In Plain Sight

“I doubt it,” Iggy said. “Smallpox takes days to incubate and a week or more to kill. Whatever happened here happened fast. My point is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with, and until we do, I suggest we limit possible exposure.”

“My boys have been in here for almost an hour,” Callahan said.

“And they’re probably fine, but let’s move everyone out of this room until I can run some tests.”

“All right,” Callahan agreed, then he shouted for everyone to stop what they were doing and go. “Don’t be too long, Doc,” he said once his men were gone. “I’m sure the Chief has heard about this by now and he’s going to want a report…soon.”

“We’ll be as fast as we can,” Iggy said and Callahan withdrew.

“You said you didn’t think it’s contagious,” Alex said once Callahan was out of earshot.

“I just wanted him and his men away from this room,” Iggy said. “It’s going to be hard enough to figure out what happened here without the police stomping all over everything.”

“How do we even begin?” Alex asked, looking around at the room full of corpses.

“Is this everyone from the mission?”

Alex looked around and nodded.

“There are four rooms in the sister’s dormitory and four in the brother’s. I see three sisters here and three brothers, plus … plus Father Harry.”

“With Sister Gwen outside, that’s everyone,” Iggy said. “I’ll get a photographer and someone to help out from the Lieutenant. Then we’ll see if we can identify any of the others.”

“I’ll see to Father Harry,” Alex said, turning.

Iggy reached out and caught him by the arm.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “I know it’s bloody awful, but we’ll have time for grieving later.”

“He’s on the floor,” Alex growled through clenched teeth.

Iggy looked at him steadily. His look was determined, but there was compassion in his eyes.

“You know we have to investigate before we can move him,” he said. “The sooner that’s done, the sooner we can do right by the Father.”

Alex clenched his fists, then closed his eyes and sighed. Iggy was right. The only thing Alex could do for Father Harry was to catch whoever did this. If he wanted to do that, he had to find clues — evidence, and his chance was rapidly slipping away. Callahan and the policemen wouldn’t stay out forever. Alex met Iggy’s gaze and nodded, stuffing his feelings down deep.

“I’ll have a look around with the oculus,” Alex said. “Maybe there’s something here to be seen by ghostlight.”

“You think whatever happened here was magical,” Iggy said, nodding his head approvingly. “Good. Once you’ve done that, go find out what Sister Gwen knows. She’ll be calm enough to talk to by then.”

Alex set down his kit as Iggy moved off to have a word with Lieutenant Callahan. A moment later, he returned, followed by two officers.

If Iggy was right and whatever had killed Father Harry had done so in just a matter of hours, it had to be magical. Even the black plague took time to kill its victims. With that thought in mind, Alex strapped on his oculus and adjusted the lenses to reveal energy fields. Then he clipped a ghostlight burner into his multi-lamp and lit it.

Ghostly green light filtered out of the lantern’s lens, bathing the room in its glow. To normal eyes, it looked dim and indistinct, but through the oculus, the room became flooded with light, and the dark benches and tables stood out in stark contrast. As his eye swept the room, he could see pulses of energy crisscrossing in the open space, like ripples from rocks thrown simultaneously into a pond. The lines bounced off each other and rebounded, forming new patterns.

Alex followed each pulse to its source, but each one ended at one of the stones he’d inscribed with a barrier rune earlier. Each of them was functioning perfectly, radiating out its magic and keeping the rain at bay. Other than that, however, there was no other magic in the room.

What else can kill quickly? Poison?

Alex went back to his kit and took out a ring made of jade. This wasn’t the pale green, Asian jade, but rather a dark, forest green stone that came from Alaska, sometimes called nephrite. The stone had runes carved all around its circumference on each side and it hung suspended from a leather cord that had been cut from the belt of a poisoned man.

Taking the purity stone, Alex made his way to the table at the back where the big pot of soup sat. It was mostly empty, meaning that whatever happened here, it hadn’t started in earnest until the assembled vagrants had come back for seconds. About an inch remained in the bottom, cold and congealed.

More than enough.

Alex lowered the purity stone into the soup and counted to ten before withdrawing it. If the soup had been poisoned, the ring would have glowed a bright, sickly yellow, but when he pulled it free of the thick mass, it remained deep green.

For good measure, Alex tested all the bowls that still had soup in them. None of them had been poisoned either.