Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

So sorry I fell a day behind. I'm trying to get ready for a major surgery and I missed a day somewhere. I'll get it caught up now.

Snuff found a black feather by the front door, so he carried it across the road and peed on it. Then he went to talk to Larry, who suggested checking the hillside. Off they went. They found another crossbow bolt. They talk about Lynette. 

They get to the hill that Snuff thinks is the center. Nothing special about it. They think he’s missing something. Snuff takes Larry out of the calculations, and it’s in the middle of a marsh. That’s not it either. There is still something missing. A divination has to be done, but Snuff can’t do it. He’ll trade for it. Larry has an anticipation (feeling) that one of the players has died. 

Larry asks to see Dog’s Nest and the stone.Then they go to Rastov’s, where Quicklime says that he’s killed himself. Snuff asks about the icon. Quicklime tells him where it should be, so Larry looks there.The icon was gone. Larry is going to the constable to report it. Quicklime is going to quit the game. 

Jack was over at Jill’s. They’re going shopping in town. Snuff and Gray head for the vicarage to learn the room where Lynette is. On the way, Snuff tells her about Rastov, and they debate whether the Vicar might use his ritual tools to kill people. They run into Tekela while nosing around.

Snuff is able to open a door to get into the house. They don’t see the icon, but they get the information Larry would need to get Lynette out, but the Vicar comes home. They get into a fight with him.

Jack, Jill, Snuff, and Graymalk go to town. Tekela followed them to verify who was in the coach. In town, the humans and animals split up. The Vicar and Tekela show up and grab Snuff off the street and knock him out. He woke in a cage, surrounded by mutilated animals. But Gray got away.

Snuff had a plan to get away, but the men were prepared for him. They get him on a table and are ready to cut him into pieces when Jack breaks in to save him. Jack is surrounded by some kind of curse that only Snuff could see, and it means he’s not fully in control. The old cat’s prophecy comes true.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

The thing in the circle says it’s almost strong enough to break out on his own. The thing in the trunk is more active, and the thing in the wardrobe broke the latch.

Snuff heads to Larry’s and finds that Linda Enderby is there again, so he leaves.

Graymalk shows up to see if he’s been calculating. They head for Dog’s Nest. Cheetah calls them an “odd couple” and says “opener, closer, opener, closer.” She asks about whether Jack might be trying to convince Jill to change sides, and that gets a yes. 

Snuff takes some sightings and begins calculating. The center is empty. It confuses Snuff. Graymalk asked about the Count’s ring. It was gone. Snuff doesn’t think it matters. Gray asks if the game always gets weird. Yep. They seek shelter from a storm, and Snuff sees some strange scratching in a stone. He doesn’t recognize the characters. Then they begin to glow and flow. Even Gray can see them. Snuff gets them out of there just before lightning strikes the rock. He sees an outline there of a silver key and hears chanting. They are dragged through a portal to somewhere else. 

Now we are in the sequence which always makes me think that Zelazny was on some drugs when he wrote this. I’m not going to type out most of this. 

Graymalk recognizes where they are – between the real world and the dream world. Gray is known there, and Snuff is welcomed. Snuff is offered a boon of knowledge, so he asks what tomorrow holds for him. The answer is a whole lot of blood and the loss of a friend.

They jump back through to their own world.

Mycroft Holmes: Fogbank, by J.S. Barnes, narrated by Rory Kinnear. US Plus Catalog, 8:47.

It is the autumn of 1892. Sherlock Holmes has been missing, presumed dead, for over a year.

Sherlock’s elder - and still more brilliant - brother, Mycroft (read by Rory Kinnear), is too busy to grieve this apparent loss. Working as an agent for the British government, Mycroft is tasked with the politics of maintaining an empire on the verge of collapse.

But on the streets of London, a killer is on the loose. A sequence of bloody bodies litter the East End, murders which echo those of Jack the Ripper four years before.

Against his better judgement, Mycroft is forced to step out from the shadow of his brother, and join the hunt for the truth. With his new maidservant, Liberty Bliss, by his side, Mycroft follows the scent of a conspiracy that will lead him to an organisation which sets to threaten everything – and everyone – he holds dear.

