HOME | DD

Description
The monster leaped at Baroque Storm. He hit it with a hammer.

It was not at all a normal hammer, that one, and there was a flash of light as it hit, along with the strong smell of burning hair. The mighty blow tossed the yelping monster into some bushes several metres away. Or, well, it shoved the ominously growling monster a few inches to the side. Same thing.

Nickel said politely, "Would you like some help?"

"Oh, no," Baroque said, with cheerful sarcasm, "I—" The monster swung one furry, clawed paw directly at his head; he ducked nimbly, checked that his hat was still safely in place, and went on, "I'm perfectly alright. Just dandy. Handling things fine."

Nickel beamed. "Excellent! I am glad for you."

Baroque gave his partner an amused look. The worst thing was that the alien probably meant it; Nickel was oblivious to quite a lot of things quite a lot of the time. Right now Nickel's face – a fairly normal face, if you ignored the fact that it was beneath green hair and feathery-plumed green antennae – was slightly more worried than usual. Nickel said, worriedly, "Regardless of your control on the situation, I do not think it entirely wise to be looking away from—"

The monster's blow hit Baroque hard in the stomach and tossed him into some bushes several metres away. He landed winded and gasping, scrabbling for his hammer – but the large weapon had been knocked out of his grasp, and he was left sitting there, too helpless to do his usual dancing, as the monster shambled up to him and opened its massive, many-toothed mouth wide.

"Hi," Baroque said brightly, and he punched it in the face.

This had to be done quite carefully, because the aforementioned massive, many-toothed mouth didn't look like a very good thing to plunge your fist into. He aimed for the nose instead, and got it. The monster sat back with a 'wumph', loose leaves skittering away as it sat. It looked more startled than anything else.

Baroque sprang to his feet, pleased, and tried his best to brush the mud and leaves and muddy leaves from his coat. It was too dark to see anything properly, now that his hammer wasn't giving off plenty of sparks to see by, so this was mostly done by guesswork.

"Take," he told the monster, smugly, "that. Ha!"

He glanced around for the hammer, but couldn't find it, on account of how it wasn't giving off plenty of sparks to see by. On account of how he wasn't holding it and telling it to, on account of how he didn't have it, on account of how it wasn't giving off plenty of sparks to see by. Quite inconvenient, all told.

The monster stood back up, looming over him. He knew that it resembled a large, shaggy mound of carpet, with spikes and teeth and claws sticking out at inconvenient places, but in the dark all it resembled was a large shaggy mound of death. It was twice the size of him. And Baroque was rather on the tall side.

"I don't suppose," he said, shifting from one foot to the other restlessly, "you'd be particularly impressed if I told you that I'm Baroque Storm? Lord of Lightning? Light," he added, "in the Darkness? He whose name is legend amongst the silent thieves of Wail?"

The monster threw back its large furry head and screamed at the sky.

Baroque sighed. "Oh well," he said. "Worth a try."

It lunged at him, and at the same time there was a sudden burst of blinding red light, not the friendly blue of his lightning-magic. The beast's bulk slammed him to the ground, and he found himself winded again. He may have blacked out for a moment or two, but it may have just been the darkness of the forest and blindingness of the light-flash that did it. Either way, after vigorous blinking he found that he could see again.

The monster was showing surprisingly few signs of tearing his limbs off.

Baroque pushed at it, vaguely. His lungs were rather too crushed for him to muster more strength, and he was more of a 'dodge and dart and dazzle your enemy, and if all else fails then run away very quickly so you can kill them later' kind of person anyway.

Nickel said, "Are you functioning adequately?"

"Argh," said Baroque. "Gngh. Mrhfhe."

"I'm sorry," said Nickel, sounding distressed, "you are speaking too incoherently for me to be able to properly comprehend your words."

Baroque summoned a titanic amount of strength and heaved the monster off his top half, meaning he could wriggle his legs free as well. "I said 'get it off me, I'm half-choked and can't breathe proper'."

"Oh."

"But it's rather late for that, I think."

"Yes."

"Yes." Baroque stood up, reaching out to touch one hand against the trunk of a tree to steady himself, snatching it back when the tree was all slimy and loathsome. Most of the trees in the Blackwoods region were. It was rumoured to be a haunted place, but Baroque would take ghosts over slime any day. Ghosts didn't rack up expensive laundry bills just so you could keep your coat clean. He half-thought he glimpsed the tree twitching a little where he'd touched it, in the manner of something alive, but he cheerfully convinced himself he hadn't.  "… Right. You zapped it?"

"I operated a device constructed to emit a harmful beam, yes," said Nickel, a little reproachfully, tucking the ray gun away again somewhere beneath his white lab coat.

"Right, yeah," Baroque said smoothly. "I'd say that, only I'm all half-choked and such." He kicked around in the mulchy, rotting leaf litter, and made a pleased sound when his booted foot connected with his hammer. He picked it up and continued, "Don't know how the bloody thing got so much blubber, it's not like travellers come by here that often. I'm thinking the weight's mostly in the fur."

He went over to the prone body of the monster. Nickel came over to stand beside him, and they regarded it thoughtfully. Its head was smoking slightly.

"Do you think," said Baroque, hopefully, "we'll be hailed as heroes in Lanterntown if they knew we bravely slew this beastie, which doubtless is the terror of the town?"

Nickel nodded, the feathery plumes of his antennae lively and twitching in his relief that the fight was over. "Yes!" he said. "And perhaps they would reward us with a large meal and lodgings in some place that is warm, or comfortable, or anyway some place that is not a dark dank forest and would thus be an improvement on our current location."

"My thoughts exactly," said Baroque, clapping him on the back. He'd been thinking of other things, mostly glory, partly the kind of welcome that brave heroes got from local womenfolk.

"All that we need to do," Nickel said happily, "is somehow devise a way to take it with us to Lantertown, still a walk of twenty minutes from here."

They regarded the monster some more. It was, as Baroque had said, rather a large monster.

"We could …" said Nickel, forlornly. "Fashion some manner of sleigh?"

"Never mind," said Baroque, and lit up his hammer again to give them more light, and started off back to the path. "We'll have to rely on the glory we'll get after we've dealt with this Mansion Monster of theirs, which should be ample enough. No need to be greedsome. Anyway," he added, with a glance over his shoulder, "I think I saw it twitching. Mighty impressive, with a boiled brainpan. I'm half tempted to stay behind so I can take my hat off to it."

Nickel gave him a look of deep alarm. "I do not think that would be wise!"

"Half tempted," Baroque said, indignantly. "I mean, I like doing grand and glorious things, yes, but I'm not so fond of that as to be made a fool by it."

Nickel said nothing, and Baroque glared at him and strode on ahead.

*

Lanterntown was more civilised than Baroque was expecting, plenty of neat stone streets and grimly grimily elegant houses and blackened lanterns casting out a soft, atmospheric glow through the mist the town was cloaked in. There were people wandering the streets, a few, hurrying along with heads bowed and, Baroque noticed with pleasure, coats wrapped tightly around them. Baroque approved of coats.

He unbuckled his own coat so it hung loose, fishing his long ponytail from where it had been tucked into the coat and tugging it free of its binding so his hair hung loose as well. He spread his legs a little to brace himself against the squashy muddy grass of the little slope they were looking down on the town from. He gripped his hammer steadily.

A slight wind picked up, making his coat flap around his legs and his hair billow out behind him. Considering that his coat was long and thick and buckley and leatherish, and that his hair was longer than it really needed to be and the intense violet colour of lightning, it was, overall, a fairly dramatic effect. Baroque gave Nickel a pleased grin. "What do you think?"

Nickel buttoned up his own white coat, pointedly.

Baroque scowled. "Oh, come on," he said. "You can deal with a little cold. Entrances are important. Got to make the right impression."

Nickel said, placidly, "And no doubt we would make a very fine impression if we stride in dramatically, coats unbuckled, an icy wind blowing around us—"

"Yes!" said Baroque, delighted.

"—as we die in some painful and inconvenient way caused by striding dramatically in unbuckled coats while there is an icy wind. And possibly sneeze."

Baroque put on a solemn expression and slapped his heart and said, "Friend, if you die horribly, I promise I'll get your share."

"That is very kind of …" Nickel said, and then he trailed off and looked indignant.

Baroque grinned, and they went down into the town.

Baroque was used to the capital city, Wail, which was big and fancy and impressive. On the way here they'd passed through a large number of identical small, shabby towns. Lanterntown was a cross between these two extremes; it was small enough to be comfortable, and, Baroque was willing to bet, for everyone to know everyone's name, or at least for everyone to know everyone else well enough to tilt their hat to them in the street. (There were quite a lot of hats, too, big black shiny ones. Baroque approved.) There were lots of little shops, millers and milliners and candlewick-makers, that manner of thing. The women wore functional pretty dresses in drab dark colours, which left their arms bare. Baroque approved of this also.

"Right," he murmured to his partner, flashing a gleaming smile at a townsperson who happened to be passing. "We go our separate ways, seek whatever murmurs we can dig up on this Mansion Monster of theirs, meet back up at the large ominous Town Hall. Got it?"

Nickel looked uneasy. "Baroque, I am not sure I am entirely comfortable with this plan."

"Nonsense," Baroque said cheerfully. "It's not that ominous a town hall." He slapped his partner encouragingly on the back, and drifted into the crowd until he was a few streets away, and then he danced. It was fairly easy, here; there was a music to the mist, an unsteady rhythm to the slide of steps over slick stones, a dance in the soft swirl of long skirts, in the tilting of a hat to someone you half-know, in the fog's tearlike glimmerings of moisture on faces and mouths and eyes, in damp-darkened clothes. Baroque took the dance of the place and made it his own.

Here there was a maiden, a year or two younger than he, a worried expression on her makeup-smudged face. He walked quick and quiet behind her, fished an elegant watch from her pocket, slowed for a few steps, then said, filling his voice with sincere concern, "Ma'am!"

She turned to look back at him, blinking in concern over whatever this new problem was.

"You dropped this," he said, and he trotted up to her – a dance to this as well, a trick to making his very footsteps seem honest and eager and full of friendliness – and gave a short bow and offered her the watch.

