Heartless

CHAPTER THREE Matters Ghostly

“Oh, really, must you?” was Lord Maccon’s considered opinion, expressed to his wife upon seeing her sister in residence, as if Felicity were some sort of unfortunate digestive complaint Alexia had recently developed.

Lady Maccon ignored her sister, who sat waiting patiently in the parlor, and instead took in her new surroundings. The drones and the werewolves had done Woolsey Pack proud. Their new town house was quite filled to bursting with tasteful furniture, pleasingly arranged and minimally decorated. As the abode was intended to serve as a way station for those of the pack who had business in town, most personal items and vital survival necessities such as dungeons and clavigers were left back at Woolsey Castle. The result was that the new house had the look of a gentleman’s club, rather than a private residence (but a nicely up-market gentleman’s club). Lord Maccon muttered that it reminded him of one of the sitting rooms in the House of Lords. But he was muttering for the sake of it, and everyone knew it. Thick curtains kept harmful sunlight out, and thick, plush rugs kept heavy footfalls and claw scrapes to a minimum.

For the time being, Floote was to resume the post of butler to the secondary residence. He had not even batted an eye at this temporary demotion back to domestic staff. Alexia suspected that he had missed his former authority over the household and accompanying ability to monitor all business occurring within it. Personal secretary might be a higher position, but it did not carry with it quite the range of a butler’s command over gossip.

The front parlor, where Felicity sat, was decked out in rich chocolate brown leather and cream twill, with only a small touch of brass here and there for accent—the filigree of a gas lamp, the fringe on a tablecloth, a large Oriental floor vase to hold Alexia’s parasols, and a periscopic shoe-drying stand in front of the fireplace.

It was exactly the opposite of Lord Akeldama’s brocade-and-gilt splendor.

Lady Maccon was impressed. “Floote, where did you find such lovely furnishings at such short notice?”

Floote looked at Alexia as though she had asked him the secrets of his daily ablutions.

“Now, now, wife. If Floote prefers to be thought a conjurer, who are we to inquire as to his sleight of hand? We must preserve a sense of wonder and faith, eh, Floote?” Lord Maccon slapped the dignified gentleman amiably on the back.

Floote sniffed. “If you say so, sir.”

Lord Maccon turned to his wife’s sister, sitting in demure silence and drab gray, both so utterly out of character as to garner even Lord Maccon’s notice.

“Miss Felicity, has somebody died?”

Felicity stood and bobbed a curtsy at the earl. “Not that I am aware, my lord. Thank you for inquiring. How do you do?”

“There’s something rather singular about your appearance this evening, isn’t there? Have you done something different with your hair?”

“No, my lord. I’m simply a tad underdressed for visiting. Only, I had a favor to ask my sister and it couldn’t possibly wait.”

“Oh, did you?” The earl turned his tawny eyes on his wife.

Alexia tipped her chin up and to one side. “She wants to come stay with us.”

“Oh, she does, does she?”

“Here.”

“Here?” Conall took his wife’s point exactly. They could hardly have Felicity stay in their new town house and not actually be living there themselves. What if that information got out? Felicity would be known to have resided with a pack of werewolves and no chaperone.

“Why not at Woolsey? Bit of country air? Looks like she could do with it.” Lord Maccon grappled for a better solution.

“Felicity has involved herself in some”—Alexia paused—“questionable charitable work here in town. She seems to believe she may require our protection.”

Lord Maccon looked confused. As well he might. “Protection . . . protection from whom?”

“My mother,” replied his wife, with meaning.

Lord Maccon could understand that and was about to demand additional details when a ghost materialized up through the plush carpet next to him.

Under ordinary circumstances, ghosts were too polite to simply appear in the middle of a conversation. The better-behaved specters took pains to drift into front hallways at the very least, where a footman might notice and inquire as to their business. In a startling fashion, this one wafted into existence out of the center of the new rug, directly through the bouquet of flowers depicted there.

Lord Maccon exclaimed. Lady Maccon let out a little gasp and firmed her grip on her parasol. Floote raised one eyebrow. Felicity fainted.

Alexia and Conall looked at each other for a moment and then left Felicity slumped over in her chair by mutual and silent agreement. Alexia’s parasol did have a small bottle of smelling salts among its many secret accoutrements, but this ghost required immediate attention with no time to revive troublesome sisters. The Maccons turned the full force of their collective attention onto the specter before them.

“Floote,” asked Lady Maccon slowly, so as not to startle the creature, “did we know this house came with a ghost? Was that in the leasing documentation?”

