The hundred square feet inside the yellow crime scene tape reeked of human blood, werewolf, and dead fish to my sensitive nose. The three humans the weres had feasted on were still near the tents, buzzing with flies. The smell in the campsite had drawn a murder of crows, sitting in trees, watching, waiting. One turned and looked at me, cocking its head to the side in a movement reminiscent of the way vamps move when they aren’t trying to ape humanity. Or when they don’t care if someone sees their true nature. I held my face still, nonreactive, and studied the scene, walking around the perimeter, viewing it from every angle. Some of the crime scene techs were bagging evidence, marking where each body part or piece of evidence was found. Others were taking photos or making notes or putting down little evidence markers for new physical trace to be added into the bigger picture.
The campers had been attacked in the night, the wolves rushing in from the west, tearing into the tents, then into the sleeping campers. Three had been killed quickly. Three others had run into the woods and been chased. “What did the surviving campers say?” I asked.
“They were chased, knocked down, bitten, and let go.”
“All of the live ones were female,” I stated.
Sam studied me as I analyzed the scene. “How did you know that? We implied to the press that the one who called for help was male.”
“Three tents, three coolers, three bear-bags of food. All the dead and eaten ones are male, but you have female clothing of different sizes scattered all over the site. I admit to an assumption that it wasn’t six cross-dressers, ergo three couples.” Sam snorted softly. “Also, the werewolves in New Orleans were trying to make mates. Werewolves aren’t like other weres. They don’t breed true. The only way they procreate is to bite a human.” Of all the weres—the Cursed of Artemis—the wolves were the ones still sick, and the disease that made them two-natured and furry also meant they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. I finished, “Females who are bitten don’t survive, or if they do, they go insane and into permanent heat.”
Sam sucked in a breath as the words sank in. There was so much I couldn’t say to the cops, but the effects on the victims could not be kept secret. I thought about the grainy, poor quality photograph of Itty Bitty: delicate features, big blue eyes, pretty. I closed my eyes, feeling the gritty dryness of exhaustion. “Where did the wolves enter the campsite?” I asked, though I already knew, having tracked the scent on the wind.
Sam pointed uphill. “They came in from a church parking lot, up that hill there, about three miles. Went out the same way.”
“Dogs tell you that?”
Sam snorted. “Dogs got all squirrelly soon as the handlers drove up. Every single one. Went into full-blown panic mode. One bit his handler. Fu—freaking terrified.” I grinned at his careful change of wording. Cops aren’t known for their diplomatic language, but Sam was trying. “The handlers took them down to the river after the three-toed thing instead. What did you call it?”
“Grindy. Short for grindylow,” I said. “I need inside the perimeter, closer to the vics. Tell me where I can step and where I can’t. Then I want to see where the grindy came in from.”
“The grindy came from a stream at the bottom of the crevice,” he pointed. “I ain’t going down there. The fall’ll kill ya,” he quoted from an old movie. “And so will the hike back up.”
“Okay. Walk me in.” Placing my feet into Sam’s footprints, I got close enough to the victims to verify that they had been dinner. I’d seen a herd of deer after a werewolf pack tore into them. This was a lot like that. I also smelled witch blood, and since few male witches survive to adulthood, it likely meant that one of the bitten women was a witch. Itty Bitty was of witch blood. This wasn’t coincidence. The wolves had tried turning human women for mates and it didn’t work. Now it looked like they were going for witches.
Sam said, “Turned them into manburger,” and chuckled softly, the way cops do to separate themselves from carnage. It made them colder and harder than other humans, but it also kept them sane. I understood that, and didn’t respond.