The Reapers had set up their base in an abandoned warehouse. It had taken a while for Will to get permission from all of them to have a demon enter their midst; even though the corpses were soulless, an unholy around made them testy.
There were five human bodies covered by sheets; Will said that they couldn't get any more. Well, that didn't matter. Sebastian recalled the young Master's orders about trying to get any information about the murders and forced himself to pay attention to everything.
He approached the first body; two Reapers pulled the sheet back, exposing the man's torso but tactfully keeping his lower half covered. Sebastian fired up his demon eyes and looked down at the man's chest. Sure enough, he didn't have a soul.
The Reapers hadn't taken it. He could tell; the Reapers were wasteful and didn't take the whole soul; they left parts inside the body (usually the yummiest). But it wasn't demon's work either; a demon would take the whole soul and nothing else and this body was missing a few strands from his heart. Also, he could tell that the soul had been extracted from a dead body and demons always preferred their souls fresh and wriggling.
A vampire, perhaps? Some vampires could extract souls from bodies. But vampires couldn't digest souls and besides which, it was an onerous task for anything that wasn't a demon to remove a soul. Also, if it was a vampire, they would have taken the whole heart and the blood. Sebastian picked up the man's arm; he could still smell blood in his veins. So it wasn't a vampire.
He closed his eyes to see better and pressed his head against the corpse's chest, ignoring the Reapers' whispers and how he was painfully aware that they were all defensively pointing their Death Scythes at him and then realized how the souls were removed.
"It was a mechanical soul remover," Sebastian said, looking up at Will. "You know about those, I presume?"
Will nodded. The younger Reapers looked a bit confused, so he was moved to explain:
"Mechanical soul removers are handheld devices that extract souls from dead bodies. They're mostly used in times of war when souls and contracts are scarce to feed the demons."
"How big are these things?" one Reaper asked.
"Oh, about the size of a man's fist," Sebastian said, holding his up. "They only need to be slightly bigger than a soul."
"Souls are that small?"
Sebastian scowled at the Reaper, who cowered under his gaze and hid behind a larger one.
"Normally they're slightly spread around the body," he said, "but when we eat them, we concentrate them into more manageable sizes, so yes, they're smaller than expected. But their goodness isn't ruined by that; oh, my no!"
His eyes rolled up in starving ecstasy; he licked his lips and a small, animal-like growl rumbled from his chest.
Will interfered before he could frighten more Reapers.
"Do you suppose a demon could have used one?"
"No, why would a demon need to use a device?"
"Fair point; what about another unholy?"
"Why would another unholy want dead souls? We demons are the only ones who can digest them."
"Then a human?"
"That seems more likely," Sebastian said, thinking. "A human who has somehow learned of the existence of demons and who somehow got their hands on a MSR and who wants to shift the blame onto the demons instead of onto him."
"But doesn't that seem a bit far-fetched?" someone asked.
"No, it happens more frequently than expected," Sebastian said, rising up with a sigh. "You'd be surprised how many humans know about the existence of the unholy."
"Do a lot know about…Reapers?"
"I'm told that they do in some parts of Africa," Sebastian said. "Small, unimportant countries in darkest Eurasia. Places with lots of death."
"What about demons?"
"Demons are mostly known in the Americas because so many young idiots try conjuring them. And England, of course, due to its long and bloody history of demonic persecutions."
"What about others?"
"Well, the Russians know quite a lot about vampires because so many of them love the country. And Siths are well-known in Italy because of all the angels there. Ex-Angels are also known in Africa and darkest Eurasia. I'm sure there's more, but I'm kind of on schedule." Sebastian moved on to the next corpse, and the next, and told Will that all of their souls had been removed using an MSR.
"Undoubtedly you will be telling all this to your prey?" Will said as Sebastian was about to leave.
"Naturally. He ordered me to."
"Then I suppose that we have no choice except in working with a human?"
"You could try and go it alone," Sebastian shrugged, "but it'll be harder to explain to the police if you get caught doing something you shouldn't have."
He grinned and left and even allowed Grell to cling to his arm as they made their way back to the hotel, even though he tossed him in the garbage when he touched the butler's rear.