"Nathaniel's one of the homunculusses - homunculi - isn't he? Agatha's the one running the show. That's where Nathaniel was last night, off talking to her..." Jake drums his fingers on the arm of his chair, all nervous energy, then slows a bit, cocking his ear to the rain.

"...should I call Vicky up - uh, Miss Surrette, I mean - and have her start looking into where you'd have to block off or blow out, to flood that bit of sewer we saw tunnels coming out of? The ghul dwelling's probably dirt tunnels all the way back: one good wash through and it'll probably come down on anything that don't believe in drowning."

"I suppose it might come to such a desperate measure, but..." Sully hesitates, rubbing his chin. "Why do you suppose Bishop would disappear like this? I mean, he was the injured householder, why not set the police on our trail? Perhaps he went down into the tunnels and met with... a mishap."

Sully wishes something would preclude their having to go back to that place yet he fears that course is inevitable.

Jake doesn't seem to care much about the prospect of drowning ghul-elders and infants or potential damage to nearby streets, clearly having decided the unruly tunnel people are ontologically evil: fiends manifest. "I messed up the door to his cellar pretty good: if he's not hiding out from what the cops found but didn't tell an "outsider" - me - about, and Agatha hasn't eaten him for messing up, maybe we got mistaken for a rival tribe."

He gets himself more coffee to have something to drink and do with his hands, going quiet a moment. "Why'd anyone want to pass off made-up people for real ones, anyhow? I figure defense, if the ones made by black magic are naturally better at it than those bitten or born...maybe they can do the heart thing from further away, or to more people."

"I don't know if it's infighting among fiends or there's an angel buried snhhuhhuhh-" helpless giggles break from Jake until he swallows, "-in New York somewhere, you know, the 'slew in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred eighty-five thousand' type, not the Christmas card kind. I don't know that either would help us any, if that's what's going on. Anyone else got some idea? I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I know that."

"Now that these are daytime hours, we can place a telephone call to the funeral home and see if anyone answers it. Asking to speak to Nathaniel Bishop and the answers to that question could give us a little information - at least as to his whereabouts," he said.

"If you figure whatever beat cops are handling the place'll know any more than my buddy in Homicide," Jake shrugs. "You got any thoughts on what Agatha's up to in general?"

"But, Jake, surely the flatfoots aren't answering the telephone at the funeral home, so they don't enter into the Prof's idea."

He turns to the older man. "On the other hand, if Bishop hasn't returned, it seems unlikely there will be any answer at the mortuary. Still, I don't suppose it will do any harm to call. At least we'll know that much."

Jake holds his fairly cold coffee up as though warding off the suggestion he's stopping anyone. "Hey, no objection, but even if Bishop was hiding out next door once the cops had looked in and locked it up again, coming out of his whack-a-mole tunnels, he's not going to pick up. Beat cop might, if they haven't squared things with the switchboard yet."

"Might even be bored enough to talk, though Sully, you'd probably have more luck sidling up with some clams to change hands." He fidgets, ready to drag the conversation back to Agatha's motives and means to stop her as soon as an opportunity presents itself.

Arthur nodded and, after this latest pause in the talk, he cut in.

"Well, I'm not sure, but I think I have an idea for where old Bishop might have gone. Do you remember that alcove we spotted on our way in?"

This gets a 'go on' gesture from Jake, who nonetheless has the expression of a man who's unlikely to take a plan to crawl into said tunnels and physically haul Bishop out well. He may simply be suffering from too long sober, of course.

"The suggestion was most certainly not to call the funeral home in an attempt to speak to beat cops. So we know for certain that the police are in occupation of the funeral home, and that there are no owners or employees present?"

"Well, Jake, it's not much, it's just...we never figured out what it was for, but it occurred to me that the alcove would be pretty near by to the actual graves, right? Just what a...ghoul would need nearby, as far as I can tell."

"Yeah, there were tunnels coming up into that vault we looked into, at least, though they weren't used recently. You figure we could drop explosives or something down on them from the surface, or just that Bishop might be hiding in a mausoleum out there? I guess he was feeding any bodies he didn't turn into a zombi to his friends."

"...and yes, Professor, the cops have charge of the house and will have shut up the buisness and told Cortéz to keep to himself, if they haven't taken him in. Unless any owners - seems we shot the other employee enough that he's staying down - come up from the tunnels whilst the building's locked, we can say they're not in there." Jake gives the Professor an enquiring look.

"I'm no expert in demolition, but I think before we begin dropping explosives in the middle of New York City we consult such an expert."

As possibilities are being discussed, Sullivan Quinn is able to place a call from the department secretary’s desk to the Stanton Street Cemetery. The seasoned reporter is unsurprised to hear the phone ring repeatedly with no response.

Sully hangs up the 'phone.

"Nobody's home," he says quietlywith a slight twist of his lips, "Why don't you make that call, Jake? No harm having a few facts to consider."

Jake nods and takes himself out into the corridor, belatedly cleaning up his nose a bit. His handkerchief looks like it's just come out of a war, but he gives a slightly apologetic smile to show he's all right really as he asks the secretary for the use of her telephone.

"My concern in this whole situation is that what we've learned indicates the possibility that some of these disappearances have occurred in an effort to offer sacrifices to Nyogtha - and in some of these cases, it is possible that the victims may still be alive. I'm not sure how long the police will take to act, or that we can convince them that there's a family of morticians that worship strange deities never before heard of to most people - and that they're planning some human sacrifices below the ground here."

He cleared his throat.

"It may be best that we attempt the tunnels once again, though this time more prepared for what we are going to find down below."

At the desk, Jake is able to retrieve a slip of paper from his jacket pocket, upon which he has carefully inscribed Victoria Surette’s number. The phone rings only once before she answers. ”Hello?”

"Hi," Jake says, his voice gentle. After making sure she's all right and not feeling followed or bothered by anything he lets her know where he's calling from and gives a vague and secretary-friendly account of where they've been, what they've done and at length poses his question about the sewers - for research purposes, of course.

Victoria listens quietly, not interrupting the detective as he provides the abridged account of his and his fellow investigators’ recent activities. Clearing her throat she says, ”I honestly can’t recall where the closest active water line is in relation to that tunnel. Let me check the records at the office and I’ll call you as soon as I can,” she tells him.

She pauses, then adds, ”You still owe me a trip to Coney, Morris. Don’t forget. I’m holding you to it.”

Jake summons up all his courage - not the sprinting-through-a-hail-of-bullets kind, but the kind it takes to hope or show a dime's worth of tenderness - and pushes things, just a little: "To Coney? Sweetheart, we're going to Coney and staying 'til I've won you anything you want," he replies, and hopes she didn't hear his fractional moment of panic in replacing 'a fish' with something more grandiose, in case she didn't like fish, or that played down his skills too much, though now maybe she thought he was conceited? Please let me show off to you, whatever's best in me, you can have it.

Sully watches as Jake blushes and stammers. Love, he thinks, It's wonderful.

Arthur got to thinking about a lady he knew. He thought that, once this thing was over with, he would have to go and see her. That would be a relief, he thought.

”I know you will,” Victoria answers, warmth in her quiet words, ”Please don’t do anything foolish.”

The remainder of the afternoon passes quickly as the investigators gather the tools they need for another expedition beneath the New York streets. Soon, perhaps too soon, dusk is stretching its wide hand across the city, and the long shadows of afternoon are silently yielding to full dark.