“You’re angry,” Storm said quietly.
He blew out a breath. “No.” It sounded plaintive to his own ears.
Silence followed, and when he dared to glance over, he found Storm studying him doubtfully.
Yeah, okay, maybe he was a little angry, but he didn’twantto be. He didn’t want to care at all, but hedid. Last night had been incredible, and this morning was a gut punch for multiple reasons. He’d woken alone and spiraled all morning about what it meant and whether he wanted it to mean anything at all. The truth was, he did want it to mean something. Otherwise, he’d endangered everything for nothing. But it couldn’t mean anything, becauseit would endanger everything. And around and around he went.
Their shoulders brushed, and Nathan held his breath. He released it only when the door opened with another cheerful sound, rushing from the claustrophobic space and out into the narrow hallway. This area of the hospital wasn’t as open and friendly as the upper levels, because very few patients found their way down here. Nathan trekked the familiar path through the maze-like, painted brick halls to a familiar office. The door was open, with a nameplate that readDoctor Glinda Taylor, M.D.
Nathan knocked on the open door.
The woman behind the desk was short and matronly, with silver hair tied up in a neat bun. Her computer screen reflected in her large glasses, and she smiled weakly when she saw Nathan.
“Ah, Mister Accardi. I was told I could expect one of you today.”
“It’s good to see you, Glinda. How’s the family?”
The smile was more genuine this time. “They’re good. My daughter’s pregnant with her second.” She puffed up with pride.
Nathan gasped gleefully. “No, is she really? She just had the first one not long ago.”
“Almost two years ago now.”
“What?No way. God, I’m getting old.” Two years ago, he’d come by to speak with Glinda—a long-time friend of Dr. Maxwell, who was the guild’s resident physician—about a case where a woman had been murdered by a crex demon. Glinda had spent most of that visit, when they weren’t talking about the strange claw marks on the woman’s body, talking about her daughter’s pregnancy and how excited she was to become a grandmother.
Glinda laughed brightly and stood. She was a head shorter than Nathan, dwarfed entirely by Storm, who loomed over Nathan’s shoulder. “You and me both, my friend. I take it you want to see the body?”
Right. Back to business. “Yes, if you can swing it. Do you mind if my friend joins us? He’s here for a group similar to mine.”
Glinda brightened. “Really? That’s great news. Your guild has been doing this alone for a long time. Having more fighters on the good team will probably take a load off, right? Right this way.” Nathan backed into Storm’s incredible heat to let Glinda pass, and when big fingers brushed his hip, a shiver tore down his spine.
He practically sprang away, falling into step behind Glinda before his body could get any crazy ideas about leaning into that touch.
“You’d think,” he said belatedly. Glinda knew only bare bones about what the guild really did—just enough to call them for help if she found anything strange during her own work.
“I should warn you,” Glinda said as she led them down the hall, “it’s not pretty.”
“Are dead bodies ever pretty?”
Glinda snorted. “Well, no. But some are worse than others. This one is one of the worst I’ve seen. Poor kid.”
“I saw the CCTV footage. It was rough.”
Glinda clucked her tongue. “I only saw the aftermath, but that was bad enough. They gathered what they could from the crime scene and bagged it. The bag is—well, in the boy’s chest cavity. I’ve already done the autopsy and logged everything.”
“Any strange findings?” Nathan asked as she opened a door and led them into the morgue. There was a row of mortuary cabinets on the wall, gleaming in the pale fluorescent lights. An empty metal table stood in the center of the room, and a metal grate sat grimly beneath it.
“Besides the obvious? Of course,” Glinda said, going around the exam table and to the cabinets on the far wall. “I ran a tox screen. Amphetamines and benzodiazepines were both present in his system at the time of death.”
“He was a college student, right?” Nathan asked. “Experimentation with drugs isn’t that weird. I mean, those are kind of a no-no to mix.”
“No, you’re right. That wasn’t the weirdest thing. I surveyed the contents of his stomach after the abnormal tox screen. There were traces of human bone there. And it wasn’t his own.”
Nathan’s head swirled. He shook himself. “What?”
Glinda nodded gravely. “That’s exactly what I said. What finally made me call your leader was when I found traces of sulfur mixed with the bone.”
Nathan looked at Storm, forgetting all his tangled feelings in the face of his confusion.
