Outcasts Always Mourn

Jack had written the note not in blood, but in purple ink. Yet it still contained the same message of doom.

I WILL TAKE FIVE SOON.

Scudder frowned and gripped the paper tighter. Pascal couldn't help him; Pascal couldn't help anyone with the state he was in. He only had Alex and a few colleagues from the Thief's kitchen. There was Mary Sue, who was an assassin, and Charlie. And of course Ronnie, always Ronnie.

He didn't know how they could stop Jack. Two nights ago, Jack had killed Oliver and Martha.

And to think that when Jack had first appeared, they had thought it was only rumoured!

But Pascal had suggested something. Something that just might work.

He got up from his perch on the edge of the bed. He would talk with Wulfric and Alex.

He ran out of the Thief's Kitchen and made it through the alleyways and tunnels until he got to the better part of town. Huge ancient trees overshadowed the gardens, which now had lilacs and lupin blooming.

He marched in through the doors, as confident as any rich hedonist.

"Wulfric!" he called. "Alex?"

He turned into the hallway until he was in the parlour.

Wulfric was sitting on a couch and flipping through a collection of Romantic poetry. Alex was on a chair, tapping a paw impatiently and looking rather bored.

"Could you help me?" he said.

"With what?" said Wulfric, scowling.

"Jack'll kill 5 people soon."

"I don't know if you've realized this," said Wulfric, rising from his seat, "but I am a simple painter. I have no experience whatsoever with fighting fiends."

"But that's the point, you don't have to!" said Scudder, holding out the spidersilk spool and a few needles he had found in a corner of the Thief's Kitchen. "You just have to know how to sew."

"I would be a tailor, you know before I took up painting and poetry," said Wulfric.

"I'm sure I can learn," said Alex. "But what exactly are we doing?"

"I'll lead Jack into the Rift, and then you'll sow it up with the spidersilk. And if I can't get out, you'll take care of Maurice."

"I can do that," said Alex.

"I suppose I could," said Wulfric.

And so they headed down to The Rift, which was in an alley next to the Thief's Kitchen.

"We'll have to come out here at night," said Ernie. "Alex, could you maybe tell everyone to stay in the Registered Common Lodging tonight? And tell them they don't have to pay."

Alex owned the Registered Common Lodging, it was a cover for his gang. Hepreffered calling it an Inn though, it made it sound more respectful and decent.

"Fine," said Alex, eyes narrowing.

"I'm going to go talk with Maurice and everyone 'till then."

Scudder slipped into the Thief's Kitchen.

"Maurice?" he said.

Maurice's fluffy grey, blue-horned head poked out of a corner. "Yes, Father?"

"You don't have to call me that, you know."

"Yes, but you tell all those stories and give me food, and that one time you got that small book of poems and tried to read it for me, and-"
"All right. Just... I might disappear, all right? I might die, or somesuch, like Oliver. But if I do, Jack'll be gone, I promise."