The Undetectables series - The Undead Complex E-Book

Courtney Smyth

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: The Undetectables series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 651

Beschreibung

A witty, witchy fantasy murder mystery packed with ancient magic and fiendish puzzles. Mallory, Diana, Cornelia and Theodore are hired to solve a murder on a TV shoot by the victim herself. Perfect for fans of supernatural mysteries and cosy crime by authors such as Ben Aaronovitch, Josiah Bancroft and Tammie Painter. Five months after the events of The Undetectables, business is booming – but finding cases that call for magical forensic investigators is not. So when Diana's ex, Taylor, asks them to solve a murder – her own – Diana, Mallory and Cornelia can't say no. Called to investigate the set of Undead Complex, Diana re-enters the world of TV-show prop making – even in death, the show must go on. Even the appearance of a genuine-article Francine Leon dollhouse can't make up for the fact she's being pulled down a path of crime-solving she maybe doesn't want to walk forever. Meanwhile, Theodore's coming apart at the seams – literally – in the aftermath of their last case, and Mallory is running out of ways to help him. Especially as he seems to be keeping secrets from her. As the clues – and the bodies – keep piling up, each one making less and less sense, The Undetectables find themselves in a new race against the clock to find out what, exactly, the killer is up to – before they strike again...

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Perimortem I

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Perimortem II

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Perimortem III

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise for

THE UNDETECTABLES

“Unputdownable. Grim and caring, twisted and witty, The Undetectables is gripping and charming in equal measure. You won’t want to leave Wrackton, while also being really glad you don’t live there.”

DEIRDRE SULLIVAN, author of Savage Her Reply

“A compulsively readable race against the clock to stop a supernatural killer – downright delightful and unapologetically queer.”

POLYGON.COM

“If you aren’t already deep into spooky season then here is the perfect book to get you in the mood.”

IRISH EXAMINER

“A fun and breezy urban fantasy novel that has an interesting take on using magical forensics.”

SFBOOK REVIEWS

“If you’re looking for a mystery that makes you think, mixed with a healthy dose of supernatural, diverse representation and some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in a long time then [...] The Undetectables is the book for you.”

GEEKING BY

“An urban fantasy that feels light but has a lot of heart, with a fantabulous cast and oddly adorable glowing beetles, The Undetectables is my new favourite friendship-fantasy. I strongly advise you not to miss out on it!”

EVERY BOOK A DOORWAY

ALSO BY COURTNEY SMYTHAND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

The Undetectables

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The Undead Complex

Print edition ISBN: 9781803364803

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803364810

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Courtney Smyth 2024.

Courtney Smyth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For JacqA gold-star friend

ONE

104 years ago, give or take a day

In all ways but the one that matters most, Heather Larkin was dead. Once again, she is not who the story is about, but it is important to know this.

Heather was dead to the extended Larkin family, who had never forgiven her for engineering her inheritance of Oakpass Manor and the annexed film studio, usurping them in the process. It was not, she believed, her fault that her forged path did not allow for anything less than a charmed existence, and so she became estranged.

She was dead inside, though she pretended she was not. This was easily achieved with a bright smile, some hair pins and an air of cold exclusivity that encouraged others – Apparent and Occult alike – to follow her every move, wanting to touch the light she emitted, but being too afraid to get close at the same time. Not that Heather dealt with those undeserving of closeness. All her relationships were built on a healthy foundation of give and take – where others gave, and she graciously accepted, leaving them open-mouthed like baby birds awaiting a worm. Even that image of desperate social hunger would have Heather recoil in disgust, despite it coming from her very own mind.

And presently, Heather Larkin was dead to the world. The potion – for want of a better description – her doting husband Howard had slipped into her night-time sherry had taken hold. Her breathing was shallow though, crucially, still there, for that was the only way in which Heather was not dead.

So far.

Her husband, as mentioned, was doting – though this was seldom reciprocated – and his reasons for using a potion-by-any-other-name were both acceptable, for she had a headache, and also unfortunate, for Heather had expected to receive a guest that night in the second-best parlour of Oakpass Manor. An interviewee, to be precise; one who had hopes of joining Heather’s Society.

The Society itself was a gift Heather had the pleasure of bestowing on the best of Occult and Apparent society, all for the low, low price of marrying her least ugly and most biddable (third) cousin, capable of taking the title of Lord. The house – for she called it a ‘house’, both to appear somewhat demure and because ‘manor’ implied staffing that Heather was loath to admit she did not have – was as grand as the beliefs she had about the world she inhabited. It was Heather’s world, for the most part, and she held the respect of the most important folk from Wrackton, Oughteron and beyond in her pale, delicate little hands.

Of course, her being dead to the world and dead in all those other ways meant her husband was left unsupervised. So when a knock sounded on the great doors of Oakpass Manor, Howard Larkin began to panic.

‘Early, early… Biscuits, Missy, do you have them?’

The maid he was speaking to, who was not and had not ever been named Missy, obliged nonetheless by pointing at the spread of sandwiches and tea on the great table beyond them. The interviewing chairs were waiting, and Howard’s favourite fountain pen rested on the side table with sheafs of paper that he presumed were the contracts. He had never liked this parlour, and gladly went to meet his guest.

The guest was a woman he’d recognise anywhere, not least because he had a framed film poster in his study sporting a carefully illustrated likeness of her.

‘Hello. Erm. Hello,’ Howard tried, unsure – even after all this time – how to start a Society interview.

‘I’m Delfina Sackville,’ Delfina Sackville said.

‘I know,’ Howard said, at the same time as she added, ‘For now.’

She winked, and Howard smiled at her, unsure what to make of this woman. She had single-handedly launched the family-run Larkin Studios into renown. She was Apparent, he was quite sure; being Apparent himself, he had to look hard to find the signs of Occulture that came easily to other, vastly more magical members of the Society. As she was dressed in mourning colours, he chose to assume she was intimating an impending re-marriage. If he had learned anything from Lady Larkin, it was not to ask questions about private matters.

Not surface-level ones, anyway.

‘A pleasure. So what brings you to—Candles. Hold on, where’s that… Missy? Can you—Never mind, I have it here. Ceremonial candle, we need it to… rationalise the space, I expect,’ he said, not entirely sure both of the wording his wife usually used, or of its intended meaning.

