Page 45 of Elven Prince

Rebecca couldn’t have phrased it any better herself.

The warehouse floor was littered with bodies.

Dozens of magicals, every members of Kash’s crew, lay in awkward positions where they’d fallen. Some beside the stacked pallets. Others grouped beside a packaging station. A young gnome had even collapsed right at the base of the stairs before every reaching the first step.

If Rebecca had kept descending without looking down, she would have stepped right on top of him.

Nothing moved until Lerrick’s footsteps clanged across the metal walkway before he leaned over the rail to view it all for himself. “What the hell?”

“Are they all dead?” Tig asked, his voice thick in his throat. “Or are they just, you know…sleeping or something?”

“My bet’s on door number one,” Maxwell murmured before he stepped past Rebecca, reached the bottom of the stairs, and nimbly stepped over the gnome in his path.

If that was another one of his attempts to lighten the mood with a joke, the shifter still clearly hadn’t figured out appropriate timing for even dry humor.

Rebecca stepped over the gnome as well but stopped and crouched beside him to feel for a pulse. His flesh was still slightly warm, but no heartbeat.

“This just happened,” she muttered.

Maxwell raised his augmented weapon and took off for the closest row of shelves serving as a fairly decent hiding spot, if anyone had survived. “Clear the room.”

Both Tig and Lerrick hurried down the stairs, weapons at the ready.

Rebecca joined them in systematically checking behind every shelving unit, stack of wooden pallets, and piece of warehouse equipment down here with them on the main floor.

In minutes, they confirmed they were alone, with no sign of either the warehouse’s attacker or a single survivor. So they turned their attention to examining the bodies.

Every member of Kash’s crew now lie on the ground, all of them dead. Even Kash himself hadn’t escaped, whom Lerrick found slumped over sideways in the seat of the forklift at the back of the room.

The discovery only grew creepier, however, when Rebecca examined a dozen corpses in a row, feeling for a pulse on all of them and finding none. Nor did she find any evidence of how they’d gotten there.

“This is all wrong,” she murmured, rising from the last body she checked to scan the warehouse, as if she had any idea what to look for. “The bodies have hardly had any time to grow cold.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call that a bad thing, though,” Tig replied. “Looks like we made it to the massacre. Just a little too late.”

“Definitely prefer that to being early,” said Lerrick added. “Even on time, given the situation.”

“I don’t know if we can call this a massacre, though,” Rebecca said.

“An entire crew wiped out in one place, all at once?” Lerrick asked. “What the hell else would you call it?”

“The bodies all dropped together, like everyone was shot at the same time before they even knew what hit them.” Tig added, kicking aside an apple that had fallen off one of the carts. “Looks like a massacre to me.”

Maxwell rose from his crouch beside another body, frowning at the deceased orc, then shook his head. “It’s too clean.”

“No visible wounds or signs of a fight.” Lerrick sniffed and turned in a slow circle. “What about poison?”

“Negative.” Maxwell grunted as he surveyed the warehouse again, standing perfectly still but for that flicker of his glowing silver eyes. “I would have smelled it.”

“Yeah, but there are plenty of poisons out there that don’t have an odor at all,” Tig offered.

Maxwell shot him a cutting look. “Not for me.”

“A spell, then?” Lerrick continued as he stepped cautiously through the weaving trail of bodies. “There are tons of spells out there that don’t leave a bullet hole. Or a blood trail.”

“I had the same thought at first,” Rebecca replied, “but any spell powerful enough to take out this whole crew at the same time, all at once, without anyone noticing a thing, would have been seriously concentrated. Magic like that always leaves some kind of mark behind.”

“Like what?”

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