She gasped. "That was my grandmother's," she said, and then she said, "Thank you, sir! Is there anything I can—"

Baroque pressed the watch gently into her hand and closed her fingers over it, letting his hand linger on hers a moment or two longer than was necessary. "I hesitate to ask," he said, hesitantly, and gave a shy smile. "But a friend and I are staying here, and we've yet to find lodgings. Would you by any chance know of—"

She nodded. "The Tanglevine," she said. "It's a decent establishment, and doesn't charge you a king's ransom just for the privilege of decent food and clean beds."

Baroque sighed thankfully. "Thank you, ma'am, you've taken a weight off my mind, you most truly have, a weight off my mind." He chuckled. "We were afeared that we'd have to ask hospitality of this Mansion Monster of yours!"

She laughed too. "You wouldn't get any kind of hospitality from him!" she said, then added, with relish, "He eats people."

"Does he," said Baroque, with an expression of flattering interest.

"Alive," she said, nodding seriously. "While they scream."

"And you've had some half-devoured people stagger up to the town to tell you this? Chunks missing out of their arms, that sort of thing?"

She looked a little put out. "If you don't want to hear the story—"

Baroque gave her an apologetic smile. "Lovely, I'm sorry, but I don't. I've heard plenty of children's fables on the road here." He snorted. "The last thing I want is yet another horror story about dread dark things that lurk in the wood, same as all the others."

"It is not the same as all the others!" she said indignantly. "The Master of the Mansion is by far the most terrifying fiend the Blackwoods have ever seen!"

And now he'd insulted the bragging out of her, he could see that she meant that. Interesting. He gave her another bow, deeper this time. It was his very own bow, just the right amount of flourish, just the right amount of elegance; depending on how he used it it could seem mocking or charming or arrogant. He was proud of his bow. "My apologies," he said sincerely. "The last thing I intended was to offend. The last thing." He touched one finger to the brim of his hat. "Charmed, m'lady."

He melted thoughtfully into an alleyway, came out on a broader, more important street. There was another lady – no, too determined, too fierce, unlikely to be charmed by some chance handsome stranger. There! A lonely-looking businessman, stout and plain, walking slowly as though he had nowhere to go. He'd welcome a conversation, particularly if it was about the town's local monster. As best as Baroque could tell, they were torn between pride and terror. This particular businessman looked reasonably important; he'd know plenty. The best way to approach him was to ask for an umbrella or some other such thing, and go from there. Easy.

The life of the town thrummed all around him, and Baroque danced through it with the utter ease of someone who knew that this kind of thing was what he was made for.

*

Nickel stared into the mists where his partner had vanished, and heaved a deep and mournful sigh.

He was no good at this. Baroque could charm and swindle his way into finding out anything, but people were confusing and hard and this whole ordeal was painful. He didn't have the first idea how he was meant to find information.

Some whimsical young urchins wandered up to him, and he tensed nervously. They were staring. Why were they staring? Staring was not a good thing. Nickel was fairly certain that staring was, in fact, a bad thing. Very definitely a bad thing. Very definitely a very bad thing indeed.

One of the urchins tipped his cap back and said, "You got antennae."

Nickel gave a panicky sort of flinch and glanced upwards. His sensers were flicking this way and that because of his nervousness, observing the humidity level, the temperature, the composition of the local stone.

What would Baroque do, Nickel wondered? Lie his way out of it, probably.

"You got antennae," the urchin said again, in an accusing kind of way.

"No I don't," Nickel said promptly.

The urchins gave him doubtful looks. Another one, younger, possibly a female, said, "Yes you do."

"No I don't," said Nickel, more nervously. "I …" And then he was struck by inspiration. "It is a hat."

The urchins looked deeply unimpressed.

"A hat," Nickel went on, "is a covering worn on the head to protect from unpredictable weather or for reasons of fashion. This is a hat that I am wearing, because they are not antennae, because antennae are something aliens would have which I do not have because that would mean I am an alien and I am not an alien because I have a hat."

The urchins looked even more unimpressed by this explanation, which he'd been rather proud of.

"It is a human hat," he added, hoping it would help, suspecting it wouldn't.

The urchins mostly looked confused, by this point. Nickel stared at him helplessly. Information! Yes, he was looking for information. Baroque wanted him to find information. "Do you know anything about monsters?" he said, without much enthusiasm.

The urchin with the cap looked awed. "'ere!" he said. "You're a monster?"

"What? No! I'm an ali – I am a human! I am a human human who is neither an alien nor a monster!"

"You're wearing a human hat!" cried the possibly-female urchin. "You skinned a human and you're wearing 'im as a hat!" She paused and then said, "Neat!"

"We know what to do with monsters," the male urchin said proudly. "We're Lanterntowners."

"Oh," said Nickel weakly. "Good."

"We're gonna report you to the Mayor so he can kill you gruesomely," the urchin went on, looking quite pleased with the idea.

Nickel's sensers drooped miserably. He really wasn't good at this.

*

Baroque wandered through the city. He'd be wondering aimlessly, because he didn't have any particular aim – but this was Baroque, so he strode with intent and purpose, his face distant, as though he was thinking on strange matters of vast importance to the fate of the world. The fog parted before him.

He'd decided he quite liked this town. The people were chatty and welcoming and, above all, naïve; the layout was pleasant, the ambience melancholy and quiet. It was too dreary for him to want to stay for any length of time, but it was pleasant to visit. And, he was willing to bet, the kind of place that would be delighted to give any Mansion-Monster-vanquishing heroes large bags of gold, and large plates of food, and would tell the story over and over again until their names were known far and wide …

Baroque smiled broad. Yes, he liked this town.

He emerged from his shortcut and found himself at the Town Hall, which was vast and creaky – it was built of fine white marble, but it was greased with something creeping and black, and looked like it'd quite like to fall down if anyone did something unwise, like lean on it or breathe too loudly. In front of the Hall was a gathering mass of townfolk – the word 'mob' would not yet be appropriate, but looked like it soon would be – and at the front of them was a stout, perspiring Mayor-type person, staring sternly at a tall, gangly man with … a white lab coat and green antennae and a worried expression …

Baroque sighed and strode up to them.

"We know how to treat monsters here," the Mayor was saying, glaring at Nickel.

Nickel suggested, "Kill them gruesomely?"

The Mayor looked rather taken aback. "Well," he said. "Er. Do you want us to?"

"No!" said Nickel frantically. "No, that is not at all the outcome I would prefer!"

Some kid piped up, "He makes people into hats!"

Baroque gave a snort of laughter at that, because it was one of the more ridiculous reactions to Nickel that he'd heard, and he'd heard quite a few. Everyone turned towards him at the sound, and while their attention was on him he walked forward and interposed himself elegantly between the Mayor and his friend.

"Hey," he said softly, giving the Mayor an annoyed look. "This man is with me."

He said it with such confidence that the Mayor blinked and shrank back and looked suitably cowed. A woman's voice cut through his stuttering to say, "And you're who, exactly?"

Baroque flashed her a shining grin. She was shortish, pretty, with an inexplicably freckled face and an annoyed expression. "Glad you asked!" he said. "I'm Baroque, Baroque Storm." He paused modestly. "You may've heard of me."

There was a chorus of vague murmurs of confusion and dissent. A few people looked suddenly informed, but they were by far the minority. Baroque gave a vexed sort of frown and went on, "Well, no matter. I'm Baroque Storm—" It was always good to get your name etched into their memories, and anyway he never tired of saying it. "—and this is my partner, Nickel. We're here to deal with …" He lowered his voice, confidentially, and grinned when he saw how they all leaned forward to listen. "Your little monster problem," he whispered, and winked.

There was a delighted intake of breath. An urchin cried, "Cor!" for no apparent reason. The Mayor looked delighted. The freckly girl looked sceptical.

"Are you," she said flatly. "The Master of the Mansion has confounded all our strongest and fiercest and sharpest. I hardly think he'll have any problem with you."

Baroque bristled. "What's this Mansionmaster got that's so special?" he said, and swung his hammer jauntily in one hand. "I'm Baroque Storm! Lord of Lightning!"

"You can be Lord of Getting Yourself Killed, if you want," the girl suggested. "No one would mind that."

Nickel asked, "What is the special quality of this monster?" They all looked at him blankly, and he flushed. "I mean, if he has one and it's not simply that you're ignorant townfolk that lack the resources required to defeat the more common sort of monster or to distinguish between them."

They all looked at him in a much less blank and much more annoyed kind of way, and Nickel looked crestfallen, obviously realising he'd said something wrong again. The urchin boy whispered, meaningfully, "Hats."

Just then there was a deafening screech and a monster dived at them out of the mist, some kind of wretched winged beast with patchy feathers and too many eyes. Before Baroque could react, the freckled girl produced an axe from somewhere and swung it at the beast just was it was descending, neatly cutting off its head. Well, not so neatly, really. But neatly considering the circumstances.

The freckled girl sighed. "Drat. I'll never get the ichor from my clothes."

There were a few sympathetic murmurs. Someone muttered, "Bloody monsters. Almost as bad as rain."

Baroque said, "Um."

Then he said, recovering quickly, "Right, okay, not the second option. So. What does this Mansionbeast of yours have that sets him apart from all these other … things?" More to the point, what did the Mansion monster have that made his name be spoken of in scared whispers by people who viewed monsters as a fairly daily occurrence?

The Mayor wailed, "He asks questions!"

Baroque blinked. That hadn't been what he was expecting at all. "Oh?" he said, and grinned. "Such savagery. It boggles the mind."

"He asks questions of the people that go up there sometimes," said the Mayor desperately, "that are all deep and musing and thoughtful!"

"How terrible that must be."

"Sometimes he's polite at them!"

Baroque cleared his throat to stop himself from laughing. "This is all very scary and such," he said, "and I'm shaking in my boots, friends, honestly I am, but I'd rather get to the point. What's so bad about this man? Exactly? Other than him being curious and polite."

"Well, he kills people as well," said the freckled girl. "Obviously. But that's less unusual."

Everyone nodded. Baroque looked around at them.

