“Evening, Axton.” Captain Arcady Lorencz lowered her notebook. Bright balelight washed out her garishly dyed shock of hair and emphasized the taut lines of disgust around her mouth. “Thought you’d want to see this one.”
The corpse was sprawled on the slush-covered floor in an empty space between rows of crates marked with the Lament insignia. Lorencz’s partner, Tegeus Droit, stood next to it, jotting notes on a crumpled piece of paper.
“Thank you.” I walked into the warehouse and crouched next to the body. The deceased had been male, most likely, although his flesh and bones had been twisted out of shape, melted and marred like candle wax, which made it difficult to be sure. Blood pooled in icy crystals around him.
“Can balefire do this?” Droit asked, glancing up from his notes. “Lorencz thinks it’s balefire, but I don’t smell burned flesh.”
Neither did I. I knelt, pulled my scalpel from my pocket, and sliced open the deceased’s shirt — yes, born male — to reveal his twisted and torn torso. The tear looked natural, rather than created by a weapon — a result of his warping bones, perhaps. I ran my fingers over the edges of the wound. They’d been seared smooth. Strange.
Pocketing the scalpel, I slid my hand deeper into his open chest cavity. The flesh on top was cool, but a vestigial warmth lurked in the deeper layers of muscle. I eased my fingers around his organs, groping for his core. Considerably warmer in there, even though our breath billowed in white clouds before us in the warehouse’s open space.
“He hasn’t been dead too long,” I reported. I pulled out my hand and wiped it on my coat. I’d requested a mercury thermometer from Blackstone Hospital shortly after Director Ban Jaspin had appointed me city coroner, but the hospital’s funds had been frozen, and my request had been denied. I really needed to ask the Ministry of Justice to buy one for me. I wasn’t comfortable writing official reports based on guesswork instead of exact measurement — the Watch’s medical examiner considered me an upstart and took any opportunity he could to criticize my work.
“What does ‘too long’ mean?” Droit asked. “An hour? Six? Twelve?”
I lifted the corpse’s arm, considering the variables of temperature and location.
“My best guess is that he died one to two hours ago.”
“Well, I suppose that helps,” Lorencz said, standing in the warehouse doorway. “A little.”
“What else?” Droit pressed, scribbling a note. I wondered how Lorencz has convinced him to take field notes. I’d never seen her take any.
I touched the malformed flesh, then pushed my fingers inside the body again to track the curve of the ribs. The bones were bent, not broken. I felt along the rest of the twisted limbs. Twisted. Not fractured.
Pulling my hands out, I grabbed the corpse’s left arm and, straining, rolled the body over. Blood had settled, mottling the flesh. The corpse’s fingers were fused and twisted, but I felt a hard lump where a ring should be. A knob of flesh had melted over it. I ran my fingers over the other hand. Another ring.
My heartbeat picked up, and I firmly told myself that it didn’t have to mean anything. Men wore rings for many reasons. I set the corpse’s hand down and began peeling back the layers of skin over its chest, examining the fatty deposits beneath.
“I don’t think this damage was caused by balefire, Captain,” I said at last. “Fire hot enough to melt bone would have been hot enough to burn the fat out of a body.” I settled back into a crouch, wrapping my arms around my chest, and stared at the corpse.
“So?” Lorencz prompted. “If it wasn’t balefire, what was it?”
I’d seen damage like this before. Not in person — sketched in a very old and very illegal book sent to me last month by a correspondent in Candor. The coincidence dismayed me. Could someone have broken into my room and read about it? No … that was unlikely. Nobody else knew I had it. And even if some casual burglar rifling through my possessions had seen the illustration, it wouldn’t have meant anything to anybody but a sentinel.
I sighed. More likely, this death was related to my recent acquisition, but only inasmuch it was part of the logical progression of events that had led me to request the book in the first place. I was surprised neither Droit nor Lorencz had guessed what had happened. They were both reasonably bright, and they both had enough information to put the pieces together for themselves.
“General.” I looked up. “Have you ever seen an injury like this before?”
Droit stepped closer and studied the body. The side of his leg pressed against my shoulder. It wouldn’t be accidental. My heart stuttered and I forced myself to remain motionless.
“No,” he said, after a moment. “Yzyrchye could do something like this to a body, but it wouldn’t leave the corpse behind.”
Lorencz muttered something dark.
