3.

     Corva had conveniently forgotten to mention the Taker's mark in the ink of Kitty's contact. The girl was flighty enough - asking rubbishy questions, insisting on her own choice of work. The other Tiere were much more pliant, more easily manageable. Kitty had been trouble since birth. Corva didn't know why she hadn't left her on a church doorstep or abandoned her to the streets as an infant. Only Kitty'd had such a sweet smile. Smart too, even as a kid. Good with her hands. She made a spitting good buzzard too. Brought in a fair bit of capital most days. Kept out of sight of trouble. Oh yes, Kitty was worth something. If only she weren't so damned willful.
     Corva hadn't mentioned his hair color either; called it dark, not red. She was taking a risk with this job. If all went well, an increase in employment by this party was almost a guarantee. If Kitty mucked it up, they'd all be dead. The last think Corva needed was a panic. Best if she kept the details to herself. She paced the half a block across the street from the alley where she'd told Kitty to bring him.
     "Excuse me."
     Corva turned, surveyed her interloper with a professional glance. A boy and his mate. Both barely out of puberty. Round-cheeked, thin-lipped: eager and unsure. Still polite. Too young to have grown into their cruelty. He wouldn't last a quarter of an hour. She had time if only she could convince him that he didn't need a bed.
     She smiled; Corva had a fair smile, she knew. She still had most of her teeth and all of the ones in the front. "Yes?"
     "How much?" he asked in a nervous hush, afraid perhaps that he'd judged her wrong.
     "That depends on what you want," she said, her voice modulating to simultaneously tease and reassure.
     "For this then," he said, growing bolder. He pulled several notes from his pocket. It wasn't much, but still more than Corva had expected.
     "For that, I'll let your little friend watch." She said, "Come with me." Corva led the two boys into the alley beyond, in which she planned to later find Kitty and the Taker. After pocketing the notes, she knelt in front of her current employer. She pulled him out of his trousers, her warm breath stiffening his growing erection.
     She'd been right. He spent himself not long after she'd taken him in her mouth. His eyes shone brightly with excitement and pride. His friend watched with mixed fascination as he re-buttoned his slacks and she spit his seed out onto a rag. She turned to the watcher, "What about you, young man?"
     He looked a bit sick. "N-no. No thank you," he said backing away. "I-I haven't any money."
     "Well then, be off with you," she said, patting her customer's shoulder and giving him a slight shove toward the street.
     I have got to get out of this line of work, Corva thought. Sucking off schoolboys at a fierth a head was hardly a profitable afternoon. If only Kitty would show up with the Deadman. The meeting wasn't strictly part of the agreement, but Corva always liked to know where the money came from, especially when coin was promised. Even with half of the agreed upon amount, Corva could keep the Tiere in lodgings for at least a year, by her reckoning. She could get off the streets, set up a house with velvet curtains and a piano in the sitting room. She would be a Dame, not just a trixter with her tits beginning to drop.
     Kitty was late, the little slag. If she fouled this up, she was dead. You didn't cross the Takers, not if you wanted to wake up breathing. Corva strode the length of the alley, automatically skirting, where possible, the rubbish fouling the ground. She didn't notice them at first. They were only shadows and filth huddling the brickwork. But then a pile of rags whimpered, and she stared until she could differentiate the grey of unwashed skin from the grey of unwashed cloth.
     "My, my. What have we here?" Corva spoke as if gentling a feral creature. Two large brown eyes met hers, "It's Jimmy and Dodger and the rest, Miss. They're dead. 'E killed 'em."
     "Who did?" she asked, not doubting the validity of his statement. The other limp bundles of human clearly lacked the faintest remnants of life. In the case of one, there was little enough of him to approximate any details. She held out her hand to the the little boy. He took it, cradling his other arm to his stomach. His shoulder looked wrong.
     "It was the Deadman. See, Ed said that 'e was just a right topper what got all lost in the back ways. 'Fool enough for 'im,' Dodger said. An' we thought maybe 'e'd 'ave a bit of paper on 'im, Miss - or a coin or two. "E looked the sort. So we jumped 'im, Miss -" here he paused in his narrative to see if an apologetic look would stir her to pity. Rightly assessing that it wouldn't, he continued, "Only, well, he weren't surprised. Knocked Dodger clean cold before 'e could blink. Bashed 'is 'ead in wif a bit o' brick. There was brains everywhere, Miss. All grey jelly like. It was when 'e picked up Li'l Jim that 'e saw 'is ink clear. Shouted to us that 'e was a Deadman and to scatter, but we couldn't, Miss. 'E was too fast an' -"
     Corva stopped him short, "This Deadman, what did he look like? Was there a girl with him?"
     The little boy shrugged, wincing as he did so. "'E looked like a nice suit, Miss. An' I ain't seen no girl. Why, Miss?"
     "Here now, did you happen to notice the color of his pocket-rag?" asked Corva.
     "You mean this, Miss?" He let go of her hand to pull a blue cambric square from the inside of his shirt. "I snatched it orf 'im. Then 'e frew me inna wall. An' I 'eard this pop. An' now my shoulder's gone all funny."
     Corva gently took the fabric from him, already dirtied by his grubby hands. She brushed at a smudgy fingerprint. It was soiled through, but would come clean with a good wash. She neatly folded the fine fabric into a smaller square and, after pressing it briefly to her breast, slipped it into her bodice.
     "'Ey, Miss, that's mine," the boy protested.
     "Hush, Ducky."
     "You know that's funny, Miss. You calling me Ducky an' all. Because ducks 'ave bills, don't they? An' my name's Bill."
     She tousled Bill's hair and took his good hand in hers. "Let's get that shoulder of yours seen to, Ducks."
     Together, they left the alley, Corva leading him through a network of back ways to a Tunnel prof, who knew her. Bill, or Ducks - for she only used the one to refer to him, had unknowingly just joined the Tiere; Corva didn't think he'd mind.