"You are all," he murmured, "rather more deranged than anyone I've met. Counting Nickel, even."

The Mayor blinked. "What was that?"

Nickel gave him a hurt look. "What was that?"

"Nothing," said Baroque hastily, to both of them. He gave the Mayor a charming grin and took off his hat and gave a sweeping bow. "Never fear, sir. We'll deal with your monster for you." He added, confidently, "He won't ask any questions once we're done with him."

The Mayor said, quietly, "Gods bless your souls." It was dramatic and chilling, and rather ruined when he added, "You'll need them to, seeing you'll have died horribly. Come on, citizens, break it up, break it up …" And the crowd dispersed. And that was that. No heroes' welcome, no tearful farewells. Nothing.

"I don't suppose some food …?" called Baroque after them. "No? Alright then. No problem. No problem at all." He grinned at Nickel and started walking. "Maybe we can ask the monster."

"I do not think that would be wise," Nickel said thoughtfully, "considering that he would likely be trying to kill us."

Baroque sighed. "Jesting, Nick."

"Oh," said Nickel. "That is good. Being poisoned would probably be fairly unpleasant."

"Fairly, yeah."

*

Once they were a few minutes out of town, Baroque found himself a clear spot, kicking away leaf litter until the ground underneath was exposed. That was the idea, anyway. In practice, kicking away leaf litter just exposed more leaf litter, though in a slightly more rotten state.

"Good enough," Baroque murmured, and he shifted his hammer from the place he normally carried it – resting comfortably against one shoulder – to the ground, twirling it on the way down so the tip, rather than the head, hit the ground. It sunk for a few inches with a squelchy sort of sound. "You might want to take a few steps …" He glanced up, to find that Nickel had retreated a good twenty metres away and was peering out at him worriedly from behind a tree. "… away. Okay. Good."

He curled his fingers around the head of the hammer, and breathed deep, and drew out its power. Magic was terribly draining, and normally he only did minor things, quick little dazzles to startle and impress. This was big, though, and he could feel exhaustion clawing at his limbs, hunger clawing at his stomach. By the time he was done he was pale and sweating, leaning heavily on the hammer as though it was a crutch.

Rain started to fall. A moment later there was a flash of lightning, blinding-bright. Baroque gave Nickel a weak happy grin. "Don't call me Baroque Storm for nothing," he said.

"I won't," Nickel said obediently.

"I meant that they don't—"

Thunder cut through his sentence, a rich deep roll of it, making the ground tremble and leaves fall limply to the ground. Baroque's grin became much wider. He liked storms. Granted, they'd have to slog through muddy woodland through the drenching rain while all around them lightning flashed, disorienting them and possibly setting the woods on fire, but still.

Nickel approached him cautiously, flinching when there was more thunder. His coat was made of much thinner fabric than Baroque's was, and already it was soaked through and sticking to his skin. "I would like to be reminded why this is in the plan," he said unhappily.

"It's so that we can be stranded travellers," Baroque explained, starting off again. The occasional flashes of lightning showed the Mansion, perched high on a hill; he steered them that way. It'd be at least half an hour before they got there, though, maybe more in this weather. "All helpless and soaked and shivering. We can knock on the door and plead for shelter, and that'll give us a plausible reason to approach the big spooky mansion. It's our cover."

"Cover sounds nice," Nickel muttered.

They walked on through the woods. Baroque had to buckle his coat to keep some degree of warmth, and even with that his hair was soon hanging heavy with the wet and the rain had somehow managed to trickle down his neck. Being tall, the occasional low-hanging branch of course decided that it wanted to try and crack their heads open, and that was without the knotty issue of roots, which were as tangled as … as something that was very tangled and wanted to trip you with a single-minded malevolence that approached insanity. The woods were dark and grim, and all the while the elements raged above them, a war of wind and water and air.

"It's a perfectly good plan," Baroque muttered.

*

Another flash of lightning painted the Mansion in blinding white, and Baroque paused with his hand held up to knock.

"Hesitation will make us even more saturated than we currently are," Nickel said impatiently.

"I'm not scared! I have to—"

Thunder rolled dramatically. Baroque gave a satisfied smile and waited till the silence it left in its wake before pounding on the door and crying, "We seek aid! We ask shelter of your roof! Do any dwell in this house?"

He lowered his hand and grinned smugly. "See?" he murmured to Nickel, in a much softer voice. "The entrance is the thing."

Nickel said politely, "I cannot hear what you are saying because of the loudness of an atmospheric disturbance that you summoned which has thus far caused us nothing but inconvenience."

Baroque glared at him. Nickel smiled innocently.

The door opened, and a man peered out at them. "Yes?" he said.

"We ask your hospitality," Nickel said, a little unexpectedly. "According to the ancient codes, we seek warmth of your fire and shelter of your roof."

"And food," Baroque added. Magic took a lot out of you, and it was about all he could manage just to stand upright. "Food would be nice."

It was difficult to make out much of the stranger; there weren't any lamps at the door, meaning that all the light was spilling out from the corridor behind him, meaning that he was a dim silhouette with glittering eyes and a friendly smile.

"Sure," he said, and glanced outside and winced as the wind blew a flurry of rain into his face. He half-raised his arm to shield himself, chuckling. "I'd be a monster to make anyone stay out in this. Come on in. You're welcome to my roof and fire."

Baroque said, "And food."

They followed him through a plush corridor with lamps shining from golden brackets onto rich plush carpet the colour of bruised plums, onto elaborate wallpaper, onto the occasional mutedly elegant painting. The rich carpet was scuffed in places; there was enough light without there being so much that it blinded the viewer with its brightness. As best as Baroque could tell, the house was trying to be the perfect compromise between expense and comfort, which would've been better achieved if it was warmer and if the mutedly elegant paintings didn't all seem to be about people and creatures dying horribly. Nickel was eyeing the paintings uneasily.

Their host glanced over his shoulder and gave an apologetic smile. "Family heirlooms, I'm afraid."

Baroque said brightly, "I'd heard that you bought this mansion, friend. Only ten years ago or so." The stout businessman had been fairly forthcoming.

Their host raised his eyebrow. "I never said they were my family heirlooms," he said. "Here we are."

'Here' was a dining hall, vast and gloomy; again, it seemed like the owner was going for a comfy sort of feel, but no amount of happily embroidered plush cushions on the seats could make up for the shadows that lurked at the ceiling and in the corners, or for the occasional suspiciously reddish stain on the elegant white tablecloth. Baroque felt bad for whoever had designed the place. He'd tried so hard. Unless it was meant to be ironical or something.

"Anyway," Baroque said, "you're being unkind, Nick. It's unguestly to critique the décor of someone who's offered you shelter and fire and," he paused pointedly, "food …"

The Mansion's owner chuckled. "Fortunately for you …" He stood on a chair, hopped from it to the table, strode carefully through the elegantly laid-out plates, and settled neatly into a chair on the opposite side. "I was settling down to dinner just as you arrived. Plenty for all."

Baroque grinned and settled into the chair that he'd stepped on. There were platters of potatoes and peas and meat and other such things, and some of the food looked oddly mutated, but there was bound to be a few quirks to trying to grow food in a place like the Blackwoods and Baroque was rather too hungry to care. Magic left him feeling all empty. He piled his plate and ate busily.

"Baroque …" murmured Nickel worriedly, sitting down as well. "We discussed poison? If you recall?"

Baroque swallowed his mouthful and said, waving Nickel aside, "We can talk about it later, I'm eating."

"That is precisely my concern!" Nickel hissed.

"Not very guestly of you to whisper to yourselves, is it?" said their host, laughing. Baroque noticed that, despite his words about settling down to dinner, his own plate was empty. "Particularly when we haven't even been introduced. I'm Seraph."

Baroque tilted his hat to him, then realised that it was probably unguestly to be wearing a hat indoors.

Oh well.

"Baroque," he said, and went on eating. Nickel stared at him in shock, and Baroque gave him an annoyed look. Using his full introduction was what he normally did, yes, but introducing himself in full to someone he intended to kill wasn't really the best of ideas. But Nickel looked crestfallen, so Baroque rolled his eyes and added, "… Storm, Lord of Lightning, Light in the Darkness etc."

Seraph looked politely blank, which meant he hadn't heard of him. Good. Well, not good, obviously, Baroque wanted everyone to have heard of him, but in this particular case … good. If Seraph knew who he was, he'd probably wonder what a famous thief was doing in some out-of-the-way town in the Blackwoods, and, more importantly, what someone who half the stories labelled a storm-god was doing getting caught in a little squall. "Charmed," Seraph said, raising his glass to Baroque. "And you? Not from around here, I gather." He grinned at Nickel.

Nickel flushed. "I am from Wail," he said, "and certainly not from a world that is an incomprehensible distance from here!"

"Good," said Seraph easily. "I'm fond of comprehending things. And I meant to ask your name?"

"Oh," said Nickel, and relaxed. "Nickel. Nickel is my name and it is a good name and it is mine."

Seraph nodded. "Nickel," he said, "you're shivering."

Nickel looked blank, and then he said, "Oh," and took off his drenched coat to drape it over the back of his chair. There was a fire in one corner of the room, big and roaring, and it made the air uncold, if not warm; Nickel'd thaw decently well without the coat to cool him. "Thank you."

"A host should do no less!" said Seraph, and he raised the glass to Nickel as well. Baroque swallowed a mouthful of something that he sincerely hoped was turnip and, no longer feeling quite as likely to suddenly collapse, surveyed their host thoughtfully. He was dressed in reasonably fine clothes, such as a middle-class gentleman would wear – a shabby waistcoat, a jacket with patches on the sleeves. He looked utterly comfortable in them. He was of medium height and medium build and had a reasonably but unexceptionally handsome face, though his skin was unusually pale.

He wasn't eating, but he took sips of wine from his glass every now and again: a red, red wine it was, and it stained his lips with colour, but his teeth, which you saw when he smiled, were pale, nearly translucent. And sharp. The hair that curled around his ears was as red as blood. Dyed, plainly; his eyebrows were fair.

The red eyes were less easily explained. But still.

