Prayer of the Dragon by Eliot Pattison

mystery he faced but several. Layers of riddles that began not with the killings but with the unknown identity of the victims and ended with the unknown hand that had created the facsimile of a criminal investigation scene. Patches of flour dotted the adjoining rocks. Four pieces of wadded-up tape lay scattered about the clearing, the nearest two feet from his knee. He unfolded it. The backing was covered with flour smudged with lines and grit from the rocks. Someone had been playacting, someone who did not fully understand forensic technique, did not know such rough stone was unlikely to give meaningful fingerprints but who knew enough to go through the motions of a forensic investigation.
    But the bronze stains on the ground and patterns of stains on the rocks told Shan there had been nothing contrived about the objects outlined in flour. Someone dead, or dying, had been dragged into the little clearing. Someone else had died there, among the rocks, blood spurting in a fan pattern from at least two savage, puncturing blows. He glanced back at Lokesh, hoping that the old Tibetan did not grasp the truth that lay before them. Four silhouettes, two bodies. At least one of the victims had been dismembered.
    “There were some vultures,” Yangke said. “I could smell the . . . I could smell what the vultures smelled.”
    “Where did the bodies go?”
    “I don’t know. The vultures frightened me. I didn’t know this was where . . .”
    “Vultures don’t eat clothing. Vultures don’t eat bones.”
    “Who would touch them?” Yangke asked. “Who would want to move bodies?”
    It was, Shan realized, one more layer of mystery. “Are there ragyapa nearby?” he asked, referring to the fleshcutters who traditionally disposed of the Tibetan dead through sky burial.
    “Not for thirty miles.”
    “What happens when people die in the village?”
    “The old ones want their bodies taken to the ragyapa. The bodies of the others are burned. We have lots of firewood. It’s a more efficient use of resources to burn them, Chodron says.”
    Shan turned to Lokesh, recognizing the forlorn expression on his old friend’s gentle countenance. Those who died a violent death were seldom prepared, seldom in the peaceful, focused state of mind that would allow them to make the difficult transition to the next life. In Tibetan tradition such victims of murder often became angry ghosts who destroyed the harmony of the land they occupied.
    Yangke seemed to sense something wrong with Lokesh and touched his elbow, gesturing back, toward the opening. The old Tibetan silently retreated.
    “Why would they burn a sleeping bag?” Yangke asked as he followed Lokesh.
    “Because it was soaked in blood. One of them was attacked in his sleep, then dragged here inside his bag.”
    Shan watched his companions retreat with an unexpected ache in his heart. Then he went to work in the little clearing. He examined the bloodstains, tight patterns projecting from a broad, flat rock that had been laid close to a corner of the little alcove. The sprays of droplets had been made by limbs that still had blood pulsing in them. Soon he had collected eight more pieces of wadded tape. The tape itself had fine fibers woven into it, and had none of the blotchy adhesive or chemical smell of the cheap product sold in Tibetan markets. Along the rock walls were tracks with the patterns of expensive boots like those he had seen on the man in the stable. He stood and studied the little clearing, trying to reconstruct the events of the past few days. First had come the killer and his victims, later someone else who, in his own awkward way, seemed to be seeking the truth. What had that visitor learned? Had he taken away evidence? On a rock face on the opposite side Shan noticed strangely raised marks, partial fingerprints in a hard gray substance that seemed to have been extruded from the surface. Two feet away was a narrow V-shaped opening where two of the boulders came