‘Frankincense,’ Delfina said, crossing her legs. Howard did not know what to make of that, either, and looked away.

‘Quite,’ Howard said vaguely. ‘I am to ask you some questions, before I let you into the Appoccult Society. Rather, before we carefully assess you for suitability to join,’ he said, flustered. ‘I trust you are familiar with our admittance requirement?’

Delfina nodded once. ‘A trinket, yes? Something of intrigue to you and your contemporaries.’

‘And in the case of our Apparent members, they must maintain a lifelong connection to Occulture. That connection is at your discretion, but we in the Appoccult Society—’

‘An ingenious name. Your invention?’ Delfina continued without allowing him to respond. ‘Lord Larkin, forgive my forwardness, but I had hoped to meet with Lady Larkin tonight, as I have…’ She paused demurely. ‘An unusual offer to make.’

At this, Howard began to perspire – both because ‘unusual offers’ were very much his wife’s domain, and because the last time he had admitted an individual to the Appoccult Society without her present, it had ended in tears.

Mostly his.

‘Well. Lady Larkin is currently… indisposed. You could come back?’

Delfina rose to her feet, smoothing her skirts. ‘I’m afraid, Lord Larkin, that this is a one-time-only offer.’

This panicked Howard even more, because he had no idea how Heather would respond to this unusual creature before him, or how she would want him to. The last time he had acted rashly, Heather had been forced – under mighty duress – to excommunicate a demon from the Appoccult Society. This demon had created undesirable ripples at meetings; despite his repeated promises of connections and information, the information had seemed increasingly implausible. All had tired of his insistence he knew better than everyone around him, including the vampire Society members. The demon had been on the Ghoul Council, and losing him was a blow the Society – and Howard – had fought to absorb.

Howard was sure that this was an opportunity Heather would freeze him out for losing, and it was slipping through his fingers with every slow step Delfina took towards the parlour door.

He urged Delfina to sit and asked her to explain the offer. Her dark eyes lit up as she reached into her pocket and slid a black stone across the table between them.

‘Not sure of the provenance, but I can promise you it is Occult,’ Delfina said, as Howard held it up. He recognised it instantly as a planchette, but this one felt old, and heavy.

‘It feels haunted,’ Howard said, at the precise second Delfina said, ‘It’s haunted, if that helps.’

He stared at it, rolling the object around in his hands. The Society would assess it, even in the absence of a Ghoul Council member – the tears he had shed over that fiasco really had been proportionate – and decide Delfina’s merits. He was just about to make this clear to his guest when she held up her hand.

‘One-time offer, Lord Larkin. The trinket for me – for it is haunted, I can assure you. The second gift is more unusual, but I think you’ll like it.’

She leaned forward. Her lipstick was very red, he noticed, her teeth very white. She had a way of commanding attention, the way she did on film, that even Howard couldn’t miss. She spoke at length, and when she finished, leaned back and waited.

‘Just to be clear. You’d like the Society to accept… a dollhouse?’

‘A perfect replica,’ she said.

‘Made by, you say, your “dear friend”?’

‘The dearest.’ That smile again, that Howard couldn’t interpret. He supposed women did have their close girlhood friends.

‘And you’d like me to give this bespoke object…’

‘To your youngest child, yes. Or the child most receptive to ownership of such an object. You have, how many children was it again?’

‘Three,’ Howard said absently.

‘Splendid.’

‘So I give one of my girls the dollhouse, and then…?’

Delfina stood again, but with curiosity rather than an I’m leaving finality as she had before. She pressed one hand covered in rings to the terracotta wallpaper.

‘Lord Larkin, would you say you know the history of Oakpass?’

‘I would say so,’ he said, but it was a lie.

‘More history than your own family’s. Hundreds of years back. No matter,’ she said, seeing his face as he battled with the urge to not lie and the desire to appear competent. ‘My dear friend makes dollhouses as gifts. She’s talented beyond measure. Her accuracy, her attention to detail, just…’ She exhaled. ‘Sublime. This would be the finest replica of Oakpass Manor one could ever hope to acquire.’

‘And would your friend need measurements, and that?’ Howard gestured vaguely.

‘We have another friend who has… shall we say, intimate knowledge of Oakpass Manor, so my dear friend would never have to set foot inside.’

‘And who is this other friend? A Society member?’ If Howard had been prone to stabs of fear over anything other than what pleased his wife, he’d have felt one at the fleeting thought that this could be a Larkin cousin trying to worm their way back into Heather’s good books.

As it was, he felt no apprehension whatsoever.

‘Never mind who. That doesn’t matter. The dollhouse would be, in itself, a kind of magic.’

‘And this is… No, sorry. You’ve lost me,’ Howard said.

‘This would ensure my friend’s entry to the Society. I told you it was unusual. This way, she does not break your Society rules about objects, but she does not put the work in for no gain. This will be her trinket, so to speak.’

‘And it’s Occult?’

‘Magical. The sort of magic that appreciates in value. Beyond your wildest dreams.’

It was an offer Howard couldn’t refuse.

It was an offer Heather would have.

The dollhouse was a promise kept. Delfina’s dear friend – though we all know what she means by that, really – was admitted to the Society. The three Larkin children played with their gift, and Heather forgave Howard in time. The Appoccult Society continued to meet.

The five Larkins, attached as they were to Oakpass, vanished without a trace four years later.

All they took with them was the dollhouse.

TWO

NOW – Seven days to the Spring Equinox ball

Diana Cheung-Merriweather was many things – a private investigator, a skilled prop-maker, an excellent friend, and, perhaps first and foremost, a brilliant liar.

She had been lying about many things in the five months since their last major case, mostly by omission.

‘Thank you so much for contacting the Undetectables,’ Diana said into her phone, her face pressed in despair to the table it rested on, but her voice bright and cheery. ‘As always, we endeavour to help you detect the undetectable. In this instance, it was a very detectable, but very, very unfortunate case of old age.’

‘My husband was in the prime of his life,’ the phone, or rather the elderly witch at the other end of it, squawked indignantly.

‘I am truly sorry for your loss, Mrs…’ Diana paused, lifting her eyes to Mallory, who slid the case file towards her. Diana slapped her hand down on the file. ‘Blackburn. Truly sorry. I have no doubt that at a hundred and two, your husband Phil—’

‘Paul!’

