Part Two - Chapter 6

“I have no idea what to feed you with,” Lita confessed. “There were no instructions about it. I mean, there were, but I don’t think you’ll like them.”

‘Try me,” I said darkly. The answer was obviously going to be a trial for my sense of humor.

“They believed you were going to eat fish from the lake.”

I managed to overcome my growing desire to throw up. It wasn’t easy. Yep, she was right: I didn’t like that idea. I knew full well what my potential dinner had been eating in the last couple months.

Corpse stuffed fish anyone?

“Something tells me you’re not thrilled,” she smirked.

“Far from it. So plan B?”

“Only one thing I can think of: human food. The same I’ll be eating. Do you think it can harm you?”

Oh, now that’s something I like! But I had to play safe about it, I didn’t want to let her know I was truly excited.

“I doubt it,” I answered. “I’ve already tried human food back at the lab. Chocolate, meat, nuts, fruit, vegetables, I even tried something called sushi… which was basically some fish. And hey �" I’m still breathing!”

“In any case, you’ll have to wait. I have nothing with me, so I need to go to the ranger’s house and get something there. As far as I know, he’s been warned about my arrival.”

Sure he was. Everyone was informed about this excursion except for us! Though it was quite an interesting thing to ponder: how did they explain the arrival of a girl without any vehicle with her? If I were that ranger guy, I’d be more than suspicious! But hey, that'd be me, and humans may very well be dumb enough not to notice.

“Can I come with you?” I asked.

I didn’t like the idea of her going through that forest all alone. I remembered the picture of that corpse all too well. But Lita, on the other hand, didn’t seem too concerned with it at all.

“No, no need for that, I’ll be fine. It’s not very far, and unlike when we first got here in the pitch darkness, I can see everything perfectly now. Besides, you’ve got your own job to do.”

“Like what?”

“Rey, you know exactly what I mean.”

Sure I did, I just hoped she’d get the hint and cancel her orders. It was a foolish move even for humans! But my watcher wasn’t going to have any of it:

“I know you don’t like it, but someone’s got to do it. Waiting around will just be a waste of time. You should start searching through the lake, find as many bodies as you can, study them, form an opinion and inform me about it. From what I know of the details it might be better if you do it before you have a meal. Oh, by the way, the weather today is nice enough that it's possible tourists could show up. Make sure you stay unnoticed. We don’t need any rumors about ‘Nessie’ swimming around here.”

“Who?...”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll tell you about it later”, she kind of waved me off. “Get on to it.”

I sighed heavily, making sure I looked as displeased as I felt inside, and with that I went to the lake. I was getting into the water slowly, although it was like postponing the inevitable. Easy for her to say �" “swim and search!” Bah, humans! Did she really know what it meant for me? I’d like to see her go gallivanting into a room stacked with corpses and dig her way through them!

“Rey, I told you not to stay out of the water!” Lita reminded me she was still watching.

Swearing quietly, I dove into the lake, demonstratively producing a fountain of splashes. She knew how gracefully I could swim if I really wanted to, so I think she got the message.

In another time I’d enjoy swimming in such a large pond without limitations or humans watching me. But not here. The constant feeling of death reminded me where I was and why I came here. Even the eye-catching dance of sun rays in the dark water couldn’t distract me from unhappy thoughts.

After swimming along the shore, the lake’s shape reminded me of a figure-eight. I preferred to stay away from the deeper parts, but I could already tell I’d have my work cut out for me! In my mind, I divided the lake into two parts and started with the half that was closer to Lita's house. For some reason, the foreboding sense of death was stronger there.

The water knows what it’s hiding. It warns any living creature of the bloody “treasure” it's stowing away. That’s what the feeling of death was, but I wasn’t sure humans would be able to sense it. In a way, it was like sensing the energy of a live human being, only… in reverse. It was the energy of an abandoned body…. of many abandoned bodies.

I found the corpses right in the middle of the deepest part of the first search zone. There were a lot of them, so many I couldn’t see them all at once. They lied there in piles, and the water above them was so thick I could barely breathe. I had to rise to the surface, fill my lungs with air and get back to studying the corpses all while holding my breath. Sure, there weren't any smells in the water, but inhaling that stagnant water was even worse.  Like breathing in death itself.

Just as I suspected, the bodies were in different states of decomposition. The more rotten ones were at the bottom of the pile, they were older. Recognizing their cause of  death wasn’t difficult: all of them had deep cut wounds. An axe would be my first guess �" or a big knife. Maybe both.

