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  “Oh sure, I’ll just get you people a doggy bag, eh?”

  “What about the bones?” Temple asked, ignoring the doctor’s attempt at humor. Any other time she would have found the woman entertaining.

  “What about them?”

  “Do they appear normal? I mean, are they brittle or been broken and had the uh—”

  “What? Marrow sucked out?” Irene asked. “Let’s see, there are plenty of broken bones; in fact, I think every bone in this person’s body was broken. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary beyond that. Let me rephrase—this entire glistening pile of meat and bones is out of the ordinary.”

  Janssen nodded vigorously.

  “We’ll get some marrow and why not take a small bone while you’re at it?” Irene suggested.

  “That’d be great,” Temple said.

  “I was kidding about the bone.”

  “Oh. You don’t see a reason to take one?”

  “Not really. I mean, if you’re testing for alien materials, and by that I mean, foreign substances not normally found in a human body, you’ll find them in the blood or the tissue samples. Maybe even in the DNA, if we’re really going to get crazy here and buy in to the X-Files nonsense.”

  Irene collected samples, weighed pieces of organs, but wasn’t able to come up with a way any of this mess could happen to a human body. A woodchipper wouldn’t have done this, or even falling into a set of giant gears. Maybe the complete mangling of the body, but the clear liquid? The plasma? Irene had no explanations for them.

  “Hey, Doc,” Jasper said, “are there any means available that separate red blood cells from blood?”

  “From the plasma? Yes. There are a few ways, even using magnets, but for an entire body? That would require quite a bit of work and is certainly not done out in the field.”

  “So, hypothetically speaking of course,” Jasper said, “if a group of madmen—”

  “A cult?” Morris laughed.

  “Yeah, a cult. If a cult took a body to a—”

  “Secret lair?” Morris laughed again.

  “Yeah, a secret lair in an extinct volcano, Morris,” Jasper said. “They took the body and had the red blood cells removed, that would be possible?”

  “If they had someone trained and had the right equipment, sure. But look at the state of this body.” Irene folded her arms.

  “They could have mangled the bodies afterward, though, right?” Jasper said.

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s a remote possibility,” Temple interjected, “but I doubt it. Why go through all that effort when those sick bastards could simply torch the remains with thermite?”

  “She has you there,” Irene said.

  “You’re sounding like you’re beginning to believe this cosmic crap, Doc,” Morris said.

  “Not really, I’m just trying to keep an open mind. The Bureau is paying me for my services, after all.”

  They tidied up the area and moved on to the next autopsy. The final body, that of the cultist, Alan Smith, wasn’t quite as mangled, but the pile of meat and bones still didn’t resemble a human other than the somewhat intact skull with loose skin.

  “This one,” Irene said after examining the remains for a few minutes, “hasn’t had all the red blood cells eradicated. This one has a lot more of, shall I say, ‘normal’ blood?”

  “We may have interrupted the attack.”

  “Attack?” Irene shook her head. “You’re still not telling me everything, and how am I supposed to conduct this autopsy without the facts?”

  “We responded to a disturbance not far from where the woman,” Temple said, but Jasper interjected—

  “The woman who died in the car crash, the first autopsy you performed—”

  “Yes, the first autopsy,” Temple said. “But this body we found behind a shed and were confronted by what appeared to be a large creature—”

  “An animal of some sort,” Jasper said, but winced.

  Temple sighed. “The creature disappeared.”

  “Oh, come on,” Irene said. “You expect me to believe there are animals on this planet that cannot only drain red blood cells from other animals, but also disappear? I can see maybe camouflaging itself, but—”

  Now that was a creepy thought, and one Temple hadn’t considered. What if the dragon had been there all along, watching them? Sizing them up, or waiting for them to leave so it could finish the job it had begun on the cultist’s remains?

  “We think it flew away,” Jasper said.

  “Fine, flew away then.” Temple rolled her eyes.

  “So, a giant flying creature did this. Uh huh.”