“I don’t believe so, madam. Let me ascertain the particulars.” Floote glided off to find the deeds.

The ghost in question was rather fuzzy around the edges and not entirely cohesive in the middle either. She must be close to poltergeist state. When she began speaking, it became abundantly clear that this was indeed the case, for the ghost’s mental faculties were degenerated and her voice was high and breathy, sounding as though it emanated from some distance away.

“Maccon? Or was it bacon? I used to like bacon. Very salty.” The ghost paused and twirled about, trailing misty tendrils through the air. These eddied in Lady Maccon’s direction, pulled by the preternatural’s attraction for ambient aether. “Message. Missive. Mutton. Didn’t like mutton—chewy. Wait! Urgent. Or was that pungent? Important. Impossible. Information.”

Lady Maccon looked at her husband curiously. “One of BUR’s?”

The Bureau of Unnatural Registry kept a number of mobile ghost agents—exhumed and preserved bodies with tethered specters that could be placed in select locales or near key public institutions for information-gathering purposes. They took pains to have a noncorporeal communication network in place, where each ghost’s tether crossed over the limits of at least one other’s. This stretched the length and breadth of London, although it was not able to cover the city in its entirety. Of course, it had to be updated as its members went insane, but such maintenance was practically second nature to BUR’s spectral custodians.

The werewolf shook his shaggy head. “Not that I know of, my dear. I’d have to look at the registry to be certain. I’ve met most of our noncorporeal recruits at least once. Don’t think this one is under contract at all, or someone would be taking far better care of the body.” He braced himself in front of the ghost, arms stiff by his side. “Hallo? Listen up. Where are you tethered? This house? Where is your corpse? It needs looking to. You are drifting, young lady. Drifting.”

The ghost looked at him in puzzled annoyance and floated up and down. “Not important. Not important at all. Message, that’s what’s important. What was it? Accents, accents, everywhere these days. London’s full of foreigners. And curry. Who let in the curry?”

“That’s the message?” Lady Maccon didn’t like to be out of the loop, even if the loop was inside some nonsensical ghost’s head.

The ghost whirled to face Alexia. “No, no, no. Now, no, what? Oh, yes. Are you Alexia Macaroon?”

Alexia didn’t know how to respond to that, so she nodded.

Conall, useless beast, started laughing. “Macaroon? I love it!”

Both Alexia and the ghost ignored him. All of the ghost’s wavering attention was now focused on Lady Maccon. “Tarabitty? Tarabotti. Daughter of? Dead. Soulless. Problem? Pudding!”

Alexia wondered whether all this verbal rigmarole was related to her father or to herself, but she supposed in either context it was accurate enough. “The same.”

The ghost twirled about in midair, pleased with herself. “Message for you.” She paused, worried and confused. “Custard. No. Conscription. No. Conspiracy. To kill, to kill . . .”

“Me?” Alexia hazarded a guess. She thought it might be a safe bet: someone was usually trying to kill her.

The ghost became agitated, straining at her invisible tether and vibrating slightly. “No, no, no. Not you. But someone. Something?” She brightened suddenly. “The queen. Kill the queen.” The specter began to sing. “Kill the queen! Kill the queen! Kill the quee-een!”

Lord Maccon stopped smiling. “Ah, that’s torn it.”

“Good. Yes? That’s all. Bye-bye, living people.” The ghost then sank down through the floor of their new parlor and vanished, presumably back the way she had come.

Floote returned to the room at that juncture to find a silently shocked Lord and Lady Maccon staring at each other.

“No documented apparitions come tethered to this house, madam.”

“Thank you, Floote. I suppose we should see to . . . ?” Alexia did not need to continue. The ever-resourceful Floote was already tending to Felicity with a scented handkerchief.

Lady Maccon turned to her husband. “And you should—”

He was already clapping his top hat to his head. “On my way, wife. She has to be within tether radius of this house. There should be a record of her somewhere in BUR’s files. I’m taking Professor Lyall and Biffy with me.”

Alexia nodded. “Don’t be out too late. Someone needs to help get me back into Lord Akeldama’s house before morning, and you know all I seem to do these days is sleep.”

Her husband swept over in the manner of some Gothic hero, cloak flapping, and administered a loud kiss both to her and then, to her utter embarrassment, to her protruding stomach before dashing off. Luckily, Floote was still seeing to Felicity, so neither witnessed the excessive display of affection.

“I suppose that makes Felicity the least of our concerns.”