The female bodies were different from that of the male ones. It was striking. The men had less wounds on them �" one or two, with one of them looking to the lethal blow, mostly around their heads or necks. The one who attacked them must have been going for a fast kill. The female bodies were mutilated more intensely. Their clothes were badly torn, most of them had multiple cuts all across their skin and small sticks were still stuck in their hair.

I wasn’t surprised by the fact they weren't killed in this area, I could tell that even without looking. The bodies must have been brought here on a boat and thrown into the water. But where was that boat now? Humans usually leave such things close to ponds, and I was sure I didn't see anything like one when I was circling the lake initially. Although, I wasn’t sure I hadn't seen it either. It's not like I was specifically searching for a boat in the first place.

What truly confused me was the fact I could catch a scent of one man on all female corpses. Actually, no, “scent” was the wrong word in this instance. There weren't any smells underwater. It was more like… a sense. A sense I couldn’t explain, even to myself, but it was as if I could see the shadow of the man that did this cast over the area. 

I wasn’t sure what one had to do to leave such a shadow. The act of killing was not enough, none of the male bodies had the same sign on them. It was something special, and special in a wrong way. I decided to talk to Lita about it.

I saw everything I needed, but I decided to give them just one last look just to be sure so I wouldn't have to return to this pile again. I surfaced for more air and returned to the corpses. My efforts paid off �" I found something.

On one of the bodies that laid on top of the pile I noticed a small piece of plastic. It got stuck inside the dead woman’s skin. It was really small, rectangular in shape with rounded corners. On one side it was beige and on the other it was covered by some bright pink paint.

I had no idea what the thing was, but it didn’t belong here. And, unlike the sticks, it obviously wasn’t something natural from the shore. It would’ve been better to show it to Lita, but I just couldn’t bring myself to touch a rotten corpse. Oh well, a little piece of plastic couldn’t possibly mean that much!

I left the underwater cemetery with a certain relief. The place made me feel sick and angry all at once. I started to move to the other side of the lake. I felt like my scales were covered by something sticky and it felt like pieces of skin and hair were stuck in my gills. I knew it wasn’t true, but it felt this way.

The water in the other half of the lake was astonishingly clean. A quick study of lake's floor led to that conclusion �" no bodies here. But why?

Hell, the first half of the lake was close not only to the hut, but also to the road that led to the ranger’s house! The road Lita was supposed to be walking on at this very second…

I quickly suppressed the panic that rose inside of me. Such a reaction was illogical. Lita would be fine, surely no-one would dare to attack her during the day! But what time do humans hunt typically, anyway? I didn’t feel like returning into the dirtier water so I remained in the second half of the lake. I could actually enjoy my temporary freedom here… and wash that feeling of death off of me. Or at least try to.

But the presence of my watcher made me return; I felt her at a distance, just like before. I chose the route that allowed me to pass the “mass grave” without getting too close. I’d rather walk to her on the shore, but Lita was right, it would be too risky.

She was waiting for me on a small wooden platform hanging above the water. I expected her to wear her usual business suit since we were on a mission, it was obligatory for watchers back at the Headquarters, but now she was meeting me in a light white dress, her raven hair falling on her shoulders freely. She didn’t look like a person who could kill me, much less harm me.

And I was supposed to obey her because of the two damn bombs hidden in my body. How is that remotely fair? Against all laws of nature I say; when did a python ever obey a mouse? Story of my life…

Lita noticed the way I was observing her with obvious puzzlement.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that! Everyone here is supposed to think that I’m nothing but an average tourist. That doesn't really seem suitable for official clothing, right? Are you hungry?”

She was changing the topic �" and quite bluntly at that. I took it as a sign of her embarrassment. What do you know, I had no idea I could make her feel self-conscious!

“Yep,” I wasn’t going to lie about it.

“Then help yourself.”

Only then did I notice there was a plastic plate on the edge of the platform. I pulled myself up onto the old boards which squeaked pitifully under my weight.

“What it this?” I asked with mild curiosity. I trusted my nose more than her answers, but I asked anyway.

“Fish. Roasted.”

“Out of the lake?”

“You’re kidding, right?” she chuckled. “What was the use to going through this trouble then? No, it’s sea fish.”

“And that?”

“Rice and some vegetables. I’m not sure about the rice, but I know that vegetables are added into the food for the Line One beasts. So they most likely won’t harm you. Did you find the bodies?”

What a great time to remind me about that.