  “Look, Doc,” Morris said, “just perform the autopsy so we can finish with this charade.”

  “Big word there, Morris,” Jasper said.

  “Shut up, Zeke. Next you’ll be saying it was a pterodactyl.”

  “Another big word, but we don’t know each other well enough for you to call me the Z word,” Jasper said. “Anyway, please continue, Doc. We’re really just looking for abnormalities, beyond the obvious, of course.”

  Irene resumed the examination.

  “One other thing,” Temple said.

  Irene paused and looked at Temple. “You want me to do this or not?”

  “Another agent, a scientific type,” Temple said, “former FBI laboratory body, snagged samples at the scene.”

  “What? And now you’re telling me this body was tampered with before even the coroner arrived on scene?”

  “Uh, yes,” Jasper said.

  “You really fucked up this time.” Morris whistled.

  “And what do you care? You don’t want anything to do with this, but I suppose you’re going to run off to your buddies, ASAC Masters and—”

  “Oh, calm down,” Morris said. “You’re signing for everything, and since none of this was an official ERT search, I don’t much care other than that it better not ruin any more of my free time.”

  “Are you all done?” Irene asked. “I have something interesting here.”

  Morris and Jasper ceased their bickering and along with Temple stared at Irene in anticipation.

  “So, there are some pieces of this man, muscle in particular, that have a charred quality, as if seared or severely burned—but only for a moment. Like a cauterization, but not quite.”

  “What would do that?” Temple asked.

  “Who in the hell knows? But more interestingly…” Irene lifted the skull from the pile. Skin sloughed off, like chicken boiled too long, and the eyes appeared to have been plucked free. The mouth hung open, lips thin and the tongue protruded, bleached and strangely desiccated. “This man has had extensive work done on his teeth, and recently.”

  “What’s the relevance?” Jasper asked.

  “There are temporary crowns here, as if the man had a bunch of cavities taken care of at once, but opted for better crowns. I see at least one porcelain crown in here…” She poked at the ruined mouth of the ruined skull.

  “Perhaps his aunt would know the dentist he used,” Jasper said.

  “Between his house and the dentist we may be able to crack this thing,” Temple said.

  “You two are like a Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew television episode,” Morris said, “Bravo.” He clapped, the plastic smatter of his latex gloves funnier than the man had intended, but Temple didn’t laugh.

  “Oh, shut up,” Temple and Jasper said at the same time, eliciting a chuckle from Irene.

  The rest of the autopsy revealed little of value. They arranged for the mangled bodies to be stored for the duration of the investigation, but allowed the dead woman’s body to be released to her next of kin. Temple considered interviewing the next of kin, but the better lead was the mangled body of Alan Smith—the search of his house and a possible interview of his dentist, if he or she could be located. Perhaps they’d have time to run by the hospital and speak with Alan’s aunt about the dentist.

  Chapter 23

  Jasper and Temple drove to
the University of Chicago, which was located near the lake in the Hyde Park neighborhood, about seven miles south of the city’s downtown. Despite being across a state line, it was actually quite close to northwest Indiana—no more than a half hour’s drive from Jasper’s condo in Hammond.

  Vance’s phone call had been urgent, canceling their plans to swing by the hospital and speak with Alan Smith’s aunt once again. Temple’s excitement upon hanging up hadn’t puzzled Jasper, but he didn’t know yet if the excitement was caused by Vance’s evidence or the prospect of seeing Ed White again. Probably both.

  Jasper couldn’t remember the last time he’d run around this much in one day. Temple’s energy and constitution apparently allowed her to operate at full steam nonstop, all day. Was she hiding Red Bulls somewhere? His eyelids were drooping and his entire body wilted under the heat. But despite the heat, he had her stop at a Starbucks along the way for a dry cappuccino. And damn if it hadn’t hit the spot, despite her oven of a car baking under the August sun.

  “You look like a flower left in the sun too long there, kid.” Ed greeted them as they entered the building, smiling widely. “But you, Temple, you look like you’re ready for a photo shoot.”

