“Yes.” I exited the vehicle, before he tried his hand at changing my mind, and went still. “Oh crap.”
The smell hit me and woke that dark part lurking on the periphery of my self-control.
“We’ve got bodies.” I had no doubt they smelled it too. “Black magic?”
Asa and Clay exited the SUV and flanked me while I read the area from a safe distance.
“Yes,” Asa confirmed. “It’s quite ripe.”
As much as I wanted to cringe from a descriptor that might apply to me too, I forced my shoulders back. I was who I was, and there was no changing that. His opinion of me couldn’t matter. Not now. Not here.
Drawing my wand, I approached the rusting travel trailer, the stench more potent as we neared it.
“Whatever is in there has been there for a while.” I was betting four weeks. “How did Olsen hide this?”
“A circle?” Clay stuck close. “That’s all I can figure.”
Wards allowed air to pass over and through them. Circles could go either way. Breathable or airtight.
“Unless what we’re about to discover,” Asa added his two cents, “wasn’t put there until after we left.”
Just like old times, I went in first. Unlike old times, they allowed it because the property was vacant.
The lack of heartbeats told me what their keen noses and other senses had already relayed to them.
Black magic might not register to my nose, but the sweet-and-sour tang of rot hit me hard.
I followed it into the back bedroom and found what I expected to see. A dead troll well into decomp. His killer, and it was male, had driven a railroad spike through his heart. The rust told me it was old and iron.
Trolls were fae, and cold iron was a death sentence.
I could only hope he was dead before the killer sliced off his face with surgical precision.
“This must be the real Mr. Olsen.” I squatted next to him, examining his body for clues. “Why kill him?”
“I think I can answer that.” Asa waited several feet behind me. “Look.”
Standing, I trailed Clay into a tiny room beside the master. “The missing daughter.”
The door to her bedroom wasn’t substantial, but it had been kicked open, meaning she locked herself in.
“That’s a House Thorn dagger in her chest.” Asa made a gesture of prayer. “She committed suicide.”
“Seppuku?” I backed from the room once confirming his assessment. “A ritual suicide.”
“Similar,” he agreed, then glanced back at Mr. Olsen. “The girl must have been targeted through her father.” He exhaled slowly. “The copycat came for her, here, and she misread his intent.”
“She thought her family came for her.” I shut my eyes. “She took her life rather than let them kill her.”
“Mr. Olsen must have heard the commotion from the yard,” Clay theorized, “or maybe he just got home from work. He came to check on her and got a railroad spike to the chest for his trouble.”
“That narrative fits what we’re seeing.” I left the bodies to search the rest of the trailer. “We’ll know for sure after the lab tells us time of death.” I thought back on the timeline. “Four weeks.” I rubbed my nape as the full implications hit me. “This might have been the copycat’s first victim. Make that victims.”
The director really had wasted no time coming to find me as soon as he required my specific skill set.
“He could have glamoured himself to resemble Olsen and used his identity to stalk the other victims and their kill sites.” Asa picked up my train of thought. “That would explain the complaints against him.”
“He took Olsen’s face.” A technique I hadn’t seen used in ages. “Literally.”