"Nothing, but that they're all in shape, which is the only connection besides the fact they all come from a faction of the Otherworlder's, which brings us back to Necromancers. They choose victims who they can benefit from controlling. Strong bodies to use, but if it was Necro's, well they forgot the bodies. So we can check them off the list of suspects."
He smiled which looked off with his forehead crinkled from the rich scent of death. He was Fae and they could smell everything ten times stronger than I could and I was fighting the churning of my stomach that fought to release the coffee I'd sucked down earlier today. "Good to know I guess, no dead fucks cutting people up," he replied.
"They went off the pattern though. Most of these women are Fae. So the body count is higher for the Fae then it is for the humans. Our Fairy knew her killer. She had let her inside her house. These women looked surprised, as if they never seen death coming, but unlike the Fairy they were not at their homes," I scanned their feet, most wore shoes, expect the two who were currently footless. The others had either running shoes on, or dress shoes. I leaned down to examine a young female whose hands were held above her head in full rigor mortis. She had handprints on her wrist, her feet had been bound, but her eyes looked lifelessly at something in front of her. She also had those damn holes in her shoulders as if something had pinned her to the chair, but nothing inside the room was small enough to have been used.
"Two killers, or more," I said horrified, it had been bad enough to be looking for one sadistic killer, but now we had two to find.
"You sure?" Ryder said coming over to stand next to Zahruk by the female's body.
"Someone held her hands above her head, while someone else dissected her organs. She has hand prints on her wrist, with nail marks in the tissue, so we're looking for at least one female. She had to have been taken a while ago, her blood stopped flowing about seven hours ago or so. She also has the same holes in her shoulders as the Fairy and all of the other victims do. It's possible, that whatever the pins are could be what is sapping their powers."
"So you are saying there are more killers then we originally thought we were looking for?" Ryder asked clarifying what I had just said.
"Yep, two sadistically twisted fucks—or more. To kill on this level? They had to have had help. I don’t see two people killing this many women in this little of time Ryder, we have three Fae and two Witches with an empty spot but a blood pool, so someone else was here before we were, taking their dead with them when they left."
I watched Ryder nod his dark head once before he clicked open his phone and hit redial. I waited trying to figure if he was calling the Guild, or who it could be that he thought his people needed to be informed.
"Vlad, now." He barked at his phone, "No, this cannot wait, put him on the fucking phone. Get him on the damn phone now!" He waited briefly and then Vlad's smooth voice came through the other end loud enough for me to hear.
"What is it Sire?"
There was that title again.
"Did you remove a body from a crime scene?" He waited and then hung up, "It wasn’t a Vampire. Vlad hasn’t removed any bodies."
"So it wasn’t a vamp, which leaves Light Fae. These are all Dark Fae." I said scanning the room briefly before resting my eyes back on Ryder.
"I would smell it if they had a Light Fae inside this room."
"We're missing something. You said the dogs picked up nothing. Not even a trail, so what if the killer is using the body parts on him, or herself? It would confuse the dogs and why didn’t they put the bombs in…too many bodies maybe? But they could have gotten the same results using just one to destroy the crime scene," I mused looking around and finding a picture sticking out from beneath one of the bodies. "Arianna, again."
She was dressed in a business suit. Her blonde hair piled and pinned on her head. With a red X painted over her face. "This is the same picture we found at a different crime scene."
"So it is, I'm glad she agreed to extra security," Zahruk said as his eyes settled on the body the picture had been under. "She kind of looks like Ari, Ryder?"
Ryder was already squatted next to the body with his elbows resting on his knees as he examined the corpse. "She does, but so does that one," he pointed to the body in the chair."
"Think whoever is doing this has something against Ari?" I asked looking at the faces of the other victims.
"Hard to tell, she's a gentle creature, timid at best," Ryder replied as his eyes evaluated the other bodies, "I cannot see anyone holding a grudge against her, which was why we were shocked when news of the assassin's interest in her came."
"How did it come?" I asked wondering how they would know an assassin was trying to take out his future bride. It wasn’t like we posted it on the telephone poles and said "hey, by the way we plan to snuff out your life," no we just got the assignment and carried it out silently, making damn sure no one was the wiser that we were coming.