“Maybe he ran into a new kind of transient,” Droit speculated. “Are there bonemelters?”
“Possibly.” I gave him a point for creativity, at least. “I’d like to autopsy the body. Should I do it here, at my flat, or up at the Blackstone morgue?”
“You still living in that Flasherry cellar?” Droit asked, dropping a hand on top of my head. I twitched as his fingers brushed my hair.
“Yes.” One word only, to hide my sudden breathlessness.
He scowled.
“I thought you were going to move someplace cleaner.”
“I … haven’t had time.” Each word was an effort as his fingers moved back and forth. I forced myself to stay still.
“Fine. I’ll find you a new place.” To my relief, he finally moved his hand away. I looked down and saw my expression reflected in the top of his highly polished boots.
“That won’t be necessary, General,” I murmured, glancing away. “The cellar’s convenient.”
“It’s filthy.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I do.”
His tone of voice brooked no disagreement, so I fell silent. Over the last few months I’d taught myself how to disagree without immediately starting to panic, but I still wasn’t ready to argue with General Droit.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that his irritation wasn’t directed at me. Droit didn’t like working the graveyard shift. Being awake at night disrupted his sense of orderliness.
“Where should I autopsy the body?” I repeated.
“Suit yourself,” Lorencz said, shrugging.
“The cellar, then. It’s closer than the morgue.”
Droit growled as he walked outside.
The general and two constables commandeered a wagon and transported the corpse to my building while Lorencz started a door-to-door inquiry. The few people who were out in the cold winter night didn’t give us a second glance as we hauled the body down to the back room of my cellar flat. They were used to it — it wasn’t the first dead body I’d brought down there. The Watch laid the corpse spreadeagled on my scarred wooden table. A lantern hanging from the beam overhead lit the workspace.
Droit ordered the constables to return the wagon while I set out my knives and saws. The books I wanted to consult were in my front room, but I couldn’t retrieve them while the general was with me.
“I saw you walking out of Jaspin’s office the other day,” he said at last. “What did he want?”
“He asked me for updates on the children,” I said. “He also wanted to discuss Far, and you and Lorencz.”
“What about me and Lorencz?” Droit’s green eyes narrowed. I looked down and fingered the front of my coat. The fabric was streaked with blood. When had I done that?
“The inspector asked for my analysis of your partnership,” I said, glancing up again. “I told him that I thought you and Lorencz pose a limited and manageable threat to the city and would be easier to control in tandem than apart. I suggested that he let you act with minimal supervision and only intervene should you become too violent.”
Droit smirked. Like an adolescent, he enjoyed being thought of as threatenign and violent. My sense of incipient danger faded and I lifted my head the rest of the way.
“I didn’t know you were reporting on us,” he said.
“Jaspin asked me to do so in confidence.”
“Then why —“ he stopped and scoffed. “Has he realized yet that you can’t keep a secret?”
“I can keep a secret,” I corrected him, feeling daring. “Keeping secrets is part of my profession. But in this case, I chose not to do so.” Because keeping the secret might make the general angry. No. I corrected myself. Because telling the secret would please the general. Please, and appease.
“But you still won’t tell me your name.”
“Axton is my name.”
“Nobody has one name.” Droit pushed himself off the wall and strode forward. I backed up until I hit the anatomization table. Knives rattled. He grinned, setting his fists on the table, on either side of me. My pulse leaped.
“General —”
“Do you want me to seduce it out of you? Is that the game you’re playing?” He leaned forward, his coat flaps brushing my sides. I tried not to squirm away, although I broke into a cold sweat. “I like that game.”
“Over a corpse?” I protested weakly. He grinned, then leaned forward and stole a kiss, his tongue slipping between my lips, his groin pressing against mine. My heart was pounding more from fear than desire. I was just starting to raise my hands — to push him away, I think — when he pulled back and wrinkled his nose.
“It’s not the corpse stopping me, Axton; it’s this cesspit you call home.” He stepped back and began pulling on his gloves. I looked away, hoping the lantern light wouldn’t reveal my burning cheeks or the sweat sheen on my forehead. “When will you have a report?”
“T— tomorrow.”
“Good.” He turned to go. “I’ll see you then, Hieronymous.”
“Incorrect,” I said, my voice unsteady. He winked and left.
I ran my hands over my face and caught my breath. That was disappointing. Almost a month, and I still hadn’t managed to control my panic reaction. I wondered if I ever would.