Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

the DEA, lets agents pick and run their own cases, each agent an autonomous unit.

The tech room was in the back, a low space crammed with computer equipment and a few shaggy-haired agents poking at it. “Welcome to the mad science lab,” Will told me. “Agent Jensen, and our computer specialist, Mr. Pike.”

Agent Jensen was tall and skinny, farm-boy blond hair falling in his eyes, while Pike was small, with delicate hands and features suited to working on machines equally delicate. “Pleased to meet you,” Jensen said.

“Although I have to say, we had a bet running about whether the girl in the photo on Fagin’s desk was real or if he downloaded you off the Net.”

“She’s definitely real,” Pike said. “Pay up.”

Jensen grumbled and passed him a twenty. I looked at Will with a half-smile. “There’s a picture of me on your desk?”

“From when we went down to Berkeley,” he said. “When I helped you with that stakeout on the weres who were hooking up with dealers in San Francisco and transporting the stuff back here?”

“Right,” I said. Once we’d gotten the pictures we needed, I’d let Bryson and Javier handle the arrests and Will and I had taken a night to explore the city. And now the evidence was in public, for all the world to see.

Dmitri would never have done that. Dmitri would never have the chance.

The stone was back, twice as heavy.

“So, this thing has a European plug,” said Pike. “And it looks like someone’s already cracked the hard drive. What exactly am I supposed to do with this piece of crap?”

“Tell me what’s on the drive, for starters,” Will said. “Luna here risked a lot to get this thing, and the people it belongs to are of the big bad evil variety.”

“Got it,” said Pike.

“There are a bunch of spreadsheets detailing business transactions between sex traffickers,” I said. “But they’re in a code. Probably not much use.”

“Human trafficking?” said Jensen. “That’s an FBI matter, William.”

“Well, for now, I’m making it an ATF matter, Joseph,” Will said. “Can you scan the drive for me or not?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pike waved us off. “Go get coffee or something. I’ll be done in half an hour.”

Will walked me back to his desk, where a stack of case files was waiting. “Feel like helping me do some light reading?”

“Actually…” I said, thinking of the stack of dusty folders I’d brought back from Kazakhstan, “I need to deliver something to the morgue. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Can I…” Will started, but I was already out the door.

CHAPTER 25

The city morgue wasn’t a far walk, and it felt good to be outside. The air was starting to warm up, to lose that moist, clingy coolness that it carried in the winter.

I rode the elevator to Dr. Kronen’s office, figuring I’d just leave the files for him to look over at his leisure and then go back to Will, but the light was on when I arrived, so I knocked.

“Come in, unless you’re here to interrupt me,” Kronen called. I poked my head in the door apologetically.

“Sorry, Bart. Guilty as charged.”

“Lieutenant Wilder!” he exclaimed. “Good gods, they said you were coming home, but I never expected…” He caught hold of himself, smoothing the ends of his tie over his Hobbit-style stomach. “How are you?”

“I think I’m going to be all right,” I said, and half-meant it for the first time. “I’ve got something for you, Doc, if you feel like doing me a solid.”

“Anything for you, my dear,” he said. “Anything.”

It was the first time Kronen had called me my dear, and I felt a small smile curl my mouth. “I found these files in a defunct Soviet lab,” I said. “They were doing biological experiments, some kind of bioengineering on were DNA. Can you tell me more?”

“These are in Russian,” said Dr. Kronen, paging through. “And although I am an accomplished pianist and a fair polo player, reading this is not among my skills.”

“Polo?” I said. He waved me off.

“But the test results are the same in any language. They were attempting to manipulate DNA, and the results are disturbing—the cells are turning on the body, destroying it from the inside.”

“If this gene therapy actually worked,” I said, “what results could one expect?”

“Weres, you say?” Kronen stroked his chin. “Were traits in a human body, I’d gather. Heightened aggression, heightened strength. An undetectable killing machine primed for blood.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” I muttered.

“What context were these … barbarisms being conducted in?” Kronen said, turning to the pictures.

“A Russian mobster was trying to make his own army of enforcers,” I said. “It’s surprisingly easy to do with top-secret Soviet research just lying around and kidnapped werewolf tourists as test subjects.”

“Barbaric,” Kronen said again. “That is the only word I have for this material.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said. Just something else to add to the evidence against the Belikovs, if they ever surfaced again. Not that I was holding out a lot of hope on that front.

“I’m very glad to see that you’re all right,” Kronen said.

“You and me both, Bart,” I said. Kronen’s phone buzzed, and he held up a finger.

“Excuse me for a moment.” He listened, and then held out the extension. “Luna, it’s for you.”

“Yeah?” I said. “This is Luna Wilder.”

“Luna, it’s Will.” He sounded out of breath, tense and staccato.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“You need to get back here now,” he said.

“Will…” I started.

“Now, ” he said. “Run.”

I hung up and looked at Kronen. “I have to go, Bart. I’m sorry…”

“Go.” Kronen waved me off. “May I keep these to read?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, already halfway out the door. Itook the elevator back to street level and covered the five blocks between the morgue and the federal building at a run. My ribs spasmed, but I didn’t care.

“What happened?” I demanded when I burst into the tech-services room. Pike and Jensen looked at me, looked at each other.

“We found something embedded in these spreadsheets,” Pike said. “Look,