But the lawyers came, and despite raised voices and much pounding of fists on tables and ominous vows to see me jailed until the Angels descend on pillars of fire come Judgment Day, Captain Holder let me go for the second time in as many days.

As I stepped out into the sunlight before darting into an Avalante carriage, I knew one thing-all the lawyers in Rannit wouldn’t get me out of the Old Ruth a third time.

I bade the driver to make haste, and I rubbed my wrists until the shackle-marks were all but gone.

They opened her up by cutting her from neck to navel and then from shoulder to shoulder. The dead don’t bleed. Much.

Stitches stood a pair of paces from us, her hood concealing her ruined face, her sleeves hiding her pale hands. She’s been standing there when Evis and I arrived, watching through the glass wall that separated us from the body. She hadn’t spoken or otherwise offered a greeting.

Evis hid his eyes behind dark glasses. The light in the autopsy room was noonday bright. None of the Avalante doctors were halfdead, and I wondered if that was because the blood would prove too tempting or the light was too intense.

I looked away as they peeled back the corpse’s skin.

Evis frowned. The doctors on the other side of the glass wall pointed and peered and moved about, poking and prodding at the dead woman’s insides like schoolboys finding a cache of new marbles.

“I’ll be damned,” said Evis.

“That’s the consensus of modern religious thought.”

Evis snorted. “That creature isn’t human. I’ll bet you two cigars.”

“Why? What did you see?”

“It’s what I didn’t see. But let’s hear what the good doctor has to say.”

As Evis spoke, one of the white-coats headed for the door. Evis opened it for him and the doctor joined us.

“That’s no woman,” he said. His hands were covered in blood. “No stomach. No intestines. No reproductive organs, no bladder, nothing. Doesn’t even have vocal cords.”

Evis spoke first. “What does it have?”

The doctor wiped his long nose, leaving it smeared with red. “Extra muscle. Solid bones, no marrow. Thought we’d never get the sternum cut. A third lung. And a lifespan of two days, maybe three, before it died of dehydration.” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. You say it came at someone?”

“Me. Nearly got me. Took a pair of Ogres to put her down.”

He grunted. “Not surprised. We want to open the skull, see how much of a brain it had. You’re a lucky man. If I had to guess, I’d say that thing was created to go out and kill someone and then just sit there until it fell over dead a day later.”

Evis crossed his arms over his chest. “Open the skull. Learn what you can. When you’re done, Stitches will take over. I want to know who made that thing and how they did it, and I want to know by tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll do what I can.” The good doctor failed to exude confidence. He did wipe more blood on his nose before returning to his fellows and the still body on the slab.

And behold, there is no new thing under the sun. No, not one.

“Nice to see you again too,” I said. “Is that scripture you’re quoting?”

Stitches laughed softly in my head. Indeed, though it is not a scripture native to the church you know. Evis. The good doctor will discover nothing of value, other than what he has already divulged. Neither, I suspect, shall I.

Evis frowned behind his glasses. “Your quote made me think you knew something already.”

Indeed I do. That creature was once called a bentan in a tongue that predates the Kingdom. They are the product of a potent magic and they are indeed designed to kill and then quickly die. Stitches turned to face me, though her cowl kept her face concealed. You have attracted the malice of a powerful sorcerer, Markhat. Doubtless one of the Corpsemaster’s rivals.

“Me? Why waste perfectly good malice on me? Hell, I never even knew the woman’s real name. I’ve got less political pull than Evis’s right boot. Why me?”

The way her hood tilted, I got the impression Stitches was giving me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding stare.

“Markhat. You walked with the huldra. More than once. Do you not remember?”

I groaned and settled against the wall.

The huldra. Just thinking the word had nightmarish memories flooding back. I remember holding the cursed thing, right after the Corpsemaster tricked Mama into giving it to me.

I remembered walking, guided by the huldra’s whispering. I remembered growing, towering up above Rannit, until people and carriages scurried like ants at my feet.

I remembered the things the huldra tried to show me-the dark secrets it wanted to reveal to me, if I would just give it a tiny sliver of my soul.

“I’m never going to be free of that damned thing, am I?”

I assume your question is rhetorical. Unless you do, in fact, still possess it, or the remains of it?

“I broke it into pieces. Stomped them into powder. Dumped that into my chamber-pot. Threw that in a sewer.”

A novel approach to rendering it inert. Novel, but effective. Although you may wish you could wield its power in the days ahead if these attacks continue.

“You think they will?”

She shrugged. I cannot say. Perhaps the sorcerer is satisfied you no longer hold the huldra and thus are no longer a threat. Perhaps this was unrelated to the huldra at all and was merely done out of petty spite.

“I have a hard time believing anyone took the trouble to whip up a pair of those creatures just out of spite.” Evis was watching the white-coats pull the thing’s face off. “When is the last time you know of these bentan appearing?”

Pre-Kingdom. Prehistoric. They are the stuff of legend, at least until today. But do not ascribe a predominance of rationality to my brethren across the Brown. Most are quite mad by any measure you care to employ.

“How comforting. So they might be after my head because of the huldra, which I don’t have, or because I once wore brown shoes with a black suit, or because the Corpsemaster snubbed them at a dinner party a thousand years ago. Marvelous.” I wished for a chair but none were in sight. “Do either of you have any sage advice about how I might best live through all this sudden attention?”

“Look both ways before crossing the street,” said Evis.

There is a monastery devoted to the brewing of beer some nine hundred miles distant, noted Stitches.

I sank to my haunches. “Go to Hell, both of you.”

Stitches laughed again. Evis. Show him the Mark Twos. Markhat. The huldra may be gone, but its reputation remains. Ponder how you might use that to your advantage. She made for the door as the doctors peeled away the dead woman’s hair, leaving her bright blue eyes set in a wet and grinning skull.

I stood and turned quickly away.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Evis. Maybe it was the room’s harsh light, but he looked even paler than usual. “Let’s go get you a Mark Two.”

I didn’t even ask what a Mark Two was. I didn’t care. It could have been a three-headed billy goat with profound incontinence problems, and I’d have hugged it tight to my bosom just to get away from that room with the doctors and the fresh-skinned skull.

We walked.

“How’d you get the body, anyway?” I asked after a while. “I can’t believe the Watch just handed it over, even to Avalante.”

Evis grinned.

“Do you have any idea how much city morgue attendants make in a year?”

“No idea at all.”

“Neither do I, really. But rumor has it they’ll do almost anything for ten times their annual salary in Old Kingdom coin. Look the other way for a half hour, for instance.”

I whistled. “Good Captain Holder is going to burst a vein when he finds out.”

Evis shrugged. “We didn’t get the knife. I wanted that knife, and a sample of whatever was on the blade. Are you sure it never touched you?”