‘Bit of static on the line. As I said, your husband Paul was indeed in the prime of his life. We’ve concluded our investigation now, and have liaised with Wrackton’s Medical Examiner. You will receive a finalised report email in a few minutes.’

Just as soon as Cornelia finished writing it.

‘Put the Medical Examiner on,’ Mrs Blackburn said sharply. ‘I want to hear it from her. I need to know you’re telling the truth. My husband was poisoned.’

Diana glanced at Mallory again, who held her hand out for the phone.

‘I am going to pass you to our agency director now, who spoke to Dr Ray, and can reassure you as to her, and our, findings.’ Diana gestured at the phone with what she hoped was an air of renouncement and walked away, leaving Mallory saying in soothing tones, ‘Yes, I’m the agency director. I can confirm all the details of the case with you by phone, but there will be an email soon with everything in writing, if you’d rather wait for that?’

An email, and the outstanding balance for the rest of their bill.

Diana left the basement where the Undetectables operated, sliding past the benches of Theodore and Mallory’s lab, and climbed the steep stairs to the kitchen. She flicked a hand in the direction of the counter and warm brown bread started to slice itself. She muttered under her breath and the kettle boiled as she rummaged around for her favourite mug. It was much too early for arguing with folk. She hoped breakfast would make things better.

‘What’s that then, the tenth or eleventh case?’ Cornelia said, startling her.

‘Hexana, can you announce yourself when you enter rooms?’ Diana pressed a hand to her heart, annoyed at herself for not hearing Cornelia’s approach more than anything.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I needed permission to walk around my own house.’ Cornelia grinned. She reached over and grabbed the freshly sliced bread and waved over a jar of jam, which bumped against the table.

‘Oops, careful now.’ She looked tired, her short hair in disarray and her ubiquitous undulating jumper consuming more of her person than usual. Diana figured that she herself didn’t look much better.

‘To answer your question, it’s the eleventh.’

Eleven cases that hadn’t required private investigators in the first place. Eleven cases that had been ostensibly baffling, but easily solvable.

‘So we’ve had stolen jewellery—’

‘Found down the back of a couch with a simple finding spell, though I maintain he was gaslighting his husband about it,’ Diana said, biting into her bread.

‘—a missing person—’

‘You would think that someone upping and moving across the country would be enough of a suggestion that a person was not so much missing, as they did not want to be contacted by our client.’

‘As I said at the time, I agree with you, but that’s how the case was presented to us. Then there was… what was next?’

‘That was our eighth murder-that-wasn’t-murder case, if that helps,’ Mallory said, climbing the stairs. She grabbed the other slice of bread Diana had prepared for herself and joined them at the table.

Diana scowled at Mallory as Cornelia handed her a knife.

‘Is there tea?’ Mallory asked, smiling at Cornelia – one of the small smiles that Diana often caught passing between them, but very kindly did not point out. ‘I calmed Mrs Blackburn down for now, but she’ll likely call back in a few days demanding we reopen the investigation when she’s had time to stew over our findings.’ Mallory pulled her long dark hair out of its ponytail, rubbing her hand over her scalp. ‘Hexana, I didn’t realise how difficult it would be to liaise with grieving people if there wasn’t a murder. With murder, we can at least do something about it – seek justice, find someone to hold responsible. But with regular old death it’s… I’m sorry for your loss, please don’t forget to pay us.’ She grimaced.

‘You handled that one very well, I thought,’ Diana said, smiling fondly at her friend. ‘Director of the Undetectables.’

It gave Diana a thrill to say it, albeit mostly to see how delighted Mallory initially looked every single time, before doubt kicked in. It had been an easy majority-rules vote.

‘I’ve had five months of case practice,’ Mallory said. ‘And we agreed I’d call myself the director! Didn’t we?’

‘Diana is being mean,’ Cornelia said, giving Diana a playful shove. ‘But nonetheless, we both reserve the right to tease you about your title if and when it feels socially relevant.’

Mallory visibly relaxed.

‘And we won’t do it too much,’ Diana said, feeling like she was saying it more for Cornelia’s benefit than her own. While she and Cornelia had the sort of friendship where they could rip into each other whenever the mood struck them and it be a sign of love, Diana knew that Mallory looked for meaning in interactions that Cornelia hardly ever intended. Every day was just a day, and Cornelia just contained multitudes.

‘That’s only ten cases altogether,’ Cornelia said. ‘We’re missing—’

‘Ghost,’ Theodore said, appearing in the kitchen, bringing with him an enveloping warmth that Diana was thankful for on such a chilly spring morning. Mallory shifted happily in her seat, her mouth full of brown bread as Theodore brought his hand down on her hair, static sparking visibly from the contact.

Theodore Wyatt was their resident ghost who had lived and died and become semi-corporeal in the Broadwicks’ basement where the Undetectables headquartered, all while wearing a pair of cat ears. There had been a brief period where Diana was sure they’d lost him forever, when he became a victim in their last big murder case. He had returned – as a ghost, and still wearing the cat ears – thanks to Mallory, but Diana got the sense she wasn’t alone in feeling relieved whenever Theodore came into the room. As though being able to see him would stop anything bad from ever happening to him again.

‘Are you announcing your presence, or answering my question?’ Cornelia asked, sliding their phones into the little iron bags they’d installed on the edge of the table. Theodore’s presence had the tendency to ruin electrical items, and it happened whether he wanted it to or not, unless there was some kind of iron-based buffer to stop him.

He paused. ‘Both.’ He drew himself up to his full height, which was taller than Diana and approximately the same height as Cornelia, but several inches shorter than Mallory. ‘I am once again registering my full chagrin with this fact, though – I am unhappy there was a ghost case at all to begin with.’

Diana sighed. ‘We know, Theo.’

Unhappy didn’t quite cover it.

‘I will always be unhappy with ghost cases,’ he said. ‘It is in my nature to be marginally unhappy with everything, and ghost cases fall under the umbrella of everything.’

Theodore did not do emotions by halves.