The sun had just set, and the Maccons were awake, across the temporary gangplank from Lord Akeldama’s house, and downstairs in their own dining room. The conversation had not changed from that of the night before; it had only paused for Conall to conduct some slapdash investigations and then catch half a day’s sleep.

Lord Maccon glanced up from his repast. “We must take any threat against the queen seriously, my dear. Even if my efforts so far have proved unproductive, that does not mean we can treat the ravings of a ghost with flippancy.”

“You believe I am not concerned? I’ve alerted the Shadow Council. We have a special meeting called for this very evening.”

Lord Maccon looked disgruntled. “Now, Alexia, should you be involving yourself in this matter at such a late stage?”

“What? The rumor has only just been reported! I understand you and Lyall got lengths ahead yesterday after I went to bed, but I hardly think—”

“No, wife. I mean to say, you are not exactly up to your usual galavanting about London with parasol at the ready, now, are you?”

Alexia glanced down at her overstuffed belly and then got that look on her face. “I am entirely capable.”

“Of what, waddling up to someone and ruthlessly bumping into them?”

Lady Maccon glared. “I assure you, husband, that while the rest of me may be moving more slowly than has previously been my custom, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with my mental capacities. I can manage!”

“Now, Alexia, please be reasonable.”

Lady Maccon was willing to concede somewhat due to the nature of her state. “I promise that I will not take any unnecessary risks.”

Her husband did not miss the fact that this statement would have to bow to his wife’s definition of the term necessary. He was, therefore, not at all reassured. “At least take one of the pups with you on your investigations.”

Lady Maccon narrowed her eyes.

The earl wheedled. “I should feel much better knowing someone had care of your physical safety. Even if the vampires are abstaining—and we’ve no guarantee yet that they are—you do tend to get yourself into certain predicaments. Now, it’s not that I think you are incapable, my dear, simply that you are currently much less mobile.”

Alexia did have to admit his reasoning. “Very well. But if I am to troll about with a companion, I want it to be Biffy.”

The earl did not approve this selection at all. “Biffy! He’s a new pup. He can’t even control the change. What good could he possibly be?”

“It’s Biffy or nobody.” Typical of my husband to see only Biffy’s limitations as a werewolf and not his admirable abilities as a human.

For the young dandy was, indeed, quite accomplished. Much to Lord Maccon’s disgust, he had taken over many of the duties of lady’s maid to his new mistress. Alexia had never bothered to hire a replacement for Angelique. Biffy’s taste was impeccable, and he had a real eye for which hairstyles and fabrics would suit her best—better than Angelique, who had been good but rather more daringly French than Lady Maccon liked. Biffy, for all his audacious inclinations when it came to his own apparel, knew how to be sensible when it came to a lady who scurried around whacking at automatons and climbing into ornithopters.

“It isn’t a wise choice.” Lord Maccon’s jaw was set.

No one else had yet joined them at the dining table. It was a rare thing in a pack to enjoy any privacy outside the bedroom. Alexia took advantage of their seclusion. She scooted toward her husband and rested her hand atop his on the fine lace tablecloth.

“Biffy has had Lord Akeldama’s training. That is a skill set that branches away from being merely a dab hand with the curling tongs.”

The earl snorted.

“I am not only thinking of my own comfort in this matter. He needs some kind of distraction, Conall. Haven’t you noticed? Five months and he’s still not settled.”

The earl twisted his lips slightly to one side. He had noticed. Of course he had. He noticed everything about his wolves. It was part of his most essential being, to hold the pack together as a single cohesive entity. Alexia had read the papers; scientists called it the soul’s intrinsic cross-linking of the essential humors, the enmatterment of aether. But she could also guess the truth of it: that just as vampires and ghosts became tethered to a place, so werewolves became tethered to a pack. Biffy’s all too frequent melancholy must hurt Conall terribly.

“How will allowing him to accompany you help?”

“Am I not also part of this pack?”

“Ah.” The earl turned his hand over to grip his wife’s in a compliant caress.

“If you ask me, it is not so much Biffy who cannot find his place as Woolsey not giving him the right place to find. You are all thinking of him as you would any new werewolf. He’s not, you understand? He’s different.”

Conall, remarkably, did not jump immediately to the defensive. “Yes, I’m aware. Randolph and I were recently discussing this very thing. But it cannot simply be a matter of Biffy’s preferences. We werewolves are as experimental in our tastes as the vampires, if a little more reserved about the expression of them. And there’s always Adelphus. He’s willing.”

