Shards of moonlight somehow found their way through cracks and fissures in the cave ceiling to bathe parts of the tunnels in a hazy silver blue. Master Craven had been so kind as to provide him with a map. If this map were by anyone else’s hand, Scapegrace would have dismissed it as crudely drawn – but the Master’s work was a deceptively childlike scrawl that implied more than it showed. As such, even though Scapegrace was having trouble working out where exactly they were going, he had a much deeper cultural understanding of where he had been.

Thrasher hurried up, looking anxious. “Master Scapegrace,” he whispered. “I think we have a problem.”

Scapegrace scowled and shone his flashlight straight into Thrasher’s face.

“It’s one of the zombies,” Thrasher said, blinking quickly. “Reggie. You remember him, don’t you, sir? He has a little beard? I… I think he’s been eaten.”

Scapegrace froze. “Eaten? Someone’s eaten him?” He turned to the horde. “What did I tell you? What did I tell you about eating human flesh?” The horde looked at him dumbly. “Only I can do that and keep my thoughts intact! If any of you try it, you become a mindless, shambling zombie right out of a movie. How many times did I warn you? Eh? Well, come on. Own up. Who did it? Who ate Reggie?”

“Uh,” said Thrasher. “It wasn’t one of them, sir.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Thrasher led him back down the tunnel. The horde followed. “Reggie was walking behind us,” Thrasher said. “He was lagging a bit and I told him to hurry up, and he ignored me. I kept walking, and he was lagging even more, and I heard something, something chattering, and I looked around and…”

“Chattering, huh?”

“Very distinct chattering,” Thrasher said, shaking his head at the memory. “So I walked over, searched around a little, about to call his name, and then… I came here. I believe this to be the scene of the crime.”

“You don’t say.”

“Judging from the signs of disturbance, sir, I think he’s been eaten.”

“The signs of disturbance?”

“Yes.”

“And what would these signs of disturbance be, I wonder?” Thrasher pointed with his flashlight. “Well, I mean… the foot.” In the middle of the tunnel before them, illuminated by the flashlight, a single foot, still in its shoe, was sitting quietly.

“You worked that out all on your own?” Scapegrace said. “I’m very impressed.”

Thrasher didn’t seem capable of appreciating sarcasm, so he smiled gratefully. “Just doing my job, sir.”

Scapegrace hunkered down beside the upright foot, examined it more closely. It was severed just above the ankle, with what looked an awful lot like a big bite mark. Scapegrace couldn’t tell for sure. That stupid skeleton was the detective, not him.