Angua decided to go straight to Pseudopolis Yard rather than a closer Watch house. That was HQ, after all, and besides, she always kept a spare uniform in her locker.

What was annoying was that Sally walked so easily in six-inch heels. That was vampires for you. She had taken hers off and was carrying them; it was that or turn an ankle. The Pink PussyCat Club had a fairly limited choice of footwear. There wasn’t much to choose from in the way of clothing, either, if by clothing you meant something that actually made an attempt to cover anything.

Angua had been rather surprised that the stage wardrobe had included a female Watch outfit, but with skimpy papier-mâché armor and a skirt that was much too short to be any protection. Tawneee had explained, rather carefully, that men sometimes liked to see a pretty girl in armor. To Angua, who’d found that men she was apprehending never looked very pleased to see her, this was food for thought.

She’d settled for a sequined gold dress, which just didn’t work. Sally had picked something simple and cut to the thigh, in blue, which, of course, had become stunning the moment she’d put it on. She looked fabulous.

So when Angua strode into the main office, slamming the big doors back, and there was a derisory wolf-whistle, the unwise watchman found himself being pushed backwards until he was slammed against the wall. He felt two sharp points pressed against his neck as Angua growled, “You want a wolf, do you? Say no, Sergeant Angua.”

“No, Sergeant Angua!”

“You don’t? I was probably mistaken then, was I?” The points pressed a little harder. In the man’s mind, steely talons were about to pierce his jugular.

“Couldn’t say for sure, Sergeant Angua!”

“My nerves are a tad stretched right now!” Angua howled.

“Hadn’t noticed, Sergeant Angua!”

“We’re all a little bit on edge at the moment, wouldn’t you say!”

“That’s ever so true, Sergeant Angua!”

Angua let the man’s boot reach the ground. She put two black, shiny, and noticeably pointed heels into his unresisting hands.

“Could you do me a really big favor, please, and take these back up to the Pink PussyCat Club?” she said sweetly. “They belong to someone called Sherilee, I think. Thank you.”

She turned and looked over to the duty desk, where Carrot was watching her with his mouth open. Well aware of the stir she was causing, she walked up to the desk past an audience of shocked faces and threw a muddy necklace down onto the open Incident Book.

“Four dwarfs murdered by other dwarfs, down in the Long Dark,” she said. “I’ll bet my nose on it. That belonged to one of them. He’d also got this.” A muddy envelope was dropped by the necklace. “It’s pretty slimy, but you can read it. Mister Vimes is going to go postal.” She looked up into the blue eyes of Carrot. “Where is he?”

“Sleeping on a mattress in his office,” said Carrot, and shrugged. “Lady Sybil knew he wouldn’t go home, so she got Willikins to make up a bed down here. Are you two all right?”

“Fine, sir,” said Sally.

“I was getting very worried—” Carrot began.

“Four dead dwarfs, Captain,” said Angua. “City dwarfs. That’s what you should be worrying about. Three half-buried, this one crawled away.”

Carrot picked up the necklace and read the runes.

“Lars Legstrong,” he said. “I think I know the family. Are you sure he was murdered?”

“Throat cut. It’d be hard to call it suicide. But he took some time to die. He made it to one of their damn doors, which they’d locked shut, and scrawled one of their signs on it in his own blood. Then he sat down and waited to die in the dark. In the damn dark, Carrot! They were working dwarfs! They had shovels and wheelbarrows! They were down there doing a job, and when they weren’t needed anymore they got the chop! Hacked down and left for the mud! He might even still have been alive down there when Mister Vimes and I went in. Behind their bloody thick door, dying by inches. And do you know what this means?”

She pulled a folded piece of card out of her bodice and passed it over.

“A drinks menu?” said Carrot.

“Open it,” snapped Angua. “I’m sorry it’s written in lipstick, it was all we could find.”

Carrot flipped it open. “Another dark symbol?” he said. “I don’t think I know this one.”

There were other dwarf officers in the office. Carrot held up the symbol.

“Does anyone here know what this means?”

A few helmeted heads shook, and a few dwarfs backed away, but a deep voice from the doorway said: “Yes, Captain Carrot. I suspect I do. Does it look like an eye with a tail?”

“Yes…er…sir?” said Carrot, staring. A shadow moved.

“It was drawn in the dark? By a dying dwarf? In his own blood? It is the Summoning Dark, Captain, and it will be moving. Good morning to you. I am Mr. Shine.”

Carrot’s jaw dropped as the watchmen turned to look at the newcomer. He loomed in the doorway, almost as broad as he was tall, in a black cloak and hood that hid any possible feature.

“The Mr. Shine?” he said.

“Regrettably so, Captain, and can I charge you to see that no one in this room leaves for a few minutes after I do? I like to keep my movements…private.”

“I didn’t think you were real, sir!”

“Believe me, young man, I wish it were possible to keep you in that happy state,” said the hooded figure. “However, my hand is forced.”

Mr. Shine stepped forward, pulling a rangy figure into the room. It was a troll, whose look of sullen defiance did not quite manage to conceal knee-knocking terror.

