Back to New York

[djinnofthesea]

"Thank you for your help, sheriff. I need to get this back to my people, now." Omar patted a plastic tub that he'd been given. It was decidedly smaller than he'd hoped for, but it couldn't be helped. He supposed he should feel lucky that he got as much back as he did, considering the condition he'd found the bodies in. The explosion that killed the demons that the Phoenician ran into had also destroyed the bodies, leaving a mixed up, charred mess. He'd salvaged the most likely pieces to be identified.

Truthfully, though, he felt cheated. The first promise in a long time of a decent meal, and the fool had to get himself blown up around demons. He could still just eat the meat and see what happened. He'd done it before. However, he highly doubted anyone in New York wanted to deal with him when he was sick, hallucinating, and lashing out at demons only he could see. The backlash from consuming demonic flesh struck him as something that would cause all kinds of migraines for corporate.

A method of analysis was in order, then. Fortunately, he had an idea of one he could use that was in-house. He brushed at his bare shoulder. Blood caked his shirt and his upper body. Fresh, it stirred his hunger. Old, dried, and stale, it just annoyed him. A bath, maybe, before he headed to the Labyrinth. Or he could just change as he transported himself there. His phone beeped in his pocket and he checked the message. Peace was waiting. No bath, then.

"That's what I was waiting on. Good bye, sheriff. Thank you." He gave her a bow of his head, then headed out of the police station. As he headed into the woods and zombies looked up, testing his scent, just different enough from a human's to give them pause, he disappeared...

...And reappeared in the middle of the lobby of the Labyrinth. He still clutched the plastic tub, but the mess on him was gone, his camouflage exchanged for a neat white suit edged with glowing blue lightning. He let his hair out of its ponytail and ran his fingers through it to straighten it, then headed towards the morgue. Some agents gave him a nod or a greeting, but most kept their distance, sometimes crossing to the other side of the hallway from him. The djinni was something dangerous, something valuable to Geary, was all any of the normal agents really knew. Of course, the handlers had access to more. Geary to more still.

With the body parts safely stowed in the cold, he sat down at a desk in the autopsy room and took out his phone again, tapping out a message, then opening up a game to play. Angry Birds was, perhaps, one of the more annoyingly addictive games he'd played.

Comments

[pace_tua]

Peace had gotten the message while actually at home for once. Miklos must have done some string pulling, because aside from a couple of boring cases after the Bucket of People fiasco, she had not a whole lot to do that wasn't lying around catching up on her Netflix queue and texting Vimes and Calen (still not sure what to think about Anna's shiftyness, but that was for another department to look into).

She was glad the weather would be turning soon - it was a bit conspicuous to walk around New York in the end of summer, still dressed in long sleeves and gloves. The walk down to the morgue made it better, though, and it paid to be dressed warmly when the morgue was kept at a balmy 36 degrees sometimes.

Peace looked around for a moment, and when she turned the corner, she spotted him. "Are you the Omar person, or...?"

[djinnofthesea]

He had, at least, been in the United States long enough and developed a healthy enough fear of Kirsten Geary to not be too dismayed when Peace entered alone. He tucked his phone back into a jacket pocket and stood. A lifetime of habit not ever really broken in the Labyrinth kept him from offering a hand in greeting, though. He just nodded and moved to retrieve the plastic container. "Yes. Thank you for coming on such short notice. I didn't think even Phoenicians were stupid enough to prefer demons over capture."

The plastic tub was one of those mid-size clear plastic affairs usually sold at Walmart and other fine discount dealers to disorganized forty-something ladies. It even had "Sewing Supplies" written neatly on its lid. He set the tub down on one of the gurneys and then pulled on a pair of plastic gloves before opening the lid. "Fair warning, it isn't pretty. He had an explosive of some kind on him, and an arc from the lightning I used to kill the demons set it off. There wasn't much left that wasn't a useless charred mess."

And then the lid was removed and there were the remains. Four distinct bits, looking more like charred hamburger than human flesh. Most crossed with delicately patterned electrical burns in addition to the more familiar explosive burns. Bits of bone stuck out, but nothing that would give any clue whether the original body was human or demon.

"Demon flesh would be...unusable for me. I'm hoping you might be able to help."

[pace_tua]

Peace took her gloves off and rubbed her face. She was pale as milk under the best of circumstances, but she was starting to flag finally. Coffee, it seemed, only worked so long. Maybe she’d go nap in Mika’s office after this. Certainly the cryptologist wouldn’t mind. “Demonflesh?” she asked and furrowed her brow. “I’ve never… um, never had to deal with that? But okay.”

