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  Irene and Janssen grabbed hold of the body and removed the poor woman from the body bag and rested her on the table. The doctor took extra care to position her head on a rubber block of some sort. She spoke softly into a small recorder, low enough that Temple couldn’t make out the words. The smell hadn’t gotten any worse, but it certainly hadn’t gotten better.

  “The decomp is minimal,” Irene said, addressing the group, “but that’s expected based on when the accident occurred. She’s in bad shape, tossed around quite a bit from the looks of her wounds.” Irene examined the woman’s exterior while Morris snapped photos and Jasper wrote in the log.

  “Her fingernails and hands in general display signs of struggle and scratching at a surface.”

  “Anything under the nails?” Jasper asked.

  The doctor nodded and the assistant handed her a small jar. They proceeded to cut the nails and deposited them in the jar.

  “Might as well get the prints right now, okay, Doc?” Jasper asked. “Oh, and the swabs?”

  “Sure.”

  “Temple,” Jasper said. “Would you like to do the honors?”

  “Not really,” Temple said. “But what’s this about swabs?”

  “For DNA mainly,” Jasper said. “A mouth swab, and uh—”

  “Vaginal and anal,” Irene interjected. “Helps with identifying potential subjects in cases of sexual abuse.”

  “Right.” Jasper coughed. “Morris?”

  Morris cocked his head. “She’s all yours.”

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” Jasper said. “You sure I won’t screw it up?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Jasper put the clipboard down and proceeded to fingerprint the woman. They then swabbed and deposited the results in evidence packaging.

  The woman had not a piece of identification on her at the scene, and not a single piece of jewelry adorned her body. Odd? Temple wasn’t sure. The men didn’t seem to think much of the lack of jewelry, but tucked the fact away. The identification may have been taken by the dead driver and then destroyed by the monster.

  Temple scrunched her eyes as the autopsy proceeded and the woman’s clothes were removed. More photos and more logging. Irene practically whispered into her recorder, but Morris and Jasper asked no questions as they proceeded.

  “All right,” Irene said, after examining her from head to toe. “Her external wounds are consistent with being tossed around in a moving vehicle as well as being ejected from a vehicle. Her entire head is crisscrossed with lacerations as well as contusions. But I doubt that is what you’re interested in, Agents Black and Wilde.” Irene stared at Temple, eyebrows raised and dark eyes wide behind her safety goggles.

  “Uh, we—” Temple began—

  —and Jasper finished, “with this autopsy, we’re interested in any trace evidence that may assist in identifying people other than her kidnapper—well, we’re assuming she was a victim of kidnapping. Also, was she drugged? That sort of thing.”

  The woman’s autopsy provided very little in terms of evidence, but any blood test results would take time—not weeks, but possibly more time than the investigation and the crazy events handed them. Temple, though not normally squeamish, closed her eyes for most of the internal examination, spreading her eyelids on occasion for a glimpse, and regretting those glimpses. No one seemed to be paying her any mind, thankfully. Morris and Jasper kept taking photos and logging all through the opening of the woman’s chest cavity and skull, through the weighing of her organs. All the while, the faucet’s steady flow, ringing metallic against the bottom of the sink, never ceased. And where did all that human detritus sloughing down the table and into the sink end up? The sewer system? A special holding tank of some sort?

  “Temple, see those brown paper bags?” Jasper pointed. “Those bags are going to be used for her clothing and personal effects. What I need you to do is label each one to coincide with the articles spread out on the table there. Once we’re done with the photos, I’ll help you.”

  Temple went about labeling the brown paper bags, which were larger than grocery store versions, and perhaps a little thicker, but the brown color was the same.

  Jasper and Morris finished the photos and moved to assist with the evidence.

  “I assume you’re taking custody of the clothing and so forth, Jasper?” Morris asked.

  “Of course, wouldn’t want you to be too involved. What does executive management expect of me, anyway?” Jasper raised an eyebrow.

