Lily and I followed the luduan, Wang, through the woods, in search of the missing women. At first, we followed a clear trail through the woods. When we came to a little stream with a low wooden bridge, the luduan stopped and dropped the map. “We go this way. Over the bridge, then we follow the stream to the north a little ways. We should come upon some sign of them soon.”

“I can’t read the map.” I shrugged and waited for Wang to pick the map back up so I could follow the strange mix of pug, pig, and dragon. The luduan’s stubby tail waved as he walked.

“I can,” Lily said. “You’re right. That’s the way to go.”

We crossed over the little wooden bridge and, our feet made clip-clopping noises. It made me think of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. I doubted there was a troll under the bridge. It wasn’t big enough. But maybe there was something else that lived under there that would eat us. Trolls were far from the only dangerous thing lurking in the water. Like Kelpies, which looked like horses or women depending on what your weakness was but would drown you as soon as they look at you.

We left the path, and the walking got more difficult now that we had to push our way through the scrub. The little steam was black in the darkness and occasionally glittered from the light of Wang’s fireball. I could hear it running along beside us. The little luduan stopped suddenly. Lily and I stopped, too. I suddenly felt afraid again, although nothing had changed.

“What is it?” Lily whispered. “Do you hear something?”

“No, but we’re nearly there." He asked us, "How do you wish to handle this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you have any idea what we can expect?”

He dropped the map and licked the air. “Nothing good, I shouldn’t think.” He sucked in, and the ball of fire that had been hovering in front of his vanished back from whence it came somewhere deep inside his little round body. “I don’t sense anything living around. But not all threats are living now, are they? Best not to alert anyone until we have time to scout the lay of the land.” Without the light, Lily and I were struck suddenly blind. I waited a moment for my night vision to return. When I could see again, I slowly began to make my way forward. We trudged up a small hill and stopped at the top. I couldn’t see anything. The air no longer smelled like the cold in the night. It had the horrid sweet smell like something forgotten in the back of the fridge.

Lily’s powers would occasionally cause things to decay very quickly. You think you never forget that smell. But in a way, you do. It took a moment for my brain to process what I was smelling and what it would mean.

“Oh, no,” I said as understood. I brought my hand to my mouth. I felt heavy and hollow inside. “Oh, oh, no.” Whatever we were about to find, there wasn’t going to be anyone there to save. I didn’t want to go any closer. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to have to look. I grabbed Lily’s hand and squeezed. She squeezed back.

“Do you think the murderer is still here? Still watching?” Lily asked.

“No, it’s been too long.” The luduan burped again, and the little ball of light was back. It wasn’t so cheerful now. From where we were standing, we couldn’t see anything that would account for the smell. We moved forward, unsure of what we were about to find. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find it at all.

If Wang hadn’t stopped when he did, I would have stepped on them. It wasn’t until Wang sent his light over the remains that I realized what they were. In the dark, they just looked like small bumps on the forest flower. It was only when they were lit from above, the light illuminating the inside of the skull of one of them, that I understood what we were looking at. The smell caught in my nose and my throat squeezed closed with a mix of tears and nausea. I tightened my grip on Lily’s hand.

There were four sets of remains instead of three. My throat tightened so much that I couldn’t even bring myself to ask who the fourth person was. A dark stain seeped out from them and killed everything around them. Inside the stain, the bodies seemed smaller, shrunken. I was glad it was dark so that I could only see them in black and white. If I had to see them in daylight, I’m not sure that I could have coped. Lily kept a firm grip on my hand.

“We have to call Jen,” I said. It was the first coherent thought that popped into my head that I could manage to say out loud. But even as I said it, I felt myself fading away as if the color drained out of me, as if I became shades of black, white, and gray. My own emotions slid away from me so that the only sensations I felt were physical: the trembling in my hands and the racing of my heart. I knew, medically and intellectually, that I was experiencing shock. Perhaps from the sight of the bodies or perhaps from the magic’s thwarted desire to heal. Yet, it didn’t matter what I knew, only what I felt when I looked at the bodies, the shaking and pounding of my heart.

“We can’t. Not yet. She’ll arrive with the whole pack, and they will screw up the scene. We have to figure out what’s going on here first.” Lily said, sliding into the role of an investigator. Her voice sounded detached and cold, yet I knew she must have been as upset as I was. She dropped my hand and inched forward.

“Figure out what happened here? How are we ever going to do that? This was a dumb idea,” I whispered. I could hear the panic in my voice. Standing here in the chilly air, with the stink of death in my nose and faced with the oozing bodies in front of us, I felt utterly hopeless at the idea of ever making sense of this thing—of ever being able to make it right. I couldn’t heal this.

“You aren’t alone. I’m here. And other forest creatures are, too. We’ll figure out what happened to your friends,” Wang said from our feet.

“Thank you, but what can you do?” I asked. He was so small.

“Many things. Now, who are we looking at here?” Wang asked. He didn’t sound very upset. I was slightly put off by his tone.

“I don’t know,” said Lily, and I turned to look at her. “We were only looking for two or maybe three women. There are four bodies here. I don’t know why or who.”

