"There's nothing to connect the wig-wearing woman with the woman who controlled the hellhounds and the zombie."
"Other than the fact that one woman contacted the kid, and another woman killed her.">"Have you called in a dogcatcher?"
"Yep. But the vampire's bits would have turned to ash very soon after they hit the sunlight, and they could have been thrown in any direction from that window. It can wait."
I turned away from the window. "Any idea how these people are getting into the house?"
She shook her head. "Marshall can't find any obvious-or nonobvious-methods of entry. But they appear to be walking out the front door with their hauls."
That raised my eyebrows. "They would have to have been covered in blood, wouldn't they?"
"You'd think so. Cutting off someone's head and legs while he's alive would have created spurts of arterial spray, even in a vampire, but other than the pools of blood near the remains of his leg and neck, there's nothing."
"So they used a screen or something?"
She wrinkled her nose. "I doubt it. Arterial spray is something of a misnomer-it comes out with a lot of force when a main artery is cut. Even if they'd used a screen, there would have been residual drips."
"And they couldn't have used any sort of floor cover, because then we'd not have the blood pools."
"Exactly."
My gaze ran around the room, then came to rest again on the pools of blood underneath Garrison's body. They weren't nearly big enough for a body that had been bled out. "Maybe they were collecting the blood."
"Maybe. Hard to imagine anyone sitting still through that sort of thing, though, and they don't appear to have used restraints of any kind."
"Could it have been magic?" I asked, looking at Mel again. "Cole thought there might have been magical influences over at Armel's murder."
She frowned. "If it is, it's not one that I've smelled before. And it would have to be an extremely powerful magic to restrain someone when you're hacking him to pieces."
"Well, there's at least one thing that is obvious," I said grimly. "These people have a serious grievance against vampires."
And if they had, maybe Armel and Garrison weren't their first kills. Maybe they a history of it. It was certainly worth checking into.
"You'll get the report to me as soon as possible?"
She nodded. "Won't be tonight, though. The lab is severely backed up at the moment. Even the priority stuff is going to take longer than usual."
"As soon as you can, then. Thanks, Mel."
She nodded and got back to her fingerprinting. I dug my phone out of my pocket, ringing Jack as I headed back to the car.
"Anything?" he said.
"Just the same odd smell that I noticed at Armel's. Have the magi checked out Armel's yet?"
"They're there now."
"Which means we probably won't have an answer for a while yet." I gnawed at my lip as I opened the car. "Had another thought-"
"That's always dangerous."
Despite his dour tones, he was obviously getting back to some sort of normality if he could throw barbed remarks. Well, as normal as one could get after losing a longtime friend.
"It might be worth checking for similar murders in other states," I continued, "just to see if this is an established pattern. These murders are well practiced, Jack. We're dealing with professionals, not novices."
"Sal's already on that. There's nothing yet, but it's going to take awhile. You got anything else?"
I glanced at my watch. It was only four, and it wouldn't take me that long to get back to Fitzroy for my meeting with the street kids. But I was betting Joe would probably already be there, and if not, I'd wait. It was better than going back to the office and doing paperwork.