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The orphanage’s dead followed the young Sin-Eaters wherever they went. Teddy’s ghost introduced itself in an alley. Cardboard and newspapers accounted for shelter and they shared it with a nameless, shaggy vagrant. He, somehow capable of seeing into the Twilight, noticed the specter first. His upset issued out in slobbery ululations describing as well as any proper language the horror before him. Teddy was alive when they left the property. That he had died came as no surprise; the meaning of his presence was no mystery either. All shades were the same. They were drawn to Sin-Eaters because they could sense that the Bound are their best chance at an improved afterlife. Teddy said none of this, it was written in his eviscerated viscera. Chunks of him were missing, mostly from his head and shoulders; his identity was stripped down to the bone and his eyes missing from their cavities. The head to toe gradation of bare bone to (somewhat) unharmed flesh made the boys think of a finger that found its way into a pencil sharpener. Tedric picked through nearby trash until a large, stuffed bear surfaced. He emptied the stained thing of its molding, cotton stuffing. Then he slipped the castoff artificial skin over his corpus; once the bear cowl was over his head greater changes took place in the alley. This started to move of their own accord. Small objects rolled up the pavement to the ghost in bear clothing, filling into the fabric vessel bit by bit. This continued until cans, rocks, and other objects filled the costume from padded feet to ears. Now that it possessed a material form, it reached out at the children. Georgie Corners was unquestioning in his retreat, taking Percy by the handles of his wheelchair and pushing him into the streets and disappearing around the corner. The bum was in shock; Czeslaw responded by bolstering his corpus with ghostly energy. His body came undone like countless coils of colorful yarn being carried away by the wind. In mere moments, Czeslaw removed himself from the alley. On the way out the Sin-Eaters noted a wanted poster framing Father Prost’s face.

Around the corner, Percy and Georgie ran a noisome con. An audience lured in with antics involving a wheelchair and dark speech concerning Shirley Temple made uneasy work for a pickpocket like Georgie. It wasn’t their best. In all their take included a wallet, plump with green, and fresh, hot bread big enough for three orphans. Czeslaw re-materialized and regrouped in time to enjoy the bounty. In time for interruption; a journalist who introduced herself as Anna, appeared in the closed print shop turned hideout. Leaning on a ruddy print press, dragging on a cigarette, Anna identified the trio. She revealed she knew much about them and their situation and that she wanted their help putting the wrongs of their erstwhile orphanage to right. Feelings Percy was not yet equipped to process compelled him aid Anna. Georgie and Czeslaw, fresh but wise to the dead, knew Chatham Catholic Compound was a problem that would never give up on them.

Anna brought the Sin-Eaters to better accommodations: a quaint, cramped hotel room that wreaked of flowers and mystery. Doubts still lingered in Percy anent Anna. Once the altruistic journalist left the room, Percy swiped as much of Anna’s belongings into his ownership. Then familiar moaning emitted from the bathroom. Ratty Patty arrived to provide the wrong kind of encouragement. With due caution the orphans opened the door and felt no relief when they saw nothing extraordinary; the horror they anticipated waited at their backs. Upon turning around Percy was accosted by the deceased bully. Knocked out of his wheelchair to the ground, Patty perched on his chest and choked him, her arctic grip clenching shut the passageways in his neck. Georgie ran out of the room to find help; instead he saw Anna talking to police. That meant a car ride back to the orphanage and he wasn’t ready to go back, yet; he preferred to deal with the ghost.

Or let Percy do it. Percy was exceedingly capable of outmatching any brute force despite the limited function of his lower extremities. Oxygen deprivation quickened the meditative process required for an incantation. It was a silent spell, a matter of displacing his consciousness with that of his Geist. Among the orphaned Sin-Eaters, Percy’s spirit passenger was the most unpleasant. The instant it made a pact with Percy it appropriated a likeness of his family – a mess of each member after being processed in the same fatal crash. Father, mother, and sister were stuffed into wherever the other was split open, forming and distorting into a three-headed, multilimbed family tree. As if not fine enough a mockery of the life Percy would never know again, the bulky, non-organism slid around in a splintered replication of the enormous luggage strapped atop their automobile, a continual reminder of the top-heavy mistake that caused the Marsanes to slip off the mountainside curve. Once this amalgamation of spirit was achieved, Percy’s Geist was visible to anything that could see in the living spectrum. Meanwhile, Percy’s body remained prone and inert, as if unoccupied. A family reunion that benefited from uncomfortable closeness; strength surpassing its numbers to proportions way beyond, nothing could stand in its way.

As Percy assumed his Geist, Georgie and Czeslaw fled out the window and down the fire escape. Anna and the police burst into the hotel room to see about the commotion. By the time they arrived, the Marsanes already repelled Patty the Rat. They were too much for the mundane guardians to behold; the police fired two rounds from his revolver into the ambling, imploded family vacation – to nil effect – as he and Anna ran out of the hotel.

Outside in the dimness of evening, the orphans gathered for an unexpected romp: while planning their next move they spied Father Prost dressed in plainclothes. They shadowed him to a bar where he met with a man they recognized, knew only in reputation. He was a doctor that worked at the hospital that accompanied the orphanage. Master Surgeon Vladimir Dmikov had a humorless demeanor that gave credit to the awful rumors about him. When he finished condemning Prost for being caught he stormed out of the bar. The kids alerted Anna and the authorities. Father Prost was taken into police custody soon after.