“Werewolf packs hunt at least once a month on the full moon,” I told them firmly. “Around here, we mostly hunt rabbits or ground squirrels. Other places, they hunt deer, elk, or even moose. Just like timber wolves do, though werewolves avoid domestic animals like cattle as a matter of course.”

“Point taken,” said Willis, not sounding angry anymore, just tired.

“When wolves hunt, there is a hierarchy. Someone directs, others follow. I don’t see any signs of that. No signs that someone got the good parts—” My voice wobbled because for all my experience with killing rabbits, they were rabbits. One of the women was wearing tennis shoes that looked like a pair Jesse had in her closet. I shut up for a second to recover.

“Maybe another kind of predator would hunt differently.” I shrugged uneasily. “But I think this is the work of just one.”

Only the horse and the other big animal—which had probably been a horse, too, because I thought I could pick out the start of a mane—had been disemboweled. Predators go for organ meats first. So why had he mutilated the other bodies beyond what he’d eaten? It had been deliberate and had nothing to do with eating because there was an intact dog leg about ten feet from me, and the dog was on the far side of the pile. I breathed in, but that didn’t help. The scent of blood held no trauma for me, but the stink of terror and … more faintly, pain.

“I think you’ll find that at least some of them were mutilated while they were still alive,” I said in a low voice because I didn’t want it to be true. But my stomach cramped with knowledge that the smell of pain meant someone had hurt. It was faint because pain stops when someone dies.

“A werewolf could do this?” asked Willis.

“I told—” The wind shifted just a little, and I caught another scent. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get below the smell of the dead.

“Magic,” I said, with my eyes still closed. It was subtle, like a good perfume, but now that I knew its flavor, it was strong. Problem was, I had no idea what kind of magic I was scenting.

“Fae?” asked someone who wasn’t Tony or Willis.

I opened my eyes and shook my head. “Fae magic smells different than this. This isn’t witchcraft, either, though it’s closer to that than to fae magic.”

“Witchcraft,” said Willis neutrally.