I had to wrap a sheet around the stump of the guy’s neck to keep the body from oozing blood or anything else that might come out. Derrel helped me get him into the bag and onto the stretcher, then I buckled the straps to keep everything in place and trundled my gruesome cargo out to the van.

Getting the stretcher and bag into the van wasn’t all that hard since the van and stretcher were the kind that could be handled solo. But when I was trying to get it out at the morgue, I managed to get my forearm pinched in the back leg of the stretcher. No big deal if I’d been a normal, living human—other than probably hurting like hell and leaving me with a nasty bruise. But I wasn’t normal—and a strip of skin about an inch wide and five inches long peeled right off.

I froze, looking down at the gaping wound in my arm. I wasn’t really bleeding—just a sluggish pooling of black blood—which was almost as gross as the fact that I could see bone. And it didn’t hurt. I mean, I could feel it, but only in the way you could feel pressure after a part of your body was numbed up. Dying by bits and pieces. Cold nausea tightened my gut as I quickly yanked the trailing skin off the stretcher and hurried into the morgue with my cargo. Tossing the skin into the first biohazard can I saw, I shoved the stretcher ahead of me on my way to the cooler, fighting back the urge to run. The floors were always slick in here, and I didn’t want to dump the body bag on the floor, or bust my ass and end up with another piece of me falling off.

“Oh, thank you hail Mary Jesus!” I breathed as I entered the cooler and saw another body bag. The hunger rose as I shoved the stretcher against the wall, then turned and yanked the zipper of the other body bag open in one move.

“SHIT!” I looked down at the body, aggravated and distressed. Sure, this body had a head, which was an improvement on the one I’d brought in. But it hadn’t been autopsied yet. Its brain was still nice and safe within its skull.

I quickly zipped the bag back up, then exited the cooler and headed to the computer. After skimming the schedule I allowed myself to feel a slim measure of relief. At least the autopsy was scheduled for this morning.

My eyes dropped to the gaping hole in my forearm. “That is seriously disgusting,” I muttered, then took a deep breath to try and control my flailing panic. All I had to do was hide the fact that I was falling apart until the autopsy was finished. The good news was that the smell of the morgue would hide my own lovely odor.

Yeah, that wasn’t much as far as good news went, but I was willing to take anything I could get at this point.

Chapter 14

“You’re certainly raring to go, Angel.” Dr. Leblanc gave me a quizzical smile as he picked up his clipboard.

I was already completely decked out in the protective gear—which, thankfully, had long sleeves—and gloves to cover the fact that I’d manage to lose another fingernail. I’d nearly been forced to resort to wearing a mask as well after I’d made the mistake of scratching an itch on my cheek. I’d felt the skin begin to peel away and stopped right before giving myself a gaping crater in the side of my face. Wouldn’t that have been lovely? Several frantic minutes in the bathroom with a combination of makeup and—god help me—hair spray had provided a temporary patch, and right now it merely looked as if I was trying to cover up some serious acne. Or leprosy.

The body was also ready: stripped of clothing, with the block beneath the shoulder blades to make it easier to open up the body and examine the innards. I didn’t want a single second to be wasted.

“You know me, Doc. I love me some dead bodies!” I said it with a deliberately cheeky grin, and he gave a laugh in return.

“Fortunately, we can accommodate you.” He made his notes and then commenced with the Y-incision.

I did my best to be Super Morgue Tech, ready with every piece of equipment the pathologist needed before he could ask for it. I had to bite back a whoop of joy when he finally gave me the go-ahead to cut the head open. In fact, my anticipation was so great, I had to take several deep breaths to get my hands to stop shaking so that I could make the incision across the top of the head. Luckily, Dr. Leblanc was too busy slicing organs to notice.

When I opened the skull, the smell of the brains washed over me in such a heavy wave I had to grab the edge of the table to steady myself. The hunger rose up like a rabid piranha, and I gritted my teeth against the urge that wanted me to bury my face into that convoluted surface and suck it all down. Breathing shallowly, I carefully removed the brain from the skull and set it on the scale, then passed it over to Dr. Leblanc as soon as he took note of the weight.

He murmured thanks and then bent his head to slice into it. I moved to where I was directly behind him and surreptitiously sucked the juices off my fingers. A mistake, since that merely jabbed my appetite into full wakefulness. I only thought I’d been hungry before.

An eternity later Dr. Leblanc dropped a sample of the brain into a tub of formalin, and then dropped the rest of it into the plastic bag. “Okay, close him up,” he said as he pulled his gloves off and dropped them into the hazardous waste container. “I have a deposition to get to, so I’m going to autopsy the headless one later this afternoon.”

