The underground casting basement had grown cold. With the death of the Synaptic Relay Queen, the wet, pulsing emerald soft glow that had lit up the chamber began to fade, replaced by the yellow, smoky glare of four brass hardened carbon-iron lamps that Toby had hung from iron pipe brackets along the sweating stone wall.
The silence was broken only by the steady, hollow drip of foul water drops falling from the limestone ceiling into the flooded sump, and the rhythmic, scraping sound of Arthur Vance’s razor-sharp cutlery.
Arthur had stripped off his tactical coat, donning a heavy, oilcloth post-mortem apron. His sleeves were rolled past his elbows, his forearms smeared with dried salt water and green beast-blood. On an upturned iron casting mold beside the Queen’s cut head lay an array of specialized tools. Curved bone-saws, heavy dark metal-hardened carbon-iron studying probes, rib-spreaders, blood clamps, and four glass sample jars filled with stabilizing formalin solution.
Beside the table, Grimm lay flat on the flat stone slabs, his massive black chin resting across his front paws. The hound’s golden eyes followed every movement of Arthur’s hands with quiet, intelligent curiosity. His heavy flanks rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm, his tail sometimes thumping once against the stone whenever Arthur murmured a low, calm word of praise. A stray drop of skin-burning ichor dripped near the hound’s paws. Each time, Grimm curled his lip in quiet distaste. Then he tucked his toes further beneath his chest, displaying the clean…
