holds up Death’s coat, then his pants. There’s pale dirt or dust on the bottom of each, and more on the floor. She checks his shoes and finds more dust. From a padded compartment in her bag she takes out a gizmo that looks like an iPad crossed with a game controller.
A small tray pops opens on the side of the tablet and she carefully drips in a sample of the dust, then pushes the tray shut. The screen lights up, showing some kind of multicolor readout.
“What is that?” says Candy.
“It’s the chemical composition of whatever is on his pants and shoes. It doesn’t look like city dirt. Something drier and desert-like. I’ll collate the numbers with USGS maps of the area.”
“Awesome,” says Candy.
I angle for a better look at the tablet.
“That’s Vigil tech. How did you end up with it?”
Julie puts the tablet away and collects more of the dust in a paper envelope.
She says, “We have an understanding. Now that I’m a civilian, I can do things, go places, and ask questions the government can’t. In exchange, I get access to certain Vigil equipment and information.”
“Can you use your toy to tell you anything about the knife?”
“I doubt it,” she says, sealing the envelope and putting it in the bag. “I wonder if we loaned it to the Vigil they’d be able to come up with anything?”
I pick up an empty DVD case and toss it back on a pile of others.
“Forget it. Boss or not, there’s no way I’m handing over our only serious piece of physical evidence to those Pinkertons. We’d never see it again.”
She stops working, her hands still in the bag.
“I hate to say it, but you might be right. They wouldn’t want civilians to have access to a magical artifact that powerful.”
She turns to Death.
“Have you showered since you’ve been here?”
He shakes his head.
“Good. I’d like to take some samples of the dirt under your nails. Also, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take your fingerprints and do a quick physical exam. Is that all right with you?”
Death frowns slightly, looks from Julie to me.
“She wants your clothes off so she can make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be.”
“If it will help,” he says.
“He’s not the shy type,” says Candy.
Julie doesn’t ask what that means. She just pulls another device from her bag, this one like a large cell phone.
“Good,” she says. “That will make things go faster.”
To Death I say, “After this, you’re cleaning up. This place is starting to smell like the reptile room at the zoo.”
“Smells are interesting,” he says.
“Some less than others.”
Julie sets one of his hands on the device. It lights up for a second. When she takes his hand away, his finger and palm prints glow pale blue on the screen. She does the same thing with the other hand and puts the device away.
“Can I take your picture?” she says.
Death nods.
She uses her phone to take full-face shots and each profile.
“Stand up,” I tell him. “It’s ‘Nick the Stripper’ time.”
I mime taking off a shirt. He starts undressing.
“What are you looking for?” says Candy.
“Identifying marks. Scars. Birthmarks. Tattoos. That kind of thing.”
Death looks down at his naked body, as interested in it as they are, but baffled at being surrounded by his own flesh.
Julie goes over his front, legs, and back.
“Lift up your arms, please,” she says.
The moment he does, Candy says, “What’s that? A tattoo?”
Julie and I look where Candy is pointing, near his left armpit. Death cranes his head around trying to see.
“It’s not a tattoo,” says Julie.
I put my finger on the design. The skin is slightly raised and pinker than the surrounding flesh.
“It’s a brand.”
“Do either of you recognize it?”
Candy and I both say no.
Julie touches the brand with her gloved fingers. She glances at Death.
“Do you know where it came from?”
“No.”
She photographs it, stops when she checks the shot.
“There’s something else.”
She fits a zoom lens to the phone’s camera—more Vigil tech by the look—and takes another shot.
A pattern on Death’s skin glows a bright green.
“It looks like a tattoo that’s been lasered off,” she says.
She shows the design to Candy and me. Neither of us recognizes it. The marks look like letters, heavily stylized, in a circle.
“It’s not a word. Maybe it’s his initials,” I say.
“Why would he remove his initials?” says Julie.
“People lose their names all the time,” says Candy. “When they’re scared and want to hide from something.”
No one says anything for a minute.
“Is this the body of a good man?” says Death.
Julie takes the lens off her phone and puts it in the messenger bag.
She says, “It’s too early to tell. You can put your clothes back on.”
This time, Death dresses himself. Just like a big boy.
“I’ve gone over the recording Chihiro made of your first talk, so I know you woke up in an isolated area near a deserted concrete building, right around Christmas. There were people nearby. Teenagers, you said. Did you get a look at any of them? Would you recognize one if you saw them again?”
Death picks at
