Free Carnal Sin by Allison Brennan Page A

the risk or cost.

SIX
    Moira had never been to a morgue before.
    She'd seen dead people, but she hadn't hung around to see what happened to the bodies after they died.
    And she kinda, sorta--okay, absolutely --wished she did not know now.
    Skye didn't seem to have the same problem Moira had walking through rows of the dead in a very cold, very large, very sterile room in the Los Angeles County Morgue, following a petite black girl with a nose ring named Fern. Fern ... something. Moira had been so floored by the atmosphere, she didn't even remember the girl's name. Fern called this cavernous room the crypt--just the name freaked Moira out. Dead people covered with sheets, gurneys stacked three high that could be summoned by the touch of a button.
    "I want to be cremated," Moira said suddenly.
    Fern shot her a glance and a grin. "You'd still probably have to come through a place like this first."
    "Great." She plastered a smile on her face, but it didn't feel natural and Skye shot her an odd look. Somewhere between concern and surprise. Moira could practically hear Skye saying:
    You nearly died facing down an incarnate demon, but a few dead people freak you out?
    Moira didn't know why she was getting the heebie-jeebies. She wasn't normally skittish. But the hair on her arms rose, and she couldn't stop thinking about the dungeon her mother had locked her in, the first time she'd tried to escape Fiona's coven. It had been cold--not this cold, but cold enough. And the smell was similar--not the antiseptic, overly clean scent of the crypt, but the underlying, subtle scent of death. Of decomposing bodies. That they were in a room that could be easily locked, where they could be trapped with the dead, terrified her. Another type of prison. A place Fiona would love to keep her while she mentally tortured her.
    "Moira." Skye put a hand on her shoulder and Moira jumped.
    "Fine. I'm fine."
    Skye didn't believe her; who would? Moira was probably as pale as the corpses. She mentally closed down her senses--Rico would be pissed, but Moira didn't want to feel any of the spirits that might be lingering. She was too jittery, like this morning when she came within inches of hurting Rafe after her vision. She didn't think she would have--she'd been acting on what Rico called her mental muscle, instincts plus training that kept her alive.
    But something was off here, and while it wasn't magic, it creeped her out. So she'd turned her senses off, flipping a mental switch. Rico could go pound salt for all she cared. He'd stolen her blood, after all; she could shut off the power to keep her sanity in this place of the dead.
    I should have stayed with Rafe and Dr. Fielding . They'd gone to meet the M.E. who had identified anomalies in a brain similar to what Dr. Fielding found in the victims of the demon Envy. But a room full of human organs had sounded worse than the crypt.
    Fern said, "I still have two of the bodies, but I don't know how long I can keep one of them. The family is calling, it's been two days, and the autopsy ruled heart attack, though we're running additional tox screens because the detective in charge thinks it might be drug related. We don't normally keep the body once we're done, and the family wants to ship him back to Michigan."
    "Two--I thought you said you had three bodies," Skye said.
    "Two bodies, but I have photos from a third that came in last week. The body I called you about is scheduled for autopsy this afternoon." She glanced at her watch. "I'm prepping him in an hour."
    "Would it be all right if we observe?" Skye asked. Moira suppressed a shiver at the thought of watching a body being cut open.
    "I don't see why not, but I gotta clear it with my boss."
    The first victim still in the morgue was a twenty-two-year-old who'd been found dead in an alley behind a local nightclub with his pants down around his ankles. No visible sign of death, and the first officer on scene had called it a possible OD. Not unlikely, Skye had