"No," said Little Sister. "It will. Let's go."

The smell of the corpses grew stronger as they ascended the stairs. When they reached them, the Sisters were indeed pleased, but not for the reasons the Ichorites were thinking.

The Sisters of No Mercy quickly assessed the situation two corpses with their throats cut; the other sliced open along the underside of the belly, with bits of him still hanging out.

"Interesting," said Little Sister.

"Very," Big Sister agreed.

"The two gooks at the door were taken out with minimum fuss, leaving plenty of time for interrogating the Information Master."

"In more ways than one," said Big Sister.

"Quite. These gooks can count themselves lucky."

"Very lucky."

"But not that that lucky." lucky."

"Not fucking lucky at all."

Little Sister sat on her haunches and examined the Information Master. "Looks like he had one of his eyes removed first."

"Looks like he did."

"I guess it was a case of, Tell me, bitch, or I'll skewer the fucking other one."

"Guess it was."

"Well " Little Sister stood up "this Information Master looks like he was one hell of a fat cunt. The Gutter must have had himself a rare old treat."

"A very rare treat."

"But not as rare as we'll be having."

"No," said Big Sister, "not so fucking rare as that at all."

The Gutter entered the foyer of the Salon and was immediately accosted by two receptionists who asked him brusquely to declare his business.

"Catastrophe," he said, and proceeded to knock them unconscious with the butt of the Gutting Knife.

He hastened into the auditorium, where a debate involving about fifty attendants was fully underway.

Gradually, the feverish exchange between rival factions began to subside as the whiff of the Gutter spread among them like a toxic fume. Heads were turned. A mixture of bewilderment and disgust washed over their faces like a vapour.

"What is the meaning of this?" declared one wizened old scroat with a coiffed mustachio.

The Gutter fixed a stare on him. The mustachio drooped, perhaps for the first time ever.

"I have a message for the Psychomatics," he said.

The faces of the Catastrophists turned pale in unison.

"Tell them," said the Gutter, "I'll be waiting outside."

Which is where he was now, on the opposite side of Patron's Way, making no attempt to hide himself. He wanted to be seen. Or maybe they would smell him first.

Either way, he didn't have to wait long. And it was interesting. Because when the Psychomatics stepped out of the Salon they arranged themselves in a line and stared straight at him through the crowd four of them, all fit-looking fucks with headscarves wrapped around their No, there were five a lithe little bitch who looked like a wastrel, hardly noticeable at all.

The Gutter caught her eye and grinned. She was the one. And all the time she stared straight at him.

Clearly, she had recognised him for what he was.

The Light That Never Shines had dressed herself in a skin that made her look as ordinary as possible. As she led the Psychomatics out of the Salon, she quickly assessed the crowd. Within seconds, she saw him.

"There," she said. "Across the street."

"The filthy one?"

She gave a single nod.

"Stop here," she said. "Stare at him. I want to get a measure of his reactions, see if I can work out a weakness."

She couldn't. He didn't give her time.

Instead, he grinned and vanished up a lane that led into the Cerebral District an interesting choice.

"The dog wants for us to follow him," said one of her companions.

"All right," said the Light That Never Shines. "Let's do what the dog says."

The Covenant of Ichor were an underground sect of religious fanatics who adhered to the belief that it was the role of women to moderate the predominance of their masculine counterparts with whatever ruthless or violent measures were necessary.

The Sisters of No Mercy had, on occasions, aligned themselves to the Ichorites on the pretext of being volunteer assassins who were sympathetic to the Ichorite cause. The Ichorites were in awe of the Sisters, and saw them, perhaps, as a physical embodiment of an ethereal female influence which, they believed, permeated every aspect of animal, vegetable and mineral existence.

"And who's to say they're not fucking right?" Little Sister had said.

"Fucking right," Big Sister agreed. "Even though they're fucking wrong." right," Big Sister agreed. "Even though they're fucking wrong."

But they weren't wrong about other things. They weren't wrong, for example, about where the Gutter had taken up his temporary residence in the City of Thrills.

