I scowled as I made the turn into Cory’s subdivision—which was definitely not anything resembling an armed and organized enclave. For every occupied house, seven stood empty, with broken windows and overgrown lawns. Except on one street where there were six houses in a row that had the front lawns tilled under and turned into a vegetable garden. As I slowed to admire the work involved, I spied a shirtless man with a hoe in one hand and shotgun in the other. He stood by a row of beans, eyes hard on my vehicle, and caution in his stance. I lifted a hand. He responded with a slight nod but continued to watch the Humvee until I turned the corner. He’d most likely taken over the yards of his neighbors who’d left. Or maybe he’d never lived here at all, but at least he was doing something productive and positive. More power to him.
Cory lived on a side street of ten houses, of which all but his and the one across the street were abandoned. I pulled into the driveway, pleased to see that wards still shimmered all over his house and several feet around it. After Cory came home from the hospital—and without his knowledge—Pellini and I had carefully crafted protections to discourage looters or anyone else who might wish Cory or his belongings harm. With his less-than-welcoming attitude toward anything even remotely weird, it was better for all involved that he remained unaware that we’d covered his house in magic woowoo.
I opened Cory’s front door and stepped in. “Hey, Cor—”
That was as far as I got before a godawful stench of Pine-Sol, barf, and decaying roses smacked me in the face. Eyes watering, I stumbled back outside then retreated farther as a cloud of fumes followed me. By the time I made it to the lawn, the stench dissipated enough to let me draw a somewhat clean breath, and I did so while I frowned at the open door. I’d been to plenty of crime scenes that had far worse odors. Hell, the bathroom after Pellini had been in there was nastier. But this stink had a special quality that went beyond the assault on my nasal passages. This made me want to get in my car and drive away. It felt almost like an aversion ward, though more subtle.
I’m imagining things. Or I’m dizzy from the fumes. I allowed myself a few more non-toxic breaths, then ducked inside. “Cory? Knock knock.” I rubbed my arms against the chill of the air conditioning. The smell didn’t seem quite as awful now. Maybe I was acclimating.
“Bedroom,” he called out, voice hoarse.
Breathing shallowly, I made my way through the living room: a man cave of brown and khaki with a weak attempt at a color splurge in the form of dull olive sofa pillows. I’d known Cory long enough to be certain the man didn’t own a single item or article of clothing that wasn’t some shade of drab. I was tempted to scandalize him with a bright red office chair for his birthday.
His ham radio setup occupied the far corner—a tidy sprawl of transceivers, amplifiers, and a couple of computers, with a beat-up rolling stool shoved under the desk. An exercise mat and resistance bands lay neatly rolled by the coffee table, and there wasn’t a cigarette or ashtray in sight. In many ways, Cory had never been healthier. He’d quit smoking and started eating more fruits and vegetables, and a week ago he’d proudly shown off by doing a dozen tricep dips between two chairs.
As I passed the bathroom, I discovered the primary source of the stench. An open gallon jug of Pine-Sol sat on the counter, and a scrunched towel by the toilet half-covered a failed effort to clean up a pool of vomit. I winced in sympathy—and held my breath—as I found and replaced the cap for the Pine-Sol. I’d take care of the mess once I checked on him.
Though the eye-watering fumes abated in the bedroom, the weirdly familiar decaying rose stink hung thick in the air, despite the complete lack of plants or old floral arrangements. Puzzled, I tried to place where I’d smelled this before, but the wisp of scent-triggered memory slipped away.
Cory lay on the bed with the stump of his right thigh on a towel and a cell phone in hand. His face had a sickly grey cast made more ominous by beads of sweat. He gave me a half-hearted smile. “Nausea seems to have settled, but now I have these awful muscle cramps all over. Must be the flu.”
“This is why I’m not keen on you living here alone,” I said, glowering. “What if you’d fallen in the bathroom? I know you want to stay here, but most of the neighborhood has evacuated, and your sister in Kentucky is willing to—”
“Take me in and micromanage my life. No thank you.” He waggled the phone. “This nifty little invention does me just dandy. Got you over here, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. This time.”
