The day was not yet done with. It remained early enough to continue on with my investigation and so I made my way downtown, riding the trolley car once more. The box had turned up too many times not to have something to do with Hanes' disappearance. And there was a mystery to it, one that involved Sharky and those that he had claimed had owned it, bringing it to Spire with them. They knew what was in it, which was troubling. Unless they had possessed the key initially, only for the worm creatures to somehow obtain it from them but not the box.

The worms. Now that was troubling, that one of them had the box, the key and the contents. If they knew what it was that they had, then there was trouble aplenty waiting to happen. They struck me as just the kind of creatures that could possibly wish to unlock the curse and blessings on it, just to see what happened. And to cause more chaos in the city. Chaos could only further their cause.

A horrid thought occurred to me as the trolley car clanged its way down through the mists and melting snows into the lower districts. The worms had a remarkable ability to assume the persona of their victims, and more than just assume. The could become them to all intents and purposes that I could see, taking their memories and their mannerisms. What else could they assume? Perhaps it was possible that they could unlock how to use that otherworldy jewellery contained in the box via that ability. If so, it could mean that Miss White was in danger, if they knew she was the key to it. Did that have anything to do with Nathan Hanes' disappearance? Miss White was well guarded by her family from what I had observed, yet that would not trouble the worms. They would be hard to stop if they wished to get their hands on her, if my difficulties were anything to go by. That act would reveal their existence though, and the Westlers had means beyond mine that no doubt could cause the worms some trouble, or even figure out a method by which to defeat them.

No, the worms favoured the more surreptitious route, subterfuge and trickery being their tools of trade, from what I had seen. Which would mean that Hanes was being used for bait, if they were the ones responsible for his disappearance, an act to draw her out from behind her protection.

If it were so, though, then they had done too good a job of it. No doubt they would have wanted him found before too long, and the lengthy delay would not be to their plans. I was being slow, I knew it, and only I was to blame for that. I just had to hope that it didn't cause Hanes any undue hardship.

If he remained Hanes at all, that was. I just had to hope that the worms hadn't turned him into one of their hosts, like they had done to the Kochaks. Maybe it was part of their plans.

No. I was overthinking it. If it were so, if they did have him, then they would have done so already and then simply met up with Miss White, masquerading as Hanes.

It was with those rather dark thoughts that I left the trolley car behind and stepped out into the mists of another district downtown, Bluewall as it was called. From what I had heard, Sharky and his mob hung out down there. Finding him in the district proved to not be the easiest of tasks. Questions were met with evasion. People didn't seem inclined to talk about him, whether through fear or some other reason it wasn't easy to tell. It took all of my charm and persuasion to get anyone to open up to me.

When that did not exactly work, I fell back on the old favourite of a few bribes. The money that Mister White had left behind me, from the Westlers, was put to good use. It was, after all, what it had been designed for. Even with the amount that they had left me, I burned through a fair amount of it to get any answers I wanted. The reticence proved strong in the district, and expensive to overcome.

When at last I had the answers I sought, it led me to a place called the Hollow Chase Pool Hall, a most unusual name. I did have to wonder at the origins of it, as I did whenever I came across ones of a similar ilk. You didn't always get answers as often the origins were so lost in time that nobody remembered why they were so named anymore.

I stepped into the smoky interior of the hall. There were numerous green felted pool tables set up through the room, and the clatter of balls striking each other echoed around inside. A scratchy tune played on a gramophone further back in the gloom and haze of the place. The building wasn't exactly well lit. The clientele that frequented the hall preferred it that way.

They were a rough looking lot, drawn from a number of races, with even a couple of dwarves among their number. Most of them wore suits, though the vests were unbuttoned, ties loosened and collars opened, with battered hats pushed back on their heads and cigarettes dangling from their lips. Many were drinking as they played pool, half-filled mugs of beer and ale perched on the edges of the tables.

Most eyes swivelled my way as I entered the room and for a moment the hubbub of the voices lowered as they studied me. Not all of those faces possessed a single set of eyes either; some had more. The assessment didn't last long as they returned to their games and drinks.

They had a wary attitude towards authority, typical of the lower echelons of society. Given many of them probably had some low level of criminality as well, it could be understandable.

