‘Who was it that what? Come on, I’ve got punters waiting. What are you on about?’

+Lana. Please let me see. Who did this to you?+

‘Who did what to me? Look, I haven’t got all night,’ she breathed. ‘Show me some money, mister.’

I reached into my pocket and produced three crowns. The air was very cold. My breath was steaming, and so were the open wounds on the corpse in front of me. On the trunk, image Lana swung her leg.

‘That’ll do it,’ she said. ‘What do you want? Full service, all the stuff?’ She stood up abruptly and reached down to pull her dress off over her head. It was only then that she seemed to notice the body on the floor.

The image stared down at it for a long time, her hands frozen in the act of bunching up her dress to drag it over and off. When she looked at me again, her eye make-up was blotted and running.

‘When?’ she asked.

+Not long ago.+

‘Oh, Throne. What did I ever do to deserve that?’

+Nothing. Lana, I want to know who it was. Will you show me?+

She showed me.

She showed me, her voice growing steadily quieter and quieter, and when she was done, she faded altogether without any protest, casting me one last, hurt look with her make-up-stained eyes.

I took off my storm coat and laid it over the corpse.

Outside, dawn was no more than an hour away. The rain had eased off and the Cackle had dropped in intensity. Zelwyn stood by the waiting militia transports, taking repeated draws from an old hip flask. When I walked up, he offered it to me. I took a big swallow.

‘Are you–?’ he began

‘I need a moment.’ The work had drained me, not so much sapping my will as abrading my emotions.

‘Can the details move in, at least?’ he asked.

I nodded. Several militia officers and two coroners with a stretcher went into the warehouse at Zelwyn’s nod. After a few minutes, someone brought me my coat.

I gestured to Zelwyn and walked away in the direction of the New Bridge.

‘It’s a good thing I stayed,’ I told him. ‘This turns out to be an ordo matter after all.’

‘A cult?’

‘No, and not a hunter either… At least it could be either of those things, but that’s not what makes it an ordo matter. We’re dealing with a regia occulta.’

‘Hidden way,’ he translated. Zelwyn was no fool, he had High Gothic.

‘That’s the literal translation. In the Ordo Malleus, it has a more specific meaning.’

‘Go on.’

‘A regia occulta is a pathway… A tunnel or portal, if you like, that links our reality with that of the warp.’

‘Is it a deliberate thing?’ he asked.