Alexia made a disgusted noise. “Adelphus is always willing. Biffy does not need a lover, husband—he needs a purpose. This is a matter of culture. Biffy has come to you out of vampire culture. Lord Akeldama’s vampire culture.”

“So what do you recommend?”

“Woolsey has managed to accept me into its midst and I am by no means standard werewolf fare.” Alexia played with her husband’s fingers, threading and unthreading them with her own.

“But you are female.”

“Exactly!”

“You are suggesting we treat Biffy as if he were a woman?”

“I am suggesting that you think about him as if he had married in from the outside.”

Lord Maccon gave this due consideration and then nodded slowly.

Lady Maccon realized he must be very troubled by Biffy’s unhappiness to listen to her suggestions with so few protestations.

Alexia squeezed his hand once more and then let go, returning to her meal of apple fritter and boiled arrowroot pudding with melted butter and currant jelly. Of late, her taste in comestibles had leaned ever more in the saccharine direction. Now she ate almost exclusively of the pudding course at any meal. “You think there’s a chance you might lose him, don’t you?”

Her husband did not answer her, which was an admission in and of itself. Instead he busily began tackling a veritable heap of fried veal cutlets.

Lady Maccon chose her next words with care. “How quickly can loner status be established?” She did not want to be perceived as doubting her husband’s Alpha abilities. Men, even immortal ones, had fragile egos on certain subjects. Such egos could be as delicate and as messy as puff pastry. Though rather less palatable with tea. Ooh, tea.

“Wolves can go solitary at any time, but it is usually for a specific reason and occurs within the first few years of metamorphosis. Howlers say it has something to do with early bonding to the Alpha. Often it means the unbonded is too much Alpha himself. I don’t believe Biffy falls into this category, but that is the only thing currently in our favor.”

Alexia thought she spotted the real source of her husband’s concern. “If Biffy becomes a loner, you don’t believe he would survive. Do you?”

“Loners are unstable. They brawl constantly. Our new pup is not a fighter, not like that.” Her husband’s lovely eyes were pained and guilty. This mess with Biffy was his fault. Unintentionally his fault, but Lord Conall Maccon was not the kind of gentleman who shifted blame merely because they were all victims of circumstance.

Alexia took a breath and then dove for the kill. “Then you really should give him to me for a while. I’ll see what I can do. Remember, I can tame him if I have to, if he loses control and goes to wolf.” She wiggled ungloved fingers at her husband.

“Very well, wife. But you are to check in with either me or Randolph as to his progress.”

As the earl said this, Professor Lyall wandered into the dining room. The Beta was his usual unassuming self—his sandy hair neatly combed; his angular features arranged into a nonthreatening expression; his demeanor quiet, self-effacing, and utterly forgettable. It was an aura that Alexia was beginning to suspect Professor Lyall had cultivated for decades.

“Good evening, my lady, my lord.” The Beta assumed his seat.

A maid appeared at his elbow with fresh tea and the evening’s paper. Professor Lyall was the type of man to have that kind of relationship with the domestic staff. Even newly hired and after only a day’s residence, they were already providing exactly what he required without need for any time-wasting orders. Between him, Floote, and Biffy, there would never be a single upset in the running of the Maccon household. It was a good thing, too, for the indomitable Lady Maccon had other things to occupy her time and attention. The running of her household was best left to the gentlemen. Although, she did indicate to the maid that she, too, required tea.

“Professor Lyall, how are you this evening?” Alexia saw no reason why familiarity with an individual ought to breed familiarity of manner, except with her husband, of course. Even though she had been living, off and on, among the Woolsey Pack for almost a year, she never relaxed on courtesy.

“Tolerably well, my lady, tolerably well.” Nor, indeed, did Professor Lyall, who was remarkably civilized for a werewolf and seemed particularly respectful of all codes of politeness and gracefulness of manner.

Now that she had both of them at her table, Lady Maccon directed the two werewolves back onto the weighty matter of the queen’s life. “So, gentlemen, anything come out of BUR on the threat?”

“Not an aetheric sausage,” complained the earl.

Professor Lyall shook his head.

“Must be the vampires,” said Lord Maccon.

“Now, husband, why would you say that?”

“Isn’t it always the vampires?”

“No, sometimes it’s the scientists.” Lady Maccon was referring obliquely to the disbanded Hypocras Club. “And sometimes it’s the church.” Now she was thinking of the Templars. “And sometimes it’s the werewolves.”

