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I flexed my fingers to ease some of the gathering tension and then nodded. Aiden pulled a set of gloves from the apparently endless supply in his pocket and then spun and walked to the door. Monty and I followed.
The door wasn’t locked. Aiden pressed it open but didn’t immediately enter. The short, somewhat dark entrance hall beyond intersected with a second hall that ran at right angles to it. Light glimmered from the left end while a TV blasted away to the right.
The sense of death I’d felt earlier hit like a hammer. I rubbed my arms and said, “There’s someone dead to our left.”
“Yeah, I can smell it. Follow me, and try not to touch anything.”
He moved cautiously into the house, his footsteps making little noise on the old floorboards. We walked to the end of the hall and swung left, through a wide doorway that opened into a large kitchen-diner.
Lying in the middle of the floor was an elderly couple. They were both half naked and bore the love-bite-like bruising that had been evident in the very first murder, but neither of them had been stripped of their skin.
Aiden squatted next to the man and felt for a pulse. He grimaced and then moved across to the woman. “Both dead,” he said, looking up.
“That’s not what’s so surprising here,” Monty said. “But rather the fact they’re both intact.”
“Maybe she didn’t have the time to strip either of them,” I commented.
“She had time to feed,” he replied. “And she wasn’t in the house when we rocked up, remember. That suggests she had no intention of skinning either of these two.”
I frowned. “But why not? It would have been a whole lot easier to steal a skin and then head out into the unknowing population.”
Monty hesitated. “Maybe it has something to do with her skin.”
I glanced at him. “But she can’t reclaim her skin—it’s been salted.”
“Yes, but maybe the fact her skin is still out there rather than destroyed means she can’t claim another, however temporary.”
“Which means she might try to either reclaim or destroy it.” I glanced at Aiden. “Where’s that skin being kept?”
“I had it moved to the tank around the back of the station, just in case she decided to retrieve it.” He grimaced. “Of course, given her willingness to blow things up, that might not help.”
“I doubt she has the same sort of connection to her skin as she did the other soucouyant,” Monty said. “If she did, she would have hit it by now.”
“At least that’s one bit of good news in an evening filled with bad.” He rose as the sound of sirens began to approach. “I’ll get Jaz to
take you both home.”
Monty frowned. “The possibility of the soucouyant returning tonight is low, I know, but I’d rather stay, just in case.”
Aiden shrugged and touched my arm lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow sometime.”
I nodded and left. Belle had returned and was now standing next to Ashworth and Eli under an old eucalypt tree. The left leg of her jeans had a handful of burned patches, and there were a couple more on her T-shirt. The skin underneath was red but didn’t appear to be blistering—probably because she’d jumped into the water not long after the soucouyant had escaped. I tugged some of the holy water out of the backpack and handed it to her. It had stopped Anna’s more serious burns from causing permanent damage, so it would certainly take care of Belle’s.
“You know,” I said, as she started dousing the burns, “considering the explodability of gum trees and the fact we’re dealing with a fire spirit, standing under this tree isn’t the brightest of moves.”
Ashworth’s grin flashed. “Nothing like a bit of danger to spice up life. What’s it like inside?”
“Two dead people with skins intact. Monty’s theory is the soucouyant can’t claim another until hers has been destroyed.”
“That’s more than possible,” Eli said. “What’s being done to protect her original skin?”
“It remains in salt water.”
Ashworth grunted. “It should be safe enough, then.”
“I hope so.” The noise from the sirens sharpened; I glanced around and saw three ranger vehicles crest the hill and race toward us. “Aiden’s asked Jaz to take us all home.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Eli asked. “The soucouyant might return to finish what she—”
