Sect's Business

In the middle of the burned scar straddled a neat scorch dent, an arrow tipped with a circle instead of an arrowhead. Pulisic's brand. Why wasn't I amazed?

"You do realize there are liabilities for mutilating corpses?" asserted a male vocalist.

I spun around sabre in my hand. A gigantic man strutted crouching against the doorway.

He wore scrubs, which implied he had the extra privilege to be here than I did.

"Watch out there," he mumbled.

"Sorry," I drooped the blade.

"I don't love being startled."

"Neither do I. Except by young stunning women."

He gawked to be in his mid-thirties. The coloured streak on his shoulder shone sharp orange. Third-level clearance. The tab scraped to his suit confirmed it: I'd gotten a bloody unit administrator.

A unit administrator could make a persona non grata in the morgue sooner than I could squint.

The man waited until I finished gazing at his tab and held out his left hand.

"My name's Pat."

I doff my left glove without putting down Slayer and jerked his hand.

"Alder. Is there a first name that goes with Pat?"

"Yes, but I don't relish it."

A humorous dude. Possibly I would get away without an ebony eye for mincing a carcass.

"It's a vampire," I asserted.

"I was gawking for the brand."

"Find it?"

"Yes."

He reached the table to assess my handiwork. I strode to strut across from him. Dr Pat was precisely on the appealing aspect. Auburn-haired, tall, and quite muscular, judging by the forearms.

A fascinating countenance, upright and honest, with vast, well-defined characteristics and charming eyes, honey brown and warm.

The ample maw was outright sensuous. Glamorous dude, not rigorously handsome in a refined perception, but still… He bucked up from the torso, grinned, and became gorgeous.

I smirked back, striving to emit sincerity and decency of personality. That's right, I'll be relatively nice to you, sir, just please don't bar me from the morgue.

"Interesting," he asserted.

"I've never discerned one obscured in this way."

"Neither have I."

"You see a ton of vampires in your line of work?"

"Unfortunately."

I caught him darting at me and he lessened his stare back to the carcass.

"Dr Pat?"

He winked. "Yes?"

"Do I need to let Julianna infer about the brand?" It was the least I could commend.

"No. I can inform her myself if you have to run."

A minor warning buzzer went off in my head. The good doctor was slightly polite and I have to make sure that Julianna got my message.

Pat was scowling at the corpse.

"An ingenious place to lay a brand."

Pulisic was an ingenious fellow.

"Indeed."

Another silence issued. "Let me waddle you upstairs," he said.

How charming. He was striving to make sure that I didn't go on a mutilating binge. I offered him my stunner smile.

"Sure."

He didn't gawk amazed. Damn it, that's the second time today my smile had failed.

We fled, sauntering side by side. I loitered while he latched the gate behind us.

"So what do you perpetrate here, Dr Pat?"

He scowled. "I presume one can dub its charity work."

I made the proper sound "Charity?"

"Yes. I perform reconstructive surgery." He glimpsed at me as if scared I would request a nose job.

"I make corpses presentable. Not everyone can afford it, so twice a week I perform it here pro bono."

I bobbed.

"It's children mostly," he asserted.

"Torn up and bruised. Not a pleasant sight. Such a waste."

We attained the upper floor. He waited while I checked out with the clerk and jotted down Julianna's number, and then waddled me to the door.

"So I'll see you again sometime?" he mumbled.

"Hopefully not on the operating table," I asserted and vacated the edifice.

As I wandered away to where Karmelion waited for me, I could feel Pat staring at my back.

A man was crouching against my truck. He chafed a dark' Brad shirt, black jeans, folded in soft boots, and an ebony cloak that needed very much to be a peninsula.

While I was in the morgue, the sun had broken through the clouds, surging the streets with sunshine. He appeared to shrug off the sun's rays—not a man, but a rectangle of darkness scraping in the mantle of sunlight.

The human current streaming up the street bent away from him. People didn't watch him; in fact, they focused so hard on defying his presence, one could have plunged a twenty dollar bill on the floor and it might have gone unnoticed.

The man's sights trailed my movement. I halted a few feet away and gawked at him.

He attained into an inside pouch of his robe and flicked what gawked like a lengthy yellow ribbon at me. I snatched it in midflight.

The smooth, cold body twined about my wrist, and the serpentine head reared to boycott at my countenance. I clenched its inlet with the fingers of my left hand and halted it three inches from my cheek.

The snake's tongue paraded between the scaly lips. Blood red membranes tinted with brilliant purple flared on both flanks of the head, dissipating like the wings of a tremendous butterfly. The infant winged snake shivered, striving to take flight, but I clenched it in check.

"I'm sorry, Jim."

He raised his arms, demonstrating something about three feet vast. The robe parted enough to illustrate muscle roll across his chest under the fabric of his shirt.

"The nest was this vast, Alder."

His vocalist had the smooth, nearly melodious tone of a slight hazardous, much lovelier man. It crashed badly with his bulldog-ugly mug.

"You owe me and you strutted me up. I had to perform the gig single-handed."

The snake swivelled in a slight attempt to plummet its fangs into my arm. The lengthy triangular teeth encompassed no toxin but the nibble ache like hell.

"Greg's dead," I mumbled.

There was a little hesitation before he inquired, "When?"

"Two days ago. He was murdered."

"You on it?"

"Yeah."

We stood for a while, snagged in an agonizing stillness. He scraped himself from my truck, rolling with the liquid, animal.... that just a master shapechanger could accomplish.

"You desire anything, you know where to locate me."

I nodded and watched him stroll up the stairs to the morgue.

"Jim?"

He grimaced at me over his shoulder.

"Yeah?" "What are you doing at the morgue?"

"Sect business," he mumbled and moved on.