“Mrs. Mays, even if I don’t believe in vengeful ghosts, it may be that sorcery is involved here. Did you-know-who have any connections to anyone with that kind of talent?”

She shook her head no. “None that I know of. But I suppose he could have hired one.”

Freelance sorcery is illegal in post-War Rannit. Not that the law stops private practitioners, although it cheerfully hangs them if they make nuisances of themselves.

“Boy. That weren’t no wand-wavin’. That was a haint. Come to do this lady harm.”

“Sure, Mama.” Sorcery or spook, one thing was clear-everything led back to a wardstone that bore the name Gorvis.

And even a sorcerous working would need a focus. Something solid, material, to act as an anchor.

Or a trigger.

The bag of coins and Marris Sellway. In the same room.

I cussed.

Everyone gave me the eye.

“Sorry. I’ve had an epiphany. Mrs. Sellway, we need to get you out of here. But if I’m right, this isn’t just going to go away on its own. If I send word for you to be at a certain place at a certain time, even if it’s after Curfew and in a bad part of town, can I count on you to show up?”

“Now wait just a damned minute.” Summers put himself in front of Mrs. Sellway.

“You can bring General Summers here. And as many others as you can trust to keep their mouths shut and do what I say.”

Mrs. Sellway knew what the certain time and the certain place were likely to be.

“How many?”

“Five. Ten. A hundred, if you can get them. As long as they know I’m running the show.”

I was hoping she could manage a dozen. Making a scene after Curfew in a poor neighborhood was going to be like ringing a big, silver dinner bell for any halfdead out for a snack. It’s one thing to slip down to Eddie’s after dark for a quiet beer and a sandwich, but if I was going to raise a ruckus I wanted an army at my back.

And raising a ruckus was the order of the day.

Summers snorted. “I reckon you’re aiming to put this here ghost back in the dirt. How much that gonna cost her, Mr. Markhat? Look me in the eye and tell me how much.”

“Not a copper. I’m not doing this for show. Something has taken a swipe at someone sitting in my office. They’ve broken my window and upset my cat. I won’t have it. Mrs. Sellway, go home. Make sure you keep your daughter in sight. Don’t say certain names, round up men you can trust and wait. Can you do that?”

She nodded. The marks on her throat were plainly visible now. Some of the red was going purple.

Summers opened his mouth to say something, but Mrs. Sellway cut him off. “Get us a cab, Summers.”

He stomped out, giving me a good hard glare the whole time.

Mama appeared with a clean, white china cup steaming in her hand. She offered it to Mrs. Sellway, who took it but did not raise it to her lips.

Mama laughed. “It’s clean. Just tea. With some honey and chamomile. Your throat’s goin’ to be needin’ both before long.”

Mrs. Sellway sipped.

“He burned Cawling Street,” she said, after a moment. “Twice. All because I wouldn’t come out into the street when he called.”

“Somebody ought to have put him down,” muttered Mama.

Mrs. Sellway nodded. “They ought to have. But no one did. He was a monster, you know. Not just a bad man. Not just an angry man. You could feel it. He wanted to hurt you. Even strangers, children, animals. Anything that lived, it-offended him, somehow.”

I’d known a man like that, during the War. Even the officers were afraid of him.

Until one night someone emptied an oil lamp on his tent and set it ablaze while he slept. Not a soul had moved to aid him as he burned. I’d watched too. But I hadn’t lifted a finger to help.

“Whatever it is, Mrs. Sellway, it gets put down tonight. I promise you that.”

She shuddered. “Do you think Natalie-my daughter-is in danger too?”

“Not yet. Not ever, if we do this right.”

Summers stuck his head back through Mama’s door.

“Got a cab, ma’am.”

Mrs. Sellway rose and thanked Mama for the tea. She adjusted the collar on her high-necked dress to hide some of the marks, and then she faced me by the door.

“I will, of course, pay you your usual fees.”

“You’ll send me an invitation to your daughter’s wedding. That and nothing else. Now beat it, before Lance Corporal Summers here has a fit.”

She didn’t laugh, but at least she smiled.

“Boy,” said Mama, when we were alone, “just what have you got planned in that fool head of yours?”

“We’re going to a funeral, Mama. Better knock the moths off your best black dress.”

Mama scowled and set about gathering a bagful of her most potent dead birds.

The undertaker’s parlor smelled of fireflowers, cinnamon and half a dozen kinds of particularly pungent incense.

And something else, of course. An odor so primal and familiar and so immediately and deeply disturbing that no number of imported incense-sticks could ever hope to do anything more than slightly obscure it.

If the smell of death bothered Echols, of Echols, Masey and Benlop, Morticians, he didn’t let it show.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said in a voice that oozed a deep and sincere concern. “How may I be of assistance, in this hour of your deepest sorrow?”

We were seated in the reception room. The walls were pine stained dark to mimic oak. The floor was covered in at least three threadbare rugs, each placed to cover the holes in the one beneath it. The ceiling was warped and cracked, and at one point I could hear scrambling above as rats scurried by on urgent business of their own.

I did not want to know what those rats had last feasted upon.

“I’d like to hire a hearse-wagon and a pair of ponies for the night.”

The imperturbable Echols raised an eyebrow.

“And caskets. You have a selection here, I presume?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Finely made, I dare to add, yet priced with an eye toward consideration for the family of the deceased.”

“I’ll need one. A good one. Top of the line. Shiny, with lots of trim.”

Echols almost brightened at that, but managed to keep his enthusiasm from inducing more than the slightest reduction in the furrowing of his brow.

“One is saddened to have to ask this, sir, but nevertheless I must.” He paused dramatically, leaning in toward me. If I’d been a woman, he’d have laid his right hand gently atop mine. His big soft eyes practically welled up with heartfelt tears of abject sorrow.

“When will Sir be bringing the remains by, for final preparations?”

I grinned. “I’m right here, my good man. Shall we start by settling on a price?”

“Boy,” said Mama. “I’m tellin’ you right now I don’t like none of this.”

I grunted. The closest thing I had to a suit was my old Army parade jacket and a freshly bleached white shirt and a pair of black pants I’d managed to haggle out of Echols. I’d put a shine on my old Army doggers, and they’d have to do as fancy grave slippers.

I was more worried about my possible need for sudden mobility than actually completing the look of a well-dressed corpse.

I finally got the jacket on. Buttoning it was out of the question. Who’d have thought wool would shrink so much, hanging in my tiny closet for ten years?

“I’m the one who’ll be taking a ride in a coffin, Mama. All you’ve got to do is sit there and look bereaved.”

Mama grunted. “After Curfew.”

“Mama, I’ve seen you break Curfew a dozen times in the last month alone.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

“Still don’t hold with this funeral business.”

I shrugged. I’d already explained to Mama why I thought it was necessary.

If we were facing sorcery, that sorcery was created to respond to certain acts or situations as triggers for built-in actions. That much I knew from being in the Army.

And if something in that cemetery was lying in wait for me, I didn’t want it choking me at the gate.