Daigo stood there, stiff-legged, his yellow eyes fixed on the doorway the cat had run through. His growl reverberated through the room.
“He doesn’t like house cats,” Moria said.
“All the more reason for him to warn us.” He started to lower his blade, then went still. “Do you smell that?”
“Yes. Someone has not provided that cat with a proper box. No wonder Daigo is annoyed.”
Moria pointed at two piles of feces. Then she paused and glanced around the room. It was the cooking area, situated close to the front door to allow ventilation in warm weather. Besides the cat’s mess, the room was tidy and clean. This was no squalid hovel, where cat feces might go unnoticed, and Moria doubted even the most slovenly housekeeper would allow it so close to food.
Then she saw the marks on the floor. Long scratches in the rough wood. Blood-smeared scratches, as if someone had been dragged, nails raking the floor, splinters digging in, blood filling the creases —
The scratches led to an interior doorway.
She raced for it, but Tyrus caught her arm.
“No,” he said.
“But —”
“I’ll not have you run onto a blade, Moria. Nor into something worse. I’ll not allow it. Is that clear?”
Fury whipped through her, and she glanced at Daigo for help, but the wildcat sat on his haunches, watching. Telling Moria he agreed.
“Steady,” Tyrus murmured.
“I am steady,” she snarled.
“No, you are not, and we both know why you are not.” He met her gaze, then he released her arm. “Be steady and stay at my back. Guard me.”
She still bristled. Tyrus walked into the next room with Daigo at his side, and she bristled at that, too, but paused only a moment before duty compelled her to follow.
The next room was the living area. Two doors presumably opened to bedchambers – one for the homeowners, one for their children. The left was partly open, and bloodstained streaks led into the room beyond. They were not gouges now, only trails of blood. There were gaps, though, oddly spaced, and when Daigo bent to sniff the trail, Moria had an image of the orange cat lapping at the blood. She shuddered and turned away.
“I think it was the cat,” Tyrus said.
“Yes,” Moria said. “Judging by the feces, it’s been locked in here a while. I suppose it had to eat something.”
He frowned. “I meant the window shutter.”
He pointed, and she saw a table beneath the window, everything on it now scattered across the floor. It had been the cat moving the closed shutter upon hearing someone outside. Which meant… She swallowed and looked from the blood to the piles of feces. Was she truly questioning what it meant? No. She knew.
She followed the blood to the bedroom door. She put her fingers against it. Across the room, Tyrus tensed, but she was being cautious, and he didn’t try to stop her. She pushed open the door and saw…
Nothing. There was blood on the floor, but otherwise, nothing except —
“By the ancestors,” Tyrus breathed, his eyes widening as his hands shot to his nose.
It was the scent she’d noticed on the breeze earlier, but magnified now, a thousand times over, hitting her like an anvil to the chest, her gorge rising.
Daigo pushed past. He snorted, as if clearing his nose, but continued padding forward, his head lowered as he walked around the sleeping pallet. There, on the floor —
Tyrus retched. It happened so fast that Moria barely had time to glance at him before he was doubled over, the contents of his stomach spewing out, the horror in his eyes… She knew it was horror partly for what they were seeing, but perhaps, even more, for his reaction. He clapped a hand over his mouth and staggered backward.
“You need air,” she said. “It’s the smell.”
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, then loosened his grip on his mouth and inhaled deep breaths, sucking air through his fingers. Finally, he let his hand fall away and straightened, and she saw the shame in his eyes.
“It’s the smell,” she said. “And the pickled eggs you had this morning.”
Again, he shook his head, rejecting the excuse.
“If you want to step out, there’s no one here but me.”
“And me,” he said. “There’s still me.”
She opened her mouth, but he said, “I’m fine. We ought to… make an accounting. We’ll need to tell what we’ve seen.” He paused. “Unless you’d prefer not to.”
“Yes,” she said. “I would very much prefer not to take a closer look.” She met his gaze and he nodded, acknowledging her admission. “But you’re right. We need to. So I will.”
Daigo waited at the side of the pallet, fastidiously perched beyond the reach of the vomit. And the blood. As ashamed as Tyrus was, it had been a spontaneous reaction to the smell and the sight. If she’d eaten more today, she might have done the same.
The woman was dead. Of that there was no doubt. Yet the stench was not so much rot as infection. Moria recognized that from being with Ashyn when she’d assisted the healer. This woman hadn’t been killed by her attacker. She’d been battered and beaten, her legs both broken, one bone poking through. She’d been clawed and bitten, her flesh torn and gouged. Some of the damage, though… There were cat prints through the blood. Many prints, as if the cat had visited and revisited, and Moria wanted to tell herself the beast had come in, distressed and worried about its mistress. And yet, some of those bites…