like death, witchcraft, and black magic. The combination was stomach-turning. Suddenly the extra little bit of brightness from the lights didn’t seem like overkill at all. Anything that might brighten up the spiritual atmosphere, however insignificantly, was welcome.
“I know,” said Sherwood grimly when I sneezed in protest of the smell. “But you get used to it.”
There were no bodies in this room, but I looked around thoroughly anyway. Adam had noticed something that bothered him in this house, bothered him more than Elizaveta’s dead family, and I needed to figure out what it was.
The bodies began in the kitchen, three of them. I am not a medical professional. I’m a predator, yes, and I kill things. But my victims (mice and other small rodents, usually) die quickly from broken necks. I’m not a cat; I don’t play with my food.
Elizaveta’s family members—I recognized each of these, though I didn’t know their names—were missing pieces. Mostly fingers, ears, toes—survivable amputations. The woman was missing her nose.
They all wore pants and the woman had on a loose unbuttoned dress shirt—no shoes, no socks. The clothes were filthy and smelled of blood and other things. Some of that was because of the usual effects of death, but some was older. Elizaveta would never have tolerated slovenliness in her family, so whoever had held them had not allowed them to bathe or change their clothes.
The woman’s body was folded over a bowl that contained beaten egg that had been fresh a couple of hours ago. When I came to that, I took a good look at the room and where the bodies were. There was toast in the toaster and several slices on a large plate next to it. The stove was off, but there was a frying pan on it. On the counter next to the stove was a package of bacon—unopened, which was why I hadn’t smelled it earlier.
These people had been tortured—and some of the wounds were very fresh. All three of them had been in the middle of making breakfast, judging by the condition of the kitchen. Who gets tortured and then decides to make a meal? Witches, evidently. Strange. Even more strange was that they had died very quickly and all at the same time.
I examined each of them, sniffing their bodies. Then I went through the kitchen itself, pantry and all. The next room, a workroom of some sort, had four more bodies.
There was nothing wrong with any of these people, no wounds new or old. It looked as though they had dropped where they stood. I recognized only the teenaged girl. Her name had been Militza. She went to school with my stepdaughter, Jesse, though Militza was a couple of years younger. Jesse sometimes gave her rides home from school, though not recently.
Jesse had privately told me that Militza gave her the creeps. I’d told Jesse to tell Militza to find another ride. I think Jesse had been more polite than that.
“There are fourteen bodies,” Sherwood said dispassionately, as I explored the room. “Adam described them to Elizaveta, and she identified them. No survivors. Stop right there, don’t open that cabinet. There’s a sigil on the door. I don’t know what it will do, but I doubt it is anything nice.”
I stopped. I couldn’t sense anything over and above the magical-crafting residue that impregnated everything in the room. It was strong inside the cabinet I stood in front of, but no stronger than it had been other places. Apparently, Sherwood had a more subtle understanding of magic than I did. I found that very interesting.
Sherwood didn’t speak again until I’d moved on.
He picked up the one-sided conversation as easily as if he’d never stopped. “Whoever did this wiped Elizaveta’s people out. Elizaveta thinks it was probably another coven, trying to take over her territory while she is in Europe. She will be here as soon as she can.”
There were no more bodies on the first floor, though I noted that two chairs were missing from the dining room set. I went upstairs then, to search six bedrooms and three bathrooms. I found a lot of interesting things, but there weren’t any more bodies.
So I was prepared to find the other seven in the basement. Or at least I knew that there would be seven dead people in the basement, most of whom I’d probably met at one time or another. “Prepared” was probably too strong a word. I don’t know how I’d have been prepared for what