Dead Beat (The Dresden Files 7)

"That's what they pay security to do," I said. "Don't let it rattle you."

Butters nodded, looking around the examination room. He walked over to his polka suit, still piled in the corner. "At least they didn't wreck this," he said. Then he let out a short laugh. "Man. Are my priorities skewed or what?"

"Everyone has something they love," I said.

He nodded. "Okay. So what do we do now?"

"First things first," I said. "Can you get a look at Bartlesby's corpse?"

Butters nodded and walked over to his computer. I backed up and stood against the wall.

Butters started the thing up and spent a minute or two waggling a mouse and stabbing at keys with his forefinger. Then he whistled. "Wow. Bartlesby's body got here about an hour ago, and it's been nagged for immediate examination. Brioche is doing it."

"Is that unusual?" I asked.

He nodded. "It means someone really wants to know about the victim. Someone in government or law enforcement, maybe." He wrinkled up his nose. "Plus it was pretty horrific. Brioche will get some press out of it. Of course he took this one for himself."

"Can you get to it?" I asked.

Butters frowned and tapped a few more keys. Then he looked up at the clock. "Maybe. Brioche is working in room one right now, but he's got to be almost finished with whatever he's doing. Bartlesby's corpse is in room two. If I hurry..." He stood up and scurried for the door. "Wait here."

"You sure?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Someone really would get suspicious if they saw you roaming around. If I need you I'll give you a signal."

"What signal?"

"I'll imitate the scream of a terrified little girl," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. He headed out the door. "Back in a minute."

Butters wasn't gone long, and he slipped back into the room before five minutes had passed. He looked a little shaky.

"You all right?" I asked.

He nodded. "Couldn't stay there for long. I heard Brioche come out of room one."

"You see the body?"

"Yeah," Butters said with a shudder. "It was already stripped and laid out. Bad stuff, Harry. He had thirty or forty stab wounds in his upper thorax. Someone carved his face up, too. His nose, ears, eyelids, and lips were in a sandwich Baggie next to his head." He took a deep breath. "Someone had sliced off the quadriceps on both legs. They were missing. And he'd been eviscerated."

I frowned. "How?"

"A big X- shaped cut across his abdomen. Then they peeled him open like a Chinese take-out box. He was missing his stomach and most of his intestines. There might have been other organs gone, too."

"Ick," I said.

"Extremely."

"Could you see anything else?"

"No. Even if I'd wanted to, there wasn't time for more than a quick look." He walked over to a rolling stand of medical instruments. "Why would someone do that to him? What possible purpose could it have served?"

"Maybe some kind of ritual," I said. "You've seen that before."

Butters nodded. He went through the motions of pulling on an apron, mask, gloves, cap-the works. "I still don't get it. You know?"

I did know. Butters didn't have it in him to comprehend the kind of violence, hatred, and bloodlust that had fallen upon the late Bartlesby. That kind of utter disregard for the sanctity of life simply didn't exist in his personal world, and it left him at a total loss when confronted with it face-to-face.

"Or," I said, a thought occurring to me, "it might have been something else. Anthropomancy."

He walked over to one of the freezers and cracked it open. "What's that?"

"An attempt to divine the future or gain information by reading human entrails."

Butters turned to me slowly, his face sickened. "You're kidding."

I shook my head. "It's possible."

"Does it work?" he asked.

"It's extremely powerful and dangerous magic," I answered. "Anyone who does it has to kill someone and gets an immediate death sentence if the Council learns of it. If it didn't work, no one would bother."

Butters's mouth hardened into a firm line. "That's... really wrong." He frowned over the sentence and then nodded. "Wrong."

"I agree."

He turned back to the freezer, checked a toe tag, and then hauled a rolling exam table over to it. "This might take me a little while," he said. "An hour and a half, maybe more."

"You want a hand with that?" I asked. I hoped he didn't.

Butters, bless him, shook his head. He walked over to his desk and flicked on his CD player. Polka music filled the room. "I'd really rather do this alone."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Just listen for a girlie scream," he said. "Can you wait for me up front?"

I nodded, leaned my staff in the corner, and left him in the room. He locked the door behind me, and I wandered up to sit down in the waiting area near the front doors. I took a chair that put the wall to my back, and where I could see Casey's video monitor, the front door, and the door leading back to the examination rooms.

I leaned my head back against the wall with my eyes mostly closed and waited. Over the next hour one doctor came in and another left. The mailman showed up with the day's deliveries, as did the UPS truck. An ambulance arrived with the cadaver of an old woman that Casey rolled away, presumably into storage.

Then a young couple came in. The girl was about five-six and pleasantly pretty, even without much in the way of makeup. She was dressed in sandals, a simple blue sundress, and a wool jacket. Her hair was cut into a bob full of unruly brown curls, and her eyes were bloodshot with fatigue. The young man wore a simple, well-cut business suit. He was a little under six feet tall, had Asian features, wire-rimmed glasses, wide shoulders, and wore his hair in a long ponytail.

I recognized them: Alicia Nelson and Li Xian, from the picture on the cover of the newsletter Rawlins had given me. Dr. Bartlesby's missing assistants had come to the morgue.

I remained very still, and tried to think thoughts that would make me blend in with the wall. They walked to the security desk and stood so close to me that I didn't need to bother with Listening to them.

"Good morning," Alicia said, producing a driver's license and showing it to Casey. "My name is Alicia Nelson. I'm the late Dr. Bartlesby's assistant. I understand that his remains have been brought here."