A Virtue of Child - Chapter 4

“What did you say?” Garbhan stared at me with an appalled expression as did Yar.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud, and I realized how my words could be misconstrued.

“I apologize. I’m tired and hungry and nauseated…” I stared at the gruesome pile on the table, then pivoted to check the walls. Certain stains showed to my odd vision. Unfortunately, one of them was blood. However, something was off. Something I didn’t notice until now. “There’s no blood splatter other than on the floor around the table.”

Yar nodded as he looked around the room. “Therefore, the victims were dead when the culprit brought them here.”

“Can I let Master Devin in so he and Simi can collect the limbs?” I asked.

“Yes.” Garbhan nodded sharply. “My warden and I will guard my drawings until your clerk arrives.”

* * *

I and the representative from the Temple of Death were still at the Healer’s Guild, observing the healers attempt to match limbs to each other, when Brother Garbhan and my clerk Leilani arrived along with Noko and Yar.

“I know you can’t see my drawing of the creature the brother and Warden Noko witnessed, Chief Justice,” Leilani said with a breathless rush. “But from the pattern of how it originally placed the limbs—”

“It definitely looks like it was trying to caste some kind of spell,” Garbhan interrupted.

“Well, now the cat’s out of the bag,” Devin said a little louder than necessary. “That’s what I was going to mention, too.”

“You noticed the symbol?” I asked. “But the rats had already disrupted the positioning.”

“It’s not any different than the rats running across parchment that was freshly written on with ink,” Devin said. “It may still be readable. I glad someone else noticed the pattern I noticed.”

Sister Raven Claw eased closer to see Leilani’s sketch. Nearly a century ago, the Healers Guild had split from the Temple of Death. Because of that rivalry, their home Temple in Standora insisted one of their clergy be present whenever I asked the Healers Guild to check an issue with a corpse in a suspected murder. But even as much as Raven Claw witnessed death in its many forms, she had issues keeping her stomach from rebelling with today’s discovery. She still carried the scent of Master Healer Bly’s peppermint concoction to sooth her digestive system.

“Dark magic?” Raven Claw asked.

Garbhan grunted in agreement.

“It used the limbs to form the ancient symbols for ‘priest’, ‘war’ and ‘power’. If I may, Chief Justice?” Leilani held out her palm. I placed my right hand in her left. She folded her fingers around my index digit as if it were a stylus or pen, and she drew the symbols with my own finger so I could “see” them. I frowned. “Is it declaring war on us? Or trying to force us to fight ourselves? And why invoke power?”

“If I may, Chief Justice?” Yar rumbled. He so rarely offered an opinion it took me by surprise for a moment.

I gestured for him to continue.

“Why didn’t any of the neighbors report hearing anything last week?” The Light warden pointed at Leilani’s picture of the creature. “Something of that size should have made a racket. Even if someone saw it and was afraid to venture from their dwelling or shop, they would have summoned the peacekeepers the next morning.”

“Also, I checked the back door,” Gina said. “It was still unlocked. From the tiny scratches on the metal, the lock was picked. Given its halfway appearance, maybe it was in human form before it entered the building. If so, and the fact it didn’t enter the building until after the magistrate’s sale, maybe no one thought twice about it, thinking it was the new owners.”

I sighed and rubbed my temples. The headache from the rewind and the demon voices was growing worse.

“First of all, that’s a lot of guesswork in so few sentences,” I said. “The peacekeepers have learned to canvas neighborhoods properly. We’ll put their findings with ours, and then deal with what we’re missing.”

“Chief Justice?” Bly called out.

“Did you find something?” I strode over to the main examination table, only for my stomach to start gurgling.

“You’re not vomiting all over our work,” Master Devin snapped.

“Unfortunately, those were hunger sounds,” I said dryly.

The healers and their apprentices looked at me as if I were mad. The demon voices in the back of my mind jeered at me.

I ignored the voices and my heated cheeks. “What did you find?”

Bly held up a pair of forceps. The tip held a tiny chunk, but it was so covered in body fluids I couldn’t tell what it was.

“It’s a portion of talon caught in the femur of one of the victims.” Bly grinned.

“We have a way to track the creature,” I breathed. My stomach rumbled, and the voices in the back of my head cheered.

Now, why would the dead demons forming the grimoire I had hidden in my quarters be happy about tracking down an unknown creature?

Unless it was a corrupted human like a skinwalker.