There were many reasons to stop by the inn that night. Ewan required no reason, but as he sat at the table, watching for the random signals, listening to partial conversations, the comfort of sitting by himself and having his intentions be his own purpose without splitting them more than he desired was, he realized, one of those reasons.

Controlled tilt of the mug to let the liquid inside, the dark porter, just curve up with a threat to spill over was a particular game of his. In the midst of that game, though, was a signal not to be passed over or ignored. He answered with the placement of the mug on the table, and exited without a glance back. The arrival of two of interest in the inn would be told to him later.

Ewan slipped into the shadows of the building across the way from the inn and spoke with the Tunneler there who had relayed the message. ?What makes them think this one is different??

?Can?t say as they gave me details, guv. Just that you was to be heading down to Willows Den for the scout to be takin? ya where they found the body, what.? Soot and sweat stained, thin as a rail, the man?s daily trade as a chimney sweep was written all over him.

In a nod and a sharp smile, ?Then that is what I will do.? Without a further word, Ewan slipped into the veins of the Tunnels with their moist and tired wheezing of air barely stirred. Even here he was careful of his travels. It saved time but safety was not of its purpose. Few and rare were those of the darker bent to life that traveled the Tunnels. It was too confining for the smart ones, too confusing for the denser. Those few that made their way in were only stopped if they caused trouble. Neutral ground and only those who did not play by the rules found their knuckles rapped. Rapped by Ewan most like than not and in a very severe, unmistaken way.

The scout met him beneath the entry to Willow?s Den. There was no time to waste apparently, and without a word led Ewan on to the closest exit of their destination. Out of the Tunnels and through the streets of the West End until they stopped at the corner of two well lit byways. When they arrived, the scout pointed out the building and its north corner room. Ashen faced, the scout would go no further. ?I?ll tell them you?re about the area, Quicksand.?

A nod alone, Ewan played into the dripping darkness of shadows and through a back alleyway door, into the building. The rank smell of death hung in the air as acrid as smoke from a fire. Testing the anelaces crosswise on his back for ease of removal, he approached the room and stepped inside to see the results of the decisive handiwork, for there is no doubt the man had help hanging himself by his insides.

Blood still dripped slowly from the cavern of the carcass?s bowels. The heart no longer pumped; a face pale with blue tinges like watercolor touched upon the skin. Ewan walked closer confident the room was empty. Fingers ran along the hollow of flesh, he leaned forward to examine the style of cut, if it was smooth or frayed, the depth and the power, and if there was bruising. He tallied every detail in his mind, ran it through scenarios, sequences.

A sound from the hallway stopped his investigation, and he wiped the blood clean from his hands on the back of the man?s shirt. It was a small space of cleanliness now as sullied as the rest of the body. He turned to see the woman standing there sour mouthed, aged beyond her years. Hollow eyes without pity latched onto the hanging corpse like leeches, drinking in the sight. ?He had it coming, you know. Not a one of us is gonna grieve ?im.?

Panic broke the screams into a warbling sound not unlike a murder of crows striking the night with their travel. Ewan had been investigating the regions of West End in the deep of night, hunting away from the guards and various patrols, both lawful and not. It made the hunt imperfect, sporadic, as he avoided clumps of guards and the scope of other groups, those he knew had their own arrangements of protecting the city. Above ground a below, a dash through the Tunnels and across rooftops, but as the height of the screams died into the hollow of a night still once again, he was walking the shadowed line of an alleyway between two rows of houses.

A tilt of his head, the hair concealed beneath the swatch of grey-black banding and the cowl of his hood, he focused on the direction of the cries that had contorted and bent their position against the bouncing of buildings of brick, wood, and stone. When certainty struck, he loped into the hazy edges of lamplight and drew around to the back of a house. Two of the High End holding house guard were there with various others who stepped back into the shadows of their own hunts for righteousness when they saw the matter in hand.

?Sir, you have to see this,? Jemmy shook her head as she joined Ewan at the corner of the ragged tail end of the house?s garden walkway, the edges of its stone worn and broken from the many feet that trampled without care. Conducting him further into the walled garden, the huddling of a collective, five children in varying ages wrapped about a woman aged through work more than time whimpered their fear and agony. ?They live here. Were woken, so the eldest boy says, to attend their midnight ritual,? the vague tone of her voice indicated she had no idea what ritual that might be. ?But, their father, brother, I can?t seem to pin down which it is, was not to be found. They thought he might be out here already in preparation, but this is what they found instead.?

Turning, she took him on towards a lower gated area, the stalks of growing corn and the green of other vegetables ripening, peaked above the wooden fencing. When they neared, Ewan could see two entire rows of produce had been displaced, casting virgin lettuce and cabbage heads to roll among the shadows of their taller garden companions. In the furrowed lines, broad and ragged, bits of body stuck into the ground as a dark human harvest. Fingers and toes lined in a pale row backed by the other row of blood stained fingerless hands, footless legs, and feet without toes. At either end the hint of ears stood up from rounded mounds of fresh earth.

Ewan knelt down and fingers ran along the fresh made rows of earth. They were too rounded, and perfected to be a typical garden tool. It struck him more like the rending of flesh by claws than the slice a blade would make. A sidestep, not rising far from the ground, he approached one of the low mounds were ears protruded in fleshy mockery of the unborn ears of corn just some space away. He brushed free the loose earth of the mound only to reveal parts of a face, not the head as a whole, collected beneath. A nose, two eyes free of their sockets and granted an earthy vessel in which to roll sightless. The same he found on the other side.

?Too many limbs,? he grunted. ?So, let us see who fits with what.? He rose and gave a nod to Jemmy. "Get the family to a safe house, see them tended, and when Jordith rises, send her here. I am sure I will still be piecing this little puzzle back together.? One hand closed around the stump of a leg, the blood still slick in its brick red lines down the pale skin, and jerked it free of its garden space to start his work that night.