Page 32 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

“Hesayshe doesn’t go poking around in our heads, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Which, given he’s built like a brick wall, isn’t very far. But you get my point.”

I followed him down a narrow alley that stank of rotting rubbish and stale piss. We emerged into a small courtyard where industrial-sized bins dominated the space.

A tall Black man in glasses and a slightly rumpled suit leaned against the wall. Even with his tie askew and his wave-patterned fade growing out at the sides, he somehow radiated authority. His gaze locked onto me immediately, his eyes narrowing.

“For fuck’s sake, Rory.” The man pushed off from the wall. “Who the hell is this?”

“None of your business, Teddy Bear.” Rory’s whole demeanour had shifted, tension radiating off him in waves.

“It absolutely is my business when you bring random civilians along like it’s a school trip.” The detective’s voice dropped dangerously low. “What were you thinking?”

“Oh right, because leaving him to wander around London by himself when there’s a bloody demon hunting him is a much better plan?” Rory stepped closer, squaring up despite being nearly a foot shorter. “What would you rather, Detective—another corpse to add to your collection?”

“Another case?” The man’s eyes snapped back to me, something flickering across his expression—sympathy? He stared just a touch too long. Was he trying to read my mind?

To distract him, I stuck out my hand. “Flynn Carter.”

The man’s grip was firm. “DI Maxwell. Theodore Maxwell.”

“Otherwise known as Teddy. Teddy Bear.” Rory beamed at me, and Theodore sent him a look that could have frozen Hell. “He’s one of our police links.”

“Let’s go. But Rory?” Theodore’s jaw clenched. “Next time, follow proper procedure.”

“Proper procedure?” Rory’s laugh was sharp enough to cut glass. “That’s rich coming from you.”

The air crackled between them, laden with heavy history. I shifted awkwardly.

Clearing his throat, the detective appeared to ignore the jibe. “We’re lucky this one was in our borough,” Maxwell said, guiding us through a back entrance. He swiped his ID badge at least three times before we reached the morgue.

The temperature plummeted at least ten degrees, and our shoes squeaked against the polished floor. A clinical smell of disinfectant burned my nostrils.

Rory lowered his voice to ask, “You sure you’re up for this?” and I automatically nodded.

Then, as I took in the body-shaped lump under the white cloth, my stomach twisted with the sudden realisation that maybe I wasn’t up for this after all.

Theodore drew back the cloth with a flourish.

Time seemed to stutter, like a skipping record. The woman looked to be in her forties, her dark hair fanned out across the metal slab. My brain tried to process what I was seeing while simultaneously insisting this couldn’t be real—couldn’t be a person. But it was. She was.

“Third one this month.” Theodore’s voice echoed off the tiled walls.

“Same markings.”

Her skin had an unnatural grey tinge that caused bile to rise in my throat, but it was her chest that was the most horrific part of it all. An intricate pattern spread across her chest like creeping frost, radiating outward from her heart. The design seemed to shift and move under the harsh fluorescent lights, though that was possibly my imagination.

The sight dragged me back to Dad’s funeral. I was fifteen, staring at his too-still face in the open casket, while Katie—barely twenty and just starting her floristry career—fussed with the flower arrangements she’dinsisted on doing herself. She’d filled the whole church with sea lavender and white roses, determined to make something beautiful out of something so awful. But here in this stark morgue, under harsh fluorescent lights, there was nothing gentle or beautiful about death.

“Oldest victim so far,” Theodore said, reading from a notepad. “The others were all under thirty.”

“Seb won’t like that.” Rory crossed his arms, tilting his head to one side. “Goes against some of his incubation theory.”

I took a step closer, drawn by a morbid fascination with the frost-like markings. As disturbing as the thought was, they were almost… beautiful. Like the phosphorescence that sometimes painted the waves on midnight crossings—except these patterns spoke of death, not life. My gaze traced each crystalline line, and the reality of my situation began to sink in, like the slow, horrible realisation of a ship taking on water. These same marks would spread across my skin, turn me into this hollow thing before me. I’d seen enough waterlogged corpses pulled from the harbour to know death had many faces, but this… This was something else entirely.

I felt my grip on reality slipping, the rising tide of panic threatening to pull me under.

The cold hit me like a punch to the chest. My fingers went numb, ice spreading through my veins. The room tilted sideways.

“Whoa!” Rory caught my arm as my knees buckled. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m such an idiot.” He guided me to a plastic chair in the corner, crouching down in front of me. “Put your head between your knees. That’s it.”

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