Page 29 of Bond of Passion

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure, yeah. I mean, there are a lot of things that can blow up a body from the inside.” He rinsed as he spoke, splashing water onto the nearby shelf containing various cleaning supplies for those with horns or hooves or scales. “But bone bombs are made to blow up from inside the bones themselves. The lack of any intact skeleton points toward a bone bomb.”

“Don’t the bombs create pressure in the bone marrow?”

Lore ripped a paper towel from the dispenser. “Correct,” he said, sounding like Eidolon. He spent too much time with their brother. Not that he should hang out with Wraith, either. Shade was maybe the least obnoxious. She loved them all though, and she sometimes kicked herself for not listening to Lore. If she had, they’d have been a family sooner.

“But not all bones have marrow, right? So how do those bones become shrapnel?”

“Lore tugged a leather glove onto his right hand, the one that killed people who accidentally came into contact with it. He really did have the perfect job.

“The substances in the potion still get inside the bones, all the little nooks and crannies, and they blow them apart.” He gestured to a sheet-covered autopsy table. “There wasn’t much left of the guy.”

Yeah, she’d seen the aftermath. It looked like a train hit a bag of hamburger. “Are there any other explosives that can do the same thing?”

Lore snagged two cans of cola from the mini fridge and tossed her one. “I’ve got Max doing some deep research, but so far, there are none that I know of.”

“That’s what I figured.” She tapped on and popped her soda top. “I’ve only ever heard of assassins using that particular weapon, so I did a little digging into other usages.”

“And?”

She poked a jar filled with tentacled things with her empty hand and watched them jiggle. “It’s more common than I thought. Seems like it’s a popular weapon among suicide bombers in Sheoul. It’s not as destructive as a vest made of chemical explosives and ball bearings or nails, but it gets past guards.”

“Fucking sickos,” Lore spat, and she couldn’t agree more. “So, you think it was a suicide bomber?”

“I don’t know. Idess and I went over the list of everyone present in the Emergency Department who could have triggered it, but without going into everyone’s background…”

“There’s no way to tell.”

“Exactly,” she said. “I mean, this hospital has been targeted a thousand times, but if I were going after a hospital and not an individual, I’d use an explosive that causes more damage.”

Lore threw back half his cola and set the can on a shelf full of more jars containing organs and things. “Nobody can use a standard chemical or magical explosive because Eidolon installed a detection system after that incident involving The Aegis a while back.”

Oh, right. Back when Tayla had tried to blow up the hospital. Deranged shit, that. She’d tried to destroy UG and kill Eidolon, and then he’d gone and mated her.

“Okay, so…wait. Why didn’t the detection system stop the bone bomb?”

Lore grabbed a sheet from a bin and covered the croucher demon. “The potion is undetectable once ingested.”

“Huh. Okay, well, back to my theory.” She poked the tentacle jar again, and this time, she swore the thing inside moved. “Let’s assume that an assassin was after someone. The guest list for the party didn’t tell me anything, and I’ll question people if I need to, but I don’t think I will.”

“Why?”

Yup, the thing definitely moved. “I think the target might have been Tavin.” Sin stepped away from the jar, her boots giving away every step.

Lore regarded her with curiosity. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s just a theory, and it’s flimsy. But do you remember an assassin named Mako? Ter’taceobastard? Looked like a Russian mobster?”

“Stocky dude. Shoulders and biceps like hams. Always wore too much jewelry and talked too much shit.” Lore snorted. “Tavin and I were just talking about him at the staff party at Ares’ place.”

“Well, rumor was that he was killed by a fellow assassin. And his favorite weapon was—”

“Bone bombs.”

“Yep.”

Lore shoved his hand through his short hair as he contemplated what she’d said. “Tavin told me he killed Mako. You think the guy we scraped off the walls was him, back for revenge after his release from Sheoul-gra?”

“Mako wouldn’t kill himself,” Sin said. “He’d have planted the bomb in someone and then fucked them up and called for an ambulance. It’s not a stretch to think this is about revenge. Ever since Azagoth destroyed Sheoul-gra, a lot of demons are back to get even with the people who wronged them. I’m surprised we haven’t been tracked down yet.”