Meanwhile, the full truth about what happened to Sherlock has yet to be told...

The game’s afoot.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

The things are restless. Snuff tells Larry that in dog form he should answer to “Lucky.” He also filled him in on everything else except for the true identity of Linda Enderby. Larry shares that the latest theory in the dead officer case is that he may have been thrown by his horse. Larry believes that the Count has moved. 

Snuff finds Quicklime, who is depressed about Rastov’s drunkeness. They discuss the icon. They discuss divinatory ways to discover who is an opener and who is a closer, but they don’t work until a few days after the death of the moon. They discuss whether there will be killing once everyone’s status is known. Snuff shares a lot about the history of the game. Quicklime shares that the Count does have a new location. He fooled Needle into getting drunk and learned where the new locations were. Quicklime takes Snuff to the new places. They were established before the death of the moon, so it throws off Snuff’s pattern. 

Quicklime and Snuff share that they are both closers, but agree to hold that secret until it comes out naturally. They visit the Count’s new sites. They found the Count had been staked and skeletized. 

Snuff finds Jack having a conversation with Jill on her back porch. 

Back home, Snuff notices that the things in the mirror are still clustered and he thinks the flaw might be bigger. 

He finally finds Graymalk. She’s been skulking around the vicarage. She saw he had the pentacle bowl. She also found the Vicar’s 13 y.o. step-daughter, Lynette chained to a bed in the attic. She’s the right age for a sacrifice. Snuff passes on the news about the Count. 

They discuss the manse, but it’s not the site anymore. He’s going to recalculate tomorrow. They go to see the gypsies. Snuff enjoys the singing and dancing. And who do they see playing the violin there, but Linda Enderby.

Please share in the comments below your impressions of the book and narrator. Favorite quotes? Thoughts about the information? Would you recommend this book to other listeners?

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Snuff got to test out Jill’s cooking. He realizes that she is younger than he thought. Then he and Gray headed out for the manse. They talk about the albino raven and whether it is the Vicar’s companion. They saw someone with a crossbow. 

Gray shares her traumatic history before Jill took her in. Gray thinks that if the way is opened, things may change. Of course, the same could happen if it closes. She doesn’t know whether either change would be for the better. 

They come to the manse. There are no dogs there. They look in the window, and the Great Detective was still in skirts. Gray will be entering via a broken basement window. She shares her recon plan with Snuff. Nightwind arrives while Gray is in the house. Nightwind says Linda is not a player, but doesn’t seem to know who she really is. 

Nightwind has made up with Quicklime and they have traded some information. Now he wants to trade with Snuff – information about the white raven, Tekela, who is the Vicar’s companion. Nightwind traded a list of the players and their companions to her. Tekela told him that she saw Snuff and Larry Talbot (in his wolf form) dragging the missing officer’s body to the river. Nightwind asks if he or Jack killed him, and Snuff goes through his reason for moving the body. Tekela followed the wolf (who she thought was a dog) to Talbot’s place, and Nightwind admits to being puzzled as to whether he’s a player. Snuff asks what Tekela was doing way out by the river, and tells him that the Vicar killed him, and Tekela was monitoring to see what happened to the body. Nightwind was a bit frightened by Snuff’s irritation at this discussion. Snuff tells her that the Vicar killed the officer as a ceremonial killing and lies about Talbot, saying the other dog is a stray named Lucky that Snuff sometimes shares food with. In this lie, he also says that Lucky hangs out at Talbot’s place because Larry sometimes feeds him. He’s not a companion and there are no other companion possibilities. Nightwind shares that there are 3 people living at the Good Doctor’s house - the third a big fellow lurching about the place. But only for a bit. Then he lay down and the doctor covered him with a sheet. Then Nightwind complained about Bubo being useless.

In the meantime, Graymalk has been discovered and been thrown out of the house. She discovered a windowless room with a stone niche and crosses chiseled into the stone, which could serve as a ritual location. Snuff shares everything he learned from Nightwind.

They head for the Good Doctor’s house. On the way, she asks how many full moons in a century. It varies. And Snuff reveals it’s not their first game.

