“Do you know what I was raised to be, Oliver?” Felipe asked, a sardonic smile twisting his lips.
Oliver held Felipe’s gaze. He had tried to put the pieces together so many times, but nothing made sense. What he came away with was so alien from his own childhood that Oliver thought it couldn’t possibly be right. Swallowing hard, Oliver shook his head.
“A murderer. I was raised to be judge, jury, and executioner. The Galvan motto isSanguine Nostro Tenebrae Vincuntur. By our blood, the darkness is conquered. It was our divine right to protect people from monsters.” He turned the blade over in his hand. “It sounds so simple, so righteous, but what no one tells you as you’re hunting down monsters is that monstrosity has no definition. Is it monstrous to not be able to control your powers? Is it monstrous to use necromancy to save the man you love? Isit monstrous to love another man? My grandfather would have said yes every single time and killed all of us without mercy.
“But, no,thatisn’t monstrous. It’s justice to ‘return the world to order.’” Felipe swallowed hard as he stared at his reflection in the blade. “When they kicked Santiago out, I realized none of this gets rid of monsters. It only makes it harder to see when you are one. Señor Quintero saw my family for what it was: a den of monsters. He couldn’t steal me away, but he did everything he could to remind me there were people who would help me and love me for who I was. I have spent the last twenty years trying to be anything but the person they wanted me to be. But what did I do? I did the same thing they trained me to do, just with more rules. Señor Quintero tried so hard to show me there was another way to live, and I did exactly what they taught me to do.”
Felipe blinked, the knife shaking in his hand. Stepping closer, Oliver took his other hand and held it to his heart.
“No, you didn’t. You left. You came here with Louisa, you raised Teresa into an incredibly vibrant and driven young woman, and you have chosen to share your life with me. You took the skills your family gave you and chose to do something better with them. Youchoseto do all the things they would hate you for.” When Felipe didn’t look convinced, Oliver said, “After you told the head inspector you were retiring, you said to me that you didn’t want to be a weapon anymore. Now is your chance to do that. You can devote the next twenty years of your life to your orientation project if you want to. That way, you can make certain no one else falls through the cracks.”
The knife drooped in his hand as he whispered, “It never feels like enough.”
“Maybe it never will, but wouldn’t it be better to honor Tony’s memory that way? I doubt he would want to be your biggest regret. He knew you were trying to help him.”
“I know.”
Setting the dagger on the mantle, Felipe sighed and threw himself into the nearest armchair. While grief still hung heavy in the corners of his eyes and the set of his jaw, something had uncoiled inside of him. Felipe reached up for Oliver, and the taller man settled between his knees. Oliver wrapped his arms tightly around his partner until the other man sagged against him. Whatever storm was coming, they could weather it together.
“You know, if I can make it to sixty-two, then I’ll have spent more time helping people than I did with my family or as an investigator.”
“I don’t think you need to cancel it out.”
“I know, but maybe I just need a new goal to work towards.”
A small smile curled Oliver’s lips. “I can get behind that, and I promise I’ll be there to help every step of the way.”
Oliver kissed Felipe gently and was about to suggest they lay down for a while when Felipe’s head snapped toward the door. He turned in time to see a piece of folded paper slide across the floor from under the door. Untangling himself from Felipe with a frown, Oliver unfolded it to find it covered in Turpin’s neat handwriting. Oliver drew in a long, slow breath as he read the note. Even after all this, he still didn’t know if he could face Turpin again. If he said no, it might ruin Gwen’s chance to be an anchorite, and he still didn’t know how to fix that.
“What is it, Oliver?”
“Mr. Turpin and Mrs. Van Husen are willing to meet with me and Gwen this evening at six in Turpin’s rooms about being anchorites.”
“Good, and I’m coming too,” Felipe said. “I have questions I would like to ask Mrs. Van Husen. Ones I should have asked days ago.”
“Are you sure? We can postpone the meeting if need be. I don’t know if you’re in any shape to—”
“I’m in exactly the shape I need to be in, Oliver,” Felipe said, the fire returning to his eyes. “I’ve seen too much this week, and if there’s a chance I can make things better, then I’m going to take it.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Connecting the Dots
Oliver stared down at the body on the autopsy table and let out a resigned sigh. He had expected the head inspector to send Tony DeSanto’s body out to another medical examiner after he kicked them off the Enoch Whitley case, but either the head inspector hadn’t realized the two cases were related or he expected this to be part of Oliver’s penance. Considering how many people had invaded his lab, they had left it largely untouched, and someone had the decency to throw out his untouched breakfast. When they returned hours later, Oliver found DeSanto’s body tucked into one of the mortuary drawers for safekeeping. The impression he had of his body from when he stood there stunned that morning was bad, but up close, it was so much worse.
Swallowing hard, Oliver pulled out his autopsy notebook and began.Antonio DeSanto, 18, deceased, 5’9”, black hair, brown eyes, tan skin. Oliver checked DeSanto’s liver temperature, though he wasn’t sure how accurate it would be after he sat out in the cold most of the night. Even at that first glance, he knew Tony had been dead for at least a day. Rigor mortis and the cold had turned him into a statue of flesh, and if Oliver had to guess, he died not long after he fled the development lab and went off to confront whomever had sent him on the errand that ended with the attack at the bazaar.Oliver didn’t know if it would make Felipe feel better, but there was no way they could have caught up to him to stop this.
Examining DeSanto’s body, Oliver found a series of straight, thin cuts in various stages of healing all along both forearms. Oliver squinted at them. They were arranged in a square, almost like they came from a scarificator, but what concerned Oliver more were the wounds on DeSanto’s head and neck. His collar was bloody, but considering where the wound was, it was odd that the blood looked as if it had dribbled rather than gushed. Where there should have been a hole over his carotid artery, there was a jagged line of burned skin that looked as if the killer had tried to obscure the wound. There was minor bruising around the hole, but the burn wasn’t red or inflamed. The worst wound of all was the one on his forehead. It was mostly hidden beneath his hair, but it had bruised and swollen extensively before death. Oliver gently pushed on it and felt the bones creak under his fingers.
He was about to examine the words carved into DeSanto’s chest when a key jiggled in the lock. Oliver flung a sheet over DeSanto’s body just as Felipe walked in. His partner froze on the top step.
“I didn’t realize you had started.”
“I was hoping to get most of it done while you were talking to the other investigators. Autopsies are bad enough when you don’t know the person. When it’s someone you care for, they’re brutal. If nothing else, let me spare you this.”
Squaring his shoulders, Felipe slowly approached the covered figure on the autopsy table. “I still feel responsible for him. The least I can do is bear witness to… to this and make whoever did it pay.”
“And we will, but you can only stay for the external examination. After that, I’m banishing you to the other room.Responsibility and duty are one thing. Hurting yourself is another.”
