Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 8, Part 3: Natalina

It only took a single lift to get them to the morgue; a small stone building attached to a nearby precinct house for the Orderlies. The two uniformed officers at the door nodded politely to Desmond as he lead her inside.

        "We keep two records; a copy in our own archives, and one in the ice box, where we keep the body until the Army authorizes its cremation," Desmond explained as he lead them through the halls. "I can take you to either, but if you have any questions about the report, it's best if I can look at the body to help explain it."

        "Sure. Take me to the ice box." Natalina said.

        "Okay. Just down this hall," Desmond said, and lead her into a small room full of shelves, where he picked out a key.

        The next door he lead them through required a strong push, and the air behind her rushed past as he ushered her in.

        It wasn't until he shut the door that the temperature hit her. Something like needles was pulling at her skin, and bit at her eyes. She immediately hissed a quick breath, and felt the burning cold in her lungs.

'Ice Box'. Being a writer, Natalina could appreciate an apt label.

        "Oh burn me, sorry," Desmond said, taking off his coat and handing it to her. "I keep forgetting to warn people when they first come in here. Water freezes about twenty degrees higher than we keep this room."

        The small perks of being born with the power to Craft. Desmond seemed utterly unperturbed by the painful cold, even as she huddled inside the heavy coat. "I see why you'd be useful in this job."

        "I actually kinda like it in here," Desmond admitted, as he reached into one of the wall lockers and unlocked the door. "The whispers fade when I'm in here. I'm just 'me'."

        "Whispers?" Natalina asked, genuinely curious. Those who could Craft were rarely willing to talk about what it was like to wield the flame.

        "Not whispers. I guess it's more like having more senses. I can hear, feel and see through nearby heat or fire. But being more pulls at you, makes you want to be more. It's an easy thing to drown in. I don't know how Crafters wield so much of it," Desmond explained, as he wheeled out the body.

        Natalina bit her lower lip, and forced herself to look.

        A pale, ash-like tinge stained the skin, no matter the colour of the skin before death. Carla Darrower was no exception, her face was sunken and sickly, somehow appearing both bloated and deflated.

        "Here's the report," Desmond said, handing her a clip-board, oblivious to her discomfort. "So the cause of death is listed as asphyxiation. The lead examiner identified some half-eaten bread lodged deep in the throat."

        Suffocating on a piece of bread. For a colonel to die that way seemed unconscionable, almost irreverent. As if the manner of her death was a spiteful insult to fate itself. Natalina found herself unable to believe that a colonel of the City would die in such a mundane fashion.

        "Odd, though. There's a lot of black streaks on this report," Desmond said, flipping from one sheet to another. "Not the usual sort of black streaks, either. It's actually against regulations."

        "How so?" Natalina asked, forgetting the cold for a moment. She held out her had, as Desmond handed her the clip-board.

        "Mistakes are supposed to have a single line put through them. They're supposed to stay legible, in case you turned out to be right the first time. This looks like someone didn't want their mistakes read at all. Probably a senior investigator making rookie mistakes." Desmond said, as he turned back to the body.

        Natalina glanced at the sheet, and she hissed in surprise. The solid black lines were thorough in how they wiped out whatever may have been written before. She saw it often, looking through reports that the Army or the Bureaus reluctantly released.

        Someone redacted this report.

        "Is there another copy?" Natalina asked.

        "Yeah. But the other copies are always transcribed directly from this one. We always leave out our screw-ups when we transcribe them."

        "Don't want the layabouts questioning your conclusions," Natalina said, derisively. "Which means the other reports only contain what's written."

        "Yeah. Sorry," Desmond said, as he glanced at the body. "Although it's odd. She has some defensive wounds on her hands. A pair of small cuts, three cracked nails, raw skin on her knuckles, and a lot of gunk under the fingernails. The strange thing is I can't find it in this report."

        "Is there a large block of black ink where those findings would normally be?" Natalina asked on a hunch.

        "Yeah. Page three, first couple of paragraphs. We use a standard fact sheet, which is where recent injuries are written." Desmond explained. "There's enough covered-up space for someone to have written those notes down, but I can't explain why it was removed."

        Natalina had a few hunches, but wasn't willing to share them. "Okay," she said, shivering beneath the coat he lent her. "Would you be willing to look over the body? To see what lies beneath all that black ink?

"I guess I can. No idea whose toes I'm stepping on, though," Desmond replied. He reached into a drawer and drew out a few new sheets of paper.

        "I'm going to write down my findings," Desmond said. He set the paper down on a small table nearby, and turned back to the body.

"You have ink that doesn't freeze in here?" Natalina asked.

        "No," Desmond said. He held up his hand, and she was surprised to see a small pinprick of fire at the edge of his finger. "My master, Theo Ratterson, taught me a lot of small things before he had to fail me, during my apprenticeship. I probably wouldn't have managed a position here without him."

        "No hard feelings, even though he failed you?" Natalina asked.

"I shouldn't have made it out of the first year. I don't have the force of will to pull off the kind of crafting the Coat requires. Theo said he didn't want my brains going to waste just because I punched like a small child," Desmond admitted, as he poked at the body's nose.

        Natalina shook her head, unable to process what she heard. This boy, rejected for being weak, could craft in a room that drank heat. How powerful does someone have to be to actually receive the coat?

And how powerful does someone have to be to be regarded as strong among the Crafters?

        "Okay. Nose was reset post-mortem, three loose teeth, and... a broken left knuckle. How in the burning abyss was this called asphyxiation?" Desmond muttered irritably. "Bruising at the ribs, this one even looks like a fist."

        "So this wasn't natural causes?" Natalina asked.

        "Not unless fighting at least two people is considered natural," Desmond admitted.

        Natalina took a deep breath, and shuddered beneath her borrowed coat. "Well, shit."