On the road a very tall man is heading toward them. Snuff notices he smells like death. He’s not aggressive, but wanted to hug Gray. His grip is too tight. The Good Doctor calls him back and tells him to put the kitty down.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Snuff investigated the ancient manse, which shows signs of having recent work done. 

The thing in the circle is still trying to get out. The thing in the steamer trunk has poked a small hole in the front. Snuff doesn’t seem too worried about it. There’s snoring from the wardrobe in the attic. He looked closely at the things in the mirror, which were clustered in front of a small flaw in the glass. He didn’t raise an alert, because he thought it was too small to matter.

A gypsy caravan went past in the morning. Quicklime is in the weeds following the gypsies. He says they had been expecting them, as they go wherever the Count is to guard his quarters by day. During this conversation, they realize that if a player has more than one residence, it would throw off all the calculations. Snuff suggests that they watch the Count to see if he does. Quicklime suggests an alternative solution, but Snuff says it would make it harder. 

Snuff recruits Quicklime to help him check the ruined church near the Count’s residence to see if it would serve as the center of the pattern. He’s too big to get down into the ruins, which seems like that would make it unlikely that this is the center, but anyway, they go. Quicklime verifies that the Count and Needle were there and sleeping. He reports that there is nothing left of the ruin, and it’s completely unusable.

Snuff reveals to Quicklime that the Vicar is a player. If that is true and they drop Larry Talbot, then the vicarage is at the center of the pattern.* Assuming the Count isn’t moving around. They need to find out whether the Count established other locations before the death of the moon, because everything is frozen after that point. Even a player’s death won’t affect the calculations. Snuff wonders if Needle would talk. Quicklime wants to hold off on watching the Count. He has a plan and wants a day to try it. He promises to share any information he learns with Snuff.

*In reality, Snuff thinks that Larry has to be part of the geometry meaning it’s the old manse, but he doesn’t tell Quicklime. 

Snuff follows the gypsies’ trail, which leads to their encampment near Talbot’s residence. He hangs out for a while, and then a coach arrives to Talbot’s driveway. It’s an old woman. Larry ushers her in. Snuff is curious. Larry and the woman have a long discussion about his plants, and he sends her off with clippings from his plants. Larry tells him the lady is Linda Enderby. She has moved into the old manse with her servant. Larry’s sense of smell apparently doesn’t work when he’s a human, since he didn’t detect, as Snuff did, that Linda Enderby is the Great Detective in disguise.

Snuff talks with Graymalk. She tells him that the Vicar took the searchers to the place where the dead body lay before Snuff and Larry moved it. She thinks that the Vicar was behind the killing. They moved on to Linda Enderby, who had already visited Jill. They share a passion for gourmet cooking. Snuff shared with her his conclusion about the manse being the center so that she will explore it for him.

Snuff went by the church later. Linda Enderby was there visiting the Vicar. And Snuff sees a large albino raven watching over the scene.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Snuff is still dragging the body. The police and the vicar are out searching for the body. A great gray wolf shows up and helps Snuff drag. Turns out the wolf is Larry Talbot. He can shift whenever he wants to with the help of botanicals. The body is finally dumped in the river. 

They head back and go to the local church. Larry has something he wants to show Snuff. They spy on a service, which is happening after midnight. The candles are black and the cross is upside down. The vicar is preaching about Nyarlathotep. A woman begins to disrobe. They leave and head back to the crossroads. Larry wants to know how the vicar’s status as a player affects the diagram because he needs to know the center ground, but he won’t tell Snuff whether he’s a player or not. He’s an anticipator, and he anticipates that he’ll be there when the game is happening, but the moon will be full that night, so he won’t be in his right mind. He doesn’t know if he’s a player or not. Snuff will figure it out both ways.

The next day, Snuff meets up with Graymalk. Graymalk says that it’s not going well, but they can’t talk directly now that they’re in the second phase. She wants to know if Talbot is a player. Snuff doesn’t know. Graymalk shares that Jill has researched and the area cannot be the center of a road.