‘We have to take on anything and everything at the moment, ghost cases or not. We aren’t getting enough work to not do it, so we just have to take what we can get,’ Diana said, a buzzing sound in her ear making her jaw clamp with annoyance that she fought to disguise. This was one of her lies-by-omission: since the Mayoral Offices explosion, her hearing had not returned to normal, and her days were frequently interrupted by a high-pitched ringing that made it hard to focus on what was going on around her. Theodore, unfortunately, seemed to be a major trigger, though it was unclear if that was his static charge, or the fact he could get very loud.

‘And it wasn’t really a ghost case,’ Mallory said. ‘Just someone concerned that their cousin didn’t become a Samhain ghost.’

‘It’s hard for the ordinary folk to understand us,’ Theodore said, brushing at the whiskers on his face, his hand passing through the blurry outline of the permanent tears on his cheeks that had appeared after his unlikely return. ‘They will never know the song of my people. Of which I am the only one in this town. So, song of my person.’

Mallory’s mouth folded into a line, and Diana looked away. This was a lie; they had not only encountered a second Samhain ghost in the Mayoral Offices, but that ghost had known Theodore. Theodore was the only one in the room who didn’t know that they knew and as far as Diana could tell, Mallory intended to keep it that way until she figured out why.

‘We had to prove a lack of evidence on that case, and they almost refused to pay, which is fast becoming the song of our people,’ Diana said, pressing a hand to her ear in hopes that would stop the buzzing coming from within.

‘Ah, like taking a photo of nothing. Which is incidentally what would happen if you were to photograph me. Nothing,’ Theodore said.

‘It’s not like we’re going to run out of money,’ Cornelia said around a mouthful of bread, as though someone had just mentioned the agency money woes.

Diana shot her a look that she hoped conveyed all fifteen intentions behind it. Although they both came from wealthy backgrounds – wealthier than Mallory, who wasn’t doing too badly either, mostly thanks to their hometown’s insistence on a universal basic income – Cornelia’s family had a wealth bordering on monstrous that frightened Diana to think about too much. Diana was set to inherit a lot of money when she was twenty-five, but had been raised to want to make her own name and her own fortune. It did not surprise her one bit that Cornelia didn’t quite understand how she and Mallory felt about earning – Mallory for reasons of achievement, and Diana for moral values.

‘I do feel guilty taking money from people who just want answers, though. It feels…’ Diana searched for the right word.

‘Bad,’ Mallory supplied.

‘That’s what I was going to say!’ The buzzing got higher pitched, and Diana snapped her mouth shut.

‘We could take those as pro bono cases?’ Cornelia suggested. ‘I can cover the agency fee.’

‘We are not doing that,’ Diana said. ‘A benevolent idea, but we are not letting you pay to keep our business running.’

‘I can’t see that being a long-term answer, either,’ Mallory said. ‘We need something sustainable, before anyone starts planning an exit from the agency.’ She laughed, but Diana could detect barely concealed panic behind the joke.

Diana wished she could say Mallory was catastrophising.

‘Nobody’s leaving. Nobody would have to leave if you’d let me keep us afloat. We could do a proper business plan with charts and shit,’ Cornelia said. ‘Or whatever folk do when they have to care about budgets. We’ll find something proper to get our teeth into soon, this will keep us going.’

‘Or you could shut the hell up,’ Diana said, sharper than intended. Cornelia making long-term promises Diana could not necessarily keep was not helpful, even if Cornelia didn’t know it.

Cornelia scowled, then scowled deeper at the sound of the agency phone buzzing against the wooden leg of the table.

‘Heads that’s Blackburn again, tails it’s Ingram asking us to follow his wife to the gym and I told him already I am NOT DOING THAT,’ she said emphatically. The buzzing stopped.

‘How did your meeting go?’ Mallory asked Theodore in the resulting silence, who fixed her with his full attention.

‘The meeting! Ahh, meetings. When groups of folk come together to make resolutions, yes.’

‘Was this the Unified Magical Liaison meeting?’ Cornelia asked around a bite of bread. ‘They’re awful pricks, aren’t they?’

‘You made that so clear when we did the tribunal with them after the Whistler case,’ Diana said. ‘I believe you actually said “you are all awful pricks” at one point.’

‘And?’

Diana did not dignify that with an answer.

‘Yes, my wonderfully observant friend,’ Theodore said. ‘To both observations. This was the meeting with the Occulture overlords about the Mayoral Offices that the Ghoul Council rescheduled a mere eight times over the past few months, which of course is no big deal for me, a Samhain ghost who cannot use a phone or receive electronic mail. No big deal at all, to sit in a room alone in the dark waiting for a meeting that will never start, as though I have an eternity stretching out in front of me.’

‘What did they say?’ Mallory prompted.

‘Well. As you know. The Mayoral Offices have been in a state of disrepair since you—since the—since… five months ago.’

As nobody liked saying Jacob’s name in front of Theodore – or, indeed, particularly enjoyed discussing what Jacob had done to them and several people they’d loved – ‘five months ago’ had become their shorthand for all the consequences of the Whistler case, including Theodore’s temporary demise. The Whistler had killed several of their friends in an effort to become a fourth member of the Ternion, Occulture’s main goddesses, and the Undetectables had narrowly escaped. They’d defeated him by blowing up the Mayoral Offices – or so Diana was told, as she’d been unconscious for most of it. The Offices had been out of commission ever since, meaning Theodore had been waiting to restart his job.

‘Nod if you’re with me, Mallory,’ Theodore said seriously. ‘Great. Okay, well, the repairs are still going very slowly, and after much discussion they’ve decided they’re ready to deal with the spectral disturbances once and for all.’

‘That’s your job, right?’ Diana said. She had never been willing to admit to Theodore that she didn’t quite know what he did for an unliving, apart from despairing over paperwork and bureaucratic rules that made the paperwork difficult. ‘Did they give you a start date?’

‘Yes! Well. The Ghoul Council, along with the UML, have decided that they’re going to treat the spectral activity like it is something that can be smoothed over. Like a brick wall, for instance. That’s the plan. They’re going to brick off the back offices with iron-lined bricks and hope for the best. They have suggested a timeframe of somewhere between one and eight business weeks, though the count might’ve started last week, so that could be a skewed timeline. All nice and vague. But fear not, the good news is I can join the agency full time! PI Wyatt has a nice ring to it,’ Theodore finished cheerfully.

‘Sorry,’ Diana said. ‘They fired you?’

