The Ryu Morgue (A Jane True Short Story) (Trueniverse Book 2) (3 page)

Even though this one has the body of a succubus and the face of a narcissum.

And the tongue of a harpy
, he reminded himself, before he went too far down that path.

“...but none had any history of violence or deviance. Nothing. They were all respectable, upstanding members of society. For humans,” the frog-man added, winking at Ryu.

That’s why she hates us
, Ryu realized, a little light bulb going off in his head. He returned Sebastian’s look with a cold stare.
We can really be dicks
.

“So where should we start?” Maeve asked, ignoring the sort of supernatural jibe that she must encounter all day, every day, when her work brought her into supe circles.

“The bodies are here, in our morgue,” Sebastian said, “along with the personal effects they were wearing when they died. We’ve not been able to discover any sign of magical tampering, but maybe the Initiative will succeed where we have failed.” He gave them a spittle-festooned smile that took up half his face. “If you’ll follow me.”

Before Maeve could do so, Ryu placed a hand on her elbow, letting Sebastian get a little ahead of them.

“Be careful down there,” he said to Maeve. She rolled her eyes and he noticed, not for the first time, that they were a smoky gray, lit from within by streaks of gold.

“I can handle myself,” she snarled. “Just because I’m a human...”

“It’s not because you’re a human,” he interrupted, his voice quiet but firm. “We’re being set up.”

That brought her up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Whatever’s going on here,” he explained, “we’re meant to fail this test. Ruth and Ailish want nothing to do with the Initiative. They’re hoping we fail.”

“And by ‘fail,’“ she said, “you mean...”

“Die,” he said.

She sighed. “Damn them.”

He placed a hand on her upper arm and pretended not to notice when she flinched. “We’ll figure this out,” he said. “We’re partners, and we’re smart, and we’ll beat them at their own game.”

After a split second, she nodded. “We will beat them,” she said.

“Partners?” he repeated, holding out his hand.

Again, she paused before taking it. When she did, her hand was cold, her long fingers strong.

“Partners,” she said, in the grim tone of someone admitting something horrible.

It’s a first step
, he thought to himself, realizing that the Gold Court wasn’t the only entity involved in a little game playing.

I will change Maeve’s mind about supes
, he vowed,
if it’s the last thing I do.

FOUR

The Gold Court’s morgue looked like any other morgue, to Maeve’s surprise. She didn’t know what she’d expected, exactly, but it wasn’t gleaming steel and run-of-the-mill surgical instruments.

Maybe more iron and stone?

Once away from the eerily empty Great Hall and Reception Room, the Court was bustling. They’d walked through room after room of offices, living quarters, a gym, even some shops.

Maeve was beginning to think that the Monarchs maybe hadn’t glamoured her perception of the Great Hall’s size, but that the entire Court was something of a TARDIS.

When they’d arrived at the morgue, Sebastian had handed them over to a very tall female supernatural wearing a lab coat.
Goblin
, Maeve thought, trying not to stare at the green skin and yolk-yellow eyes. She’d met goblins, envoys of various supernatural Courts, but they always wore a human glamour. She’d never seen one in the flesh, so to speak.

“Dr. McIntyre,” the goblin said by way of introduction, shaking their hands perfunctorily. “You’re from the Initiative?”

Ryu nodded, and Maeve thought the look Dr. McIntyre gave them was pure
poor bastards
.

“What can you tell us about the victims?” Maeve asked, wanting to assert herself after feeling like Ryu’s accessory in their meeting with the Monarchs.

The goblin sighed, a frustrated sound that Maeve knew well. “Very little. Come this way.”

The doctor led them into a large room, separate from the others, in which at least a dozen bodies were laid out, covered by sheets. A dozen other tables were set up, one next to each body, containing the person’s effects.

“Our victims,” Dr. McIntyre explained, unnecessarily, “and everything they were wearing when they died.”

“Good,” Ryu said. “What have you found so far?”

“In short, nothing. We allowed the humans to do their own autopsies of the bodies before we intervened, and they found nothing biological. Then we claimed the bodies and we’ve been doing our own tests, and yet nothing magical can be determined.”