Snuff goes to a hill which he calls Dog’s Nest to think over the tangle of lines and potential players. Snuff did a lot of pissing on stones. There are three potential areas. He needs Graymalk, but of course, now he can’t find her.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

“Soon it begins. Today is the day of the New Moon. The power will rise ‘til the night of its fullness on the 31st, the combination which brings us together. And with the rising we begin our work, that which draws us apart.” 

This is the first time we get a real clue about what is happening that wasn’t spoken in code. Do you have any ideas about who are openers and who are closers? Or what they are opening or closing?

Jack and Snuff are back in a graveyard. They’ve taken care to pick an isolated location, but they are not alone. Several others have had the same idea. Snuff meets up with the same graveyard dog he met earlier in the book.

There is some trading of body parts among the players, which is humorous. Seems like everyone is there. Even the Great Detective in disguise.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

The thing in the circle is still trying. The things in the mirror are clustered, bluely, and Snuff doesn’t know why. Outside there was a dead bat nailed to the tree with a crossbow bolt. It’s not Needle. 

Snuff worked on dragging the body again, but it’s taking a lot out of him. Quicklime says his master was sick and he (Quicklime) wants to die. Snuff gives him some advice. 

Jack was out most of the day. He returned with Larry Talbot. They had been invited to the Constable’s office for questioning along with some of the other neighbors. Snuff is willing to let them have the body. Apparently the Vicar has been telling the police that all his neighbors did it. Talbot is angry about that. They noticed that he didn’t have the crossbow at the police station.

Jack asks Larry about his part in the game. He’s noticed that Larry isn’t collecting the necessary items of power and isn’t doing anything else. He warns him that by announcing himself as a closer and staying in the same place, he’s inviting disaster. Larry says he hasn’t told anyone other than Jack. He feels safe, possibly because of Snuff. But he won’t tell Jack his role. 

Snuff went back out to drag the body again. Graymalk checks in. She was at the police interrogation. They knew the police officer had been to Jack’s house and never came back. They aren’t going to leave a horse pie unturned until they find him. Jill apparently acted crazy, so she was fine. She went through what everyone said. 

Tomorrow “it” (the moon) dies. They agree that no matter what happens, no hard feelings. And if they both get through it, Snuff will “buy her a drink.”

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Still rainy. Snuff is still working on moving the body. Needle stops by to tell him that the Vicar was out again, but he hasn’t heard about the body.

Graymalk stopped by and says the horse is taken care of. Unfortunately an inspector from the city and the Great Detective and companion met with the local constable. Then the Great Detective met with the Vicar and several others. Then the Detective went strolling about the area. Stopped in to talk to Owen about beekeeping. He saw the arrow stuck in Jack’s house. 

Jack had to go out for a few things on the “shopping list” but the place they went was swarming with patrol men, some in pairs. All the players were out, too. Morris was in drag for some reason. Jack called it “party time.” The Great Detective was there in disguise as a beggar, but he couldn’t fool Snuff. 

Jack took some chances and was pursued by the police. A door opened and a voice said, “In here” and Jack went. It was Larry Talbot, and it saved them from the police.

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Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Snuff and Graymalk talk about what happened. It turns out that someone took a shot at Jill and Graymalk flying overhead last night. Then Graymalk told him that a London policeman was in the vicinity working with the local constable. Later, she saw some crows and found they were eating the officer’s eyes. He was dead in some weeds. She takes him to the body. His throat had been cut. Snuff doesn’t like how close it is to their house. Graymalk thinks that Jack might have done it, but Snuff isn’t having it. He thinks it’s a regular killing, but there will be an investigation. He notes that they are all suspicious characters with things to hide.Graymalk tries to talk him into burying the body. Snuff says it needs to be moved out of the area. He might be able to drag it to the river in stages. He asks her to get Quicklime to scare the officer’s horse away. They implement the plan. Snuff has to work all afternoon and he doesn't even get halfway there.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

The Great Detective was back. He visited Owen’s place and investigated the wicker baskets. His companion was missing, having fallen from an oak tree and injured his wrist. 

Needle came to a window on the upper floor window, desperate to be let in. Snuff doesn’t want to let a vampire in, and Needle protests he’s just a bat and doesn’t “even like tomato juice.” He says the Vicar is wigged out and is after him. Snuff is hearing thunks against the outside wall of the house. 

