“Stand up,” I tell him. “It’s ‘Nick the Stripper’ time.”
I mime taking off a shirt. He starts undressing.
“What are you looking for?” says Candy.
“Identifying marks. Scars. Birthmarks. Tattoos. That kind of thing.”
Death looks down at his naked body, as interested in it as they are, but baffled at being surrounded by his own flesh.
Julie goes over his front, legs, and back.
“Lift up your arms, please,” she says.
The moment he does, Candy says, “What’s that? A tattoo?”
Julie and I look where Candy is pointing, near his left armpit. Death cranes his head around trying to see.
“It’s not a tattoo,” says Julie.
I put my finger on the design. The skin is slightly raised and pinker than the surrounding flesh.
“It’s a brand.”
“Do
either of you recognize it?”
Candy and I both say no.
Julie touches the brand with her gloved fingers. She glances at Death.
“Do you know where it came from?”
“No.”
She photographs it, stops when she checks the shot.
“There’s something else.”
She fits a zoom lens to the phone’s camera—more Vigil tech by the look—and takes another shot.
A pattern on Death’s skin glows a bright green.
“It looks like a tattoo that’s been lasered off,” she says.
She shows the design to Candy and me. Neither of us recognizes it. The marks look like letters, heavily stylized, in a circle.
“It’s not a word. Maybe it’s his initials,” I say.
“Why would he remove his initials?” says Julie.
“People lose their names all the time,” says Candy. “When they’re scared and want to hide from something.”
No one says anything for a minute.
“Is this the body of a good man?” says Death.
Julie takes the lens off her phone and puts it in the messenger bag.