Definitely Dead

decided I could be worldly enough to ignore it, too.
    As soon as she’d disencumbered herself, the girl was off, moving low to the ground, sniffing in a way that told me she was even less human than I’d estimated. But she didn’t move like the Weres I’d observed, or the shape-shifting panthers. Her body seemed to bend and turn in a way that simply wasn’t mammalian.
    Mr. Cataliades watched her, his hands folded in front of him. He was silent, so I was, too. The girl darted around the yard like a demented hummingbird, vibrating almost visibly with an unearthly energy.
    For all that movement, I couldn’t hear her make a sound.
    It wasn’t long before she stopped at a clump of bushes at the very edge of the woods. She was bent over looking at the ground, absolutely still. Then, not looking up, she raised her hand like a schoolchild who’d discovered the correct answer.
    “Let us go see,” Mr. Cataliades suggested, and in his deliberate way he strode across the driveway, then the grass, to a clump of wax myrtles at the edge of the woods. Diantha didn’t look up as we neared, but remained focused on something on the ground behind the bushes. Her face was streaked with tears. I took a deep breath and looked down at what held her attention.
    This girl had been a little younger than Diantha, but she too was thin and slight. Her hair had been dyed bright gold, in sharp contrast with her milk chocolate skin. Her lips had drawn back in death, giving her a snarl that revealed teeth as white and sharp as Diantha’s. Oddly enough, she didn’t seem as worse for wear as I would have expected, given the fact that she might have been out here for several days. There were only a few ants walking over her, not at all the usual insect activity . . . and she didn’t look bad at all for a person who’d been cut in two at the waist.
    My head buzzed for a minute, and I was little scared I would go down on one knee. I’d seen some bad stuff, including two massacres, but I’d never seen anyone divided like this girl had been. I could see her insides. They didn’t look like human insides. And it appeared the two halves had been separately seared shut. There was very little leakage.
    “Cut with a steel sword,” Mr. Cataliades said. “A very good sword.”
    “What shall we do with her remains?” I asked. “I can get an old blanket.” I knew without even asking that we would not be calling the police.
    “We have to burn her,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Over there, on the gravel of your parking area, Miss Stackhouse, would be safest. You’re not expecting any company?”
    “No,” I said, shocked on many levels. “I’m sorry, why must she be . . . burned?”
    “No one will eat a demon, or even a half demon like Glad or Diantha,” he said, as if explaining that the sun rises in the east. “Not even the bugs, as you see. The ground will not digest her, as it does humans.”
    “You don’t want to take her home? To her people?”
    “Diantha and I are her people. It’s not our custom to take the dead back to the place where they were living.”
    “But what killed her?”
    Mr. Cataliades raised an eyebrow.
    “No, of course she was killed by something cutting through her middle, I’m seeing that! But what wielded the blade?”
    “Diantha, what do you think?” Mr. Cataliades said, as if he were conducting a class.
    “Something real, real strong and sneaky,” Diantha said. “It got close to Gladiola, and she weren’t no fool. We’re not easy to kill.”
    “I have seen no sign of the letter she was carrying, either.” Mr. Cataliades leaned over and peered at the ground. Then he straightened. “Have you got firewood, Miss Stackhouse?”
    “Yessir, there’s a good bit of split oak in the back by the toolshed.” Jason had cut up some trees the last ice storm had downed.
    “Do you need to pack, my dear?”
    “Yes,” I said, almost too overwhelmed to answer. “What? What for?”
    “The trip to New Orleans. You can go now, can’t you?”
    “I . . . I guess so. I’ll have to ask my boss.”
    “Then Diantha and I will take care of this while you are getting permission and packing,” Mr. Cataliades said, and I blinked.
    “All right,” I said. I didn’t seem to be able to think very clearly.
    “Then we need to leave for New Orleans,” he said. “I’d thought I’d find you ready. I thought that Glad had stayed to help you.”
    I wrenched my gaze from the body to stare up at the lawyer. “I’m