Kate Daniels 01 - Magic Bites

supervisor.
    A unit supervisor could make a person non grata in the morgue faster than I could blink.
    The man waited until I finished staring at his tag and held out his left hand. “My name’s Crest.”
    I peeled off my left glove without putting down Slayer and shook his hand. “Kate. Is there a first name that goes with Crest?”
    “Yes, but I don’t like it.”
    A funny guy. Perhaps I would get away without a black eye for dicing a corpse.
    “It’s a vampire,” I said. “I was looking for the brand.”
    “Find it?”
    “Yes.”
    He approached the table to examine my handiwork. I moved to stand across from him. Dr. Crest was actually on the appealing side. Auburn-haired, tall, and quite muscular, judging by the forearms. A pleasant face, open and honest, with large, well-defined features and nice eyes, honey brown and warm. The full mouth was downright sensuous. Attractive fellow, not strictly handsome in a classical sense, but still . . . He looked up from the body, smiled, and became handsome.
    I smiled back, trying to radiate integrity and decency of character. That’s right, I’ll be very nice to you, sir, just please don’t bar me from the morgue.
    “Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never seen one concealed in this way.”
    “Neither have I.”
    “You see a lot of vampires in your line of work?”
    “Unfortunately.”
    I caught him glancing at me and he lowered his gaze back to the body.
    “Dr. Crest?”
    He blinked. “Yes?”
    “Do I need to let Julianne know about the brand?” It was the least I could do.
    “No. I can tell her myself if you have to run.”
    A little warning bell went off in my head. The good doctor was a little too accommodating. I would have to make sure that Julianne got my message.
    Crest was frowning at the corpse. “A devious place to put a brand.”
    Ghastek was a devious fellow. “Indeed.”
    Another pause issued. “Let me walk you upstairs,” he said.
    How charming. He was trying to make sure that I didn’t go on a mutilating rampage. I gave him my knockout smile. “Sure.”
    He didn’t look dazzled. Damn it, that’s the second time today my smile had misfired.
    We left, walking side by side. I waited while he locked the grate behind us. “So what do you do here, Dr. Crest?”
    He grimaced. “I suppose one can call it charity work.”
    I made the appropriate noise, “Charity?”
    “Yes. I perform reconstructive surgery.” He glanced at me as if afraid I would demand a nose job. “I make corpses presentable. Not everyone can afford it, so twice a week I do it here pro bono.”
    I nodded.
    “It’s kids mostly,” he said. “Torn up and mauled. Not a pretty sight. Such a waste.”
    We reached the upper floor. He waited while I checked out with the clerk and wrote down Julianne’s number, and then walked me to the door.
    “So I’ll see you again sometime?” he said.
    “Hopefully not on the operating table,” I said and left the building. As I walked away to where Karmelion waited for me, I could feel Crest watching my back.
    A man was leaning against my truck. He wore a dark gray shirt, black jeans, tucked in soft boots, and a black cloak that wanted very much to be a cape. While I was in the morgue, the sun had broken through the clouds, flooding the streets with sunshine. He seemed to shrug off the sun’s rays—not a man, but a rectangle of darkness cut in the shroud of sunlight.
    The human current streaming up the street bent away from him. People didn’t eye him; in fact, they concentrated so hard on ignoring his presence, one could have dropped a twenty dollar bill on the ground and it might have gone unnoticed.
    The man’s eyes tracked my movement. I stopped a few feet away and looked at him.
    He reached into an inside pocket of his cloak and flicked what looked like a long yellow ribbon at me. I caught it in midflight. The smooth, cold body coiled about my wrist, and the serpentine head reared to strike at my face. I clamped its neck with fingers of my left hand and stopped it three inches from my cheek. The snake’s tongue danced between the scaly lips. Blood red membranes tinged with brilliant purple flared on both sides of the head, spreading like the wings of an enormous butterfly. The baby winged snake shuddered, trying to take flight, but I held it in check.
    “I’m sorry, Jim.”
    He held up his arms, indicating something about three feet wide. The cloak parted enough to show muscle roll across his chest under the