The Flame Game (Magical Romantic Comedies #12) - R.J. Blain Page 0,77
make less potent dust?” I guessed.
“Essentially. Some females are strong enough to be candidates for dust producers, but most humans have no idea how to identify it—or process a female’s body into dust. That’s something gorgons would rather not have studied.”
“Duh. No want to be ex-per-ee-ment. Me feel this way, strongly.”
He grunted. “Right you are. They’re going to start erecting the shield to keep the dust around the building before giving you a good napalm supply. Try not to get too drunk this time, and try to stay outside of the building once it starts to collapse. Do your full walkthrough. If you find evidence we need to recover, we’ll set up a crystal coffin inside the shield and have you place the objects inside for decontamination.”
“Okay.” I made use of a claw to poke through the gorgon’s clothing, finding a decaying leather purse with a wallet inside. After some work, I uncovered several credit cards and her identification. “Have cards. See on camera?” I did my best to position myself so the camera dangling around my chest could get a good view of her name, her picture, and her relevant information.
“We have it,” he confirmed.
“Not even bother to take purse. Just leave her on floor.” I pulled her clothes away from her body to reveal broken bones in her chest, similar to the statue outside. “Like poor woman outside, but truly dead. Stabbed in chest. Bones broken.”
“I see the damage,” my husband replied. “Keep going.”
The stairs creaked under my weight, and I flattened my ears at the thought of plunging through the weakened wood, but I made it to the second floor, discovering five more gorgon females, all dead from traumatic damage to their chests. “Why kill them like this?”
“I don’t know. It’s definitely weird.”
Like with the other bodies, they had their purses with them, and I dug for their identification.
Not all of them had gorgon listed as their species. “Dust change, they murdered after change?”
“That’s definitely a possibility. I don’t know why they would kill them after going through the trouble of infecting them, though.”
“No co-op-er-ate. Like me no co-op-er-ate with stupid bitch.”
“That’s possible. Audrey lacked patience on a good day. And considering she was less than sane by the end and rabid, it is what it is. Get the identifications you can, and the CDC will notify any living relatives.”
“Sad no burial.”
“I know. It’s just too dangerous. Look for any paperwork while you’re up there,” Quinn ordered.
All-in-all, someone had done an excellent job of cleaning the place out, leaving nothing but bodies, empty rooms, and decaying furniture. I checked every room, and in the bathroom of the largest bedroom, I discovered a gorgon male, and the meter squealed a warning. “Oh. Poor male.”
He’d been left bound after death, and someone had beheaded his serpents. Dust filled the tub around him.
“And that’s the real deal. Alan is processing the meter data now to see if we can get a match on the 120 Wall Street dust—and the stuff that’d been in your apartment. They did a full sample diagnosis on the stuff out of your apartment before destroying it, and the meter reports from 120 Wall Street indicated it was the same batch, so if this matches, we’ll have some damned good evidence. Does he have his wallet?”
“Don’t see wallet. He in rags, very rotted. Tied up. Why do that to his poor snakes?”
“I don’t know.”
Fuckers. “Want to find bastards and burn them!”
“I know. Chances are, the women you found were members of his hive, which should make it possible to identify him. Go finish checking the building, then we’ll light it up and help the rest of the victims.”
I sighed, did one last circuit of the upstairs and ground floor before heading into the building’s basement.
Save for a rusted metal cage filled with bones, it was empty.
I examined the skeleton, pondering at the skull shape. “Big dog? Wolf?”
“Likely a wolf,” my husband replied. “Too long dead to be of use for us telling what killed it.”
I placed my bet on rabies. I did a circuit of the basement to discover decaying scraps of paper. “Oh, paper!” I nudged them with my claw until the camera, with some help from the flashlight, could snap video of the text. “Very sturdy receipts. For big dog food, rodent food.” I nudged the pet store receipt out of the way, uncovering several invoices for medical equipment beneath the dust. “Oh, this weird.”