HARD CORE

THE DOOR OEPNED BEHIND A SALES COUNTER. My gaze went to the gray safe under it.

"Even you can't break that open," I whispered.

"I shouldn't need to. Imagine you're Botnick-"

"Rather not."

He smiled. "For the sake of argument only. If this store is robbed, where's the first place a serious thief will go, after the cash register?"

I pointed to the safe.

"So, while you may keep files, checks and valuable merchandise in there, it's not the place for anything not easily replaced, including items you can't report to an insurance company."

"Like a spellbook, a ritual journal or a list of contacts. Is that the kind of thing we're looking for?"

He nodded. "Documents, primarily. Books, journals, correspondence, contact lists, anything related to magic or his cult. I'm going to search his office. Could you take the shop floor?"

"Will do."

THE mid area displayed a mix of occult and S and M paraphernalia, everything from magic fetishes to toys for fetishists. Pretty mild stuff on both counts. A wall display of handcuffs, from metal to rubber to candy. A bookshelf of titles-Occult Mysteries Revealed and Rituals for Beginners-the type of texts you'd find in a regular bookstore. A rack of whips that looked more like props than torture devices. Candles, amulets, chalices, even a display of organic herbal teas made by a local Wiccan.

Keeping my flashlight down, so the light couldn't be seen through the smoked front window, I flipped through a few items. Under the displays, I found cupboards, but they were all unlocked and held only extra stock of items already out.

To the far left was a closed door marked Employees Only. Not a bathroom, which I'd already found. Not the office-Jeremy was in there. I walked over and tried the handle. Locked.

"Jeremy?" I whispered. "Got a locked door."

He stepped from the office, walked over and bent to check the lock.

"Looks like a good, sharp twist-" I began.

He held up a key ring.

"-or the key," I finished as he tried one.

"Makes our entry less obvious. I found them under the register. The office was locked, as well, so I think there should be one for-" The lock clicked. "There."

He opened the door. Pitch black. He peered around the corner, eyes narrowing as he strained to see, his night vision probably as good as my flashlight. I tapped his arm.

"I've got it," I said.

A small smile. "Sorry. Just curious."

He backed out and returned to the office.

I stepped through the doorway into a space no bigger than a closet and bare, with curtains on either side. I picked the one on my right and pulled it back. Inside was a larger storage area, maybe as big as the one we'd first entered. It was lined with shelves filled with boxes and jars.

I lifted the light to one large jar and jumped back. Inside, a fetus floated in preservative. I scanned the bottles. Mostly body parts. Organs it looked like. I shone the flashlight into a box. It was filled with bags, each containing a dried piece of something… or someone.

All the bags and jars were labeled, but only with reference numbers. The code was probably in the office. I'd get Jeremy to look, but first I rifled through the bags, trying to ignore a pair of floating eyeballs that stared down at me.

Dried bits I can handle-been doing it all my life. It was hard to tell how many of these were human. Many were just indistinguishable, shriveled gray pieces. Some were clearly not human: a bat wing, a furry tail, a pointed ear. I pushed aside a bag of teeth-sharp, probably rodent. Underneath was something definitely human: a thumb. I lifted it. Even dried and shriveled, it was obviously adult.

I peered into the box. Under where the thumb had lain there was a tube of dried skin. Too big to be a finger. I lifted the bag into the light, took a better look and-yep, human. Male human. Definitely not something you'd find in ray bag of body bits.

I looked at the rows of boxes and jars. Time to get Jeremy. As I backed up, my heel caught on something and I looked down. It was an odd place for an area rug. My heel had tugged it aside to reveal wood set into the concrete. I bent and peeled back the rug. Dust flew up. As I coughed, I thought of the dried bits and hoped this was dust.

Under the rug lay a trap door. Hinged. A recessed handle. No obvious lock. I grabbed the handle and gave an experimental tug. Nothing. I pulled hard. The door swung open. A ladder stretched into darkness. Even with the flashlight, all I could see was a narrow chute.

Definitely time to get Jeremy.

I closed the trap door.

As I pushed back the curtain, I remembered the room across the way. I should peek in there, so I could tell him I'd checked out everything. I opened the other curtain and… stared. A metal helmet stared back. Dull black metal with tiny nose holes, the eyes and mouth solid. There was a hinge on one side and a lock on the other. I thought of it closing over my head and instinctively gasped for air.

I pulled my gaze from the helmet and looked around. It was another storeroom, with shelves and hooks, stocked not with body parts but bondage gear. The room stunk with the ripe scent of leather and sweat and something acrid, vaguely familiar. Urine.

As I pulled back, my gaze went to a whip-one that bore no resemblance to the toys out front. Braided leather, with the braids undone at the end, each strand finished with a metal weight. The strands were stained dark. Blood.

I consider myself sexually experienced. Very sexually experienced, and for me, sex has always been about entertainment. But looking over those shelves, I felt like a convent girl.

"I think we can safely assume that we won't find any answers in there," Jeremy murmured at my shoulder.

I jumped, covered it with a small laugh. "Scary stuff, huh? Most of it, I can only guess what it's used for. And some of it, I don't even want to guess. That helmet alone is enough to give me nightmares." I let the curtain fall. "I was just coming to get you. I found a few things in there." I pointed at the other curtain.

"Good. I was hoping you were having more luck than me."

He pulled back the other curtain and surveyed the shelves, frowning.

"Parts, dried and pickled," I said. "And for me, way less disturbing than what's in that other room. This stuff-the dried bits at least-are right up my alley. I've identified some of them. Most seem to be animal." I lifted the bat wing. "A few hidden at the bottom are obviously human." I lifted a few more: the ear, the toe, the teeth and the "tube."

Jeremy frowned at the tube. "What is-? Ah, I see."

"Male."

"It would appear so."

"And almost certainly adult, despite the shrinkage." I waved at the jars. "I'm not so good with the pickled and the less whole pieces. You're better at anatomy, so I was hoping you could identify them."

He scanned the shelf. "Most are organs, primarily animal, though it's not always easy to tell."

I lifted my gaze to the floating fetus. "And that?"

"Pig."

"Whew."

He moved a couple of jars aside with his gloved hand, to get a look at the ones behind it.

"Before you get too involved in identification, there's something else I should show you."

I pointed the flashlight at the trap door.

"Now, that's promising." He opened it and peered down.

"See anything?"

"Not without going down." He turned around and started doing just that.

"Are you sure we should?"

He paused. "You're right. You'd better wait here."

That wasn't what I meant, but he'd already vanished into the darkness.

I knelt and leaned into the hole.

"Jeremy?" I passed down the flashlight.

"No," he said. "You keep-"

"Take it. All I'm doing is sitting here."