“This is Brick, Captain. I deliver him back into the personal custody of your Sergeant Detritus. He has information of use to you. I have heard his story. I believe him. You must move fast. The Summoning Dark may already have found a champion. What else…oh yes, be sure not to keep that symbol in a dark place. Keep light around it at all times. And now, if you will excuse the theatricals—”

The black robe twitched. Hard, white, blinding light filled the room for a second. When it had gone, so had Mr. Shine. All that was left was a large, round stone on the stained floor.

Carrot blinked, and then pulled himself together.

“All right, you heard,” he said to the suddenly animated room at large. “No one is to follow Mr. Shine, understood?”

“Follow him, Captain?” said a dwarf. “We’re not mad, you know!”

“Dat’s right,” said a troll. “Dey say he can reach inside o’ you an’ stop your heart!”

“Mr. Shine?” said Angua. “Is he what they’ve been writing about on the walls?”

“It looks like that,” said Carrot shortly. “And he said we don’t have much time. Mr…. Brick, was it?”

While Chrysophrase’s trolls had contrived to swagger while standing still, Brick just managed to huddle all alone. You usually need two to huddle, but here was a troll trying to hide behind himself. No one could hide behind Brick; for a troll, he was stick-thin to the point of knobbliness. His lichen was cheap and matted, not the real thing at all, probably the stuff they made up out of broccoli stalks in the back alleys of Quarry Lane. His belt of skulls was a disgrace; some of them were clearly the papier-mâché kind that could be bought from any joke shop. One had a red nose.

He looked around nervously, and there was a thud as his club dropped from his fingers.

“I’m in deep copro, right?” he said.

“Certainly we need to talk to you,” said Carrot. “Do you want a lawyer?”

“No, I ate already.”

“You eat lawyers?” said Carrot.

Brick gave him an empty stare until sufficient brain had been mustered.

“What d’y’call dem fings, dey kinda crumble when you eat dem?” he ventured.

Carrot looked at Detritus and Angua, to see if there was going to be any help there.

“Could be lawyers,” he conceded.

“Dey go soggy if you dips ’em in somfing,” said Brick, as if undertaking a forensic examination.

“More likely to be biscuits, then?” Carrot suggested.

“Could be. Inna packet wi’ all paper on. Yeah, biscuits.”

“What I meant,” said Carrot, “was when we talk to you, do you want someone to be on your side?”

“Yes please. Everyone,” said Brick promptly. To be the center of attention in a room full of watchmen was his worst nightmare. No, hold on, what about dat time when he had dat bad Slab wot had bin cut wi’ ammonium nitrate? Whooo! Good-bye lobes! Yep! Den dis was his second worst nightmar—no, come to fink of it, dere was dis time when he had dat stuff wot Hardcore jacked off’f One-Eyed Goddam, whee, yes! Who knows where dat has bin! All dem dancin’ teef! So dis was his—hey, wait, remember dat time you got lunched on Scrape an’ your arms flew away? Okay, dat was bad, so maybe dis was his…wait, wait, of course, can’t be forgetting der day when you got baked on Sliver and blew powdered zinc up you nose an’ thought you’d thrown up your feet? Aargh, here come dat time again when you’d, aargh no, when you’d, aargh—

Brick had got as far as his nineteenth worst nightmare before Carrot’s voice cut through the snakes.

“Mr. Brick?”

“Er…is dat still me?” said Brick nervously. He could really, really do some Slab right now…

“Generally your advocate is one person,” said Carrot. “We’re going to have to ask you some difficult questions. You’re allowed to have someone to help you. Perhaps you have a friend we could fetch?”

Brick pondered this. The only people he could think of in this context were Totally Slag and Big Marble, although more correctly they fell into the category of “people dat don’t fro fings at me much and let me glom a bit o’ Slab sometimes” Right now, these did not seem ideal qualifications.

He pointed to Sergeant Detritus.

“Him,” he said. “He helped me find my teef.”

“I’m not sure a serving officer is—” Carrot began.

“I’ll volunteer for the role, Captain,” said a little voice. Carrot peered over the edge of the desk.

“Mr. Pessimal? I don’t think you should be out of bed.”

“Uh…I am, in fact, acting lance constable, Captain,” said A.E. Pessimal, politely yet firmly. He was on crutches.

“Oh? Er…right,” said Carrot. “But, I still think you shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“Nevertheless, justice must be served,” said A. E. Pessimal.

Brick bent down and peered closely at the inspector. “It’s dat gnome from last night,” he said. “Don’t want him!”

“You can’t think of anyone?” said Carrot.

Brick thought again, and at last brightened up.

“Yeah, I can,” he said. “Easy. Someone to help me answer der questions, right.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, easy peas. If you can fetch that dwarf I saw down in dat new dwarf mine last night, he’d help me.”

The room went deadly quiet.

“And why would he do that?” said Carrot carefully.

“He could tell you why he was hitting dat other dwarf onna head,” said Brick. “I mean, I don’t know. But I ’spect he won’t wanna come on account of me bein’ a troll, so I’ll stick with the sergeant, if it’ all der same to you.”

“I think this is going too far, Captain!” said A. E. Pessimal.

In the silence that followed this, Carrot’s voice sounded very loud.

“I think this, Mr. Pessimal, is the point where we wake up Commander Vimes.”