Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

I knew what he was asking without the words. “Not this time.”

“Then what’s the rush?”

“That’s what I want you to tell me. Am I nuts or is something weird going on?”

“Better be more specific.”

Quickly I told him about the strange increase in mortality since the Thunder Moon.

“No wolves?”

I hesitated, then decided to keep Granny to myself. She wasn’t relevant.

“Not this time,” I repeated. “No wounds on the body. No visible signs of death.”

“You’re pushing it, Grace.”

“Humor me.”

“You’re the sheriff.” He headed for the embalming room.

The place smelled of chemicals that I really didn’t want to put a name to. Everything was sparkling clean, though I didn’t see the point of sanitization for the dead. Grant had decamped after leaving the shrouded body next to a stainless-steel table covered with instruments and bowls, a scale, and a saw.

“You going to watch?” Doc Bill washed his hands and put on a gown, cap, gloves, and paper boots.

I nodded.

“You’ll need to gown up. Don’t want any of your hair or skin cells finding their way into a specimen.”

I did as he asked, then stood as far away as I could get and still see.

Doc Bill drew back the shroud, revealing a marble-pale Abraham Nesersheim. I started at the expression on his face, which was very similar to the one I’d observed on Ms. G. after her death.

“Is that common?” I asked.

Doc, who’d been scribbling on a clipboard, paused. “Is what common?”

“He seems frightened to death.”

Doc Bill tilted his head, contemplated Abraham. “Not common, no. But not necessarily unusual.”

He returned to work. Since there was no convenient X-ray machine at the morgue, he skipped that step and moved on to describing the outer appearance of the victim, then weighing the body. Next, Doc sliced Abraham’s chest open with what I knew to be a solid-silver scalpel. If Abraham were a werewolf, we’d already know about it.

But nothing happened. No smoke, no flames, no explosion. No shouts, no screams, no getting up and running off. Abraham was definitely dead.

Doc Bill worked with painstaking efficiency. As he did, he spoke of his findings into a tiny mike he’d pinned to his collar.

The smell of chemicals had just begun to make me light-headed when Doc froze, making a strangled, garbled sound of surprise.

I stepped forward, hand already on my gun, expecting Abraham to sit up, despite the hole in his chest, grab Doc Bill, and snap his neck like a twig. However, the corpse lay there, as a good corpse should.

“What is it?” I drew my gun. No point in being unprepared.

“Impossible,” Doc managed, his voice hoarse and thin.

“What’s impossible?”

His hand shook as he directed my attention to the chest cavity.