“Can I please eat first?!”

“Fine.”

If I had a choice, I would avoid discussing my little underwater discovery altogether.

Lita waited patiently for me to finish my meal. She squatted on the edge of the platform and entertained herself with chasing pond skimmers with a thin stick. And this was supposed to be a secret agent on a mission! One poke from my tail, and she’d be falling headfirst into the water… quite a temptation, actually, but I suppressed that desire.

Funny how two bombs can be so persuasive…

I finished eating and pushed the empty plate aside. Lita looked at me, but didn’t repeat her question. She knew I’d return to it on my own.

“They’re down there.”

“How many?”

“Around thirty, but to count them I need to move them.” I winced at the idea. With the way the water had affected them, I’d need to count the heads, because the bodies had likely merged into one hulking mass at the bottom.

“No need for that,” Lita reassured me. “At least, for now. Any leads on how they were killed?”

“Same as with the first victim, the one that you showed me. Huge wounds all over them.”

“That would mean an axe, though our experts had found both chopped and stabbed wounds on that body. So what's keeping them submerged?”

“Stones,” I explained. “And not big ones, the one who did it preferred small stones. They're either tied to the bodies or hidden under their clothes. And… I’m not sure how to put it… generally speaking, on all female bodies I could sense a… trace… of a man…”

I tried to figure the best way to describe that shadow I felt. It was tricky since humans didn't have my sensing ability, but Lita didn't seem puzzled at all:

“Quit stammering, I know what you mean. The body we found was female. She was raped.”

“Raped?” I echoed. I didn’t really know what the word meant, though I know I'd heard it before.

“Heh, you don’t even know what a kiss is, I forgot! How do I explain this?  Let’s start from a different point, you know where babies come from, right? There’s a certain act between a man and a woman, when they get physically close…”

“You mean sex?”

She looked at me wide-eyed, and I smirked. My knowledge of sex didn’t come from books.

One of the walls in my laboratory tank was mirror-like, it faced into the work zone. It was done so that I could have more space and light without constantly being watched. But one of the night guards and the laboratory assistant girl who always stayed late at work obviously didn’t know that this mirror was one-sided and I could see them perfectly. Thus I was the only one who knew for sure why this girl liked to stay in the lab after everyone else left.

At first I didn’t understand what was going on. But they were doing it in the lab almost every night, so even I managed to put it all together �" without any other theoretical knowledge on the subject. Well, I have my instincts, too! Perhaps among the many movements they made there was a kiss in there somewhere, but no-one bothered to name that to me.

Remembering what I felt witnessing such a demonstration made me blush. I was glad my scales hid it from her.

“How much do you know about it?” Lita kept watching me.

“More than enough, but it still doesn’t tell me what the hell 'rape' is!”

“But you know what violence is, right?”

“Yeah, I have a fair idea on that one!”

Was she kidding me? I spent six months in a cell being tortured.

“Then it’s simple �" rape is sex with violence. That means one of the sides is unwilling and being forced, but the second side doesn’t give a damn. But in this case, we’re not talking about an average case of rape. So with your knowledge of sex, you understand the processes involved? The physics of it all? I mean, how it's performed?”

“Sort of.”

“What happened to that woman was unnatural. To begin with, before that happened she received severe damage.”

I didn’t like where this was going. But I should’ve expected it after seeing that picture.

“Was she even alive when it happened?”

“Hard to tell, you saw the condition her body was in! But most likely yes, she was. And… you know…” This time it was Lita’s turn to blush and look for words. “He didn’t do it the average way…”  She paused, .»..he used the wounds he made in a way.”

“Okay, that's more than enough,” I understood her completely and I didn’t want to hear any more details. To say I was disgusted would be understatement. Unnatural is the most innocent way of putting something like that! The one who did this was sick even for human standards. Whoever this guy was, he was dangerous. “Does this happen regularly among humans?”

“Thank God, it’s very rare. But the ones who are this way are very... unusual. We call such people 'psychos,' they’re insane. They have very little in common with normal people, their whole mindset is different.”

“So they’re even worse than the normal ones?” I couldn’t help asking. I regretted it immediately: her eyes became cold in reproach. “This is the wrong time for jokes”.

Even though I didn’t like the situation, it didn’t particularly scare me. So he was a freak and most likely very dangerous due to his mental condition. But I’m still worse! I’m officially a monster.

“I still can’t get used to you…” Lita said softly, her gaze thoughtful. “I’m not sure who or what you are, but you’re not an animal, no matter what they call you.”

