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I shook my head "It&039;s possible"

"Does it work?" he asked

"It&039;s extreic," I answered "Anyone who does it has to kill soets an immediate death sentence if the Council learns of it If it didn&039;t work, no one would bother"

Butters&039;s " He frowned over the sentence and then nodded "Wrong"

"I agree"

He turned back to the freezer, checked a toe tag, and then hauled a rolling exaht take me a little while," he said "An hour and a half, maybe more"

"You want a hand with that?" I asked I hoped he didn&039;t

Butters, bless him, shook his head He walked over to his desk and flicked on his CD player Polka music filled the room "I&039;d really rather do this alone"

"You sure?" I asked

"Just listen for a girlie scream," he said "Can you wait for me up front?"

I nodded, leaned my staff in the corner, and left him in the room He locked the door behindarea near the front doors I took a chair that put the wall to my back, and where I could see Casey&039;s videoback to the exaainst the ith my eyes mostly closed and waited Over the next hour one doctor came in and another left The mailman showed up with the day&039;s deliveries, as did the UPS truck An ambulance arrived with the cadaver of an old woe

Then a young couple cairl was about five-six and pleasantly pretty, even without much in the way of makeup She was dressed in sandals, a simple blue sundress, and a wool jacket Her hair was cut into a bob full of unruly brown curls, and her eyes were bloodshot with fatigue The young man wore a simple, well-cut business suit He was a little under six feet tall, had Asian features, wire-ri ponytail

I recognized them: Alicia Nelson and Li Xian, froivenassistants had coue

I rehts that would make me blend in with the wall They walked to the security desk and stood so close toto the a driver&039;s license and showing it to Casey "My name is Alicia Nelson I&039;m the late Dr Bartlesby&039;s assistant I understand that his rearded her without much in the way of expression "Ma&039;am, we do not make that kind of information available to the public, in order to protect the relatives of the deceased"

She nodded, drew an envelope out of her purse, and passed that to Casey as well "The doctor had no surviving faranted o The paperwork is all in order"

Casey scanned it, frowning "Mmmmph"

Alicia pushed brown curls wearily from her eyes "Please, sir, the doctor had several personal effects which I need to take into custody as soon as possible Passwords, credit cards, keys, that sort of thing They were in his wallet"

"What&039;s the rush?" Casey drawled

"Sorant a thief access to his accounts and security boxes As you can see in the documents, he wanted control of thee to have them passed on to the charities he patronized"

Casey folded the pages up again and put the to have to speak with our director, Dr Brioche I&039;m sure he&039;ll be happy to help you out"

"All right," Alicia agreed "Is he available?"

"I&039;ll go speak to him," Casey said "If you&039;ll wait here, please"

"Of course," the girl replied She waited for Casey to go through the security door and then spun on her heel and stalked over to the entrance, staring out at the er She leaned her forearlass door and pressed her forehead to it

The tall young man, Li Xian, had remained silent the whole while He followed her over to the door and spoke in a quiet voice I could scarcely hear I narrowed my eyes and Listened

" back at any moment," Xian murmured "We should sit down"

"Don&039;t tell me what to do," Alicia shot back in a heated whisper "I&039;et so auard back"

"Stop thinking with your stoh that you lost control without adding a further lack of discipline to the situation"

"We are not here because I stopped to eat," Xian replied, anger of his own in his whisper "If you hadn&039;t indulged yourself ouldn&039;t face this proble Xian squarely, her face contorted with pride and anger "Your attitude, Li, isyou part of the proble- haired irl His face rippled, a sort of slithery motion just beneath the surface of his skin that stretched his features grotesquely, causing a slight sinking of the eyes, a slight elongation of the jaw He let out a gasp, and when his mouth opened I could see the teeth of a carnivore

It happened for only a second, but I avertedhier I&039;d seen a flash of Li Xian&039;s true face-he was a ghoul Ghouls are preternatural predators who derive their pri hu as it gets into their bellies