At one of the tables stood Sharky and a couple of his pals. The pool cue looked rather small in his hands but he wielded it with assurance of one who had used it a lot. He didn't even look up as I approached the table. He remained bent over it, contemplating the shot. A gentle tap with the cue sent the white ball across the table, glancing off a red ball and sending it into the corner pocket.

Only when he was done did he stand up. "Look whose is here," he said. "What brings youse down here, pal? Good news I hope."

"I've got news," I told him, "But perhaps not what you were hoping for."

Sharky set his pool cue down on the table and turned to me, folding his burly arms across his chest. "Youse better explain, and fast, pal. Dis isn't da place dat youse want trouble in."

As if to emphasise that point, Sharky's two pals closed in around me, cutting my way out off. One, a dark-haired man still sporting a rather large bruise on his jaw where I had slugged him with my brass knuckles, snubbed out a cigarette in a tray perched on the edge of the table.

Elsewhere in the pool hall, the eyes returned to look at me. They may not have been sharks like Sharky was but the glint in their eyes and the curve of their lips had a predatory look to them. No doubt they could sense trouble approaching and were looking forward to it.

It was one of those places after all.

"The jewellery box that you were looking for? I may have been deceived about it, but so were you."

Sharky's eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared abruptly. "How was Ise bein' deceived?"

"It never came from an otherworld," I told him. "At least not anytime recently. Those people that you spoke of, they were lying to you about it, just as the people that I worked for were. I tracked down the original owner, a young woman by the name of Brione Westler."

At that name, Westler, Sharky's eyes flared wider. "As in da family?"

"Yes. The box was stolen twenty years ago when Brione Westler was murdered. As you can guess, the Westlers weren't exactly happy about the whole thing, and unhappy Westlers mean a lot of trouble for anyone involved."

It takes a lot to get someone like Sharky to back down. The Westler name is among the few that will. Sometimes you just need a bigger fish to do the job. While the Westlers may not be quite as powerful as they once used to be, Sharky and his pals were still small fish in comparison.

"Day do trouble well," Sharky grunted, looking from me to his pals and then back again. "Wese don't be wantin' trouble with dem."

"That is good, because neither do I."

Sharky rubbed a hand along his jaw. I could see the gears churn behind his eyes as he considered the situation. "What is it youse want, pal?"

"Information. No doubt your pals don't want any trouble with the Westlers any more than you do, even if they don't know who they are yet. I need to know where and how they came by the box and how they lost the key to it."

"Day never mentioned a key."

"That is because my clients had it. But your friends must have had it at one point if they knew what was contained within. There is a curse upon them from what I have been told about it so it is imperative that we get to them before it comes to rest on them." I wasn't too sure about how the curse worked. Sharky wasn't to know that. Anything that could help my cause I would use.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I don't want no trouble with any curse," rumbled the thug with the bruised jaw.

"Shut it Russ," Sharky snapped. Russ backed down even though he still looked troubled by the thought of a curse.

"Did any of you look in the box or see the contents?" I asked of them.

Sharky shook his head. "Nah, it was all through our friends dat wese knew about it."

"Then you will be safe," I assured them. Heck, I wasn't certain of that myself but I needed Sharky and his pals on side. From what little that I understood of curses, and it wasn't a whole lot, they shouldn't have been in any danger. They had to personally trigger it in some manner to be touched by it. Not unless it was a curse of a power of magnitude far greater than any I had heard of before.

A tightness present in Shary's face eased. "Good to know. Wese better be goin' to find dem while wese still can." He picked up a mug of beer from the table and tossed back the rest of it before slamming the now empty mug back down. "Youse are lucky dat da game was interrupted, Russ, else dat'd be anudder fiver dat youse owe me."

"That would be the day."

Sharky laughed and we headed out. Leaving the pool hall behind us, we headed deeper into the district of Bluewall. Tight packed apartment blocks rose up around us and the misty streets grew dimmer from the lack of light filtering down. Sharky led the way, through a maze of streets and lanes. The place had a dingy feel to it, with paint peeling from walls and other signs of, if not neglect, then at the least a lack of resources. It was a place where people lived who couldn't afford anything better, only just a step above being a slum. Sharky picked a way through the streets to a drab grey building, five stories in height, one of the numerous apartment blocks in that part of the district. Small one and two room apartments were packed inside. Entire families lived in those apartments, glad just to have a roof over their heads. They were the lucky ones, if you could consider living there lucky.

