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“I enjoy any fencing match,” said Lord Alastair. He acted as if he didn’t hear his companion, who was whispering, “Smite the enemies of God with the swords of the angels and archangels!” Lord Alastair went on, unmoved, “And I have learnt a few tricks since then. Whereas your young friend seems to have aged by only a few days in those eleven years—and as I was recently able to convince myself, he has had no time to improve his technique.”
“Convince yourself?” said Gideon, with a derisive smile. “For that you’d have had to be there yourself. But you sent your men, and my technique was perfectly adequate to dealing with them. Yet more proof that if you want something done, it is better to do it yourself.”
“Can you mean…?” Lord Alastair’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, you are speaking of the incident in Hyde Park last Monday. True—I ought to have given it my own attention. In any case, it was just an idea on the spur of the moment. But without the help of black magic … and a girl, you would hardly have survived.”
“I’m glad to hear you speak so frankly,” said the count. “For since your men’s attempt on the lives of my young friends here, I have been rather … well, annoyed. I thought it was I on whom your aggression was turned. I am sure you understand that I will not tolerate such a thing.”
“You’ll do as you think you ought to do, and I’ll do as I must do,” said Lord Alastair, and his companion growled, “Death! Death to the demons!” in such a weird way that I couldn’t rule out the idea that he might have a laser sword hidden under that cloak. He was clearly a nutcase. I didn’t think I ought to ignore his peculiar behavior any longer.
“We haven’t been introduced, I know, and I admit to having my own problems with correct manners at this period,” I said, looking him straight in the face. “But if you ask me, all this talk of demons and death is definitely out of order.”
“Speak not to me, demon!” said Darth Vader harshly. “I am invisible to your sapphire eyes! And your ears cannot hear me.”
“Chance would be a fine thing,” I said, and suddenly I wanted to go home. Or at least back to that sofa, however uncomfortable it was. The whole room was swaying around me like a ship at sea.
Gideon, the count, and Lord Alastair seemed to have lost the thread of their own conversation for now. They forgot to go on flinging cryptic accusations at each other, and stared at me with baffled expressions on their faces.
“The swords of my descendants will pierce your flesh, the Florentine Alliance will avenge what was done to my family, and will wipe that which is displeasing to God off the face of the earth,” said Darth Vader, addressing no one in particular.
“Who are you talking to?” whispered Gideon.
“Him over there,” I said, clutching Gideon a little more tightly and pointing to Darth Vader. “Someone ought to tell him that his cloak is sh … isn’t exactly the latest fashion. And that I am not a demon, if he doesn’t mind, and I don’t want to be pierced by the swords of his descendants and wiped off the face of the earth. Ow!”
Gideon’s hand had closed hard on my forearm.
“What does this farce mean, Count?” inquired Lord Alastair, adjusting a showy brooch in his cravat.
The count took no notice of him. Under their heavy lids, his eyes were resting on me. “This is interesting,” he said softly. “She can obviously see straight into your black soul, my dear Alastair.”
“I’m afraid she’s drunk so much wine that she’s imagining things,” said Gideon, hissing into my ear, “Shut up, for goodness’ sake!”
My stomach contracted painfully with shock, because all at once I realized that the others couldn’t see or hear Darth Vader, and the reason why they couldn’t was that he was a ghost! If I hadn’t been so drunk, this obvious idea would have occurred to me sooner. How stupid could you get? Neither his clothes nor his hairstyle was right for the eighteenth century, and by the time he launched into his emotional ramblings, if not earlier, I ought to have realized who I had before me, or rather what.
Lord Alastair threw back his head and said, “We both know, Count, whose soul belongs to the Devil, and with God’s help, I will ensure that these … these creatures are never born at all!”
“Pierced by the swords of the Holy Florentine Alliance,” Darth Vader unctuously concluded.
o;Let’s get one thing clear: I hate musicals,” said Gideon. “Do you think you can hold out for a few minutes longer? Lord Alastair has finally arrived, and once we’ve been introduced to him, we can go.”
“So soon?” I said. “What a shame!”
Gideon looked at me, shaking his head. “You’ve obviously lost all sense of time. I’d hold your head under cold water if I could.”
Count Saint-Germain came up to us. “That was a … a very remarkable performance,” he said, looking at Gideon with raised eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” said Gideon, sighing. He glanced at the two newcomers. “Lord Alastair looks a little fatter than he used to.”
The count laughed. “Don’t cherish any false hopes! My enemy is still in brilliant form. Rakoczy saw him fence at Galliano’s this afternoon—none of the young dandies could compete with him. Follow me. I can’t wait to see his face.”
“He’s being so nice today,” I whispered to Gideon as we followed in the count’s wake. “You know, he terrified me last time, but today I feel almost as if he was my grandfather or something. I almost like him. And it was so kind of him to give you the Stradivarius. I’m sure it would be worth a fortune if you auctioned it on eBay. Oops, the floors are still so wobbly here.”
Gideon put a hand on my waist. “I swear I’m going to murder you when we’re through with this,” he muttered.
“Am I babbling?”
“Not quite yet,” he said. “But I expect that will be next.”
“Didn’t I tell you he might turn up at any moment?” Lord Brompton placed one hand on the shoulder of the man in the glittery clothes and the other on the count’s. “I’ve been told that you know each other already. Lord Alastair, you never told me that you were personally acquainted with the famous Count Saint-Germain.”
