Sparks (21 page)

Sparky went outside first, sniffing the dawn air. His tongue flicked out, tasting for some ghostly presence as Anya slipped out and locked the door. Anya didn't sense the presence of spirits around the house, but she was relieved to put the Dart in gear and be on the move toward work. She didn't know how long Hope's minions would take to recharge, but she intended to make the most of the time they were gone.

This early in the morning, Anya's office at DFD headquarters was quiet. She passed the drowsy guards in the lobby, and saw no one else as she took the elevator to the basement. She was still jumpy, starting when the fluorescent light took a moment to flicker on overhead. She picked up several yellow envelopes of interoffice mail and white postal mail that had been shoved under her door.

Poor Sparky was exhausted. As she booted up her computer and plugged in the coffeepot, he curled up under her desk around the newt transporter. Anya tucked her feet around him and began to rifle through the mail.

She tore into a yellow envelope from the crime lab. It contained several photocopied images of fingerprints and NCIC numbers. Apparently, the lab had gotten itself mopped up and running again. The cover memo from Jenna stated that they'd found some interesting prints at DIA--fingerprints that belonged to Jasper Bernard.

Anya leaned back in her squeaky chair. Poor Bernie was among the ghosts that Hope had sent to claim Pandora's Jar. The information was consistent with Anya's theory that Hope was controlling ghosts she'd imprisoned, but provided nothing whatsoever that would allow her to get a warrant.

The memo also indicated there had been no traces of accelerants or exotic chemicals found in samples that Gina had taken from the guards' bodies. Just the same residue of silicates that had been found on Bernie's remains.

A thick FedEx envelope bore a return address of Miracles for the Masses. Anya frowned, tore it open. Hope had sent last year's financial report in response to her request for financial records. Nothing but drivel and mission statements, punctuated by a few simplistic tables that showed Hope had received an impressive two million dollars in revenue last year.

"Bitch," Anya muttered.

She glanced over at her computer screen. Instead of her familiar desktop icons, a black screen with a white cursor confronted her. The cursor tapped out: Hello, Anya.

Anya edged toward the screen, turned on the webcam perched on top. "ALANN? Is that you?"

Yes. How are you this morning?

"Great, but... how are you here? This is a secure network."

Brian was concerned about you. He wanted me to check to make sure you and Sparky were all right.

Anya frowned. She'd forgotten to check in with Brian. If he'd come by the house, who knew what he'd thought? She self-consciously powered up the iPhone he'd given her. There were three voice mails. She wasn't used to being in a relationship, and hadn't been minding the rules... whatever they were. With all that destruction that seemed to follow her, it seemed best to keep Brian at arm's length. "We're fine. The newts were under attack, so I'm still staying over at Katie's. Her house is a fortress. Hope's ghosts can't get in." She didn't mention how hard they'd tried; she didn't want to cause Brian additional worry.

Brian says he's relieved. The cursor blinked. We have something to show you. Brian's been working on that surveillance project.

Anya chewed her lip. "Great, but... I don't think this is a secure computer. Anything on it can be recorded." Anya had never seen the information technology gnomes who serviced the fire department, but she knew that they were there. And they were probably reading everyone's e-mail.

Rest assured, we have a secure connection.

"Okay. What've you got?"

The screen flickered, and a new window opened up on the lower right-hand corner. It showed a black-and-white still image of a city street and the tail end of a black BMW. Anya recognized the street corner as the one outside the Miracles for the Masses headquarters.

Detroit, like many cities, uses automatic number plate recognition to catch offenders who run red lights at intersections. Automatic License Plate Reader uses optical character recognition technology to identify license plates.

"So... I take it that there's one of these cameras perched outside the Miracles for the Masses headquarters?"

There is. Additionally, DPD patrol cars have recently installed automatic license plate recognition cameras in patrol cars to screen for stolen cars and fugitives while they are on patrol.

"How does that work?"

The automatic license plate recognition cameras scan traffic using OCR, and register a hit when stolen plates are scanned, allowing the officer to react and stop the offending vehicle.