I knew the block. It was where those that had had the jewellery box lived, before it was recovered for me and sent on by courier. That reminded me that I needed to check up on the crew that had broken in for me and recovered it, as they had handled the box. It wasn't outside the bounds of reason that the curse may have descended upon them as well. I would never call them exactly law-abiding citizens, and not particularly good company either, but I did feel a certain responsibility towards them given that I had been the one to hire them. I know I had told Miss White not to feel responsible for Hanes' disappearance, and while this may have seemed similar it wasn't. I knew it, even if I couldn't articulate it. Miss White hadn't consciously put Hanes into harm's way. I kind of had for the crew.

We rattled on up in a creaky old elevator, one that did not feel all that safe given the manner in which is swayed and groaned under our weight. I would have preferred to climb the stairs, even if we were headed for the top floor. Sharky didn't seem that way inclined and so we had taken it.

The elevator opened onto the hall on the top floor, one with faded and worn carpets, lit by a single illuminance globe that seemed on the way out. There were patches of damp on the ceiling and the walls and I could hear tiny scurrying feet in the roof above us. Compared to the rest of the hall, the door we came to was a big, solid and relatively new thing. Sharky tapped on the door with a beefy hand.

"Youse there, Raffa?"

I heard the sound of feet shuffling up to the door and it creaked open a fraction. A pale face could just be seen peeping out through the gap. The chain on the door remained attached.

"Got a moment, Raffa?" Sharky asked, less a question and more a demand.

The chain rattled in the lock and the door opened fully, revealing a short, stoop shouldered man with a thin, timid face and a look that mixed both earnest hope and worry. Behind him, in a room devoid of much furnishing, the wall paper faded and peeling in places, sat a woman of similar appearance. Sharky made his way in and the rest of us followed. Even just standing, it didn't leave a whole lot of room.

Raffa looked over us, wringing his hands together, appearing greatly troubled when he saw me. People down that way really didn't like strangers around, and especially not in their residence. Everything about him indicated he was one of the downtrodden, the meek, the hard done by. Unless circumstances changed for him, he was destined for a hard life in Spire

"Is everything fine with youse?" Sharky asked. "Got everything youse need?"

Raffa nodded, his nervousness palpable. "Yes, yes," he replied in barely a squeak of a voice.

Sharky clapped a hand to my shoulder rather firmly. "Dis here is Marcus Stone. Youse don't need to be worryin' 'bout him. He be havin' some questions for youse, though."

Raffa nodded again and this time he licked his lips as he did. "Whatever you want."

I gave him a smile to try and put him at his ease. "I don't mean any trouble," I told him. He had probably heard that before, and from people that had meant him trouble. Still, I had to hope that he could see I was sincere about it. "It is about a jewellery box that you had in your possession until recently, one that was stolen from this very apartment only a few days ago.”

Raffa looked across to the seated woman, whom I took to be his wife and then back to me, nodding reluctantly, as if even admitting to its existence would get him into trouble. "Yes?"

"You recently arrived in Spire from another world, that is correct?"

I saw the pained look in Raffa's face at the mention of that. Almost all new arrivals are desperate to get back to their old lives and homes. Unfortunately, once Spire has you in its grasp, it is most jealous of its ownership. Very, very few are able to make it back out again, and that by pure luck alone from what I could tell. Raffa was still at the early, desperate stage. Eventually he would succumb, as all others did, to the realisation that you could never go home again and they would have to make a new life in Spire. The acceptance of that fact could lead to a range of emotions; despair and despondency being among the most common. Not everyone handled it well. People throwing themselves off the side of Spire was not unheard of.

"We did," Raffa confirmed in a whispered reply.

"You say that you brought this jewellery box with you?"

A slight nod if the head came from Raffa and he wrung his hands together again.

