"They must be looking for any signs of sigils that might have recorded the promises or whatever conversation that they had," said Third Eye with a calm voice. "Witches, even halflings have the habit of using recording sigils instead of human mechanisms like voice recorders or cellphones. They don’t trust them as they don’t work well with magic."
Third Eye walked over to the wall and tapped his fingers on it. At first, nothing happened, but then a second later, cracks appeared on the plaster of the wall like veins protruding out of the concrete. The glowing white lines were concentrated behind the cupboard that was sitting in the office.
Third Eye turned and looked at them, and Killian walked over to the cupboard before pushing it away from the spot where the glowing white lines were joining. As soon as he pushed the wooden cupboard away, the sight behind it appeared.
The wall had been burnt, and it must have been some kind of special fire or spell. Because the blackened edges were not wild, as if the flames had tried to escape and burn everything around them. No, whatever it was, it was circulated within a circle.
Killian couldn’t see anything, but Third Eye, who was used to hunting witches and wizards, did notice something. He walked over and pointed at the centre. "Here, you see it? Within the spiral glyphs, there is a sign of Mannaz. It’s drawn to record a memory. Most probably, this halfling was worried that the one who promised him would go back on their promise; thus, he recorded not just voices but memories."
"No wonder they killed him," grunted Third Eye as he pulled his hand away from the destroyed sigil. "Pure blooded witches never like it when halflings like him try to pull sly tricks behind them."
"But whoever it was, they cleaned after themselves nicely," remarked Finn. He had already examined the corpses and didn’t find a thing. "There are no cellphones, no radios, even the hard disks and memory of the laptops have been taken away. What can be destroyed has been destroyed, and what can be taken away, has been taken away."
"We can talk with the other halflings then," said Killian with a scowl. "I don’t believe that those witches are so capable that they can kill every single one of the halflings who worked for Joannes."
"It’s worth a shot," said Third Eye as he cast a sideways glance at the man. "You should leave this matter to me. I know that you want to do it on your own, but I assure you that these halflings fear witchhunters more than they fear you."
"Fine." Killian didn’t like the idea of leaving this task in the hands of someone else, but he knew that even though he could make use of his scare tactic on shifters, this time around, it was not going to work.
Halflings didn’t fear shifters, not unless they were tied and thrown in a prison cell. If he tried to track them down, there was a very good chance that they would disappear before he could even break down their doors. Compared to him, Third Eye was a better man for this job.
"Don’t worry. I will call my colleagues and we will pay each of them a visit today," Third Eye spoke in a soothing voice. "It will take some time, but it’s necessary if we want to track down the witch who is behind this mess. We also need to make sure that this was done by those who wanted to snatch Inez from you and not someone else. Or else, after wasting so much time, we will find out that we were on a different track altogether."
"You can do that," agreed Finn. "But I have this gut feeling that this was most probably done by the same witch we are hunting down or trying to hunt down. But then again, why did they douse the entire space with bleach? I just cannot understand their actions as they had left the bodies behind. If they wanted to mask their crimes, shouldn’t they have cleaned the bodies up first?"
It was Killian who replied, "To mask their scent. They are no fools; these witches know that they are dealing with shifters and were worried that we would hunt them down through their scents. So they covered it all up." He had seen many shifters doing it, which meant that whoever was behind this was not only aware of the magic and aether but also the habits and actions of shifters, which worried him.
Because it meant that they were dealing with someone who was not only well aware of shifters but also knew their modus operandi, which was not good. Not good at all.
As he glanced at Finn, he knew that his beta had the same conclusion as him.
"It does help mask their scent down, and with the additional scent of blood and death– it’s nearly impossible to track them down."
With a heavy sigh, Laxus rubbed his nape. "This means that if we don’t get any information from the halflings, then we need to go back and tell everyone that we have no answers to the questions that they have wanted to have so badly."
"I will talk to Inez," said Killian. "You can tell Selene."
Laxus rubbed his forehead and scowled at him. "Oh, now, Killian. That’s just cruel."
Crouching in the middle of the corpses that were stretched in front of her, Tracy licked her lips with a frown on her face.
It seems like the Blood Witches have already left, the owl sitting on her left shoulder spoke in a stiff voice. His red eyes were flickering to the left and the right as he tried to scan the space in front of them. His brownish black feathers were ruffled as he had been shuffling them in unease.
They have really left.A snowy white owl landed on her right shoulder. She nipped Tracy’s earshell and said to her, I flew around the perimeter and didn’t find any signs of the Blood Witches. They have already left this forest.