The bodies were never a pretty sight.
I was never a big fan of blood; sticky, messy, drying to a nasty brown when it was in the sun too long. There was nothing pleasant about it. Even the smell, the sweet copper scent of it, was enough to make me nauseous. I hovered at the edge of the bloody mess with a sour expression.
Devin had no such qualms. He stepped right into the disgusting puddles of blood mixed with the chunks of flesh that had been missed, making his way to the worst part in the middle. The knees of his pants were quickly soaked as he knelt down next to the body.
“Definitely a Soulless. Heart’s gone, and more than half of the body was eaten,” he said, gesturing at the body like I wanted to know.
I swallowed down the bile that rose to sting the back of my throat, and stepped carefully through the blood to see the body. Devin was right. Whoever the person had been, they had been just a bit taller than Devin and far more muscular. Those muscles were torn and laid open to the eyes, huge chunks of flesh taken out of the body in wide, jagged circles. The bastard had used their teeth. And judging by the way the blood was splashed far across the room, and smeared all around the body, the victim had still been alive when the Soulless started to eat them.
I stepped back, and my foot squished into something slick. God only knows what it was. I didn’t want to know, not when I was already a minute away from tossing my cookies all over the crime scene. But whatever it was, it had my foot slipping out from under me, and my eyes went wide with horror as I fell backwards.
“Hey now, if I can’t drink this early in the morning, you shouldn’t be drunk either.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief as I was pillowed against a smaller body; the voice rumbling in my ear made my smile finally come back to my face. Letting my head fall back against his chest, I grinned up at Jack. “You know I don’t get drunk on the job. That dishonor is all yours.”
“Is that any way to treat your savior?” Jack asked lightly, his pale lavender eyes bright as he laughed at me.
I made a face at him. “You’re not a very good savior. Aren’t you supposed to sweep me off my feet and make some grand speech about how amazing you are?”
He laughed so hard I was surprised he could still breathe. “This isn’t a fairy tale, little bird. At least, I hope it isn’t- if this is a fairy tale, it’s a Grimm tale, and I’d rather not be blinded by rose bushes or a bunch of birds if that’s okay with you.”
“Oh, I don’t know, being blind isn’t so bad.”
I looked up to see yet another familiar person. Gale was leaning against the wall on the far side of the room; I don’t know how he managed, since he couldn’t see a thing, but his eyes were focused directly on us. Devin thought it had something to do with body heat. I just found it slightly creepy.
“What is going on?” Devin stood up, crossing his arms over his chest while blood dripped down the legs of his pants to stain his shoes. “They called for the Alpha team.”
Gale shrugged. “We were bored. Nothing to do. ‘Sides, Bella was being a raging bitch.”
“That’s not really anything new,” I pointed out.
“Tch. At least she’s not demanding the cooks made a seven tier chocolate cake for her breakfast,” Jack said as he set me back on my feet.
Gale sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know why they still put up with her. But I don’t know why they put up with you either. You’re going to drink us out of a home.”
“Ah, they’ll keep paying for it as long as I keep bringing them heads,” Jack said cheerfully.
Sparks flew between them, their personalities too different for them to last more than a minute without fighting. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose but willing to let them duke it out.
Devin wasn't that patient- probably had something to do with the fact that they were crashing our crime scene. “Shut the hell up and be helpful or go back home!” he growled, glaring at both of them.
They both opened their mouths, their anger at each other focusing on Devin. Indrawn breaths came out on sighs as I held a hand up. We had something more important to worry about than how much they all didn’t like each other.
“Since you’re here anyways, you might as well help us,” I said, lowering my hand slowly, fixing them all with glares that threatened dire consequences if they kept arguing. “We have to hunt this bastard down before he eats somebody else.”
Jack grimaced, but Devin’s expression grew thoughtful. “Was this the first victim?”
I raised my right arm, hand sliding across the comm; when I tapped the new file on the screen, documents and pictures flashed across the screen so rapidly a normal human would never have kept up. “Yes, this is the first victim. Nothing else has come up on the daily sweeps since that stupid girl went psycho on her boyfriend a few weeks ago.”
“Great. So we have nothing to go on.” Jake crossed his arms over his chest. “Any evidence on the scene?”
I shook my head. “The labcoat ran over it before we got here. He didn’t find anything, which is why they called us in this early in the case. They’re worried we’ve got a Grey Blade on our hands.”
“Shit, really?” Gale raked a hand through his blonde waves of hair, drawing it away from his dull orange eyes. “We should have brought Kameron.”
I shuddered at the mention of the Vital none of us liked to bring up; he was the worst of us, completely feral, no better than the hunting dogs that were kept in the kennels. “I think we can catch him on our own. He can’t have gotten far- he’s injured and he’ll be looking for a place to hole up.”
“So we’re looking for an injured male. You could have told that to begin with,” Jack said with a slight pout, acting like I had been withholding information just to make his day more difficult.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, it’s not going to be that easy. Look up at the ceiling.”
They all followed my pointing finger to the cameras that were mounted on the wall. “Uh… it’s a few cameras. So?” Jack asked, frowning.
“Ah, we’re screwed,” Devin hissed, rubbing at his temples.
I nodded, pleased he had caught on; the other two stared at me, confused. They weren’t out in the field nearly as often, so I didn’t blame them for it.
“If there are cameras, we should have footage of the invader. But when I look for it…” My fingers flew across the comm, searching for the footage from the last day. “Look, it’s all empty. There’s this weird feedback around midnight, and then a black screen. I’d bet my wings the intruder cut the wires.”
“You’re telling me this sick freak is smart enough to cut the wires when he’s set on feeding?” Gale raised an eyebrow, his frown deepening. “That doesn’t bode well for any of us.”
“That’s why they think it’s a Grey Blade. Word is they’ve been training outside the city walls.” I stopped there, not wanting to relate the stories I had heard about how they trained. They weren’t any more pretty than the mutilated body on the floor.
Devin made an impatient noise. “Great. You got the challenge you wanted, Eli. Now how the hell are we supposed to catch him before he makes a meal out of another innocent?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” I said with a daring grin.
Devin’s face fell, and Jack groaned.
“He’s making the face, isn’t he?” Gale asked, exasperated.
“I am not.”
“Yeah, he’s making the face,” Jack sighed.
“I am not making a face!”
“You make that face every time you get a stupid idea, Eli. How are you going to try and kill yourself this time?” Devin asked.
They were all resigned to it; I felt a little bit proud of myself as they all turned to me, looking to me to lead them forward. Though how I’d been made the leader never made sense to me.
“Easy,” I said, my eyes bright. “I’m going to play bait.”
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