He gave a small, odd, smile. "I'll take you through to Captain Henderson. He's in charge."
"Fine."
"You might want to prepare yourself, Blake. It's ... bad."
"I'll be all right," I said.
He shook his head, looked at the ground. When he looked back up, his eyes were empty, cold cop eyes. "Maybe you will, Blake, maybe you will. But I won't be."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Who the hell is she?" It was Captain Henderson. He'd spotted us. He came up the hillside in his dress shoes, sliding just a bit. But he was determined and knew how to walk in the leaves even in the wrong shoes. He was about five-eight. with short, blond hair. He had odd eyes that changed color as he moved through the dappled sunlight. One moment pale green, the next grey. He came up to stand between the two of us. He looked at Maiden. "Who is this, and why is she inside my perimeter?"
"Anita Blake, Captain Henderson," Maiden said.
He looked straight at me, and his eyes were cool and grey with swirling flecks of green. He was handsome in a clean-cut, ordinary sort of way. He might have been more than that, but there was a harshness to his face, a sourness, that robbed him of something likeable and pleasant.
No matter how funky the eye color when he looked at me, the eyes were distant, judging, cop eyes. "So you're Anita Blake?" His voice was almost angry.
I nodded. "Yes." I didn't let the anger get to me. He wasn't angry at me. Something was wrong. Something beyond the crime itself. I wondered what.
He looked me up and down, not sexual, but as if he were taking my measure. I was used to that, though it was usually a little less blatant. "How strong's your stomach, Blake?"
I raised eyebrows at that, then smiled.
"What in the hell is funny?" Henderson said.
"Look, I know it's bad. I just left your sergeant at the top of the hill so spooked he wouldn't come near it a second time. Maiden here's already told me it's awful. Just take me to the body."
Henderson stepped up, invading the hell out of my personal space. "You that confident that you can take it, Blake?"
I sighed. "No."
The no seemed to take some of the anger away. He blinked and took a step back. "No?" he said.
"I don't know if I can take it, Captain Henderson. There's always the chance that the next horror will be something so awful, I'll never recover. Something that stains my mind and sends me screaming. But so far, so good. So, take me to see the grisly remains. The foreplay is getting tiresome."
I watched the emotions play over his face: amusement, then anger, but finally, amusement won. Lucky me. "The grisly remains. Are you sure you're not a reporter?"
That made me smile. "I'm guilty of a lot of sins, but that's not one of them."
That made him smile. When he smiled, he looked ten years younger and was more than just ordinarily handsome. "Okay, Ms. Blake, follow me. I'll take you to see the grisly remains." He laughed soft, low, and deeper than his speaking voice, as if when he sang he might be a bass. "I hope you're as amusing after you've seen the show, Ms. Blake."
"Me, too," I said.
He gave me a strange look, then led the way down the hill. I followed because it was my job. An hour ago, I'd have said the day couldn't get much worse. I had a sinking feeling it was about to get worse -- much worse.
33
The body lay in a small clearing. I knew it was human because they told me it was. It wasn't that the body didn't look human, exactly. The shape was there enough that I could tell it was lying on its back. It was more that my mind refused to acknowledge that this could have been a human being. My eyes saw it, but my mind kept refusing to put the pieces together, so it was like looking at one of those pictures where you stare and stare until the hidden shapes spin out in 3-D relief. It looked as if there had been an explosion of blood and flesh, and the body had been at the center of it. Dried blood spread out from the body in every direction, as if when the body were moved there'd be a body-shaped clean spot, like an ink blot.
I could see all that, but still my eyes couldn't make sense of it. My mind was trying to protect me. It had happened before -- once or twice. The smart thing would be to turn and walk away. Let my mind have its confusion because the truth was going to be one of those mind-blasting moments. I'd jokingly told Henderson at the top of the hill that some things stain the mind. It wasn't funny now.
I forced myself to look at it, forced myself not to look away, but the summer heat wavered around me in a sickening rush. I wanted to cover my eyes with my hands, but I settled for turning away. Covering my eyes would look silly and childish, like blotting out the worst of a horror movie.
Henderson turned when I did. If I wasn't going to look at the body, then he wouldn't, either. "You okay?"
The world stopped spinning like a ball that had slid to a stop. "I will be." My voice sounded breathy.