"Interesting choice," remarked Little Sister when the leader of the local order told them.

"Very interesting," said Big Sister.

"But not a good one."

"No," said Big Sister, "not fucking good at all."

Little Sister turned to face the leader of the local order. "So, he killed the servitors and spilled their guts in the basement, right?"

"Right," said the leader of the local order. "The place is his."

"And now he's playing some game of chase with these fuckers from the Salon."

"Yes. It appears he's leading them to the Museum itself."

Little Sister looked at Big Sister. "What do you think, Sister?"

"I think he's fucking leading them into a fucking trap."

"Why?" said Little Sister.

"Because he's after someone."

"Who?" said Little Sister.

"Someone he wants to lead into a fucking trap."

"But," said Little Sister, "who the fuck would be dumb enough to fall for that?"

Big Sister smiled. "Someone who thinks they can trap him back."

"Someone like us?"

Big Sister nodded. "Someone very very like us." like us."

"But not as good."

Big Sister frowned. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

The Museum of Darkest Arts was one of the most forgotten buildings in the entire city. To call it a Museum, in fact, was something of a misnomer. In truth, it was more a repository of disastrous failures accumulated over eons of artistic endeavour which had resulted, naturally, in its fair share of flops. Many of these flops had come to rest in the Museum of Darkest Arts, which had acquired its name more in jest than in earnest.

The building itself was largely obscured by the buildings around it, which wasn't a bad thing. Inside, it consisted of innumerable corridors, stairways and halls, all of which were bent out of shape and designed as if by an architect bordering on insanity. The near darkness of its interior was also patrolled by two decrepit servitors who were now lying dead in one of its many basements their throats cut, their bellies razed.

The Light That Never Shines could sense the aura of death when she entered, but couldn't be sure if this was the result of a mathematical or sensory deduction. She was sure, however, about her plan.

"We split up," she said, ignoring the uneasy looks of her companions.

She was reckoning on implementing an increased number of distractions by instructing the Psychomatics to wander separately through the Gutter's hunting ground. If they remained as a group, the Gutter would monitor them and trap them too easily. By multiplying the targets, she would improve the ratio of possibilities as regards turning the hunter into the hunted.

It was all about odds; and, from the point of view of saving her skins, her plan was absolutely necessary.

Toran Finniff was a specialist in pyrotechnics who had joined the Psychomatics over a year ago. He wasn't adept at stealth missions like this one. He was usually a behind-the-scenes man who preferred operating from afar.

Which made him easy meat for the Gutter, who leapt out from behind a garish figurine fashioned in the likeness of fuck knows what.

The Gutter plunged the Gutting Knife into the man's abdomen and dragged it sidewise with a vicious twist that tore a gash across his belly. The Gutter felt the warmth of entrails spilling over his hand, and it was good.

Toran Finniff didn't scream when he was riffed, but merely exhaled like a punctured bladder. When he hit the ground, he groaned in despair at his sudden demise. The groan wafted like one of the Gutter's smells through the gloomy halls and corridors of the Museum.

The Gutter was pleased by this effect.

It would scare the living shit out of them.

The Jiggler was an assassin who specialised in the use of a blow pipe loaded with poison darts. The environmental drawbacks of the Museum of Darkest Arts displeased him.

He had found himself emerging from a staircase onto a causeway suspended over a space of darkness which he took to be some kind of architectural feature.

He leaned over the railing and peered.

Nothing.

He leaned back and flinched when he heard the lingering groan of someone dying. He froze and listened.

The noise of the groan was coming from everywhere.

The Jiggler hastened across the causeway and entered a meandering corridor where the Gutter was waiting for him with a grin on his lips that writhed like worms.

A blow pipe was useless under such circumstances.

Even as the Jiggler backed off from his attacker, the blows were reigning down on his chest, splitting his ribs like bits of kindling and bursting the organs underneath.

The Jiggler neither screamed nor groaned. He spluttered.