The chase was on. Over the ice topped walls, down the alleyways, across the canals, and scrambling up onto the frozen rooftops. The two boys moved quickly and silently, as only meat deprived trackers could. They did not want to give the pursuit away and alert others to join in the hunt. Scavengers like them who scurried in the gutters looking for anything to give them a nutritional edge. The quarry was too precious and the gild Mo Dickens would hand over would keep them in bludbrood for a full lunar. It might even spring for some worn out kamiks with enough tread left to keep their calloused feet dry in the Four Kith.

The billee was on to them from the start. It moved fast and furious and kept to the shadows, scurrying up and away from the persistent coursers. Mudlarks had tried before, but she was wise to their game and ran like the wind. She paused on an ancient beam, high up in the eaves of an old building, and peered down below at the two footers. They went past and she relaxed for a moment. Then they stopped and one of them looked up. He pointed a finger in her direction and they both started to climb up after her, hand over dexterous hand. They were denizens of the Slough and this was their world too. They moved through it with consummate ease. Killers to her and her kin. Consumers of billee flesh. If they could catch her.

Most kithfolk could not tell the boys apart, and they used it to their advantage. Pick a pocket and run. Pop up in another place and shout. Do it again from another corner and confuse the mark until he spun in a circle and chased his own tail into the ground. Always using the crowd and distraction to their advantage. Even Mo and JoJo got confused, and JoJo’s best eye had the third sight.

“Come over ‘ere, Carlos, an’ give an ole girl a terrifik hug!” JoJo Dickens called. She sat in her large wooden chair carved out of a single piece of granite oak, her arms outstretched and her pendulous breasts swinging for effect. They were big enough to knock down walls, or crush a man’s head between them. Jojo was a double hitter of tabak. A long clay pipe was clenched firmly between her blackened teeth, and she occasionally took a chew from a tabak plug. She spat brown tar into a large wooden bucket beside her feet, the one she also pissed in when she could not be bothered to clamber outside. Some of the tar juice never made it past her chin, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Years of spitting and wiping meant she had one ochre covered hand and one her more unnatural pallor.

“Iz not Carlos, yuz ole tart. Iz Juan. The gud lookin’ one, remember?” Carlos said. He had a smart mouth for a boy who had only seen fifteen years. 

Juan stepped out of the shadows and the two boys stood side by side. They were identical twins and the only distinguishing feature was they each wore one decrepit shoe they had picked off Stanford Stagg’s barrow. Juan wore his on his left foot and Carlos on the right. Juan stepped back and left his shoe behind, and Carlos stepped into it. Then Carlos stepped back and Juan took over the footwear. Juan removed his left foot and moved to the side and Carlos slid in his own left foot. They stood side by side, arms over each other’s shoulders and grinned at Jojo Dickens. They were thin and undersized, even by Four Kith standards. Their emaciated appearance enlarged the size of their eyes and made them look innocent and helpless. They were killers in the making. 

“Eeny meeny mina moe,” Jojo said, pointing at Carlos, or was it Juan? And then his twin. “Catch a Grimm boy by the toe. If ‘e squeals…” Jojo paused to spit another steam of hot tar juice into the bucket. She tapped the bowl of the pipe onto her head. “Iz forget ‘ow the rest goes…”

“Let ‘im go!” both boys shouted in unison.

Jojo flashed her blackened teeth and grinned. “Let yuz go? Why Iz just found the pair of yuz. I’ll nev’ let yuz go! Come over ‘ere an’ give a big fat lass a terrifik hug!” 

She stretched out her arms wide again, and Juan and Carlos hurried over to be consumed by her tight embrace and mountains of rippling flesh.

“If yuz finished molestin’ chillen, wez got work to do aroun’ ‘ere,” Mo Dickens said from behind his butcher’s block. He was a huge lumbering man with arms the size of tree stumps and a humongous belly that flopped over his thick belt like a snow slab on the verge of becoming an avalanche. His bald head had a large crater on the left hand side where the blunt end of a meat cleaver made contact with his skull. A metal plate inserted into the cavity kept his brain from exposure to the elements. However, in inclement weather he suffered from terrible headaches and took his anger out on the nearest apprentice.