‘It would appear so, yes,’ Theodore said. ‘I was dismissed.’

Diana tensed for the dramatic explosion. A quick glance around the table told her the others were also waiting; this surely fell under the umbrella of something Theodore could be at least marginally unhappy about.

‘Theodore, I’m so sorry,’ Cornelia said. ‘I could call my parents, see if they can convince whoever in the Ghoul Council decided this that it is a very shit idea?’

Theodore waved a dismissive hand. ‘Let’s not bother the Broadwicks with things that may or may not be relevant to them, just because they’re in the Ghoul Council.’

‘They should’ve been there for this. You live – sorry, reside – in their house!’ Cornelia said.

‘It’s okay if you’re upset,’ Mallory said gently.

‘Why on earth would I be upset?’

He looked genuinely baffled. Diana felt a chill run down her spine as it became clear the explosion wasn’t coming. He was completely and utterly calm.

‘It’s just that, previously,’ Cornelia started. ‘And I’m sure Diana and Mallory can back me up here. But previously, you have stated that your raison de la mort was your job in the Mayoral Offices. You know, given that you’re tethered to this plane because you had unfinished business. The unfinished business being’ – Cornelia made some grasping motions with her hands – ‘whatever it is you usually do in the Mayoral Offices.’

‘Whatever it is I usually did. Grammar tenses are very important.’

‘Remember Cornelia pointed out your raison de la mort was because someone had murdered you and that you additionally cannot substitute common French philosophies with words that relate more to your state of being, and you got very upset and did some shouting and sprayed static around the place and we calmed you down with a big hug?’ Diana tried.

‘My memory is fine, Diana. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I better – oh! Habit. I better go tidy up my paperwork, I expect. You know, the bane of my life is paperwork. Every day, paperwork. Paper, paper, paper… That’s a great word to say. Say it with me, Mallory. PAPER.’

The paper choir was interrupted by Diana’s phone dinging once, then twice.

She flinched, thinking it was a message she was waiting on that she did not want to open in front of the others, before realising what it actually meant.

‘Was that your phone?’ Mallory said, peering into Diana’s table pocket.

‘Was that your phone with sound on?’ Cornelia asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

‘Oh, maybe,’ Diana said airily. ‘You must’ve knocked a button putting it in the pouch.’ She left her hands where they were, focusing on stopping her fingers from twitching towards it. She wasn’t hiding anything; ‘hiding’ implied she spent an inordinate amount of time working to conceal something. Things were simply stuffed into miniature compartments in her brain where nobody could get at them.

‘Well on that note,’ Theodore said. He paused, like he was waiting for the right words to come to him, then passed through the basement door, leaving the Undetectables staring at each other.

‘Well,’ Diana said.

‘Well,’ Mallory said.

‘That was fucking weird, wasn’t it?’ Cornelia said. ‘I did witness that correctly? He’s been fired and he… didn’t react. At all.’

‘I’m worried,’ Mallory said. ‘Not just about Theo – I’m beyond concerned about that. But the Offices.’

Diana knew what she was going to say. The Undetectables’ very first case had been Theodore’s murder, and it remained unsolved. Meeting Katherine the Samhain ghost and learning she had met Theodore before he’d died had been the first semblance of a lead. If the Offices were going to be bricked over, they’d lose their chance to get back in to talk to her.

‘I’m going to reopen Theodore’s case, as a matter of urgency,’ Mallory said decisively. ‘I can work on it alone; you two can keep our current cases afloat and keep an eye out for anything new and interesting. If that’s okay? I can’t lose this lead.’

There was something else under the surface, something Diana felt Mallory had been dancing around ever since Theodore had come back. She just didn’t know what it was yet.

‘Of course it’s okay,’ Cornelia said. ‘You’re the director, it’s your call.’

‘This is urgent, now. Who knows if they’ll actually brick it up within the next few weeks?’

‘Of all the things they could choose to be expeditious about, it would be this, if only for the sole reason that it’s a bad idea,’ Diana said. ‘It’s not exactly solving the spectral problem, is it, locking up a load of hideous giant insects?’

‘Beautiful hideous giant insects,’ Cornelia corrected. ‘But yeah, feels like something they’d do. I can see if Mother will halt it, but that might involve her asking questions, and I’m quite sick of questions after being interrogated by the UML all those times over the Whistler.’

‘Then that’s decided. I’m going to take a nap first.’ Mallory stretched her shoulders, wincing as she touched the skin of her upper arms. ‘But then I’ll get started right away.’ She headed for her room.

‘I’ll go see who that was calling and write the email to bloody whatshername. Hexana love the poor dear, I am very sorry for her and have no idea what she’s going through, et cetera, but…’ Cornelia waved a hand.

‘Yes, Cornelia, I find it’s all very emotionally convincing when you say things like “et cetera”, et cetera.’ Diana playfully flicked Cornelia’s hand. Cornelia shot her a glare as she stuffed another slice of bread into her mouth and bounded down the basement stairs.

It was only then that Diana allowed herself to reach for her phone. The compartments in her mind had opened and all the baggage she had stuffed in there was rapidly unsealing like it had been vacuum-packed. The message may not have been what she was waiting for, but it was another thing to wrap beneath layers of brilliant lies.

There was only one person who had the ability to make her phone make a noise.

Only one person that could make Diana’s heart feel as though it was beating out of her chest.

She looked down at the screen, heart palpitating so loud she could hear it in her ears as her eyes skipped over the texts, once, twice, trying to take it in, trying to understand what it meant.

Taylor

hey angel baby (sorry, let me have this one)

got a live one for you (and by that i mean dead)

PERIMORTEM I

Taylor Rose O’Gorman was perfectly aware of the moment she died.

It had come as a bit of a shock, all told. The body does strange things while dying; it can be like falling asleep, or it can be a battle of wills. A soul straddling the two options. Taylor’s death was of the die-screaming variety.

Or it would’ve been.

She was making noise, her larynx straining beneath her skin, tendons pulled taut with the effort, but no sound would come out. She’d been feeling funny right before it happened, come to think of it, though Taylor couldn’t actually think. She just knew she was dead, and if not now, imminently.

