Page 78 of Junk Magic

“Are you alright?” Sebastian demanded, a hand on my shoulder.

“Can’t see them,” I said, staring around. It was as if the dead had been attacked by ghosts.

“See who?”

“The people who did this. They’re . . .” I sketched an absent body with my hands, showing where it had been standing beside a decapitated head, which I assumed had not been levitating in mid-air. But whatever had been holding it wasn’t registering.

“Must have used scent suits,” Ulmer said, coming up. He’d found a pair of jeans somewhere, but his feet were still bare, and now stained pink from where he’d splashed unconcernedly through a puddle. So much for the crime scene, I thought, my human mind cringing.

Not that it mattered; the Corps would never be allowed in here. I was the closest to an investigator this scene was ever going to get, which probably explained why Sebastian had called me. But all I had here was half a story.

And then what Ulmer had said registered.

“They used what?” I said, looking up.

“You cover yourself head to toe in a hazmat type thing, or whatever you can rig. Garbage bags and duct tape will work if you use enough of ‘em. Then smear on some noxious potion, maybe two or three. And Bob’s your uncle, no one can follow you back to your house and rip your guts out.”

“Some of the criminal elements preying on the Were community have been using them for a while,” Sebastian added. “To keep their identities secret. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

“The Corps doesn’t deal with Were issues all that much.”

And that went double when it was Were on Were violence, which this definitely had been. These bodies had been savaged, literally shredded at times, not gunned down. There was also no potions’ residue splattered about, or decaying spells shriveling up in a corner, as would have been the case after a magical attack. This was butchery, done with claws and teeth and overwhelming strength.

Weres did this.

And I was pretty sure I knew what kind.

“No, they expect us to police our own,” Sebastian said, looking aggrieved, despite the fact that that was by the clan council’s own request. But said request had been made before his time, and was obviously not one he agreed with.

“As opposed to?” Ulmer growled. “We don’t need mages interfering.”

“Clearly we do! Or we need our own investigative force, as I’ve been trying to tell the council. If this was the work of hunters—”

“Not hunters,” Ulmer and I said simultaneously, causing Sebastian to blink.

“Then what was it?”

I just shook my head. I was pretty sure I knew, but it wasn’t something I wanted to discuss out in the open. But I still had a question.

“I don’t smell any potions.”

Sebastian grimaced. “No, whatever the attackers used seems to work a little differently. Instead of masking a person’s scent with unpleasant odors, it . . . removes it. Like cutting a piece out of the natural world. It is something we haven’t encountered before.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

The blue eyes narrowed. “So I hear. But right now, I’m more interested in why the clan who attacked you yesterday have been butchered, and dumped into the middle of our sacred ground.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What?” I stared at Sebastian, but didn’t get an answer. Instead, he simply strode away, with the air of someone used to being followed.

So, I did, and Ulmer followed me, the two of us picking a path through the forest of the dead. The Were remains were bad, being torn up and fly strewn now that darkness had fallen and the scavengers of the desert had come out to feed. But the human ones were worse.

Their skins had been discolored by the heat that they’d probably lain in for hours, although not like a sunburn. They were the hue of charred roast beef, with no healing possible anymore. Just meat on the grill.

I swallowed and tried to find somewhere else for my eyes to rest, but unless I looked straight up, there wasn’t anything. Corpses were everywhere. And in such a savaged condition that I couldn’t even count them all.

And then Sebastian was shoving a new one in my face, or the head anyway.

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