Skull

The sickness hollowed her out. Her mother had never been a heavy woman, but illness made the humanity seem to fade away: the light in her eyes, her smile, they just faded away as her skull became more and more apparent beneath the graying skin.

The first time Tara sees a vampire dusted, she isn't frightened because a world of impossible monsters is opening up before her; she is frightened because in the moment before the ashes fall to the ground, she sees the wound of death bare the bone.