Mo Dickens was Hetman of the Slagers and this was his domain, his fiefdom, his abattoir.  He occupied a large cavernous stone room, built by the Old Ones, where he skillfully butchered his meat, conducted his business, ate his meals, and occasionally fornicated with his wife. He had one rule during the solar: no fire indoors. It had the potential for spoiling the meat. When the weather got extra cold, Jojo’s arms and legs turned blue, but Mo Dickens never felt the effects of the icebox. He told his charges to move faster to keep warm. Once the solar’s business was done, and the last carcass was carved and bagged, then the large roaring fire was lit in the vast fireplace, sending black smoke up the flue and crackling warmth to the room and Jojo’s frigid bones. The old bag laughed then. She always laughed when she was warm, had tabak in her pipe, and a pot to piss in. She softened Mo Dickens’s mood.

An apprentice loaded another carcass onto the butcher’s block and Mo went to work with an oversized cleaver, demonstrating ruthless efficiency. He hacked the bushmeat into manageable chunks to be eagerly wrapped in a sackcloth by another apprentice, and tied up with hemp string. He was a purveyor of paranga, brought in from the Wildlands by the sanctioned trappers, though he also dealt with the poachers, the wild nomads, and the Four Kith folks who could catch anything left in the Slough. He drew the line at human flesh, and for that his reputation as a provider of clean meat was not tarnished. 

“Why ‘ave a man of twenty years when yuz can ‘ave two boys of fifteen each!” Jojo cackled, demonstrating her arithmetical skills as she tumbled the twins against her bosom. They bounced around like two ships caught in a maelstrom. 

“Let ‘em go, you ole hag! I need them uns to load up the barrows,” Mo said, though there was no hostility to his tone. 

Jojo released her captives. “Alright. Back to work yuz go. Be off, before I smuther yuz in luv.”

The Grimm twins ran off to the courtyard outside of the slagerhaus and set to work. Between the two of them, they loaded the sackcloth bundles onto the meat cart, ready for the barrowmen to come and sell Mo’s finest paranga on the more civilized streets on the edges of the Four Kith, and even transported to the finer establishments in the Burghs. Never too far from the sanctuary of Mo’s reach, and never in the territory of the rival purveyors of paranga. Mo might be the Hetman of the Slagers, but there were always others waiting in the wings. 

Carlos once toyed with the idea of pushing one wrapped parcel under some burlap sacking, and selling it themselves. Luckily, Juan was on to him, cuffed his ears, and reminded him of the fate of apprentice Barnaby Billett who stole from Mo. Barnaby was sliced and diced on the butcher’s block before you could say ‘next please!’ and dumped in the Basin to feed the fish. Or at least most of him ended up in the Basin. The Bassett family suddenly put on weight and gild never crossed the path of that twisted brood.

The Grimm boys considered themselves lucky. There were few openings for apprentices with Mo, the exit of Barnaby Billett being the exception and not the norm, and they were recently uplifted from the hardscrabble streetlife thanks to a chance encounter with Jojo. Carlos had tried to lift her purse, and she caught him in the act. Rather than cut off his hand, which was her right, she took to the twins and persuaded Mo to let them occupy the lowest rung of the paranga ladder. They slept rough in the courtyard, but did not have to keep one eye open all night, and a daily slab of brood, dipped in the warm blud, and a mug of hot bier was more than their bellies could handle for now. It was also a significant upgrade from the slim pickings the Slough provided, and the lukewarm rotten vegetable stew dumped in the communal trough in the great hall of the Gut, the feeding house of the destitute. As they moved up in trades from carrier, to loader, to bushmeat wrapper, to barrow boy, and finally to butcher’s apprentice, the quality and quantity of the cuisine would improve. There was also gild for those of an enterprising nature. 

Mo Dickens took them to one side and whispered to them so the other boys could not hear. “Yuz boys look like the enterprisin’ sort, an’ ole Mo ‘as a favor to ask. Are yuz up for it?” 

The Grimm twins were already learned in the ways of Mo speak. ‘Are yuz up for it?’ was an actual command rather than a request. Still, it did not stop Carlos stepping in it with one broken shoe and a calloused foot.

“What’s in it for us two?” Carlos asked, defiantly as he jutted out his chin and stabbed a thumb in his own chest.

Mo moved fast for a large man, and his massive right hand cradled the back of Carlos’s head and neck before the boy knew it was even there. As a prime butcher he was well versed in the anatomy of all things, and while a saw bones could put a man back together in relatively the same good order, Mo could take a man apart with ease. He gently changed the position of his ring finger which resulted in a torque in Carlos’s neck. The least amount of additional pressure would induce a break and Carlos could feel his life was in imminent danger, without truly understanding what was going on. 

