A quick look into the lounge’s phonebook netted him the funeral home’s address. It was a good deal closer than the priestesses, and vaguely in the same direction, so that settled the place as his next stop.

Anduron got there using his two legs. The train schedule was not on his side. He hoped to catch a taxi, but the few he spotted were already occupied. So on foot it was.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, knowing that the sending was coming for him, tirelessly, relentlessly, slowed only by the city’s physical barriers. Anduron could hope that it would blunder in front of a car, one big enough or fast enough to disable the damned thing, but that certainly wasn’t something to rely on.

So he kept his pace quick, his hat slouched forward, and his senses on full alert as he traversed the city streets, taking every shortcut that offered itself. It earned him a few dog barks as he passed through yards, close by them, or above them by making his way along the tops of tall fences, but he was always gone before the owners could have a look for themselves.

The funeral home had been set up in what had once been an actual home. Anduron found himself in a neighbourhood that was a reminder of the earliest days of the city’s explosive growth; when the moderately well-to-do had made homes for themselves that were essentially miniature versions of old noble estates, arranged in rows and surrounded by large gardens.

He stopped where he was, and crouched low by a hedge. For he heard a sound in the distance. The sound of a beat-up engine. There were plenty of those in the city, but this one, the rhythm and tenor of its laboured complaints, combined with the location…

No. This was no mere chance.

He stayed out of sight and waited for the vehicle to arrive, as indeed it did. It pulled into the lot before the funeral home and out stepped Obnar of Torrin, and Slim. Jo Murnau wasn’t with them.

Obnar had cleaned the noseblood off his face, but not his jacket, and was sporting a brutal set of black eyes from the knee Anduron had given him. His rage over the whole thing was like a cloak; ostentatiously visible, and billowing with every step.

The pair vanished out of sight, and actually went around the house rather than up to the front door. Anduron took it as his invitation to sneak up behind the car.

Supposedly, their little pack was in the habit of dumping vehicles after a job. Perhaps they just hadn’t gotten to that part yet, or perhaps they felt it safe to hang onto it for a little longer, given that the sole witness had a sending on his tail.

What they had done was clean whatever blood had been left on the outside from bundling Marcus’s body into the trunk. He inhaled deeply, and smelled nothing but cleaning products, hinting at an inner cleanse as well.

He gave the lid a light tap, and got an empty noise out of it. They had already gotten rid of the body. The thought occurred that a partnership with a funeral home would be a wily move for an outfit. Most of them had furnaces, after all. But evidently, that wasn’t why they were here.

The walls of the house looked sturdy, and he couldn’t hear anyone inside until the back door opened to admit Obnar and Slim.

Hayes was a human name, and so Anduron allowed himself a little bit of noise as he ran at the building, kicked up off the wall, and climbed onto the roof. There was a skylight in the middle of it, and he snuck over to it and knelt down to listen.

“So…” said an unfamiliar voice. “It’s… it’s done?”

“It’s done,” Obnar growled, his voice still feeling that blow to the throat. “He’s done.”

The other speaker, presumably Hayes, sighed nervously.

“Unfortunate. But-”

“Unfortunate that it had to happen,” Obnar went on. “Unfortunate that you were sloppy, and almost got all of us into trouble.”

“Oh, he seemed like a good lad,” Hayes defended himself. “And he was desperate for work. I figured he would be fine with all of this. He seemed to be. I don’t know why he switched.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Obnar went on. “HE doesn’t matter. What matters is that this doesn’t repeat.”

“Look…” Hayes breathed out, trying to cover up his shaky nerves with false cheer and failing badly. “Things are good now. This was all very bad, but I will be more careful with the next person I hire, and we will all carry on as before.”

“Sure. We will carry on. But the boss is upset about all of this. Remember, this arrangement is a convenience for the boss, not a necessity. This was a close one, and there’s still a chance it might all blow up.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I just said, you shaking sapling. Now, take that fear that’s running through you and memorise it. Let it motivate you in the future. Because you’re being paid too well to mess this up for all of us.”

Hayes had no counter. He wasn’t the street-hard sort, clearly, nor was he one of those fools who thought himself one when faced with the real thing.

“We’ll keep things quiet for a little while after this,” Slim said, in a milder version of Obnar’s superiority. “You’ll get a phone call when we want another one of your special orders.”

“Certainly. Yes, we’d… we’d best be a little careful. For now.”

“That’s all,” Obnar said, and Anduron heard the squeak of leather as the dwarf turned on his heel. “Ta ta, coffin-man.”

