Chapters (48)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- The Undead Pool: An Excerpt
- Chapter 2
- About the Author
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Credits
- About the Publisher
David shook his head. “Give me what?”
“The focus,” I said, my face wrinkled in pity. “I think…it turned your girlfriends.”
His face went ashen, and he put a hand to the counter. “Where are they?” he breathed.
I swallowed hard. “The city morgue.”
NINE
Two trips to the morgue in as many days, I thought, hoping I wasn’t starting a pattern. My gardening sneakers were silent on the cement; David’s steps beside and a little behind me were heavy with a deep depression. Kisten was behind him, and the vampire’s obvious unease would have been funny if we weren’t trooping down here to identify three Jane Wolfs.
The focus was in my bag now, silent and quiescent this far from the full moon. It still held the chill from David’s freezer and made a cold spot against me. Experience said that next Monday it would have shifted from a bone statue of a woman’s face to a silver-sheened wolf’s muzzle, dripping saliva and making a high-pitched squeal only pixies could hear. I have to get rid of this thing. Maybe I could use it to pay off one of my demon marks. But if Newt or Al sold it in turn to someone else and it started an Inderland power struggle, I’d feel responsible.
We reached the end of the stairway, and with the two men trailing behind me I turned smartly to the right and followed the arrows to the double doors. “Hi, Iceman,” I said, smacking the left side of the swinging door open and striding in as if I owned the place.
The young man sat up, pulling his feet from his desk. “Ms. Morgan,” he said. “Holy cow, you gave me a start.”
Kisten slunk in after me, eyes darting everywhere. “Come here often?” he asked when the kid behind the desk put down his handheld game and stood.
“All the time,” I quipped, extending my hand to meet Iceman’s grip. “Don’t you?”
“No.”
Iceman’s attention flicked from me to Kisten, finally lingering on David, standing with his hands at his sides. His enthusiasm to see me dimmed as he realized we were here to identify someone. “Oh, uh, hey,” he said, his hand slipping from mine, “it’s great to see you, but I can’t let you in there unless you have someone from the I.S. or the FIB with you.” He winced. “Sorry.”
“Detective Glenn is on his way,” I said, feeling bouncy for some reason. Sure, I was here to identify a corpse or three, but I knew someone Kisten didn’t, and that didn’t happen often.
Relief turned him back into a young kid who should be serving smoothies at the mall, not morgue minding. “Good,” he said. “You’re welcome to sit on a gurney while you wait.”