A backlit figure moved beyond the scope of her vision. Coming into frame, their appearance disorganised and unrecognisable, her eyes no longer making sense of the images they were witnessing, and Taylor was screaming, oh how she was screaming, but there was no audio track to prove it.

The figure didn’t seem to notice. They approached her – maybe had been beside her the whole time – and she felt a weightlessness, her body lifted up, up and out of frame until she wasn’t sure where she was anymore, until she was carefully lowered onto something soft and pink and brocade. Chaise longue floated into her head and left as quickly.

She turned her head – no, moved her eyes, the only part of her still capable of moving; the figure turned her head, settling her limbs into an unnatural position. Her fingers fell to the floor, draped in a pool of something wet and warm and pungent and then her hands were lifted again and placed over her chest. She thought she could feel something: eyelet lace. It reminded her of someone, faces floating in and out of close-shot memories that refused to cement into anything she could make sense of.

The figure came closer again, placed their hands over hers, then raised one, closed Taylor’s eyelids, shut out the last of the light in her fade-out final scene.

A warm trickle of something flooded over her hands, but it was dark, dark, nothingness.

THREE

Mallory Hawthorne was many things – director of the PI agency she and her friends had co-founded, an excellent friend (when she wasn’t getting in her own way), a resourceful inventor and, first and foremost, a scientist.

When she had cast the spell to bring Theodore back from the undead after the Whistler had killed him five months prior, hope had been dwindling away to an accepting ache of loss, until the moment he appeared in the basement of Broadwick Mansion and enveloped her in a hug.

She had so many questions about what it had been like for him when he was gone – if he knew he had been properly dead, if there’d been a confrontation between him and Jacob, if it had hurt or if he’d been aware when Jacob had put his soul into the death blade – and how he felt now that he was back. The only sign anything had changed was the permanent addition of twin tracks of tears on his cheeks. He refused to speak on any of it.

‘I’m back now,’ he’d said. ‘Isn’t that the true meaning of Yule, and so forth?’

Once she had gotten past the tears, relief, and the realisation that he wasn’t going to share anything with her, she selected a fresh notebook, her favourite pen, and began to take notes. Extensive, copious, scientific notes on everything and anything Theodore did, said, or seemed to be thinking about doing and saying.

Theodore flickered twice today, once at 13:21 and once at 20:33, but on both occasions he said it was a ‘ghost sneeze’.

Theodore shouted at a pigeon through the basement window at 14:14.

Theodore in good mood today.

Theodore is not quite right.

She hadn’t told him she was doing this, both because she was mildly embarrassed at her scrutiny, and because she didn’t want him to ask why; she wasn’t sure herself. Perhaps it was the idea that he had not been totally honest with her before his second death. Theodore was not supposed to communicate with other ghosts, and yet he had – with a ghost who had known him longer than Mallory herself.

While Mallory was many things, she tried not to be a liar, so she had not lied about taking a nap, craving the darkness of her bedroom, the comfort of her bed. But when she crawled between the sheets, her legs grateful for the relief, her body readily sinking into the mattress, her knee struck the hard edge of a book. She nudged it away, wrapping herself carefully in the duvet and closing her eyes, willing sleep to overtake her.

But the book called to her. Not literally, as it was not a magical book, but emotionally. Mallory felt the urge to start now, the UML’s vague one to eight business weeks looming over her head like the threat to her investigation it was.

In the dark, she mentally turned a page in her Theodore Field Study/Cold Case notebook, to a scribbled drawing of a witchlight and a small Polaroid of the shelf in Cornelia’s basement – she had been going through a photography phase at the time, though Diana did most of the image recording these days – where they’d found the witchlight extinguished near Theodore’s body that night. The Whistler had known the trick of witchlight travel; it stood to reason other witches did too, even though the Unified Magical Liaison had been shocked to learn of it when the Undetectables attended the case tribunal. It felt most likely to Mallory that a witch had snuck after Theodore in the dark while the lights were off, then teleported somewhere else in Broadwick Mansion, and nobody was any the wiser. She’d compiled lists of witches who had been in attendance at the Samhain ball, comparing statements the Undetectables had taken all those years ago, when they were still children and were not taken seriously.

But perhaps Katherine had some answers for her.

She opened her eyes and took in the quiet darkness for a few more moments, willing her arms and legs to relax. Then she eased herself towards the lamp, propping pillows behind her so she was half-reclining, pulled her knees up, and rested the book on top of a softbee-shaped plushie her friend Felix had given her. She took up her notebook, holding the pen loosely as her joints protested the movement.

Katherine herself presented an interesting issue, both because she was trapped in the destroyed Mayoral Offices, and because officially, Theodore was the only Samhain ghost in Wrackton. Trying to find out who she was had led Mallory on an unorthodox ghost hunt. Even with Theodore back, Mallory had not been able to get a straight – or indeed gay – answer out of him as to how he knew Katherine on any of the three occasions she’d asked, though the answers he did give could be arranged in order of least to most interesting.

‘In a way we’re all Katherines, aren’t we? At some point in our lives we’ve all been a Katherine. Perhaps some more literally than others,’ Theodore had said the second time she’d asked.

The first time she’d asked, he had said, ‘Katherine? No, sorry, I don’t know any ghost called Katherine, especially not one who spells her name with a K.’ And then scrunched up his face, because Mallory had not specified the Katherine she was inquiring about was a ghost.

The third time she’d asked, Theodore said, ‘Mallory, I care so very deeply about you. And because I care so very deeply about you, it pains me to say – stay out of this.’

Although he hadn’t quite said the last part so much as screamed it, then carried on as though he’d said nothing, leaving Mallory staring at him in horror as he hummed to himself, busy analysing something in the lab.

Thinking of it, and writing it into her notebook, made Mallory’s stomach drop, though it had been weeks since that had happened. It was not very Theodore of him. Sure, he’d always had a flair for the dramatic, and sure he was always a little mercurial, but this was not what Mallory would happily describe as ‘normal behaviour’.

Nor was his underreaction to being fired.

‘Who are you, Katherine?’ she whispered.

She had subscribed to a genealogy database to try to get a handle on past generations in Wrackton, but without Katherine’s surname, her ghost hunt had stalled. She had the sense Katherine was much older than Theodore, that she had died a very long time ago, but with only the knowledge that Katherine had had a sister, Mallory was chasing the ghost of a ghost.