“I can sort out some of it for you. Who are you expecting to be here? Then we can figure out who the extra body is,” he said very sensibly.

“We were expecting a werewolf, dryad, and maybe a vampire,” Lily told him. I didn’t speak. Instead, I found myself staring, transfixed by the most decayed body, the grayed-out remains of a woman who would never laugh or cry again. The ribs stuck out of the dirt, and a sheen of skull peeked through in a few places where the scalped had rotted away.

“A vampire? How old?” Wang asked.

“A baby. Only a few months,” Lily explained.

“One of these could be her body, then.” He blew on the little ball of light. It floated over the bodies, illuminating their ruin. I couldn’t bear to look anymore and turned away. “That’s her there.”

“How can you tell?” Lily asked. But I didn’t have a tight enough grip on my churning stomach to turn back and look.

“The body is further gone than the rest. When vampires die a true death, they start decaying at the point they would have had they died in their proper time. And this one here is your dryad,” he said.

“Oh. Are those . . . roots?” Lily asked.

“Yes. The trees come to reclaim their daughters, no matter where they fall,” he told her.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I turned around and looked at what they were discussing. The flame light was hovering over one of the bodies. Brown things wrapped the body like ropes. They were roots. It should have looked beautiful and poetic, the earth reclaiming a body like that. But instead, it looked grotesque as if it was about to be swallowed by snakes.

“Any guesses as to the other two?” Lily asked him.

“One is a wolf, you said?” Wang asked her, but somehow I didn’t think he had forgotten. Just trying to fill the darkness as he sent his little ball of light back and forth over the remains. Looking for clues—clues to what, I didn’t know.

“Were they all killed at once?” I asked, wondering how anything could have done something like that.

“No, there’s no death energy here. They were all killed elsewhere and brought here,” Wang said, still blowing and sucking his little fireball back and forth over the remains. In the silent forest, it sounded like a dog panting.

Somehow, that made it slightly better. Imagining each of the women being brought here to see the remains and then knowing that they were going to die was terrifying.

“But they were all killed at around the same time? About a month ago?” Lily asked.

“Perhaps. It looks as if they’ve been arranged. I’m not sure what the significance is. Some ritual I’m not acquainted with, perhaps.” Wang brought his light ball back to himself. “I can’t positively ID the wolf, and I have no idea who the fourth victim is. If you call the wolf’s pack, they’ll be able to tell you. They may be able to get a trail on the killer. Although, wolves aren’t as skilled at tracking as their wild relatives. No matter what they like to think. This sort of thing is really beyond them. How soon will they get here?”

“I’d think it would take them at least an hour. It should take them two, but I can’t imagine they’ll be obeying any traffic laws on their way here. Should we call about the dryad, too? ” Lily asked him. I still wasn’t able to speak. I had thought that I would be the strong one, but apparently, I had widely overestimated my nerves.

“They must know she’s gone? Surely, her home is falling to rot now?” Wang asked. “I don’t think they bury their dead.”

“Still, they did phone us to ask if we knew where she was. We should call them, I think. I’ll contact the vamps as well. Maybe the witches are missing someone? Do you think they can figure out who the fourth victim is with so little to go on?” Lily asked.

“Let’s talk to the forest folk first. Perhaps they can tell us. Then you won’t owe the witches a favor if it turns out to not be one of theirs. Doesn’t do to get into debt with the witches, if you can help it.” Wang smacked his lips a bit.

“Do you want to do the interviews first, or should I make the phone calls first?” Lily asked.

“Those who wish to talk to us will be finding their way to us soon. Why don’t you start making the calls, and your friend here can start the interviews if she feels up to it?” Wang said.

“I’m not up to it yet. But by the time whoever wants to talk to us shows up, I’m sure that I’ll be able to handle it,” I told him.

“Let us see who shows up first. We do not need to stand so close to the bodies. I’m not sure what else we can learn from them. Although there are those that handle the dead, who could learn more.” Wang’s fireball had settled close to his head, and as he turned away from the bodies, it followed him.

I was relieved not to have to see the bodies anymore and terribly ashamed of my weakness. I hadn’t expected to be so affected by the sight. I’d seen terrible injuries and dead things before. Why had this upset me so much? Perhaps it was just that I had known one of these women. Poor Alice, what a terrible way to go. She was younger than I was, and that made it worse. The poor dryad, with her love of MAC lipstick and the pitiful vamp no one looked for. What a terrible waste it all was. It was making my throat close up. Tears burned my eyes. I blinked them away in the dark.

“There’s no shame in feeling bad,” said Wang unexpectedly from my feet. “None at all. It means you’re a good person.”

“I thought I was stronger than this,” I said, my voice hoarse through my tight throat.

“Sadness for the dead isn’t weakness. You’re a healer, not a warrior. It’s not your nature to feel easy around death,” Wang told me. Lily had stepped away from us. I could hear her talking on the phone to Jen. Poor Jen. She couldn’t have been expecting a different outcome. But it would still be painful to hear the finality of it. I was grateful that I didn’t have to be the one to break the news, which made me feel even more of a coward.