“Shit,” I said, feeling my stomach recoil in horror.

A dainty, white nightdress, stained with a streak of red, lay atop a heap of sand beside the bed. The children had been removed from the room. When we’d arrived, they’d been in a state. Wide-eyed and crying, the Directress frantically attempting to get them under control.

The orphanage was just across the street from where we were staying – a stroke of fortune or perhaps misfortune you might say. As with the previous cases nobody was able to tell us anything of use. One girl had awoken and recognised her friend’s sleep clothes and, knowing the stories of the ‘sandman’, had quickly come to a conclusion as to what had transpired.

“And we were so close to where it happened,” Scarlett muttered. It didn’t seem like there was any way for us to catch this thing. It struck at random. Had a wide range. And came and went in what seemed to be a short span of time. The Lunar Knight’s eyes narrowed, and she made her way over to the windowsill.

“See something?” I asked.

She nodded without looking back at me. A small electronic device materialised in her hand. She held it over the window’s edge and a beam of blue light ran along the sill. I watched curiously. After the device emitted a short ‘beep’, she returned it to her pocket dimension and turned to face me.

“There was some red sand here. I image it came from the foot of our perpetrator. I’ve sent it back to my ship for analysis.”

“You think we can get a narrower search range?”

“Mhm. Maybe we can even pinpoint where our ‘sandman’s’ hideout is.”

***

In the morning, we met Avi outside the hotel. Scarlett looked tired. I supposed I must have too.

“There was another killing last night,” the boy said as we approached him.

“Yeah, we’ve already been to the scene,” I replied with a yawn.

“Huh?” He pulled a face. “It was on the other side of Kur though.”

“But it was right there?” I said, pointing towards the dilapidated orphanage building across the street.

“There were two then,” Avi said, his face paling.

“Have there been two in the same night prior?” Scarlett asked.

He shook his head. A definite no.

“Take us to the other site.”

***

If the previous site had made my stomach curdle then I couldn’t find the words to describe what we saw next. Blood. So much of it. The alley walls were splattered. The corpse itself was unrecognisable, but the woman who showed us to it assured us it was her son.

“Gee, it’s worse than I imagined,” Avi remarked.

“This is wrong,” Scarlett said. “Male victim. Twenty-three. Method of killing entirely different. I can’t imagine this death being linked to our sandman at all.”

She was right. Just looking at it, it had to be the work of someone else. I examined the body for a moment.

“Say, doesn’t this looked like it was being dragged?” I said.

Scarlett came to my side and looked for herself to where I was pointing.

“Hmm, it does now that you mention it.” She turned back to the deceased’s mother. “Hey, Mrs Gundy –

“Gurdy!” she replied hysterically.

“Whatever. Did you see someone else here when you found him?”

“Um, er, I might have?” she said without a smidge of confidence in her voice. “It was dark, and I was in shock. Well, now that I’m thinking about it, I’d say there was someone else. A figure that slipped away around the corner.”

She pointed to the end of the alley, where the narrow path turned. We approached the spot, the towering bricks structures to either side of us feeling more and more like they were closing in around us with each step. Just around the bend, we found a sewer drain.

“Too obvious. Too convenient,” I said.

“And yet, it’s our only clue.” Scarlett sighed.

“Well I sure as hell ain’t following you two down there, Avi said.

“How complex is the sewer system?” the Lunar Knight asked.

“Don’t know. Never been. But from what I’ve heard I’d say you’d more than likely get lost down there.”

Scarlett scratched her head for a moment. I could practically hear her gears turning furiously as she thought the situation over.

“One thing is for certain. Neither of our killers are run of the mill murderers. And to have two entirely unrelated, and equally unusual cases in the same area and same span of time, I don’t buy it. I’m willing to bet these are connected somehow.”

“What are you proposing?” I could already tell I wouldn’t like whatever it was.

“We’ll use you as bait,” she said plainly.

Yeah, no.

“The way this killing happened – torn apart, chunks bitten out of him –it was like an animal attacked him. Animals are predictable. It’ll come out again, more than likely to the same place.”

“And when it does, I’ll be here?”

“Exactly.”

“And then?”

“Then we smoke ’em,” Avi chimed in.

“Who asked you?” I said with a frown.

He giggled and his face brightened. Looking at the boy, in that moment, he reminded me of – Emilia?

“Well, it’s settled then.”

“It is?” I said resignedly.

“I’ll bring a ‘vaporisation gun’,” Avi said with a chuckle. Scarlett smiled at the remark but threw me a more serious look afterwards.

“Easy for you to be cheery when you aren’t the bait,” I muttered. Still Scarlett and Avi seemed to be in agreement on the plan of action. Wasn’t I tagging along because it was meant to be safer? What the hell had I gotten myself into? I made a silent prayer that I wouldn’t pass out like with the last monster we encountered.