Her next port of call was speaking to the new Night Mayor, Dr Priyanka Ray, who also happened to be Wrackton’s Medical Examiner. These were hats she wore both with pride and with exasperation, mostly as it increased her dealings with the public tenfold. Dr Ray had granted Mallory access to the written census books, which weren’t many, given the oft-relevant explosion of the Mayoral Offices, taking with it a lot of irreplaceable records.

Somehow, even with the tribunals and the UML scrutinising their involvement, the Undetectables had avoided taking any direct blame for that.

What Mallory had now was the oldest record book that had been recovered, dating back to the early 1800s. It didn’t feel old enough, but she was hoping for some kind of lead. Katherine had to be findable. Mallory had noticed that generations of witches, demons and vampires in Wrackton had used a regular naming scheme, skipping a generation or two, keeping the spirit of someone alive by using their name again and again. It was honouring their personhood, in a way, and giving someone guidance on who to be. Your great-aunt Bunice was a wonderful woman, she’d be proud you were called Bunice today, they’d say, to the poor unfortunate soul who was named Bunice in this day and age.

So far, Mallory had narrowed down the possibilities – if Katherine had originally lived within Wrackton’s walls – to around two to three hundred families, based on the occurrences of Katherines. It was going to take forever, but if she had to go to them one by one, she would.

She could not let Theodore down again. She could not lose the lead. And though hunches were more Diana’s territory, Mallory could not help the knot in her stomach that told her that Katherine was the key to finding answers. If she solved the mystery of who she was, she’d solve Theodore’s murder once and for all.

There was something there, just beyond her reach.

Answers that had been waiting for six years.

All she needed to do was get to them.

FOUR

Diana stared at the name at the top of the screen, her fingers shaking.

‘Oh get a grip,’ she told herself. ‘Stop that. You are strong, you are confident, you are beloved, you are in control of your emotions, and you do not shake when—’

Taylor

you should turn off read receipts if you’re not going to reply, i know you’re there

please call me, it’s really important

*   *   *

‘Fuckingggg…’ Diana heaved in a breath, and forced her shoulders to relax. She was not panicking. She famously did not panic, even when the situation maybe called for it. Her ear rang in the quiet of the kitchen, but not so badly that she couldn’t handle talking.

Diana

what’s a call worth to you?

She watched the message change to read and waited, pushing an email she had also been waiting for off the screen as it pinged in in real time:

Re: Prop dept Larkin Studios, Undead Co…

One pressing issue at a time.

It had been a long time since she’d heard from Taylor.

Five months.

Five months, two weeks and three days, to be exact.

As much as she could, Diana trusted her friends with every single part of her. But just as Cornelia contained her multitudes and Mallory contained a lifetime’s worth of built-in shame, Diana contained many omissions.

Such as Vancouver. And Taylor. And what she left behind. Or rather, the possibility she left behind. The potential version of Diana she’d discarded like an old jumper to hop on a plane and return home to the familiar, the comfortable – or so she thought, before everything went to shit.

For Diana, opportunities either worked out, or they came back to her in a different form if she made the wrong choice the first time. For the most part, Diana could not fail. She’d been raised with the belief she was naturally lucky, and Diana had never seen any evidence to the contrary.

Taylor

i wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t dead serious

video call in three

unless you really don’t want to see me

Diana pressed the call button herself, twirling on the spot so she could find a part of the Broadwicks’ kitchen that served as a good background. She rested the phone on the island and leaned forward, adjusting her hair and swiping a finger under her lip to be sure her lipgloss hadn’t smudged.

She ignored the way her heart beat strangely into her arms when Taylor answered, her face filling the screen. Her green hair fell messily around her pale, freckled face, her deep blue eyes wide and dancing.

‘How’s it going?’ Taylor said.

‘Hi.’ Diana cursed herself for not saying something snappier.

‘So biting,’ Taylor said playfully. ‘I’ll get on with it in a second, but seriously – how’s it going?’

‘You know how I am, otherwise you wouldn’t have called.’

Enough time had passed that Taylor could be sure Diana wouldn’t burst into tears at the sight of her.

‘That’s true. I mean, it’s rude of you to suggest an Apparent has some sort of all-knowing powers when you, an actual witch, could probably have divined I was going to call, like. But it’s still true.’

Taylor smiled, her lips pink and soft-looking, and Diana fought the urge to look away.

She wasn’t even there in person. Get a grip, Diana.

‘Did you know you still talk to yourself out loud when you’re flustered? It’s cute.’

‘Taylor, why…’

Why had she called? Why had Diana left her? Why was this happening?

‘All right, for the love of… whatever it is you believe in. Here’s the story, chicken: I’m working on a pilot of a show called Undead Complex. We’re on location up at Oakpass Manor, which I believe is—’

‘Did you say Undead Complex?’ Diana shrieked. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘Ah yeah. Five months of radio silence, and I’d just send you a little message to say I got a job on a low-budget pilot.’

Diana knew she was being unreasonable, given the circumstances, but she felt a flash of anger, her thumb finding the email she’d dismissed earlier.

Hi Diana,

Thanks for sending your CV, you’re exactly what we’re looking for. We’d love to have you on our team…

It was a secret she’d been determined to keep from Mallory until she was forced otherwise. Diana had always been a fan of keeping her options open, and she missed working on a set. She hadn’t necessarily intended to go looking for jobs; she’d seen the posting, had sent an email before she’d really thought about it, then realised she really, really wanted the job. It would take her away from the Undetectables for a while, but cases were slow, and Diana was bored, and she figured she’d find a way to make Mallory understand it wasn’t a permanent departure. More of a weeks-long detour, mostly so she didn’t lose her skills. She didn’t expect the show would get picked up.

‘Larkin Studios, right?’ Diana said instead.

‘They’re having a little revival moment, yeah. They’re filming on location in Oakpass Manor itself, which apparently features really heavily in the comics the show is based on. Place is in shite, but that’s beside the point. Just listen to me for a second, would you?’

‘I am listening, you’re not saying anything!’ Diana tried not to think too hard about how weird it would’ve been to turn up for her first day and find Taylor there, practically in her back garden after all this time. Oakpass Manor was barely twenty minutes from where Diana was standing.

