Page 117 of Grave Beginnings

I shrugged. No? Maybe? “Let me try this way.” Swallowing myunease, I moved close to the glass, closing my eyes and reaching out.

The room pulsed with energy.

The shifters around me burned like beacons; bright, sharp, snapping, biting. Victor, behind the door; a cool, creeping darkness. Angel at my back; solid, steady, anchoring me. Through the glass, I could sense the ME’s assistant wasn’t human but some variant of something. I couldn’t tell what. And the body?

A void.

A complete absence ofeverything.

It wasn’t like Roan. Roan had felt like ice and pain, lingering with shades of memory. But this wasnothing. No trace of who this person had been. No energy, no static, no imprint even from beyond the Veil. The body had been hollowed out and drained.

How was that possible? Was this what true death felt like?

I pressed harder against the void, reaching deeper. Cold wind lashed against my skin. My breath hitched. It wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.

Angel’s arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me close, steadying me against the tremor that wracked my body.

“There’s nothing left,” I whispered, my eyes squeezing shut as I strained for even a flicker of something, anything.

“What do you mean?” Bobby asked. “I can feel your power working. Feels like someone just walked over my grave.”

How did I explain what I didn’t understand? “It’s… a void. The remains, I mean. Is that normal?” My pulse pounded in my ears. “Like, when someone dies, shouldn’t there still be something?” I’d raised the dead. I knew what death felt like. Even the coldest of spirits left an imprint. Roan had still been Roan; even in the end, his tie to the mortal realm was cut. But this? This was like staring into a hollowed-out husk.

“There’s nothing left,” I whispered. “Not like the first victim. It’s like whatever he was has been drained completely. He might as well be a rock. A piece of dirt.”

A realization hit me.

I turned to Angel, my breath catching. “I didn’t raise this one.”

Angel’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Victor had said this was one of the newest bodies, but?—

“How does Victor know it’s the newest?” I asked.

“The candles and the disruption in the soil,” Bobby answered. “And likely, as a vampire, he can smell it. This one was badly burned. We’re talking bone fragments, like, near cremation levels.”

“Which is impossible,” Wade interjected.

“Why?” I asked.

“It takes over 1400 degrees to cremate a body,” he said. “And several hours. Someone would have noticed a fire like that. Even with as little overnight traffic as that field gets, someone would have called in a fire of that magnitude—the smell, the smoke, something off in the field. It had to be fast and hot, or someone would have noticed.”

“Oh.” My stomach knotted as I sank further into Angel’s warmth. The chill was fading, but the unease remained. “Maybe that was part of the ritual?” I asked. “This god, draining him of power?”

“Or the witches,” Angel murmured. “Probably the witches. They’d need sacrifices to power them up if their god isn’t on this side yet. Likely more than one.”

“I suspect a couple more of our bodies will feel a void like this to Jude,” Wade said.

Bobby tilted his head toward me. “You willing to try a few more?”

I hesitated, glancing at Angel, at Victor, and at the void beyond the glass.

What if they were all blank?

What if we were already too late?

I swallowed hard, and nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”