By the time they’d made it back to where the legion had attacked, the rain had washed away all but the bodies. With Neoma calm, the rain was just a light drizzle. The temperature had dipped again, so Quinn kept the hood up on his jacket, hands buried in the pockets as he slogged through mud and ankle-deep puddles.

The Glade’s pack’s Land Cruiser sat abandoned sideways across the road, tires disappearing into the sloppy mud. Neoma refused to get out of the car. She sat in the passenger seat, wrapped in the blanket Wren always kept in the kit in the back of the Suburban. Her gaze skittered to Wren, to the sky, focusing on anything but the bodies. Quinn didn’t blame her. His stomach rolled at the carnage surrounding them, but he didn’t have any choice.

“I just don’t get it,” Quinn said, mostly to himself, hunched over the torso of a male. The head was missing, as were his arms and legs.

“What?” Wren asked, crouching down next to Quinn, grimacing at the damage.

“This attack is nothing like the diner.”

Wren frowned. “How do you mean? Both attacks were brutal.”

“No. Not really. I mean, sure, what they did to the bodies at the restaurant wasn’t pleasant. But I think you’ll find the blood used for the symbols on the windows of the restaurant wasn’t the victims’. I believe they painted the windows first, hung the victims, carved up their chests, and sliced their femoral arteries just before they left. It’s the only way. There would have been bloody footprints all over the crime scene any other way. It appears brutal, but it was completely staged. A warning, definitely, but not from the Legionaries. Look around you. This is their version of a warning.”

Wren nodded, scrubbing his hands along his face, looking ten years older in just a matter of days.

Quinn glanced at the limbs scattered around the dying grass and reddish-brown dirt road. “This…this was frenzied. It was an ambush. Look at the injuries, Wren. They didn’t use a weapon. They were the weapon. They ripped them apart. Do you know how much strength it would take to rip off somebody’s arm with just your hands?” Quinn looked at his own hands, balling them into fists. “What the hell are these things, man?”

“I don’t know,” Wren admitted, but after a minute, he said, “But you said it yourself, the restaurant was intentionally staged to horrify the humans.”

“That’s my point. Horrifying humans doesn’t further the Legionaries agenda in any way, and it certainly doesn’t further the Grove’s. This is how the Legionaries operate. They are merciless, relentless. They didn’t even stop when the wolves were dead. They just kept coming. Neoma’s right about one thing: if Donovan’s alive, it’s because they wanted to keep him that way. I just don’t know what they want from us.”

“I don’t know, kid, but I trust your gut.”

Quinn swallowed hard, a feeling like a lead weight on his chest. Wren never questioned Quinn’s gut believing him even when he had no evidence to back his theories up. He’d taken it for granted before; but trapped in somebody else’s body and feeling like he was slowly losing his mind, he clung to it now like a lifeline. Wren never saw anybody but Quinn, and he could never explain to Wren what that meant.

Wren’s eyes cut to Quinn. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m good, but something keeps bothering me. Kai said the girl they questioned said they might not be able to get to our necromancer…why? Why can’t they get to Ember? They can get into our town, so why would they think Ember has an army, and why would they be so sure that Ember was out of their grasp?”

Wren just gestured helplessly. Quinn hadn’t expected an answer. Not really. But it nagged at him just the same.

Once they had all the information from the crime scene that they were likely to get, Wren and Quinn dealt with the messy business of piling the corpses and their parts on the road. They couldn’t leave them to be found by the human police. Not when they were already asking questions. It was too wet to burn the bodies, and even if it wasn’t, they couldn’t risk the smoke attracting attention. Quinn looked to Wren. Wren nodded once and then turned away.

“Cinis,” Quinn whispered, waving a hand over the pile, turning away as they cracked before crumbling like a sandcastle. Quinn held his hands up. “Ventus.” He pushed outwards, the gust of wind picking up the ashes and carrying them away until the road was clear of all but the two SUVs.

Wren slammed his fist into the hood of the Suburban, leaving a dent the size of a boulder. Neoma jumped from the passenger seat and rushed to him, but he was too far gone. He began pacing, boots slogging through the muck, eyes glowing blue, claws and fangs extended. “They deserved better than this,” he growled.

Quinn agreed. He did, but Wren had to see reason. “Come on, man, we had to. Your wife is already sitting at the police station answering a million questions. Imagine if they found this? There’s nothing we could do for any of them.”

Wren wasn’t ready to hear reason. He wasn’t finished raging. “They didn’t deserve any of this. These people were our allies. They never turned their backs on us, even when they knew how dangerous things could get. I want these Legionaries found. Who are they? Who sent them? How the hell do we kill them? You need to find these bastards, Quinn. You need to figure out who did this and why.”

Quinn was nodding before Wren even finished speaking. “I’ll find out. I’ll get you answers. Don’t I always?”

Wren closed his eyes, his chest heaving with the effort to calm himself. Neoma patted her brother’s face. “Quinn’s right. He always finds the answers. Right? Let’s just go home. Please? I don’t like it out here.”

Wren nodded, leaning down and kissing Neoma’s head before grabbing Quinn and dragging him in too. He kissed the top of Quinn’s head too. “Sorry, kid. You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

Quinn was glad to sit in the backseat on the way home. The truth is, he had no idea how to find the information he needed. That data was still being kept from him because nobody knew he existed. He needed access if he was going to be any use. Ember had mentioned the darknet, but the darknet only worked if you knew where to inquire. Aaron had obviously made the right connections, but he didn’t trust the kid, even if Ember did.

But there were too many questions to ignore. It wasn’t just the Legionaries. He needed to know why he and Ember were still having nightmares about Mace. He needed to understand who this Silas guy was and what he wanted with him and Ember. Quinn needed to know why somebody was turning humans into cannibals and why they decided to use those same victims as a message.

He slipped his phone from his pocket and pulled up his contacts. He stared at the name for a long time before he clicked it and typed out the text. He hit send before he changed his mind.

I need your help.

He thought it would take a lot longer for an answer than it did. Kai? Well, this is a surprise. I didn’t think that you’d kept my number.

Guess again. Not Kai. I don’t have time for chit-chat. You owe me. You owe us.

Hmm, well I doubt the broody wolf would ask me for anything. Am I texting with a ghost?

Former ghost, thanks to you.

It is you, Q. What do you need?

Information on a group of shifter hunters called the Legionaries to start.

To start? Am I your new supernatural Google search? Careful, Q, I’m not one to worry about repaying debts.

Quinn didn’t even acknowledge the dig. Let me know when you have something.

I’ll be in touch.

He deleted the thread of texts, feeling like a criminal. But they needed this information. It was important, but after what they’d done, it felt like making a deal with the devil. To distract himself, he picked up the digital camera, thumbing through the pictures of the scene. It wasn’t the ones that they’d hacked to pieces that fascinated him, but the ones with no marks at all. How had they killed them? Magic? Were these the same Roman soldiers from centuries ago? How could they be? They’d been dormant for years. Neither the Grove nor anybody else possessed the ability to resurrect the dead, only Ember. But if nobody resurrected them, where had they been keeping these immortal demonic hunters? He once again thought of his texts. He needed answers.

Before anybody else died.