The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Once in the car, Ambrose retreated almost immediately into a yogic trance state, to slow the effects of the demon bite. Possibly even more helpfully, it stopped him thinking about Nellie and the long roll-call of dead friends, and as it was not sleep, he did not dream. Instead, he experienced himself travelling without movement over an endless illusory landscape made up of Buddhist sutras.

Ambrose came out of this trance to find that the car had stopped. He looked out the window and saw that the sun was setting. The gas lamps had just been lit, but it was still quite bright enough for him to work out that they had reached Edinburgh, and after a moment, he recognized the street. They were in South Charlotte Square, outside what, at first glance, appeared to be a hotel, till he saw a small brass plate by the front door, which read ST. AGNES NURSING HOME.

“New Scottish office, more discreet,” grunted Kennett, correctly interpreting Ambrose’s expression. D-Arc’s previous Scottish office had been co-located with the SSB, tucked away in a temporary building on the outer perimeter of Redford Barracks, a position that provided physical security but made more arcane measures difficult to employ.

Kennett led Ambrose quickly inside, through the oak-and-silver outer doors, past the mirrored inner doors, and across the tessellated, eye-catching tiled floor of the atrium, all useful architectural defences against malignant spirits. The demon had grown enough in Ambrose’s leg for him to feel its attention drawn by the mirrors, and his leg twitched and twisted of its own accord as he crossed the patterned maze of the floor.

Kennett signed them into the book at the front desk, at which point Ambrose was relieved of his yataghan and revolver in return for a claim ticket, before being helped upstairs.

“Lady S will see you first,” said Kennett. “Afterwards . . . I suppose the medico can sort out your leg.”

Ambrose caught the implication of that phrasing very well. Any treatment would be dependent on Lady S and how Ambrose responded to whatever she wanted him to do: which was almost certainly about him returning to active duty with D-Arc again.

“In you go,” said Kennett. He rapped on the double door, turned the knob to push it open a fraction, and released his supporting grip on Ambrose’s elbow.

Ambrose limped in, wishing he was elsewhere. Kennett did not follow him, the door shutting hard on Ambrose’s heels with a definitive click.

The room was dark, and smelled of orange zest and the sickly honey-scent of myrrh, which was normal for any chamber that had Lady S in it. Ambrose peered into the darkness, but did not move forward. It was better to stay near the exit, since he knew that only a small part of this room was actually connected to the building and to Edinburgh itself. The rest of the room was . . . somewhere else.

He heard a rustling in the dark, and swallowed nervously as the strange smell grew stronger. A candle flared, the light suddenly bright. Ambrose hooded his eyes and looked off to one side.

Lady S was there, some feet away from the candle, again as expected. He could see only her vague outline, swathed as she was in gauzy silks that moved about her in answer to some breeze that did reach the door.

“Dear Ambrose!” exclaimed the apparition, her voice that of some kindly but aged female relative welcoming a close but morally strayed junior connection. “How kind of you to call upon me in my hour of need.”

“Yes,” agreed Ambrose. “I could not, of course, resist.”

Lady S laughed a hearty laugh that belonged to a far more full-fleshed person, someone who might have triple chins to wobble as they guffawed. The laugh did not match the narrow, dimly perceived silhouette in her fluttering shrouds.

“Oh you always could make me laugh,” she said. “I don’t laugh as much as I should, you know.”

“Who does?” asked Ambrose, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Now, now, Ambrose,” said Lady S. Something that might be a finger wagged in the air some distance in front of his face. “No petulance. I can’t abide petulance. Tell me—your father, he of many names and aliases, may he rest in peace—his birth name was really Farnowitz and he was born in Germany?”

“You know he was,” said Ambrose tightly. “It’s in my file and always has been. My mother was English, I was born in Bristol, and what’s more I have served my country more than—”

“Yes, yes dear,” comforted Lady S. “We’re not holding it against you. Quite the contrary. We need someone with a modicum of the art who also has German blood. Apart from the king, who naturally isn’t available to us, the combination is rather scarce among our ranks.”

“What do you need me to do, and what do I get out of it?”

“Oh, my dear young man, such impatience and, dare I say, rudeness will not serve you well. But perhaps it is the demon that is gnawing its way up your leg? I will make some allowance for that.”