“They traded off attacks in quick succession. You described it as a blitz.”

“Yeah. Surprise attack, all-in.”

“And the attackers swooped in. One hits, and before the person they hit is even finished reacting, the next hits. Coordinated.”

“That makes me think tinker or master minions. Or thinkers, even someone like Teacher.”

“Or Occam’s razor,” the guy with a blade theme said, “simplest solution and everything. They could be a team that has spent a lot of time fighting alongside one another.”

“I’m not sure on that. How many people are this strong, this experienced, and yet complete unknowns? I feel like we know enough general details that it would click and we’d snap our fingers and say it’s this team or that team.”

“Could be they aren’t from America.”

“True. Or Bet,” I said.

“Whoever they are, they’re coordinated but I think they might have individual personalities. The big guy with the claws tried to mercy kill Scaffold, maybe after the others in the group had walked away, but it didn’t work.”

“He didn’t like how far that went.”

“Seems not,” Anelace said.

“Good. Thank you. That little detail about the throat cut was bothering me, and this narrows things down. If there’s that kind of personality involved, it might rule out things like minions and tinker drones.”

“Teacher thralls?”

I made a so-so gesture. “I think they have some personality. I could see this scene playing out as described. Either way, thank you. It’s a good interpretation of things.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

We stopped walking, or rather, he stopped before I did, because we were at the very edge of the scene now, and going further risked stepping on bloodstain.

I turned around, so I faced Anelace again. He was oriented with the bloody crime scene ahead of him, and I faced the distant road, as well as our straggling teams that were still heading to the site.

I saw the distant constellation of orange lights before I recognized the Kenzie van. A ditch lined the sides of the rural road, and the orange lights created a bridge for the car to pull off the road and drive straight onto the field.

“I’m less sure on this one,” he said, his eyes scanning the scene. “I saw some of the injuries. One of the attackers attacked from above. Blades or talons going straight down, getting caught on the flesh. Some weight was behind it, angle was too straight. I’m really curious about that one.”

“Weight behind it—a whole body’s worth? If someone flew and then came down without flight?”

“No,” Anelace said. “That much weight would have pushed the cut all the way down, or pulled the victim to the ground. They stopped themselves, or held themselves back.”