Madame Lefoux interjected at this juncture, “Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf here has been studying the preternatural state for many years now.”
“It has been difficult, most difficult, indeed, ya, to find a live specimen. My little trouble with the church, you understand.”
“Come again?” Alexia checked her rage in favor of curiosity. Here was a scientist who might real y know something.
The German blushed and worried his sleeping cap about with both hands. “A little
—how do you say?—spot of bother. Had to move to France and leave much of my research behind. A travesty.”
Alexia looked to Madame Lefoux for an explanation.
“He was excommunicated,” said the inventor in a grave, hushed voice.
The little man blushed even redder. “Ah, you heard of it?”
Madame Lefoux shrugged. “You know how the Order gossips.”
A sigh met this statement. “Wel , regardless, you have brought me this fine visitor. A living, breathing female preternatural. You wil al ow me to ask you questions, young lady, ya? Perhaps, a test or two?”
A tap came at the door, and the manservant entered bearing a tea tray.
Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf accepted the tray and then waved the man away. He poured the tea, strong and redolent of the scent of bergamot. Alexia didn’t much like Earl Grey; it was well out of fashion in London and was never served in any of the establishments she frequented. Vampires were not fond of citrus. Which, she realized, must be why the little man was now pressing the tea and a smal pile of kumquats on the austere Floote.
“The snuff!”
Everyone looked at her.
“Ah, you decided you wanted to try some, ya, Female Specimen?”
“Oh, no. I simply realized. You made Floote take snuff as a werewolf check. They hate snuff. And now you’re using the Earl Grey and the kumquats to see if he’s a vampire.”
Floote arched one eyebrow, took a kumquat, and popped it whole into his mouth, chewing methodical y.
“You do realize, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf, that vampires are perfectly capable of consuming citrus? They just don’t like it.”
“Yes, of course, I’m well aware. But it is a good—how do you say?—initial check, until sun comes up.”
Floote sighed. “I assure you, sir, I am not of a supernatural inclination.”
Alexia snickered. Poor Floote looked extremely put-upon.
The little German did not seem convinced by mere verbal guarantees. He kept a jaundiced eye on Floote and maintained proprietary control of the bowl of kumquats. For future use as projectile weaponry, perhaps?
“Of course, you could stil be a claviger or drone-type person.”
Floote huffed out a smal puff of annoyed breath.
“You already checked him for bite marks,” pointed out Alexia.
“Absence of the marks is not absolute proof, especial y as he may be a claviger. You did marry a werewolf, after al .”
Floote looked as though he had never been more insulted in his life. Alexia, stil smarting over the “Female Specimen” moniker, sympathized.
In a lightning change of mood that seemed to characterize the little man’s paranoia, the German looked with sudden new suspicion at Alexia. “The verification.” He muttered to himself. “You understand, ya? Of course you do. Must verify you as well . Ah, if only I had my counter. Have this little poltergeist problem. Perhaps you could see your way to an exorcism? Should not be hard for the Female Specimen.” He glanced at a smal window to one side of the room, curtains thrown wide to let in the rapidly brightening dawn. “Before sunrise?”
Alexia sighed. “This could not possibly wait until tomorrow evening? I have been traveling most of the night. I suppose you could cal it traveling.”
The little man grimaced at her but did not take the hint, as any good host would have.
“Real y, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf, we have only just arrived,” Madame Lefoux protested.
“Oh, very well .” Alexia put down her tea, which wasn’t very good, anyway, and half a croissant, which was buttery and delicious. If it was necessary for this odd little man to trust them in order to get some answers out of him, she was equal to the task. Alexia sighed, angry once more at her husband’s rejection. She wasn’t entirely certain how just yet, but she intended to blame this latest nuisance on Lord Conal Maccon as well as everything else.
The dog, Poche, led the way down several flights of stairs and into a tiny cel ar, barking with unwarranted enthusiasm the entire time. Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf apparently did not notice the racket. Alexia resigned herself to the fact that it was the creature’s normal mode of operation—when its eyes were open, so, too, was its mouth.
“You must think me the terrible host, ya.” The German said this with an air of one attending to the requirements of society rather than one experiencing actual remorse.
Alexia could think of nothing to say in response, as, so far as it went, it was perfectly true. Any host worth his blood would have seen them decently abed by now, supernatural or not. No gentleman would insist his guest perform an exorcism without providing accommodations first, let alone a decent meal. So Alexia simply clutched her parasol and fol owed the German and his frenzied canine down into the bowels of his cramped and dirty house. Madame Lefoux and Floote seemed to feel their presence was not required on this jaunt and remained upstairs in the parlor, sipping at the vile tea and consuming, very probably, al of the excel ent croissants. Traitors.
The cel ar was gloomy in al the ways cel ars ought to be and included, just as the man had said, a ghost in the final throes of poltergeist phase.
