The Diamond Dragon (Kip Keene Book 4) by Nicholas Erik

confirm that there was someone down here by making another foolish mistake. The owner of the shadow could still think it was an anomaly. Maybe someone flushed a bunch of thimbles down the toilet, and they were banging around in the pipes on their way to the treatment plant.
    Somehow, however, Keene reckoned that disturbances didn’t happen in Tillus. The town’s vibe made it seem like everyone had read the same self-improvement books—and actually used the advice within. Robotic, lifeless, just following a script.
    Hell, maybe the big secret about the initiation was that it turned them into robots.
    Although Keene could do without seeing any automatons ever again.
    The footsteps stopped, and Keene saw the shadow come closer to the grate. A pair of eyes, their whites staring down through the metal slits, searched for the source of the sound.
    Keene drew his pistol and fired two shots, the bangs erupting in the tight sewer like he’d detonated a C4 charge. The gunpowder ignited and flashed, illuminating the dim space with a brilliant light. Then it dissipated.
    Keene punched the grate away and dragged himself off the concrete platform and into the morgue.
    Sheriff Hendricks was dead, a thin trail of blood trickling onto the green tile from two gunshot wounds in the middle of his head. His eyes were empty, his own firearm clutched between lifeless fingers.
    Two tragedies in one day. Quite the death toll for Tillus, after not losing anyone for almost twenty-five years. Keene doubted the veracity of that claim—if he had to spend another day here, he’d seriously consider eating a bullet—but then, he’d seen strange enough things not to disregard it entirely. The world was never exactly as it seemed, his own perceptions imperfect.
    He glanced through the morgue’s window, where a cadre of hooded figures stood inside a cramped room, cloaked in all black. They stared back at him, but no one made a move to stop him.
    Keene didn’t wait. There were at least fifty of them present, all holding candles like they were waiting for the goddamn rapture. He grabbed an aluminum chair from the corner and jammed it beneath the doorknob to the only exit.
    That barrier wouldn’t keep forever—and the cult outside could just break the glass—but it would slow down the mob if they happened to notice their beloved leader had received two unscheduled holes in his skull during their precious initiation.
    The room itself was unremarkable for such a hallowed ritual. Two stainless steel slabs stood in the middle of the room, Strike’s rigid body lying on one of them. Swaying kerosene lanterns hung above each. One wall was taken up by the window, another with a row of cabinets stocked with medical implements and surgical tools.
    From the sewer blueprint, Keene had determined that this was the best way into the precinct undetected. He hadn’t actually expected Strike to be located down here.
    In fact, he’d chosen this area specifically because it was the least likely to be occupied. But apparently the people of Tillus had different customs than the typical American town, and as such, considered the morgue to be an appropriate clandestine meeting place.
    “I guess I interrupted the book club,” Keene said, finally attending to Strike, who hadn’t moved or made any noise since his appearance. He craned over the table to examine her in the murky light. Unharmed and fully clothed, other than the fact that she wasn’t moving.
    Her eyes stared straight at the light, not moving when he hovered over her.
    “Strike?” He nudged her and got no response from her stiff limbs. A dreadful foreboding filled his churning stomach. “Come on, say something.”
    He shook her, as a small child would to awake a sleeping parent. But there was no response from the stiff body, no acknowledgement that she was alive. The eyes, unblinking and seemingly unseeing, just stared into nothingness.
    Keene flung a tray of scalpels against the gallery window, sending a