Page 72 of Silent Stalker
I frowned. “That’s awful.”
Lengthening his stride, Ben went to do the door, put on a pair of gloves, grabbed the handle, and opened it. “They also have been leaving the places unlocked, as they don’t seem to have any care about who comes and investigates them once they’re gone. Our initial guess is that they used magic to erase most of the evidence, leaving us with some bodies as our only clues. Another reason we suspect it’s a younger brood. Older broods would understand leaving the bodies can tell more of the story than they want, especially with some magic. They likely assume we aren’t willing to delve into any dark arts to find answers.”
“Oh, we are,” Emerick muttered, shaking his head and following Ben into the building, arming himself with a flashlight in one hand and a stake in the other. “Any intel about the electricity in this place?”
“It’s been out for five years. The power company disconnected it two years after the main tenant left. There were some people leasing the place before the power went out, but they bounced and stopped paying bills. The power company disconnected their power for safety reasons. It’s been abandoned ever since.”
Emerick stepped inside. “Well, in theory.”
“In theory, the place was abandoned.” Ben coughed. “How do you feel about rotting bodies, Pepper?”
I sniffed, and I grimaced at the foul stench coming from inside the warehouse. “Do they look worse than they smell?”
“Unfortunately.”
Great. Color me unsurprised. Bracing for the worst, I followed Emerick.
Once upon a time, the warehouse must have served as a single large room for storage with a single office tucked along one wall, which had been fashioned of glass to allow staff to monitor the building. The glass had all but broken, with a few shards clinging to the metal frames catching the light. Emerick’s flashlight illuminated a pile of corpses in the middle of the room, and the stench of decay accompanied gasoline fumes.
“Did they try to burn the bodies?” I asked.
What sort of idiot tried to use gasoline to burn the bodies in an empty warehouse with a concrete floor? Even I, with no practical knowledge or experience with hiding bodies, understood the gasoline would burn out long before the bodies could be reduced to ash, leaving a ridiculous amount of evidence behind.
Were the vampires we hunted truly that stupid?
“Looks like it,” Ben replied, venturing closer to the failed pyre. “Yes, it does look like they attempted to burn the bodies. There was some fire, but it extinguished long before it could actually do more than char the uppermost corpses.” He shuddered and stepped away from the pile. “I’d say there’s at least thirty bodies in that mess. Pepper? Is this triggering any memories for you?”
While the last thing I wanted was to get a close-up look at decaying bodies, I approached the pile, taking my time with investigating the warehouse. Between the discolored flesh and evidence of an attempted burning, I recognized nothing of the people left to rot. “How awful. But no, if I’ve been here, I don’t remember it.”
“That’s for the better. We’ll call the authorities, get them identified, and see what we can learn,” Ben stated. “We should check to see if there is an entrance to a basement, but I doubt it. This neighborhood has been the ideal place for this sort of thing for years, and even if someone noticed the warehouse being used, nobody would care enough to report it.”
I returned to Emerick, and we did a pass of the warehouse, discovering nothing of use or interest beyond the pile of bodies. “Why didn’t we smell the bodies until after we opened the door?”
“Magic,” my husband replied. “It’s a fairly trivial trick to learn, although most use it when they have to remove a dead rat from the walls or conquer dishes left a little too long in the sink. It’s considered to be a household magic, and anyone with the capability of learning it likely will. It makes for an excellent tool when conquering a litter box or picking up the odiferous offerings from a canine.”
“Is that old magic?”
“You can learn the trick of it on the internet,” Emerick replied, walking around the failed pyre before crouching to examine the bodies. “It is old, but it was one of those secrets everyone knew because nobody wants to deal with some foul stench when working. It was mostly used by the lower classes, although some wealthier or more powerful people would work such magic on the sly. It was one of the first tricks my maker taught me when he decided I had mastered the basics of being a vampire. Back then, life had a rather strong scent, mostly unpleasant.”
“Are you using it now?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. This is still grotesque, but they deserve close and proper attention. I cannot do that if I am gagging every other breath. I’ll teach you the trick of it another night. If the smell becomes too much, step outside with Ben.”
“You assume I will leave you in this warehouse alone.” Ben raised a brow and engaged Emerick in a staring contest.
To my delight, Ben won.
“There are other members of the brood outside,” I reminded Emerick. “I can cause trouble with them as easily as I can cause trouble with Ben.”
“Ah, but Ben is less likely to get into trouble, and he is more likely to help prevent you from getting into trouble.”
“While true, I am capable of some restraint. I can handle the bodies. Do you know any of them?”
“No, I don’t. But I expect the police will identify them quickly, referencing missing person lists. If they’re vampires, we’ll be sent information on them to help identify them. As we aren’t missing anyone in our brood, we’re safe from that, but there are broods missing vampires.”
“Like Luca.”
“Yes, like Luca.” Emerick rose and joined me. “I don’t see a basement entry here, so let’s call the police and clear out. We do the dead no good standing around talking about them, and the police can do what we cannot. If there is a way into the basement, it’s beneath the bodies—and if there is a basement down there, the police will find it soon enough. If there were any vampires trapped below, it is unlikely they still live, especially if they were in the state of the ones released.”
“It’s more likely they were killed and left to rot.” Ben scowled at the failed pyre and shook his head. “May those responsible for this be brought to justice sooner than later. And tonight, I will dream of being that swift hand of justice.”