  Temple rolled her eyes. But Jasper was certain by now that she enjoyed Ed’s attention.

  “What do you have for us, Ed?”

  “We’ve been chatting with a friend of mine, a physicist.” Ed glanced back at them as he opened a door into one of the university’s big buildings. “He’s enjoying the speculative angle Vance’s been chatting away about. That little guy is all right, where’d you find him? He should be doing research for a university, or a Department of Energy lab.”

  Ed led them through pleasantly cool hallways. Jasper felt a second or third wind coming on. But, boy, he’d still sleep like a baby tonight.

  “Vance is a misfit, sort of like me,” Temple said.

  “Looks like you found yourself another one,” Ed nodded at Jasper. “He’s king of the misfits over at the Bureau. You should hear him talk about his executive management and all the nitwit decisions they make or, most of the time, don’t make.”

  Temple grinned. “So we do have something in common after all.”

  They reached a nice-sized office brimming with books and walls plastered with papers and white boards filled with equations.

  Ed looked around. “Now, where’d they get off to? They were just here a few minutes ago.”

  A few seconds later, laughter filled the narrow hallway leading to the office. In walked Vance with a rather tall and chiseled man with black hair and dark eyes. They both held coffee cups and wore smiles.

  “Thank you, Temple, for leaving me behind,” Vance said. “I enjoyed catching up with my own—”

  Temple’s head cocked.

  “Kind. Scientists, I mean.”

  “Mmm hmm.” A smile crept onto Temple’s lips.

  Ed introduced them to Doctor Greg Clark, an astrophysicist. Jasper had to suppress a smile himself. Clark was the picture image of a scientist taken from some old black and white film. The kind with titles like It Came from Beyond Space.

  Doctor Clark extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you. Ignore the lab coat, it’s just old habit. Call me Greg.”

  Greg now placed the hand on Vance’s shoulder. “This man is a genius.”

  “Please, enlighten us,” Temple said.

  “Greg, tell us your theory—we’ve already been down the road with Jasper and Temple here on the religious aspects as well as some of the biological ones.” Ed gestured for Temple to sit, which she wasted no time in doing, and he plopped down next to her.

  Jasper leaned against a wall covered in paper. Startled, he pulled away.

  “Don’t mind that, you’re not ruining anything,” Greg said. “I’m kind of a pack rat.” He eased into a creaky chair behind a desk supporting piles of random debris and littered with pencils—some broken in half and others with their erasers worn or chewed off. “All right. When Vance described the foreign matter, and without getting too down in the weeds here, I proposed the possibility of brane cosmology.”

  “Brain? As in the lump we all have in here?” Jasper tapped his head.

  “No, brane as in membrane.”

  “Doesn’t help,” Temple said.

  “Imagine two universes—”

  “I have a hard enough time imagining one universe,” Temple said, beating Jasper.

  Greg leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. “How to explain this…”

  “Imagine there are a multitude of universes and two of them happened to collide—or just brush against and slightly interpenetrate each other,” Vance said.

  “Still not getting it and what this has to do with all these weird events.” Jasper shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

  “I can’t think of any other way to describe this,” Greg grabbed two random objects off his desk. “Imagine these two objects are balls of Play-Doh, of different colors. So we have red and blue Play-Doh, giant balls of the stuff and they’re slowly coming together.” He brought the two objects closer to each other in illustration. “Then—”

  “Why are they coming together in the first place?” Temple asked.

  “Could be a million reasons,” Vance said.

  “Give me just one, then.”

  “They’re attracted to one another, sort of like Temple and Lando over here?” Jasper thumbed toward the pair sitting on the sofa.

  Vance snickered. Jasper hadn’t known a snicker hid within the little man.

  Temple glared at Jasper and slid one inch from Ed.

  “That’ll work,” Greg said. “The universes are drawn to each other based on some property—what it might be doesn’t matter at the moment.”

  “But it might if we wanted to stop them, right?”