Seraph's eyes flicked to his as though noticing his scrutiny, and Baroque gave an innocent smile and went back to his food. Seraph asked, politely, in the manner of someone making conversation, "So, what is it you do?"

Baroque took a sip of water and said, "Battle tailor."

Seraph, composure shattered, blinked. "What?"

"Well, you know how these woods are," Baroque explained cheerfully. "Lots of little towns, too many hazards between them for people to trade properly. I figured there might be a niche for a tailor willing to brave the trackless woodland to bring people new cloth and garments and such, a niche for someone who'd come by town every few months and make people garments. Someone who could deal with the dangers on the way." He leaned forward and confided, solemnly, "I am death with a needle."

"I'm …" said Seraph, looking wrong-footed. "Sure that you are."

Baroque chuckled and sat back. "Just a normal tailor really," he said. "I came here to start my own business, but the Woods are more …"

"Evil?" suggested Seraph.

Baroque nodded. "More evil than I was expecting." He gave a hopeful grin. "Don't suppose you need a new waistcoat?"

Seraph smiled. "No, sorry. I have far more clothes than I need."

Baroque sighed. "A pity."

Seraph wasn't anywhere near as suspicious now; there'd been a knowing look in his eyes when he'd caught Baroque looking at him, but he seemed to have bought the looking-hopefully-at-your-clothes explanation. He turned his smile to Nickel. "And you? A battle barber, perhaps? No? What do you do?"

Baroque tried hard not to wince. Please don't say anything stupid.

"Science," said Nickel. "Also crime."

Baroque sighed and, slowly, pulled his hat down to cover his eyes. That was the problem with having an alien for a partner. Nickel was all kinds of clever with guns and other such useful sciencey toys, but he was utterly lost when it came to people. And, apparently, somehow still didn't know that that wasn't the kind of thing you said. Particularly not when you were trying to go incognito.

"He asked," Nickel said, sounding a little hurt.

"I did," Seraph agreed. "And it's fine, I don't mind. Planning to crime at me?"

Baroque said, before Nickel could look guilty and give them away, "No, of course he's not. Not nice to steal from your host."

"Well, that's fine, then," Seraph said, amusement in his voice. "I'd hate to be crimed, but otherwise I don't really see how it's my business. You should eat something, alien."

"I am not an alien and an alien is not what I am and I am most definitely not—"

"My mistake," Seraph said, smoothly interrupting the babble. "You really should, though."

Nickel nodded and took a pea. Just one. One pea, and one potato, and if it was possible to get one gravy, Baroque was sure that he would have. Nickel was precise like that. The alien seemed to have forgotten his misgivings re: poison, but Baroque was starting to feel uneasy. Seraph was a little too eager in his insistence. Baroque would have to watch him closely, because, however friendly Seraph acted, it wouldn't be at all wise to forget that they were enemies.

"Baroque," Seraph said knowingly, "your hair must be troubling you, yeah?"

"Eh?"

The rain was still pounding outside, so loud that they'd had to keep on raising their voices during the conversation. Seraph nodded towards a window and said, "This rain. And all the electricity in the air. I know my hair likes to go all curly and rebellious, but your hair's straight, and there's so much more of it. I don't suppose you'd like to share the secret?"

Baroque laughed. "No secret," he said. "Might be that I'm used to storms? We get a fair amount of them in Wail." Mostly because Baroque made them, but Seraph didn't need to know that.

Seraph raised an eyebrow. "Short of moving to Wail, though," he said.

"There's a secret," Baroque confessed, and leaned forward. Seraph leaned forward to hear him, and Baroque said seriously, "On the night of a full moon, but not if it is a Tuesday, or if you have eaten sardines in the last month – on the night of a full moon, when all nature is in harmony and the air is as smooth and soft as the velvet coat of an innocent young maiden and the stars shine like the scattered tears of some vast celestial spirit, you've got to, like, sacrifice a goat, right, and then—"

He stopped and sat back, grinning, because Seraph, who'd been smirking throughout, burst out laughing at that last bit. The trick was in talking in such a self-important grandiose way, half-chanting as though reciting some ancient ritual. It made everything you said three times as ridiculous.

"Mm," Seraph said in amusement, and touched his finger to his chin. "Goat-murder seems like going rather too far."

"Why?" said Baroque innocently. "I mean, I was assuming that you used goat-blood to get that colour."

Seraph straightened and gave him a haughty glare. "This from the man who looks like a walking … a walking person with ridiculous hair!" he snapped.

Baroque had to give him credit for trying. His hair was difficult to make metaphors for. "It's been compared to lightning?" he said. "Makes quite the impact."

"Surely not worth all the trouble of dyeing it, though."

"But it's nice to be distinctive, don't you think? I mean …" Baroque stopped. "Yeah, Nickel?"

Nickel said, quietly – he had enough sense for that, at least – "I thought we were meant to converse with him for just a few minutes? To ascertain his nature? And then proceed with the plan."

"What of it?"

"The plan does not involve gossiping about how to correctly style hair."

"Oh," said Baroque in an undertone, and cleared his throat guiltily. "I mean, yeah. Yes. Um." He flashed Seraph a grin and raised his voice to say, "My friend is tired, sir. Could we trouble you for rooms?"

"It'd be no trouble," Seraph said gallantly, and stood. "The rooms on the top floor are nice and spacious. They might be to your liking."

"That sounds most thoroughly excellent, thank you." 'Spacious' sounded cold, but that was fine; all they needed was to get their weapons ready.

"I …" said Nickel, uncertainly. "Could I first be shown to a room containing another controlled incendiary chemical reaction?" He twitched one of his antennae in the direction of the massive fire. "One that is less … One that is just generally 'less'."

"To dry out?" said Seraph, and nodded. "Fair enough. It'd be annoying to get ill from this weather. I mean, you might sneeze. Sneezing is such a pain."

Nickel said, in delight, "Precisely!"

Baroque rolled his eyes and left them to it, striding towards the stairs. They were elegant stairs, with carved banisters and rich carpet that was threadbare in the middle. He danced up them, and the next few flights, sparing a few curious glances for the vast deserted floors. Finally he found himself on what he assumed to be the top floor, and he opened a door at random and sulked his way into the room.

"There," he told it, "is nothing wrong with storms."

It was a decent enough room, and didn't deserve to have Baroque sulking at it. Particularly when Baroque sulking tended to end in massive storms wrecking and wreaking his rage on whatever the surrounding area was, or occasionally just in him whacking things with his hammer until he felt better. He leaned the hammer against the bed – which was mouldering, but in a comfortable way – and felt in his pockets until he found the device that Nickel had constructed just for this trip, just to deal with the Mansion Monster that they kept on hearing stories about. Baroque wanted the glory, of course, and also he resented anyone that was in more stories than he was.

The device was shaped like some of the large guns that Nickel had made in the past, the clumsy heavy bulky ones made to blow huge holes in things. Given that this particular device was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, this meant that it ended up looking ridiculous. It had little tubes running along either side, full of something sludgy and black; from the look of it, and the way that they converged on the end, they were made so that whatever the gun fired would pass through them on its merry destructive way. He tapped his fingers against its handle, thoughtfully.

"Still don't see why we couldn'ta just used one of those other ones," he said irritably, starting to operate the complicated series of switches that made the gun ready to use. It would be clumsier, yeah, but whether a vampire died of an intricately crafted subtle little device or a huge fireball didn't really matter, he'd still be just as dead ...  Ah, there they were, it was making that fwooshy sound that it made. That was a good sound. That was a good, ready sort of sound. Baroque swung up his arm, aimed at one wall, and pushed a button.

There was a much louder fwooshy sound. Something sharp and swift screamed through the air, coated with something that seemed to be oil, and as soon as it was free of the gun it caught fire. The sharp-and-on-fire thing thudded into the wall. The wall, which wasn't even the one he'd been aiming at, also caught fire.

That Nickel was good at making these things didn't mean Baroque was good at using them.

"I take back 'subtle'," he said with a grin, and padded over to the window. It was two windows, stretching almost from one end of the room to the other, and he shoved them open, letting a rainy gust of wind blow into the dank room. The fire shuddered and flared, partly fanned by the breeze, partly stifled by the water that it brought. Baroque took advantage of his foe's confusion to smother it under a pillow while it was thus distracted.

When he was done the pillow was still smouldering slightly. He dropped it onto the ground and stomped on it a bit to put the fire out, and then stomped on it a bit more. It was quite an ugly pillow. This done, he picked up the gun and examined it curiously. It fired stakes that were, themselves, on fire. Quite elegant, but it wouldn't be much use if he couldn't work the thing properly. He examined it forlornly, and settled absentmindedly onto the bed.

The bed dumped him out the window.

Baroque yelped in surprise, grabbing at the window frame before he fell. His legs were swinging out over open space, the wind was tearing at him, the window frame was slick with rain. He scrabbled at it, managing to get a better grip; he tried to pull himself up and fell back. He glanced down – right, his coat was caught on that severe-looking gargoyle. He gripped the frame even tighter, steadied his feet against the wall, shuffled half a metre along. The coat slipped free. He pulled again, and this time hauled himself up and fell tiredly onto the bed, which dumped him out the window again.

Or tried to, but he was prepared this time, and he rolled quickly to the side and fell to the carpet. He examined the bed, which was bucking back and forth like a manic mustang, tilting so anyone who sat on it would be tipped through the window. Yes, there, as he'd thought – springs, and cogs, and any manner of complicated machinery that doubtless someone like Nickel could understand. Baroque understood enough to know that his host had tried to kill him, or at any rate sent him to a room which would try to kill him, which was more or less the same thing. The bed creaked back and forth mockingly. He wondered what would happen if it started moving a few hours after someone had sat on it, when they were snugly asleep, thinking themselves safe; imagined dreaming of falling and then suddenly, horrifyingly, waking up …

He whacked it with his hammer until he felt better, and until it stopped moving. Then he glanced at the gun, still lying on the floor where he'd left it, all clever and subtle and metallic, a humane weapon guaranteed to kill the vampire quickly and efficiently.

"Oh, to hells with it," he murmured, and he pulled a stake out of his pocket. "Let's do this the old-fashioned way."