“So how do you know what’s wrong with them is magical in nature?” Maeve asked.

The goblin eyed her, then waved for them to follow. She approached a sheet-wrapped figure and twitched the covering off the face. An older woman lay there, eyes closed.

“This is Ellen Snyder. She fostered children all her life. They all speak of her generosity and kindness. She died by being hit by a bus...chasing a foster child who escaped after she’d tied him up and had been force feeding him, cooing that he’d never be hungry again.”

“Ugh,” said Maeve. “But maybe she wasn’t really so kind. Abuse is often overlooked in such situations.”

The goblin moved to another body. “This is Larry O’Donnel. He was a self-described ‘tree-hugger.’ He’s one of our pokers...you can guess of what.”

“Ouch,” Ryu said. “But if he really liked trees...”

“He wore down his penis to a bloody stump,” Dr. McIntyre said bluntly. “Eventually severing enough larger arteries to bleed to death.”

Ryu paled, and Maeve found herself patting his arm sympathetically. She jerked back her hand when she realized what she was doing.

“The whole room is like this. An animal rights advocate who climbed into a polar bear habitat to free the beast. Obviously, that ended badly. A woman who volunteered at soup kitchens and cut off her own arm and a foot to add to a batch of soup. She bled out. An NRA guy who was shot by police when he armed himself to the teeth and approached a bunch of schools, trying to gain entrance. They later found his manifesto, which said he was going to arm the principals of all the local schools so they could protect themselves.”

Ryu and Maeve exchanged looks. To her consternation, he looked no less confused than she felt.

“So this
isn’t
just a poker?” Ryu asked the doctor.

The goblin shook her head. “Hardly. There’s really no rhyme or reason to what’s going on.”

“Except that whatever’s affecting them seems to be taking advantage of their greatest ideological weakness,” Maeve chimed in.

The doctor gave her a sharp yellow look. “I didn’t think of it like that,” she admitted, after a few seconds. “I thought of it more like...their desires.”

“That’s usually how a poker is made,” Ryu said. “It’s a glamour that lowers inhibitions, so the poker goes after whatever’s closest.”

“But this isn’t whatever’s closest,” Maeve said. “This is what they care the most about. What they’ve invested in and worked to make better. Then they die in a terrible parody of their care.”

Ryu visibly shuddered. “That’s horrible.”

The goblin shook her head. “But there’s no magic that works like that. And I see where you’re going,” she said to Maeve. “If this were just lowered inhibitions, the soup kitchen lady might have mugged the person next to her to get more money for the soup kitchen, or the tree hugger might have gone and lived in the nearest shrubbery. They wouldn’t have mangled themselves like that. That’s just...”

“Obsessive,” said Maeve. “The
opposite
of losing inhibitions. It’s like they became super focused.”

“Okay, but that would have to be some tremendously powerful mojo,” Ryu said, turning to the doctor. “And how did you not feel something, if someone used magic that powerful?”

Dr. McIntyre nodded. “Exactly. Can you imagine the power such a glamour would take? We’d spot it a mile away.”

“Well, then what could do something like this without a glamour?” asked Maeve.

Ryu and the goblin looked at one another. Eventually, both shrugged. “A number of things, but all are equally improbable,” the goblin said.

Maeve had a thought. “Do your bosses know?”

That brought the goblin up short. She blinked her yellow eyes at Maeve, not speaking. Finally, she said, “You would have to ask them.”

Ryu raised an eyebrow at Maeve, pursing his lips, and she knew he’d filed that response away for later.

“What about their stuff?”

The goblin gestured. “Feel free to look at everything. It’s all here, anything on their person at the time of their death. And we combed their living areas as well, looking for any hex bags or charmed objects, but found nothing.”

Ryu and Maeve picked through the detritus. It was what you’d expect people to be wearing or carrying during a chilly San Francisco fall. Jeans and slacks, layers of long-sleeved T-shirts and sweaters. Distinctively patterned trendy hats, scarves, gloves, thick knit socks. One man even had his phone encased in a knit pouch, a testament to a damp climate that left cold deep in the bones.

But none of it had a whiff of magic. Not the purses containing keys and tampons and compacts, nor the wallets full of rewards cards and money and ticket stubs.