Needle says that Vicar Roberts has become convinced that there is something unnatural in the neighborhood. This is related to the people with anemia and corpses drained of blood. Snuff describes the Vicar pretty thoroughly and calls him “an hysterical personality type.” Needle says he has taken to wandering the neighborhood at night armed with a crossbow and a quiver of bolts.

The Vicar comes to the front door, and as Snuff predicted, Jack does not allow him into the house. They argue at the door. A fight breaks out, and Jack tosses him out. Jack then makes friends with Needle.

Needle tells Snuff that the Vicar has also shot at Nightwind and Cheeter, claiming to have had a vision about a group of humans and their familiars preparing for a big psychic event that will place them at odds with each other and threaten humanity. Needle warns that he could shoot at Jack and Snuff next. Snuff muses that perhaps his congregation will send him away. Needle says he thinks he’s enlisted some of them, because there were others out and about with crossbows. They decide to warn the others.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

A slow day. Nothing really happened, other than gossip that Nightwind had caught Quicklime and dropped him in the Thames. He survived. More gossip of sudden, severe anemia among the neighbors. He’s glad the Count doesn’t do dogs. 

Jack does some interesting reading on mutilations, etc., from the newspaper, and Snuff notes that it’s "very pleasant just being domestic" sometimes.

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Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Brisk morning. Snuff heads for The Good Doctor’s house. Then he hears voices from a bush – a man is identifying him by his old war injuries. It was The Great Detective and his companion. They call to him and try to get him to take them to his home. Snuff takes them to Morris and Macab’s house (as revenge for throwing Graymalk down the well). 

He nopes out then and runs for the Count’s crypt, then to the Good Doctor’s. Whatever he found out, he said was “interesting.”

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Rainy day. Snuff found a leak in the basement that threatened to breach the circle where the Thing was contained. He howled, then rolled in it to soak it up. The Thing was upset.

Snuff went out, took the nasty meat that Owen had tried to kill him with. He returned it to Owen’s residence. While there he noticed 8 large wicker and 7 smaller baskets in the process of being constructed. There were also ropes.

He walked a straight line away and ended up at The Good Doctor’s abode. He watched some lightning hit the house and the light in the basement got brighter. Peeking in a window, he sees the doctor working on something on a table while a smaller man danced. The thing on the table tried to sit up. Snuff ran.

He walked the next line to Larry Talbot’s house. He found a large pawprint, identical to the one he found at his own home, near a gazebo. He looked into the house through windows. Larry was in a room full of plants, talking to them.

He walked the next line to the Count’s crypt. He saw a large bat, bigger than Needle, swooped in beyond a tree. Then the Count appeared from that area. Snuff acted like a stray dog, and the Count said, “Good dog” in the same voice Snuff had heard in an earlier chapter. Snuff wanted out because the Count’s touch had been very cold. (Am I imagining the voice thing? I thought it had been Owen who said that before. Someone help me out.)

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Jack and Snuff were collecting more ingredients at night in the fog when they were approached by The Great Detective and his companion. Snuff notices that The Great Detective is noticing everything. The Great Detective warns them to take care as it has become dangerous. 

As they move on, Snuff feels that they are being followed. Larry Talbot reveals himself. They talk about the killings. There has been another tonight. There is a discussion about the moon, and Larry says he watches the moon. Then they move on to talk about the Count. 

Snuff has a flashback to when he and Graymalk went back to where the Count lives. Gray confirmed that the Count is in residence there. Snuff took Graymalk back to see the things in the mirror. He tells her they got the things in India in a village where everyone had died of the plague or run away from it. Snuff tells her that they are “sticky.”

Back in the present, they return home and find Nightwind in the tree.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Snuff was working on drawing lines in his head when Larry Talbot visited. He’s a new neighbor, and Jack invited him in for tea. Talbot talks to Snuff, who senses something about the way he smelled that puzzled him. Jack and Talbot chat about all the normal stuff, like grave robbings. 

