Bones knelt beside the still-smoking body. The smell was incredibly putrid, much more so than a regular decomposing body. The bones were charred a pitch black, visible around the chunks raw and bubbling burned skin. Oddly, though, bits of cloth were only slightly scorched.
"This is very strange." Bones said. Booth, who stood above her and was holding his nose, looked down at her,
"What kind of strange?" he asked, voice nasally,
"I think….he was burned from the inside." she said slowly, "Look at the smoke."
She pointed at the small wisps of smoke rising up from between the exposed ribs, curling and twisting with the air,
"And some of his skin is still intact," again she pointed to just above where the right nipple would have been, where a small patch of skin lay, "But that's looks like it's burned or tattooed. I'll have Angela scan it once it's clean."
"Huh, how is that possible? Burning from the inside out?" Booth asked. Bones stood up,
"Maybe he was killed and then had lighter fluid stuck inside the body cavity?" she said, peeling off her gloves, "But Cam will need to examine the remaining tissue for that."
"That's an odd way of getting rid of a body." Booth said, still holding his nose, "Takes a lot longer, instead of burning it into oblivion." Then he turned to back towards the group of jumpsuits behind them,
"Okay, pack him up!" he shouted, and they quickly moved in and began bagging the corpse. He and Bones began climbing the hill back towards the SUV.
"I'm gonna need a shower after this." he grumbled, "I'll bet that smell is going to follow me all day."
Bones leaned in towards him and sniffed,
"It's not just the body." she said nonchalantly. Booth paused,
"Wait, what?"
As they climbed in the car, they were unaware of the eye watching from inside the tree line. They seemed to blend in with the shadows, despite the smoldering and satisfied expression that comes with getting revenge.
Once back at the lab, the interns swarmed the body and began picking it apart. Under instruction, they carefully separated the bits skin from the bones, and then the cloth from that.
"No organs?" Cam asked when she came up the steps of the platform, "That doesn't leave much for me to examine."
"There's some skin, though." Wendell added helpfully.
"And clothes for me." Hodgins said with a wide grin, grabbing the two containers of cloth. Then he looked back to Wendell,
"Burned from the inside, huh?" he asked. Wendell shrugged,
"That's what it seems to be. The bones are black, which means the fire was incredibly hot and burned quick, but there is leftover skin that's only slightly burned. And on top of that, there's cloth left!"
"How odd." Hodgins said, leaning closer to the body, "Maybe—"
"Do not say aliens, Doctor Hodgins." Cam interrupted, "We have had more than enough of your speculations the last couple of days."
Hodgins shrugged good-naturedly and grinned back at Wendell. He raised an eyebrow. Wendell nodded.
"And no experiments without my permission." Cam snapped, catching their interaction. Hodges deflated,
"Oh come on!" he said. Cam held up her hand,
"No." she said, "No. No. No. Go analyze your clothes, Doctor Hodgins."
He rolled his eyes and stopped off the platform. Cam turned to Wendell,
"And you're not helping."
Wendell gave a sheepish grin and then startled when he remembered something,
"Oh, Dr. Brennan wants you to check out this patch here," he said, pointing at the oddly burned patch on the tray, "She thinks it could be a tattoo."
Cam nodded, and left with the tray.
Within a few moments, she had cleaned the patch of skin and handed to Angela to scan.
"This is so gross." Angela mumbled, placing the skin on the scanner, "So, is it a tattoo?"
"No, it looks like an intentional burn." Cam said, "There's no trace of ink and the marks are pretty blackened underneath the blistering. Can you separate the two?"
"Ew," Angela added, typing on the keyboard. The skin popped up on the screen and slowly the blistering was scanned away, leaving a clear burn.
"Not good." Cam said, staring at it.
"Pentagram." Angela said with a frown.
"No, it's an upside down pentagram. Look at the two top parts of the star," Cam said, pointing at the screen, "Those represent goat horns. It's Satanic."
"What is?" Hodgins asked, popping into the room. He looked at the screen, "Woah, not good. We have a satanic ritual on our hands." he paused, "And he was burned from the inside…."
"No, no," Cam started, "No speculating. For all we know, he could have burned that into his skin as a teenager."
"Sorry, Cam," Angela said, punching a few keys and getting pop-up on the screen, "The Angela-Tron says it's recent."
Cam sighed,
"I'll go tell Brennan and Seeley," she said.
Suddenly, the screen on the Anagela-Tron went haywire, the data scattering and repeated in waves, jumping around the screen. Angela typed furiously on her keyboard, when a moment later, everything stilled.
"That's weird." she said, typing a little more. A data pop-up appeared,
"Electrical interference." she read aloud.
"Oh, yes." Hodgins said, looking excited, "This is gonna be great."
"Doctor Hodgins!" Cam shouted, but he had already scampered out of the room.