Gazing at the body, that expression only deepened on Layanna’s face—something like sadness, but not, Avery thought, for the dead man.

“The condition of the body closely matches that of several of the corpses found in Janx’s apartment the night you escaped from Fort Brunt,” Denaris said. “Torn apart and melted by acid, hurled with great force. Other bodies were charred, as if electrocuted. More were filled with a type of poison never seen before. I’ve had other doctors than Donnel take a look at this body, and scientists, too. No one can determine what did this.”

“It wasn’t me,” Layanna said.

“I didn’t imagine it was,” Denaris said. “It was found while you were away. But do you agree that it bears all the hallmarks of someone slain by one of your kind?”

Janx shared a long, hard look with Avery, who nodded.

“Yes,” Layanna said. “Though the body is badly deteriorated, it was most likely one of my kind that slew this man.” To Avery, she added, “We have one more problem to contend with, then.”

There was something peculiar in her voice as she said this. It was not worry, he thought, nor fear. It was, once again, sadness. Perhaps even longing.

*   *   *

“Great, another R’loth in the city,” Janx said, sipping on a fine glass of wine. They were in a study of the Parliament Building, just having dined with Prime Minister Denaris and her family—comprised of two lovely daughters somewhat older than Ani and an unnaturally handsome, bland and fit husband, Michael.

“Looks that way,” Avery agreed, staring out a window. Lights twinkled in the nighttime city. Far away, Fort Brunt loomed, sinister and hulking, and he wondered if Sheridan were staring out one of its windows toward him, the city between them, like players over a chessboard. Like Idris and Ajaun. The Voryses … Ani …

“Guess he’s a Collossum, right?” Hildra said. “I mean, a R’loth changed to look human? He wouldn’t be ... unchanged?”

“Most likely a Collossum,” Avery agreed.

“So he could be anyone. You go pokin’ around in the sewers, keep that in mind.”

“You, too. I intend to take you with me if I go.”

“Fuck that.”

Avery shook his head. “I still can’t believe there are mutants living in the sewers.”

“Believe it,” Janx said.

Avery tried to picture such a settlement and failed. Moving on, he said, “How long has the Collossum been here, I wonder?”

“You don’t think he just showed up?”

“There’s no reason to think so. Layanna did not feel his—or her—or its—presence when we entered the city, so there’s no reason to think she would have before. The Collossum could have been here for years.”

“Decades,” Hildra said.

“So, then, the question is why now is it exerting itself? Why is it killing people, or at least allowing their bodies to be found? It must have been killing since its arrival. That’s how these creatures live, how they sustain their extradimensional capabilities, eating intelligent beings with the sea in their blood. It could be that’s why it’s chosen the sewers, if it has. A large population of infected live there, so you say, disenfranchised and unlikely or unable to go to the authorities for help.”

“So we’ll investigate?”

“I would like to,” Avery said. “Ideally we would find the Collossum. That’s where she will have taken it—Sheridan. That’s where she’ll have taken the relic. That’s why Davic sent her here. I had thought he must mean her to take it to Haggarty, but no. He meant for her to take it to this Collossum, I’m certain of it.”

“Why does the Collie need it?”

“No idea. Davic said his contact here had the right machines for the job, whatever that is. In any case, I assume Sheridan will deliver the relic to him, if she hasn’t already, possibly through Gaescruhd, if what I suspect is true.”

“What’s that?”

“Remember that night we spied on him and Sheridan?” he asked Hildra.

“I’ll never forget it.”

“Gaescruhd had to make a phone call to get permission from someone to kill Layanna. He couldn’t make the decision to kill a Collossum himself. I believe this Collossum, the one committing the murders, is that individual—Gaescruhd’s link to the R’loth. It was this individual that approached him initially, or one of its underlings, and contracted him to their service. They needed a powerful underworld figure, and Gaescruhd was it. Meanwhile they set about seizing control of the upper-world, too, through Sheridan and Haggarty.”

“Okay, but what are the machines for?” Janx said.

“I don’t know. Apparently he or she, whatever the Collossum is, intends to do something with the artifact taken from the Atoshan monastery. Activate it, perhaps. Perhaps it’s a beacon to signal the Starfish, to draw it here. Or ... well, it could be anything. We must find out what the artifact is and, very likely, stop the Collossum from using it.”

“So what’s the plan?” Hildra said.

“From what Gwen told us, apparently the man who found the body—and many others—a man named Jeffers—is a hard fellow to track down. She has agents out combing the sewers for him, but until he can be located and is able to show Denaris’s people where the bodies originated from—and Jeffers is the only one to have reported them—until then we can’t know where the Collossum is. Or, at least, where it killed those people.”

“Figures,” Janx said.

“Won’t see me complaining,” Hildra said. “Last thing I wanna do is fight a Collie.”

“In any case, we must let it go for now,” Avery said. “Maybe we can confront the Collossum later, when Denaris is able to locate Jeffers. Until then, we have a different priority. Nothing is more important than dealing with the Starfish.”

Leaving them, Avery entered the suite Ani and Layanna had been given. Layanna had not elected to join them for drinks, as she’d been tense and moody all day since viewing the body. He didn’t see her in the living room of the suite, and Ani barely looked up as he shut the door.

“Is she asleep?” he asked. Ani was watching a boxy television set, black and white images flickering across her pretty, scarred face. Ani had never had a television all to herself before, unless it happened in Octung when he hadn’t been around, and it seemed to transfix her utterly.

“Huh?” she said. “Oh. Yeah. She’s not in a good mood. She didn’t want to watch the show with me. Neither did Kara or Willi.” These were Denaris’s two daughters. They had acted polite toward Ani over dinner, but they had seemed a bit stand-offish, too, perhaps afraid of this strange girl with her strange scars, brought back from the dead and hunted by gods. Their attitude had seemed to get Ani down, and Avery wasn’t surprised to see her shutting herself away, but it didn’t please him.

“Hey, will you?” she added. “Watch it with me?”

On the screen a man in an obvious rubber suit, some sort of monster, attacked an actor who shot it with a prop gun. Little puffs of white smoke exploded from the gun, and the monster, which looked like some sort of mutant vegetable, gave a very un-vegetable-like groan but kept going. The image switched to a beautiful woman crying out, then back to the bold hero, clicking on an empty chamber just as the monster arrived.

The program cut to a commercial. The host of the show, wearing bad make-up supposed to make him look scaled, held up a box of detergent, extolling its virtues, then the show cut to local ads.

“Maybe I’ll watch it with you after I check on Layanna,” Avery said, and made for her room.

“Wait!” Ani leaned forward, turning the volume knob up. “Watch! It’s for a movie.”

“That’s nice, but—”

“Watch!”

The newest advertisement was indeed a preview of a coming attraction—Vengeance from the Grave, starring some actors Avery had never heard of. Like the one Ani was currently watching, this one was a low-budget B horror movie, though the one advertised appeared slightly more artistic. The main character was a man who died only to have a witch bring him back to life in order to wreak vengeance on the men that killed him, as they were her enemies, too. But the man did not enjoy being her puppet and had to fight her as well as the gangsters, pitting one party against the other.