“We have to go up there.” He pointed to the raised metal walkway that Mellgren had floated down from earlier.
“Okay, let’s take a look.”
Declan, Az, Caesar, and I made our way up. Everyone else stayed on the floor with Mellgren. I had no idea what we would find, and there was no way I was subjecting the vampire to a vat of bloody soup.
Caesar unlatched the lid with a long, complaining creak, and steam hissed upward.
We leaned over to look inside, and floating near the surface, bobbing gently in the foam, was something that looked a little like a dead rat.
Declan made a strangled sound that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been panic. “Please tell me that isn’t Roy’s hair.”
Az leaned in, squinting. “That’s a cheap toupee. Whoever it belongs to didn’t care about quality.”
Declan edged up beside me and squinted his eyes like he was trying to see better.
I grabbed a long metal stirring paddle off the wall.
“Be careful,” Declan said, worry threading through his voice.
I dug out the ball of hair, placing it on the metal walkway beside us. Then I slid the paddle back into the vat. The liquid churned, thick and sluggish. The metal scraped something beneath the surface—something solid.
Everyone froze.
I stirred again. Definitely not a pipe. Not a tool left behind. Something soft, slippery, and wrong.
My wolf pressed against the inside of my ribs, claws raking, trying to break free in a body that wouldn’t shift. I took a deep breath, willing him to settle.
“There’s something down there,” I said.
Caesar’s hand shook so badly that he had to brace it on the railing. “Oh, God. Oh no. Oh, please tell me it’s a raccoon. They get inside sometimes and, man, they cause trouble when they do.”
“A raccoon that wears a toupee?” Tulip asked incredulously from down below.
“It’s definitely not a raccoon,” Mellgren called up. “That smell is human blood, not animal.”
I pulled the paddle free, foam dripping down the handle.
“I think we’d better call Grady.”
Declan reached for my hand again, and the raven outside let out a low, echoing call that threaded through the brewhouse like a warning.
“Caesar, let’s go outside and wait for Grady. While we’re there, we can tell the people waiting for the tour that it’s been postponed.”
He nodded and headed down the steps. I looked at Declan. “I’m going to send Mellgren home. He doesn’t need to be here for this, but the rest of you stay here and don’t let anyone near the vat.”
Declan nodded, and I followed Caesar down the steps to the ground floor while I made the call to Grady.
He picked up right away. “What’s up, Gideon?”
“I think we have a problem out at the Black Feather Brewery.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Like a body in the beer vat kind of problem.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” I said.
