She had actually started to regret leaving the bodies of those thugs lying around their warehouse. She actually hoped that the police had either found them immediately or wouldn’t until a hundred years after their bones had been picked clean by scavengers. Finding them anywhere in between would not be pleasant.
Sawyer hadn’t even wrinkled his nose at the stench. He reached in without hesitation and gripped the body’s chin. The leathery skin had holes in it, especially around the cheeks and eyes. He turned the head one way, then the other. A bit of cracking sound had accompanied the motions, but Eva couldn’t tell what it was. He was the expert, not her.
He plunged a bare finger into the eye socket. After wiggling it around for a moment, he withdrew, wiping the gunk on his finger on the cloth inside the casket. Closing the lid, he had checked the date on the tombstone before writing ‘three months’ on the lid with a marker.
“To the warehouse,” he had ordered.
Four skeletons had picked up the casket, one at each corner, and marched away.
In Eva’s opinion, caskets looked heavy. She had never lifted one, so she couldn’t say for certain, but that was just what she guessed by the size. How four skeletons could pick up a casket without their arms falling out of their sockets could only be explained through the use of magic.
That had been Eva’s experience with only the first of the caskets. He had stuck around, digging up tens of the things. Every one got an inspection like the first. Some smelled worse, other smelled better–or Eva was just getting used to the smell. One in particular had been damaged at some point. The casket hadn’t been sealed properly or it had broken open. Maggots infested the inside.
Sawyer hadn’t so much as flinched when reaching into the casket. He hadn’t taken any notice of the things as they crawled over his hands. Only when he removed his hand did he glance down at the maggots. A pale light washed over his skin.
The maggots dropped to the ground, unmoving.
Some of the bodies followed the first to the warehouse. Some went to ‘the field.’ A number of them got thrown back into their graves. Ones fresher than a year tended to go towards the warehouse. Older ones went to the field. Damaged corpses, those with missing arms or bashed in skulls for example, made up the bulk of those that were returned to their grave.
He never replaced them with any respect. He merely waved his hand and the skeletons shoved the caskets back into the pit, sometimes without even closing the lid.
Of course, Eva’s ritual
When Sawyer had finally left the graveyard, Serena and Nel had been able to figure out exactly where he was and where his warehouse was based on Eva’s descriptions of the surroundings. There were three graveyards within the gap in Nel’s augur vision. Sawyer had probably picked the location specifically because of the close proximity to so many corpses.
She had managed to sketch out some crude blueprints of his warehouse as well. Every skeleton, zombie, ghost, or enigma that she saw, she noted down beside the sketch. Knowing that there were twelve enigmas patrolling the outside along with skeletons could save their lives.
“His hand,” Eva said softly. She didn’t want to speak too loud. Sawyer couldn’t hear her, but she could hear herself and that was bad enough. “I didn’t notice in the darkness of the cemetery, but it is discolored. There are stitches holding it to his wrist.”
Perhaps because it wasn’t a sense that Eva was leeching from Sawyer, watching her companions through her blood sight didn’t cause any extra sickness. She was free to watch Nel nod her head without any backlash.
“That makes sense. The girl was amputating his hand at one point. I didn’t see him reattach it, but given the state of the girl, I doubt attaching a new one would be beyond his abilities.”
Eva nodded, but did not respond. Unlike her blood sight, hearing Nel’s voice did cause some ‘double-hearing’ induced nausea. Instead, she just sat back and watched through Sawyer’s eyes as he went about his base of operations. She made notations where necessary. Anything that looked important or dangerous got marked on her blueprints.
She didn’t want Sawyer to get away, but he was the slippery sort. Destroying absolutely everything would be a suitable consolation prize. Especially if they then went to his Nevada home, either chasing after him or to destroy everything there.
“Hold on,” Eva said. “He’s leaving his warehouse.”
Sawyer hadn’t bothered to lock the doors on his way out. With all the skeletal guards and enigmas patrolling around, he probably didn’t need to. They would be more than able to handle just about any intruder. Especially ones that just happened to stumble across his hideout. Mundane police wouldn’t stand a chance.
Mage-knights of Genoa’s caliber or a group of Elysium Order nuns could probably get in. Neither of them would likely be stopped by a single locked door for very long.
