Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(12)

"He wouldn't," Summer said, "and I'll prove it." She spun on her boot heels and clippety-clopped back down the sidewalk.

Pausing a few storefronts away, she glanced at the sign, barnaby's gap medical clinic.

Ah, hell. What was she up to?

Before I could ask, she yanked a wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans—how she could have squeezed a wallet in there along with her ass, I wasn't quite sure, had to be magic—and opened the door.

I joined her as she flipped the thing open and snapped, "FBI. Have there been any unexplained deaths?"

I probably gaped as badly as the young man at the reception desk. Except he was gaping at her face, I was gaping at the ID. It seemed pretty real to me.

"I—uh, well. Hmm. I don't rightly know. You'd better talk to the doctor, Agent—" He leaned over, squinting at the ID. "Tink." He disappeared into the back.

"Agent Tink?" I asked. "You think that's funny?"

"Hilarious," Summer said, though her lips were tight and her eyes weren't laughing, either.

I lowered my voice to just above a whisper. "Where did you get that ID?"

"Where do you think?"

I opened my mouth to demand an answer, then shut it again. What did it matter where she'd gotten it—if it was real or if it was magic?

"You think DKs can just wander around killing people?" she continued.

I hadn't really thought about it at all. And I didn't think Nephilim were people. Not anymore.

Except they looked human, led human lives in order to blend in, cause the most havoc. When they disappeared, questions would be asked, even though, for the most part, Nephilim disintegrated into ashes if you killed them the right way. No body solved a lot of problems, but not all of the problems, and in a lot of cases, no body probably only served to create a different set of problems.

"Sometimes, even with the seers' visions to guide us," Summer continued, "we have to hunt these things down. It helps to have a free pass." She wiggled her wallet.

"Why don't you just hit everyone with glitter dust and make them spill everything in their heads?"

"Compelling people to tell me information gets me just the information."

"And that's bad why?"

"I don't get impressions, thoughts, feelings, which, when dealing with the supernatural, are important. For instance, if someone saw something bizarre and rationalized it away as most people do, they wouldn't tell me about it if I hit them with the truth dust."

"But they'll tell the FBI about the demon in the mountains?"

"You'd be surprised what people will tell the FBI."

Somehow, I doubted that.

"What happens if a person checks with the bureau about the unbelievably pretty agent who was asking some very strange questions?"

Summer cast me another withering glance and I understood.

"You hit them with a dose of 'forget me now' as soon as you're done."

She winked and turned to greet the doctor.

Dr. Gray personified the Hollywood version of a small-mountain-town physician. Tall and thin, his hair matched his name. His eyes, also gray, were bright and avid behind round wire-rimmed glasses.

"Never had the FBI knock on my door before," he said with the slight accent common to the border states.

"We won't take much of your time," Summer said. "Have there been any unexplained deaths in the area over the past month?"

"None."

Summer cast me a triumphant glance.

"Is there a hospital nearby?" I asked. Seemed to me that a hospital would be the place to ask questions about unexplained deaths, not the local physician.

"Not for a good sixty miles."

"So." Summer continued, "any death certificates would be signed by . .. ?"

"Me," Dr. Gray answered. "I'm the only game in town, doctorwise, so I act as the medical examiner. Bodies go right from here to the funeral home."

"No morgue?"

"No need." The doctor contemplated Summer for several seconds. "Though I doubt this would concern you, we have had a strange rash of animal attacks. People are so traumatized they can't remember anything but red eyes. Descriptions sound like a bear. Which has started people whispering about the Ozark Black Howler."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Legendary creature that wanders the hills."

I glanced at Summer; she no longer looked so cheery. In our world, legendary being meant "Nephilim," and they were real. We'd have to be on the lookout for a howler, too. Just in case.

"They're bear-sized," the doctor continued, "with black shaggy hair and horns. Cry is somewhere between a wolf's howl and an elk's call. But I've never heard of the howler biting anyone."

"People have been bitten?" My question was nothing but a lead; I'd already seen the evidence.

"Yes. Which is strange since howlers usually drop people dead in their tracks just by glancing at them."

"The wounds, Doctor?" I prompted.

"Oh, yes. The wounds are like nothing I've ever seen. Animals rip and tear. People ... well, people would leave a recognizable upper and lower demarcation in the flesh. What we have are puncture wounds. Like someone's trying to make us think there's a vampire on the loose."