Description
The monster leaped at Baroque Storm. He hit it with a hammer.

It was not at all a normal hammer, that one, and there was a flash of light as it hit, along with the strong smell of burning hair. The mighty blow tossed the yelping monster into some bushes several metres away. Or, well, it shoved the ominously growling monster a few inches to the side. Same thing.

Nickel said politely, "Would you like some help?"

"Oh, no," Baroque said, with cheerful sarcasm, "I—" The monster swung one furry, clawed paw directly at his head; he ducked nimbly, checked that his hat was still safely in place, and went on, "I'm perfectly alright. Just dandy. Handling things fine."

Nickel beamed. "Excellent! I am glad for you."

Baroque gave his partner an amused look. The worst thing was that the alien probably meant it; Nickel was oblivious to quite a lot of things quite a lot of the time. Right now Nickel's face – a fairly normal face, if you ignored the fact that it was beneath green hair and feathery-plumed green antennae – was slightly more worried than usual. Nickel said, worriedly, "Regardless of your control on the situation, I do not think it entirely wise to be looking away from—"

The monster's blow hit Baroque hard in the stomach and tossed him into some bushes several metres away. He landed winded and gasping, scrabbling for his hammer – but the large weapon had been knocked out of his grasp, and he was left sitting there, too helpless to do his usual dancing, as the monster shambled up to him and opened its massive, many-toothed mouth wide.

"Hi," Baroque said brightly, and he punched it in the face.

This had to be done quite carefully, because the aforementioned massive, many-toothed mouth didn't look like a very good thing to plunge your fist into. He aimed for the nose instead, and got it. The monster sat back with a 'wumph', loose leaves skittering away as it sat. It looked more startled than anything else.

Baroque sprang to his feet, pleased, and tried his best to brush the mud and leaves and muddy leaves from his coat. It was too dark to see anything properly, now that his hammer wasn't giving off plenty of sparks to see by, so this was mostly done by guesswork.

"Take," he told the monster, smugly, "that. Ha!"

He glanced around for the hammer, but couldn't find it, on account of how it wasn't giving off plenty of sparks to see by. On account of how he wasn't holding it and telling it to, on account of how he didn't have it, on account of how it wasn't giving off plenty of sparks to see by. Quite inconvenient, all told.

The monster stood back up, looming over him. He knew that it resembled a large, shaggy mound of carpet, with spikes and teeth and claws sticking out at inconvenient places, but in the dark all it resembled was a large shaggy mound of death. It was twice the size of him. And Baroque was rather on the tall side.

"I don't suppose," he said, shifting from one foot to the other restlessly, "you'd be particularly impressed if I told you that I'm Baroque Storm? Lord of Lightning? Light," he added, "in the Darkness? He whose name is legend amongst the silent thieves of Wail?"

The monster threw back its large furry head and screamed at the sky.

Baroque sighed. "Oh well," he said. "Worth a try."

It lunged at him, and at the same time there was a sudden burst of blinding red light, not the friendly blue of his lightning-magic. The beast's bulk slammed him to the ground, and he found himself winded again. He may have blacked out for a moment or two, but it may have just been the darkness of the forest and blindingness of the light-flash that did it. Either way, after vigorous blinking he found that he could see again.

The monster was showing surprisingly few signs of tearing his limbs off.

Baroque pushed at it, vaguely. His lungs were rather too crushed for him to muster more strength, and he was more of a 'dodge and dart and dazzle your enemy, and if all else fails then run away very quickly so you can kill them later' kind of person anyway.

Nickel said, "Are you functioning adequately?"

"Argh," said Baroque. "Gngh. Mrhfhe."

"I'm sorry," said Nickel, sounding distressed, "you are speaking too incoherently for me to be able to properly comprehend your words."

Baroque summoned a titanic amount of strength and heaved the monster off his top half, meaning he could wriggle his legs free as well. "I said 'get it off me, I'm half-choked and can't breathe proper'."

"Oh."

"But it's rather late for that, I think."

"Yes."

"Yes." Baroque stood up, reaching out to touch one hand against the trunk of a tree to steady himself, snatching it back when the tree was all slimy and loathsome. Most of the trees in the Blackwoods region were. It was rumoured to be a haunted place, but Baroque would take ghosts over slime any day. Ghosts didn't rack up expensive laundry bills just so you could keep your coat clean. He half-thought he glimpsed the tree twitching a little where he'd touched it, in the manner of something alive, but he cheerfully convinced himself he hadn't.  "… Right. You zapped it?"

"I operated a device constructed to emit a harmful beam, yes," said Nickel, a little reproachfully, tucking the ray gun away again somewhere beneath his white lab coat.

"Right, yeah," Baroque said smoothly. "I'd say that, only I'm all half-choked and such." He kicked around in the mulchy, rotting leaf litter, and made a pleased sound when his booted foot connected with his hammer. He picked it up and continued, "Don't know how the bloody thing got so much blubber, it's not like travellers come by here that often. I'm thinking the weight's mostly in the fur."

He went over to the prone body of the monster. Nickel came over to stand beside him, and they regarded it thoughtfully. Its head was smoking slightly.

"Do you think," said Baroque, hopefully, "we'll be hailed as heroes in Lanterntown if they knew we bravely slew this beastie, which doubtless is the terror of the town?"

Nickel nodded, the feathery plumes of his antennae lively and twitching in his relief that the fight was over. "Yes!" he said. "And perhaps they would reward us with a large meal and lodgings in some place that is warm, or comfortable, or anyway some place that is not a dark dank forest and would thus be an improvement on our current location."

"My thoughts exactly," said Baroque, clapping him on the back. He'd been thinking of other things, mostly glory, partly the kind of welcome that brave heroes got from local womenfolk.

"All that we need to do," Nickel said happily, "is somehow devise a way to take it with us to Lantertown, still a walk of twenty minutes from here."

They regarded the monster some more. It was, as Baroque had said, rather a large monster.

"We could …" said Nickel, forlornly. "Fashion some manner of sleigh?"

"Never mind," said Baroque, and lit up his hammer again to give them more light, and started off back to the path. "We'll have to rely on the glory we'll get after we've dealt with this Mansion Monster of theirs, which should be ample enough. No need to be greedsome. Anyway," he added, with a glance over his shoulder, "I think I saw it twitching. Mighty impressive, with a boiled brainpan. I'm half tempted to stay behind so I can take my hat off to it."

Nickel gave him a look of deep alarm. "I do not think that would be wise!"

"Half tempted," Baroque said, indignantly. "I mean, I like doing grand and glorious things, yes, but I'm not so fond of that as to be made a fool by it."

Nickel said nothing, and Baroque glared at him and strode on ahead.

*

Lanterntown was more civilised than Baroque was expecting, plenty of neat stone streets and grimly grimily elegant houses and blackened lanterns casting out a soft, atmospheric glow through the mist the town was cloaked in. There were people wandering the streets, a few, hurrying along with heads bowed and, Baroque noticed with pleasure, coats wrapped tightly around them. Baroque approved of coats.

He unbuckled his own coat so it hung loose, fishing his long ponytail from where it had been tucked into the coat and tugging it free of its binding so his hair hung loose as well. He spread his legs a little to brace himself against the squashy muddy grass of the little slope they were looking down on the town from. He gripped his hammer steadily.

A slight wind picked up, making his coat flap around his legs and his hair billow out behind him. Considering that his coat was long and thick and buckley and leatherish, and that his hair was longer than it really needed to be and the intense violet colour of lightning, it was, overall, a fairly dramatic effect. Baroque gave Nickel a pleased grin. "What do you think?"

Nickel buttoned up his own white coat, pointedly.

Baroque scowled. "Oh, come on," he said. "You can deal with a little cold. Entrances are important. Got to make the right impression."

Nickel said, placidly, "And no doubt we would make a very fine impression if we stride in dramatically, coats unbuckled, an icy wind blowing around us—"

"Yes!" said Baroque, delighted.

"—as we die in some painful and inconvenient way caused by striding dramatically in unbuckled coats while there is an icy wind. And possibly sneeze."

Baroque put on a solemn expression and slapped his heart and said, "Friend, if you die horribly, I promise I'll get your share."

"That is very kind of …" Nickel said, and then he trailed off and looked indignant.

Baroque grinned, and they went down into the town.

Baroque was used to the capital city, Wail, which was big and fancy and impressive. On the way here they'd passed through a large number of identical small, shabby towns. Lanterntown was a cross between these two extremes; it was small enough to be comfortable, and, Baroque was willing to bet, for everyone to know everyone's name, or at least for everyone to know everyone else well enough to tilt their hat to them in the street. (There were quite a lot of hats, too, big black shiny ones. Baroque approved.) There were lots of little shops, millers and milliners and candlewick-makers, that manner of thing. The women wore functional pretty dresses in drab dark colours, which left their arms bare. Baroque approved of this also.

"Right," he murmured to his partner, flashing a gleaming smile at a townsperson who happened to be passing. "We go our separate ways, seek whatever murmurs we can dig up on this Mansion Monster of theirs, meet back up at the large ominous Town Hall. Got it?"

Nickel looked uneasy. "Baroque, I am not sure I am entirely comfortable with this plan."

"Nonsense," Baroque said cheerfully. "It's not that ominous a town hall." He slapped his partner encouragingly on the back, and drifted into the crowd until he was a few streets away, and then he danced. It was fairly easy, here; there was a music to the mist, an unsteady rhythm to the slide of steps over slick stones, a dance in the soft swirl of long skirts, in the tilting of a hat to someone you half-know, in the fog's tearlike glimmerings of moisture on faces and mouths and eyes, in damp-darkened clothes. Baroque took the dance of the place and made it his own.

Here there was a maiden, a year or two younger than he, a worried expression on her makeup-smudged face. He walked quick and quiet behind her, fished an elegant watch from her pocket, slowed for a few steps, then said, filling his voice with sincere concern, "Ma'am!"

She turned to look back at him, blinking in concern over whatever this new problem was.

"You dropped this," he said, and he trotted up to her – a dance to this as well, a trick to making his very footsteps seem honest and eager and full of friendliness – and gave a short bow and offered her the watch.