  “Yes, Jasper, but you’re getting ahead of the explanation,” Vance chided. “Continue, Greg.”

  “Right, so the balls of Play-Doh touch one another and you get some of the red mixing into the blue and vice versa. You understand?”

  “I think so,” Temple said.

  “Two universes,” Jasper said, “seem so hard to imagine. How is it possible, I mean, how could one part of another universe touch ours, and of all the possible places, touch northwestern Indiana? How does this fit into our recent problems?”

  Greg held up a finger. “Why can’t space bend and twist? The universes may touch and interpenetrate in areas we’ll never know of.”

  “And not on this planet, but somewhere else in another part of our galaxy,” Temple said.

  “Why not an entirely different galaxy?” Vance shrugged. “Anything is possible.”

  “Hold up a second.” Jasper held up a hand. “I’m as skeptical as they come, but what are the odds? Temple believes we have Satanic creatures roaming around. I’m inclined to think they’re more likely to be aliens—if they exist at all. So how does this fit?”

  Ed sort of rolled off the sofa and took a sheet of paper off of Greg’s confusing desk. “This,” he tapped the paper, “is a preliminary report on some of the samples, and I can’t find any sort of match with known substances.”

  He now picked up a vial full of a deep red liquid, that had also been on Greg’s desk. “Keeping in mind that problems may exist with the tests themselves and we’re not getting accurate results. But if the test results are accurate, this might be from somewhere other than earth. But we’re far from the craziest thing.” He glanced at Greg. “Were you finished with the brane talk?”

  Greg gestured for Ed to continue.

  “Wait,” Temple said. “Everyone here realizes, and I hope you brought NDAs with you, Vance—”

  Vance opened his case and rifled through a ream of paper. “I have them right here.”

  “Ah, I wondered why we hadn’t seen any of those yet,” Greg said. “I do my fair share of consulting for think tanks and other entities, if you follow.”

  “What are we talking about?” Ed asked.
/>   “Non-disclosure agreements,” Jasper said, “which means you can’t go about bragging to your dates what you’re helping the Bureau with, got it?”

  “Hey, I’m not privy to what y’all are doing with the investigations, but I will say this.” Ed rubbed his face, and continued, “If some bad shit’s entering our world, shouldn’t the military be apprised?”

  Greg sat up. “He raises a good point.”

  “Do either of you two understand which agency is responsible for the national security of the United States, domestically?” Temple’s gaze darted between the two.

  “Uh, the President?” Ed shrugged.

  “Yeah, right. No. Try again.”

  “Department of Homeland Security?” Ed grinned.

  “Now you’re just being a pain in the ass,” Jasper said. “Come on.”

  “This is a national security issue, which falls under the FBI’s jurisdiction, which is part of the Department of Justice. Homeland Security? Exactly what have they secured? And don’t get me started on TSA—they don’t even try messing with us.” Temple took a deep breath.

  “You two need to sign these NDAs and not speak about any part of this investigation to anyone other than the people in this room, okay? We don’t need a bunch of bulls breaking up the china shop we set up. It’s bad enough the local FBI office thrust this guy on us.” Temple jabbed a thumb at Jasper.

  “It could have been worse for all of us, I suppose,” Jasper said. “There are a few knuckle draggers in the office who would have driven you crazy by now.”

  Ed and Greg both signed the NDAs with little fuss and promised solemnly they wouldn’t discuss any of this outside of those present.

  “Now, Ed, you were going to relate something else about a sample before I cut you off?” Temple asked.

  “Oh, yes. The craziest part of all this is the other sample taken from the mutilated bodies. This liquid,” Ed picked up another vial, “is blood.”

  “What? How? It’s almost clear, it’s kind of a pale yellow, like straw maybe,” Jasper said, thinking back to his days on the farm and all the hay they’d baled.

  “It’s blood, but missing one important component.” Ed’s eyebrows shot up and down one time, an old tic Jasper had noticed whenever Ed made a point he wanted to punctuate.