Evolve or Die! 3.

"You two spent fifteen minutes throwing up after you saw THAT?" Emily sounded amazed. I was rather irritated.
"Unlike you neither of us were trained as assassins by an evil Indian sorcerer," I pointed out, feeling rather annoyed with the little black smoky Outsider. "And it's not just the sight of blood. This girl was bleeding EVERYWHERE. The police doctor said that her whole vascular system disintergrated."
"Nasty. And yes, kind of icky too. Any idea what caused it?"
"None. You don't know any exotic poisons that do that?"
"No," she admitted. "That's bad. I had a three-month course on poisons as part of my training as a supernaturally-powered assassin. This has to be something new. But apart from that horrible death, how did the reception go?"
"It didn't go apart from the horrible death. BECAUSE of that death, the reception was a disaster. I'll be held again to-morrow. In the meantime I'll be looking out for more unusual and horrific deaths."
"Me too," the Outsider agreed. "you think there'll be more?"
"What killed her may have been a virus. But don't tell Scruff that, we were both very close to the body. I'm hoping it isn't."
The 'phone rang. I picked it up.
"Hello, Jane Hill's flat."
"Miss Hill. It's Dr. Steele from Scotland Yard. You'll be glad to hear that the cause of death was NOT a virus or anything infectious."
"You're right, I will. That's a weight off my mind. Any chance of finding out what it was?"
"Yes, it was poison. A chemical reaction inside her body literally dissolved the walls of her blood vessels."
"Thanks for telling me. It's a weight off my mind."
"I hoped it would be. We still don't know how the poison was administered, though of course our first suspicion is a contaminated batch of heroin. We'll keep you informed."
I smiled. If only he knew that he was keeping the notorious Girl in Grey informed of police findings.
"Thank you, Dr. Steele. I'll tell my sister. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Miss Hill."
"What?" Scruff, in a bathrobe, her hair done up in a towel, emerged from the bathroom.
"It wasn't a virus, it was some sort of poison, probably in the last dose of heroin that girl took. You know what that means?"
Yes," Scruff frowned. "Thousands of drug-addicts could die because of it."
It was a depressing and frightening thought.