She didn't have words for how the morgue smelled. Clean was the closest she got. The only time she hadn't known it to smell this way was when they'd caught a zombie for the Necromancer Council and held it here. Clean had been far from the word that came to mind then, but she'd mostly felt sorry for the people who'd had to deal with them more regularly.
"You ready?" Zack asked. "I could use a hand."
She shook her head in bemusement. "A couple of months with an assistant and you can't deal with any of this yourself," she teased.
"I always needed another pair of hands," he pointed out. "We just didn't have anyone we could trust. I could really have done with a mate who was a doctor."
"Not a pathologist?"
"I'm not greedy. Any medical professional would have done."
"Even a dentist?"
He chuckled, letting the smile that only she really saw slip onto his face. She loved it when he did that. Zack was always so serious.
"You can recognise people from their teeth, that might have been handy," he said with a flippant wave of his hand.
"And instead you got stuck with a scientist. How do you control your disappointment?"
"You have your uses." He pulled her to him and kissed her swiftly. "But we need to get to work. It's a big day."
She raised an eyebrow. "One of these days, a body is going to wake up and hear you talking like that."
"We both know that isn't true."
Cassie smothered her amusement and put on the straightest face she could muster, knowing they had to do something serious that required a lot of care and respect.
"Where do you want me?"
"Scrub up." He pointed to the cupboard in question. "Then we'll get on it. I don't have to tell you not to touch anything without me telling you too."
"I like it when you're this bossy," she teased.
A small smirk lifted the side of his lips as he studied her. "If you're really good, I'll be bossy later too."
Cassie snorted. "Only if I let you."
She hurried over to the scrub storage cupboard and pulled out a set. She disappeared into the dressing room and changed into them, only stopping to scrub her arms and other exposed skin before returning to the morgue. With all the magical precautions they could take, the chances of contamination were small, but it never hurt to prepare in the same way humans would. It was good practice in case they ever had to share their morgue with non-magical people anyway. That hadn't happened yet, but it was only a matter of time before they had to deal with a human victim of a paranormal crime. Nobody was too sure how that would work with the various jurisdictions, but Cassie was sure they'd find out in time.
"I'm ready," she said as she approached the sheet-covered body.
A shiver ran down her spine as she thought about the woman they'd seen at the crime scene. It was always hard to reconcile that image with the one of them in this room, cold and sterile. But this was their job, and she knew she had to get used to the idea of Jenna being in here if they wanted to find her killer.
Zack flicked on the recording device so he could take notes, like she'd seen him do dozens of times before. Hadrian liked to have them all watch one another so they knew exactly what one another did as part of the team. It had helped her gain an appreciation for each of her mates and their areas of expertise.
"Autopsy for Crime Scene 6743A. Female caucasian pixie identified as Jenna Renfield. Forty-six years old with the appearance of a woman in her mid-twenties as is consistent with pixies," Zack said, reeling off all the information they had on Jenna.
Not that it was much. As with many of their paranormal victims, there wasn't much to go on. A lot of them lead quiet lives and had never had a brush with the law. Which was to be expected. Cassie was often surprised she'd caught the eye of the PCI herself, but she was glad they'd found her. And not just because she'd found her mates. Her job made her feel as if she was doing something that mattered, and in a lot of ways, that was even more important than her mates.
"There's no outward appearance of defensive wounds," Zack continued. "Which is consistent with the victim not being aware of the attack as previously thought. Tests will confirm if she has any pixie dust residue on her fingers."
"But you don't think there'll be any?" Cassie checked, going by his tone.
"No. I think the test will come out negative. I don't think Jenna had any idea what was happening to her." A sad note passed through his voice.
"What did she get mixed up in?" Cassie didn't expect an answer. While some of their victims had managed to get themselves into tricky situations, most of them just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It broke her heart each and every time. Nobody deserved to have this happen.
"That's what we're here to find out. Will you pass me the swabs?" he asked.
She nodded and did as he asked, knowing that was what she was there for. While she might be the team's expert in the lab when it came to bloodwork, down here she was nothing compared to Zack. He was in his element here, always able to get the body to reveal all of the secrets it had. Sometimes, that wasn't enough, but it didn't matter. That was why they worked together. Each of them provided answers to a small piece of the puzzle and in the end, they ended up seeing it all.
In theory. Sometimes, it didn't work out that way. They'd failed. More than once. And they would again.
Cassie glanced at Jenna's lifeless face while Zack concentrated on taking swabs of places on her body where there might be foreign DNA or other trace materials. She hoped this woman wasn't going to be one of the ones they failed.
"All right, I'm done with these. Will you put them in the dumb waiter and send them up to the lab?" Zack asked.
"Of course." She took the tray of swabs from him and made her way over to the metal square box. She hit the button to send them up to the lab and pulled the phone off the hook.
"Hello," Issac said down the line.
"Samples are heading your way," she responded. "Can you isolate the DNA for me?"
"I'm on it," he promised.
"Thanks. I'll be up in a bit."
"I look forward to it. Bye."
"Bye." A smile stretched over her face at his words. She knew he meant every word. Despite both of them previously preferring to work alone in a lab, there was something truly magical about them both being in the lab and working together.
"All right, what next?" she asked Zack.
"Now I need to do the messy bit."
She grimaced. There was a reason she'd never wanted to get involved with that side of the blood she studied. Her parents had pushed her towards medicine and becoming a doctor, but she was too squeamish for that. Blood outside of a patient was fine. Inside was a whole other matter.
"You don't have to watch," Zack said softly.
"Don't you need my help still?"
"It's fine, I can do it on my own, it'll just take a bit longer. I can see it's making you uncomfortable."
"I don't mean it to..."
He smiled reassuringly at her. "I know. I'm not holding it against you. This is why I have an assistant. And why I shouldn't let her take a holiday."
Cassie snorted. "You can't hold other people to our workaholic standards."
He sighed. "I know. But the sooner they bring in more staff members, the better, I think."
"Even if it means we have to share our workspace?"
"What's the point in having a long life if we don't get to enjoy it? I get that you love your job. I love mine too..." He glanced at the body. "Most of the time. And I think we do good work. But it shouldn't be our entire lives."
"You're right," she admitted. Before she'd met the three of them, she'd focused on work more than anything else. But now she had people to spend her time with in the evenings, she felt a little differently. And the prospect of sharing a house with them was only increasing her desire to do that.
Zack raised an eyebrow. "I expected more of a fight than that."
"I'm sorry to disappoint." She went up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss against his cheek. "I'll see you in a bit."
"Have fun with your lab toys," he teased.
"Oh, I will. And I'll hopefully get results."
"Me too." He turned back to the body and prepared to begin the rest of the post mortem.
While she didn't like to admit it, she was glad she didn't have to watch the rest of it. And not just because she got to go back to the lab.