Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) by Skye Malone, Megan Joel Peterson

involved?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I do,” Harris snapped. “Now, are you going to let me in, or do I need to report you for hindering a murder investigation?”
    The mortician blinked, his already pale skin going snowy in alarm. “I’m not supposed to let anyone down here without an escort,” he sputtered defensively. “We got in major trouble last year because–”
    “I don’t care,” Harris retorted, relieved that the aggressive approach was working. After twenty minutes of repetitive questioning, laying into the ghoulish little man was cathartic to say the least. “Either you let me in to see this body, or I start making phone calls, understand?”
    For a moment, the man considered the words, and then he gave Harris a resentful look. “Well, you’re still going to have to sign in,” he sniped. “ And I’ll need to see your ID.”
    Harris couldn’t stop himself from grimacing. Even if the badge was in his pocket, he’d still hoped not to have to bring it out.
    The damn thing felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
    Turning the expression into an impatient glare at the mortician, he tugged out the badge and showed it to the man. Still glaring, he crossed to the logbook and scrawled something resembling a signature.
    “Happy?”
    The man looked as though he wouldn’t ever have considered using that word. Mouth twisted sourly, he led the way back to the heart of the morgue.
    Over the years, Harris had often wondered if morticians sent out special for the lights that glowed radioactively in every morgue he’d set foot inside. This one was no different, and the almost imperceptible, rapid-fire flicker of the bulbs sent familiar pain shooting through his head within seconds of stepping past the swinging doors.
    Immune to the obnoxious lighting and looking more ghoulish than ever, the mortician wove by the covered bodies on the autopsy tables to the steel doors lining the wall. Tugging the latch, he yanked the door open and then rolled out a tray. Tossing Harris a last scowl for good measure, he twitched aside the sheet and then waited with obvious displeasure.
    Ignoring him, Harris looked down.
    He hadn’t been looking directly at the camera when Harris had seen his picture, but nevertheless, he was still recognizable. A bloodless, dark bullet hole now pierced his chest, along with thick black stitches from the autopsy. But his face was the same.
    Harris sighed. He wished he could believe the loss of one of her allies would slow her down, but he knew he was just kidding himself. A bunch of people engaged in a war would be used to casualties by now, and wouldn’t stop killing just because of one more.
    “Well?”
    The little man’s snide voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Affecting a considering expression, Harris made a noncommittal noise.
    “Did he have anything on him when he was brought in?”
    Mouth twisting again, the man said, “Gun, cell phone, nothing else. Cops bagged it for evidence.”
    Harris buried a grimace. Of course they did. Protocol.
    “So is he the one you’re looking for?” the mortician asked impatiently.
    Thinking for a moment, Harris pretended he hadn’t heard the question. “The people I’m after have something of a pattern. They don’t just kill one in an area. It’s usually more. Any other murders get brought in over the past few days?”
    His pasty face tightening further, the mortician hesitated. “Yeah,” he admitted. “There was that mob hit on Jefferson.”
    Harris nodded. Ridiculous as it was, the papers were claiming the destruction of the apartment building had been some kind of mob hit, despite its location at the heart of the state college’s campus. Of course, the building had been wired like crazy, which gave a bit of credence to the theory. And it’d also possessed enough computers to take over a small country.
    But still, blaming the mob seemed a bit of a stretch.
    “And then someone torched a homeless guy in an alley off Van