Five months have passed since Mirth subsumed himself in the ATM network. The group have been posing as crippled beggars to draw out the Grackleflints. It's been working but every engagement has resulted in a stalemate. After one such battle with Radu and a Redcap, Edsel finds a laundry stub. Sean interrogates the laundry clerk, and discovers that the pants were leased to The Styx Casino. The group decides to infiltrate.
In the back-up Grendel story, Grendel and Argent pursue each other. Grendel, in his secret identity as Hunter Rose, lets Argent visit his adopted daughter Stacy. Then he begins an intricate plot to trick and embarrass Argent. Hunter plants a rumor through the informant Tommy Nuncio that he will murder a film mogul. Argent stakes out the event. Seeing Grendel on the roof, he leaps and crashes through a skylight, falling down inside in front of a large audience, including Stacy. Grendel was never really there; it was a hologram. However, while Rose achieved his intended shaming of Argent, he caused unexpected consequences: Stacy went into a depression after seeing him look so ridiculous. Grendel killed Nuncio and Argent became even more fanatical about finding Grendel.
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