Heck, who am I to judge? I thought, wrinkling my nose. She does bugs, and I do demons.
I moved to the side to keep out of the way of both doctors as they examined the bodies and conferred with each other in hushed voices. Finally Doc turned to me. “Crime Scene has taken pictures of the pile already, so I’m going to have them start moving the bodies, unless there’s anything else you want to look at.” He nodded toward three men in striped outfits who were clambering down the slope—trustees who would get extra “credit” for helping to remove bodies on this scene.
“Go for it,” I replied. I could feel only the faintest flickers of the arcane, and with all the insect activity I couldn’t even tell if the symbol was on any of these bodies. It would seriously suck if these were not Symbol Man victims. Two serial killers would be more than we could handle. Hell, one is more than we can handle.
Doc flicked his fingers to dislodge a stray maggot, lip curling in disgust. “As soon as these guys get the bodies off one another, I’ll be able to tell more.”
I didn’t have to wait long. As the first body was pulled away from the others and turned over, I could clearly see the symbol that had been carved onto the chest. Okay, so we’re still dealing with the same killer, I thought with strange relief.
The trustees staggered by me with their grotesque burden as they carried the body to a clear area to lay it out. I began to step back to avoid the stench, then froze as a faint sensation of arcane resonance rippled over me. I shifted quickly into full othersight, reluctantly stepping closer to the body. It’s the symbol, I realized. The symbol is arcanely protected. I hadn’t noticed it on any of the Series Two victims because they’d been found relatively quickly and there were still arcane traces all over them. But on these, most of the residual arcane energy had faded to nothing—except for the potency twined into the symbol itself. No wonder the symbol had always been recognizable, even on the badly decomposed bodies. I gave myself a mental head-smack. I should have thought of that earlier. Chalk that one up to inexperience, I thought with a small sigh.
For the next hour, I discovered it was impossible not to breathe in the stench of rot. I didn’t have any trouble with nausea, but one of the trustees was not so fortunate and had to lean over a bush several times to heave. Jill was there, taking pictures of the entire process as the bodies were removed and laid out, face grim and pale as she worked.
I crouched next to the two doctors, making notes and listening to their observations as they examined each body as it was removed from the pile. Six bodies, each with the symbol carved into the flesh and positioned so that the symbol wouldn’t be exposed to air and insects. Make it last longer, even with the arcane protection. It’s important to whatever he’s doing.
Finally the last of the remains were zipped up into body bags and Doc stood up and stripped off his gloves. “Four men and two women,” he said, mouth set in a firm line and a thin beading of sweat on his upper lip. “All with ligature marks around their necks and notches at their elbows and ankles, in addition to various other signs of torture.”
Dr. Vaughn rolled her neck on her shoulders. “For now I’m going to say that there’s nothing older than two months and nothing fresher than three weeks.”
I did some quick mental calculations, then took out my phone and pulled up the calendar. “So that would fall between these dates?” I showed my phone to Dr. Vaughn, pointing out the dates.
The entomologist looked at the screen and nodded. “Yes, that would work.”
“Thanks, both of you.” I turned and jogged back up the slope, slowing as I saw Ryan climbing off the back of an ATV.
“Hey, Kristoff. Check this out.” I showed him my phone.
He looked at the screen, a faintly bemused expression on his face. “You have all the phases of the moon on your calendar?”
“Yeah, like, duh. And now it’s finally useful. Doc and the entomologist think that these victims were killed between the last two full moons.”
He looked at me with a So what? expression.
I gestured to the row of black body bags at the bottom of the ridge. “I think these are last month’s victims.” I took a steadying breath. “I think he attempted the summoning last month and it didn’t work.” I rubbed my palms on my jeans, unnerved. I didn’t want to think about what we’d be facing right now if he’d been successful.
Ryan blew out his breath. “Fucking lucky for us. I wonder what went wrong.”
“I don’t know, but he’s not giving up. He’s trying again this month.”
A sickened expression passed over his face. “And he’s going to keep doing this until he succeeds in this summoning.”