  “To simply ensure you’re not going off the deep end with all this nonsense. So far, I haven’t seen anything noteworthy. This woman obviously died from the car accident,” Morris said.

  “The next two are going to be the interesting ones,” Temple said. “I promise you that.”

  Irene and the assistant handed over the packages containing the DNA samples to Jasper.

  “We’re taking the old body bag as evidence, in case we have trace evidence in there. Okay, Doc?”

  Irene shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  Jensen grabbed a black garbage bag and stuffed it inside the woman’s now empty torso.

  “What in the Lord’s name was that? That garbage bag?” Temple asked.

  “The organs,” Irene said casually, as she removed her gloves.

  “Oh,” Temple said, “just like a—”

  “Yep,” Irene nodded, “a Thanksgiving Day turkey.”

  “Ah,” Temple said.

  Janssen proceeded to button up the body, replacing the section of skull they’d removed and sewing up all the torso. Temple found the process difficult to fathom and even more difficult to accept. A woman had been alive minding her own business and now had she not only been kidnapped and tossed around in a van before dying in a horrible wreck, but had her body desecrated by strangers who knew nothing about her.

  “This is a wonderful argument for cremation,” Jasper said, “don’t you think?”

  “But if you have a viewing before cremation, guess what happens?” Morris added, breaking the silence he’d kept for much of the autopsy. “The mortician embalms and does all sorts of wonderful things to you.”

  “Great,” Temple said.

  “But you won’t know anyway, you’ll be dead,” Morris said.

  “Maybe I would know,” Temple said. “You don’t know what happens when you die. You have some insider knowledge, Morris?” This man was indeed annoying, even though he hadn’t said a whole lot.

  “All right,” Jasper said, “how about we move on, eh?”

  Irene had conferred with Janssen and the assistant wheeled the body out.

  The autopsy had been both horrible and fascinating. If the autopsy helped them catch the cult then she might feel a little better about it, but not much. Yet the process amazed her, how Irene and Janssen had turned the woman inside out and somehow made her look almost human again by the end.

  “By the way,” Morris said, “I’m not witnessing anything on the evidence.”

  “Whatever.” Jasper wrote on the bags, and handed a black marker to Temple. “Please initial next to your name on each of the evidence bags.”

  Ten minutes had passed and the squeak of wheels pricked Temple’s ears. Another black body bag, another dead body—this one though would be one of the mangled bodies. She winced and scrunched up her nose.

  “And what can you tell me about this one?” Irene asked, picking new latex gloves from an overstuffed box.

  “I think we’ll let you take a gander before we say anything about the body itself,” Jasper said. “But I will say this is the first body we found.”

  Jasper grabbed one side of the body bag while the assistant grabbed the other and both lifted. The bag sagged in the middle as the contents shifted. Irene’s eyes widened, then narrowed in suspicion.

  Morris moved in for a photo of the seal on the bag and stepped back.

  “I think you’re going to have to dump this one out on the table, Doc,” Jasper said.

  “What?” Irene unzipped the bag a
nd flinched. “What in the—”

  “Holy hell,” Janssen gasped. He’d been wordless for much of the proceedings, but the outburst was understandable.

  Temple recoiled, not from the sight, since she didn’t have a good view, though a vivid picture had imprinted upon her mind from having seen this body before. No, it was the smell that got to her. Human decomp—once encountered, one never forgot. Not meat gone bad, or roadkill sitting in the sun for a day or two, not even if the stinkiest rotten cheese were mixed with dead animal could it attain the putridness of a human body in decomposition.

  She closed her eyes and swallowed. She had impregnated her mask with a menthol substance not unlike Vicks, but nothing other than a fully enclosed full face mask combined with a biohazard suit would be able to block the stench.

  Jasper’s eyes squinted and Morris went behind a wall and cursed and retched.

  “That’s pretty bad,” Irene said. “And uh, yeah…let’s roll this over and dump the remains on the table. Care to keep this body bag, too?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Jasper said.