"Here is the problem with that," I told him, trying to keep my tone as kindly as I could, so as to not overly scare him. "That exact same jewellery box, and its contents, have been in Spire for many years and it bears a dark legacy of blood and crime and curses."

The fright on Raffa's face was obvious. He went near white. It wasn't what he had expected to hear from me and he was scared. Really scared.

"Youse better tell us da truth," Sharky said.

"It sort of did come with us from home," Raffa replied, eventually. "The second time."

"The second time?" I asked.

"When we first arrived here, we were lost confused. All around us was mist and we didn't know where we were. Then we heard the noise of a scuffle. Out of the mists a young man came running. He saw us and swerved in our direction, shoving a parcel into our hands. Keep it safe, he told us and kept on running. We didn't know what to do, but then we heard the sound of more running feet and so we hid. Next thing we know, we see three, well, things catch up to the man. We thought it a nightmare at first for they were not men."

"Not men?" I asked. "What did they look like?"

"Sort of shaped like a man, but with long, dangling arms and a head like a swarm of wasps."

Sharky grunted and I looked over to him. "Dat is trouble," he said. I gave a nod in agreement with his assessment.

"What next?" I asked.

"They set upon the man and beat him, carrying him off when he could no longer resist. We didn't know what to do and so we fled once they were gone. Next thing we know we were out of the mists, back home."

"You actually made it home?"

"Yes, briefly. We saw the sun on the hills, the swift flowing streams of sweet water and we thought we were safe." Raffa sighed, one filled with deep sorrow. "We were wrong. The mists came after us. It was if it had a mind of its own for they sought us out, tangled us up again and drew us back in, returning us to Spire. We tried to find a way back again but it was gone." Tears stood out in his pain etched eyes. It must have been a cruel blow to them. The jealous possession by Spire on those it has claimed can not be denied though. I couldn't but help feel pity for them and the ordeal that they had gone through. It would have broken the spirits of near any. "That is when you found us," he said to Sharky, "Wandering, lost and scared. We didn't know where the man had gone or what to say and so we said that the box was ours."

I took the photograph of Nathan Hanes out of my pocket. "Was this the young man?” I asked, showing him the photograph.

Raffa's eyes widened with recognition as he looked at it. "Yes, that was him. What were those things that grabbed him?"

"Members of da Hive," Sharky rumbled. "Youse were lucky that youse didn't get seen by dem."

"Street thugs," I added. "Very dangerous ones at that. They work as hired muscle for any that can afford them. No questions asked."

"Dey got no standards," Sharky observed, a concept I found amusing but wisely kept to myself. "Dey do anythin' if da money be good."

Not that I considered Sharky much better in that regard either. He was a thug himself, after all. Perhaps one with a soft touch for certain people and slightly higher standards, but a thug still.

"The question is who exactly hired them," I mused. "There is another question I hope that you can answer. How did you lose the key to the box?"

"The key? We never had a key."

"Then how did you know what was inside of it? The illustrations were most detailed."

"They came with the box," Raffa explained, wringing his hands together. "The man gave them to us with it."

"Which means that he had the key on him still when the Hive snatched him up. And given I know who had the key after that, it looks like they were working for them and passed the key along." And it explained why they had come to me. They had the key, but no box and no idea who exactly had it. They needed someone in my line of work to discover it, to recover it and deliver it to them. I, like a dupe, had fallen for it. "Do you know where the Hive has its nest?" I asked of Sharky.

"Somewhere in Redcrown. Shall wese pay dem a visit?"

"Not yet. I have a thing or two I want to check up on first."

Sharky nodded. "Okay, but Ise be expectin' youse to get in touch with us."

"No worries on that regards. I don't fancy going up against the Hive alone," I told him.

"We aren't in trouble, are we?" Raffa piped up.

"Don't youse concern youse self with anythin'," Sharky told him. "Dese things be happenin'. Youse leave it all to us and wese be takin' care of it."

I didn't envy Raffa and his wife their situation. Being looked after by Sharky was the next best thing to an extortion racket as far as I could see. They would be protected, no doubt, but in return they would have to make contributions for the effort. There wasn't much that could be done about it either. This far downtown was almost a law unto itself. They looked after their own.

"You have a good day," was all that I could offer the pair. Then I was off again.