DEAD GIRL'S DON'T LIE

lled like anti

ghts before dissipating against the ceiling tiles. The hospital had banned smoking five years ago, but

apping on latex gloves. "Let's see wh

rfect. Death hadn't roughed her up much-just the neat little gunshot wound under her jaw, the kind the cops ca

d been suspiciously sparse. No defensive wounds. No signs of struggle. Just anot

lsh

incision some overworked pathologist had stitched back toget

," she murmured. "Your fiftee

, nothing ha

elids sna

them twitch. Once, she'd even seen one sit up and sing

were

whole. When her lips parted, the sound that came out wasn't speech.

ing about h

fingers, landing on the tile with

rot thickened, clogging her throat. Lila's mouth kept moving, but the voice wasn't h

ike the others.

ttered to the floor, the sound like gunshots in the sterile silence. Her pulse

the skin just above the radial artery-a spiral wit

ght. She'd seen

body. In an

nother pretty girl had "

ture plummeted. Somewhere in the

ed too far to the left. Black liquid oozed from her lips, her nostrils, the c

ing for y

icing through the sleeve of her leather jacket. In the strobe-like flashes of dying fluorescents

Nyx bolted

d shut in

metal groaned as something d

ing sounds. The sten

rd impact, it burst open, sending her sprawling into the hallway. She hit the lin

alley behind the hospital. Rain sheeted down, instantly soaking through her clothes. S

nds on her knees, and vo

her mouth, she realized thre

's corpse-vomit had landed. It was moving.

w burned into her palm, faint but

asn't

s Ve

Male. Smooth. Laced with somethi

drifting toward the sw

s and tousled dark hair, his tailored coat doing nothing to hide the athletic bu

Investigative journalist. Pro

ing glow of a streetlight. Rain dripped off his j

did to her," he s

w a corpse throw up nightmare fuel and try to w

an, the sha

from the brick wall, resolving into a shape-tall, too tall, its limbs jointed all wrong

that split vertically d

d her gaze. We

e grabbed his arm and y

he snarl

ed, and the sound was like