She didn’t specify who “they” were.

“So did you find out anything else I should know?” she asked instead.

“Yeah. All the bodies are in the half of the lake closest to us, the distant half is relatively clean, not a single corpse there. So you could swim there if you really wanted.”

“I’d rather not,” she averted her eyes.

It was an innocent suggestion that caused an interesting reaction in her. Now I was curious!

“And why not?”

“I… Ehh… to be honest, I can’t swim!”

“What?!”

I was positive that all watchers were supposed to know how to swim! They were working with us, amphibian beasts, after all! And now Lita proved me wrong; after that admission she looked really upset.

“You heard me,” she sighed. “I never could. I know it’s wrong for someone of my profession. I was lucky they didn’t test me over it, they decided my academy diploma was enough to make me fit for the position. Nobody taught us to swim at the academy. There were swimming classes, but I… I just skipped them.”

Who would’ve thought? And when I first saw her, she seemed to be the perfect watcher!

“But you jumped into the water with me during our trial together,” I reminded her.

“That’s why I needed to trust you. The truth is that while I’m in the water, I am… well, not entirely helpless, but close to it. I know how to hold my breath and I’m not afraid of being underwater, but that’s it. I'm not able to swim or even stay afloat. I guess I shouldn’t be telling you this, but... I felt like you had the right to know since you’re working with me now. Just don’t get too cocky over this, got it?”

“I won’t. You’re still the one with the detonator.”

She blinked in surprise and started laughing:

“Damn, if I couldn't see you with my own two eyes, I’d never believe you weren't human!”

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” I hid my smile, though it wasn’t easy. Strangely enough, her confession made me feel more at ease around her. Sure, I was still her prisoner and she was my captor. But she didn’t look or feel like one in this moment.

“Take it how you want.”

Lita sat beside me, though the platform boards were dirty and wet. I didn’t say anything because I liked being by her side in silence, without waiting for orders. I couldn’t figure out why, but on this mission she didn’t annoy me at all.

It was getting hotter as the day was rolling closer to noon; I could hear dragonflies buzzing somewhere close to us. My scales were getting dry, and I knew I had to return into the water soon.

But before that I needed to know something:

“How did your meeting with the ranger go?”

“It was brief and not very friendly, either. But he’s definitely out of the suspects list. He doesn’t even wear a prosthesis. Actually, I don’t have a suspects list as such. None of the people I met there seem like a psychopath killer. The ranger’s out for obvious reasons. His wife is a spirited lady, that’s what I’d call her, but she has some problems with her back and she tries not to get too far from home. Apart from that, she’s a woman, and we’re looking for a man for rather obvious reasons. That also excludes their two daughters, though these two are far from the image of quiet country girls! Regardless, I was told they don’t get close to the lake since they can’t swim �" pretty much like me.”

“So the ranger’s family is beyond suspicion?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, yes, though it was an attractive option.»

Sure it was. But when were the things ever easy?

“And the tourists?”

“Not many of them there!” my watcher said. “Three people altogether �" an elderly couple who came here to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary and a businessman who decided to get away from the big city buzz.»

“The later sounds interesting!” I noted.

“Not really. He’s a big guy, that feature he truly has in common with the psycho we’re looking for. But it’s his first time here, he arrived a week ago, before that he’s never been even close to Altai. The ranger confirmed that. So that leaves us with two options: either the killer is a complete psycho who’s hiding in the forest or he’s no longer here. I don’t like either of them.»

“What’s wrong with the second option?” I questioned. “If he’s no longer around, we’ve got nothing to worry about!”

“True, but that’d mean we have failed our first mission. That’s bad news for us, Rey. I’ll lose my job, and you �" your life. Remember, when they were sending us here, they weren’t thinking about the case, they just wanted us to be helpless… useless”.

“You’ll get fired if I fail?” I asked in surprise.

“I’ll resign.»

I expected her to name the exact reason for it, but she didn’t say anything. The air was too hot now, my scales became painfully dry.

“Does the ranger have a boat?” I soaked my feet and tail in water. That brought partial relief.

Lita paused for a moment, then nodded:

“I think so, it’s out in the yard. But I’m not sure it’s fit for swimming, it looked too old. Why?”

“No particular reason. Wanted to know just in case”.

I learnt everything I needed. Not I could return into the amazing coolness of water �" which was, unfortunately, tainted with humans’ death. The plan of action was slowly taking shape in my head.