- 27 -

Sweat ran down Lilith's back in long drips that brought no relief. She had to fight for each breath but the hard won air only scorched her lungs. The human body wasn't meant to withstand the kind of heat pumped out by the massive furnaces that lined the ship's underbelly. Well, Lilith wasn't human, but did being a succubus make her more vulnerable to the heat? The shine glittering on Pandora's skin made her think otherwise. This place was simply unbearable for everyone. It was hard to believe men could work 12 hours days in here.

Lilith tightened her grip on Pandora's hand despite the growing moisture building between their palms. She clung to it the way a child might cling to a blanket or stuffed animal for safety. How ironic that she would find that comfort in the touch of a hunter. Someone who would kill her if she knew the truth. At least that was her assumption— That knowledge would equal death. Yet, she was still alive and well.

Lilith's suspicion that Pandora knew her secret seemed to fade with each passing moment. As she looked up all she could see was a kind woman who, for whatever reason, was protecting her. If only she had been born normal, that could be their real relationship.

Pandora noticed Lilith's staring and flashed a smile, then shouted over the roar of the fires, "You look like you're about to drown."

"And you look like you just lost a fight with a rain cloud."

Maybe it was the speed of the response but Pandora burst into laughter. The sound was drowned out by the ambiance, but the rolling of her chest made the action clear. Lilith knew it was improper to laugh at her own joke but she joined in anyway.

Pandora sifted through her bag and produced a length of cord, then cut it in half against her bayonet. "Maybe this will help."

A soft pressure traced across Lilith's neck; Pandora's fingers brushing against her skin as her long blond hair was gathered together. The rush of air to the freshly exposed skin gave Lilith a brief moment of relief. There was a gentle tug as the hunter tied the hair into place. When she reappeared in Lilith's vision, Pandora had also tied her hair up into a matching ponytail.

Allister grumbled from across the corridor. He was crouched beside the ladder to the catwalk, atop a pile of coal. The dust clung to his sweat, painting his brown skin even darker. "Pandora, are you even paying attention?"

"No."

Allister let out a heavy sigh. "Look, I know you don't want to be here; none of us do. It's hot as hell and hard to breathe."

"Don't forget loud," Lilith added, but he didn't acknowledge it.

"The sooner you look over everything the sooner we can move on."

"What exactly am I supposed to see? The area was cleaned up 3 days ago." Pandora's gaze lifted, eye focused far above her. "Well, most of it anyway. The bodies, the blood, the broken shovel all long gone."

"So you were listening after all," Allister grumbled.

Pandora waved the back of her hand at him. "I zoned out after that. You lost my interest because I already know what happened more or less."

Allister stood then folded his arms across his chest. Lilith recognized his facial expression; it was the same one her father would take on when she was due a scolding. When he said, "Go ahead then, run through it for me," the tone matched exactly. Even as he shouted over the fires he didn't sound angry, just disappointed.

"I don't care for tests," Pandora said flatly. Why don't you try, Lilith. You have it mostly solved already, I'm sure."

Lilith flinched at the suggestion. "What gives you that impression?"

Self confidence was one thing, but why did she expect Lilith to explain. Piecing together this chain of events would have been a big ask even if it hadn't happened 3 days ago.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Pandora said. "I'll help you if you get off track."

Was the solution simpler than it seemed? Lilith tried to think back to the details Pandora had rattled off. Unlike the hunter, she hadn't been even half listening to Allister. She had spent the whole time swooning over Pandora like an idiot.

"I'll even give you a special hint," Pandora said. "One of the victims was spotted leaving the bathroom around five twenty the morning of the attack."

"And how exactly do you know that?" Allister asked.

"You don't really think I was waiting for permission to join this hunt, do you? I questioned that particular witness 2 days ago. It didn't mean much to me at the time but it does clear up a certain problem with the events. Isn't that right, Lilith?"

Lilith worked the new information around in her head. It gave a early limit to when the attack occurred. But was that important? The constant noise of the furnaces make it so hard to think. What did Pandora want her to deduce? It didn't seem like the details of the attack would meaningfully change with a few hours difference. There wasn't anything special about five twenty am.

Unless... The victim being away was the special part.

"I get it now," Lilith said.

Allister raised an eyebrow. "You get what exactly?"

"Why no one escaped. There were four men working this row of boilers and all four died." Lilith walked along the boilers pointing to each one as she passed. "Stations one, two, three, and four." When she reached the last spot she leaned back to rest against the ladder to the catwalks above. "Isn't it strange? The four stations are decently spread out. Maybe the youkai was fast enough to kill one man then be right onto the next but why wouldn't the others try to run?"

