I squeezed his hand, and we trailed behind Kieran, who followed Naill to a bedchamber.
“What’s going on?” Kieran asked as he stepped aside, giving us space to enter.
Perry was there, standing at the head of where the victims were laid out. “Damn if I know. I was hoping one of you all might.”
Aware of Malik slipping in behind us, I stepped closer to the bodies, keeping my attention on the woman. Even with my improved vision, it took me a moment to notice the changes.
“Look under the eyes,” Perry instructed.
The area on the woman’s face—who had to be no older than her third or fourth decade of life—had turned gray.
“Looks like decay,” Naill said as Malik knelt by the body of what I now recalled was a little girl. There was a stuffed bear nearby. “But there is no way decay would show this soon.”
“The eyes aren’t the only thing,” Perry said. “Look at the hands on the father.”
I shifted my gaze. The first thing I noticed was that he no longer held the shard of glass. The bloody weapon lay on the floor beside his hand—
His fingers twitched.
My heart dropped, and I jerked back.
“What the fuck?” Kieran stepped forward. “Did I just see…?”
“Fingers twitching?” Naill said. “Yeah. It’s been happening for a couple of minutes. Their legs and arms, too.”
I pressed my hand to my stomach. “But they’re dead.”
“Bodies can do that,” Kieran suggested. “Have muscle spasms.”
Malik looked up. “Hours after death?”
“Well, that’s the best reason I can come up with,” Kieran replied. “Because Poppy’s right. They’re dead.”
My gaze moved to the father’s face. His cheeks had also taken on a gray shade, but not one of decay. It was a chalky gray like the vines I’d seen outside. I looked down at the jagged slash across his throat. Earlier, it had been a dull shade of red, blood no longer seeping from it. Now, the edges of the skin had turned black, looking almost charred.
“Fuck,” Casteel muttered as the mother’s leg jerked. “We’ve all seen mortals turn Craven. There’s a point right before the bloodlust takes over, after the fever burns through them, when they look dead.”
“Until they start doing the twitching shit,” Kieran finished.
“But there are no wounds suggesting they were fed on,” Perry pointed out. “That doesn’t mean therearen’tany, but based on the amount of blood spilled, I can’t see how it’s possible.”
It wasn’t.
These weren’t Craven. As I reluctantly turned my gaze to the little girl, I searched the vast information swirling in my head foran answer to what was happening here. My eyes widened as I watched the girl’s lips darken as if black paint had been splashed across them—
They parted.
“Malik,” Casteel warned.
The little girl’s eyes flew open.