Above the little dog’s barking came the intermittent keening wail of second-death. As if that were not bad enough, the poltergeist had gone to pieces. Alexia could not abide clutter, and, having lost almost al of its capacity for cohesion, this ghost was very messy, indeed. It was flitting about the dark musty interior as pale wisps of body parts, entirely dismembered—an elbow here, an eyebrow there. Alexia started and let out a little squeak upon encountering a single eyebal , al intel igence gone from its depths, staring at her from the top of a wine rack. The cel ar also smel ed badly of formaldehyde and rotten flesh.
“Real y, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf.” Alexia’s voice was cold with disapproval. “You ought to have seen to the unfortunate soul weeks ago and never let it get this bad.”
The man rol ed his eyes dismissively. “On the contrary, Female Specimen, I rented this house because of the ghost. I have long been interested in recording exact stages of homo animus disanimation. And since my trouble with the Vatican, I switched the focus of my studies onto ghosts. I have managed three papers on this one alone. Now, I must admit, she has become much less. The staff refuses to come down here. I keep having to fetch wine myself.”
Alexia narrowly avoided walking through a floating ear. “Which must be very vexing.”
“But it has been useful. I theorize that remnant animus is carried on aether eddies as weakening of tether commences. I believe my work here has proved this hypothesis.”
“You mean to say that the soul rides the aether air, and as the body decomposes, its hold on the soul disintegrates? Like a sugar lump in tea?”
“Ya. What else could explain random floating of noncorporeal body parts? I have excavated the corpse, just there.”
Sure enough, a hole had been dug into one corner of the cel ar floor, inside of which lay the mostly decomposed skeleton of a dead girl.
“What happened to the poor thing?”
“Nothing significant. I got much needed information out of her before she went mad.
The parents could not afford graveyard fees.” He tut-tutted and shook his head at the shame of it. “When she turned out to have excess soul and went ghost, the family enjoyed stil having her around. Unfortunately, they al then died of cholera and left her here for the next occupants to enjoy. Been that way until I came along.”
Alexia looked about at the floating wisps. A toenail bobbed in her direction. In fact, al of the remnant body parts were floating softly toward her, as water wil go down a drain. It was both eerie and unsettling. Stil she hesitated. Her stomach, and its nearby problematic companion, objected to both the smel of death and the certain knowledge of what she must do next. Holding her breath, Alexia crouched down near the gravesite.
The hole for the body had been dug directly into the dirt of the cel ar floor with no attempt made to preserve the corpse for supernatural longevity until the German came along.
The child would not have had long to be a proper ghost before the madness of decomposing flesh began taking her away. It was a cruel business.
What was left was a sad crumpled little skeleton, mostly defleshed by maggots and mold. Alexia careful y removed one glove and reached down. She chose what looked to be the least decomposed part of the child’s head and touched her there once. The flesh was incredibly squishy under her fingertip and compressed easily like wet sponge cake.
“Ugh.” Alexia drew her hand back with a jerk of disgust.
The faintly luminescent wisps of body parts floating around the cel ar vanished instantly, dispersing into the musty air as preternatural touch severed the last of the soul’s tether to its body.
The German looked around, mouth slightly open. The little dog, for once, stopped barking. “Is that al ?”
Alexia nodded, brushing her fingertip against her skirt several times. She stood.
“But I did not even have my notebook out yet! What a—how do you say?—wasted opportunity.”
“It is done.”
“Extraordinary. I have not observed a preternatural end a ghost before now. Quite extraordinary. well , that confirms that you are in truth, what you say you are, Female Specimen. Congratulations.”
As if I have won some sort of prize. Alexia raised her eyebrows at that, but the little man didn’t seem to notice. So she made her way firmly back up the stairs.
The German trotted after. “Truly, truly extraordinary. Perfect exorcism. Only a preternatural can accomplish such a thing with one touch. I had read of it, certainly, but to see it, right there, in front of me. Do you find the effects more rapid for you, than for the males of your species?”
“I would not know, never having met one.”
“Of course, of course. Ya. Cannot share the same air, preternaturals.”
Alexia made her way back to the parlor, where Madame Lefoux and Floote had left her one of the croissants. Thank goodness.
“How was it?” asked the Frenchwoman politely, if a little coldly. The last ghost Alexia had exorcised had been a very dear friend of Madame Lefoux’s.
“Squishy.”
Madame Lefoux wrinkled her pert little nose. “One imagines it must be.”
The German went to look out the window, clearly awaiting ful sunrise. The sun was beginning to show just over the rooftops, and Alexia was pleased to see that Nice might, just possibly, be slightly less dirty than Paris. The dog vibrated its way around the room yipping at each visitor in turn, as though it had not remembered their presence, which might be the case given its apparent lack of a brain, before col apsing in an exhausted pouf under the settee.