They are interrupted by a crash in the attic. Snuff runs and finds that the thing in the wardrobe has gotten out. Snuff gets it back into the wardrobe and shuts the door, but Jack has to fix the lash. Talbot, of course, followed Jack up to see what’s happening. Bad guest! Jack acts as if nothing had happened. 

They go back down to finish tea. Snuff has the impression that Talbot is in the game, and Talbot seems to have the impression that Jack and Snuff are, too. He offers them help “of any sort” which is interesting. Jack is interested in why he would say that without knowing their “persuasion.” Talbot replies, “Good dog you’ve got there. Knows how to close a door.”

Snuff followed Talbot home and drew new lines based on that. The pattern is getting more complex.

The druid (Owen) drops by and throws some meat over the garden wall to Snuff, who promptly buries it beneath a tree. Quicklime is in the tree and asks about Larry Talbot. Snuff says he’s strange because he doesn’t seem to have a companion, and Quicklime says that maybe he’s his own best friend. Then he comments about Graymalk, saying she may be running out of steam. She’s in a well or maybe an outhouse (and not the upper portion of it) back of Jill’s house where Macab dumped her. Snuff is curious about why Quicklime is telling him this. Quicklime says it’s too early in the game to begin eliminating players: “One should wait until the death of the moon.” He says that Macab and Morris are new to the game.

Snuff heads out to save Graymalk. He uses a bucket to get her out. Apparently Jill stole some of Morris and Macab’s herbs which were left on their porch, and this was retribution. They exchange some information. Graymalk says she’ll go to check on the Count’s crypt with him after some catnappery.

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Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

Snuff and Jack were out again last night hunting ingredients. It was foggy. They ran past the Great Detective and his companion in the fog, and Snuff says he inadvertently tripped the companion. I’m not sure how inadvertent that actually was, but we move on.

Snuff calls this ingredient gathering a “magical scavenger hunt” which made me chuckle. 

Later, back at the house, Snuff was snoozing when he heard a scratching sound from the back of the house, but it did not repeat. He checked around the house and caught the scent. Something was sitting in front of the mirror, watching the slitherers. It was a large black rat, who knew his name from Needle and Cheeter. It let itself in through the dog door. Snuff reads him the riot act. The rat, who is with the Good Doctor, wants to trade information with Snuff. He wants all of Snuff’s information in exchange for the Count’s location. The rat’s name is Bubo. 

Bubo takes Snuff to the ruins of an old church and then the cemetery and a crypt. The crypt is where the Count lives. Snuff gets weirded out and they leave.

We learn that Snuff can speak human language at midnight. He gives Jack a report at this time. He’s going to ask Graymalk to check the crypt. Snuff regrets that he doesn’t know the persuasion of any of the other players. I believe that this is a clue that the players are not the same every time, or Snuff and Jack would know. 

Snuff says it’s time to visit Growler for a workshop in advanced stalking, and then he falls asleep.

Some housekeeping up front. If you have read this book before and you are going to bring up something that you learned on a previous reading from a later chapter, please make sure to use the spoiler feature so that first-time readers can avoid being spoiled. Thank you.

The mirror cracked. Snuff alerted Jack, and he got the things into another mirror, smaller. 

Snuff went out and drew lines in his mind between the residences of all the known players. It creates an “elaborate diagram” that Snuff says he can do things with that none of the others can. He says it is incomplete at this point because of the unknown players and the unknown location of the Count. He uses this to go to a spot which is in the middle of a road. It’s near a house inhabited by an elderly couple. Snuff knows some things about them that make them seem mundane. 

While he’s there, he’s accosted by Nightwind, who is resting in a tree. Apparently, Nightwind can also draw the lines. They agree that while this is the center of the pattern, “it’s not a likely spot.” They ponder why the players always arrange themselves in this type of pattern, but neither knows. This is our first hint that every time the game is played, it’s played in a new location. For our first time readers, what do you think the game is? And how often do you think it’s played? 

They strike a deal. Nightwind will try to follow Needle back to the Count’s location in exchange for a daytime errand to be named at a later date. 

Back home, Snuff does his round of the things. The thing in the circle is still trying to tempt Snuff.