“I have everything under control,” he said. “Plus, I have to man the emergency radio.”
It was clear I wouldn’t win this fight, especially since he had a point about the radio. Ham radio operators worldwide had stepped up to provide a much-needed emergency information relay service that was far more reliable than most cell phones. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop worrying about you.” I smiled. “Humor me and call your doc, just in case.”
“Seriously. I’m feeling better.”
“Right, Sarge.” I folded my arms and pursed my lips. “That’s why you’re pouring sweat even though the thermostat is set to ‘igloo’. Call your doctor. Now.”
“Anyone ever tell you your bedside manner sucks?” He scrolled through contacts on his phone.
“Every day.” I moved to the bed to tweak the bedspread straight, breath catching as the aversion superpower of the smell reasserted itself. My stomach roiled, and I had to actively suppress the unnatural desire to leave. No doubt about it now. It was arcane. I sought the source, but all I could see were flickers of potency that teased the edges of my vision. No sign of wards, aversion or otherwise. The arcane—and the rotting-rose stink—radiated from Cory.
“Hold off on calling the doc for a minute, okay?” I said, nice and calm. “I need to check something out.”
Cory eyed me with suspicion. “What’s wrong?”
“Well . . .” I suppressed a wince. “Conventional medicine might not be what you need.”
His eyes widened in alarm, which didn’t surprise me. When I was a detective, he’d grudgingly accepted that I dabbled in the weird and woowoo—even helped me out a time or two. However, the subject clearly made him uncomfortable, and he’d done his best to avoid direct conversation about it. “What sort of unconventional medicine do I need? Please tell me you mean something like acupuncture.”
“Nah, no needles.” I paused. “Pellini.”
Cory blinked. “Pellini?” He’d disliked Pellini damn near as much as I had and considered him to be little more than an inept fuckup. My eyes narrowed as a faint glow of arcane shimmered over Cory’s body like wind over wheat. He cleared his throat. “I know he’s been working with you . . . but that doesn’t mean he . . . Pellini?”
I suppressed a grin and instead gave Cory a reassuring smile. “Yep. Good ol’ Vince is a card-carrying member of the weirdo club now. He never set the world on fire with amazing police work, but when it comes to the arcane, I trust him. Plus, I don’t have enough arcane juju to find the source of the problem, so I need him.”
Corey groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. I can’t make this shit up.” I shot Pellini a quick text.
His reply came a few seconds later:
“Kara,” Cory slurred. “I don’t feel so great.”
I jerked my attention back to him then had to clamp down on a gasp of dismay. Where only a moment before there’d been sweat, luminescent red slime glistened on his face and oozed from his pores, plastering his t-shirt to his chest. “Oh fuck,” I breathed. “I mean . . . um, just relax, Cory. Pellini’s on his way, and we’ll get you straightened out.” As I spoke, the smell shifted to a weird hybrid of spice and burned hair. Arcane disease? If there was such a thing, it could possibly be contagious. I needed to quaran—
Cory grabbed my wrist.
I instinctively recoiled, but he held fast. His eyes went wide. “Kara . . . I can’t . . . what’s happening to . . .”
“Cory, focus!” I wrenched free then retreated a step for good measure. “Do you have any gloves?”
His breath wheezed. “Bathroom.”
“Hang tight!” I ran for the bathroom. I wanted gloves between me and that ooze, but even more than that, I needed to be away. Angry fingermarks were the only sign that he’d grabbed me, but I cranked on the hot water and scrubbed the hell out of my wrist anyway. The towel lay crumpled over puke, so I dried my hands as much as possible on my shirt. “Just one more minute, Cory,” I called out.
I clawed an emergency kit out from under the sink and yanked on a pair of nitrile gloves. Or rather, one and a half gloves. My damp left hand got stuck part way in, giving me more of a nitrile mitten effect. I doubted that the gloves would be much protection against arcane slime, but it felt better than doing nothing. I shoved a pair in my pocket for Pellini, dug for a filter mask with no luck, then dashed to the bedroom. “Sorry. Just a precau—”
Cory stared blankly, head lolling to the side. Red covered every inch of him, giving the illusion he’d been flayed—except that the slime undulated like a living thing. I couldn’t even tell whether or not he was breathing.
