This was far worse.
Chapter Eighteen
In Plain Sight
Felipe’s gaze sweptover the morgue. While he rarely found Oliver’s laboratory to be sinister, even when covered in offal and smelling of death, this place felt different. It was smaller, tighter than the morgue at the Paranormal Society with unbespelled cabinets for the dead and two empty, ceramic autopsy tables. The tang of blood hung in the air, making Felipe’s stomach twist. Quietly unlatching the mortuary cabinets, Felipe was relieved to find them empty, save for fluid left behind by their former occupants. The tools sitting in the autoclave were nearly identical to Oliver’s, but something in the room was different, though Felipe couldn’t immediately put his finger on it. The air felt charged and close against his skin as he inspected the machine sitting in the corner. Large glass vials sat on top of a motor with a set of long hoses and what looked like a needle protruding out of it. Felipe had never seen anything remotely like it in Oliver’s lab. He opened the cabinets lining the wall and found rows of empty jars in various sizes and shapes along with more knives, saws, and clamps. Their presence in the morgue made sense, but he hadn’t seen a single jar of chemicals or a scale anywhere. Even Oliver, who was tidy, kept the stable chemicals he used most often on the bench within reach. Felipe knew some places only used the morgue to store bodies until the authorities or undertakers could collect them, but why have so much other equipment if the doctors couldn’t run tests on them or perform a proper autopsy?
Butchery, Felipe’s mind supplied. It would be far easier to dispose of a body in pieces than a whole one and temporarily hiding a body in the morgue wouldn’t be suspicious. Poor Herman Judd must have been hastily disposed of on a day when the doctor couldn’t waste time breaking him down. Or maybe he was selling the body parts to medical schools or anatomists. Oliver would know if there was a market for that sort of thing. Pulling out his camera, Felipe took a picture of the machine in the corner in hopes that Oliver could identify its purpose later. He took another from the doorway of the morgue to capture the entire room. As much as he didn’t want to do it, he knew where he had to look next. Shutting the door of the morgue behind him, Felipe felt along the tether for Oliver. Releasing a relieved breath at Oliver’s usual level of focus and underlying tension, Felipe headed back to the boiler room.
Joe leaned against the door, but in the patchy light of the hallway, he looked even worse than Felipe first thought. Bruised circles rimmed his eyes, and his skin had taken on a sweaty pallor it hadn’t had when they first arrived. He held himself stiffer, and when he saw Felipe coming, he straightened with a wince. The flirtatious man Felipe had seen leap off the fire escape like an acrobat had been reduced to a shell of his former self.
“Did they hurt you?” Felipe whispered, drawing close enough to catch a hint of purplish green under the cuff of his sleeve as Joe stuffed his hand in his pocket.
“I got sent for the stronger treatment, that’s all. I’ll live. And helping Mr. Pain-in-the-Ass with his ice trick took the wind out of me,” Joe replied, following Felipe back into the boiler room.
“Why did they give you a treatment?”
Joe shrugged. “I told you I thought Yates was onto me. It doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t do; if Yates says you need something, you get it. Where are your friends?”
“Still upstairs.” Pulling out his watch, Felipe confirmed they still had fifteen minutes before they needed to leave. “Do you know the last time the incinerator was used?”
“I have no idea, but it should be cool enough. I didn’t start it tonight; no sense in doing so if I’m going to leave, right?”
Felipe took off his jacket and waistcoat and handed them to Joe before stowing his holstered gun deep in his pack. As he rolled up his sleeves and tied a handkerchief over his mouth, he stared at the hulking machine. He didn’t like the idea of crawling inside of it, but he was the smallest of the four of them. If there was any evidence left from any of the institute’s victims, Felipe wanted to get it. The heavy metal door whined open to reveal what looked like the inside of an oven or a tomb. Felipe swallowed hard as he pulled himself inside. The grates beneath his palms radiated a dull heat, and the farther he went, the more stifling it became. Grit coated his hands and hair with each motion, turning to mud as sweat dripped down his cheek. He tried to ignore it, but he knew the bits of grey were the ashes of people and god knows what else that had been burned. Somehow, slithering through a tomb filled with ashes almost felt more disrespectful than eating the heart.
As Felipe pulled his legs in and lay on his side, light flooded through the incinerator door and shone across the bits of metal and fragmented bone scattered between the grates and walls. Snapped needles along with what looked like melted fillings or coins laid coated in dust, but when Felipe grabbed a flat piece of bone sitting in the rubble piled in the back corner, it crumbled in his hand. Metal bounced across the grates of the incinerator before settling against Felipe’s elbow. Dusting it off on a clean spot on his shirt, Felipe held it up to the light and realized it was a bullet. The pointed side had flattened where it lodged in the victim, but the other end was definitely the corroded butt of a small caliber bullet, probably from a revolver. Felipe frowned thoughtfully, perhaps Dr. Thorn hadn’t gone on vacation.
Wriggling out of the incinerator, Felipe opened his mouth to ask Joe about the doctor, expecting him to be right behind him holding a lantern, but the other man was back on the far side of the room. Felipe’s mind reeled as he looked between the one bulb hanging overhead, the deep shadows of the incinerator, and the shuddered lantern Oliver had left for him that he had forgotten and never needed. Joe hadn’t been holding the light. Felipe’s hands shook and his ribs tightened. He shouldn’t have been able to see so well inside the incinerator. He shouldn’t have been able to see in the dark at all.
His throat clenched. How long had he been able to do that and never noticed? Fear and panic crested over him in an icy wave, stealing his breath. Something was happening to him. Oliver had mentioned being dead could change him, and while he needed more food to heal and be functional, he never thought it would cause this. Gripping the bullet until his palm hurt, Felipe steeled himself against the fear with long, slow breaths. Now was not the time to panic. He had a job to do. He had to get Oliver, Joe, and Ansley out safely first. Worrying about it now didn’t change anything, he reminded himself.
Turning to Joe, Felipe swallowed and asked, “Did you say Dr. Thorn bragged about having a bullet in him?”
“Yeah, why?”
Joe’s eyes widened as Felipe dropped the misshapen bullet into his hand.
