Page 42 of The Doctor's Wolf: Part Two
“Hmm.Maybe.No.I don’t know.How was today?”
While Adler ate, Gordon began recounting his day.It wasn’t like they’d never done that before—Adler always took an interest, and Gordon liked to hear Adler talk about Bachmann and how he was proud of her—but today felt different.
Gordon wasn’t quite sure why, but whatever this new thing was, he liked it.
Chapter 22
Severalmoredayswentby during which they settled into a routine at Adler’s place.Mil would ask to go over to her granny’s place to pick up clothes or just read in her room every now and again.Twice she asked to go and see the bar Lar to learn a new cocktail recipe, and the trip to 43 Ruthaven exposed Gordon to entirely more Maxim than he was used to.
As such, his normal work at the morgue had become more relaxing than ever, and one evening, he was at his desk, humming along while flipping through the interns’ performance reports.
In the quiet office, a voice made Gordon jump.
“What’s this?”Corinne asked.She had managed to sneak up on Gordon, only to drop Forum certified paperwork on his desk.“I thought you only used your Kawaii Demon Hunter mug.”
Gordon looked at the paperwork and pushed it aside, then picked up his Mini Huntress mug to take a sip of cold coffee.“I gave that to Mil.She kept eyeing it and asked about it.In the mornings, she insists on having tea from it while Adler and I have coffee.She tried getting to the coffee once, but Adler got all stern and told her she was too young for that.Honestly, though, I don’t remember the incident too well.Mornings are hard.”
Corinne dropped into one of the chairs in front of Gordon’s desk.“When I first started here, you know, and when you were talking to the corpses all the time, I was a tiny bit afraid I’d catch you with one eventually.Like,withone.I tried making noise whenever I walked toward the morgue.”
Gordon stared at her evenly.“Please tell me you are kidding.I was wondering whether you had an old knee injury that was bothering you.”
There was a pause.Then Corinne nodded.“Yeah, sure.Joking.And I hurt my knee that one time getting out of bed.”She lifted Lord Helmet’s head.“I need one of these.”She bit into the pleasingly aromatic cookie while glancing at a printout of his notes.“You’re still looking at the Ripper case?”
Gordon pushed the printout back under the performance reports.“Yes.I got curious.It’s a true crime staple after all, and I didn’t know much about any of it.”
Corinne took another bite of her cookie and nodded.“What’s funny is, I’ve been thinking about it too.Those other murders—the fae and the werewolf couple.It reminded me of the Ripper case.I’m not even exactly sure why, but maybe because they’re both all about the spectacle.”
Gordon had considered that too.He’d wondered whether it frustrated the murderer that the current murders were less dramatized in the media, that Maxim and Heath had done a decent job of keeping the journalists at bay.
“I guess you’re right about that.”He cocked his head, looked at the half-eaten cookie in her hand.“Are you done for the day?”
“I am, and you should be too instead of throwing yourself into your work.You do realize it’s the full moon today?”
Oh, shit.That was when it hit Gordon that he should have left well before Corinne’s shift ended.Adler and he had talked about it this morning, but then of course Gordon tended to lose things that were said to him early in the day.He cursed under his breath, packed up his notes and laptop, and made for the door.
“Can you—”
“Finish my cookie, close up your office, and send the interns home?Fair warning, if one of them wants to raid Lord Helmet’s brains, I’ll let them.”Corinne grinned at him, and Gordon suppressed the desire to tell her he would have done the same.
“That works for me.Thanks, Corinne.”
He dashed through the Forum and toward the closest subway stop.It was five stops to Seneca Park, and the indigo horizon was already taking on its veil of black.
When he was on the subway finally, he pulled out his phone.Of course there was a text from Adler waiting.
>Did you have to work long?You can cuddle me later if you need to decompress.Changing at home.Meet you at the park.
>Yes, sorry!
Gordon texted back, but likely, Adler wouldn’t see it because at this point of the night, he’d no longer have the opposable thumbs needed to operate a phone.
“Fucking hell,” Gordon said, and a middle-aged woman sitting close to the door next to which he was standing, gave him the weird kind of look that told Gordon he was being, well, the weird vampire on the subway.“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
She returned a careful smile and a shrug as if to say,just another long day, right?Gordon was happy to agree.
The car stopped moments later, and Gordon hurried out and up.From the subway stop, it was just a few moments on foot to Seneca park, and if he was unbelievably lucky, Mil and Adler were still on their way to the park.
Wolves were out and about, and howls filled the night.When the park came into view, Gordon headed straight for Innsmouth Arch.It was one of the more prominent entrances, a stone arch topped with metal spikes and showing off a metal gate that was very rarely closed.
