I threw up in the gutter, and turned so I didn’t have to watch the dead driver wave goodbye.

I sat in a shade and waited for the shakes to pass.

People gave me wide berth. The ones who’d seen me leave the black carriage pointed and whispered. That wouldn’t hurt my plan, so I sat there and pretended to watch a pair of mockingbirds have it out with a scraggly tailed squirrel.

Encorla Hisvin. Not a name I ever wanted to hear again. Certainly not a person with whom I wanted any association. Like everyone else, I’d heard that Hisvin’s friends tended to die just as horribly and just as frequently as his enemies.

I waited an hour. I could still smell the stink, still imagine blue-bellies crawling at the nape of my neck and buzzing close to my mouth. I was about to get up and find Halbert and make my last stop at my last church mainhold when a hand fell on shoulder.

I whirled. My right hand was instantly in my coat pocket, grasping my old Army knife.

Darla saw, and stepped back-hands held up and open.

“I’m sorry, Markhat. I spoke, but you didn’t hear me.”

I let out my breath.

“Sorry,” I gruffed. “I picked a loud bench.”

Darla shook her head. Her eyes were locked on mine, not playfully. “I heard…the black carriage.”

I just nodded.

“I don’t know what that…person would have to do with Martha.” She spoke carefully, pausing in her words to let pedestrians pass, pitching her voice so only I could hear. “Are you all right?”

I stepped around the bench. Darla’s hands were warm, warm and soft. She hugged me, wordlessly, and she smelled of soap and a fruity perfume and thank the Nine High Heavens nothing else.

“We just had drinks,” I said. We started walking. I went with the flow of traffic. Soon Darla’s hand slipped into mine. “Turns out Hisvin is just a lonely old soul who loves cats and longs to be loved.”

Darla kicked my shin. “Not everybody has a sense of humor,” she hissed.

I saw the dead woman’s bloated face again, heard that wet, slurred laugh.

“No, no, I suppose they don’t.”

“So what now, Markhat?”

We passed a jeweler’s shop as she spoke. I saw us, briefly, reflected in the glass. She was tall and pretty. I was merely tall. Tall and worried. My clothes were rumpled. My hair needed some attention.

“I visit one more church mainhold. Ellsback. Spread a little fear. Shake a few cages. See what darts out.”

Darla rolled her eyes.

“You ignored my question. So I’ll ask it again. What now, Markhat?”

I shook my head. “I just shared a cab with a pair of week-old corpses, Miss Tomas. I’m a little past cryptic. Way past obtuse. Somewhat too bedraggled to engage in subtlety.”

Darla sighed. We paused to cross the street, and I looked up for the first time to see where we were.

“Men are such lumps sometimes. But as excuses go, that was unique. So I’ll let it pass, for now, as long as you take me to someplace nice, buy me an expensive meal and do it right now.”

I frowned. Traffic rattled past.

“Darla, I can’t now. I’ve got to find Halbert, got to head to Ellsback.”

Darla grabbed my elbow and planted herself in front of me.

“You’ll do no such thing.” Her eyes were bright, and she wasn’t smiling. “Markhat, you’re pale. Your eyes are wild. I don’t know what happened, today, but you look like you’ve not just seen a ghost but had your face rubbed in its sheets. You couldn’t intimidate a stable boy right now and you know it, so there’s no use arguing. Anyway, we’re here, and I’m hungry. I don’t like white wine. And leave room for dessert.”

A uniformed doorman opened a big oak door, and Darla swept inside. I gawked for a second.

“They serve a good steak here, pal,” said the doorman, beckoning me inside. “But they serve it indoors.”

Something did smell good. Darla stood inside, hands on her hips, smiling.

“I won’t break you,” she said, as I joined her. “I’ve still got money of my own, you know.”

“No you don’t.” A waiter led us to a table, and knew Darla by name. I wondered just where the Hell I was.

“This is called the Hearth,” said Darla. The waiter pulled back her chair, and she sat, and I managed at last to do the same. “I take it you don’t eat out much.”

“All the time. Eddie makes a good sandwich.”

“You need to vary your diet.” Something about the way she said it made the room get hot.

Waiters came, glasses were brought, orders were taken. The room was lit by candles and reflections of candles. Darla’s hair took on a soft reddish hue, and I noticed she was left-handed.

I don’t know what we talked about. I do know it wasn’t about Houses or black carriages. Darla had wine, I had a damned good beer and the doorman was right, the steaks were good.

I didn’t think business again until a pair of Evis’s grey-clad day staff came sidling into the Hearth and took up stations by the door. Darla saw too. She folded her napkin and sat up straight.

“Time to go back to work, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so. Don’t want the Hoobins to get the idea I’m entertaining comely young women on their time.”

“Oh, so now I’m comely and young, am I?”

I found myself smiling. “You are. The Velvet is keeping at least one of its lamps under a basket.”

Darla grinned a sly little grin. “Maybe I wasn’t always a bookkeeper, Markhat.” She leaned forward, took my hand. “Maybe I know more than you think about what goes on, behind those doors.”

And with that, she rose and sailed forth, brushing past the bemused Avalantes with an airy wave.

I counted out coins and followed.

Darla was gone, when I stepped squinting out into the street. Halbert was there, cab and all, looking hangdog. I clapped him on the back and told him he’d done the right thing and then he clattered off for one more church and one more round of priest baiting.

“Will that be all today, sir?” asked Halbert.

“It will.”

Halbert nodded and snapped his reigns. I leaned back into my comfy seat and let out a long and ragged sigh.

I’d tracked them down, one and all, and a more distasteful two day’s work I’d seldom seen. It’s not that I don’t like priests-nay nay, it’s that they don’t like me. I’d nearly had to break down the doors at Ellsback. Word about the pesky finder and his mysterious combs had gotten around as fast as Encorla’s fancy black carriage. Priests had fled the mainhold like ants from an overturned nest, the first afternoon I’d gone around. I’d been forced to resort to an early-morning visit and a half-day wait to finally catch a single black mask come skulking down an unlit hall.

And the black mask of Ellsback, in perfect unison with all his peers, sang a song of innocence and ignorance.

Evis and I had refined our plan somewhat, after reconvening at House Avalante for blood and sandwiches. Evis had clad a dozen or so of his day-walking staff in new grey coats and new grey hats and ordered them to hang around the various churches, following priests who entered or left as vagrant whims took them.

“An abundance of Markhats,” Evis had said, with a toothy grin. Then he’d surprised me by quoting scripture. “Guilt flees while innocence rests,” he said. “Let us see if priests fall prey to the same follies as lesser sinners.”

I’d just shrugged. Let the guilty wonder how the clever finder Markhat gets about so quickly. Even better, let them wonder how many grey-clad men Hisvin has working on the combs.

Halbert bellowed suddenly at a cabman, and I looked out long enough to see the Velvet’s red-flagged roof peek up above the rest.

I smiled, waved though I knew she could not see. The temptation to knock on the carriage roof and tell Halbert to stop at the Velvet was strong, but I resisted. No need for Evis to know more than he had to. Time enough for wooing when work was done.