She gasped. "That was my grandmother's," she said, and then she said, "Thank you, sir! Is there anything I can—"

Baroque pressed the watch gently into her hand and closed her fingers over it, letting his hand linger on hers a moment or two longer than was necessary. "I hesitate to ask," he said, hesitantly, and gave a shy smile. "But a friend and I are staying here, and we've yet to find lodgings. Would you by any chance know of—"

She nodded. "The Tanglevine," she said. "It's a decent establishment, and doesn't charge you a king's ransom just for the privilege of decent food and clean beds."

Baroque sighed thankfully. "Thank you, ma'am, you've taken a weight off my mind, you most truly have, a weight off my mind." He chuckled. "We were afeared that we'd have to ask hospitality of this Mansion Monster of yours!"

She laughed too. "You wouldn't get any kind of hospitality from him!" she said, then added, with relish, "He eats people."

"Does he," said Baroque, with an expression of flattering interest.

"Alive," she said, nodding seriously. "While they scream."

"And you've had some half-devoured people stagger up to the town to tell you this? Chunks missing out of their arms, that sort of thing?"

She looked a little put out. "If you don't want to hear the story—"

Baroque gave her an apologetic smile. "Lovely, I'm sorry, but I don't. I've heard plenty of children's fables on the road here." He snorted. "The last thing I want is yet another horror story about dread dark things that lurk in the wood, same as all the others."

"It is not the same as all the others!" she said indignantly. "The Master of the Mansion is by far the most terrifying fiend the Blackwoods have ever seen!"

And now he'd insulted the bragging out of her, he could see that she meant that. Interesting. He gave her another bow, deeper this time. It was his very own bow, just the right amount of flourish, just the right amount of elegance; depending on how he used it it could seem mocking or charming or arrogant. He was proud of his bow. "My apologies," he said sincerely. "The last thing I intended was to offend. The last thing." He touched one finger to the brim of his hat. "Charmed, m'lady."

He melted thoughtfully into an alleyway, came out on a broader, more important street. There was another lady – no, too determined, too fierce, unlikely to be charmed by some chance handsome stranger. There! A lonely-looking businessman, stout and plain, walking slowly as though he had nowhere to go. He'd welcome a conversation, particularly if it was about the town's local monster. As best as Baroque could tell, they were torn between pride and terror. This particular businessman looked reasonably important; he'd know plenty. The best way to approach him was to ask for an umbrella or some other such thing, and go from there. Easy.

The life of the town thrummed all around him, and Baroque danced through it with the utter ease of someone who knew that this kind of thing was what he was made for.

*

Nickel stared into the mists where his partner had vanished, and heaved a deep and mournful sigh.

He was no good at this. Baroque could charm and swindle his way into finding out anything, but people were confusing and hard and this whole ordeal was painful. He didn't have the first idea how he was meant to find information.

Some whimsical young urchins wandered up to him, and he tensed nervously. They were staring. Why were they staring? Staring was not a good thing. Nickel was fairly certain that staring was, in fact, a bad thing. Very definitely a bad thing. Very definitely a very bad thing indeed.

One of the urchins tipped his cap back and said, "You got antennae."

Nickel gave a panicky sort of flinch and glanced upwards. His sensers were flicking this way and that because of his nervousness, observing the humidity level, the temperature, the composition of the local stone.

What would Baroque do, Nickel wondered? Lie his way out of it, probably.

"You got antennae," the urchin said again, in an accusing kind of way.

"No I don't," Nickel said promptly.

The urchins gave him doubtful looks. Another one, younger, possibly a female, said, "Yes you do."

"No I don't," said Nickel, more nervously. "I …" And then he was struck by inspiration. "It is a hat."

The urchins looked deeply unimpressed.

"A hat," Nickel went on, "is a covering worn on the head to protect from unpredictable weather or for reasons of fashion. This is a hat that I am wearing, because they are not antennae, because antennae are something aliens would have which I do not have because that would mean I am an alien and I am not an alien because I have a hat."

The urchins looked even more unimpressed by this explanation, which he'd been rather proud of.

"It is a human hat," he added, hoping it would help, suspecting it wouldn't.

The urchins mostly looked confused, by this point. Nickel stared at him helplessly. Information! Yes, he was looking for information. Baroque wanted him to find information. "Do you know anything about monsters?" he said, without much enthusiasm.

The urchin with the cap looked awed. "'ere!" he said. "You're a monster?"

"What? No! I'm an ali – I am a human! I am a human human who is neither an alien nor a monster!"

"You're wearing a human hat!" cried the possibly-female urchin. "You skinned a human and you're wearing 'im as a hat!" She paused and then said, "Neat!"

"We know what to do with monsters," the male urchin said proudly. "We're Lanterntowners."

"Oh," said Nickel weakly. "Good."

"We're gonna report you to the Mayor so he can kill you gruesomely," the urchin went on, looking quite pleased with the idea.

Nickel's sensers drooped miserably. He really wasn't good at this.

*

Baroque wandered through the city. He'd be wondering aimlessly, because he didn't have any particular aim – but this was Baroque, so he strode with intent and purpose, his face distant, as though he was thinking on strange matters of vast importance to the fate of the world. The fog parted before him.

He'd decided he quite liked this town. The people were chatty and welcoming and, above all, naïve; the layout was pleasant, the ambience melancholy and quiet. It was too dreary for him to want to stay for any length of time, but it was pleasant to visit. And, he was willing to bet, the kind of place that would be delighted to give any Mansion-Monster-vanquishing heroes large bags of gold, and large plates of food, and would tell the story over and over again until their names were known far and wide …

Baroque smiled broad. Yes, he liked this town.

He emerged from his shortcut and found himself at the Town Hall, which was vast and creaky – it was built of fine white marble, but it was greased with something creeping and black, and looked like it'd quite like to fall down if anyone did something unwise, like lean on it or breathe too loudly. In front of the Hall was a gathering mass of townfolk – the word 'mob' would not yet be appropriate, but looked like it soon would be – and at the front of them was a stout, perspiring Mayor-type person, staring sternly at a tall, gangly man with … a white lab coat and green antennae and a worried expression …

Baroque sighed and strode up to them.

"We know how to treat monsters here," the Mayor was saying, glaring at Nickel.

Nickel suggested, "Kill them gruesomely?"

The Mayor looked rather taken aback. "Well," he said. "Er. Do you want us to?"

"No!" said Nickel frantically. "No, that is not at all the outcome I would prefer!"

Some kid piped up, "He makes people into hats!"

Baroque gave a snort of laughter at that, because it was one of the more ridiculous reactions to Nickel that he'd heard, and he'd heard quite a few. Everyone turned towards him at the sound, and while their attention was on him he walked forward and interposed himself elegantly between the Mayor and his friend.

"Hey," he said softly, giving the Mayor an annoyed look. "This man is with me."

He said it with such confidence that the Mayor blinked and shrank back and looked suitably cowed. A woman's voice cut through his stuttering to say, "And you're who, exactly?"

Baroque flashed her a shining grin. She was shortish, pretty, with an inexplicably freckled face and an annoyed expression. "Glad you asked!" he said. "I'm Baroque, Baroque Storm." He paused modestly. "You may've heard of me."

There was a chorus of vague murmurs of confusion and dissent. A few people looked suddenly informed, but they were by far the minority. Baroque gave a vexed sort of frown and went on, "Well, no matter. I'm Baroque Storm—" It was always good to get your name etched into their memories, and anyway he never tired of saying it. "—and this is my partner, Nickel. We're here to deal with …" He lowered his voice, confidentially, and grinned when he saw how they all leaned forward to listen. "Your little monster problem," he whispered, and winked.

There was a delighted intake of breath. An urchin cried, "Cor!" for no apparent reason. The Mayor looked delighted. The freckly girl looked sceptical.

"Are you," she said flatly. "The Master of the Mansion has confounded all our strongest and fiercest and sharpest. I hardly think he'll have any problem with you."

Baroque bristled. "What's this Mansionmaster got that's so special?" he said, and swung his hammer jauntily in one hand. "I'm Baroque Storm! Lord of Lightning!"

"You can be Lord of Getting Yourself Killed, if you want," the girl suggested. "No one would mind that."

Nickel asked, "What is the special quality of this monster?" They all looked at him blankly, and he flushed. "I mean, if he has one and it's not simply that you're ignorant townfolk that lack the resources required to defeat the more common sort of monster or to distinguish between them."

They all looked at him in a much less blank and much more annoyed kind of way, and Nickel looked crestfallen, obviously realising he'd said something wrong again. The urchin boy whispered, meaningfully, "Hats."

Just then there was a deafening screech and a monster dived at them out of the mist, some kind of wretched winged beast with patchy feathers and too many eyes. Before Baroque could react, the freckled girl produced an axe from somewhere and swung it at the beast just was it was descending, neatly cutting off its head. Well, not so neatly, really. But neatly considering the circumstances.

The freckled girl sighed. "Drat. I'll never get the ichor from my clothes."

There were a few sympathetic murmurs. Someone muttered, "Bloody monsters. Almost as bad as rain."

Baroque said, "Um."

Then he said, recovering quickly, "Right, okay, not the second option. So. What does this Mansionbeast of yours have that sets him apart from all these other … things?" More to the point, what did the Mansion monster have that made his name be spoken of in scared whispers by people who viewed monsters as a fairly daily occurrence?

The Mayor wailed, "He asks questions!"

Baroque blinked. That hadn't been what he was expecting at all. "Oh?" he said, and grinned. "Such savagery. It boggles the mind."

"He asks questions of the people that go up there sometimes," said the Mayor desperately, "that are all deep and musing and thoughtful!"

"How terrible that must be."

"Sometimes he's polite at them!"

Baroque cleared his throat to stop himself from laughing. "This is all very scary and such," he said, "and I'm shaking in my boots, friends, honestly I am, but I'd rather get to the point. What's so bad about this man? Exactly? Other than him being curious and polite."

"Well, he kills people as well," said the freckled girl. "Obviously. But that's less unusual."

Everyone nodded. Baroque looked around at them.

