6 - Can I get two for the road?

I got a lead in Briarwood that the little girl's been taken to a place called The Ballroom.  A real den of all sorts of sins - Lust, Vanity, Pride and Gluttony chief among them.  Dr. Hoff hangs out there.  He runs the joint with his dame Veronica.  A former actress, they call her the Queen of Pleasure.  Lust incarnate, I say.

We pull up and take check.  There's a long line of walking meatbags outside.  Neither X nor I take very kindly when we're told to wait in line with the rest of the cattle.  When the doorman puts a word in X like a knife, X lets his wrath get the better of him.  They send out all the bouncers - but X just keeps laying them down on the cement like cordwood.  They decide to let him in anyway.

The rest of us go looking around for a more prudent way in.  Two kine stumble drunkenly out a service door to rut in the alley, and we tailgate in before the door closes.

We put on our masks and join the grand masquerade.  The Ballroom is known for a few things.  Chiefly, it's Masquerade Night, every night.  Almost all the revelers are dressed in their finest, most exotic revealing dress, with full-face masks.  Some decide to wear only the mask.  And everywhere, laying on couches and sitting at the bars, are tender, young girls wearing only a thin yellow ribbon - the mark that they're available for more sanguine pleasures.

Dr. Hoff is the one to talk to about them - and I start to wonder just why the little girl Claire wound up here of all places.  We are escorted to the VIP area, upstairs.  X and Cargen go to talk to the gams with the plan, Veronica - while Jimmy, Nick and I go see about the girl.

We run into Dr. Hoff.  Jimmy cuts to the chase, right away. "We're here for Claire."

"Oh, Sheriff!" Dr Hoff exclaims, his words dripping with artificial sweetener.  "Of course I'll let you take the girl, she's right through here!  I'm so pleased to meet you, finally.  I've heard good things.  And Emil!  It's just wonderful to see you again."

We are ushered into a small, foul-smelling room filled with piles of stained clothing.

Before long, a twisted, grotesque of a girl appears from out of the piles.  She's singing a song about pretty things, or something like that.  But then she sees us.  Or, more specifically, she sees Nick.

"OH!  PRETTY!" she squeals, spider-walking over to Nick.  Even so young, being taken with vanity.  It's a shame, really.

"Excuse me..." I start, but the little girl ignores me and talks to Nick instead.  She's playing with Nick's hair, leaving streaks of grease and dirt behind.

Cargen comes in a few minutes later, and tells us about how he felt like he should leave X alone with Victoria.  Jimmy Vellum doesn't like the sound of that, and rushes out of the room.

It turns out that the girl responds well to prmoises that slake her vanity and pride.  I suggest playing a nasty trick on Ava, the crone that kept her.  We drop her off just long enough to get the information we need - then she escapes again of her own accord.

To prove she can, her bones and spine twist and contract with sickeningly moist snaps and crunches until she is fully in the form of a rat - albeit a dog-sized rat.

Meanwhile, X and Cargen are upstairs.