Boy, she hoped it was all 100% Grade-A human. Sometimes things like that got a little muzzy when one added in creatures that weren’t , and Peace was sure she didn’t have the vocal ability to even create the noises in the demonic tongue. At least, she hadn’t tried in a long while. “Alright, um. I’ll just start then. Make sure you have things set to record because it just makes it easier to dig through faster later without, you know, me having to touch things over and over.”

Mmm, a nap would be so good after this, it really would. She approached the table and the body parts, picked a rather large piece that might have been part of an arm, or maybe a thigh – it was difficult to tell, and murmured to herself.

” Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision.” It was hard to tell how much of her belief she put into it, but the prayer was more to help the often fidgety woman find her balance.

She put her little hand against the burnt, charred skin and hoped it was a human under her fingertips.

[djinnofthesea]

Omar's eyes narrowed. He could only hear bits and pieces of the prayer, but it made his skin itch. No matter the front he put on, the divine wasn't too keen on his kind. Neither were the devout, usually. The United States had offered him a place to at least relax a bit from the constant charade of piety. Frowning, he took his cellphone out of his pocket and brought up the camera to record.

The flesh under her hand had been human until recently, perhaps as little as an hour or two ago. But a seeping corruption was well into it by now, a corruption made possible by the walking dead and the demons on Solomon Island. Had the body remained intact, it might have risen, or even grown into one of the hulking monstrosities on the island. As it was, it twitched a bit under her hand, then remained still. In life, it belonged to a Phoenician agent, a native of Boston who'd sailed in the Navy before her more unusual talents manifested. She had an explosive temper to match the bombs she'd carried, and death likely wouldn't have changed her much. She also knew what chased her into the pack of demons wasn't human, had never been human. And he was dangerous.

If Peace moved her hand to a piece to the left, though, she'd encounter a piece of a demon. Fortunately, it was the only demonic flesh in the box. The demon regarded Omar as similar, but not quite kin. It had been attacked while trying to kill the Phoenician, not Omar. Ending up in pieces was a little disorienting, to say the least. Which Peace probably wouldn't be able to do, considering the demon's native language wasn't even really adaptable to human languages.

Omar said softly, dryly, "Last time I tried to make do without checking whether I had demon or human flesh, I ended up locked in the Test Cell hallucinating ugly, hulking beasts and succubi attacking me. I'm told they still haven't quite gotten some of the electrical work redone in there."

[pace_tua]

"We all have our drawbacks, I guess," Peace mumbled as she put her fingers to the hand and felt herself slip away while she watched the life of the woman spin back and forth before her. A youtube video at mach speed, slowing down for important things, speeding up where it didn't matter.

Her voice dropped an octave, closer to the huskier voice of the woman's. And many, many others. "Fuckin' fucker," she cursed fluidly. "Wasn't supposed to be any of team blue here, but what the fuck do I know? Fuck me, fuck him. Fuck. Gotta make it to the rendezvous point. Make it there, and I'm golden. Can't believe he took out my whole team like that. Fuck what the fuck was he thinking? I am riddled with explosives. Shit, I've gotta go back for the package, or they're gonna have my ass in a sling. Okay.

"Okay, I can do this. Just gotta cut across that field and back, stay low. He'll run past me if I am smart and careful." Peace grunted as she spoke. "Gonna run, gotta run..." She winced. In the vision, the Phoenician looked back and could see electricity, not in the air before, strike down too close for comfort. "If I run to the hotel, he's not gonna get me, but if I'm too slow, the demons will. God, get me through this one and I'll pray every night for a month." Peace's voice lightened, "Your quarry made a phone call. Your quarry ran. You pursued. They know you're not a human, and they're frightened. I smell ozone. Is it you?"

There was a surprisingly little girllike quality to her voice as she continued, hand on the burnt piece of flesh, pupils so wide and black that her irises were two thin, barely perceptible rings of palest blue. Her voice dropped back into that lowered octave. "I'm so tired of this place," she complained. "Duck into a hotel room, wait for back up, hope the monsters outside don't come knock--"

In her mind, she saw what happened, the demons that rounded the corner, the heavy blue breasts of one swaying as she sent the raksha to round up their meal. And then heat and horror and a single word, God...! Peace's tiny body trembled as she let go, and fought her way back up to the surface of her consciousness. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned back into her chair.

"That's all I can see for now, I'll have to go back a little more, I think, if you want more information about him. "He was in the navy, though. I saw that. From some city... Boston? Accented. Angry, so angry." She huffed. It would take her some time to pull out all of the information she needed from him. "Temperamental. Dumb. Who wears explosives anymore?"