“Dead drunk,” I replied. Gertriss got on his left, and I on his right, and together we hefted the dead man to his feet. As long as no one got inquisitive, he looked like any other passed-out drunk.

Darla began a furious tirade that drew a few stares but kept them off the dead man. She kept it up the whole time Gertriss and I conveyed our limp friend through the casino and up the stairs. I waved off a pair of waiters, and they had the sense to turn and walk away.

I was never so glad to find a dark and winding staircase. If we were attracting attention, it wasn’t much. I dared a single pause just before the ceiling cut off my view of the casino floor, and scanned the crowd to see if any one face was watching us go with more than casual attention.

I saw nothing but a mob of Rannit’s elite throwing taxpayer money away by the fistful, so I hauled the dead man up the stairs while Darla pretended to chide us both for our lack of decorum and Gertriss fought back tears.

The hall, when we reached it, was empty. Darla took Gertriss’s place under the corpse’s right arm.

“Where are we taking him?”

“Our room. I don’t like it either, but we’ve got to get out of sight.”

She bit her lips and nodded. We headed for our door, mindful of voices and the sounds of approaching feet, but we managed to make the trip without meeting anyone.

Darla got the door open and I shoved our quiet new acquaintance inside.

“Blanket,” I said. Gertriss darted past me, found a linen closet, and threw a new white blanket upon the floor.

I laid the dead man on it, as gently as my aching arms allowed. He hadn’t been a small man, or a light one.

Darla knelt down at his eyeless head.

“What did this?”

“Someone wanting to make an impression.” I unbuttoned his coat, searched his pockets, laid the contents down in a pile.

Eight hundred crowns, all of it paper. Two gold crowns in a leather case, inscribed “From Father, on the Day of Your Birth.“ A door key, numbered 233. A white hanky, two paper-wrapped peppermints, and a silver card case.

I opened the case.

“ROLLAR KIST,” read the stark white linen-paper card. Below that was a seal-two daggers crossed against a bed of roses.

And that was all.

I closed the case. I reached up to shut the dead man’s eyes until I remembered he didn’t have any to bother with.

“Rollar Kist,” I said. “Anybody recognize the name? Gertriss?”

She shook her head. She stopped crying, but not shaking. I gave Darla a glance and she rose and led Gertriss to a chair.

“I hate to ask, but I have to. Tell me what you saw.”

Gertriss sat, her hands clasped in her lap. She took a breath.

“He sent me a drink. And a card. I couldn’t find Evis. So I went over to thank him. He was alive and smiling when I stood up, boss. Dead and… like that when I got there, maybe a quarter of a minute later. Just sitting there. Like that.”

Darla got behind her and started rubbing her neck.

“You see anybody near him? Anybody speak to him or hurry away?”

Gertriss shook her head no.

“It was dark. And loud. And there were so many people moving around. I’m sorry, boss. I didn’t see a thing.”

“You weren’t meant to. Don’t beat yourself up. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

Gertriss shivered. Not because I was right, but because she realized, as I did, that the killer could as easily have chosen her as his target, and might do so yet.

“You think this man was killed because he sent Gertriss a drink, and she knows you?”

“Could be me. Could be Evis the killer meant to rattle. Not sure yet. But someone is determined to make trouble.”

Darla’s eyes fell. “So you don’t think this is a coincidence? A random killing?”

“He was stabbed. Then his eyes were removed. They left a thousand crowns in his pockets.” I shook my head. “No. This was meant to touch off a panic. Say Gertriss had screamed and raised a ruckus. Dead man, knife in his heart, eyes in somebody’s pockets? Free drinks aren’t going to take the sting out of that.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Markhat,” said Evis. “Is Gertriss in there? Open up!”

I pulled the blanket over the dead man before rising and heading for the door.

I checked the peephole before I unlocked it. Evis was there, flanked by a pair of Avalante halfdead in dark glasses.

“She’s here,” I said, motioning them all inside. “Quick. We’ve got trouble.”

“I heard. You left at a trot. What the hell?”

He nudged the blanket aside with the toe of a finely polished boot.

“What the hell?”

He saw Gertriss then and rushed to her side. She stood, wiping at her smeared make-up.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“She’s certainly not fine,” said Darla, her arms crossed over her chest. “She pretended to embrace a mutilated corpse just so you wouldn’t have a panic on your hands.”

“What the hell?”

I pulled Darla aside. “Give him some room,” I said as Evis and Gertriss began a frantic whispered conversation. “He’s repeating himself. Sure sign of panicked contrition. What’s that?”

Darla held up a short, wide dagger, using a napkin to keep from touching it. Blood stained the blade. “This is what she pulled out of the late Mr. Kist,” she said. “I’ve never seen one quite like it.”

The hilt was as fat and short as the blade. Both were worked with symbols I couldn’t place, except to say they weren’t Kingdom or Old Kingdom or the tall straight script of the Church.

“Let me have a look,” I said. Evis was beside me, though I never saw him move.

“Dammit, Markhat, don’t-”

Before he could finish, the knife was in my hand.

I didn’t take it. Darla swears to this day she didn’t hand it to me. One instant my hand was empty, though, and the next I was gripping a fat silver dagger with a bloody sharp blade.

It went cold-colder than Yule Eve ice. I tried to throw it down. I opened my fingers and threw, but it was stuck to my skin as surely as if it were glued.

The hairs on the back of my neck tried to stand up and scamper away as the hex stored in the dagger settled over me like a blanket woven of frost.

Markhat, said a faint hex-voice in an airy whisper. Markhat.

Evis shouted. “Get Stitches up here now!” One of his halfdead soldiers darted out my door.

The dagger moved and changed in my grasp, became a wine glass, a beer bottle, a vase I’d given Darla to keep her fireflowers in the day we moved into our new house.

Darla, her eyes wide, tried to take the thing from my hand, but Evis grabbed her and pushed her back. “Damn me,” he said, fixing his gaze over my left shoulder. “Marcus. Kill it.”

The remaining halfdead pulled a pair of short silver blades from beneath his dark coat and charged past me.

I whirled. Marcus’s blades were slicing and gleaming, cutting through a thickening darkness in the air but spilling no blood.

The shape solidified, took on the form of a hooded, cloaked figure so tall its hood scraped the ceiling.

It raised a bony hand to point at me and began to speak in that hissing, dry whisper.

Marcus dropped his blades, pulled a revolver, and emptied it into the dark form.

It neither flinched nor faltered. A ringing began to sound in my ears and a tightness began to grow in my throat.

Darla nearly managed to claw her way past Evis when I broke for the door.

“Dammit, Markhat, wait for Stitches!”

I didn’t reply. I hit the hall and bowled over a fat little man in a top hat and I didn’t look back.

I made for the stairs. The vase warped and shook and it was a cold, full bottle of beer. I’d bolted with the intention of throwing it over the side. I was three steps down the stairs before I realized I’d have to go into the Brown with it since it refused to let me let it go.

The beer bottle became a tortoise shell, sealed with old black wax. A single glance behind me revealed the dark form gliding down the stairs, bony finger still raised in silent accusation. A minor stampede started when a half-dozen revelers heading up met me and fled at the sight of my rapidly-gaining pursuer.