  Irene and Janssen each grabbed an end and twisted, but the bag sagged. Jasper dropped his clipboard on the counter and shoved the middle of the bag. His right hand pushed against what must have been a bone while his left hand disappeared into the black bag, plunging into soft tissue of some sort on the other side of the bag. The contents spilled onto the autopsy table.

  “This is like a whole animal that went through a meat grinder or something,” Irene said. “What in the hell happened?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Over by the animal control facility on Gary Avenue, East Chicago,” Temple said.

  “You think an animal did this?”

  “Something did, it’s not like spontaneous combustion,” Jasper said.

  “Nice one, but I’m serious,” Irene said.

  “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you our opinions on the matter, especially her,” Jasper hitched his thumb at Temple.

  “Hey, my explanation is just as plausible.” Temple folded her arms.

  “Let’s hear it,” Irene said.

  “Tell us what you think, Doc,” Jasper said. “Come on.”

  Irene went to work, but Morris hadn’t emerged from behind the wall.

  “I take it you’re done, Morris?” Even though Jasper’s face was mostly hidden behind his mask, those eyes of his twinkled with mischief. Temple found herself thawing quite a bit toward the smart aleck agent.

  Morris coughed and cursed and gagged and cursed from behind the wall.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” Jasper joined Morris behind the wall and emerged with the camera and handed Temple the photo log. “You’ve been promoted to photo logger. It’s pretty self-explanatory. I’ll call out what I’m photographing and the distance, that sort of thing. You’ll get it in no time. If you miss anything I can go back and fill it in later,” he explained. “It’s one of the benefits of digital photography.” The Bureau had sometime after 2005 allowed digital to replace good old film, if Temple remembered correctly.

  “I miss anything, Doc?” Jasper asked.

  “Not a thing,” Irene replied, “I’m still trying to figure out where to start.” Irene shrugged and dove in. She spoke into her handheld recorder often, and whenever Jasper ducked in for photographs under the cold glare of the fluorescent light overhead.

  The initial waves of stench had subsided, but they still lingered. Temple decided she had no choice but to remain in the room despite the growing need to use the restroom.

  “What do you think so far, Doc?” Jasper finally asked, and Temple was glad, since she didn’t want to interrupt, but her curiosity attained an all-time peak.

  “The clear substance and lack of blood is disturbing, and if I didn’t know better,” Irene said, “I’d say all the red blood cells had been eradicated.”

  “Or siphoned off?” Temple asked.

  “You’re not suggesting some sort of vampire, are you?” Irene said, and both she and the assistant stared at Temple.

  “Of course not.”

  “All right, then—”

  “But are there any creatures inhabiting our planet that could do such a thing?” Temple asked.

  Irene’s shoulders dropped and her head cocked. “You’re not suggesting aliens now, are you?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything right now, only looking for an explanation.”

  “Last thing I need is for some crazy X-Files-type nonsense,” Irene huffed.

  “That’s what she works, Doc,” Jasper said. “You do know what SAG stands for, right?”

  “Who? SAG? Like the actors organization? I knew this was some sort of Hollywood garbage.”

  Jasper laughed. “No, it’s the Scientific Anomalies Group.”

  “Oh, great, so this is X-Files? Where is the hidden camera?”

  Morris emerged from behind the wall, apparently over his gagging and cursing fit which had lasted a good ten minutes. “That’s what I said, Doc.”

  “No one asked you, Morris,” Jasper said. “Anyway, this is real shit, Doc.”

  “I know it’s a pile of meat and bones that was once human, but how in the hell did this happen?”

  “We don’t know,” Temple said. “We’ve seen strange things the past couple of days. What we do know is that we have a group of men running around kidnapping people.”

  “And they did this?”

  “We don’t think so,” Jasper said. “I saw two men commit suicide by thermite.”

  “Thermite? Nasty stuff. How did they do such a thing?”

