“He was everywhere and nowhere,” Esme whispered. “And that’s when I really did lose it.”
All of which Tinker could have prevented if she had just told Esme the truth when they were on the Dahe Hao together. “I’m sorry.”
“I cried myself to sleep on his bed.” Esme walked to one of the morgue drawers and pressed her hand to the stainless-steel door. “And then I dreamed where I’d find him.”
“What? Oh, no, no, no.” Tinker moved to stop her, but Esme opened the door and pulled out the drawer. “You don’t need to—”
There was something horribly wrong about the shrouded body inside. The hidden geography was all too short and lacking in landmarks: the peak made by the nose, the valley of the throat, the distant points of the feet. Esme unzipped the bag in one rushed motion, like she was getting it done fast before she chickened out.
It was the male child that the oni had butchered down to eat — a gruesome collection of parts. Laid out like a half-assembled jigsaw puzzle, it was made more horrifying by what was missing.
Esme whimpered and stumbled backward.
Despite coming to the morgue to find the murdered children, Tinker wasn’t prepared for the sight. She could only stare dazed at the butchered male and remember the smell of roasting meat that hung in the air of the whelping pen’s kitchen.
“Domi,” Pony murmured. “Can we do what is needed and cover it up?”
Tinker blinked up at him, confused for a minute as to why they were there. Oh, yes, DNA samples. She fumbled with one of the swabs to unwrap it and then forced herself to rub the clean white tip against the bloody stump of a severed arm.
Only as she closed the cap did she realize Esme was silently weeping.
“Oh, Esme, this isn’t your son,” Tinker said. “This is a male elf child killed by the oni. I was looking for him.”
Esme shook her head. “I dreamed that I’d find him here. I opened the drawer and there he was — newborn like when I left Earth — crying. It’s him.”
Stormsong snorted. “You’ve flung wide open a door that’s not easy to keep closed in the first place. Your blood tie to domi means that her nuenae can easily overlap yours. The more you interact with her, the more her nuenae will transpose yours.”
Esme wasn’t listening. “He’s here!” She walked halfway down the row of doors and opened another drawer, seemingly at random. “And he’s helpless — and flying monkeys are coming for him.”
“Oh gods, I thought we were done with that shit,” Tinker whimpered. Esme had driven her nearly mad by invading Tinker’s dreams, calling for help through the only line of communication available to the astronauts trapped in space. It had been an insane week full of prophetic nightmares. Again and again, Tinker had found herself facing a twisted echo of something she had dreamed. She so didn’t want to go through that again.
Esme unzipped the body bag to reveal the young elf female.
Tinker groaned at the sight of the child. None of the dead humans had been battered into broken bones held together with torn flesh. Tinker’s hand shook as she swabbed the inside of the female’s mouth, trying to ignore that her jaw had been broken so badly that the bones had pierced the skin and half her teeth were missing. Tinker murmured apologies as she plucked a few strands of hair free, just in case.
“What are you doing?” Esme asked.
“I’m trying to figure out why the oni kidnapped these children,” Tinker explained. “Only, establishing DNA baselines is the first step of bioengineering magic — which is highly illegal, even for me.”
“We should hurry,” Pony said. “If someone else is coming.”
“There’s one more,” Tinker told Esme. “A second male. Can you find him, too?”
Esme frowned but nodded. She concentrated for a minute before picking a third drawer on the other side of the room.
Taking samples from the second male was even more emotionally wrenching. His face was relatively undamaged, and he reminded Tinker of Oilcan. Suddenly she couldn’t bear to be in the room, wearing the gloves and the mask, breathing in the omnipresent reek of rotting flesh. She fled out of the room, blinking back tears, desperately tearing at the gloves with latex-encased fingers.
Pony wordlessly caught her hands with his and pulled the gloves free and then held her until the need to scream and throw things passed.
“They shouldn’t be here,” Tinker growled. The children had been innocent and trusting and had forever ahead of them; they shouldn’t be locked in these little boxes, surrounded by death.
“No, they should not. They be should be given up to the sky so their souls can be free of their bodies.”
“What do you mean? How do we give them up to the sky?”
“They should be cremated as soon as possible. To be trapped in a dead body is torment to the soul.”
Tinker remembered then that most elf ghost stories started with someone dying and not being properly cremated. “How — how do I make this happen? Who takes care of these things?”
“Normally their clan.” Pony reluctantly added, “But none of the Stone Clan would know how.”
“Are you sure about that?” Tinker muttered.
“I did not know that you locked your dead into steel drawers,” Pony admitted unhappily. “I would have not known how to find this place even if I had known that was your custom.”
Tinker wanted to argue that any of the elves could ask Maynard for directions, but Pony had a point. The Stone Clan might have assumed that the children’s bodies had been automatically cremated by the humans once they’d been recovered from the whelping pens.
“Someone is coming.” Stormsong moved between Tinker and the door.
“It’s the flying monkeys,” Esme whispered and wisely moved back, giving the sekasha lots of room to move.
Tinker doubted very much it was literally flying monkeys. Riki had been the last person associated with that imagery. He had saved her life two or three times during the week of insane dreams. He had also kidnapped her twice. Tinker hid away the swabs in the messenger bag, freeing up her spell-casting hand.
She listened closely but could hear nothing. The sekasha, though, shifted as they tracked someone moving through the otherwise empty building.
Pony signed a question in blade talk.
Stormsong lifted up one finger then indicated that the sole invader was just beyond the last door. They stood tense for a long silence and then the doorknob slowly turned and the door creaked opened.
TV reporter Chloe Polanski stood in the doorway, eyes narrowing as she took in Tinker and the sekasha. She was in a flawless black pantsuit belted with a wide swatch of alligator leather. After a moment of calculating study, her predatory smile slid into place. “You’re so much easier to catch now, Vicereine. What are you doing here so late at night?”
Oh gods, could it get any worse? By tomorrow, everyone in Pittsburgh could know that Tinker was taking DNA samples.
Pony drew his ejae, his face set to a cold warrior death mask. Taking their cue from her First, the others drew their swords.
Yes, it could get worse. Tinker couldn’t lie in front of the sekasha. If she told Chloe about the DNA scans, her Hand would probably kill the reporter to keep her from spreading the information. Time to dance on the razor-sharp edge of truth.
“Several children of the Stone Clan were killed by oni.” Tinker frantically signed hold in blade talk. “Their bodies were brought here by mistake. Well, not really a mistake, but elves see storing the dead like this as a torture to the soul. I need to find someone that can cremate the children so their souls are released from their bodies — tonight, if possible.”