graffitied symbol. The symbol they use is a laurel wreath, as a matter of fact, being cut in half by a blade. Their message claiming responsibility for the killings was signed with it.”
“Mm.” Caren jiggled in place. Began bouncing her fist against the side of her thigh. “You said that…Langit wasn’t…like the rest.”
“That’s right.”
“So.” Her fist bounced harder. “What was different.”
Grenville spoke gently. “Well…in Langit’s case…the head was actually the only part not found.”
Caren’s chest throbbed. She zoned on the pieces of an old balisong of Mom’s that had lain disassembled on her desk for probably months after Caren had gotten distracted one day mid-repair. The bite handle, the blade, pins scattered around and mixed with the other random shit on her desk. The tang pin nowhere to be found after all this time.
Caren flexed, unflexed, flexed her fists.
Bounce. Bounce. “Fuck. Fucking—fuck. Fuck this.”
“Hm?” said Grenville.
Since last night, Caren had been stumbling through a fog. Alternately numb and sick to her stomach. Hallucinating, seeing Luke everywhere, like he hadn’t fucking walked out of her life five years ago and never looked back.
Now, all she wanted to do was destroy something.
Or someone.
She turned back to Grenville. “Well, I guess that’s fucking it, right? Only thing left to do is get going. Fucking hunt this bitch down.”
“I’m planning to start tomorrow morning at dawn,” said Grenville. “Conduct a thorough search of each of the crime scenes, look for more evidence.”
“Didn’t your people already go over those? Isn’t that how we got all these fancy fucking reports?”
“Yeah, but I can do it better.”
“Oh, right. You have, what was it again, ‘unprecedented forensic capabilities.’ What’s the deal with that anyway?”
“You know how I told you I’m a walking pharmacy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m also a walking crime lab.”
“Okay. Sure. Be vague.”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“Be vague and ominous.” Caren paused, gazed out the window at the full moon. Jiggled her leg—kept bounce, bounce, bouncing her fist against her thigh. “Well, I do my best work at night. Also I’m fucking impatient.”
“You have something in mind?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.” Caren spun, grabbed her jacket off the futon. Felt her pockets for her balisong, her baton, her lunaria flares.
Headed for the door.
“Uh…where?” By the sound of Grenville’s voice, he wasn’t following.
“Just put your coat on, Daddy’s Boy. Have a little faith in a girl. Finding bitches is my bread and butter.”
“It’s not that I don’t have faith in you. I just don’t like surprises.”
“Then have I got bad news for you about this kind of work. Just stick close to me, you’ll be fine. I know my way around. Where we’re going right now is where I always go when I’m getting started hunting down a mark.”
“Which is where?” By the sound of it, Grenville was following but none too thrilled about it.
Caren stopped a half-second with her hand on the doorknob. Shot him an over-the-shoulder glance, her eyebrows raised. Echoed his words back to him:
“You’ll see soon enough.”
She shoved the door open, led the way into the night.
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