Jenks whistled by rubbing his wings together, and then he darted to the railing, standing on it and facing the body. There hasnt been anything in the news. Youd think a hoofed university student with horns would make the papers.
Keep your mouth shut, Ivy said, knowing how hard it was for the pixy to keep a secret.
Nina looked between me and Wayde, clearly not happy with the Were being here. She probably didnt know Jenks was the higher risk for blabbing despite pixies being noncitizens. Weve kept it quiet. It needs to stay that way.
Dont worry about me, Wayde said, dropping back and putting a hand in the air as he looked down submissively. Im a professional.
I grimaced, hearing what the undead vampire was saying. You dont just keep something like this quiet without illegal memory charms. Great. I hated memory charms.
Nina saw my understanding and smiled with her new, confident, sexy eyes and turned to Ivy, a hand out as if to escort her up the stairs. The site is open for your inspection, she said as she walked over the blood-painted word of Latin as if it meant nothing. Weve already gathered what we need.
Good. Ivy casually sidestepped Ninas guiding hand and walked up the stairs by herself. Ill let you know what you missed.
Her attitude was surprisingly belligerent, and I wondered why she was letting her emotions show like this. She knew it would attract the undeads attention all the more, and clearly she didnt like him. Concerned, I went to follow Ivy up, and Wayde touched my elbow. Hey, uh, Ill stay here if you dont mind, he said, his face pale as he looked up at the body.
Jenks snickered, which I thought totally unfair, following it up with a Not used to the blood, wolfman?
Waydes expression sharpened on the pixy. Hes half turned into something. You know how many nightmares Ive had about that?
Yes, I suppose being able to turn into a wolf, painfully, might give one a new kind of nightmare, and I smiled as I gave his arm a squeeze, feeling the hard muscle under his shirt. You can wait at the car if you want. Ill be fine.
No, Ill stay. Just not up there, Wayde said, and Nina cleared her throat for me to hurry up, even as Wayde looked past me to the body and shivered.
Rache . . . Jenks complained, and I headed up the stairs, hands in my pockets and giving the Latin a wide berth, reminded of how Nina had skirted the dead child under the ground.
This is the third, Nina said, and I blanched as I now had nothing else to look at other than the blood-soaked, softly pelted, cloven-hoofed, disfigured man before me. Jenks was right; he even had tiny horns, and his skin was gray and softly textured like a gargoyles. What in hell had they done to him? And why?
Please, God, may it have nothing to do with me. But I was the first demon this side of the ley lines, and I was getting a really bad feeling.
We found the oldest one just last week, Nina added, almost as an afterthought, her voice telling me the vampire speaking through her was deep in thought.
You didnt find them in order? Jenks had parked himself upwind of the corpse. It smelled, but the cold had suppressed most of the stench. Actually the body had a distinctive meadow scent under all the decaying blood, and I wondered if that was part of the faun thing that it had going.
Nina gave Jenks a dry look. All the dump sites are similar to this one, but the first involved three teenagers from three different schools, missing since the fourth of November. Two were contorted like this one, the other died from heart failure. Her medical history shows she had heart issues, and we think she died from fright.
I breathed deep, trying to get beyond the atrocity so I could think. The scent of wine and salt tickled a memory. Electricity, ozone, old books: it all added up to demons, except for the fact that there wasnt the faintest hint of burnt amber. Demons stank of it. Jenks had assured me that I didnt smell like the ever-after, but I think he was lying.
Id been born a witch, but my blood kindled demon magic and the way the coven of moral and ethical standards saw it was that if it looked like a demon, did magic like a demon, and could be summoned like a demon, it was a demon. I couldnt find fault with them. It had been a shock when I realized my blood didnt invoke every witch charm, failing at the most complex because of the demon enzymes in it. Al, my demon teacher, was the same. I was a demon, like it or not. The first of a new generation thanks to Trents father. How nice was that?
The soft sound of pixy wings pulled me from my sour musings, and Jenks landed on my shoulder, his wings tinted blue from the cold. He knew where my thoughts had gone just by looking at me. I dont smell any burnt amber, I said, and Nina nodded. Her canny gaze looked wrong on someone so young.
It wasnt at any other sites, either, she said. Thats why we thought of you.
Ivy cleared her throat in reproach, and Nina broke eye contact with me to stare at her for a long, slow moment, the smaller woman quietly asserting her dominance until Ivy looked away. All the victims had a large quantity of their blood drained from them, as you see here, Nina said, turning back to the body. The first victims showed evidence of being held against their wills: split fingernails, bondage marks, bruises, cuts, contusions. They resisted their capture and restraint. Evidence points to one to six days worth of torture. The moulage was old, but were fairly confident that none of the victims was killed where we found them.