Obsidian Butterfly

Concentrate on business. I opened my eyes. "Why the restraints?" My voice was breathy but clear. I glanced down at the body, then back up, giving Doctor Evans the most complete eye contact I'd ever given. I'd stare at him until I memorized the light crows-feet around his eyes, if I just didn't have to keep looking at what lay on the bed.

"They keep trying to get up and leave," he said.

I frowned, not that he could see it under the mask. "Surely, they're too hurt to get far."

"We've got them on some very strong painkillers. When the pain dies down, they try to leave."

"All of them?" I asked.

He nodded.

I made myself look back to the bed. "Why isn't this just a case of a serial … not killer. What would you call it? A serial … " I shook my head. I couldn't think of a word for it. "Why was I called in? I'm a preternatural expert, and this could have been done by a person."

"There are no blade marks on the tissue," Doctor Evans said.

I stared up at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that no blade did this because no matter how good they are at torture, there are always telltale signs of the instrument used. You're right when you say the bodies of the victims have the best clues, but not these bodies. It's almost as if their skin just dissolved away."

"Any corrosive agent that could take someone's skin and soft tissue like nose and groin wouldn't just stop at the skin. It would keep eating through the body."

He nodded. "Unless it was washed off immediately, but there's no residue of any known corrosive agent. More than that, the body isn't patterned on an acid burn. The nose and groin were torn away. There are signs of tearing and damage that aren't present elsewhere. It's almost as if whoever did the ski

"Are you a forensic pathologist?" I asked.

"Yes."

"But they're not dead," I said.

He looked at me. "No, they're not dead, but the same skills that let me judge a dead body work here, too."

"Ted Forrester said there were deaths. Did they die from the ski

"No, they were cut into pieces and left where they fell."

"Blade marks on the cut up bodies, I assume, or you wouldn't have used the word cut."

"There were marks of a cutting tool, but it was like no knife or sword, or hell, bayonet that I'd ever seen. The cuts were deep but not clean, something less refined than a steel blade was used."

"What?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know. The blade didn't cut through the bones, though. Whoever cut the bodies up pulled the bodies apart at the joints. No human would have the strength to do that, not multiple times."

"Probably not," I said.

"You really think a human being could have done this?" he asked, motioning at the bed.

"Are you asking me if a person could do this to another person? If you travel the world testifying in cases of death by torture, then you know exactly what people are capable of doing to each other."

"I'm not saying a person wouldn't do this," he said. "I'm saying I don't think it would be physically possible to do it."

I nodded. "The cutting and tearing, I think might have been human, but I agree with the ski

"You say tool marks, not blade marks. Most people assume it takes a blade to skin someone."

"Anything that holds an edge can do it," I said, "though it's slower and usually messier. This is strangely clean."

"Yes," he said, nodding. "Yes, that's a good phrase for it. As horrible as it is, it's still very neatly done, except for the extra tissue that was removed. That was not neatly done, but brutally done."

"Almost like we have two different … " I kept wanting to say killers, but these people were still alive. "Perpetrators," I said finally.

"What do you mean?"

"Cutting up a body with a dull tool that isn't strong enough to tear through bone, then pulling a person apart with, bare hands is something more in the line of a disorganized serial killer. The careful ski

"A multiple personality?" He made it a question.

"Not exactly, but not all serial killers are so easy to put in one category or another. Some organized criminals have moments of savagery that resemble the disorganized killer, and some organized minds become more disorganized as they escalate their killing. The same isn't true of a disorganized killer. There aren't enough brownies in the pan for them to ape organized methods."

"So either an organized killer with savage moments of disorganization, or … or what?" The good doctor was talking very reasonably to me, not angry anymore. I'd either impressed him or at least hadn't disappointed him. Not yet, anyway.

"It could be a pair of killers, an organized killer being the brains of the operation and the disorganized being the follower. It's not that unusual to find killers working in tandem."

"Like the Hillside Strangler or rather Stranglers," he said.

I smiled behind the mask. "There have been a lot more cases than just that one where we had two killers. Sometimes it's two men. Sometimes it's a man and a woman. In that case the man is the dominant personality. Or at least in every case I've ever heard of, except one. Either way one is dominant and the other is to a lesser or greater degree in the control of the other. It can be a near complete domination so that the other person is unable to say no, or it can be more of a partnership. But even in more equal relationships one person is primarily dominant while the other is the follower."

"And you're sure it's a serial mutilator?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"The serial mutilator idea is the most normal solution I can come up with, but it I'm a preternatural expert, Doctor Evans. I'm rarely called in when the answer wears a human face, no matter how monstrous. Someone thinks this wasn't done by human hands, or I wouldn't be here."

"The FBI agent seemed very sure," Doctor Evans said.

I looked at him. "Have I just wasted both our times here? Did the Feds come in and say pretty much what I just said?"

"Pretty much," he said.

"Then you don't need me."

"The FBI is convinced that it's a serial mutilator, a person."

"Sometimes the Feds can be very sure of themselves, and once they've committed themselves, they don't like to be wrong. Policemen in general can be like that. It is usually the easy answer when it comes to crime. If a husband dies, the wife probably did do it. Cops aren't encouraged to complicate a case. They're encouraged to simplify it."

"Why aren't you taking the simple solution?" he asked.

"Several reasons. One, if it was a serial anything, a human, I'd think the police, Feds, whatever would have some clues by now. The level of fear and uncertainty among the men is too high. If they had a clue to what was happening, they'd be less panicked. I don't have a superior to report to. No one's going to slap my hand or demote me in rank if I guess and I'm wrong. My job and income don't depend on pleasing anyone but myself."

"You do have a boss to answer to?" he said.

"Yeah, but I don't have to give regular written reports. He's more a business manager than anything. He doesn't give a rat's ass how I do the job, as long as I do it and don't insult too many people along the way. I raise the dead for a living, Doctor Evans. It's a specialized skill. If my boss gives me too much grief, there are two other animating firms in this country that would take me in a hot minute. I could even go freelance."