Anya rested her chin in her hand. "That's kind of creepy."

That's one of the criticisms. In any event, Brian and I were able to tap into the DPD system and the traffic control system to search for vehicles registered to Hope Solomon and her aliases.

A flurry of pictures flashed upon the screen: the black BMW waiting in traffic outside a shopping mall; the same car driving along the freeway; the car stopped beside a parking meter. Each image was time- and date-stamped. Anya's attention lingered on an image time-stamped for last night, seeing the BMW parked outside Hope's office. Lights were on inside. The bitch had been too busy cooking up the attack to go home.

"Wait a second. Back up." Anya leaned forward. ALANN backed through the images for one that snagged her attention: Hope's car parked just outside of her headquarters, with a woman climbing out of the car. She was carrying something. "Can you zoom in?"

ALANN obliged. The shot grew grainier as it got larger, but Anya could see the object she held more clearly: a silver flacon, decorated in a pattern of vines and leaves muddied by the resolution.

"Hold that shot."

Anya scrambled through her files of photos of Bernie's house, flipping through the shots. That flacon was familiar...
there.
The flacon appeared on Bernie's mantel, beside the swords and bottles of unidentifiable contents. She ran her finger over her handwritten notes detailing what had been missing: "one silver-plated flacon, origin unknown."

She stared back at the screen. "Gotcha."

"This is opening a can of worms."

Marsh leaned back in his chair. His office was one step above Anya's... well, maybe more like a dozen steps. On the first floor, he was afforded light from a window, covered by bent blinds. It didn't matter that the window faced an alley; it was still coveted daylight, and Anya blinked in it. Sparky ambled behind her, head cocked, listening to the sound of Marsh's fire- and police-band radios chattering from the top of a file cabinet.

Anya pointed to the photo. "DPD sent me a copy of the photo." And they had: Once Anya was specific about the time, date, and intersection, they faxed over a copy of what was visible from the red-light camera mount outside of Hope's office. "It's all public information."

Marsh laced his hands behind his head. "And do I want to ask about how you knew to ask for this, how you knew that Hope would be holding stolen property at this specific date and time?"

"No, sir. You probably don't want to ask."

"The public is jumpy enough about Big Brother. There was enough of an uproar about red-light cameras generating tickets in the first place. If the public thought that this could be used for surveillance..." He shook his head. "This would result in a furor. The city would be sued outright, and by people with deeper pockets than Hope."

"Captain, I'm sure I can tie her to Bernie's death. And several others. I just can't prove it yet."

Marsh stared at the photo with contempt. "You and I both know that Hope's a shady character. Bilked the gullible, and destroyed a lot of lives. But I don't know that we can get a judge to approve a warrant based on this." He flipped through the pages of items that Anya had listed that she wanted to search for: all the items that had come up missing in the break-in at Bernie's house. "This is broad. A fishing expedition."

"Will you at least try?" Anya held her breath.

Marsh looked at her, weighing the options. Finally, he said, "Okay. I'll ask. Whether the judge approves it or not, the shitstorm that follows is gonna rest squarely on your shoulders, kid."

"Back for more?
"

Charon stood outside the morgue, smoking a cigarette that smelled like incense. His cold blue eyes watched as Anya walked across the parking lot, Sparky loping along at her heels. Anya clutched the newt transporter tight against her body. It seemed that they were generating more heat of their own. She took this as a good sign, but the newt transporter was giving her a serious case of sunburn along her ribs.

"I did what you told me to. We cast a magick circle around Pandora's Jar."

Charon nodded. He threw his cigarette down to the pavement, ground it out with his boot heel. Afternoon sunlight gleamed through his image, which seemed thin as smoke in the daylight.
"That'll hold her for the time being. But she's got to be stopped before she figures out a way through.
"

"I'm hoping to get a warrant, to catch her with some stolen property from arson scenes. If I can get her away from her reliquaries for long enough, maybe we can muster up some charges."

