As they neared, everyone's wands lit the room with erie blue light and he immediately could tell it was definitely her body. He could see the blood and the scratches. His eyes skittered away to the rest of the room as he fought the bile coming into the back of his throat. Hasan's hand had moved from Teddy's back to gripping hard to Teddy's upper arm. It was becoming painful and Teddy wasn't sure if he was glad for the distraction or sad that it broke through the careful numbness he had cultivated. Teddy and Hasan had seen dead bodies before. Hasan had never built up a tolerance to it like Teddy had been starting to. This might be hitting Hasan just as badly, even though Lilith was a stranger to him.
Teddy examined the rest of the room. The wand light didn't do much for the rest of the kitchen either. It left the corners of the room in darkness, tricking his brain into thinking there was still something lurking there. That maybe her killer was still there, hiding and watching. Jones and Collins crowded forward, their wands lighting up the space. The wands' eerie flickers glinted off of the blood that splashed across the floor and cabinets. It lit up Lilith's body too, obviously naked, in a pool of blood that resembled the fires of hell.
Teddy turned instinctively to Hasan, who was already watching him with dark eyes. "We could ask Harry to let us skip this part," Hasan said, strangled. "What are we going to catch that he hasn't?"
Teddy briefly considered it, wanting nothing more than take Hasan up on the escape from having to move any closer to Lilith's body. Then he remember Harry's reasoning for bringing all of them here in the first place- which was because he thought Teddy might actually be able to pick something up no one else had. He would have to go in there, sooner or later. It was his duty as an Auror and he owed at least that to Lilith. He closed his eyes for a moment just to reign his stomach content. "I can do this. You don't have to, though. Everyone here already knows you don't have the stomach for gory bodies."
Hasan gave him another complicated look and then shook his head. "If you are going in, I'm coming too."
Teddy nodded, silently grateful, and patted Hasan's hand that still clung onto his arm. Reminded of the grip, Hasan released it, and they walked grimly towards the kitchen.
Harry had been watching the two of them and nodded as Teddy neared. Then Harry stepped back to give Teddy a chance to look at the body. The body. Right. He focused on shoving down everything. He could think about all that later but now it wouldn't help. He had to be like ice. If he wanted to find her killer he had to be clear-headed enough to find the evidence. He needed to see this clinically.
He scanned the area. There was a kitchen knife on the ground with blood on the handle and a dented skillet farther away. There was a carton of orange juice on the cabinet and several tins of cocoa powder in the trash. She must have been stressed lately, hot chocolate from scratch with cinnamon was her comfort food because it reminded her of her father.
Some of the splashes on the cabinets were actually smears that stopped abruptly. There weren't any visible footprints on the ground. He wasn't sure if it just was because there was too much blood or if the killer had just managed to clean up after himself. Teddy couldn't smell anything other than blood here. Lilith's blood. That meant scenting the killer would be impossible without his wolf's nose. Even then he probably wouldn't get anything due to how contaminated the crime scene had become. Had the Alpha been able to scent anyone before he brought in the Aurors?
Teddy assumed he hadn't. Why else would the Alpha bring in the Aurors? He glanced back at the Alpha, who watched impassively. Teddy redirected his attention back to the bloody cabinets, hoping for a distinct fingerprint or maybe some hair. His gaze circled the kitchen a few times, first looking at the cabinets and then the floor.
By the third pass he had to admit he was stalling. He didn't want to look at her. But he had to look eventually.
Hasan's hand had returned to Teddy's back where it gripped Teddy's shoulder muscles. Hasan was watching Harry with an angry expression that mellowed to unhappiness when it returned to Teddy. Hasan nodded and then looked down at Lilith's body with a sick expression.
Teddy shoved most of his thoughts into a box, resolving only to let the cold clinical ones in, and finally looked down at her body. Her near-black hair was splayed around her head, soaked dark red in the drying blood. Her swarthy skin had paled a little with death and was covered in many shallow cuts already starting to congeal. The cuts looked like claw marks- three or four lines about equidistant from each other. The death wound wasn't obvious. Her throat had been sliced but the intent appeared more the voice-box than the carotids. Also, there were deep cuts right below the elbows. Teddy was familiar enough with anatomy to know that cutting those tendons would make her hands nearly useless. However, both were deep enough that she could have bled out eventually from any of them.
It was clear that the bastard had enjoyed this kill and Teddy was overwhelmed by a thirst for their blood. The wolf, already so close to the surface, called for the hunt of the monster who had done this. It wanted to hunt them down and give them a painful death by it's teeth. It didn't help that Teddy wanted just about the same things. He inhaled deeply and was caught by a scent. There was blood, yes, but something else. He gently pulled out of Hasan's grip to lean over one of her splayed arms. The wound was oddly dark along the edges and there was a shred of green cloth. He took another deep breath, focusing hard to stop himself from gagging, and smelled it again. Magic.