Hayes stayed where he was, as his two guests walked back the way they’d come. Anduron took a scarf out of his coat pocket and tied it firmly over his lower face. Then he took a wire out of another pocket.

Slim and Obnar went back to their junker, and as they drove away Anduron used the noise as cover as he slipped the wire through the crack in the skylight. There was no true lock on it, and so he had it open in moments. It was pretty well oiled, and so Hayes was none the wiser as Anduron got it all the way open. He peeked down, listened to the man walk to a different part of the house, and then dropped down.

The floor was marble, which Anduron somehow disliked even more than asphalt. At least that stuff decayed fairly quickly if abandoned, and nature could push through. Not so with true stone.

But he had bigger concerns at the moment. Or more pressing ones, rather. Faeler believed Frank Becker was behind the trio, but Anduron needed to know for sure.

The house was largely unlit, which wasn’t a problem for him. The skylight let in the stars, and his ears did the rest. The room, whatever its original purpose, now seemed to be some sort of ritual room, the sort that could be quickly redecorated and refitted to suit different clients of different faiths. It was large, and sported three different doors that led to other parts of the house. Across the middle of it was a row of three decorative pillars, each one just wide enough to cover Anduron if he was careful.

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Perfect.

Drawing Hayes over was a simple matter of tapping the wall loudly enough to be heard by human ears, but softly enough to not alarm him. After all, it might simply be his imagination. It might be a small pest animal, or nothing at all. And so he came, and as he passed one of those decorative pillars, Anduron stepped out from behind it and tripped him.

The man, perhaps in his forties and sporting a neat beard, landed hard on his hip. Anduron gave him a kick to the gut, just enough to take the strength out of him, and then seized his hair with one hand and held the knife over him with the other.

“Quiet,” Anduron warned him with murderous menace. “Speak softly and quickly. You burn or bury empty caskets so you can sell dead bodies to a necromancer. I know this, do not lie. Who is he?”

“I… uh…” Hayes stuttered, “... what are you-”

Anduron stabbed down. He had the precision to only inflict a minor nick on the man’s cheek. It was fear that broke him.

“AH! BECKER! FRANK BECKER!”

“Quiet, I said,” Anduron reminded him, and let him feel the knife-edge against his throat. “Where is he?”

“Dock 8! Dock 8 at the South Yards! Look… look, it’s just a bit of sleight-of-hand! People say their farewells, and get their funerals, and I-”

”You are an accessory to murder,” Anduron told him coldly. “Now shut up.”

He pushed the knife just a tiny bit down, and Hayes held very, very still, as his heart thundered away.

The old ways of justice demanded Anduron push the blade all the way. The days of swords and feuds. He would have hunted this man through the wild. But now… now there was this world of court systems and papers and proper procedure. Violence and punishment were now subject to an attempt at rendering both dispassionate, in service of some vague idea. And yet murder and corruption and violence continued unabated, hidden out of sight of the system.

Well, here he was. Hidden out of sight.

“Do you know his phone number?” Anduron asked impulsively, as an idea occurred.

“Y-yes,” Hayes breathed.

Anduron did a quick assessment of his options. He could try to use this man to lure Becker to some sort of meeting. Or he could go after Becker directly, in his personal fortress but totally unsuspecting.

The decision was made for him, by a sudden loud boom at the back door.

Oh.

It was the thick walls, blocking sound from outside. But he’d also been mistaken in his travel time estimates. He had no excuse for that.

The sending was here, and two more rapid booms burst the door open. In came that distinctive hurried, somewhat jerky gate.

“Your sins have arrived!” Anduron said.

He got up and pulled Hayes to his feet by the shirt collar.

“Take me to the furnace and turn it on!”

“What?”

The sending stepped into sight, and Anduron gave the man a shake.

“The furnace!”

“It’s in there!” Hayes shouted, and pointed at a door that the sending strode past on its beeline to Anduron.

“Well, get in there, or it will kill us both!”

He didn’t know if that was actually true, but the words, and a kick, pushed the man into action.

Anduron went in the other direction, which shifted the sending and gave Hayes an opening his nerves dared. Anduron grabbed a chair up by the wall and sent it skidding towards the corpse. He hoped it might trip, but the thing just slapped it aside with one of those great blows.

It was amazing how hard people could hit when they were truly, completely heedless of pain and injury.

There was another chair, and Anduron pocketed the knife so he could grab it with both hands. It was a fairly sturdy, heavy thing, but rather than swing it he did a quick dart to the left. The sending predictably moved to intercept. Anduron darted back to the right. Then he swung the chair.