Lilith looked to Pandora for reassurance. The hunter's smile gave her the confidence to continue.

"The ladder to the exit is here between stations three and four. If the creature started it's attack by station one it could have killed a few men, but at least worker four could have climbed up and out. Yet if we assume the opposite we get the same problem. There's a narrow passage that cuts the row in half. If the creature started on this end, so that these men couldn't climb out, then the workers at those stations had two separate hallways to flee down. Right to the next row of boilers or left to the fireman's barracks."

"But if there were only three men it becomes possible," Pandora said.

Pandora's support for her theory was like a rush of energy. She couldn't hold back the smile forming on her face. A rare genuine smile.

"It would have to be one of the workers on the ladder side that left." Lilith turned to Allister and pointed to a spot on the ground. "Was the body here one of the men assigned to station three or four?"

"We didn't find a body there."

Lilith paused. She was sure the body of the man who had left belonged in that spot. Was her reconstruction wrong after all? She replayed the scenario in her mind until Allister added, "The bodies, or what was left of them, were all found hanging out of the mouth of the furnace. I wish we had more to send home to their families but most of those men is ash now."

Pandora bit into her bottom lip. "Fuck!"

The sudden outburst made Lilith uneasy. "I'm guessing that's even worse than it sounds."

Pandora pulled a cigarette to her lips. "An animal will kill and maim all day long, but they wont shove the bodies in a furnace. As sadistic as it is, that implies intelligence. And smart things are never easy to hunt."

Silence filled the space; nearly as unbearable as the heat and noise. Lilith didn't know enough about hunting to argue against her, but Allister did. That he said nothing proved Pandora's worries were well founded. A new anxiety revealed itself to Lilith for the first time.

What if something happens to Pandora during the hunt?

"Well... We did find blood in that location. Why don't you continue your explanation?" Allister was trying to move past Pandora's point without addressing it, and Lilith was happy to help. It was stupid for her to worry about Pandora's safety, especially when it might conflict with her own, but she found herself doing it anyway. She appreciated the excuse to ignore those feelings.

"If there was only a single worker by the ladder then the youkai could have killed him fast enough to turn before the other two could escape into one of the hallways. The distance to the next row of workers is what? Fifty feet at least? Between the distance and the sound put off by the furnaces they probably didn't hear a thing."

Lilith turned her attention up to the boiler. Its sloped top wasn't visible from the ground but she had seen it as they entered. The carbonized remnants of something that had stuck to the side and burned.

"The creature killed the fourth man when he returned. Might have even grabbed him at the top as he came through the door. The cleaning crew wasn't able to clean the residue from the boiler. And maybe they wiped this railing down, but they couldn't do anything about that huge dent. I think the last man was thrown into the metal there where he slid down, crashed into this catwalk, then landed here on the floor."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Lilith paused a moment considering her explanation, then added, "Hopefully dead on impact."

Allister nodded his agreement to that final statement, then turned to Pandora. "Does that line up with your version of events?"

"Mostly," Pandora said, a cloud of smoke rushing from her mouth to make way for the words. "I'll just add one thing. If the first man died to a sneak attack then the fourth man would have needed to come all the way back to the bottom. The broken shovel implies a struggle on that side. After that he could have climbed up trying to escape or just been carried up by the youkai."

Pandora crossed the space and Lilith felt the familiar touch of fingers in her hair. "I'm still impressed though. I would say you should be a hunter, but nobody should be a hunter. You'd be damn good at it though." Then quiet enough that only Lilith would hear, "I'm proud of you."

The praise made Lilith euphoric, but she would die before letting Pandora know that. She threw her arms up to defend against the hunter's onslaught but she had to crouch to fully escape. Her freedom punctuated by heady laughter from Pandora.

Allister rolled his eyes. "Would you be serious?"

"I refuse."

Pandora's curt reply seemed to drain the energy from Allister's face. Lilith tried to ease the tension with a distraction. "I still don't get where the youkai came from."

Curiosity overtook the man. His face lifted, like she had given a little life back to him. Imagine a succubus giving life out instead of stealing it. She would keep the questions coming.

"Where did it enter from before the attack? Down that hall is another row of boilers. The workers would have seen it. Actually they would probably been attacked instead."

Allister turned and started down the hall toward the barracks, waving to be followed. Lilith fell in line behind Pandora. With the taller woman in front and the walls close at each side she wasn't able to see much. It was unsettling following blindly behind someone; like being led off to slaughter. But it was better than staying by the furnaces. With each step the temperature dropped and living became more bearable.

