My Daddie's Rejected Lover

Monsters

Seeing Beta Dean like that unnerved me.  Werewolves were extremely hardy.  They rarely felt pain and plowed through when injured usually making their injuries worse.  Would could possibly have had him in so much pain without any physical marks?  

I didn't agree with Alpha Cisero's decision to let him go and not inform his alpha.  What if it happened again and he were alone?  Or on a mission?  I was more than worried but I had to respect it.  Alpha De La Vega  was my superior on this mission, not my friend. 

I began to pack up my area and run over the day in my head. Three of the captured Murtaz managed to kill themselves under our guard. One of them was actually a raksashas disguised as an orc hybrid. The charm around his neck had been broken releasing his true form. He then transformed and killed two of his cohorts and then himself with his razor sharp claws.

Of the hundred or so that went on this mission, fifteen had been injured during the compound breach. Two had been reduced to ashes when powerful UV lamps were turned on them and eight severely burned.  Zev and another vampire used their blood to revive the vampires.  The mer and another vampire were wrapped in bandages soaked in healing salve until they could return to the Mir.  It was the first time I'd seen a vacuum used on a vampire. They wanted to retrieve as much of their ashes as possible to help speed up their coalescence.

"Do you see that?"

I turned to see Graven squinting into the brush where I'd encounterd Anansi. There was nothing there. "See what?"

His eyes and the dots over his eyebrows lit up. Orange iridescent wings spread out behind him and he hovered off the ground. I looked around to see if anyone else was watching but it was just us.

Worried, I touched his arm.  "Graven?"

He kept his eyes on the brush.  "Listen."

Naturally attuned to nature, I figured Graven must have sensed something I didn't. I put my hand over the rock around my neck when Gadise began to hum. That's when the smell of Sulphur and charcoal reached my nose.

My eyes widened.  "Is that -?"

"Goddammit!  Alpha, get over here!" Graven yelled taking off into the bush with me on his heels. We could hear curses and thundering steps behind us as they followed. Grass and plants were trampled as we rushed to a clearing less than a thousand yards in. We stopped dead in our tracks and I felt bile rise into my throat.

Suspended upside down in the trees in a circle were ten supernaturals. They had been stripped naked. Their chest cavities were carved open and blood ran down their bodies onto a circle on the ground. A sigil was outlined in the middle in some sort of white substance. I didn't know whose as part of it had been messed up. Probably to throw us off. Behind me I heard:

"Fucking hell!"

"Blessed Austra protect us."

"Shit!"

"Mahina."

"Great Lucifer."

"Nope. Leave him out of this."

That last one shook me out of my shock. I quickly pulled another pair of gloves out of my cargo pants and approached the victim closest to me - a female elf. Her wrists were bound and blood ran down her arms soaking the ropes that bound her. Gently, I twisted her around to see her face. There were carvings all over her skin and the hair on her head had been shaved.

I jumped as a large hand landed on my shoulder.

"Daniel, wait until we get a few pictures," Zev said.

I stepped back to allow Yeli and the other photographers to do their thing.  While I waited, I  looked around. A chalice had been dropped on the ground near a stone altar. The altar was draped in a black cloth and covered in blood.  A wavy knife was retrieved by one of the other men. Who was out here doing this? How did we not sense them?

"Temporal displacement."

My eyes darted to Graven.  His dots and eyes were no longer glowing and his wings were gone.   Was I projecting again?

He smiled. "Not then, no. But you are now."

I sucked my teeth. "So like they were in a bubble that hid them from us?"

"Yes."

Yeli walked over to me and rubbed his arms as if he was cold. "Shadow Magic. Nasty stuff. We're finished with the pictures."

My team and I walked back to the bodies and we began to work. Since our team found them, our team was going to handle the investigations as much as possible. The ten victims were members of different supernatural races. A werewolf, vampire, elf, witch, dragon, fairy, dwarf, mermaid, orc, and naga. They were male and female, various ethnicities and ages. Two had been birthers. One had the seal of an elder and another was barely out of their teens.

"Real fucking monsters whoever did this," Amon muttered as he touched a scar on the mer.  I felt some sadness radiating off of him.  I wondered if it was because he was a quarter mer or if it was the situation itself that upset him.

I had to agree. Not only had ritualistic symbols been carved into them, they'd also been cut in places that would cause them to lose blood the fastest - similar to how a hunter field dresses a deer. A witch with expertise in summoning rituals came in once the bodies were taken down. We bagged them and loaded them into two of the medical vans.

The ride back was quiet. I was tired, angry, and sad. Ten lives snuffed out for some stupid ritual. Was it to call a high level devil lord? Who would go against the gods' instructions? Who would risk their soul? Who would want to inflict such pain and torture on others?  Why did they do it while we were in the middle of a rescue? Was it coincidence?  Planned?  It was all so confusing.

I just wanted to go home and curl up with my men after a steaming shower. I needed to feel their love and goodness. This mission only brought back all my dreams and nightmares. The sadness and frustration of knowing something had happened to my mother and her family and it was being covered up. 

No. That wasn't accurate. We were being erased. Add to that all the things we heard from Mihai, Uni, and now Anansi – I was going to be a paranoid wreck before long.

The enemies were already in the walls? Who? Someone from Ricinus or Forest Lake? Or maybe both. Where they there to spy? Cause us harm? Sabotage us?  What was their connection to this mission?  To the slaughtered supernaturals? 

Before we could look into any of that, we had to take the bodies to the base to be transported back to the morgue in Tu'men where the autopsies and identifications would be handled. The Dark Moon component had to return to Luna but would continue working on the investigation from there. They took the Murtaz with them. Chiekh and N'Deya also had to return but took the the photos and evidence of the sigil to work on it in Karanlik. Oboson would return to Tu'men to assist with the questioning of the kidnapped council members. I would be working with Graven, Amon, and Zev. I did not look forward to being the one to inform the supernaturals' families of their loved ones' senseless passing.

*Get ready.  All mysteries are about to be unraveled.  

**If you've read my other stories you know that usually means things are about to get intense and will stay that way for a minute.  Have some happy stories on deck.

**raksashas - In THIS story a low level shapeshifting demon on the same level as incubi and vampires.  They can shift into any humanoid or large cat.  Their true form is a human body with four arms and tiger face.