“It’s bad in here,” Ian said. “You should prepare yourself.”

Donovan waved Ian aside. “It would have to be. John wouldn’t go down without a hell of a fight.”

I couldn’t help but gag as he opened the door. “Good Lord. Can we open a window?”

“It would contaminate the scene,” Ian said. “We’ve left everything closed off.”

“Right.” But who could think about the scene when it smelled this bad? I breathed through my mouth, but that only made me taste the scent, which was worse. So much worse.

I switched to small shallow breaths through my nose as I stepped into the room.

It was more horrible than anything I’d seen. After the chapel in Santa Fe, I would’ve thought that was impossible.

Apparently not.

Gore was splattered across the room. I tried to find John’s body until I realized there wasn’t one. It was like Donovan’s second had been put through a blender just enough to liquefy bits and pieces of him, leaving chunks lying about. The biggest piece was his left foot, which was thrown in the middle of the bed. Its toes were missing, but part of the leg was still attached.

I swallowed down bile, trying to focus on the overall look of the room instead of the gore. It was furnished with dark wood antiques and rich colors, like the rest of the castle. The four-poster bed took up most of the room, with a small nightstand on either side. Heavy embroidered curtains hung open on either side of the window opposite the bed. A small writing desk and chair stood in one corner of the room, with a landline and papers that might’ve once been orderly, but were now scattered over the desk and floor. The armoire had been knocked over and broken against the wall, vomiting clothes all over the floor.

As soon as I thought the word vomit, the queasiness came back. I tried to refocus. The room was a mess, but the windows were closed and locked from the inside, and the destruction seemed confined to just this space.

What could do this to a Were? I’d never heard of anything that could turn a werewolf into hamburger…

Maybe a demon could, but if it were a demon, I would’ve smelled sulfur. That smell was definitely strong enough to stick out, even among all of the gore.

Vivian had said she thought it was fey, and they usually scented floral. I wasn’t smelling anything floral here, but just because I couldn’t smell it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The gore in the room could overpower floral for sure.

And if it really were a fey, then it had to be one of the creature types. A lot of supernaturals liked to forget that not all the fey looked as pretty as Cosette and Van. The truth was that there were all kinds of fey. Beautiful little pixies with sharp teeth, ugly goblins with green skin, and others that were purely the stuff of nightmares. The last were only whispered about because no one wanted to chance naming them. They might show up when called.