“We documented the scene then moved the remains to a tent.” He indicated a white geodesic affair sheltered by the limbs of forgiving pine trees. “There’s a fan hooked up to make the heat more bearable, but the smell…”

Nothing anyone could do about that.

Showing the pond my back made the skin covering my spine twitch. But now that my sights were locked on the dingy material pitched several yards away, I focused there and on what waited inside for me. No. Not what. Who.

My fingers didn’t shake when I lifted the tent flap. If they had, I was ready to blame all the chai I had tossed back during the long drive from the airport out to the middle of nowhere. Three other fae were congregated inside, and the tight-knit group had parked themselves in the far corner where a steady click, click, click made it obvious they were here for the cooler air and not for the body.

They were all men, so it must have taken balls to stand beside a dead girl and whine about a few sweat stains under your pits.

A ripple effect hit as each head turned until I held the group’s collective attention. What they saw on my face sent them bolting out the rear flap and left me alone in the oppressive heat with the victim. Drawing out the moment, I examined every sweltering inch of the interior except for what lay before me, until I caught myself reading the ingredients off a label of hand sanitizer and forced my gaze front and center.

A neon-blue tarp stretched across a commandeered picnic table. I got downwind of the oscillating fan, and it blasted me full-on with the stench of meat gone ripe from too much sun. A white and wrinkly maggot inched over the emaciated curve of the victim’s hip, and some primal response had me tasting what I ate for breakfast in the back of my throat. I kept down the cereal bar, but it was a near thing, and I didn’t think I would ever taste strawberries again without remembering this moment.

A young girl was curled on her side on top of the plastic. She was nude, and her pale skin held a blueish tint. Without touching her it was hard to tell if temperature was a factor or if the reflection of the tarp was playing tricks on me. Her fragile limbs had bloated from her time spent in the water, and the flesh had burst in places like overstuffed sausage casing. One arm stopped at the elbow and exposed bone protruded, white and gleaming. Chestnut hair clung like freshwater seaweed to her spine, dripping brown-tinted liquid that flowed in rivulets off the table to quench the thirsty earth below.