“Cory!” No response. I felt for a pulse, relieved to find it strong and steady. But what the hell was happening with him?
His body jerked, and he gasped a rattling breath. “Kara, nine one one . . . Kara . . . don’t let me . . .” Gurgling drowned his words as slime filled his mouth.
Crisis training kicked in. Get him on his side. Clear his airway. Call the paramedics.
“Stay with me, Cory,” I ordered. “You’re going to be okay.” I gripped his shoulder and hip to roll him, and the slime writhed, hot and viscous beneath my gloves. An electric vibration shot up my arms, distracting me long enough for the mucus to surge, congeal, and lock itself around my hands.
“Shit!” I tried to yank free, but I might as well have been trapped in cement for all the good it did me. My right hand wouldn’t budge from his shoulder at all, however the one on his hip gave a little, thanks to being only partially in the glove.
Without warning, Cory swung his fist toward my head. I jerked back enough for the blow to glance off my temple. “Stop fighting! I’m trying to help you.” Before I could reposition, his other fist shot out and caught me square in the ribs.
I oofed out a breath and wrenched my hand out of the glove, barely in time to twist away from another head shot and catch his wrist. Slime-gel still sealed my other hand to his shoulder, but I managed to wrestle his arm above his head and pin it to the bed. At least whatever the fuck was screwing with him hadn’t made him super strong.
But now what? With one hand trapped and the other holding his arm down, I was in the worst game of Superglue Twister ever.
Eyes wide, Cory thrashed wildly and let out an inhuman roar. Impossible, considering his mouth and nose were completely filled with yuck, but though the sound remained physically inaudible, it bombarded my brain from the inside out like a telepathic grenade.
Breathing hard, I mentally traced the pygah sigil for focus and managed to clear my mind. “Back off, alien slime shit,” I growled, teeth bared. “Get out of my head and stay out!”
As if in reaction to the rebuff, Cory relaxed and his eyes fluttered closed.
“Yeah, damn straight,” I said, voice quavering, then regrouped and reassessed. I’d fended off the mental crap, but I remained stuck. And Cory wasn’t breathing. “Cory?!”
No response, but the slow, steady beat of his pulse under my fingers gave me a whisper of reassurance. Not breathing—but not dead. I’ll take it. The slime still held me fast, but the consistency had shifted to more like a rubbery gel with a bit of give to it.
Pellini skidded into the room. “What the—! Jesus! How long until EMS gets here?”
“I haven’t called anyone yet,” I snapped. “Maybe you could give me a hand here? I’m stuck. Gloves are in my side pocket.”
Pellini took in the bizarre situation: Cory covered in a thick layer of red glowing gel and me sprawled half on top of him. A lesser man would have walked right back out. But not Pellini. The picture of calm, he retrieved the gloves from my pocket and tugged them on. “How are his vitals?”
“Heart rate sixtyish. Respirations zero. Gel from hell. Now please help me get loose.”
Pellini gave a slow nod as he peered at my trapped hands. “I’ll call dispatch as soon as you’re—”
“No! What could they do? It’s not like he ate a bad tuna sandwich or jabbed a screwdriver in his eye! He’ll end up in a bureaucratic nightmare with people who have no clue what to do with this shit.”
“And you do?” Pellini moved to the other side of the bed.
I glared at him. “Better than anyone else would.”
He leaned forward to examine Cory, and I bit down on my lip to keep from shouting at him to hurry. His way of seeing the arcane was different than mine and, I hoped in this case, better.
“The slime-gel is all one piece,” Pellini finally said. “A full-body mucus wetsuit. Both physical and arcane.”
“I figured that much out when it grabbed me,” I muttered. “Is there an origin point or source? Somewhere it’s more concentrated?”
“Uh huh. Damn.” He peered closer. “It’s like someone shoved a radioactive arcane pool ball in his gut.”
