Blood Moon Born

Chapter Six

Loae's eyes swept the scene.

Could this even be the same murderer? She tried to shutdown any part of her that would be swayed by emotion. Her encounter with Kanai's traumatic memories was bringing all of her unpredictable emotion to the forefront. She dug her fingernails into her palm until she felt a stinging pain that focused her mind. She needed to focus.

This killing was worlds away from what happened to Amia. With trava in her system, Amia must've died quickly. And the single slash to her throat was more to serve as a red herring than a show of violence. Even though she disappeared a full day before the body was discovered, whatever the killer did to her happened fast.

This...this took time. This killing brimmed with unnecessary gore. It was brutal to the point of sickening, even for someone as familiar with death and gore as Loae. This scene triggered her old memories of Sa—towns ravaged by newly turned, ravenous vampires, a vengeful dragon let loose amongst cliffside villages, a coven of witches seeking human sacrifices for their next ritual. She didn't like seeing flashes of the Old Land here. It made her feel like she'd brought the darkness across the ocean with her.

Whispers, shouts, exclamations rattled the front door. Loae turned to see a crowd thickening outside. They might've been mere townsfolk looking for any kind of spectacle, but this wasn't anything any of them needed to see.

Loae nodded to Kojo. "Can you keep them back?"

"Of course," Kojo answered, his voice calm and soft. From what Loae knew, Kojo was the first of the hunters here. After the body was found, the local guard called for the Agrudans who sent Kojo, Roan, and a handful of other hunters into town. They'd sent the other hunters through the city, to search for any lingering clues. Roan and Loae would survey the scene of the killing.

After one deep inhale, he looked away from the body. "And I'll ask around to see if anybody saw anything."

Kojo left, pulling the door to the dressmaker's shop closed behind him. A strum of uneasiness rippled through Loae when the door shut. It felt like she was being sealed in with the evil committed here.

Loae and Roan exchanged a tense look. With a trace of hesitation, their eyes trailed back to the shop. Loae's gaze swept across the pieces of the body, the slahes of violence in the room. She wanted to recreate the scene. See the order of what happened.

"How did the killer get in?" Loae asked.

"I don't know," Roan said, wincing as he touched his bandaged shoulder. "All of the doors and windows were locked tight. Back door was smashed, but from the inside."

So either he she let him in or the killer got in another way.

Loae didn't know what he did first, but it must have been something to quiet her. If someone had heard anything or tried to check in on her, then he wouldn't have had the time to do what he did to the body. Maybe he poisoned her like he did with Amia. Maybe he strangled her. Maybe he knocked her unconscious. Loae doubted she would ever know.

That was because of what he did next.

Hacked her body to pieces. Tore her limb from limb. Loae counted more than a dozen body parts strewn across the room. The body wasn't severed in an orderly way—at the limbs and joints. No. This was madness: chunks of meat taken out of the leg and thrown by fingers yanked straight from the hand. Pieces of her smashed-in skull lay scattered about the room, like shards of a broken vase.

Loae prayed that Nox had snatched the girl's soul long before any of this torture was enacted on her.

What else did the killer do? Smeared the shop in blood. Blood patterned the walls to such an extent, it looked like a new, macabre coat of paint. Every dress, shirt, and gown on display sat splattered red. Even the floor glistened with a thickened layer of blood.