"You are all," he murmured, "rather more deranged than anyone I've met. Counting Nickel, even."

The Mayor blinked. "What was that?"

Nickel gave him a hurt look. "What was that?"

"Nothing," said Baroque hastily, to both of them. He gave the Mayor a charming grin and took off his hat and gave a sweeping bow. "Never fear, sir. We'll deal with your monster for you." He added, confidently, "He won't ask any questions once we're done with him."

The Mayor said, quietly, "Gods bless your souls." It was dramatic and chilling, and rather ruined when he added, "You'll need them to, seeing you'll have died horribly. Come on, citizens, break it up, break it up …" And the crowd dispersed. And that was that. No heroes' welcome, no tearful farewells. Nothing.

"I don't suppose some food …?" called Baroque after them. "No? Alright then. No problem. No problem at all." He grinned at Nickel and started walking. "Maybe we can ask the monster."

"I do not think that would be wise," Nickel said thoughtfully, "considering that he would likely be trying to kill us."

Baroque sighed. "Jesting, Nick."

"Oh," said Nickel. "That is good. Being poisoned would probably be fairly unpleasant."

"Fairly, yeah."

*

Once they were a few minutes out of town, Baroque found himself a clear spot, kicking away leaf litter until the ground underneath was exposed. That was the idea, anyway. In practice, kicking away leaf litter just exposed more leaf litter, though in a slightly more rotten state.

"Good enough," Baroque murmured, and he shifted his hammer from the place he normally carried it – resting comfortably against one shoulder – to the ground, twirling it on the way down so the tip, rather than the head, hit the ground. It sunk for a few inches with a squelchy sort of sound. "You might want to take a few steps …" He glanced up, to find that Nickel had retreated a good twenty metres away and was peering out at him worriedly from behind a tree. "… away. Okay. Good."

He curled his fingers around the head of the hammer, and breathed deep, and drew out its power. Magic was terribly draining, and normally he only did minor things, quick little dazzles to startle and impress. This was big, though, and he could feel exhaustion clawing at his limbs, hunger clawing at his stomach. By the time he was done he was pale and sweating, leaning heavily on the hammer as though it was a crutch.

Rain started to fall. A moment later there was a flash of lightning, blinding-bright. Baroque gave Nickel a weak happy grin. "Don't call me Baroque Storm for nothing," he said.

"I won't," Nickel said obediently.

"I meant that they don't—"

Thunder cut through his sentence, a rich deep roll of it, making the ground tremble and leaves fall limply to the ground. Baroque's grin became much wider. He liked storms. Granted, they'd have to slog through muddy woodland through the drenching rain while all around them lightning flashed, disorienting them and possibly setting the woods on fire, but still.

Nickel approached him cautiously, flinching when there was more thunder. His coat was made of much thinner fabric than Baroque's was, and already it was soaked through and sticking to his skin. "I would like to be reminded why this is in the plan," he said unhappily.

"It's so that we can be stranded travellers," Baroque explained, starting off again. The occasional flashes of lightning showed the Mansion, perched high on a hill; he steered them that way. It'd be at least half an hour before they got there, though, maybe more in this weather. "All helpless and soaked and shivering. We can knock on the door and plead for shelter, and that'll give us a plausible reason to approach the big spooky mansion. It's our cover."

"Cover sounds nice," Nickel muttered.

They walked on through the woods. Baroque had to buckle his coat to keep some degree of warmth, and even with that his hair was soon hanging heavy with the wet and the rain had somehow managed to trickle down his neck. Being tall, the occasional low-hanging branch of course decided that it wanted to try and crack their heads open, and that was without the knotty issue of roots, which were as tangled as … as something that was very tangled and wanted to trip you with a single-minded malevolence that approached insanity. The woods were dark and grim, and all the while the elements raged above them, a war of wind and water and air.

"It's a perfectly good plan," Baroque muttered.

*

Another flash of lightning painted the Mansion in blinding white, and Baroque paused with his hand held up to knock.

"Hesitation will make us even more saturated than we currently are," Nickel said impatiently.

"I'm not scared! I have to—"

Thunder rolled dramatically. Baroque gave a satisfied smile and waited till the silence it left in its wake before pounding on the door and crying, "We seek aid! We ask shelter of your roof! Do any dwell in this house?"

He lowered his hand and grinned smugly. "See?" he murmured to Nickel, in a much softer voice. "The entrance is the thing."

Nickel said politely, "I cannot hear what you are saying because of the loudness of an atmospheric disturbance that you summoned which has thus far caused us nothing but inconvenience."

Baroque glared at him. Nickel smiled innocently.

The door opened, and a man peered out at them. "Yes?" he said.

"We ask your hospitality," Nickel said, a little unexpectedly. "According to the ancient codes, we seek warmth of your fire and shelter of your roof."

"And food," Baroque added. Magic took a lot out of you, and it was about all he could manage just to stand upright. "Food would be nice."

It was difficult to make out much of the stranger; there weren't any lamps at the door, meaning that all the light was spilling out from the corridor behind him, meaning that he was a dim silhouette with glittering eyes and a friendly smile.

"Sure," he said, and glanced outside and winced as the wind blew a flurry of rain into his face. He half-raised his arm to shield himself, chuckling. "I'd be a monster to make anyone stay out in this. Come on in. You're welcome to my roof and fire."

Baroque said, "And food."

They followed him through a plush corridor with lamps shining from golden brackets onto rich plush carpet the colour of bruised plums, onto elaborate wallpaper, onto the occasional mutedly elegant painting. The rich carpet was scuffed in places; there was enough light without there being so much that it blinded the viewer with its brightness. As best as Baroque could tell, the house was trying to be the perfect compromise between expense and comfort, which would've been better achieved if it was warmer and if the mutedly elegant paintings didn't all seem to be about people and creatures dying horribly. Nickel was eyeing the paintings uneasily.

Their host glanced over his shoulder and gave an apologetic smile. "Family heirlooms, I'm afraid."

Baroque said brightly, "I'd heard that you bought this mansion, friend. Only ten years ago or so." The stout businessman had been fairly forthcoming.

Their host raised his eyebrow. "I never said they were my family heirlooms," he said. "Here we are."

'Here' was a dining hall, vast and gloomy; again, it seemed like the owner was going for a comfy sort of feel, but no amount of happily embroidered plush cushions on the seats could make up for the shadows that lurked at the ceiling and in the corners, or for the occasional suspiciously reddish stain on the elegant white tablecloth. Baroque felt bad for whoever had designed the place. He'd tried so hard. Unless it was meant to be ironical or something.

"Anyway," Baroque said, "you're being unkind, Nick. It's unguestly to critique the décor of someone who's offered you shelter and fire and," he paused pointedly, "food …"

The Mansion's owner chuckled. "Fortunately for you …" He stood on a chair, hopped from it to the table, strode carefully through the elegantly laid-out plates, and settled neatly into a chair on the opposite side. "I was settling down to dinner just as you arrived. Plenty for all."

Baroque grinned and settled into the chair that he'd stepped on. There were platters of potatoes and peas and meat and other such things, and some of the food looked oddly mutated, but there was bound to be a few quirks to trying to grow food in a place like the Blackwoods and Baroque was rather too hungry to care. Magic left him feeling all empty. He piled his plate and ate busily.

"Baroque …" murmured Nickel worriedly, sitting down as well. "We discussed poison? If you recall?"

Baroque swallowed his mouthful and said, waving Nickel aside, "We can talk about it later, I'm eating."

"That is precisely my concern!" Nickel hissed.

"Not very guestly of you to whisper to yourselves, is it?" said their host, laughing. Baroque noticed that, despite his words about settling down to dinner, his own plate was empty. "Particularly when we haven't even been introduced. I'm Seraph."

Baroque tilted his hat to him, then realised that it was probably unguestly to be wearing a hat indoors.

Oh well.

"Baroque," he said, and went on eating. Nickel stared at him in shock, and Baroque gave him an annoyed look. Using his full introduction was what he normally did, yes, but introducing himself in full to someone he intended to kill wasn't really the best of ideas. But Nickel looked crestfallen, so Baroque rolled his eyes and added, "… Storm, Lord of Lightning, Light in the Darkness etc."

Seraph looked politely blank, which meant he hadn't heard of him. Good. Well, not good, obviously, Baroque wanted everyone to have heard of him, but in this particular case … good. If Seraph knew who he was, he'd probably wonder what a famous thief was doing in some out-of-the-way town in the Blackwoods, and, more importantly, what someone who half the stories labelled a storm-god was doing getting caught in a little squall. "Charmed," Seraph said, raising his glass to Baroque. "And you? Not from around here, I gather." He grinned at Nickel.

Nickel flushed. "I am from Wail," he said, "and certainly not from a world that is an incomprehensible distance from here!"

"Good," said Seraph easily. "I'm fond of comprehending things. And I meant to ask your name?"

"Oh," said Nickel, and relaxed. "Nickel. Nickel is my name and it is a good name and it is mine."

Seraph nodded. "Nickel," he said, "you're shivering."

Nickel looked blank, and then he said, "Oh," and took off his drenched coat to drape it over the back of his chair. There was a fire in one corner of the room, big and roaring, and it made the air uncold, if not warm; Nickel'd thaw decently well without the coat to cool him. "Thank you."

"A host should do no less!" said Seraph, and he raised the glass to Nickel as well. Baroque swallowed a mouthful of something that he sincerely hoped was turnip and, no longer feeling quite as likely to suddenly collapse, surveyed their host thoughtfully. He was dressed in reasonably fine clothes, such as a middle-class gentleman would wear – a shabby waistcoat, a jacket with patches on the sleeves. He looked utterly comfortable in them. He was of medium height and medium build and had a reasonably but unexceptionally handsome face, though his skin was unusually pale.

He wasn't eating, but he took sips of wine from his glass every now and again: a red, red wine it was, and it stained his lips with colour, but his teeth, which you saw when he smiled, were pale, nearly translucent. And sharp. The hair that curled around his ears was as red as blood. Dyed, plainly; his eyebrows were fair.

The red eyes were less easily explained. But still.