‘Aha.’ It was a humourless laugh. ‘Wait and I’ll tell you though, cause this is an absolute shit show. You’re not going to believe any of this.’

‘You have thirty seconds,’ Diana said firmly. ‘Not to tell me about the shit show, about why you’re calling.’

‘I’m working away in the prop department, which surprisingly has the highest concentration of staff, but it’s a very visual concept so I guess that tracks. I’m doing a great job, if I do say so myself. My talents amaze me. Ceaselessly, you might say. And I wake up one morning, and I’m dead.’

‘What?’

Up to this point, Diana had admittedly thought this was all some kind of ruse to get her attention.

‘I’m dead. They’ve found my body in one of the sound stages. I died. I’m lying across one of the sofas on set like fuckin’ Ophelia at the lake, all dead and shit, except the lake was my own blood. But I – obviously – wasn’t dead, cause I was able to look at photos of it.’

‘How did this happen?’

‘I was off sick – some kind of twenty-four-hour bug yoke, and had taken the day off. Under duress, and with twelve servings of guilt from the showrunner. But I was gone for a day. Naturally, everyone else assumed I had wandered back on set and died, and they shut down production. For a day, mind. I’m but a lowly crew member, and the police had the scene cleared within hours. I hadn’t signed in, which nobody seemed to think was weird. When I showed up confused about all the aforementioned police, they looked at me like I was a ghost.’

For one split second, Diana wondered if Taylor could be a ghost, before remembering that technology and ghosts did not mix.

‘Taylor, when was this?’ Diana was having trouble understanding what was going on, but she knew what the growing feeling in her stomach was: excitement. Possibility. Opportunity. A case.

‘This morning,’ Taylor said lightly. ‘I’m feeling much better, thanks.’

Diana blinked. ‘So they found…’

‘My body on set this morning. Me, dead. But I’m not dead. They’re quite sure it’s me, the propmaster made a formal identification. They called my ma. They called my ma, Diana, first thing in the morning, and told her I was dead. By the time I woke up and seen all the messages and missed calls, she’d gone from wailing to starting absolute war that I’d gone and got myself murdered, when didn’t I know that was “the one and only way to break her heart”.’

Diana had heard much about Mrs O’Gorman, but Taylor seemed to adore her, even given her absolute dramatics, justified and otherwise.

‘So naturally I frightened the shite out of her by calling and asking what the fuck was going on. My brother, you remember Tommo, is still alive and hasn’t become the second O’Gorman sibling to trans their gender, so it wasn’t him they found. And I dunno how else they found a freckly sea-green-haired Irish youngwan the spitting image of me to replace me at such short notice, but… that body has my face and name, but it isn’t me. Just cause Taylor Rose kinda rhymes with Jane Doe if you squint a bit, doesn’t mean anything.’

Diana sensed that for all Taylor’s casualness, there was genuine fear underlying everything she’d said.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t want you to do anything.’

‘Then why—’ Diana started, anger flaring.

‘I want you to get your pals up here. The Undetectables. And I want you to find out who’s targeting me, if that’s what’s happening, and if not, find out why someone’s leaving bodies that look like me around the place.’

‘Oh. You’re hiring us?’ Diana cycled through a range of questions that started with “How do you know about us?” and ended with “Could this have been an email?”

‘You’re the only private investigators I know who specialise in magical happenings, so who else was I going to call? And by “only” I mean “the only ones that came up when I tried searching about an hour ago, and discovered what you’ve been up to for the last five months, and knew there was no one else I could call”.’

‘I’m sure you could’ve thought of someone or other.’ Diana looked away for a moment, trying to gain her composure in a way that looked effortless. ‘I need to discuss it with my team first, make sure it’s something we want to take on. Can you get up here? Are you still sick, or…?’

‘I can come to you, text me the address. I’m fine.’

‘I’ll brief the team, but you’ll need to sell it to them yourself. We’re very in demand, we can’t go taking on cases… willy-nilly.’

Taylor’s eyes danced. ‘Grand so. Wouldn’t want you to make any rash decisions now, would we?’

And there it was.

‘Leaving Vancouver wasn’t a rash decision, it was—’

‘Life-altering, course-correcting, accidental chaos. I know. I was there when you told me you were leaving.’ Taylor looked down at her smart watch, notifications flooding in. ‘Shit, I’ve to go, the police want to talk to me. I’ll come by later.’

‘Will you be okay?’ Diana wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking; would she be okay with the police?

‘I managed the last five months without you, and managed my entire life before you. I think I’ll be grand.’ She winked, and ended the call.

Shit.

The first potentially real murder in months, and Diana was going to have to swallow her pride over it.

*   *   *

‘It’s a what?’ Cornelia said. She was holding envelopes in one hand and something in her other that looked like a piece of textured black paper until it flapped, revealing a pink underbelly and legs, and Diana realised it was some sort of terrible moth.

‘A doozy,’ Diana said for the second time, recoiling from the moth as she rummaged through the snack cupboard in the Undetectables’ research room, which had doubled as Theodore’s remote office during his employment.

She was beginning to question if she’d used the word correctly, when Cornelia said, ‘Oh yes. Short for whoopsadoozy.’

Diana said a phrase in Cantonese that she knew Cornelia didn’t understand, but would grasp the sentiment of regardless.

‘Hold on a second, before I forget.’ Cornelia handed her a heavyweight cream envelope. Diana tapped her fingers to break the seal at the back, monogrammed with GQ. She scanned the card inside.

‘Invitation to a Spring Equinox ball, from Grey Quinn,’ she said, skipping over the details. ‘For me and two guests.’

She was secretly pleased one of the most connected demons in all of Occulture had remembered her – he had extended an offer to meet for drinks during the Whistler case, when Diana had pretended to be a socialite, but she hadn’t expected he’d follow up.

‘We could go, try to drum up business like old times?’ Mallory suggested.

‘We could,’ Diana said. ‘Or you could both listen to me.’

Cornelia and Mallory looked up, Mallory’s hands poised over her case notes.

‘Sorry. I’ve been trying to tell you, I think we have a case,’ Diana said. ‘I was waiting for Cornelia to finish that email to Mrs Blackburn.’

‘That’s been an entire hour, almost,’ Mallory protested, which Diana was all too aware of, but she did not want to snap at Mallory for no reason.