The rope grew and grew, rewrapping itself around Pete's neck each time, twisting a hangman's knot. She tried to shove her fingers under the moldy cord, but to no avail. Black started to creep around the edges of her vision.

"It still hungers, Inspector," Grichley said, stroking her face. "And the more you fight, the lustier it will be. So by all means, dance. Dance the dead man's jig. Every movement you make prolongs your death."

"How will you… explain… killing… a police officer?" Pete managed. Grinchley raised one shoulder.

"It wouldn't be the first time someone in a position of authority has come sniffing at my collection. I deal with the most faithful and esteemed servants of the Black, Inspector. I am discreet."

She wasn't getting out of this with mere talk, then, and the blasted rope was so tight she could barely speak. You'll know when the time for talk is past, Connor said. You'll know it and you'd better take swift action, girl, lest you want to end life dirty and bloody and broken.

Pete drew up her knee and with the last of her air planted a kick squarely between Grinchley's legs. He moaned and doubled over, and Pete reached out and swiped what looked like a bone-handled athame from a low display. She shoved it between her flesh and the Dead Man's Snare, and the ancient strands parted, recoiling from the metal and freeing her air.

"All right, Grinchley," she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. She touched her throat and the flesh was tender and rigid with forming bruises. "Get over behind the desk."

The skin of an affable older gentleman had slipped away entirely and Grinchley staggered to the desk under her guidance. He was lumpy and ill formed, like a golem, and his eyes and teeth glittered in the low light. Pete knew this was what Grinchley's last thief must have seen, just before he ended his nightmare in the Thames.

She tucked the snare into her back pocket, and then unplugged the telephone and tossed the cord to Grinchley. "Tie your legs, and use a real knot."

"You really think you can do anything, command anything of me?" Grinchley hissed. "My magic will tear you limb from limb and then—"

"Firstly," said Pete as she pulled out the cord of a lamp and tied Grinchley's arms behind him. "If there's one thing I've learned in the past week it's that real mages don't ramble on, they just do it." She secured the knot with a tug. "If you had magic other than tawdry rope tricks, you would have used it, you silly git."

Grinchley started to spit invectives, but Pete picked up a wadded message slip from his desk and stuck it in his mouth. "Secondly, I'm leaving here with the Trifold Focus, and I am out of time to fuck about with you, Grinchley, so either tell me where you keep it or I start slicing." She raised the knife and let it catch the light of the fireplace.

After a long moment of staring into her eyes, Grinchley grunted and spat out the paper. "You're made of less breakable porcelain than it appears at first glance, Inspector."

"Lucky, lucky me. Where's the Focus?" said Pete, keeping her voice flat. All she needed to hurt Grinchley, to bleed him, was contained in the memory of Bridget Killigan, of the bleeding tracks in Jack's skin, and the invisible pressure of a Fate measuring off the last moments of Margaret Smythe's existence. But she'd let the threat do the work unless he pressed her. She was still the detective inspector, not a thug.

"The Focus is in my vault room." Grinchley sighed. "In the cellar, at the back of the house."

"There," said Pete. "Isn't being reasonable a simple thing?"

"You'll pay," Grinchley said as she left him tied. "You'll pay in blood for this, little Inspector. Not today and not tomorrow and perhaps not until the end of your time on this earth, but you've put your hand in a wolf's mouth and you'll—"

Pete slammed the library door shut on him and followed a dark broad hallway toward the rear of the town house. The cellar door wasn't locked, and Pete paused at the foot of the stairs. Connor would have said this was too easy by half. Grinchley should have fought harder. He should have locked his doors, at the very bloody least.

Her footfalls were nearly silenced on thick Persian carpet over the stones and it was only a draft against her neck that warned Pete of someone behind her. She spun to see a huge man in an undershirt and black trousers swing a massive fist at her face.

She ducked, but not fast enough and the blow glanced off her skull. Pete fell and the air sang out of her as she hit the floor. The man hulked above her. A line of stitches paraded across his neck and around his right arm at the shoulder, purple and infected. His eyes were mismatched, green and blue, and he grinned at Pete through bloody teeth. "Trespasser." The word ground out from a throat that might have been patched together after a cutting.

For a few precious seconds, Pete was unable to do anything except stare. It cost her any chance to get away—the golem grabbed her by her collar and simply dragged her along, ignoring Pete's kicks and shouted curses except for a grunt.

They turned a corner and the smell of bleach invaded Pete's nostrils as she slid along a floor of worn linoleum. The golem hauled her to a stop in a scrub room, brightly lit as the rest of Grinchley's town house was shadowed.

"I'd so hoped you wouldn't cause any trouble, Inspector." Perkins sighed. His frock coat was missing and a dish-towel was over his shoulder. "But it appears you were rash. Take her into the operating theater, if you will."

The reanimated servant grunted and picked Pete up again. "It takes orders from you…" she said. The thickness in her head lifted a fraction and she saw past Perkins's stooped shoulders and sagging skin. "You're the sorcerer."

"Of course," said Perkins. "One of Mr. Grinchley's objets d'art, if you will. He does pay handsomely for my services, and my brethren benefit from Grinchley's expertise in antiquities of an… impure nature. Now I don't believe I'll bore you with the details, Inspector. We've all watched a James Bond film or two." He nodded to the servant. "I'll be down momentarily."

The servant half dragged Pete to a metal security door and worked the handle clumsily with his free hand. One limb was small and boyish with manicured nails and the other was flat and scarred; a dock worker's hand.

The operating theater was a catacomb, buried long before the town house sat atop it, slimy stone steps leading down to the round killing floor. Pete skidded and fell the last three steps, landing in a heap. The servant kicked her in the stomach, rolling her along like a lumpy carpet.

Pete felt something prick her as she hit the opposite wall of the stone chamber. A numbness spread over a patch of skin on her hip and she slipped her hand into her trouser pocket. The syringe she'd taken away from Jack greeted her, cap loosened and tip dripping. The golem dragged a heavy pair of shackles from their bolt in the wall toward her, moaning softly to himself.

When he came near, reaching for her arms with a grasping gesture, Pete rolled over and jammed the syringe into the inside of the golem's thigh, where a fat artery would have pulsed in life.

The golem shuddered and let out a choked sound that was almost a sob. He took one more shambling step and collapsed backward.

Pete pulled herself up on the ragged blocks of the wall and checked for injuries. She was bruised but not bleeding, her knees and the back of one hand scraped from the fall. She made the executive decision that she'd live, and stepped over the downed creature to fix on a door.

The operating theater had iron shackles bolted into the walls at intervals along the curve of the stones and a modern drain set into the floor over a steel autopsy table. Blood trickled down the table's grooves, an insistent hollow dripping against the damp stone.