  “They stepped in an activator and simply hopped into stone basins filled with the rest of the ingredients for thermite. They went up like a Fourth of July display. We did rescue the little girl they’d kidnapped, though. At least we have that.” Jasper’s eyes darkened.

  “That woman I autopsied was a victim of one of those kidnappings, too, right? What do you suppose their fate would be, these kidnap victims?”

  “I’m thinking that body you have in front of you, or should I say pile of meat and bones, would have been their fate,” Temple said.

  “So the kidnappers aren’t the ones doing this?” Irene asked.

  “Not directly, but because of them this happens,” Jasper said. “All right, I’m going to level with you.”

  “It’s about time.”

  Jasper took a deep breath, but Temple jumped in. “We saw something move toward the next body you’re going to look at, and he’s in the same state as the body you’re examining right now.”

  “Something moved toward,” Irene said, considering.

  “The lighting was dark at the scene, but a wispy form congealed into what can only be described as an Asian-style dragon.”

  Irene yanked her mask down, exasperated. “Excuse me?”

  “You know,” Jasper said, “like the type you see during, I don’t know, Chinese New Year or something, with a bunch of dudes chucking firecrackers, only this wasn’t a bunch of guys in a dragon costume.”

  “There has to be a reasonable explanation,” Irene said, then paused. “Let me tell you a quick story. Okay? Right, so one of my early autopsies featured a body that sat up a bit and then promptly laid back down.”

  Temple’s eyes widened.

  “And there is an explanation beyond the fantastic here,” Irene said.

  “Electrical impulses?”

  “That happens, but may cause twitching and other things,” Irene said, “No, this was from a build-up of gases. Nothing more, nothing less. Not that those things don’t freak you out at first, but really? For what you’re speaking of? There has to be a reasonable explanation.” She replaced the mask.

  “That would freak me out, no doubt,” Temple said, “And I agree, there must be an explanation, whether it seems reasonable or not. And now I’m going to have to ask you to sign a nondisclosure agreement. We can’t afford to have the press or anyone else fo
r that matter speaking about this.”

  Irene laughed. “As if I’d ever say anything about this nonsense! I have a reputation to uphold.”

  Morris sucked in a huge breath and gagged. Apparently he’d been about to start laughing, but the smell had gotten to him again. He finally regained control, and said, “I’ll sign the nondisclosure as well, but you can bet I’m going to tell Masters and Johnson that you’re all off your rockers.”

  “What do the sex people have to do with this?” Irene asked, genuinely confused.

  Temple laughed and Jasper joined her. After they had settled down, Jasper let the doctor in on the joke.

  “Any personal effects at all in these remains?” Temple asked.

  “None as far as I can tell, but there are remnants of clothing.” Irene picked through the remains, producing a strip of cloth here and a shirt button there. A piece of glass followed, presumably from a pair of eyeglasses. “A curious lack of metal, too. Can’t explain any of this. But most baffling to me still is the lack of red blood cells.”

  “Like a severe iron deficiency?” Jasper ventured.

  Irene chuckled. “Yeah, a fatal case of iron deficiency. I think this is a piece of liver here. It’s hard to tell, of course, but it’s washed out, and if I could find the heart in here, I bet it’d be just as pale and any blood within would be only a tad more pink. The liquid we’re seeing is mostly plasma, that is, blood without the red blood cells. I wonder if any white cells survived. We’re taking samples, of course. Many, many, samples.”

  “Will you be able to test them on your own, Irene?” Temple asked. “I mean, I don’t want any old lab performing these tests.”

  Irene sighed. “I suppose I could find—”

  “We’ll take them, Doc,” Jasper said. “I have a friend who works at a university who’ll do us the honors.”

  Irene paused. “You have to forward me the results, though. I’d be interested in what exactly remained in the blood.”

  “And we’ll take some tissue samples. I see some marks over here, can’t make them out, though.” Irene leaned forward.

  “I’ll need a photo of whatever it is you’re looking at,” Jasper said. “And if you could somehow bag that section for us, that’d be great.”