Page 30 of Hallowed Bones

“In the texts, those killed in this way were all accused of patricide in some form or another, but Jonah here…” He shoots me a knowing look.

“His dad died a while back,” I say.

“Exactly,” Ezra says, straightening away from the body.

I arch a brow at him. “If it were a Veil creature?”

“Then it could just be a relic of the creature’s past that made it choose this method,” he replies. “A hollower would be my guess.”

The sounds of shuffling leaves and footfalls make my ears twitch. I straighten and glance back. “Reyes is here,” I say, and a few minutes later, he appears.

Shoving apart branches to make his way into the clearing, Reyes swipes a hand down his sweating face. “All right, I’m here. What—” He comes to a standstill when his eyes land on the body of Jonah Montgomery. Then his eyes turn to me and then Ezra. “You didn’t tell me to bring my med kit.” He says the words almost accusatorially.

“In case it’s escaped your notice…” I gesture to Jonah’s spread rib cage and the lungs currently sitting outside of his body. “There’s no reviving the dead.”

In response, Reyes flips me off and moves forward, reaching into his coat to withdraw a pair of latex gloves. Not all of us can have Ezra’s easy evidence-removal skills.

“You’re lucky I was already running by the hospital today for that interview,” he tells me, motioning for Ezra and me to move out of the way.

“I told you to bring the gloves,” I remind him, but his attention is no longer on me as Ezra shuffles to the side, and Reyes pauses at the side of the body.

“Before I forget,” he says absently, eyes roving over the snapped edges of blood-coated and white ribs as they reach eerily into the sky. “I snagged this from Haven.” Reyes pulls free what looks like a wad of tissues stained in a brownish-red substance. My senses stretch out, taking in the scent of pure witchblood.

“It’s hers.” I frown. “Where did you get it?”

Reyes shoots me a look before nodding and finishing the handoff to Ezra. “We can use her blood to double-check her connection to our coven,” he tells our coven leader before looking back to me. “And for your information, it was an accident. She ran into me, got a bloody nose. I snagged it without her looking. Don’t worry about it.”

Ezra stares down at the bloody tissues in his hand. Tendrils of shadow once again slip from his tattoos and flick at the edges of the tissue. Though they’ve always given me the creeps before, now they seem almost … curious rather than sinister. He shakes his head and slips the wad into his pocket, the shadows trailing after it.

Snap! Snap! Reyes pulls on the gloves with two quick cracks of sound and bends over the corpse.

“Where’s Cameron?” he asks as he steps atop a lower rock and leverages himself up so that he has a higher viewing point. Then he crouches, reaching over with his gloved fingers to lift one of the fleshy pieces of a lung.

“He has classes today,” I say, sliding my eyes to the forest line. “And I wasn’t sure if this is something he should witness.”

Reyes doesn’t say anything, and neither does Ezra. Their silent agreement is enough to know I’ve made the right decision. Unlike most of us, Cameron actually loved his father, and though this death is nothing like the previous generation of Salem blood, no doubt it’ll bring back bad memories. We won’t keep the information from him, but he doesn’t need to witness the present gruesomeness.

“Was the cutting the cause of death?” Ezra asks, directing the question to Reyes as he moves over the body in increments. My nose twitches at the charred scent of wrongness that still lingers like a disease in the air of the clearing. Even my wolf is disgusted by the human flesh and meat-like consistency of Jonah’s insides.

“His ribs seem to be severed from the spine,” Reyes answers. “The cuts are jagged. It wasn’t done with a sharp object. More like claws. There’s bruising and several abrasions all over his body and a fairly sizable wound on his head. He could’ve been knocked out before this started, but if not…” He sighs and straightens, cracking his neck. “Honestly, I don’t know. If it were a human, I’d say no, he was unconscious—but if it were—”

“A Veil creature,” I say, and Reyes nods. He’d come to the same conclusion I had.

“Yeah, if it were something from the Veil, then there’s no telling if this is what killed him or not. Creatures of the Veil have different abilities. We might know them from our records and books, but that’s not the same as coming face-to-face with one. It’s entirely possible they have more powers than what our ancestors presumed. If they’ve been in the Veil for a long time, they might have absorbed some of its force.”

“Could the ritualistic aspects of the kill have been done postmortem?” Even if Jonah were affected by Salem’s prejudice against us, for his sake, I hope he wasn’t alive when he was cut open like a pig for slaughter. Death is always ugly, but this … suffering should go only to those who deserve it.

“Other than the bruises and the damage to his skull, there aren’t a whole lot of defensive wounds. With this level of brutality, if he were awake and not under the spell of whatever Veil creature killed him, we would see more evidence of fighting.”

Ezra blows out a long breath and shoves a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “Is there anything on or about the body that might tie it to one of us?”

Reyes and I exchange a glance, but I’m the one to respond first. “Why would you think that?”

“Not to cast suspicion,” he assures us. “But we’re going to have to call the authorities about this. I want to make sure that the hollower isn’t being directed by someone else to frame us.”

“A hollower?” Reyes repeats. “Is that what you think did this?”

“No idea,” Ezra admits. “But it’s the theory I’m working with. I can do some more research in the lair and see if there’s any other type of creature who would do something this…” His lips curl back. “Human,” he finishes.