I glared at them. “Quit bickering and let Dr. Langley do her job. We’re running out of time.”
“You’re the alpha,” Hunter muttered, falling silent.
“Well, it’s official. I need a cup of coffee,” Dr. Langley muttered. “Or maybe tequila. Or tequila and coffee.”
Daniel eyed her. “It’s not five o’clock yet, Dr. Langley.”
“When you get to be my age, it’s always five o’clock,” she said with a wink at him. Then she let out a low whistle when she caught sight of the corpse for the first time. “Well, I can see why you guys want to keep this quiet.”
I grimaced. “Yeah. It’s not pretty.”
“Just once, I’d love it if we had a neat monster on our hands. Or at least one that cleaned up after itself.” She paused. “I assume you guys have already photographed the area?”
Dr. Langley rolled her eyes at my blank expression.
“It’s called a camera phone,” she said, with a shake of her head. “You guys are going to stage the hiker somewhere else after this, I’m guessing. And clean up the area so it doesn’t look like something fromThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’m going to need photos. Lots of them.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “Hunter, Lee, Lacey—start photographing. Daniel, can you do a light spell?”
Daniel nodded and spoke an incantation under his breath, weaving his hands together in a flourish. A pinpoint of light appeared over our heads, then expanded into a sphere of golden-white the size of a grapefruit, illuminating the scene like a miniature sun. Thankfully, we were far enough from the hiking trails and even further from anything resembling a campsite or road.
Lacey, Hunter, and Lee moved around the site, snapping photos with their cell phones, while Dr. Langley examined the body, muttering her observations into a small silver tape recorder.
“Well, I’m just about finished here,” she said at last. “The cuts are almost surgical. You’re definitely looking for a creature with very sharp claws. Or the ability to use a scalpel.” She paused. “Some of the wounds show signs of infection.”
“Wait a second. If the cuts got infected…” Daniel grimaced down at the body.
Dr. Langley’s expression went darker. “He wasn’t killed immediately. Some of the wounds look like they’re days old.” She paused. “There are no bite marks anywhere on the body.”
I frowned at her. “Which means this creature doesn’t consume its victims.”
She nodded.
“Wait, but this—” Daniel gestured to the body. “I mean, it looks like he was eaten.”
“He was taken apart,” Dr. Langley corrected. “But as far as I can tell, whatever did this didn’t consume any of his flesh or bones.”
“That’s helpful to know. I’ll have Emma consult our lore to see if we know of a creature that does this sort of thing without eating its victims.” I paused. “Can you tell us anything else?”
“Well, the back left molars are shattered. I found fragments of them still in his mouth. But no bruising or marks on his face consistent with blunt force trauma.”
“Meaning he was grinding his teeth hard enough to shatter them?” I said, when her meaning sank in. A wave of revulsion swept through me. “He was in a lot of pain, then. Right up until the end.”
She nodded grimly. “I took tissue samples around the wounds, so if there’s some sort of known toxin or paralytic, I’ll be able to test for it.” She looked paler than before. “Whatever does this doesn’t kill right away. It makes its victims suffer first. You need to stop this creature, Reed. You and the rest of your pack. You can’t let it do this to anyone else.”
A chill settled over me. I nodded at her.
“The only other odd thing is that there’s a lack of blood on the ground, but not on the body. It’s possible he was killed elsewhere and left here.”
“His gear is on the ground,” Lee said, pointing to a black hiking backpack lying five feet away. “And no footprints or track marks on the ground. Except ours. How would a mindless monster have done that?”
“Maybe it’s not mindless.”
“But why would it kill a hiker somewhere else and then move his body?” I asked.
Dr. Langley considered it. “Maybe the creature is intelligent enough to know that leaving a body too close to its lair is a bad idea. That, or it knows a mutilated hiker found in the woods means more people will come looking for whatever was responsible.” She paused. “It could be attempting to attract prey.”
I didn’t want to believe it. Most monsters weren’t that intelligent—and even those that were tended toward opportunistic ambush hunting. But if I looked at it rationally,that didn’t line up with how the hiker was killed. This creature was obviously patient, not impulsive. If Dr. Langley was right and it was capable of that level of cunning, that meant it was a special kind of dangerous.