“Well, I say!” Lord Maccon stuffed another cutlet into his mouth. “I can’t imagine you actually defending the vampires. They’ve been trying to kill you for months.”

“Oh, Conall, do swallow first. Then speak. What kind of example is that for our child?”

The earl looked around as though trying to see if the little being had somehow been born without his notice and was now staring at him with an eye toward modeling its behavior upon his.

Lady Maccon continued. “Simply because the vampires are perennially trying to murder me doesn’t mean they are trying to murder the queen as well, now, does it? One would think their resources would be somewhat taxed, if nothing else. Besides, what could possibly be their motive? The queen is a progressive.” She was moved to defend her stance further. “I thought your lot was supposed to have long memories. Correct me if I’m wrong, Professor Lyall, but didn’t the last major threat to Queen Victoria’s life emanate from the Kingair Pack?”

“Really, Lady Maccon, couldn’t it wait until I’ve at least finished my first cup of tea?” The Beta looked put upon.

Alexia said nothing.

Professor Lyall put down his tea pointedly. “There was that overeager Pate fellow with the walking stick some twenty years ago or so. Completely mutilated Her Majesty’s favorite bonnet. Shocking behavior. And there was that disgruntled Irishman with the unloaded pistol before that.” He helped himself to a small serving of smoked kipper but paused before digging in. “And the reputed incident a few years back with John Brown.” The Beta considered his kipper as though it held all the answers. “Come to think on it, they’ve all been remarkably ineffective.”

Her husband snorted. “Notoriety mongers, the lot of them.”

Alexia puffed out her cheeks. “You know what I mean. Those were all isolated incidents. I mean planned cohesive plots backed by serious intent.”

The maid reappeared with more tea and an extra cup for Lord Maccon. Who sneered at it.

Professor Lyall’s face sobered. “Then, no, Kingair was the last.”

A delicate subject, indeed, as Kingair was Lord Maccon’s former pack, and they had betrayed him in order to attempt the ghastly deed. He had killed his Beta and moved to London to challenge for Woolsey as a result. Like politics, or personal dressing habits, this was not proper meal-time conversation.

Professor Lyall, a man of much delicacy, seemed to find the subject particularly uncomfortable. After all, Woolsey had ultimately benefited from the assassination attempt. Their previous Alpha was reputed to be a man of petty disposition and profound temper, and Lord Maccon was considered one of the better werewolf leaders. The best, if Alexia had anything to say on the subject. Which she did. Often.

The bell sounded in the front entranceway, and Professor Lyall glanced up gratefully. There came a rumble of voices as Floote answered the door. Alexia couldn’t make out who it was, but her husband and his Beta had werewolf hearing and their reactions—a slight smile from Lyall and a disgusted frown from Conall—gave her a pretty decent idea.

“Peaches!” Lord Akeldama wafted in on a wave of Bond Street’s best pomade and a lemon-scented eau de toilette. Alexia’s pregnancy had had a strange effect on her sense of smell, rendering it far more acute. She imagined she was getting some limited idea of how werewolves felt with their supernatural abilities in that arena.

The vampire, resplendent in a silver tailcoat and bright yellow waistcoat only one or two shades darker than his hair, paused in the doorway. “Isn’t this delightfully cozy? How perfectly splendid that I can simply pop next door and visit you all à la table!”

“And how nice that you are not a hive queen to be so entirely confined to your own home,” replied Alexia. She gestured for the vampire to draw up a chair. He did so with a flourish, shaking out his napkin and placing it in his lap, although he would, everyone knew, take no food.

Professor Lyall tilted his head at the teapot. When Lord Akeldama nodded, the Beta poured him out a cup. “Milk?”

“Lemon, if you would be so kind.”

Lyall raised his eyebrows in shock but signaled one of the maids to run and see to this odd request. “I thought most vampires didn’t tolerate citrus.”

“Dolly, my pet, I am most assuredly not most vampires.”

Professor Lyall did not pursue this, as he had a more pressing question in mind. “It has occurred to me to worry about this scheme of ours. I understand it is a delicate subject, but this last winter you did swarm, did you not? Because of that spot of bother with Biffy being stuck under the Thames.”

“Yes, poppet, what of it?”

“That swarming isn’t going to hinder the effectiveness of your residency now, is it? You understand I ask only with a mind toward the safety of the child and because I’ve no records pertaining to the consequences of a rove swarming. No insult is intended.”