Not trusting my voice to work, I gave him a nod, then stepped up as soon as he moved away. I didn’t give a shit about the headless guy. No brain meant no interest on my part. Busying myself with the needle and string, I waited, heart pounding as I listened to Dr. Leblanc’s retreating footsteps, then I quickly dipped my hand into the bag and palmed a piece of brain. It wasn’t big, only about the size of a walnut, but when I knelt to pretend I was tying my shoe it went down my throat like golden honey. The hunger gave one last wail before settling, momentarily satisfied with the offering. It wouldn’t be enough to put me back to normal, but at least I could think straight and finish what I was doing.

I managed to sneak one more bite before closing everything up and putting the body back in the cooler. Then I did the smart thing and made absolutely certain there was no one left in the morgue. Dr. Leblanc had gone back to the main building for his deposition, and Nick and Pete were both off. Now I could eat as if my life depended on it.

I quickly tugged the zipper open and untied the bag. I was getting good at finding all of the brain pieces and getting them into a jar with a minimum of mess and fuss. Standing near the open door of the cooler, I kept an ear cocked for anyone entering while I ate the brain right out of the jar. Normally I’d have waited until I was away from the morgue to eat, but not now.

A relieved sigh escaped me as I savored the rush of returning sensations—including the strange tickle as my fingernails and skin grew back. The spot on my cheek itched again, but this time it was due to the bizarre glop of makeup and hairspray stuck to it. Smiling, I peeled it off and flicked it into a trash can.

There were only a few small chunks of brain left in the jar. It didn’t surprise me that I’d managed to bolt down almost the entire brain, as famished as I was. That should hold me for a few days. Surely there’d be some bodies coming through by the time I needed more. I needed to build up a stash. I couldn’t afford to let myself get that desperate again.

I jerked at the sound of the door buzzer, nearly dropping the jar and the last few chunks it held. Crap. The buzzer was from the back door of the morgue, which meant that someone from one of the funeral homes was here to pick up a body. That was yet another part of my job. Once a body had been autopsied and released by Dr. Leblanc, then someone from the chosen funeral home would come and pick up the body from us. For bodies that were released on the scene—which was quite a few, especially with elderly victims—the funeral home picked the bodies up right there. Saved me a lot of work, since if I had to pick up every old fart who croaked I’d be running bodies nonstop.

Taking a deep breath to settle my pounding heart, I snuck a quick peek out into the hallway to make absolutely certain that I was alone, then hurriedly tipped the jar back and downed the last few bits. I wrapped the empty jar in a bunch of paper towels and dumped the whole thing into a garbage can as the buzzer sounded again.

“Coming!” I called, suppressing a burst of aggravation. Snatching another paper towel, I dragged it across my face to get rid of any blood or brain juice on my chin, then ran my tongue over my teeth to be sure I didn’t have any telltale chunks in my smile. Not that I expected people to know that the food caught in my teeth was brains, but still, anything caught in teeth would be gross.

I half-jogged to the back door and shoved it open. This door opened onto a broad covered walkway about twenty feet long, and beyond that a parking lot large enough to hold about a dozen cars. I usually parked back here since I spent most of my time in the morgue anyway. About the only times I went to the main building anymore was for staff meetings or to pick up my paycheck.

A funeral home van was parked at the end of the walkway and an Asian-looking guy leaned up against the outside wall by the door, an empty stretcher parked on the sidewalk beside him. Maybe in his mid-twenties or so, he looked more like some sort of goth-punk rocker than a funeral home worker to me. His hair was cut in a spiky mop with one long lock that draped across his face, and he was wearing black pants embellished with zippers and chains. His T-shirt was plain black, which somehow seemed conservative considering the rest of his general look, though in the next second I decided that wearing something adorned with skulls might be frowned upon by the funeral home he worked for. I probably stared rudely for a couple of seconds before he pushed off the wall and grabbed the stretcher.

“Hi. Sorry,” I said, holding the door for him as he pushed the stretcher in. “I was just finishing up after an autopsy. Hope you haven’t been waiting long.” I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling as I noted that he had a tiny skull earring in his left ear. Wow, darlin’, you digging the death thing a bit much, huh?

“No big deal,” he said with a casual shrug. He had the barest touch of accent, telling me he probably hadn’t been born here, but it was so faint I figured he must have been only a kid when he’d come to the states. “I saw the van,” he continued, “so I knew someone was here. I figured you had your hands full.”