Sam covered the charred body of the would-be assassin with a jacket. She lamented the smell that was going to linger. She started opening up windows in the office to let the smoke of charred flesh air out. She shivered against the cold air. Haborym's warmth no longer made the room pleasant. Lisa was waking up.

  Sam went over to the young woman and helped her into a chair.

  "What happened?" said Lisa. "Last thing I remember was..."

  Sam cut her off. "Some joker came in and tried to stab us. Well, probably me seeing as how you’re so nice. And, well, I took care of him for us. Lisa, he was gonna kill us, and I managed to get the drop on him after you passed out. Do you remember anything?"

  "I remember being angry that I was getting attacked again, angry he was threatening you, and then fire. That's all I remember," Lisa said.

  "Well," said Sam, "there was a bit of a fire. See, I managed to spill some liquor by throwing a bottle at his head. And not having a weapon to draw, I simply grabbed some matches, flicked one at him, and up he went in flames."

  Sam figured the flimsy explanation would hold up because Lisa would still be in shock.

  "Oh, oh my God, Miss Fontaine, are you all right?"

  "That's sweet of you to worry after me, Lisa," said Sam. "I'm fine. I've been in worse scrapes than that, with meaner folk trying to kill me. I do have a bit of a pickle now."

  "A pickle?"

  "I have to, unfortunately, dispose of a body. We can't assume that no one is going to be able to track this particular killing back to us on account of how it's in the office. I wonder if you're okay?"

  "I’ll be fine. Miss Fontaine, who was that man? He had such strange eyes, didn't he?"

  "Yeah, Lisa, I am not sure what that business was. I’m going to have to examine the body before I dispose of it. I want to impress on you the need for secrecy in this regard. We can't go to the soldiers about this. Any authorities we alert, well, they might consider us guilty of murder."

  Lisa nodded. "Ms. Fontaine, don't worry. That man attacked us. You did what you had to do. As far as I'm concerned, he deserved it."

  Lisa was starting to grow on Sam. She took their attack and the murder of the assassin in stride and didn't seem fazed by the charred body. The char was covered but Sam was still impressed.

  "Lisa, the next parts that I have to do are going to be a bit unpleasant."

  "Of course, Miss Fontaine. I'll head off early for the evening. As per our conversation, I'll get started on copy for a newspaper ad. That way, maybe we'll be too famous for people to start trying to murder us."

  Sam wanted to offer her a raise on the spot. She decided to wait to see if the newspaper ad brought enough business to warrant it.

  "Thank you, Lisa," said Sam. "I admire how you didn’t retch after seeing so many dead bodies in such a short space of time."

  "Oh, it's all right, Miss Fontaine. As I said, they deserved it."

  "Be that as it may, take the day off tomorrow. I’m going to need some time to figure out if this was a planned attack or just some plucky criminal trying his hand."

  Lisa gathered her belongings and headed back home. There, she would care for Missy and probably wash her hair of the smell of burnt human flesh. Sam once again resolved to go visit the house and make peace with Missy. Right now, she had an amateur autopsy to perform.

  Sam pulled her stinking jacket off the charred body Haborym left behind. The assassin had carried two daggers which Haborym had smacked away from him, burning his hands to blackened stumps.

  The daggers were black metal stilettos, sharpened on both sides, and came to wicked points. The handles were coiled snakes whose heads made the hilts of the blades. They were nice knives. She set them aside to be cleaned up. She decided maybe carrying around a pair of razor-sharp knives wasn't such a bad idea given how often she was getting into scrapes in which it sure would be pleasant to stab someone.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  She spent a second wondering about their symbolism. The man's eyes, before Haborym had scoured them from the world, were reptilian. The daggers also had a serpentine theme. Maybe he was from some kind of snake cult, or someone who worshipped a snake demon?

  Cults, religions, and worshippers of demons were not uncommon. Demons responded when you got their attention. Unlike the gods or the angels of other religions, who had remained silent for centuries. What right had the priests of the churches to extol the virtues of a silent god when one little cut of your hand would enable you to gain the attention and blessings of a demon? Some folk considered demons spirits and claimed they were not malicious in nature. The power inherent in the price and how it was paid defined the evil. The soul was a powerful thing. Blood was a powerful thing. Pain and suffering were more powerful than other, more gentle offerings. The demons accepted these because they offered more power, not because they desired them.

