The stained glass dome above looked even better from inside the building. It depicted the removal of the Sword in the Stone by Arthur, and as beautiful as it was, I wondered how many people here knew exactly what Merlin had done to ensure that Arthur became King. How many lives had been sacrificed. I swallowed my anger. Damn him to hell.
"You okay?"
Sara sat on one of the many leather chairs in the lobby, reading a magazine, which she placed on the glass coffee table in front of her. "You okay?" she asked again as she walked toward me.
"Miles away," I said with a genuine smile.
"I called Sara, and asked if she'd meet us here," Tommy said.
"At the morgue," I pointed out.
"We're not going to dissect anyone, Nate," he said, exasperated. "But if there's anything that you're uncomfortable with, Sara, just walk out. After yesterday, I certainly wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be."
"I'll be fine," Sara said, as the lift doors opened and we all got inside.
Olivia removed a long, thin key from her pocket and inserted it into a panel under the buttons of the above floors. The panel popped open revealing several hidden buttons, L1 to L6. She pressed L5 and the doors closed.
"Are all six levels the morgue?" I asked as the lift began to move down.
Olivia shook her head. "1 through 3 are all rune work and security, 4 to 6 is where the morgue is. Sometimes you want as much distance between the dead and the living as possible."
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the journey was completed in silence.
The lift reached its destination with a slight shudder before the doors slowly opened, revealing a corridor straight out of every hospital in the world. The only remarkable thing about it was that the signs on the walls had arrows that pointed to 'magical dissection' and 'rune removal'. Not something you see in most hospitals.
Olivia led us past several men and women, all of whom were either reading from clipboards or talking to someone else about what was on a clipboard.
We made our way to the far end of a corridor, and Olivia went through one of two doors next to one another without knocking. It led to a wash area, with one long metal sink, taps above, and liquid soap dispensers fastened to the wall. The opposite wall had a glass window that allowed us to look into the room next to us. A bald man sat beside a desk, writing — probably something to go onto another clipboard. I smiled. It wasn't funny, but when surrounded by death, I'll take levity where I can get it.
Behind the bald man were several dozen closed, silver hatches. On a table lay one body, thankfully covered in a dark blue sheet with red symbols etched into it. Sometimes the dead really don't want to stay that way.
Olivia passed each of us some green scrubs and waited until we'd put them on before she opened the door next to the window.
"Doctor Grayson," she said.
The doctor stood and shook Olivia's hand, smiling the whole time. "It's good to see you, Director. Well, sort of, you understand."
"Of course," she introduced Sara and Tommy, but stopped when it came to me. She obviously wasn't sure if I planned on using my real name or not.
"Nathan Garrett," I said with a shake of his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"An outside contractor I assume," Doctor Grayson said. "I hope you can help."
"I'll do my best."
The doctor walked past us to the table. He was short, no taller than five-foot one or two, with a small white goatee which did its best to cover a noticeable scar along one cheek. I'd seen scars like that before. Whatever had done it was sharp, and if experience was any indication, it had probably been deliberate.
"So what do you have for us, Grayson?" Olivia asked.
Doctor Grayson picked up a file and started to read from it. "Female, Caucasian and human. She was twenty-four, her name-"
"Amber Moore," I said.
The doctor glanced up at me. "That's right." He grabbed the side of the sheet and hesitated. "Are you all okay with this?"
Everyone glanced at Sara. "I've already seen her dead, not going to get a lot worse than that."
"That's probably not a theory you'll want to stick with if you stay around here," Doctor Grayson said, and pulled the sheet down to Amber’s waist, exposing her naked and brutalised torso.
"Fucking hell," Tommy whispered when the mass of purple that used to be Amber's ribcage was exposed.
"Yes, this is quite bad," Doctor Grayson said in the same tone as you would ask someone if they wanted milk in their coffee. "The throat was slit from ear to ear, that was the killing stroke, so to speak, but she had a multitude of injuries sustained before that."
"We'll start from the head." Doctor Grayson reached into his blue lab coat, also adorned with red runes, and removed a small metallic pointer, extending it. He rested the tip of the pointer against the ear closest to us. "The skull was fractured, just above the ear, and her ear drum was burst. Not done at the same time, in fact the ear drum rupture was probably two months old."
He moved the pointer. "She had a broken nose. It had been broken twice, one several months ago, and again a few weeks ago. Three teeth knocked out, and a broken jaw that was several months old."
"What about recent injuries?" Olivia asked, a slight nervousness to her voice.
"Okay," Doctor Grayson said without any hint of irritation at being hurried along. "Within the last month, her sternum was broken, along with eight ribs, and her collarbone. The last time I saw an injury like this, they'd been hit by a truck. The pain must have been immense.” The doctor pulled back the sheet completely, exposing all of Amber's naked body. "Her left femur was snapped, as was her left ankle. She was also raped. Repeatedly."
Sara darted from the room.
"I'm sorry, should I stop?"
Olivia shook her head as Tommy left the room to check on Sara.
"Anyway, that's the last of the injuries. Any questions?"
"I have one," I said. "Any evidence of runes either applied or removed from her body?"
Doctor Grayson appeared taken aback. "How did-"
"Educated guess."
"You probably want to see this for yourself." The doctor switched off the room's lights and ignited a dark light.
I couldn't help but gasp. "Fuck," I said softly.
Amber's body was covered, from her neck to her knees, in runes, only visible under UV light. Despite the fact that the rune used appeared to be the same one each time, the runes covered so much of her body and were invisible to the naked eye meant that the power used must have been immense. It explained why I’d felt so much magic back at the farmhouse.
"What do they do?" Olivia asked.
The doctor shrugged. "No idea, we've never seen anything like it before."
"Any idea how old they are?" I asked.
"Four weeks, almost to the day," Doctor Grayson said. "We have an enchanter on staff who did the time measurements."
"Did the enchanter know what these runes meant?" Olivia asked.
"It's an old Celtic word. It means safe," I said before Grayson could speak, to Olivia's obvious shock. "Amber wasn't in any pain during all of this, because Vicki etched runes into her girlfriend's skin with enough power to ensure she would feel nothing for the horrific things that were happening to her."
"How do you know that?" Doctor Grayson asked.
"When I was young, the Celts were the enemy for a long time. I was taught their language in case I needed it. Vicki had to listen to Amber scream in pain or whimper in some drug crazed stupor until the runes could be finished. This took more effort and work than I've ever seen from an enchanter."
"You still think Amber was the first victim?"
"The first taken, yes. She was taken to prove a point, probably to Vicki."