“A tumor?” That fit the arcane disease theory.
Pellini gave me a hell-if-I-know shrug. “It’s solid. Dense. And spitting out god knows what.”
With Pellini’s guidance, I located the tumor with my othersight, felt it as a low level ache behind my eyes. And, surprise surprise, it carried the same resonance as the brain roar. “Okay, first order of business is to get me free of this crap. Can you lay a few Pellini-pygahs around it? Maybe if this thing chills out a bit it’ll loosen its hold.”
Pellini moved his hands in simple patterns over Cory. “And if it doesn’t?”
“Jeez, nice positive attitude. It’ll work.” The ache behind my eyes wavered as Pellini wove his sigils. I retraced my mental pygah and envisioned the tumor swaddled in a blanket of serenity. Everything’s cool, I thought to it. Nothing to worry about. After a moment, the hell gel softened enough for me to wiggle my fingers, but I resisted the temptation to jerk away. Before, pulling had only made it tighten its grip like a Chinese finger trap.
The gel softened a bit more. “That’s it, you vile little lump,” I murmured. “Keep it up and you’ll move off Santa’s naughty list in no time.”
Pellini added another sigil, and the ache behind my eyes dulled a notch. I eased out, millimeter by millimeter. The instant my knuckles cleared the gel, I yanked my hands free then shook them hard. “It worked.”
“That’s why you make the big bucks,” Pellini said, gaze still on Cory.
I flexed my fingers. My hands looked sunburned—including the palms—but seemed fine otherwise. The ache behind my eyes surged to its former strength as Pellini’s sigils faded. Grimacing, I rubbed at my temples. “What do we do with Timmy the Tumor now?”
“It’s physical,” Pellini said, forehead creased. “A surgeon could cut it out of him. Nip it in the bud.” Uncertainty colored his tone.
“Or possibly kill him outright.” Instinct screamed that cutting into him was wrong. “No. We don’t know anything about this except that it definitely has an arcane component. How’s a surgeon supposed to deal with that? We can’t risk it.”
“What’s your alternative?”
“Get him to the house. To the nexus.” My hope was that the arcane focal point in my back yard would allow me to delve deeper into what was going on with Cory and give me the info I needed to sort this out. “Timmy’s resonance reminds me of the arcane implants demonic lords stick in people for track
ing or surveillance.” I blew out a breath. “Except those aren’t physical.”
Pellini folded his arms over his chest and regarded me. “In other words, you got nothing.”
“Well pardon me for not being the font of all arcane knowledge,” I shot back, stung. “We need a lord’s expertise, but unfortunately, with the world completely fucked up, I have no way to summon one.”
His expression darkened. “You don’t need to summon one. Rhyzkahl is right in your—”
“No! I’m not using Rhyzkahl as any kind of resource. That’s not an option.” I took a deep breath. “We’ll get Cory to the house,” I continued in a calmer tone, “and I’ll assess from there—without Rhyzkahl.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but snapped it closed as Cory let out a low chuckle. My pulse lurched at the eerie sound. Pellini breathed a curse and shifted away from the bed.
“House,” Cory said, voice slurred. “Why are we going to your house?” Though his mouth was free of slime, the red gel shimmered creepily above his soft, peaceful smile.
“Oh, hey, Cory,” I said, doing my damndest to sound calm. “I have a diagnostic tool there that’ll let me see what’s going on with you.”
“Everything’s A-okay, Kara girl,” he sing-songed. “Never better, Kara girl Kara girl Kara girl. Pretty pretty colors around Kara girl. Blue . . . purple . . . pink . . . greeeeeeeen . . .” He trailed off, and the gel closed over his mouth again.
Pellini shuddered. “Jesus Christ, I’ve got the fucking willies now. Let’s move.”
“I’m with you. I don’t want to risk touching him again, so that bedspread is coming with us. If you can back your truck into the garage, we can load him up without the neighbors freaking.”
“On it,” he said and was gone.
I kept a wary eye on Cory while I made a call to security at the house, letting them know they needed to prep a quarantine area.