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"Your victim's name," the Professor said. "Was Thomas Stanley Peterson, more commonly known, for reasons that have not yet been made clear to me, as Mellow."
"Our victim."
"Pardon me?"
Sandra crossed her arms. "Our victim," she said. "Not mine. Ours. You're a part of this, too."
The Professor frowned. "Is this really the issue just now?"
She matched his frown and raised him an eyebrow. "It's important to me. Your ass is right there over the fire with ours, remember that."
"Eloquent as ever, my dear."
"Shut up."
The Professor gave a wry smile. "Fair enough." He tipped his snifter to her. "Shall we return to business?"
Sandra sat back in her chair, arms still crossed. "Pray, do continue," she said, doing a passable impression of his accent.
He ignored this. "As of two months- Arcanelle time- prior to your little incident, our young man's name was, in fact, Thomas Stanley Peterson-Stone. Do you see?"
"Oh..."
"Right."
"Oh, shit."
"Indeed. Apparently our young Mellow married into the Stone line- one Bethany Stone, I believe- before coming here and subsequently being killed. Which makes him, in the eyes of the Family, one of the Family."
"How did you find this out?"
"I have my sources."
"Yes, I know you do. Of course you do, or you wouldn't know this stuff." She scowled. "I mean- why would you even say that? Did you read too many spy novels as a kid or something?"
"I think we're rather straying from the point here."
"Which is?"
"There is at least a passing chance that the Family may react to this news by hunting down, murdering, and eating the entrails of those individuals they consider responsible for the death of their own."
Sandra said nothing for a long moment. Then: "Can I have some of that brandy?"
The Professor poured her a snifter and handed it across the table.
"Thank you," she said. She sipped. "Are they really going to eat our entrails?"
"I was being hyperbolic."
"Well, that's-"
"They would probably choose more delectable bits of the body. And they would cook them first. They are civilized, after all."
Sandra took a large drink of brandy.
"Mr. Angelus and Mr. Steiner are currently out of town, yes?"
"Yes," Sandra said. "Isaac's visiting his mother, and Liam's-" Deciding whether to do a runner, she thought. "Liam's taking a break."
"Mm. Probably just as well." The Professor got up and went to the window. He looked out over his back gardens, hands clasped behind him. "I've taken the liberty of contacting, or attempting to contact, representatives of the Family. I would like you to speak on behalf of yourself and your associates, should the opportunity arise."
"Sure. Sounds better than being killed and eaten."
"My thoughts as well. You will be staying in Knightsbridge for some time?"
"I'll be around." Sandra stood up. "Call me if we get a chance to talk." She scratched at the back of her neck. "Or call me if we don't get a chance to talk, so I can start running."
"Of course." He turned back to the window. "Good evening, Miss O."
She paused a moment, one eyebrow raised, then went to the door and pushed it open.
Standish was outside, standing in butlerian pose against the far wall. A trio of men in patchwork outfits sat in one of the couches, their faces wearing the hungry-dog expression Sandra associated with hired mercenaries.
Standish looked a question at her, and she nodded.
"Gentlemen," Standish said. "The Professor will see you now."
The men filed through the door.
Sandra watched them go. She turned to Standish. "I don't get it," she said. "Are you a butler, or a magician, or something else?"
"Think of me as an advisor," Standish said. "By which I mean, 'something else', but with elements of all the others. Your talk went well?"
"Not really." Sandra put her hands in her pockets. "He thinks I'm an employee, not a person. He doesn't talk to me, he talks at me."
"Ah," Standish nodded. “If it comes as any consolation to you, that is a failing he shares with everyone, regardless of rank. I choose not to speculate on what the implications might be.”
“That’s probably a good idea...” Sandra looked around. “Look, can you- go on break or something for a little while? Come have a drink with me?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well-”
“What I can do is have a drink with you right here. We can go back into the moon room and take a table.”
“I guess I could run down to the pub and grab something for us to...what?”
Standish was smiling his thin little smile. “My dear,” he said. “We have everything we could possibly want. The Professor has more drinks cabinets than any other person I have ever known.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. One does not come by those rosy cheeks and red nose simply by being excessively jolly.”