Charon frowned.
"I don't think you'll be able to stop her that way. You'd have to separate her from all her bottles, and she'll fight that to the death.
"

"Your way is to fight her on the astral plane."

"Yes.
"

Anya looked at him skeptically. "How do I get there?"

Charon opened his pocket and flipped a coin to her. Anya caught it reflexively, and was surprised to find that it was real. Her fingers curled around a solid bronze coin with irregular edges and the crude image of an emperor stamped in it.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Toll for the ferryman."
Charon shrugged.
"Don't ask me why, but it works. Put that under your tongue and say my name.
"

She fingered the coin. "How do I protect the eggs and Sparky while I'm gone?"

"You can leave them behind. But I would suggest that you take them with you.
"

Anya nodded, put the coin in her pocket. "Thanks." She reached for the door handle to go inside.

Charon cocked his head.
"You got more stiffs in there?
"

"I'm not sure," Anya admitted. "I'm trying to track down a body that might have been... misplaced."

Charon squinted up at the noonday sun, and the gesture rendered his eyes nearly translucent.
"That can happen. Who is it?
"

Anya paused, caught between the warm outside sunshine and the cold, stale air-conditioning in the breezeway. "A computer scientist. I don't know his name. His brain's being used for research, and I... I want to know who he was."

"This is personal, then?
"

Anya bit her lip. She hated admitting to herself that she didn't take Brian's word at face value, but something about the situation with ALANN bothered her. For someone who had signed his body over to science, his virtual avatar was sure keen on searching for a way out. "Yeah."

Charon nodded, following her inside.
"I'll help you look.
"

Anya, Sparky, and Charon wound down through the hallways of the morgue, though only Anya's feet made a sound on the tiled floor. She stuck her head in the autopsy room, seeing Gina on her step stool. The diminutive coroner was up to her elbows in gore.

"Hey, Gina," Anya said. "Mind if I take a look at your death certs?"

"Knock yourself out," Gina said. "Anything special you're looking for?"

"I'm looking for a death within the last couple of months. All I know is that he was a computer scientist, and probably died of natural causes. Maybe released his body to the university for research purposes."

"We haven't had any donors within the last couple of months. But you're welcome to paw through the certs. We haven't scanned them all into the system yet. Fucking interns are never around. Just wash your hands before and after--never know what germies are on them."

"Noted," Anya said, making a face. Obediently, she washed her hands with pink dish soap at the coroner's sink and retreated to Gina's office around the corner. The place looked like Bernie's living room: papers piled in stacks knee-high and held together with rubber bands.

"How the hell does she ever find anything in here?" Anya muttered.

"Actually, Gina knows where everything is,"
Charon answered.
"She's the only one. And she likes it that way. Try here."
Charon pointed to a green file cabinet labeled punched death tickets in Gina's spidery scrawl on masking tape.

Anya pulled out the drawer and started flipping through the death certificates. They were filed with the most recent first, going back six months. The certs were numbered in the upper right-hand corner, included the filing date and the decedent's death date at the top. Anya zeroed in on a line on the form halfway down the page, a blank for the deceased's occupation. She flipped through several dozen "none" answers, a few "unknowns," and lots of "retired" answers. Several factory workers, a couple of housewives, and a tragically young student, dead of alcohol poisoning.

Her fingers stopped halfway through the drawer. She'd found a "computer systems engineer," Calvin Dresser. His level of education was indicated as "Ph.D." She stuck a pen in the file to hold her place, pulled it.

Principal cause of death was listed as acute cardiorespiratory failure. Seemed ordinary enough. Calvin was sixty-three, lived in Detroit. She scanned to the bottom of the page, for information on who had taken possession of the body. Her heart sank when she saw an illegible scrawl that she recognized as Brian's handwriting, and his address at the university computer lab. The blanks for place and date of burial or cremation were left blank.

"Did you find it?"
Charon asked. He was sitting among the piles on Gina's desk, still as a paperweight. Sparky sat beside him, watching the second hand on the wall clock tick in fascination.