Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson #13)(56)

“Excuse me,” the manager said, a little diffidently, “is that a coyote?”

Adam nodded. “It is. She’ll give us a little more insight into what happened.”

“You didn’t bring one of your—” The manager fumbled to a stop as Adam looked at him. It’s uncomfortable for a man used to being in charge to meet someone like Adam.

My mate smiled, and the manager relaxed. “I didn’t think you needed any more monsters here,” he said.

“You aren’t monsters,” said the manager unexpectedly. “I live out in West Pasco. Your wolves took down that zombie cow not a hundred yards from my house, and my grandchildren were home visiting.”

Adam’s head tilted. “Thank you for that. Let’s say, I didn’t want to scare anyone any more than we had to, then. And she’s better for something like this anyway.”

“A coyote?” asked the manager.

“Mostly.” Adam considered me. “Let’s go directly to where the boy was murdered first. Then see if she can track the killer either backward or forward.”

The manager led us directly to the back area and stopped in front of a wide swinging door. “It’s just beyond here,” he said with a nervous smile. “I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything, I’ll be up in the offices doing paperwork. Otherwise, when you’re done, you can leave via any of the exit doors—they lock automatically.”

“Thank you,” George said. “We’ll be fine.”

The manager’s sigh of relief as he walked away would probably not have been audible to a normal human. We followed George through the door to the murder scene.

It was, I supposed, exactly what anyone would expect the loading bay of a grocery store to look like. A forklift was parked in one corner next to a stack of orange traffic cones and a bunch of tent-type signs leaning against the wall. The one I could see read Caution: Wet Floor.

A bay roll-up door large enough for a semi was flanked by two more doors. On the far side, between the big door and the wall, was a second roll-up door, this one sized for a forklift. The nearer door was a push-bar type with an Exit sign overhead. Next to that door, covered with warning signs, was a machine used to flatten cardboard boxes for recycling. I knew that because it was full of flattened cardboard boxes, now drenched in blood.

Fenced off by crime scene tape hung over plastic delineator posts, the forklift, the push-bar door, the nearest walls, and about a ten-foot square of concrete floor were also covered with dried blood. Some of it pooled on the floor, but a lot of it was scattered around in sprays of various heights on walls.

Looking at the blood-spattered area, I recalled Lady Macbeth’s line: Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? I was a predator and I killed—mostly mice and rabbits. Blood usually didn’t bother me. But there was something about the blood spray here that made me feel less like a predator and more like prey.

I’d been with packs of werewolves when they took down elk and once a moose. Both of those had a lot more blood volume than a human-sized body did. And yet . . .

“It’s as though whoever did this wanted to spread the mess as far as they possibly could,” said Adam. “A lot of this is blood cast from the weapon the killer used. I’ve seen something like this before, when I went into the jungle with Christiansen a few years ago—”

David Christiansen had been Changed at the same time as Adam. David ran a small group of mercenaries who specialized in rescuing ransom victims.

“We were after a drug lord over there who killed people in particularly gory ways in order to terrify people—his followers as much as his enemies.” Adam’s eyes drifted high up on the wall. “It worked.”

“We’ve been asked to stay outside of the taped area,” George said.

Zee dropped down to squat on his heels in a way that no one who looked as old as Zee did should be able to and examined the room. He tipped his head so he could see the high spatter on the walls.

“Four cuts, you said”—Zee stood up again—“as the body fell.” His arm made a different motion than George’s had when he’d been describing the killing blows. George had been graceful and quick. Zee’s were also quick, but they were jerks back toward himself rather than a fluid figure eight.

“That’s not how the body looked.” George frowned, watching him. “The cuts are in the front.”

“Then the victim was facing away from the killer,” said Zee. He frowned at the blood pattern, then nodded. “A sickle is sharp on the inside curve. You used it in a circular sweep, hooking back toward yourself. Assuming the murder weapon is a sickle. But this is not dissimilar from the single kill site I saw before our sickle wielder died.” He frowned at the patterns of blood spray. “If we are not looking at a repeat of history, this”—he waved a hand—“could be done with a long knife, I suppose. I could tell you if I saw the body.”

“I was planning on taking Adam to see the body,” George said.

“I will go also.” Zee dusted his hands off, though I had not seen him touch anything. “Mercy, have you found our killer’s scent?”

Ah yes, I had a job here, too. Part of the compromise I’d made with Adam was to wear my coyote shape. Thirty-five pounds divided over four feet was easier on my wounds than my human weight on two feet. It hurt for sure, but I wasn’t going to let anyone see it. The nice thing about four sore feet is that limping isn’t much of an issue.