My stomach turned Butters said that so, strong h It had been Xian He&039;d carved himself steaks from the old man&039;s corpse If he suspected that I knehat he was, he ht decide to protect himself with extre, and harder to kill than a juicy ruhouls before, and it wasn&039;t soiven that I&039;d left my staff in Butters&039;s office

Xian recovered his normal appearance and lowered his eyes He bowed his head to Alicia

"Do I irl whispered

"Yes, ht My mind raced over the possibilities

Alicia exhaled and pressed her thuainst the spot between her eyebrows "Don&039;t talk, Xian Just don&039;t talk We&039;ll all be happier And safer" She breezed past hi area, and sat down She picked up a copy of Neeek sitting out on an end table and began to flick through it, while Xian re

Casey returned a couple ofto be a while before Dr Brioche can see you"

"How long?" she asked, s

"An hour or so at least," Casey said "He says that if you&039;d like to lad to-"

"No," she interrupted hi her head firmly "Some of his business is time-critical, and I need to recover his effects at the earliest possible opportunity Please tell him that I ait"

Casey lifted his eyebrows and then shrugged "Yes, ma&039;am"

I blinked"Oh, hey, Casey," I ned a limp and went to the desk "I left o back and grab it?"

Casey nodded "One second" He picked up the phone, and a second later I heard polka h the little speaker "Doctor, your consultant friend forgot so in your office You want , and then waved h

I hurried back to Butters&039;s examination room and knocked Butters unlocked the door to letback down the hall "We&039;ve got to go"

Butters gulped "What&039;s going on?"

"There are souys here"

"Grevane?" he asked

"No New bad guys," I said

"More of them?" Butters said "That&039;s not fair"

"I know It&039;s getting to be like Satan&039;s reunion tour around here" I shook my head "Is there a back door?"

"Yes"

"Good Grab your stuff and let&039;s go"

Butters gestured at the exam table "But what about Eduardo?"

I chewed on ?"

"Not a lot," he said "A car hit him He suffered some pretty massive blunt impact trauma He died"

I frowned and took a few steps toward the corpse "There&039;s got to be ed "If there is, I didn&039;t see it"

I frowned down at the dead man He was a painfully skinny specimen His abdomen had been opened with a neat Y incision There was a lot of blood and disgusting-looking greyish flesh Broken, jagged bone protruded fro One hand had been crushed into pulp And his face

Looked fanized hiuy&039;s name?"

"Eduardo Mendoza"

"His full name," I said

"Oh Uh, Eduardo Antonio Mendoza"

"Antonio," I said "It&039;s him It&039;s Tony"

"Who?" Butters asked

"Bony Tony Mendoza," I said, excited "He&039;s a sler? Not like Han Solo, I guess"

"No He&039;s a ballooner"

"What&039;s that?"

I gestured at his head "He&039;d done time in a carnival as a sword shen he was a kid He would fill up a balloon with jewels or drugs or whatever other small items he wanted totied to it Check at the back of hisbetween two of his back teeth and pull the balloon out when the coast was clear"

"That&039;s silly," Butters said, but he went over to the corpse and pried its jaws open He adjusted an overhead work lamp on a flexible stand and peered down past Bony Tony&039;s teeth "Holy crap It&039;s there"

He fished around for a few moments while I went back to the door and picked upfrom the corpse&039;s mouth a yellohite condom with its end closed and a heavy piece of kite cord knotted around it

"What&039;s in it?" I asked

"Hang on" Butters sliced the condole of dark plastic, about the size of a key chain ornament

"What is that?" I asked hi

"A what?"

"You plug it into your computer so you can store data on it when you want to move files around to other"Bony Tony was s Grevane needed to know Maybe the two out front wanted it too Maybe that&039;s why he got killed"

"Ugh," Butters said

"Can you read the information?" I asked him

"Maybe," he said "I can try another machine"

"Not now," I said "No tiet out of here"

"Why?"

"Because things have just becoerous"

"They have?" Butters chewed on his lip "Why?"

"Because," I said "Bony Tony worked for John Marcone"