Lord Akeldama grinned. “Dolly, such a careful little creature, aren’t you? But fret not—my house isn’t technically a hive. I’m not bound by the same kinds of instincts. I can return to my previous residence without psychological upset. Besides, that was half a year ago. I’m well recovered from the experience by now.”

Lyall did not look entirely convinced.

Lord Akeldama changed the subject. “So what say you, all my lupine darlings, to this new threat?”

Lord Maccon looked with shock at his Beta. “Randolph, you didn’t!”

Professor Lyall did not flinch. “Of course not.”

“Wife?”

Alexia swallowed her bit of pudding. “He knows because, well, this is Lord Akeldama. You are going to have to get accustomed to it, my dear.”

“Thank you, darling plum nubbin, for your faith in my meager resources.”

“Of course, my lord. So?”

“Ah, dandelion fluff, I regret that I have not yet formed a ready opinion as to the nature and origin of these latest twitterings.”

A footman appeared with the lemon, and Lyall poured the vampire a cup of tea. Lord Akeldama sipped it delicately.

Lord Maccon snorted. “You haven’t lacked for a ready opinion in the whole of your very long life.”

The vampire tittered at that. “True, but those expressed traditionally concern matters of dress, not politics.”

Floote came in with Alexia’s dispatch case. “You’re due at the palace shortly, madam.”

“Oh, my, yes, look at the time. Thank you, Floote. My parasol?”

“Here, madam.”

“And perhaps a bite to take along?”

Floote handed her a sausage roll wrapped in checked cloth, having anticipated just such a request.

“Oh, thank you, Floote.”

The earl looked up hopefully. Wordlessly Floote handed him another sausage roll. The earl downed it in two satisfied bites, even though he had just finished a rather large meal. Floote and Lyall exchanged knowing looks. It had become quite the task to keep both Lord and Lady Maccon fed these days.

Lady Maccon leaned forward onto the table, bracing against it with both hands, pleased to live in a household that did not favor the spindly furniture so in vogue with ladies of quality. By dint of some sizable effort, she managed to almost hoist herself to her feet before losing her balance and lurching back down.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she cried out in abject frustration. The gentlemen all leaped to her assistance. Lord Maccon made it to her first. Which was probably a good thing. With her preternatural touch, none of the others present would have been of any use. They were all too slight in their mortal forms to handle her clumsiness.

Having gained her feet and some measure of her dignity, Alexia said, “I really must say, I am finding my own proportions quite vulgar.”

Lord Maccon hid his smile. “Not all that much longer, my dear.”

Alexia hated it when he called her his dear. “Really, it can’t occur soon enough.” She waved off Floote’s offer of a cloak and accepted a light shawl instead. It was plenty warm enough even without the wrap, but formalities must be observed. Then she gathered up her case and parasol.

Biffy appeared at her elbow, bloodred tailcoat in place, pure white cravat emphasizing his pleasant features, and matched red top hat on his head. He may have had to sacrifice a good many things to take up his new role as a werewolf, but he had refused to sacrifice his tailor.

“I am to act as escort this evening, my lady?”

“Oh, yes, Biffy dear. How did you know?”

Biffy gave her a look remarkably similar to the one always worn by Lord Akeldama when he was asked such a question.

Alexia nodded her understanding and then looked to the vampire. “Share a carriage, my lord potentate?”

“Why not?” Lord Akeldama sucked down the last of his tea, stood, performed an exaggerated bow to the two werewolves still at the dining table, and offered his arm to Alexia. She took it and they swept from the room, Biffy trailing faithfully after.

As they left, Lady Maccon heard her husband say to Lyall, “How long do you imagine we are going to have to keep up this place of residence?”

“Until the child is grown, I suppose,” responded the Beta.

“God’s teeth, it’s going to be a long sixteen years.”

“I imagine you’ll survive it relatively unscathed, my lord.”

“Randolph, you and I both know there are things far worse than death.”

Alexia and Lord Akeldama exchanged smiles.

“Did you tell her?” asked the first ghost, stretched as far as she could, shimmering in and out of existence with the strain of her extended tether.

“I told her.” The second ghost bobbed up and down in the air above the street. She was a little more substantial, a little closer to home. “I told her what I could remember. I told her to put a stop to it. Are we done now?”

They were both lucid, strangely lucid, for two so near the end of enmatterment. It was as though the afterlife were giving them this one chance to fix things.

“We’re done,” said the first ghost. Both of them knew she wasn’t referring to their plan or to their relationship but to their inevitable demise. “Now only I must wait.”