Mo leaned in closer. Spittle flew from his mouth and peppered Carlos’s face as he talked. “Why, yuz is a special one, ain’t yuz? Juan is it?” His voice was calm, but there was an underlying menace to everything he said.

Carlos could not speak and Mo knew it. His finger pressure also prevented Carlos from vocalizing as every fiber of his body focused on not moving and self preservation.

“I’m Juan,” Juan said. “This knucklehead mudlark is Carlos. It’s always Carlos ‘as the tarty mouth. An’ yes. Wez up for it. Whatever up for it is. Wez your kithfolk for the task at ‘and.”

Mo released his hold on Carlos, and the boy immediately sagged and rubbed his neck. His lungs sucked in oxygen like never before. He was still alive and his body thanked him for it.

A big friendly giant grin broke across Mo’s face. He leaned in closer and beckoned the boys to complete the circle. He towered over them, so lowered himself closer to the ground. “Come closer, boys. Come closer. Wez don’t want t’other ‘prentices ‘earin’ our ploy.” 

The Grimm boys joined the conspiratorial ring and smiled. Mo had not called them ‘prentices before. That was a serious step up in status. Carlos even forgot the man held his life in the balance only a few seconds ago.

“You know Jojo is still mad at ole Mo, on account of that flapper next door tryin’ to catch me attention an all, with ‘er wigglin’ an’ a jigglin’. She’s a looker that one, an’ ole Mo … well, I ‘as weaknesses for the flesh. But still, when I upset Jojo, things doesn’t sit well. I can’ts abide when she gives me the cold shoulder. Me ‘eart’s not in me work, an’ the paranga fights me on the block. Iz might be Hetman of the Slagers, but Jojo is Hetwoman of the Kogelbrekers. But wez can make it up to ‘er, an’ Iz need yuz ‘elp. Are yuz up for it?”

This time both boys nodded vigorously. 

“Well ‘ere it is, then.” Mo continued. “Jojo dearly luvs billee flesh, an’ it’s a true rarity in the Slough these solars.”

“Ganga Flewman was sellin’ one just the other…” Carlos started, before Juan could shut him down. 

Mo reached out his hand again for the boy’s head and neck, and stopped himself, fingers twitching. He forced a smile on his murderous face. “That was no billee, youn’ Carlos. No billee indeed. ‘Twas a potkan, if ever there was. A big potkan with the tail snipped off an’ the snout removed, but no billee. We want a real billee for Jojo’s table an’ nothin’ less. Are yuz up for it?” 

Mo stressed the last part which as good as said, ‘get me a billee or don’t bother coming back.’ Even Carlos, who was not as fast on the uptake as Juan got the message loud and clear. Get a billee and you were further up the food chain, fail and it was back to a life in the Slough at best, or one final wet trip into the Basin with weighted rocks for company.

So the hunt was on for Juan and Carlos Grimm and a tour of the other sections of Gastown in their search for the ever elusive billee. There was no use looking in the Slough, the shanty district within the Four Kith. Those bones had been picked clean many lunars ago, and any billee worth her salt had moved on to safer havens from this dark side of the river. The boys looked over the border, across the long bridge to the imposing citadel, to the land of the Gentry, and those who served them. As desperate as they were, they never thought for a moment of crossing into that forbidden realm. That left the Burghs, the Docklands, and the Mutton. Even on this side of the canals there were places they could venture only at night, and the risk of being caught loomed large. There were no trials for the kith denizens who trespassed into the Burghs, the domain of their betters, the carpenters, the merchants, the bookbinders, and the keepers of the tabernacles. Only death, hopefully quick and merciful, would be their just punishment. Still, Juan and Carlos ventured out, keeping to the shadows and moving like billees themselves. Five nights they searched, and their meager supply of brood from Jojo was long gone. They supped water from the gutters and tightened their belts.

They left the merchant burghs, vaulted over the moss covered walls, and crept back into the Slough, and across the bridge into the realm of the slagmaidens and their orange lanterns marking the entrance to their dens of vice, depravity, and anything goes mentality. An area collectively known as, The Palace of Earthly Pleasures by those marketing high end thrills, and as The Mutton Market, or simply The Mutton, by those hailing from the lower end of the social echelon. 

