“Damn it,” I whispered, and removed the breastbone.
With my squeamish assistant standing well away from the corpse, I opened the bags and took my best guess at what I was seeing. The intestines were easy enough, as were the lungs and kidneys. Finally, by process of elimination, I realized what was missing.
“It’s the heart,” I said, willing my stomach not to give up the fight. If I puked on him, I would have to kill myself. I certainly couldn’t continue living with that visual seared behind my eyes.
Hang on.
A weird burn mark distracted me from the disgusting thoughts. “What’s this?”
“Don’t make me look up close.”
“Suck it up and get over here.”
She groaned and joined me. We both stared into the chest cavity at the spot where the man’s heart had once been. A symbol had been burned inside--three stars, overlapping.
“That was created by magic,” Mac said.
“It has to be what the Devil sent me here to find.” I frowned at it. “Is it the same as the necromancer’s mark?”
“I don’t think so. But why does he know so much about this murder?”
“That’s what I want to know.” I stripped off one of the gloves and yanked my mobile from my pocket, taking a picture. I got a few from different angles, but it was too dark.
I turned on the flash and took another picture.
A faint rumbling sounded, and I frowned. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah, it’s coming from—”
Black smoke billowed from the man’s chest, rising straight from the symbol that had been burned into his flesh.
I jumped backward, but it was too late. The smoke wrapped around me, squeezing my limbs tight. “Mac!”
“I feel it, too.” Her face was pinched tight with pain. “Hard to breathe.”
I gasped, trying to get enough air into my lungs. Prickles raced over my skin like spiders. “What’s happening?”
“Magic.” She groaned, then said, “Curse them, Hecate. Oh, so mighty shall you be.”
“What?”
“The witches.” Her voice sounded even more squeezed.
Oh! The prank she’d played on them. The bust of Hecate that she’d poured a potion on should be screaming now. Thank fates, because this spell was making me start to feel weak.
“How will they find us?” It took all my strength to speak.
“If I don’t respond, they’ll use a locater charm.”
“Respond?”
A voice sounded from the amulet around Mac’s neck. “You clever bitch, Mac! Where are you? Stop this cursed thing right now!”
I could hear Hecate shrieking in the background like a horror movie victim. It was so loud that any nearby guards might hear.
I struggled against the magic that bound me, sucking more strength from me with every second. My vision was starting to blur and my legs to tremble.
“I can’t answer them,” Mac said. “Not without touching the charm.”
Shit, shit, shit.
I tried to hobble to her, hoping I could press my forehead against the charm. Or maybe fall against her.
Instead, I toppled over onto the ground, hitting it so hard that my vision went black for a moment. Footsteps sounded from the floor above. Or maybe that was my imagination.
Were guards coming?
Was I going to be discovered here, next to the torn-open body of the victim?
Fear chilled my skin.
“My, my, what have we here?” A feminine voice sounded from my left.
Out of the corner of my eye, I barely caught sight of Coraline. She stood in a cloud of pink light, somehow projecting her form into the morgue. Her dark hair was streaked with green that matched the brilliant emerald of her eyes. She tapped her foot, staring at us. “Got yourself into quite a pickle, Mac.”
“Get us out of here, and I’ll tell you the code to shut her up.”
“Oh, you will, all right.” Coraline raised her hands and began to chant. Magic sparked around her palms, and a faint white light surrounded Mac and me.
The evil that gripped us so tightly seemed to loosen, but Coraline didn’t stop chanting. Her brow furrowed from the effort, and she grimaced. “Powerful dark magic.”
Her own power continued to work, and I struggled, finally able to move my limbs a bit. Coraline grunted and forced more of her magic toward us.
“Hurry,” Mac said. “Guards are coming. Humans.”
“You idiots.” Coraline shoved another blast of magic at us, and the darkness that bound me finally disappeared.
I gasped, scrambling to my feet.
“The code, Mac,” Coraline demanded.
“Macbeth O’Connell is the most amazing Magica ever,” Mac said.
“Seriously?” Coraline raised her brows.
“Say that, and Hecate will shut up.” Mac grinned. “Can we get a ride back to Guild City with your nice portal there?”
“No.” Coraline and her pink light disappeared.
“Damn it.” Mac turned to me. “We need to get a move on.”
“No kidding.”
I turned back to the body as a pair of guards burst into the room. Both were men of average height but grim demeanors, though their faces blanched when they saw the results of my amateur autopsy spread out around the room.
“Raise your hands,” demanded the younger one, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
Instead, I shoved my hand into my pocket and drew out a freezing charm. I chucked the thing at them, praying it would work. The dusty blue cloud exploded into the air, and the men froze solid.
“That ought to buy us a few minutes.” I turned back to the body. There was no point in trying to put it back together. The guards had seen what we were doing. Fortunately, I still didn’t look like me.
I grabbed a plastic bag and shoved my gross gloves in them, then put it in my pocket, not wanting to leave anything with my fingerprints behind. I put my leather gloves on, then wiped the scissors and clamp off with a paper towel, getting rid of any prints, and returned them to the table.
Mac and I hurried from the room, skirting around the frozen guards and moving as quickly as we could without full-on running. We made it to the top floor and strode toward the main exit.
I prayed there were no other guards in the building.
We were nearly to the main doors when they opened, and two new cops walked in.
Shit.
They both got a good look at our faces, and I prayed the potions were still working.
“Other way,” I whispered, and we spun on our heels and hightailed it deeper into the building.
“Hey, you there!” shouted one of the cops.
“Run.” I sprinted down the hall, fumbling in my pocket for the other freezing potion bomb.
Finally, my fingers closed around it. I grabbed it and chucked it behind me, looking back in time to see it explode in front of one of the cops. He froze solid, but the other one wasn’t in the line of fire. He kept running for us, face twisted in a grimace.
I sprinted on, pushing myself until my lungs burned. Mac easily kept up, as her legs were longer than mine. We raced down the hall, taking the first right, and sprinted to the end. An office on our right had an open door, and we dashed inside. A large window beckoned, showing the street beyond.