But this time I took the syringe from his hand. He cocked an eyebrow at me in mild astonishment, then smiled and gestured to the body. “You know how to do it?”

I gave him a stiff nod. I’d seen it done a few dozen times. Time to stop being a weenie. The needle slid in with barely any resistance. A shiver raced down my spine at the sight of the needle tip going through the pupil, but it came with an absurd sense of satisfaction. I’d finally won a round of “make Kara do something nasty.” I carefully drew out the fluid, pulled the needle back out, and then carefully handed it to Carl.

“Don’t ever ask me to do that again,” I said.

He burst out laughing, then quickly squirted the fluid into a tube. “I won’t. I promise.” He put the tube away, then turned back to me. “Do you want to try cutting the head open?”

“No!”

He grinned. “Your loss,” he said.

“And on that, I will gladly accept defeat,” I told him.

We suspended our banter as Doc returned to the cutting room. He remained largely quiet during the autopsy of Evelyn Stark. I had the feeling that his mind was already running through possibilities on why Barry Landrieu’s brain had exploded, so to speak.

I watched his face as he began to cut through Evelyn Stark’s brain, could see the instant he saw it from the way his face went still and pale. He gave his head a slight shake of disbelief, then yanked his gaze up to me. “What’s the connection?” he asked. “There has to be some sort of connection. This isn’t possible.”

I could completely understand how he felt. “I don’t know, Doc,” I said, the lie bitter in my mouth. “But I gotta say, I’m glad to know my hunch was right.”

His gaze grew hard for an instant, then he shook his head again. “That was one hell of a hunch, Kara.” He gave me a smile, but it had a guarded, curious edge to it.

I spread my hands and tried to look baffled.

“Hunh.” He turned his attention back to the body. “Maybe it’s some sort of designer drug. Something that’s not showing on the quick test. Or a virus.” He grimaced. “Of course, if it is a virus, we’re all fucked.”

“I was on both scenes and gave CPR to her,” I jerked my chin toward the body. “And my brain hasn’t exploded yet. So we’re probably all right.”

Doc gave a humorless chuckle. “It’s also only been one day. Hardly enough time for anything to take hold.” He blew out his breath. “I have a feeling I’ll be spending the rest of the day looking through a microscope.”

“Barry Landrieu was a known drug user,” I said. “And Evelyn Stark was an alcoholic.”

He gave a nod. “My investigator told me that Landrieu went to jail a few years ago, and when he got out he supposedly cleaned up and was doing the whole straight-and-narrow thing.”

“You don’t see that very often,” I said.

“Well, apparently his little sister died of an overdose while he was in prison. Guess that was his wakeup call.”

Shock and regret coiled through me. I made it out of that life and never looked back. But what could I have done for her? Given her pep talks? Pressure her to get into rehab? No way to know if anything would have helped, but once I had my own act together surely I could have tried.

Doc was still talking, thankfully oblivious to my reaction. I yanked my attention back to him and did my best to shove down the guilt.

“Anyway, I’ll put a rush on the tox screen. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that’s what it is.”

I gave him a dutiful nod in response. He had his avenues of investigation, and I had mine. Now I knew for certain that the two deaths were related and not simply by coincidence. My next hunch was that the presence of the graa was connected. Now I simply had to hunt down a summoner.

Easy.

Chapter 9

I left the morgue, still wondering how the hell I was going to accomplish my grand goal of finding this other summoner. We were private people out of self-preservation, and there wasn’t exactly a local directory. I fully intended to check and see if my aunt had any leads, but other than that I didn’t know what else I could do except wait for the summoner to tip his or her hand again.

By the time I made it to the station the sky had cleared to the kind of brilliant blue that only happened in southern winters when it was stupid-cold outside. No snow anymore, which was a relief, but the chill wind that swept around the building was anything but brisk and refreshing. Stabbing-icy-knives-of-death wind was probably a better description.

I made sure the cuff was concealed under my coat sleeve as I hurried up to the building. The last thing I wanted was to deal with questions about it. Actually the last thing I wanted was to have to keep wearing the damn thing. This whole mild nausea thing was a real downer.

I gave myself a mental slap and scowl as I entered the door marked “Investigations.” Yeah, I didn’t care to feel crummy. But getting summoned to the demon sphere? That was a whole ’nuther level of Do Not Want. I could deal with a bit of queasy stomach.