The Grimm twins could move more freely in the Mutton, without the threat of getting murdered on sight. However, they had to be on constant guard and watch each other’s backs. Young boys were fair game for any John or Sebastian looking for sport, and they were just as likely to be swept up by one of the Swell Daddy’s out to expand his stable. They walked with purpose in the Mutton, like they belonged. Victims were easy to identify and generally fulfilled their own expectations. Juan and Carlos were also armed for the occasion. Nothing fancy, no Hallic steel knives or Bastic warhammers. Just two pieces of discarded metal from Mo Dickens’s courtyard, sharpened on stone. Little stabbers to make a point and a quick escape.

The river fog was heavy in the Mutton. It hung over the collection of mottled inns, rustic taverns, and gaudy hauses of ill repute. Lights were always on in the Mutton, and fires burning. In the gloom, they gave off a strange eerie glow. A collection of red, yellow, and orange flames to attract visitors from the Onderworld itself, like depraved moths to the warped light. The fog also made everything damp, and the Grimm twins were soaking wet as they walked the streets in their billee search. It was another type of billee that called out to them.

“Take a butcher’s at these two luvlies. Just what a girl ordered on a cold night when trades slower than a halfwit,” a very fat woman said. She was standing next to a brazier with her dress hitched up warming her bare rear end. A sign hung above her doorway with an exaggerated painting of her with a big smile on her face and an even larger exposed derriere on display with a red bullseye drawn on it. The artwork was beginning to fade, and obviously represented her in a slightly less gargantuan time. Juan and Carlos could not read, not many in the Four Kith knew their letters, so they were unaware it marked the habitat of Big Bertha. She made JoJo Dickens look anorexic. 

“Leave the youn’ uns alone, you ole crone,” another woman who went by the name of Long Peg called from an open bay window on the other side of the cobblestone street. She was sitting in a rocking chair with her obscenely carved wooden leg in full phallic display. 

“Ere! If you’re lookin’ for work youn’ uns, there’s a Swell Daddy down the corner name of Puzzle Pete who’s addin’ to his flock. There’s many a perv who’d drop a purse of gild to shag a brace of twins,” another hag who went by the handle Theresa Three Tit cackled. 

“And don’t forget to mention my finder’s fee to Puzzle when you see him!” Long Peg called.

“Your finder’s fee? Why I saw them first, didn’t I, you long streak of misery,” Big Bertha said, her hands on her fat hips and her face flushed. “I’ve a good mind to swing over and stick that bit o’ driftwood you call a leg where the solar don’t shine!”

“Don’t do that, Bertha. She’d like it!” Theresa said, and all three women forgot their temporary animosity and broke up laughing.

Big Bertha turned her attention back towards Juan and Carlos. “Don’t be mindin’ us weyward sisters, boys. We’re just havin’ some fun at your expense. And we see greatness in you, don’t we girls?”

“Greatness is the word, Bertha. Greatness. And Kingship,” said Theresa.

“Oh, kingship is a grim word, girls. I see two boys, and only one king,” chimed in Peg.

“And which one is it to be? Shall we pick for them?” Bertha asked.

“To be a king you have to kill a queen,” Theresa said.

“Or become one,” Bertha said.

“The choice is already made. Made long ago.” Peg replied.

“What do we say about the kingdom of the blind?” Theresa asked.

“We don’t care, as long as they have a pair!” Bertha and Peg replied in unison, and all three crones broke out laughing and cackling once again.

Carlos was fascinated by the prophetic freak show in front of him and gawked, until Juan pulled at his sleeve and pointed up to a nearby rooftop. Even in the fog, they could see a pair of eyes staring back at them. And just like that the chase was on.

“All hail King of the Four Kith! All hail the Lord of the Wildlands! All hail the Dux of Gastown!” the three weird sisters called, as their voices faded into the distance.

The Grimm boys were off and running, scampering and climbing, jumping and clambering, zigging and zagging through the alleyways and cobblestone streets of the Mutton. For a moment, they lost the billee, until Carlos looked back and saw it watching them. Curiosity got the better of it, and delayed the escape. 

Juan and Carlos began their spidery climb, coming at the billee from different directions, trying to corner it so they could close in for the kill. But the billee was a survivor, an outlier of her kin, who escaped many a hunt by outsmarting two legs and cutting impossible angles between chasers and chancers.

Juan was the flusher, and drove the billee back towards Carlos the closer, and the inevitable trap. All was going to plan, until the billee suddenly changed direction and darted away, down and then up towards a high rooftop and safety. But Juan was prepared and his aim was true. He let fly with his best stone, the smooth one he kept for special occasions. The flight path was pure and the missile hit the billee behind the right ear with a thud. The billee dropped. If the strike did not kill her outright, the fall surely did. Down she went, her limp body bouncing off walls all the way down to the snow covered alley floor. The Grimm boys descended smoothly after her.

