“Has anyone used the protective suits in a live field exercise with real magic?” I asked.
“They told us everyone wears the suit on all supernatural-related crime scenes until further notice, that’s all I know,” the tech said.
“That you, Berger?” Bridges asked.
“Yeah, now give me my evidence.”
“Our evidence,” Bridges said, but Charleston just helped slip it into the container that Berger held up.
“Think what you want to think, Bridges, you always do anyway,” Berger said, but his eyes through the face shield were all for the near-translucent sliver of skin until he had it safely contained and closed up nice and safe.
“You’re just sore because I wouldn’t date you,” she said.
“Being attracted to you made me question my masculinity, Bridges; you’re just too much man for me.”
“That I believe,” she said, and smiled, pleased with herself. A lot of female cops tried to be one of the boys, but none of them worked as hard to be better than the men as Lila did.
“I’ll take Lila at my back ahead of most of the men I know,” I said.
“Me, too,” Charleston said.
“Thanks, guys.”
“Unless we need someone to reach the top shelf for us,” Charleston said.
“Well, there is that,” I said, as if it hadn’t occurred to me before.
“Screw you guys,” she said.
“Lila, I’m shocked, you were at the meeting about sexually appropriate workplace vocabulary,” Charleston said, but smiled as he said it.
“Fine,” she said, “fuck you guys.” She smiled at him and added a middle finger.
“If we did it to her, you’d write us up,” Berger said.
“Don’t you have evidence to test or something?” she said.
Berger started to reply, but Charleston cut him off. “Go do your job, Berger. Bridges will stay here and do hers.”
The tech went off without another comment, but something about the exchange had gone beyond the usual bantering at crime scenes. It made me wonder if Lila had more history with Berger that I didn’t know about, but then she didn’t know all the details about my personal life either. We were work friends and that was it. I’d worked hard to make sure that the most attractive female officer on our unit was just a friend. The only thing worse than a messy divorce was one that involved someone from work. If I went down in flames with Reggie, I didn’t want to burn up my career along with my marriage.
“Are you seriously telling me that skin fragments like that are the most you’ve found of the . . . Cookson?” I asked.
“So far,” Lila said.
I shook my head. “His whole body should be in that room, maybe even still alive, left behind when the demon was forced to flee.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s usual for demon possession, but this one, if you hadn’t noticed, Havoc, isn’t usual anything,” Lila said; she sounded disdainful, as if to say of course. The tone was close enough to Reggie’s that I had to stop myself from rounding my shoulders and hunching from it. If this kept up, I’d have issues with all women, all females. I could be even more broken than I already was.
“Then why is there just skin left?” I asked.
“You tell us, you’re the Heaven and Hell expert,” she said.
“I’m the expert on the angelic; that doesn’t make me an expert on the Infernal.”
“The closest thing to an expert in this hallway,” she said. That disdainful tone that didn’t usually bother me at all dripped from every word, or maybe I just heard it that way. It made it hard to focus on anything but the pain inside me.
Charleston touched my shoulder and I jumped as if it had surprised me. He dropped his hand but said, “Havoc, you all right?”
“Fine, I’m fine.” But even to me the words sounded hollow.
“How bad are you hurt?” he asked, looking at the bandages on my arm and the holes in my shirt as if trying to see how many bandages were underneath.
“The demon wounds are almost healed.”
“How’s that possible?” Lila asked.
“Angelic magic is usually automatically healing once you invoke it,” I said.
“So the demon claws are healed, but the scratches from our other victim aren’t?” Charleston asked.
I glanced down at the thick dressings on my arm. “The female vic was in here for magical therapy, so there were side effects.”
“What kind of side effects?” he asked.
I didn’t want to betray Kate’s secret. If she’d given up her iron teeth and claws to be normal beautiful, then the fewer people who knew about it the better, because if her new appearance got on social media with her old appearance, then having a normal life was over. If normal was what she wanted, I wanted her to have it.
“Patient confidentiality wouldn’t let him tell me much,” I finally said, but I’d waited too long to say it. Charleston and Lila both looked at me, waiting for more, because they didn’t believe what I’d just told them, and they didn’t try to hide the fact.
“Using angelic power the way I did will automatically heal things that are opposed to it like demon injuries, but for other injuries you have to request healing, and it had just been so long since I’d used that kind of power, I forgot.” That was true, as far as it went.
Charleston nodded, face softening as if he understood more than I was saying, or something compassionate. “How long has it been since you worked with angel magic like this?”
“Almost ten years,” I said.
He studied me like he was trying to read more than I was wanting to show. I gave him my best mild, friendly, blank face. It was my version of trying not to look threatening. It wasn’t my cop face exactly, but the face I used to try to ease a stranger’s reaction to me being big, physical, and male. When you were my size, or the lieutenant’s size, you had to have a softer face that you could put on like a mask, so we’d seem less threatening by just being. He’d know exactly what the look on my face meant, but he’d also know it meant I didn’t want him to look deeper. He’d respect that, unless he felt it was negatively impacting my job, and this wasn’t.
“The doc cleared you for duty?” he asked.
“Like they cleared you for your getting knocked unconscious,” I said, my face mild.
He smiled, his eyes looking down. “Then we’ll both ignore doctor’s orders about getting some rest and keep doing our jobs.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Me, too. Now let’s figure out what the hell is going on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We used Gimble’s room to decide the game plan. He sat up in the bed, tucking his legs up so that Lila could sit on the end of the bed. Charleston and I took the room’s chairs, and Antero stood, because he didn’t fit comfortably in the chairs. When Lila offered to stand so he could have the foot of the bed he got offended, so she sat, and he stood.
Charleston had a look on his face like he might not have been kidding about physical fitness requirements for the unit, but out loud he said, “Antero stays here to question the staff. I want him to stay here until the nurse Gonzales is out of surgery and recovery and see if he can get a preliminary statement from him.”