"Fortunate for me that you have practice then." Alastor's smile tightened and he sucked in a quick breath at a sudden spike of pain. But he didn't cry out, didn't scream. "After I was old enough to do it myself, I always had to patch myself up."

Sometimes his victims hadn't gone quietly. Fortunately, nothing too serious had happened while he was alive. He didn't do overkill. Quick and neat was his style of kill. Something that left as little mess as possible. For all anyone knew, his victims simply got up one day and left.

"Coming down here I had to learn a few more tricks. You can probably see some of my early handiwork here and there."

Old, ugly scars with awkward stitching as he'd struggled to sew together flesh instead of fabric.