Wicked And Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 4 by Jenn Stark

crime scene, he didn’t exit immediately. “Something else you should know. Both of you,” he said. “Over the last few days, we’ve been noticing an uptick in the drug trafficking community. Supply seems to be stepping up, which means demand is stepping up. If the traditional drugs are a problem, you can bet it’s because not everyone can afford the nontraditional grade.”
    “Technoceutical junkies.”
    “I’m thinking. Especially since the pulse of whatever mumbo-jumbo magic the Council let loose a few weeks ago is beginning to wear off from the psychic community. Dixie is dead sure that folks are going to want that replaced with something, and they may not be too picky on how they get it.”
    We stepped out of the car, and I wrinkled my nose at the acrid stench. Not human remains, not anymore. But the garbage of three different greasy spoons in a one-block area, which was almost as bad.
    “It smelled worse than this?” Nikki protested, taking in the scene. “This reek would cover a rotting T-rex.”
    “Our prevailing thought is that the scent was different enough to make the restaurant workers go hunting, thinking that if it was a human body, there might be something worth stealing. When they found what they found, they decided to call. It’s over here.”
    We crossed the police tape, and Brody badged us through under the pretext that we were civilian consultants. Nikki’s outlandish attire drew several hard stares, but those stopped when they got to her face. She was all cop now, surveying everything with a practiced eye. When we got to the bodies Brody nodded to the tech kneeling in all the filth. “You ready to move them?”
    “Soon,” the man said, his face masked and his eyes covered with goggles. “Don’t touch anything.”
    “We won’t. We only need a quick look under the tarp.”
    The tech obliged, and I didn’t fight the urge to cover my mouth with my hand. Four bodies lay tumbled together amid the trash, white skinned and naked. Two large, two small enough to be teens. Their heads and feet had been removed, their hands and forearms as well. The one whose chest wall we could see had been disemboweled, the entire cavity cleaned out. But it was the arms of that person—female, based on what I could see of the corpse—that caught my attention and held it, a noose tightening around my neck. “What’s that?” I asked, my voice harsh. It was the arm I’d seen pictured on Brody’s phone.
    Brody followed my finger. “We noticed that too. Looks like the edge of a tattoo. It’s the only one on any of the bodies.”
    “The only one left anyway,” Nikki muttered.
    He nodded. “We figure that’s why the arms were removed.”
    “And the blood,” I managed over the bile rising in my throat. “Why isn’t there any blood around the bodies?”
    “Cauterized at the sites of amputation,” the tech spoke up. “Professionally done. Amputation was after death as well, cuts down on the blood loss.”
    “Humane motherfuckers,” Nikki said tightly. I found I was breathing shallowly, fighting the urge to retreat.
    “Any idea of race?” I asked. “They’re light skinned, but that can mean a lot of things.”
    “Not yet.” Brody signaled for the tech to drop the tarp again, and the man kept talking as he did so.
    “—Refrigerated,” he said and I glanced up from the hopeless tarp to his goggled face. “The bodies were refrigerated. Transported somewhere local, most likely, left in the sun for a while, then dumped. We’ll need the lab to prove it, but there’s some weird marks on the skin, cold patches at the cauterization points.
    “Staged,” I said. And suddenly, I knew. I knew who had been here with these bodies, and I knew why. It was a warning, and not a very subtle one. Much like a man standing in the shadows, whispering for me to stay in the city. “This was staged for us to see here, today.”
    “I was afraid of that.” Brody grimaced. His expression told me to shut up, and