It was like all these people had just… dropped dead in the middle of dinner.
Rishi jumped onto the table, eyeing each victim like he thought he might find a live one.
Danny furrowed his brow. “I don’t get it. How’d all these people die?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Opal sniffled. She still couldn’t look, and her face was curled into Ez’s shoulder. “The guards lined them for a firing squad. That’s how they do it at places like this.”
Danny shook his head. “They aren’t lined up, though. These bodies are everywhere. It’s like they were all killed all at once. Nobody saw it coming.”
“It must’ve been something like noxite gas, or a poison of some sort,” Ez theorized.
Danny knelt beside a vampire to inspect the body. “That can’t be it. A vampire would just hold his breath if attacked by gas. The only ways to kill a vampire are through decapitation, a stake to the heart, or fire, but there are no signs of injury. Normally people in places like this are treated so poorly they die of infection or malnutrition, but even if they were starved, there’d be signs of a struggle. Nobody ran or fought back. It’s like they all dropped at once.”
“Let’s check the warehouses,” Charlie suggested. “Perhaps we’ll find more clues as to what happened here.”
As we continued forward, it became apparent that this was more than poison. Pools of blood had dried to become nothing more than stains in the dirt. The further we ventured into the camp, the more apparent the injuries became. First came lacerations and minor wounds, until we came upon limbs completely missing from bodies. Holes had been blasted straight through people’s chests.
Soon, the bodies became only parts. There was a foot here, a hand there, dismembered pieces amongst torn fabric that no longer resembled clothing. Then the dirt turned to a deep black.
We came upon a crater in the center of the camp, where dirt had been upheaved all around a circle at least twenty feet wide. The hole itself must’ve been ten feet deep in the middle. There were no bodies or remnants ofanythingwithin several yards of the crater.
“Whatever happened started here,” Charlie said. “I can feel remnants of magic, but I can’t identify it. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“Something happened here, all right,” Marcus said. “There’s a huge crater in the earth, like a massive spell impacted the center of the camp. This is probably what killed everyone.”
“What’s all this black powder?” Ivy asked in a shaking tone.
Oberi sniffed the dirt, and Charlie knelt down to inspect the ground beside him. He rubbed the black powder between his fingers. “I can feel it’s magical. It must be a residual of the spell.”
I looked around, calculating. Something here didn’t seem right. This camp was overcrowded with prisoners who hadn’t had a chance to run from the attack. They hadn’t even seen it coming. There were bodies all over the rest of the camp… except here.
It hit me like a cinder block to the chest. “It’s thepeople,” I realized. “Their bodies were reduced to nothing but ash. This spell disintegrated anyone who was standing too close.”
Danny blew a breath. “One hell of a spell, I tell ya. These people were all ripped apart at once, dead as soon as the spell was cast. Someone literally walked in here and massacred these victims all at the same time.”
“How’s that possible?” Charlie wondered. “Evenwecouldn’t kill this many people in a single blow.”
“Why not?” Ez wondered. “You’re demigods. You’ve got the power to kill them. Perhaps this is the doing of the other demigods.”
I shook my head. “Not like this. There are too many different ways to kill supernatural beings, and they don’t all die in the same way. Sure, I could kill five-hundred people at once by stopping their hearts, but they’d have warning once I began. They’d start running. But even if I did that, it wouldn’t kill the angels and the vampires. Wecouldkill this many people, but it’d be a bloodbath, and you’d see signs of a struggle. Not whatever this is. All these people died in seconds, and they didn’t have time to run, or even see what was coming.”
“So what kind of power can take out all supernatural races at once?” Alistair asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied hollowly. “Whatever weapon the Warden used goes beyond anything witnessed in this realm. It must’ve come from the gods themselves.”
That was a terrifying thought, because it meant the Warden had access to power beyond anything we could imagine. Worse, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. The Warden had deployed this weapon and then justleft, without a single regard to the lives he took.
I was certain the Warden hadwantedme to see this. He dropped his wards knowing I would come, and he left behindall the evidence as a display of his power. This was merely a message… a message forme.
He’s coming for you Ava.
And he’s leaving no survivors.
I shook my head as the voices invaded my mind.No. The Warden clearly had a powerful weapon, but that didnotmean he’d won this. We had to keep going, because weneededto find survivors. There had to be a chance that we could still go up against him, despite what had happened here.
“Someone had to survive this,” I said in a choked tone. “Let’s keep going.”
We continued past the crater, toward the warehouses that were built so much like the Darke Institute. I kept my gaze ahead, but Marcus continued to look around at all the dead bodies.
