Wood froze, as if he had just been enlightened; he instinctively turned his head to look toward Hughes.
Hughes sat up straight, his eyes flashing with a rare glint of appreciation, and nodded:
"That makes sense. Very logical. Without hands, they lose their livelihood, lose the ability to work, and literally cannot survive. But what does this prove? That the target the killer chooses is people who earn remuneration through skilled manual labor? People existing like that in this giant industrial city number in the thousands, the tens of thousands; there are as many as you want, from the docks to the factories. I don't need to tell you that, do I?"
"You guys are people of the Church, holding a vast treasury of knowledge about theology and the occult; you must understand the matters of the extraordinary world and sacrificial rituals better than I do."
Alex looked straight into his eyes, not dodging in the slightest, his voice carrying a bit of defiance to hide his nervousness:
