I found it a little odd that there were so many people around the corpse. Generally the council would have cleared the evidence by now. I pushed through the masses of supernaturals who were gathered in a circle around the kill zone. I cursed as the scene came into focus. What the hell was going on? Vampires were notoriously hard to kill. The constant influx of new blood gave them amazing healing and regeneration abilities, but someone had cut off the victim’s head. The body was slumped against the large roots of the redwood, and a long machete had been speared through the skull, pinning it to the trunk.
“Is that Markus?” Jacob cursed. “Shit, he was like a hundred years old.”
Which meant whoever killed him had been strong and powerful, able to resist his vampire compulsion. Not to mention crazy-as-hell, judging by the scene we were seeing. Which was a scary concept.
“No blood and no bite marks.” Braxton was sidling closer for a better look. “This is not the kill scene. He was moved.” He lowered his head close to my ear. “Do you scent anything strange?”
I closed my eyes and tried to focus my nose on the scene, filtering out all of the scents which had nothing to do with the murder. The most demanding smell was still that of death. It was a recent kill so there wasn’t an overpowering smell of decay and excrement, but it was still there. I wrinkled my nose, moving past that to anything else strange. Forest smells and … coconut.
“I smell coconut oil and something flowery,” I murmured as I opened my eyes.
Braxton nodded, “Yes, coconut and lavender.”
He was right, they were was the underlying scents.
Why was that ringing with some familiarity in my head? That combination was something I’d smelled before. I turned and saw Tyson. “Didn’t one of the spells you used – to find the prison – use those two ingredients?”
“Yes,” Tyson bit out. “And it’s a spell I created. The scented oil was designed as a trail marker to take us to the prison.”
I twisted my head back to the morbid scene. “Does that mean someone has left us a trail to lead to the killer? Or are they trying to implicate Ty as the killer?”
“Fuck!” Braxton clenched his fists. “Those marks on the tree, do they look like claw marks from a rather large animal?”
I’d been so focused on the head speared to the tree I hadn’t noticed there were two large gashes out of the bark. I examined them, and they were definitely a familiar shape and size. I didn’t need to be an evidence magic user to know those claw marks would probably line up perfectly to Braxton’s dragon. There was no reason for the Compasses to have killed Markus. Note I did not say they weren’t capable, they were more than capable, but they would need a reason. Someone was staging this scene to implicate them.
At the moment of that realization, arms grabbed around me, tightening across my chest and yanking me backwards. I was dragged ten feet away before the boys realized I was gone. They spun as one, coming at me, but in unison stopped when they saw who held me. I hadn’t scented him at all, he’d cloaked himself so he could take me unawares. But the large ring on his middle finger was familiar enough that already my skin was starting to crawl. Kristoff.
The sorcerer had one hand wrapped around my throat. “We left this scene here to draw you Compasses into public. The four of you need to come quietly.” He almost sounded gleeful. “I will keep a hold of Jessa until you allow the council guards to cuff you.”
Where the hell was my father? My eyes darted around the crowd but none of my family were here.
When Jonathon found out about this he was going to be pissed. He would not appreciate the council using me as leverage to arrest the boys. I noticed Jerad off to the side, but the way he spun his head and walked away spoke volumes. Spineless dickwad. I was so well rid of him.
I didn’t struggle against Kristoff, I could feel the strength of the spell under his hands. He would only have to let it loose and I would most probably lose my head.
“You can’t kill her.” Maximus sounded confident but he wasn’t stepping closer. “If you kill an innocent, then you’re a murderer and will lose your leadership and freedom. Right after I torture you for life,” he added, no change in tone but the fires of hell in his eyes.
Kristoff laughed. “The five of you are implicated in the murder of Markus. Jessa would simply be killed resisting arrest.” He waved his hand at the scene. “I’ve been examining it for hours. All the evidence points to your group.”
Shit, there must be even more than we’d noticed, and Kristoff was a master at deception and manipulation. It would not be hard for him to convince everyone of his word. Our standoff was starting to draw a crowd.