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They don&039;t raphy allows for it, they hardly ever uess it&039;s partly because it erate a bunch of coffin-sized chambers in a room insulated by the earth But that can&039;t be all there is to it Under the earth means a lot s fit Graves are under the earth So are Hell, Gehenna, Hades, and a dozen other reported afterlives

Maybe it says so about people Maybe for us, under the earth is a subtle and profound stateround level provides us with a kind of symbolic boundary marker, an artificial construct that helps us remember that we are alive Maybe it helps us push death&039;s shadow back from our lives

I live in a basement apartment and like it What does that say about s

"You look pensive," Murphy said We walked down an eue We&039;d had to go the long way around so that I could avoid any areas with important s as I walked My blasting rod thu rhythmically, where I&039;d tied it to the inside of the duster I&039;d traded inboots

Murphy didn&039;t look like aValkyrie Murphy looked like so, a hundred and nothing, and was built like an athlete, all springydown over her blue eyes, and was cut close in back She wore nicer clothes than usual-a rey pantsuit-and she had on more makeup than was her habit She looked every inch the professional businesswo Valkyrie She was the only person I&039;d ever heard of who had killed one with a chainsaw

"I said you look pensive, Harry," she repeated, a little louder

I shook my head and told Murphy, "I don&039;t like hospitals"

She nodded "Morgues spook s?" I asked

"Not like beagles or cocker spaniels or anything Just big dogs"

I nodded "I like dogs They give Mister soave me a smile "I&039;ve seen you spooked It doesn&039;t make you look like that"

"What do I look like?" I asked

Murphy pursed her lips, as though considering her words "You look worried And frustrated And guilty You know, rolance, and then nodded "Susan&039;s in town"

Murphy whistled "Wow She&039;s - okay?"

"Yeah As much as she can be"

"Then why do you look like you just sed soed "She&039;s in town to quit her job And she ith souy?" Murphy asked

"Yeah"

She frowned "With him, or with him?"

I shook my head "Just with him, I think I don&039;t know"

"She&039;s quitting her job?"

"Guess so We&039;re going to talk, I think"

"She said so?"

"Said she&039;d get in touch and we&039;d talk"

Murphy&039;s eyes narrowed, and she said, "Ah One of those"

"Eh?" I said, and eyed her

She lifted her hands, palms out "None of my business"

"Hell&039;s bells, Murph"

She sighed and didn&039;t look up at me, and didn&039;t speak for a few steps Finally she said, "You don&039;t set up a guy for a good talk, Harry"

I stared at her profile, and then scowled down at ot to the ue Murphy pushed a button on the wall and said, "It&039;s Murphy," at a speaker next to the door A second later, the door buzzed and clicked I swung open the door and held it for Murphy She gave h Murphy does not respond well to chivalry

The htly lit with fluorescent lights Metal refrigerator doors lined one wall An occupied autopsy table sat in the middle of the roo medical cart sat next to the autopsy table, another by a cheap office-furniture desk

Polka music, heavy on accordion and clarinet, ooh the room from a little stereo on the desk At the desk sat a small man with a wild shock of black hair He was dressed in reen bunny slippers, complete with floppy ears He had a pen clenched in one hand, and scribbled furiously at a stack of forms

When we came in, he held up a hand toward us, and finished his scribbling with a flourish, before hopping up with a broad sht What&039;s the occasion?"

"Municipal brass are tro around," Murphy said "So we&039;re all supposed to wear our Sunday clothes and suy said cheerfully He shotmoney on psychic consultants, either, I bet You must be Harry Dresden"

"That&039;s what it says on rinned "Great coat, love it"

"Harry," Murphy said, "this is Waldo Butters Assistant medical examiner"

Butters shook my hand, then turned to walk to the autopsy table He snapped on soical mask "Pleased to meet you, Mister Dresden," he said over his shoulder "Seeets really interesting"

Murphy chucked me on the arm with one fist, and followed Butters I followed her

"Masks on that tray to your left Stay a couple of feet back from the table, and for God&039;s sake, don&039;t throw up on my floor" We put on masks and Butters threw back the sheet

I&039;d seen corpses before Hell&039;s bells, I&039;d created some I&039;d seen as left of people who had been burned alive, savaged to death by animals, and who had died when their hearts exploded out of their chests, courtesy of blackquite like this I shoved the thought to the back ofin details It wouldn&039;t do to think tootooup Butters&039;s floor

The victim had been a man, maybe a little over six feet tall, thin build His chest looked like twenty pounds of raw harid marks stretched vertically from his collarbones to his belly, and horizontally across the width of his body The cuts were spaced rid pattern slashed into the flesh looked nearly flawless The cuts were deep ones, and I had the unsettling impression that I could have brushed my hand across the surface of that ruined body and sent chunks of flesh pattering to the floor The Y-incision of the autopsy had been closed, at least Its lines rid of incisions

The next thing I noticed were the corpse&039;s ar bits of them His left arm had been hacked off two or three inches above the wrist The flesh around it gaped, and a shard of black-crusted bone poked out froht arm had been severed just beneath the elboith similar hideous results

My belly twitched and I feltone of those prevomit breaths I closedreaction down Don&039;t think, Harry Look See what there is to see That isn&039;t aup won&039;t bring hiaze from his mutilated chest and hands, and forced myself to study the corpse&039;s features

I couldn&039;t

His head had been hacked off, too

I stared at the ragged stuh that&039;s where heads go Ditto his hands A man should have a head Should have hands They shouldn&039;t sione

The i-si Insideaway I stared down at the corpse, ain I stared at hishead, but aloud all I said was, "Gee Wonder what killed him"

"What didn&039;t kill him," Butters said "I can tell you this much It wasn&039;t blood loss"

I frowned at Butters "What do you mean?"

Butters lifted one of the corpse&039;s arrey flesh, just where the corpse&039;s back uy had bled out, from his wrists or his neck either one, I don&039;t think there&039;d be enough blood left in the body to show thisit out of his body until he died"

I grunted "If not one of the wounds, then as it?"

"My guess?" Butters said "Plague"

I blinked and looked at hiain "Or ues His insides looked like models for a textbook on infection Not all the tests have come back yet, but so far every one I&039;ve done has returned positive Everything froue to strep throat And there are symptoms I&039;ve found in him that don&039;t match any disease I&039;ve ever heard of"

"You&039;re telling me he died of disease?" I asked

"Diseases Plural And get this I think one of theht smallpox was extinct," Murphy said

"Pretty much They have some in vaults, probably some in some bioweapon research facilities, but that&039;s it"

I stared at Butters for a second "And we&039;re standing here next to his plague-ridden body why?"

"Relax," Butters said "The really nasty stuff wasn&039;t airborne I disinfected the corpse pretty well Wear your mask and don&039;t touch it, you should be fine"

"What about the smallpox?" I said

Butters&039;s voice turned wry "You&039;re vaccinated"

"This is dangerous, though, isn&039;t it? Having the body out like this?"

"Yeah," Butters said, his voice frank "But County is full, and the only thing that&039;s going to happen if I report an occurrence of free-range smallpox is another evaluation"

Murphy shotlook and stepped a very little bit between ot a tiht hours ago, tops All of those diseases seemed to sprout up at exactly the same time I make cause of death as either shock or a ans, plus tissue dah fever It&039;s anyone&039;s guess as to which one gets the blue ribbon Lungs, kidneys, heart, liver, spleen-"