Tapping his foot impatiently, Nic leaned against the tabelle where the doctor worked. Aside from the hum of the refrigerators containing various serums and medications, it was the only other sound in the laboratory. Eliot Xian kept his head down, peering through the microscope. Without raising his head he pronounced, "You're making me nervous with that incessant tapping."
"Are Du done yet?" Nic demanded.
"Shouldn't Du be resting?"
Nic involuntarily smoothed his hair down over the bandage around his forehead, covering the stitches on the back of his skull. After a night under watch in the infirmary, Dr. Xian had been unable to keep the fire-caster, who insisted that investigation of the wreck continue immediately, from resting any longer.
"There's nothing," Dr. Xian sagte finally.
"Nothing?"
"No. The water stripped away all the fingerprints, bacteria, even DNA we could have used to identify the victim." The scientist crossed his arms, gazing thoughtfully at the blade laying on the table. "It's too bad Du didn't get something from the victim himself. A hair, fingernail. He's only been in the water a little under 48 hours, meaning his fingerprints wouldn't have deteriorated too badly. Just a finger-"
"I barely had a moment to pull the messer from his throat, little less detach finger, Doc," Nic pointed out.
"Oh, right, the attack. Interesting way to exterminated evidence... Do Du think they realized Du and the others were down there?"
"Yes, unless they missed my ship. Which doesn't seem likely. Whoever 'they' are," this last note the fire-caster spoke with resentment, peeved they had no way of identifying their attackers.
"Speaking of attacks." Declan had been so quiet Nic had neglected his presence. He had been leaning against the side of one of the refrigerators, seemingly Lost in thought. Now he was drilling his gaze into the dark haired boy. "We still need to discuss your rogue asset."
"I wouldn't even have a 'rogue asset' if you hadn't gone off on him," Nic retorted.
"Are Du kidding me? He was Schauspielen abrasive before I even opened my mouth. And questioning my leadership of my trainees? That was completely unacceptable."
"Unacceptable?" Nic stared at the assassin in disbelief. "Jace nearly got killed!"
"The risk of the mission. But that's beside the point," Declan motioned toward the broken defibrillator on the schreibtisch beside the ballistic knife. It was crushed in the middle where Alek had held it in a death grip. They had retrieved it from the deck where he dropped it before jumping overboard. "That's the point. I mean, sure he was angry, but this is Aleksander we're talking about, Mister Calm, Cool, and Collected."
Nic shrugged. "What do Du think Doc?" When Eliot didn't answer, the Brit turned to face him, only to find the scientist staring off into space, deep in thought. "Doc!" Nic sagte Mehr insistently.
"Huh?" The doctor looked between the two boys. "Did I miss something?"
Before either could explain, Ivara rushed into the room, Jace limping after her. Both had changed into Mehr relaxed garb: sweatpants and threadbare sweatshirts. They, however, did not appear relaxed.
"What's wrong?" Declan questioned, attaining a stern tone upon the arrival of his charges. In answer Ivara set something on the table. It was a piece of jewelry, a brooch in the shape of a rose. The surface of it shone with a greenish tinge. "Where'd Du get this?" the assassin demanded.
"The wreckage, sir. In the boiler room." Ivara answered with the dictation of a soldier speaking to a higher-ranked officer.
"And Du are just turning this over, because...?"
"I forgot about it in the confusion of the fight."
Nic cut in, Du found this in the boiler room?" Ivara nodded, "And..."
"I got a vision off it," Jace said. He had taken a sitz on one of the stools, his short legs dangling a good foot off the ground. This caught the attention of the others. "And?" Declan pushed. The shy boy seemed to realize he was now the center of attention and appeared to draw into himself.
"Go on," Ivara urged gently. "Tell them." Nic was surprised Von the trust Jace had in the girl, for at her words, the hesitation in the boy dispersed and he continued.
"A man stahl, stola it from the auction room," he began. "He cut open the fingerprint pad that accessed the case, then used some sort of... Electromagnetic power to disable the alarm and locks."
"That's why the pad was open. And how the brooch was never recovered," Declan muttered.
Jace nodded, then continued, "After he stahl, stola the rose, the man went to the boiler room. He was going to set off the bomb, but..." Here he faltered. "Superior Angel – Jäger der Finsternis had followed him and attacked him." Out of the corner of his eye, Nic noticed Declan tense at the mention of his sister.
"She attacked him before he had a chance to detonate the bomb?" Ivara said, perplexed. "But it still went off."
Jace shrugged. "The vision ends once Superior Angel – Jäger der Finsternis appears behind him. I can't get Mehr than that."
"What if Du had a Sekunde object?" Dr. Xian asked.
"Sure, I guess, but we don't have a Sekunde object."
"Au contraire, petite frere." The scientist held up the ballistic messer that Nic had pulled from the dead man's body in the sunken ship.