“No, I guess not. All right, lead the way.”
She followed Standish down a hall, into a room that looked out onto the back garden through latticed windows.
“Moon room?” She said.
“Like a sun room, only with less sun.” Standish went to a table near the corner and pulled a chair out. “Wine?”
“Sure. Something dark.”
He disappeared through a smaller door, then returned a moment later with a magnum and two glasses. He sat down across from her, opened the wine, and poured for both of them. Sandra watched him, the fading light of evening painting his hands with strange colors.
“So,” she said. “You’re an advisor. Advise me?”
“Of course.”
“Is this room hushed?”
“I can make it so, if you wish.”
She nodded. “Please.”
“Would you prefer occult skill, or the wonders of modern science?”
“Um. Both?”
“Just as you say.” Standish brought out a handheld terminal and began tapping at it. While he was working, something in the room's atmosphere shifted. Sandra felt a crackly field, like a sort of static electricity, pass over her.
Standish raised his head, and tucked the little terminal back into a vest pocket. “Very well,” he said. “You may speak without fear.”
“Can the Professor be trusted?”
He sipped at his wine. “He is a magician, Sandra.”
“And that’s supposed to be an answer?”
“Yes, it is.” The old man’s eyes regarded her over the rim of his glass. “Magicians, as I expect you know, tend to be magicians first, and anything else second. The Professor can be trusted to be a magician, with all the contradictions and complications that entails.”
“Not very comforting,” she said.
“I thought you might prefer an uncomfortable truth to a pleasant lie.”
“Probably.” She let her gaze drift out the window. The sun was already sinking below the tree line, the shadows of branches reaching out toward them like grasping fingers. “Can I trust you, Standish?”
The old man appeared to consider this. “I certainly have the capacity to lie at need,” he said. “However, in general, I prefer not to, especially if I do not feel the individual in question has merited a lie.” He paused. “So I suppose I would say that, under current circumstances, I consider myself trustworthy; however, I urge you to come to your own decisions on this matter. Will that do?”
“I think it’ll have to.” Sandra turned the glass around with her fingers, watching the patterns of light on the fine crystal. “I’m flying blind here. There are these people who might be coming to kill me, and I don’t really know anything about them. I mean, I’ve read their entry on the vid, but I still don’t know anything about them. Even Liam knows more than I do, and he’s only been around for- he’s not had very much experience. And now I’m in a position I don’t like, because I’m relying on the fucking Professor to take care of things. And- forgive me for being cynical,” she said, leaning forward. “But I think it’s possible he might not always have my best interests at heart.”
“Pardon me for asking,” Standish said. “But just what are your best interests, as of this moment?”
“I-” Sandra paused, mouth open. “That’s a complicated question, really. I-”
She was cut off by a deep thrumming, like a massive turbine, that seemed to come from everything. It grew until it filled the world, vibrating the table beneath her feet and rattling cups in a nearby cabinet. It filled her ears, her head, pounding at her like low-frequency white noise.
“What the hell is that?” She said, almost yelling to be heard above the hum.
Standish, by way of response, cut his eyes toward the window.
Sandra got up and ran to the nearest door, which led out onto a raised patio looking toward the center of the city. Sandra braced herself on the railing and looked at the sky.
A massive, oblong-shaped airship was descending through the atmosphere toward the arch of the Knightsbridge spaceport. As she watched, a much smaller ship took off from the spaceport, trailing a thick anchoring cable.
The airship cut in reverse engines, the world-filling thrumming taking on new overtones, then cut all its engines at once. The resulting silence rang in Sandra’s ears.
Standish joined her on the porch, walking stick in hand. “New arrivals, I see.”
“There’s a mark on the side of the ship.” Sandra pointed. “You recognize that?”
“Yes,” Standish said. “That, I’m afraid, is the crest of the Stone branch of the Family.”
“Oh.” Sandra scrubbed a hand across her mouth. She looked over at the old man. “I’m afraid, too.“
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"Quit this world, quit the next world, quit quitting!" -Sufi proverb.
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Take Me Back to the Garden of Love - 14