Warm air wrapped pleasantly behind me, and I quickly pulled the door closed to block out the wind.

“Damn, Gillian, afraid of a little cold weather?”

The nasal tenor startled me. I spun to see Detectives Boudreaux and Pellini sitting in the cramped waiting area usually reserved for people who had appointments to see one of the investigators. I straightened, instantly annoyed that I’d allowed my surprise to show.

“I’m a delicate southern flower, Boudreaux,” I said to the detective who could best be described as weasely. Skinny to the point of emaciated, he looked like a meth addict, but not as healthy. It didn’t look like he’d shaved in at least two days, but he was in no danger of growing anything resembling an actual beard. The patchy stubble on his chin looked like a fur coat left for a month in a moth factory. The stains on his khaki pants indicated he was in the long habit of wiping his hands on them instead of a napkin, his shirt had more wrinkles than a smoker’s lips, and his tie looked like it had been knotted with a square knot. Yet despite his complete lack of professional demeanor, he managed to close enough cases to stay on in Investigations. He was lazy, couldn’t investigate worth a shit, and was annoying as all hell, but rumor had it that he was a brilliant interrogator and could finesse information and confessions out of the most hard-core and stubborn types. “The chill does terrible things to my sunny disposition,” I added.

Pellini shifted on the ancient couch and pulled his belt further up under the pudge of his belly. “Delicate, my ass,” he said with a snort of sour amusement from beneath his mustache. “You could take Boudreaux here down with your eyes closed.”

I blinked. Had that been a compliment? From Pellini? Our conversational exchanges usually involved various insults, not-so-veiled slurs, and generally disagreeable banter. I had no doubt that he would have been more than happy in the “old days” of police work when respecting a suspect’s civil rights was a laughable concept. “What are you two doing sitting out here?” I asked, deciding to pretend the possible compliment hadn’t happened. Too many weird things were happening lately. A Nice Pellini would put me right over the edge.

“Our office is about thirty degrees,” Boudreaux said, face twisted in annoyance. “Maintenance is supposed to be coming by ‘any minute now.’ They said that an hour and a half ago.”

And I had no doubt that they intended to avoid all semblance of work until the climate control was fixed. I decided to not point out that they could have brought their laptops out to the lobby so that they could get caught up on their reports.

“I hear you had a fun weekend,” Pellini said.

“Yep,” I said. “A guy died out at the Nature Center. Barry Landrieu. Then a lady crashed her ride into mine and dropped in the middle of the parking lot out here.”

Pellini’s mouth pursed beneath his mustache. “Nature center guy…you said his name was Landrieu? White guy? Blond hair and a mustache?”

I nodded warily. “You know him?”

A frown curved his already dour face. “Neighbor of mine. Was it a thirty?”

He was asking me if it was a Signal 30. A homicide. “Nah. Just got back from the autopsy. Natural death.” It wasn’t a complete lie. It did look like a natural death. I wasn’t going to tell him that the woman had died in the exact same way. Pellini and Boudreaux already thought I was plenty weird. No sense giving them more reason to think so. I was probably already pegging out their “whackadoo” meter. I also wasn’t about to mention my own history with him. “Buddy of yours?” I asked.

Pellini shook his head. “Nah. Just a guy who lived down the street—about four houses down. Big-time jogger. Every fucking day, rain or shine.”

I tried not to show my surprise. Maybe it wasn’t the same guy?

“Dude was an ex-con,” he continued, putting the lie to my brief suspicion that it was someone else. “But he didn’t seem like a bad guy. Looked like he was trying hard to start over.”

I did my best to hide my shock. Pellini was being understanding? Showing a measure of actual empathy? “That’s pretty cool,” I said.

Pellini shrugged. “Yeah, but this week he got weird. Had issues with some of the neighbors.”

I leaned against the doorframe. I was pretty sure this was the longest conversation I’d ever had with Pellini where I didn’t have the urge to throw something heavy and dangerous at him. “Any issues with you?”

Pellini gave a low bark of laughter. “He tried. I was in my garage the other day and he comes walking up the driveway, stopped right before the door and starts going on about how the Saints didn’t deserve to win the Super Bowl, and that Green Bay was going to take it all the way this year.”

Boudreaux gave a snort. “Did you bust his ass?”

Pellini shrugged. “Nah. I kinda wondered if maybe he was trying to bait me and get me to take a swing at him—figured he probably had a buddy of his ready with a camera.”