  Sam turned out the burnt corpse's pockets. She found precious little there. A pack of matches, unmarked and unremarkable. A cigarette lighter, the flip-top kind you poured lighter fluid into. Folk could do little tricks with those. Sam never liked the smell they imparted onto tobacco, so she used matches. They were also less prone to failure and needed no maintenance. Sam loved the simplicity of them. She liked the smell of burning brimstone when she lit a match. It reminded her of her childhood.

  Sam's early childhood was pleasant, filled with memories of her father caring for her in the big house. Then it had all gone to shit. Her father died. Murdered. She was carted off to a local orphanage but she was already too old to be adopted. Her big house was auctioned off, and not a penny of the sale was given to her, the rightful heir. She had passing familiarity with the current owners of the property. They weren't evil people. They had no idea the house contained the only happy memories of her entire life and was hers by rights. She spent her youth lamenting her loss and resolved to be the kind of person who could eventually find her father's killer and exact revenge.

  As she grew, the desire for simple survival outweighed her desire for revenge. She laid memories of her father to the side while she decided to rise up in the world. She'd lately come to question that choice. One's life could only be threatened so many times before one started to reconsider priorities.

  Finding nothing on the man's person to identify him, she decided to look on the body for any distinct markings. She removed the man's charred hood, which was oiled canvas. The man's mask had been burned away. The hood covered the shoulders, protecting the wearer from wind and rain. Under the hood, he wore a leather jacket and buttoned shirt. The jacket had no inside pockets and no distinct markings. She unbuttoned the shirt. There on the man's chest was tattooed a cross wrapped in roses. The roses were red. Thorned vines wrapped the cross. The entire thing nearly covered the man’s whole chest. She had never seen the symbols before, except maybe in a stained glass window in a church. The man otherwise had no markings or distinct features.

  The nature of this attempt on her life was perplexing. The man seemed surprised that Sam had an employee, which meant they were not actively watching her. This seemed remarkably amateurish. If this was a professional killer, they were not particularly good at it. In addition, if this was a professional killer, why was his attempt on her life so sloppy? She would expect someone who murdered for money to be well-skilled with the implements of their trade. Sam was easily able to dodge his attacks.

  If this was not a specific, concerted attempt on her life, what was it then? Could this have just been some criminal who wore a hood and mask and didn't know they were trying to rob a private investigator?

  She finished her investigation of the body. The slim list of clues were the rose cross tattoo on his chest, the two serpent daggers, and the reptilian eyes. Sam felt she had enough to go on. But it was time to dispose of the body.

  "Trashwater, are you around? Can you hear me?"

  The little rat came and went as he pleased. He had been charged by the Spirit of the City with protecting Sam. He’d be put out that the dereliction of his duties had included an attempt on her life. She resolved to rub it in thick given that they had quarreled a bit the last time they spoke. The rat had admonished her about keeping a partially possessed young woman in her company, and specifically in her employ.

  She would have to explain the nature of the agreement with Haborym to Trashwater without revealing too many specifics. The rat had become a friend to her, and she didn't want to treat her friends badly. Even if they were a bit preachy, and a rat.

  Sam wasn't quite sure how to take care of the body. She thought of chopping it into pieces, wrapping it up with butcher paper, taking a part at a time out into the sewers where she could get Trashwater to talk some local rats into eating up the evidence. There had been increased attention from the authorities on the sewers lately, ever since they had discovered the bodies of dozens upon dozens of animals and a few human corpses.

  The sewers and the rats not being an option, Sam then realized she was going to have to go the old-fashioned way. Chop up the corpse, put it in weighted bags, and throw it off the pier, a part at a time. She rolled up her sleeves and got to it. After about an hour, she had neat packages of assassin limbs and organs and bones all wrapped up and ready to be taken care of.

  She waited a few more hours for the city to go to sleep and counted on the fact that most folk wouldn't be out in the cold even if they were awake. She started taking body parts outside.

  In the morning, bright and early, she was going to go visit her friend Emil Vargas. It was high time she found out who was trying to kill her.