Lilith crashed into Pandora's back after an abrupt stop. Raising to the tips of her toes, Lilith peered over her shoulder, hoping to find the cause of the pileup. A door hung open at the far end of the hall giving a clear view into the workers sleeping quarters. The four men that Allister sent away during the examination lounged around inside. They were savoring the rare opportunity at a break.

Allister shouted down to the men. "We've finished! You can get back to work once you're ready!" A collective groan echoed back in response.

Lilith lost her balance and fell flatfooted, once again uniting her with the sight of Pandora's back. There hadn't been much to see but she still let out a sigh at the loss. Maybe if she tried the other shoulder she would have better luck.

"How did nobody notice that?"

Notice what? Lilith jumped, even raising her chin at the apex for the extra inch of height. All she got for her effort was a flash of Allister's profile before gravity put her back in her place. From the other side of Pandora she heard him say, "We think it happened during the shift change when most of the men were out of the barracks. Only one man heard anything."

"Heard what?" Lilith squeezed herself past Pandora, overtaken by curiosity. Once in front, her question answered itself. There was a doorway leading off the hallway into a cargo bay. It's door was designed to swing inward towards the large space beyond it, only the last person to use it hadn't gotten the memo. Something had pushed its way out, folding the steel door over like a taco shell in the process.

"Someone heard this and didn't jump overboard?" Lilith stammered.

"Apparently the reason he was still in bed was due to illness. He thought it was a fever dream," Allister said as he pulled himself through the mangled remnants of the door. "Sorry, you'll need to climb through. The hinges don't really work anymore."

"I can imagine," Pandora said, then she followed.

As soon as Lilith joined them Allister led the group further inside. They pushed through narrow aisles formed by steel containers and wood crates stacked into high walls. The frustration of once again being stuck behind Pandora in a cramped space was overridden by her worry of something falling over.

As they moved further in the air grew putrid with the smell of shit. Lilith gagged on the scent, and though it had been quiet something deeper inside heard. A screeching echoed back in response, followed shortly by dozens of unique cries. The narrow passage widened into an open area dotted with cages.

Live cargo.

These creatures had been left to live in their own filth for the two week journey across the sea. It was cruel. Lilith wanted to vomit. A feeling the smell didn't help with. She tried to tell herself that they were dangerous youkai; that she shouldn't feel bad for them. But of course it didn't work. She wondered if she would feel the same way if she still believed she was human.

Lilith tried to push the thought away and rushed after Pandora and Allister who had moved further into the array of cages. As she ran past limbs stretched out through the bars to grab at her. Even though everything was more spaced out in this section, there was still only a narrow path that could be safely traversed. It didn't feel safe. The sounds of rattling steel and screaming youkai put her on edge. She wanted nothing more than to catch up to Pandora; to hold her hand again.

Lilith sprinted to her companions who had settled in front of an empty cage. Before she could reach them, Pandora turned back and said, "There you are."

Once their eye's locked the hunter's expression shifted. Before Lilith could react, Pandora had taken her by the hand. Not that she minded; that had been her goal anyway. Pandora had simply beaten her to it. There was a comfort in the way their fingers interlaced.

Pandora broke eye contact and said, "So you don't get left behind again. I should have noticed."

Lilith turned her head away, hoping to hide her smile. "Yeah, sorry."

"Here take a look at this." Pandora gave a gentle tug at Lilith's hand to guide her attention to the empty cage beside them. "This is where our feathered friend was being held."

The cage had a foot print of four square feet at most. How did the youkai sleep in there. Lilith tried to imagine it curled up on the floor, but couldn't. Even if the creature wanted to lay in the caked on layers of white bird shit covering the floor, its body would never fit. It would have had to stand for the entire journey to Eden. No, longer than that. They didn't wait until the ship was being loaded to press it into a cage. How long had the creature had to live in that condition?

"If I was locked up like this I imagine I'd want to kill someone too."

"Come now, Lilith," Allister said. "These are monsters we're talking about."

"No, she's right, Alex. You're teasing the gorilla in the monkey house."

Allister blinked. "Is she doing that on purpose?"

"I don't think it's intentional," Lilith said. She wasn't sure it was true, but she didn't want a fight to start so she added, "Tell us about the creature that was kept here."

Allister winced. Lilith got the impression she had just asked a question he was hoping not to answer.

"I... don't know much more than you do, I'm afraid."