It landed with a solid impact, and the corpse was thrown off its limited balance. He hit it again before it could recover, and down it went. He swung the chair a third time, fouling its immediate attempt to rise.

Hayes was through the door into the crematorium, and Anduron struck yet again. This time the corpse shielded itself with an arm, and then caught hold of the chair. It yanked the makeshift weapon out of his hands and smashed it into the floor, breaking it apart.

It got up, and Anduron had nothing else to slow it down with. Nothing save for himself.

“I mean it, Hayes!” he shouted as he snatched his fedora off. “Do it or we both die!”

He flung the hat at the corpse as it came at him, landing it pretty neatly over its face. It was only a moment of obscured vision, but it was the moment Anduron needed. He would have gone for the gut, but the thing already wasn’t breathing, so instead he sidestepped and kicked low. He caught the sending’s ankle and tripped it. The fall, of course, didn’t hurt it, and Anduron knew he would die if he pounced on it for a grapple. But it was another moment. Another precious moment.

He circled a bit as the corpse started getting up, and kicked at the back of its head. That tipped it forward, back to the floor. Another moment. And that was all Anduron dared.

He went around this ceaseless foe, around its grasping arm, and ran into the crematorium. It was a fairly small space, for a neat little farewell with a few close kin. The furnace was built into the wall opposite the door, with a sliding shelf for the caskets. Hayes was indeed frantically working the knobs next to the furnace, and Anduron heard the hiss of gas.

He swung the door shut. He found no key in the lock, but grabbed a tall, decorative lamp and jammed it behind the door handle as a makeshift bar.

A moment later, the sending beat its fist into the sturdy door, shaking it.

“Hurry, you villain, hurry.”

“I’m doing it!” Hayes whined. Anduron was certain he would have taken to his feet already, if there was any other way out of the room.

It only took until the third blow before the door was splintering. Hayes triggered a spark within the cremation chamber, and Anduron heard a soft whoosh of flames. The sending’s arm now burst through the door and twisted to seize Anduron. Dead fingers clawed at his face from a few inches away, and as more wood gave way they got closer.

Anduron released the lamp and fell back. The sending gripped the opening it had created with both hands and tore into it. Two seconds later the door broke apart into several pieces and the dead man burst into the room. Hayes yelped.

“Open it!” Anduron demanded, as the corpse came at him.

He tried to weave and feint, but there just wasn’t a lot of space to move. And it finally caught a hold of him. Those dead fingers grabbed the front of his coat, and the other hand immediately followed. The sending went for his throat. Anduron remembered what it had done to Faeler’s guard, a man considerably larger than himself. He squirmed, he twisted, he bucked and kicked, but the cold fingers still closed in a choking grip, and Anduron’s best efforts could only slow things down slightly.

What he did manage to do was nudge their struggle so that he had his back to the wall, next to the door.

With that, he put his spine up against the wall, pressed both feet against the dead man’s chest, and put every ounce of his strength and spirit and will to live into one moment, one supreme effort.

The corpse was pushed back, off him, and the back of its knees hit the furnace shelf. Anduron sprang from the wall, and though his whole body felt spent and bruised, though he was already feeling the exhaustion that was to come, he sent a high kick into the sending’s chest. That fully tipped it over, and it landed on the shelf.

As before, it had no air to knock out, no sense of pain to shock it, and so he had to act instantly. He grabbed the end of the shelf, and somehow managed another effort. He pushed the shelf into the fire, and the corpse along with it. As it tried to turn around in the confined space, Anduron swung the lid closed and turned the little crank that sealed it.

He stepped away, on legs that felt like leaden pendulums rather than parts of his body, as the corpse began clawing and beating as it tried to get out.

It was an unpleasant listen. His mind knew there was nothing in there save for dead flesh and a bit of magic. But it took the shape of a person, which was now trapped in fire. Those were the sounds a person made as they fought for an escape. Except a person would, of course, be screaming.

Hayes had run out of the room. Anduron worried for a moment that he might go fetch a gun out a drawer somewhere, but the man simply sprinted out the back door. There was a possibility that he was dumb enough to run to a phone and call the police, and so it was time for Anduron to leave.

He gave the furnace controls a quick look, and saw that Hayes had set the gas to maximum. Since the corpse seemed to be making no progress against the metal lid, and would only become less able as its body was devoured, Anduron satisfied himself that this particular problem was solved.

He picked his hat up off the floor, and staggered out into the night.