Seraph's eyes flicked to his as though noticing his scrutiny, and Baroque gave an innocent smile and went back to his food. Seraph asked, politely, in the manner of someone making conversation, "So, what is it you do?"

Baroque took a sip of water and said, "Battle tailor."

Seraph, composure shattered, blinked. "What?"

"Well, you know how these woods are," Baroque explained cheerfully. "Lots of little towns, too many hazards between them for people to trade properly. I figured there might be a niche for a tailor willing to brave the trackless woodland to bring people new cloth and garments and such, a niche for someone who'd come by town every few months and make people garments. Someone who could deal with the dangers on the way." He leaned forward and confided, solemnly, "I am death with a needle."

"I'm …" said Seraph, looking wrong-footed. "Sure that you are."

Baroque chuckled and sat back. "Just a normal tailor really," he said. "I came here to start my own business, but the Woods are more …"

"Evil?" suggested Seraph.

Baroque nodded. "More evil than I was expecting." He gave a hopeful grin. "Don't suppose you need a new waistcoat?"

Seraph smiled. "No, sorry. I have far more clothes than I need."

Baroque sighed. "A pity."

Seraph wasn't anywhere near as suspicious now; there'd been a knowing look in his eyes when he'd caught Baroque looking at him, but he seemed to have bought the looking-hopefully-at-your-clothes explanation. He turned his smile to Nickel. "And you? A battle barber, perhaps? No? What do you do?"

Baroque tried hard not to wince. Please don't say anything stupid.

"Science," said Nickel. "Also crime."

Baroque sighed and, slowly, pulled his hat down to cover his eyes. That was the problem with having an alien for a partner. Nickel was all kinds of clever with guns and other such useful sciencey toys, but he was utterly lost when it came to people. And, apparently, somehow still didn't know that that wasn't the kind of thing you said. Particularly not when you were trying to go incognito.

"He asked," Nickel said, sounding a little hurt.

"I did," Seraph agreed. "And it's fine, I don't mind. Planning to crime at me?"

Baroque said, before Nickel could look guilty and give them away, "No, of course he's not. Not nice to steal from your host."

"Well, that's fine, then," Seraph said, amusement in his voice. "I'd hate to be crimed, but otherwise I don't really see how it's my business. You should eat something, alien."

"I am not an alien and an alien is not what I am and I am most definitely not—"

"My mistake," Seraph said, smoothly interrupting the babble. "You really should, though."

Nickel nodded and took a pea. Just one. One pea, and one potato, and if it was possible to get one gravy, Baroque was sure that he would have. Nickel was precise like that. The alien seemed to have forgotten his misgivings re: poison, but Baroque was starting to feel uneasy. Seraph was a little too eager in his insistence. Baroque would have to watch him closely, because, however friendly Seraph acted, it wouldn't be at all wise to forget that they were enemies.

"Baroque," Seraph said knowingly, "your hair must be troubling you, yeah?"

"Eh?"

The rain was still pounding outside, so loud that they'd had to keep on raising their voices during the conversation. Seraph nodded towards a window and said, "This rain. And all the electricity in the air. I know my hair likes to go all curly and rebellious, but your hair's straight, and there's so much more of it. I don't suppose you'd like to share the secret?"

Baroque laughed. "No secret," he said. "Might be that I'm used to storms? We get a fair amount of them in Wail." Mostly because Baroque made them, but Seraph didn't need to know that.

Seraph raised an eyebrow. "Short of moving to Wail, though," he said.

"There's a secret," Baroque confessed, and leaned forward. Seraph leaned forward to hear him, and Baroque said seriously, "On the night of a full moon, but not if it is a Tuesday, or if you have eaten sardines in the last month – on the night of a full moon, when all nature is in harmony and the air is as smooth and soft as the velvet coat of an innocent young maiden and the stars shine like the scattered tears of some vast celestial spirit, you've got to, like, sacrifice a goat, right, and then—"

He stopped and sat back, grinning, because Seraph, who'd been smirking throughout, burst out laughing at that last bit. The trick was in talking in such a self-important grandiose way, half-chanting as though reciting some ancient ritual. It made everything you said three times as ridiculous.

"Mm," Seraph said in amusement, and touched his finger to his chin. "Goat-murder seems like going rather too far."

"Why?" said Baroque innocently. "I mean, I was assuming that you used goat-blood to get that colour."

Seraph straightened and gave him a haughty glare. "This from the man who looks like a walking … a walking person with ridiculous hair!" he snapped.

Baroque had to give him credit for trying. His hair was difficult to make metaphors for. "It's been compared to lightning?" he said. "Makes quite the impact."

"Surely not worth all the trouble of dyeing it, though."

"But it's nice to be distinctive, don't you think? I mean …" Baroque stopped. "Yeah, Nickel?"

Nickel said, quietly – he had enough sense for that, at least – "I thought we were meant to converse with him for just a few minutes? To ascertain his nature? And then proceed with the plan."

"What of it?"

"The plan does not involve gossiping about how to correctly style hair."

"Oh," said Baroque in an undertone, and cleared his throat guiltily. "I mean, yeah. Yes. Um." He flashed Seraph a grin and raised his voice to say, "My friend is tired, sir. Could we trouble you for rooms?"

"It'd be no trouble," Seraph said gallantly, and stood. "The rooms on the top floor are nice and spacious. They might be to your liking."

"That sounds most thoroughly excellent, thank you." 'Spacious' sounded cold, but that was fine; all they needed was to get their weapons ready.

"I …" said Nickel, uncertainly. "Could I first be shown to a room containing another controlled incendiary chemical reaction?" He twitched one of his antennae in the direction of the massive fire. "One that is less … One that is just generally 'less'."

"To dry out?" said Seraph, and nodded. "Fair enough. It'd be annoying to get ill from this weather. I mean, you might sneeze. Sneezing is such a pain."

Nickel said, in delight, "Precisely!"

Baroque rolled his eyes and left them to it, striding towards the stairs. They were elegant stairs, with carved banisters and rich carpet that was threadbare in the middle. He danced up them, and the next few flights, sparing a few curious glances for the vast deserted floors. Finally he found himself on what he assumed to be the top floor, and he opened a door at random and sulked his way into the room.

"There," he told it, "is nothing wrong with storms."

It was a decent enough room, and didn't deserve to have Baroque sulking at it. Particularly when Baroque sulking tended to end in massive storms wrecking and wreaking his rage on whatever the surrounding area was, or occasionally just in him whacking things with his hammer until he felt better. He leaned the hammer against the bed – which was mouldering, but in a comfortable way – and felt in his pockets until he found the device that Nickel had constructed just for this trip, just to deal with the Mansion Monster that they kept on hearing stories about. Baroque wanted the glory, of course, and also he resented anyone that was in more stories than he was.

The device was shaped like some of the large guns that Nickel had made in the past, the clumsy heavy bulky ones made to blow huge holes in things. Given that this particular device was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, this meant that it ended up looking ridiculous. It had little tubes running along either side, full of something sludgy and black; from the look of it, and the way that they converged on the end, they were made so that whatever the gun fired would pass through them on its merry destructive way. He tapped his fingers against its handle, thoughtfully.

"Still don't see why we couldn'ta just used one of those other ones," he said irritably, starting to operate the complicated series of switches that made the gun ready to use. It would be clumsier, yeah, but whether a vampire died of an intricately crafted subtle little device or a huge fireball didn't really matter, he'd still be just as dead ...  Ah, there they were, it was making that fwooshy sound that it made. That was a good sound. That was a good, ready sort of sound. Baroque swung up his arm, aimed at one wall, and pushed a button.

There was a much louder fwooshy sound. Something sharp and swift screamed through the air, coated with something that seemed to be oil, and as soon as it was free of the gun it caught fire. The sharp-and-on-fire thing thudded into the wall. The wall, which wasn't even the one he'd been aiming at, also caught fire.

That Nickel was good at making these things didn't mean Baroque was good at using them.

"I take back 'subtle'," he said with a grin, and padded over to the window. It was two windows, stretching almost from one end of the room to the other, and he shoved them open, letting a rainy gust of wind blow into the dank room. The fire shuddered and flared, partly fanned by the breeze, partly stifled by the water that it brought. Baroque took advantage of his foe's confusion to smother it under a pillow while it was thus distracted.

When he was done the pillow was still smouldering slightly. He dropped it onto the ground and stomped on it a bit to put the fire out, and then stomped on it a bit more. It was quite an ugly pillow. This done, he picked up the gun and examined it curiously. It fired stakes that were, themselves, on fire. Quite elegant, but it wouldn't be much use if he couldn't work the thing properly. He examined it forlornly, and settled absentmindedly onto the bed.

The bed dumped him out the window.

Baroque yelped in surprise, grabbing at the window frame before he fell. His legs were swinging out over open space, the wind was tearing at him, the window frame was slick with rain. He scrabbled at it, managing to get a better grip; he tried to pull himself up and fell back. He glanced down – right, his coat was caught on that severe-looking gargoyle. He gripped the frame even tighter, steadied his feet against the wall, shuffled half a metre along. The coat slipped free. He pulled again, and this time hauled himself up and fell tiredly onto the bed, which dumped him out the window again.

Or tried to, but he was prepared this time, and he rolled quickly to the side and fell to the carpet. He examined the bed, which was bucking back and forth like a manic mustang, tilting so anyone who sat on it would be tipped through the window. Yes, there, as he'd thought – springs, and cogs, and any manner of complicated machinery that doubtless someone like Nickel could understand. Baroque understood enough to know that his host had tried to kill him, or at any rate sent him to a room which would try to kill him, which was more or less the same thing. The bed creaked back and forth mockingly. He wondered what would happen if it started moving a few hours after someone had sat on it, when they were snugly asleep, thinking themselves safe; imagined dreaming of falling and then suddenly, horrifyingly, waking up …

He whacked it with his hammer until he felt better, and until it stopped moving. Then he glanced at the gun, still lying on the floor where he'd left it, all clever and subtle and metallic, a humane weapon guaranteed to kill the vampire quickly and efficiently.

"Oh, to hells with it," he murmured, and he pulled a stake out of his pocket. "Let's do this the old-fashioned way."