"What?" Pandora's grip on Lilith's hand tensed for a moment, but relaxed again once the hunter had noticed what she'd done. She turned back to Allister and said, "I appreciate you showing us all of this but a few behavioral studies won't go far. I was hoping you would end by telling us the species so I can do some research. We'll be fighting blind!"

"I've had a few more days to come to terms with it," Allister said, "but I assure you I was just as upset when no one could answer my questions."

"Couldn't answer your questions?" All the caged youkai became more rowdy as Pandora's voice got louder, raising the ambient volume even higher in turn. "Someone has to know. Isn't there some kind of shipping invoice or manifest? Are these fucking morons running some kind of sale? Buy one get one that we can't fucking identify?"

"There are people who know but they're all back in Britannia now. There was a manifest, but..."

"But?"

"Wait here. It would be better if you see for yourself."

Allister headed off through the rows of cages. Once he was gone, Pandora continued to grumble to herself. Lilith did her best to ignore it as she turned her attention back to the empty cage. The door hung open but, unlike the cargo bay door, it appeared undamaged. Just to be sure, she swung the door back and forth to test the hinges.

The door moved freely until it clattered into something on the ground. A twisted piece of metal. Best Lilith could tell it was half the remains of a padlock; the body. A quick examination of the area revealed the shackle portion tossed a few feet to the side.

So instead of breaking down the door, the youkai opted to snap off the padlock instead? It did a hell of a job. The body is completely mangled.

Lilith swung the cage door closed and looked for the spot the lock would have rested. Two circular loops of steel met at the edge of the door, roughly three feet above the ground. A convenient height for a human to lock and unlock, but a little low for the youkai's height. Manipulating it must have been awkward, especially considering the bars of the cage were thickest where the door and cage came together. Though, no matter how awkward the lock was broken and the creature wasn't in the cage. Still, something was bothering Lilith that she couldn't put her finger on.

"What the hell is this?" Pandora shouted. She was holding a binder filled with dozens of papers. The sheet on top was stained with a muddy crimson blotch the size of the full page. The fuzzy edges of the stain were a darker shade, but the middle did more than enough to obscure the text below it.

"That's the page in the manifest that covers the youkai shipments," Allister answered.

"I can see that, why the hell is it covered in blood?"

Allister directed her attention to a bloodstain at the foot of the next cage in the row. It had been modified to have solid sides around the base, while the top of the cage still sported bars. Inside several snakes slithered around; their white scales standing out almost as much as there bloated midsection's.

"We believe the youkai ate at least one before it broke its way out of the cargo hold. A worker claimed there were more inside during loading. The manifest was sitting on a crate near where we entered. Some of the mess from the meal must have spilled onto the open book."

"So, after the youkai broke out, it grabbed a snack then happened to accidentally spill its food on the exact page that would tell us what it was? That's awfully convenient."

Sarcasm dripped from every one of Pandora's words, but she was right. The whole situation felt like more than bad luck. Maybe God really was punishing her. The thought pressed down on her until it was interrupted by the sound of tearing. Lilith looked over to find Pandora ripping the stained page from the binder.

"What are you doing?" Allister asked. He reached a hand out and snatched the manifest from her, though she still ended up with the page.

"The page is ruined anyway, right. You might as well let me take it. Maybe I can do something to make it legible again."

Allister paused, then sighed. "I can't really come up with an argument." Another sigh. "Fine. And before you two leave take this as well." He fished around in his pocket for a moment before producing a small charm hung from a keyring.

"What's that?" Lilith asked. She could tell it was metal. A square piece etched with what looked like the world map. At its center, where Eden should have been, was a black five sided star.

"It's a badge that shows you have free reign of the ship. These are for high ranking crew. I already told the security boys about you, but you may need to show it to regular staff if they ask any questions. Just attach it to your room key."

Pandora took the badge and worked the key rings together. "You had one made up for me? How sweet."

"There aren't extras, that one is mine. But the crew all no me so it's a bit pointless to have."

Lilith felt the investigation coming to a close. For some reason that made her uneasy. She looked back at the cage door one more time, trying to shake the feeling. That's when she realized what had been bothering her. If the creature had ripped the lock apart with enough force to turn the body into a crumbled mess, why were the loops it hung through untouched?

Lilith examined the lock body again. The metal was warped out of shape but the pattern was uneven. There was an undulating shape clear across the top like peaks and valleys. She hovered a hand over the lock body and even though the size was wrong it matched up. The metal had been crushed in hand like wet sand at the beach.

"Lilith, are you ready to leave? Our friend gave us this kind gift so I thought we could visit the first-class deck. See what we've been missing."

Lilith hopped to her feet. "I'll be right there."