Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins, #2.5)(4)

Rafe stared at her with his piercing dark blue eyes, pinning her down as if trying to read her mind. She stared back. “I don’t want this responsibility.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know.”

“Amy needs our help.”

The way he said it disturbed Moira, but she didn’t have time to ask him what he meant.

Fern coughed once and said, “She was bitten by a human being with canine teeth that were either implanted or filed into points. I’ve seen both.”

Grant rubbed his eyes. “Fern. I’m going on little sleep and less food. Explain.”

She said, “The marks were made to resemble where a vampire may bite. I’ve seen it before, but not as a cause of death. Like Moira said, there’s an entire sub-culture out there of people who fashion themselves to be vampires. Not supernatural, immortal beings who sparkle in the sunlight or sleep in coffins, but people who like this alternative lifestyle. But they go a step too far and start drinking human blood.”

“It’s not supernatural,” Moira said. “Not our thing.”

“It is,” Rafe contradicted her. “Moira, you know what we’re dealing with here. They drained her blood while she was alive. They took it with them.”

“How do you know that?” Grant asked, suspicious. He was suspicious about everything. Was that the cop in him or just because he didn’t like them?

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not to me.”

Fern said, “Rafe’s right—in order to drain half the volume of blood like they did here, the heart had to be pumping. Unless she was in a medical environment or mortuary that had embalming equipment, they needed her heart to do the work.”

Fern lifted the victim’s left arm an inch from the table and with a gloved finger pointed to a hole about the size of a dime, surrounded by extensive bruising. “This is where the killer drained her blood.”

Grant said, “That’s a damn big hole.”

“It was made by a large bore needle. Not uncommon for blood transfusions and other emergencies, but wider than what’s standard for blood donation. She had about four pints of blood left, according to the M.E. Though this is not in the report, I can say with certainty that they didn’t rush through it—if they had drained her too fast, she would have died faster.”

“How much time?”

“One hour, give or take. Have you ever donated blood?”

Grant nodded. “It takes ten minutes, tops.”

“Right—for a pint of blood. For the four or five they took, that’s forty to fifty minutes all things being equal, but blood flow slows as volume decreases. She would have gone into shock as her blood pressure dropped. Eventually, she lost consciousness, then died when her heart stopped.”

“Drugs?”

“Nothing on the routine panels. We have samples of all her tissues for further testing, but since she was a Jane Doe and the tests would have been non-standard, we have it on hold.” She rubbed her fingers together in the need money gesture.

“Budget cuts screw everyone,” Grant said with a scowl. “But mostly the victims.”

“Why wasn’t she identified before?” Rafe asked. “This is an unusual case. Wouldn’t her picture be all over the police stations? Wasn’t she reported missing?”

Grant said, “She went missing in another county. There were signs she was a runaway—and she could have been. But usually the computer will run the Jane Does and see if anyone matches the description.”

“Everything’s computerized,” Fern said, “but there’s still room for error—the data is only as good as the information entered. I’m just glad someone is coming to claim her.” Fern looked from Grant to Moira and Rafe. “So? What do you think?”

“Give me a minute,” Moira said. She didn’t want to do this, especially at a morgue. She’d become more … empathic, for lack of a better word … around spirits. She didn’t want to face a ghost or anything else hanging around this dead house.

But she had no choice. If there was something supernatural at work here, then she was the best one to identify the evil.

She stepped up to the body and lowered her defenses. She felt nothing, other than Fern’s curiosity, Grant’s grief, and Rafe’s concern. She sifted through their emotions and realized she would have to touch the corpse. She took a deep breath and rested her hand over the girl’s stomach. The body was cold and unyielding from being in the cold storage room for so long. Moira dropped her shields completely, closed her eyes, and used her inner senses to discern if there was any residual magic surrounding her body.

She frowned and said, “What was she wearing?”

Fern reached under the metal table and pulled out a box. Inside were sealed evidence bags.

Moira didn’t need to touch them. She looked into the box and straightened her spine, closing down her instinct before something jumped out and bit her in the ass. Of course that wouldn’t happen, but the morgue was creeping her out. “I can’t sense any magic left on her body, but here—there’s a layer of dark magic over everything. Burn it all.”

“It’s evidence,” Grant said.

“I don’t care.”