Storm Front

Except that the lovers’ rib cages on the upper left side of their torsos had expanded outward, through their skin, the ribs jabbing out like ragged, snapped knives. Arterial blood had sprayed out of their bodies, all the way to the mirror on the ceiling, along with pulped, gelatinous masses of flesh that had to be what remained of their hearts. Standing over them, I could see into the upper cavity of the bodies, I noted the now greyish lining around the motionless left lungs and the edges of the ribs, which apparently were forced outward and snapped by some force within.

It definitely cut down on the erotic potential.

The bed was in the middle of the room, giving it a subtle emphasis. The bedroom followed the decor of the sitting room – a lot of red, a lot of plush fabrics, a little over the top unless viewed in candlelight. There were indeed candles in holders on the wall, now burned down to the nubs and extinguished.

I stepped closer to the bed and walked around it. The carpet squelched as I did. The little screaming part of my brain, safely locked up behind doors of self-control and strict training, continued gibbering. I tried to ignore it. Really I did. But if I didn’t get out of that room in a hurry, I was going to start crying like a little girl.

So I took in the details fast. The woman was in her twenties, in fabulous condition. At least I thought she had been. It was hard to tell. She had hair the color of chestnuts, cut in a pageboy style, and it seemed dyed to me. Her eyes were only partly open, and I couldn’t quite guess at their color beyond not-dark. Vaguely green?

The man was probably in his forties, and had the kind of fitness that comes from a lifetime of conditioning. There was a tattoo on his right bicep, a winged dagger, that the pull of the satin sheets half concealed. There were scars on his knuckles, layers deep, and across his lower abdomen was a vicious, narrow, puckered scar that I guessed must have come from a knife wound.

There were discarded clothes around – a tux for him, a little sheath of a black dress and a pair of pumps for her. There were a pair of overnight bags, unopened and set neatly aside, probably by a porter.

I looked up. Carmichael and Murphy were watching me in silence.

I shrugged at them.

"Well?" Murphy demanded. "Are we dealing with magic here, or aren’t we?"

"Either that or it was really incredible sex," I told her.

Carmichael snorted.

I laughed a little, too – and that was all the screaming part of my brain needed to slam open the doors I’d shut on it. My stomach revolted and heaved, and I lurched out of the room. Carmichael, true to his word, had set a stainless-steel bucket outside the room, and I fell to my knees throwing up.

It only took me a few seconds to control myself again – but I didn’t want to go back in that room. I didn’t need to see what was there anymore. I didn’t want to see the two dead people, whose hearts had literally exploded out of their chests.

And someone had used magic to do it. They had used magic to wreak harm on another, violating the First Law. The White Council was going to go into collective apoplexy. This hadn’t been the act of a malign spirit or a malicious entity, or the attack of one of the many creatures of the Nevernever, like vampires or trolls. This had been the premeditated, deliberate act of a sorcerer, a wizard, a human being able to tap into the fundamental energies of creation and life itself.

It was worse than murder. It was twisted, wretched perversion, as though someone had bludgeoned another person to death with a Botticelli, turned something of beauty to an act of utter destruction.

If you’ve never touched it, it’s hard to explain. Magic is created by life, and most of all by the awareness, intelligence, emotions of a human being. To end such a life with the same magic that was born from it was hideous, almost incestuous somehow.

I sat up again and was breathing hard, shaking and tasting the bile in my mouth, when Murphy came back out of the room with Carmichael.

"All right, Harry," Murphy said. "Let’s have it. What do you see happening here?"

I took a moment to collect my thoughts before answering. "They came in. They had some champagne. They danced for a while, made out, over there by the stereo. Then went into the bedroom. They were in there for less than an hour. It hit them when they were getting to the high point."

"Less than an hour," Carmichael said. "How do you figure?"

"CD was only an hour and ten long. Figure a few minutes for dancing and drinking, and then they’re in the room. Was the CD playing when they found them?"

"No," Murphy said.

"Then it hadn’t been set on a loop. I figure they wanted music, just to make things perfect, given the room and all."

Carmichael grunted, sourly. "Nothing we hadn’t already figured out for ourselves," he said to Murphy. "He’d better come up with more than this."

Murphy shot Carmichael a look that said "shut up," then said, softly, "I need more, Harry."

I ran one of my hands back over my hair. "There’s only two ways anyone could have managed this. The first is by evocation. Evocation is the most direct, spectacular, and noisy form of expressed magic, or sorcery. Explosions, fire, that sort of thing. But I doubt it was an evocator who did this."

"Why?" Murphy demanded. I heard her pencil scritching on the notepad she always kept with her.

"Because you have to be able to see or touch where you want your effect to go," I told her. "Line of sight only. The man or woman would have had to be there in the room with them. Tough to hide forensic evidence with something like that, and anyone who was skilled enough to pull off a spell like that would have had the sense to use a gun instead. It’s easier."

"What’s the other option?" Murphy asked.

"Thaumaturgy," I said. "As above, so below. Make something happen on a small scale, and give it the energy to happen on a large scale."

Carmichael snorted. "What bullshit."

Murphy’s voice sounded skeptical. "How would that work, Harry? Could it be done from somewhere else?"

I nodded. "The killer would need to have something to connect him or her to the victims. Hair, fingernails, blood samples. That sort of thing."

"Like a voodoo doll?"

"Exactly the same thing, yes."

"There’s fresh dye in the woman’s hair," Murphy said,

I nodded. "Maybe if you can find out where she got her hair styled, you could find something out. I don’t know."

"Is there anything else you could tell me that would be of use?"

"Yes. The killer knew the victims. And I’m thinking it was a woman."