Carlos was about to drop down into the alleyway and pick up their prize, when Juan stopped him with an outstretched arm. Carlos angrily pushed it to one side, suspecting Juan wanted the trophy and the glory, for himself. Until Juan gestured towards some activity at the other end of the dimly lit alleyway. 

There were two figures there. One was a slagmaiden, dressed in her seductive finery, and pressed up against the wall by a figure the Grimm boys did not see too often. A Dandy from the Gentry, in his finest white bearskin overcoat and white beaver hat, was wooing the lady in a way the boys had seen many times before in the Slough. 

Carlos saw an opportunity while the grinding couple were preoccupied, and smiled at Juan as he slid down the wall, crouched down, and picked up the lifeless billee. He was about to start his climb back up when he froze. There was movement on the other side of the alleyway, but not the kind he anticipated. The slagmaiden let out a shout of surprise.

“Ere! What’s this!”

As they watched, the Dandy moved with deceptive speed. He pivoted round to the side of the slagmaiden and then behind her. One gloved hand closed over her mouth and pulled her head back. Steel flashed in the other hand and a blade pulled across her throat. Blood spurted out, some even reaching as far as Carlos across the alley. He looked up and his eyes locked with the Gentry.

Carlos could not move. The shock of the sudden murder transfixed him to the ground, the still warm billee clasped in his hands. The Dandy was not disabled. He held the slagmaiden a moment longer, until the blood stopped pulsing out and gently lowered her to the ground, careful to avoid the blood still leaking from her sliced throat. He stared at her for a brief moment, and then delicately closed her eyes with two gloved fingers. He picked up his cane which was propped against the wall, and turned his attention towards Carlos. He took four steps forward and loomed over the boy.

“I’m afraid you’ve interrupted my sport, old chap,” the swell said, though Carlos had no idea what the words meant. The Dandy was wearing a heavy scarf, which covered most of his face, and his language was of the conquerors and not the oppressed. The citadel folk conversed with the commoners through interpreters, and only a handful of specialists were ever permitted to learn the high language. Carlos knew none of this, and did not care. He did know his life hung in the balance.

There was a thud as a stone flew across the alleyway and made contact with the beaver hat. It was not strong enough to displace the headgear, but it was enough to make a solid dent, and gain the Dandy’s full attention.

“Over ‘ere,” Juan said from the top of the wall on the other side. “I’m the one yuz want, not that sparrow!”

The Dandy turned around, which was all the time Carlos needed to scurry up his own wall and out of harm’s way. “Over ‘ere, beaver ‘ead!” Carlos crowed from the security of his perch, the dead billee tucked safely inside his shirt.

The Dandy did not turn around. With amazing speed and dexterity for someone encased in a bear coat weighing all of fifty pounds, he bounded across the alleyway, pushed himself off and up the wall, and swept Juan’s legs out from under him. Juan tumbled down onto the ground, rolled and came up on his feet. Before he could move again, the Dandy’s cane was pressed firmly against his chest, pinning him to the wall.

“Well, what do we have here?” the Dandy asked, more to himself than to his latest prey. 

“Let ‘im go, or I’ll do for you!” Carlos yelled, but it was all bark and definitely no bite. The Dandy ignored him.

“I’m afraid you’ve put a ding in the old beaver bucket. Shan’t do. Can’t ever wear the silly thing again after this, don’t you know?” 

Carlos kept barking. 

“Does go on, that one. Quite a little yapper. I suspect the unwashed masses of Assaborg have a devilish time telling the two of you apart. I can rectify that, don’t you know.”

The Dandy twisted the silver wolf’s head of his cane and pulled out a sword stick. He kept the sheath of the cane firmly pinning Juan against the wall. Juan looked at the point of the very thin blade, and then at the only visible part of the Dandy: the eyes. The right one was blue like most of the Gentry, but the left one was a cloudy green. That was the last thing he saw before a piercing pain stabbed through him. The Dandy pushed the tip of the sword into his right eye, rupturing it forever.

Juan dropped to the floor and covered his face with his hands. Blood and eye juice seeped through his fingers. He instantly went into shock.

The Dandy wiped the tip of his blade on the dress of the dead slagmaiden and placed it back inside the cane scabbard. He gently doffed his hat to the dearly departed, and left the alleyway whistling a tune to himself.