“No,” she replies. “I mean, just a hand. That is all.”
“A hand?” Wen mumbles.
“It shot out from around the corner,” the woman explains. “My daughter was playing by an alley near the water markets. I looked away for but a moment, and when I looked up, I saw someone beckoning to her. I tried to call her back, but before I could, they grabbed my girl and dragged her away.” The woman shakes her head, fighting back tears. “I gave chase, but by the time I made it to the alley, they were already gone.Vanished. All that was left was—”
She breaks into a sob as she pulls something wrapped in silk from the pocket of her dress. She hands it to me with trembling hands. Wen and Sooah both give me questioning glances as I unwrap the package.
Inside, two severed fingers belonging to a child.
A chill courses through me.
“Allow me but a moment,” I say as gently as I’m able. Reaching toward one of the pouches attached to my belt, I retrieve one of the talismans I remembered to pack. Pressing the edge of the paper to the cold fingers, I frown in dismay when the slip immediately ignites, burning a foreboding black.
Sooah shakes her head slowly. Wen sucks in a sharp breath.
“W-what does it mean?” the woman asks, trembling.
“Tell us what it looked like,” Wen says. “Was it a claw? Did it have fur? Feathers? Scales?”
The seamstress shook her head. “It was just a hand. Human. A woman’s, I think.”
Sooah frowns at this, signing quickly.A skin-wearer?
I grit my teeth and pray it isn’t so. The last time I had themisfortune of encountering a skin-wearer was three years ago near the northern territories. By the time we arrived to banish the cursed beast, it had decimated the local population, peeling humans like little more than ripe fruit.
“Did its flesh appear rotten?” I ask her. “Deformed. Miscolored in any way?”
The woman, understandably, appears disgusted. “No. She had beautiful skin, like porcelain.”
Good. Not a skin-wearer, then, but that only raises more questions. I might have dismissed this case as an unfortunate kidnapping-turned-murder, yet the talismans never lie. They may appear like nothing more than strips of parchment, but the spells written upon their surface have proven effective wards for centuries. It only burns black in the presence of a demon’s aura. But a demon who looks human, capable of hiding in plain sight?
I want to say it’s impossible, but to deny the possibility will only hinder my efforts. I must be pragmatic in this—no matter how terrified I may be.
Carefully, I wrap up the remains of her daughter and return them to the seamstress. “We shall handle things from here,” I say firmly.
“Please find her, sir.Please, save my daughter.”
It’s far too late for that. Her child now rests in the belly of a monster, one incapable of satiation.
“We’ll do everything we can,” I lie fluidly. There’s no sense in upsetting her further. Better to offer her hope—as false as it may be—and try to stop this beast from making a meal of yet another poor soul.
We head for the water market, which bustles with late-night activity. Maybe we’ll find more clues near thealley where the girl went missing. My hands grow clammy at the sight of so many people still out at this late hour. They don’t understand the danger they’re in, blissfully unaware that they’re offering themselves up for dinner. I want to warn them, to tell them to return to their homes and lock their doors tight, but I would much rather avoid inciting panic.
“How much are you willing to wager it’s the same demon eating all the rest?” Wen asks, and rather crassly at that.
Sooah huffs.I don’t know what’s worse. One rabid beast, or an entire horde.
“What do you think, Cap’n?”
Admittedly, I’d only been half listening, too engrossed in the notes of my hunting log. It was open to the entry pertaining to the skin-wearer we encountered all those years ago. “It takes three to five days for skin to rot,” I say. “Even if it were a fresh kill, there’d still be identifiable discoloration. What if the demon we’re after has found a way to prolong their disguise? Or maybe it’s the result of some other strange magic.”
An illusion, Sooah suggests.Or perhaps hypnosis?
“Possibly,” I murmur, flipping the page. “Or maybe it’s—”
“You there!” calls a woman’s sweet voice.
My attention is drawn to a canopied longboat lazily drifting down the canal. Beneath the shade sits a gaggle of young women, dressed in fine silks with bejeweled adornments shining in their hair. They titter to one another behind hand-painted fans, batting their long lashes at me with obvious interest.
