“An elder power?” he asked.
“I hope not.”
He stared at the grave again. “Whole families, even the children?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
I wished I knew why. “The bones are missing.”
He grimaced. “The highest concentration of magic is in human bones. That’s why ghouls chew on them. Do we know for sure that they extracted the bones and kept them?”
“No, but statistically there should’ve been at least some bones in there. A skull, a femur, something. I only saw soft tissue.”
He sighed and for a moment he seemed older, his eyes haunted. “I’ll let you know after we excavate and go through it.”
We stood for a long moment, united by outrage and grief. We would both dig into that, he from his end and I from mine. Eventually we would find the one responsible. But it would do nothing for the families whose remains lay in the parking lot, dumped like garbage.
Finally, Luther nodded and went to get into his orange suit while I went to give my statement.
HELL WAS BEING stuck behind a teamster convoy driving across Magnolia Bridge. Normally I would’ve turned off onto the side street, but Magnolia was one of those new bridges that spanned the rubble of collapsed overpasses and fallen buildings and was the fastest way back to the office, and my head was still full of boiled people. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late.
It cost us a solid half hour, and when we pulled up to Cutting Edge, the afternoon was in full swing. Derek got out, unlocked our parking lot chain, and I drove into my spot and parked.
The street was relatively quiet today, the heat having chased off most of the customers normally frequenting Bill Horn’s tinker shop and Nicole’s car repair place. Only Mr. Tucker lingered. Time and age had whittled his once broad-shouldered and probably muscular body to a thin, slightly frail frame. It had also stolen most of his hair, so he kept it so short, it looked like white fuzz floating over his dark-brown scalp. But the years hadn’t destroyed his spirit. He walked our street twice in the morning and at least once in the afternoon, carrying a large placard. The placard said, ATTENTION! THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE! OPEN YOUR EYES!
As I climbed out of the Jeep, Mr. Tucker delivered the same message at the top of his voice, just as he’d done countless times before. But, being Southern, Mr. Tucker also believed in politeness.
“Repent! The end is here! How you folks doing today?”
“Can’t complain,” I lied. “Would you like some iced tea? It’s hot out.”
Mr. Tucker raised a metal canteen at me. “Got some tea at Bill’s. Thank you. I’ll see you around.”
“Okay, Mr. Tucker.”
A car went by slowly, obviously looking for something. Mr. Tucker lunged toward it, shaking his placard. “Repent! Open your eyes! You’re living in the Apocalypse!”
I sighed, unlocked the side door, and went inside. Derek followed me, grimacing. “He’s going to get hit by a car one day.”
“And when he does, we’ll take him to the hospital.”
Mr. Tucker was right. We were living in the Apocalypse. Slowly, with each magic wave, a little more of the old technological world died, and the new world and its powers and monsters grew a little stronger. Being one of the monsters, I supposed I shouldn’t complain.
We needed to clear our caseload. Serenbe had to take precedence. I checked the large chalkboard hanging on the wall. Three cases active: a ghoul in Oakland Cemetery, a mysterious “critter” with shiny eyes scaring the students at the Art Institute and eating expensive paint, and a report of an abnormally large glowing wolf in a suburb off Dunwoody Road. Derek approached the board and wiped the wolf off.
“Got it last night.”
“What was it?”
“Desandra.”
I blinked at him. “The alpha of Clan Wolf?”
Derek nodded.
“What is she doing in Dunwoody Heights?”
“She tried to enroll her boys in gymnastics class in the city, and one of the other parents threw a giant fit, so they asked her to leave. She’s been rolling in glow-in-the-dark powder and menacing that woman’s house for the last three nights.”
“Did you explain to her that intimidation isn’t in the Pack’s best interests?”
“I did. She told me that she would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for me, a meddling kid.”
I stoically kept a straight face. “Good job on closing the case.”
“Sure.”
“So where did you put the Scooby Snacks?”
“Hilarious,” he said dryly.
I pondered the board. A year ago, I would’ve tossed the paint case at Ascanio and forgotten about it. But Ascanio was scarce lately. He barely came in anymore. The last couple of times I had to call him instead of him bugging me for jobs nonstop. School had taken up a lot of his time, but he’d graduated last year.
He was still nominally on the books. I picked up the phone and dialed the Bouda House.
Miranda answered with a breathy “Hello.”
“It’s me.”
The sexy breathiness vanished. “Oh, hi, Kate.”
“Is the evil spawn around?”
“He’s helping Raphael with something.”
That was the answer I’d gotten the last time I’d called, too. “Okay. Would you let him know that I have a job if he’s interested?”
“Sure.”
I was Ascanio’s employer, but Raphael and Andrea were his alphas, and Clan Bouda valued loyalty to the clan above all else. Raphael trumped me. “On second thought, never mind. We’ll handle it.”
“Okay,” Miranda said.
I hung up. With Ascanio MIA and Julie off with Curran on his hunting adventure, we were down to just me and Derek.
“You want me to take it?” he asked.
“No, I need you for Serenbe. We’ll have to pass it on to the Guild.” I hated passing gigs to the Guild. I promised to do the job when I took it, and I took pride in making sure we got it done. Now I would have to explain to the clients that we were too busy. It was bad business and it made me feel lousy. But sometimes I had no choice.
I dialed Barabas at the Guild. I could’ve gone to the Clerk, but since Barabas was the head admin, it would be faster. Besides, the mercs walked into dangerous situations all the time. They needed to know about Serenbe. The more people who knew, the better our chances of figuring this out were.
He picked up on the first ring. “Yes?”
“I have to send you two gigs. One is a nuisance job, but the ghoul extraction will need someone good on it.”
“Is your father invading?”
“No, but something bad happened.” I brought him up to date on Serenbe. “Whoever did this got away clean. I have a feeling it won’t be a onetime thing.”
There was a long tense silence.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I am. I’m trying to think of a way to notify the mercs that also won’t cause a panic.”
“If you figure that out, call me back.” I could use some pointers in the notifying etiquette department.
“I will. We’ll take care of the gigs.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up, pulled the two files on the ghoul and the paint eater, and put them on my desk. I’d pass them on to Barabas when I got home today. Being neighbors had its advantages.
“You really think this will happen again?” Derek asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I leaned against the table. “They killed the dogs, got two hundred people out, and made them disappear. Nobody escaped. None of the attackers died, or at least we didn’t find any of their bodies or large pools of their blood. Nothing went wrong. They had no screwups. You don’t get that good at controlling large numbers of people unless you practice.”