The huldra showed me words near his lips.

“You got them from a young man named Tenny Hanks. He stole them from his father, who runs an import shop on Vanth. Tenny was a weedhead. You gave him ten crowns, and he smoked that right up and killed himself the next day trying to rob an ogre.” I smiled in triumph. “Isn’t that right?”

He opened his mouth, shut it, tried to decide if he could knock me down and make for the door.

I let him see my eyes. He began to shake.

“I never wanted the combs. All that was a lie. Just like you feared. No, it’s the girls I want to talk about. You know the girls. The special ones. The ones you fed to your vampire friends.”

He choked back a shout, tried to bolt. I shoved him back, surprised at how easily he gave way to my touch.

“I know it all,” I said. He tried to look away, but I held his gaze, let the huldra show me more. “I know about the priest. I know about the halfdead. I know you help them, because they let you watch.” I pulled him closer, laughed when he wriggled and whimpered. “You made a mistake, taking Martha Hoobin. She was no whore, and you knew it. What would your halfdead friends say, if they knew you meant to feed them a rich man’s sister?”

He gobbled and clawed. I tightened my grip.

“They’d have your head, they would. Poor stubborn Miss Hoobin. She preferred her Balptist verse to the mouthings of your Church, and you decided you’d make her pay. What better way to educate her in the mercies of your Church than to feed her to a room of halfdead, you miserable little swine. Isn’t that right?”

“I’ll tell you,” he said, gasping around my grasp. I had him by the throat, one-handed. He grappled and clawed but couldn’t dislodge my grip. “I’ll tell you where they are. Tell you where the halfdead are.”

I laughed. The sound of it was strange, more thunder than voice.

“Oh, you shall indeed. Do you think that will save you?”

“You want to know, don’t you?”

I laughed again.

“I know already.” The huldra whispered again, telling me what was ready to leap from the Thin Man’s panicked lips.

“Below another old warehouse. On Santos. Three blocks from here. They’ve gathered there, already. The party begins in an hour. Have I missed anything?”

He coughed and wheezed, began to turn purple. “You…swore. You…swore…you wouldn’t…harm.”

“Did I now?”

I let go. He fell limp down on the table, threw up, lifted his face, sputtering and spewing.

I saw, without turning, the door open behind me. I saw Ethel Hoobin march inside, and his brothers, and then dozens more. All bore weapons. Ethel and his brothers bore short lengths of chain, each bearing a fresh-sharpened hook at the end.

“Mustn’t break a promise,” I whispered to him. “I shall do you no harm.” I backed away. Let him see the New People, let him read the murder written plain on their hard wet faces.

“Pity that these gentlemen are parties to no such oath. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘pound of flesh’? It’s a quaint country saying. Comes from those chains, and those hooks. I’m sure you can imagine the rest. And if not, well, you’ll see, soon enough.”

I turned from him. Ethel Hoobin met my gaze, though many would not.

“Has he my Martha?”

“He has. He took her.”

Behind me, the Thin Man let out a ruckus. Men rushed forward and blows sounded. He yelped and went quiet.

“Do you know where?”

I told Ethel where. I told him to finish his business. I would wait outside, and we would go and get Martha.

He nodded, and the way parted. As the Thin Man began to sob and beg, I left Innigot’s.

It was still raining outside. The huldra showed me a hidden thing, and I brushed the rain away and set out for Santos Street, through a night made as bright as day.

The huldra whispered. I listened. I knew I would have no need of Evis and his friends, or Ethel and his. The blood I meant to spill lay ahead, and I could not be troubled to wait.

So I walked. Each step took me farther, each breath made me stronger, each whisper of the huldra left me taller, let me see more than I’d seen an instant before. I heard music in the storm, heard voices in the wind, saw wonders and terrors in each flicker of far-off lightning.

Soon, I realized I was no longer looking at walls and doors, but looking down on rooftops and rain-swept streets. I towered above it all, my every step that of a giant, my footfalls the very thunder. I laughed, and the skies split with a terrible bright light. I saw hidden forms twist and dance in the shadows.

Below and behind me, shapes scurried, darting from here to there. Some were dark and swift and seemed at times to fly, while some were slow and steady-Evis, I recalled, as if from an old and distant memory. Avalante. Evis and his soldiers, and the New People keeping carefully apart from each other, antlike in my wake.

I realized I could reach down and crush them, stamp them out like insects. The huldra knew, would show me how. Strange memories rose and fell, of doing just such a thing many times before. Other images followed-faces in the dark, a tower on a hill, fire raining from a wounded crimson sky.

“No,” I said, my voice booming. “It is true I spoke my name. Even so, I shall have no other.”

I wasn’t sure why I said those words. But the huldra knew. It turned me back toward the warehouse on Santos, and soon I could see down upon it, even see the cold dark figures huddled unknowing within.

The huldra knew my wishes. I shrank, until I faced a door. I let loose my hold upon the rain, let it beat down over me, let it sting my face and my mouth with its acrid taste of bitter ashes.

I put forth my hand. Knock twice fast, twice slow, twice fast again, whispered the huldra.

I obeyed. In a moment, I heard the creak of a bar being lifted, and when I tried the door again it opened.

I stepped inside, let the rain and the dark and the huldra blur my form into a simulacra of the Thin Man’s.

I stood in a dark foyer. Wood floor. Wood walls. Ten by ten, maybe, with a single second door set in the wall facing the one through which I’d entered. No candles burned, but I saw.

Saw a halfdead before me. He wore no House insignia, but the huldra told me a name. Mercross, oldest and worst of all the dark Houses.

I didn’t care. Because I saw something else, there in the dark. Faint, but unmistakable, and utterly and forever unforgivable.

He bore the mark of blood, rich and red about his hands, about his mouth. He’d washed, but I could see. Darla’s blood, perhaps. My Darla’s blood.

I made a sound, something between a shout and a growl.

An instant of confusion, when he saw I wasn’t the same man he’d admitted. Another instant to raise his pale hands toward me, to open his mouth, to leap.

An instant too long. That which had blossomed in my soul, back in the alley on Regent Street, took root, fed by rage and fury, fed by the blood lingering on his lips.

I caught him up. Caught him and stilled his cries and let him flop like a fresh-caught trout in my hands. I let him see my eyes. Let him see his fate, mirrored within.

“You die for what you did. You die for her.”

I pulled him apart. Easily. I pulled, twisted and tore and did not stop until he was a twitching red ruin. I smeared what was left upon the walls.

When I was done, I took hold of the far door and pulled it from its hinges.

“Come and be judged,” I said, and my voice rang out like an Angel’s. “Come and face the hand of wrath!”

Shapes flew. Harsh voices cried out.

I squeezed myself through the tiny door, and my Darla had her vengeance at last.

Some time later, I became aware.

Aware of voices, furtive footfalls and the glare of torches and lanterns.

The sounds rang hollow, in a large and empty room. I blinked, and the dark fled, and I saw.