A Shade of Vampire 80 A Veil of Dark - Bella Forrest Page 0,79

and dry grass in two different spots. I studied the footprints and every single trace I could see. I took deep breaths, analyzing every scent I could catch. I touched the congealed blood pools and turned over a limb or two. By the time I was done, I had quite a story to tell.

Valaine’s eyes were on me, glistening with curiosity. Again, I felt as though she was right inside my head, listening to my thoughts in real time. We’d been around each other so extensively that she was able to read my body language and facial expressions almost as well as my sister. Needless to say, I was once again impressed by her keen observation skills. Yet another reason to fall for her—in the midst of all this chaos.

“What can you tell us about the events that unfolded here?” she asked.

Corbin looked at her, then at me, and I knew I had to speak, wondering if they’d deduced the same. After all, we shared numerous abilities, despite our different species. “The first carnage occurred here, near this square area,” I said, pointing at a section of battered ground, where multiple tracks could be seen, like chicken scratches in different directions. “I can’t quite identify what sort of footprints these are, but they must be some type of animal. They look familiar, though. I’m sure it’ll come to me. The important thing to note is that they were kept here, with chains linked to this boulder.”

I got closer to the giant piece of marble, where a massive bolt had been screwed in, several iron links hanging from its looped end.

“I’m willing to bet those are Aeternae body parts,” I added, nodding in the appropriate direction. “Whatever was held in these chains gorged on some Darklings here.” My temperature suddenly dropped to icy lows. This all seemed familiar.

Valaine smiled, visibly pleased with my conclusion. She pointed at the second bloody spot. “What about here?”

I followed the traces, checking the footsteps again. “They formed a wide circle around this whole area,” I said. “Someone got injured here, and here,” I said, stopping in two different spots in the middle. “Here, there’s a medium amount of blood loss and more evidence of an animal or something, judging by the imprints. My guess is there was an Aeternae keeping a beast of sorts down.” I gasped, finally putting two and two together. I had never dealt with these creatures directly, so most of my knowledge came from GASP reports. “Oh, crap. Ghouls. They were keeping ghouls!”

“The blood loss is severe here,” Valaine said, joining me in the second spot. “If the injured person was also an Aeternae, it wouldn’t have been fatal, but certainly a serious inconvenience.” She frowned. “Ghouls? What are ghouls?”

“Oh, trust me, you don’t really want to know,” I replied.

“By all means, explain,” she insisted.

I gave her a brief description of what the ghouls were and how they came to be. It didn’t help make her feel any better about all this.

“Tristan, I think you need to tell us more about ghouls and Reapers and death,” Corbin interjected. “We’re clearly missing a lot here.”

“I think it’s best if we keep reading the scene, for now,” I replied. “The subject of ghouls and Reapers is far too complex. Either way, the presence of such creatures just strengthens our initial fear that the Darklings have gotten their hands on dangerous death magic. The ghoul broke through the circle,” I added, following the same animal tracks. “It tore through the Darklings, then went over here, where the severe blood loss occurred.”

“So, the ghoul that broke the circle did this, too,” Valaine said, staring at the dried blood next to our boots. “Nice catch, Tristan.”

“The problem with ghouls is that they can become invisible. They mostly eat raw flesh, but their favorite meal consists of the souls of the dead,” I replied. “And if the Darklings have such monsters under control, it makes them all the more dangerous.”

Corbin cleared his throat. “There are no traces showing us where they went, though. We can talk about what happened here for as long as we’d like, but the bottom line is we’ve yet to find Zoltan.”

“But there are traces of him everywhere around Astoria,” Valaine replied, staying close to me. I inhaled deeply, basking in her scent and holding on to her presence to preserve my own sanity. It had been a long couple of days, and we’d seen a lot already. I had a feeling we