I saw on the coffee table there was a pad and paper waiting. They planned this. I slid the paper to me and clicked the pen. I saw no reason not to give them what they wanted. Comparing my list with theirs might give me a better idea of the bigger picture and allow me to establish a pattern.
“I think that’s it.” I slid the list to him, keeping my hand on it. There were nine names I was able to remember, some going all the way back to June, when I first started picking up chatter. “Let’s see yours.”
No way was this information exchange going to be one way.
Clay held a sheet of paper out to me. I grabbed it and read. Most of the names were the same as mine. I had a few they didn’t. They had one I’d forgotten and at the very bottom was a name I hadn’t known about. It predated the first name on my list.
Jason Sanders. Who was he and how did they know about him when I didn’t?
I grabbed another sheet of paper putting the names from both lists in order of deaths or disappearance.
“Who’s Jason Sanders?” I asked when I’d finished.
“He was a werewolf. His death was pretty brutal. It looked like he put up a hell of a struggle when he was murdered. The condition of the corpse was a lot worse too. We could barely tell it was him,” Clay said.
That was interesting. I only caught a glimpse of the scene of Franklin’s death. Besides the massive amount of blood on the ground, it hadn’t looked like there was any sort of struggle to my untrained eyes. The blood had puddled and there had been minimal arterial spray. None of the papers had been disturbed and all of the furniture had been upright.
“How was Franklin killed?” I asked.
Brax lifted his head, his eyes training on me like a predator sensing prey.
“He was torn apart limb by limb.”
“Any signs of a struggle?”
His eyes narrowed. “No, there wasn’t.”
“Interesting.” I pointed to Jason’s name. “Your weakest wolf put up enough of a fight that he was left almost unrecognizable. Where was Franklin in terms of power in the pack?”
“Five or six, depending on how well he fought in a challenge” Clay said.
I looked at the rest of the names. A pattern began to emerge. The killer’s first victims had been weak in terms of power and fighting ability. A dryad, kelpie and a werewolf at the bottom of the pack structure. The more recent kills were a lot more dangerous. A werewolf close to the top of the pack, a vampire decades older than me, I assumed he was much more powerful too, and a sorcerer. All heavy hitters.
“He’s growing in power,” Brax said.
Yup.
“The kills are getting cleaner and more efficient,” I said grimly.
“Shit,” Clay muttered.
I wondered if the murders were giving him power. None of the gossip I’d heard had mentioned a ritualistic element, but magic was weird. He could be a monster who absorbed souls to power up, for all I knew.
“Have you fed?” Brax asked.
I blinked at the swift change in topic.
“Yes?” It was almost a question.
“Good. It’ll make things easier not having to stop to get you a meal while we’re out.”
“And where are we going?” I asked.
“We have a theory but no evidence so we’re going to examine all of the crime scenes to see if we can pick up anything we might have missed the first time.”
Ah ha.
That actually made a lot of sense.