“You’ve got to give us something,” Ryu said to the goblin, after she’d wandered back to check on them from where she’d gone off to do some of her own work. “Any place we can start our investigation.”

The goblin pursed her wide, scaly mouth. “All of the victims did have one thing in common, but it’s not much to go on. It’s something that half the human population of this city probably all do.”

“What is it?” Ryu asked. “We’ll take anything.”

“Well, all of the victims did recently take a vacation to Napa. But, like I said, that’s a pretty common weekend destination place for locals.”

At the word “Napa” Ryu quite literally perked up, a little grin splitting his face. He turned to Maeve.

“Well, partner, looks like we’re going to have to go into the field. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

Maeve scowled. “This isn’t a vacation.”

Ryu gave her a solemn nod. “You’re right. It’s all work and no play over in Napa.” He offered her his elbow. “Shall we?”

She rolled her eyes and refused his faux chivalry. “Let’s just go,” she said, turning to the goblin. “Thank you very much for your help”

“It’s my pleasure,” the doctor said, her eyes fixed on Maeve’s face. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Maeve, struck by the creature’s concern.

“Good. Well, best of luck, then. To both of you.” Dr. McIntyre stepped back, turning on her heel.

But Maeve thought she heard the goblin muttering, “and may the gods protect you,” as she preceded them out of the morgue.

FIVE

“Sorry about the bed situation,” Ryu said, nudging their small suitcases against the wall with his foot as Maeve eyed the single king-sized bed.

“I expected it,” Maeve said. “We
are
undercover as a couple.”

She sounded confident, but when he looked at her he could have sworn her cheeks wore just the slightest hint of pink.

Probably furious at having to sleep next to a bloodsucker
, he thought.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he told her.

After a second, she nodded. “Maybe that would be best.”

She came toward him, but it was only to wheel away her own small suitcase. She set it on the bed and rummaged around, pulling out a neat stack of clothing.

“I’ll just change in the bathroom,” she said. “Then it’s all yours.”

“Change?” he asked.

She cocked her head at him. “We’re dressed like cops. Fancy cops, but cops.”

He looked down at his own white button-down and designer slacks, then at her white suit. He didn’t think
that
looked cop-like at all, at least outside of
Miami Vice
. And as for
his
clothes…

“I always wear stuff like this,” he said.

“Well, I don’t,” she said, stalking toward the bathroom. She paused in the doorway. “And we are supposed to be on vacation.”

Maeve shut the door behind her and Ryu turned to his own suitcase.

I’m not dressed like a cop
, he thought.
I’m wearing Armani
.

But he opened up his case anyway, although he knew what it contained. It wasn’t much. They were only supposed to be in Napa a few nights, after all.

He stared down at his other button-downs, a frown twisting his features.
I do not dress like a cop
, he repeated to himself.
I have excellent taste
.

Then he remembered that his last girlfriend, Jane, had dumped him for a guy whose wardrobe consisted of dog food T-shirts, and whose hair looked like it had been cut by a Flowbee.

Maybe I know nothing
, came that small voice that he’d first heard right after Jane had left him, and had continued to mutter imprecations from a dark corner of his mind.

He shut his suitcase with a quiet curse before turning to the mirror. He raised a hand to his hair to give it a careful tousle. He straightened the collar of his shirt, considered undoing an extra button, then decided that would make him look like a bumbling landlord from a 1970s sitcom. After more consideration, he took off his ebony cuff links to roll up his sleeves.

Now he looked like he was on vacation, he told himself, flexing his forearms.

Just then Maeve emerged from the bathroom, catching him checking himself out in the mirror. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment as she placed her folded suit back in her case.

She was wearing a pair of very tight skinny jeans in dark denim and a navy and white polka-dotted blouse, cut in a ’50s style. She’d also tweaked her makeup from the small case she placed back in her bag. Liquid black eyeliner and very red lips, also very 1950s.

Red flats and a red cardigan completed the look, then all that red hair came down as she started pulling out pins. The front stayed up, kept off her face by two neat victory rolls, but the rest whooshed down her back in a thick, red wave.