The ceiling was low and dark. So dark that Arthur took a moment to realise that his eyes had opened. The room was close and smelled sweet and musty and dry and he lay still, trying to breathe. Terror suddenly squeezing his heart, he gasped a lungful of air and sat bolt upright.

"Ssh, shh, it's quite alright," breathed Cecily in a low voice, taking his hand. "You fainted, that's all."

"I fainted?" Arthur looked around himself wildly. He was in a cold room lit only by moonlight lancing from a skylight some feet away. Shelves, stacked to brimming with sacks and jars and parcels, lined the wall, and a distinct earthy scent of potatoes rose from a pallet to his left. It appeared to be a pantry.

Arthur exhaled painfully, and was rewarded with an achingly sweet look of concern from Cecily. "Where am I?"

"At my house. You do remember, Mr Doyle?"

"Please, do call me Arthur." He tried hard to recover himself, wincing against the cold of the flagstones where they pressed up sharply through his clothing. His limbs ached and trembled with the aftermath of fear. "I remember," he said, staring at Cecily with round eyes. "Oh God. I remember. Mr Inglis-" Feeling sick, Arthur brought his hands to his pounding temples. "We must summon the police!"

Cecily let go his hand and abruptly stood up. She turned away and disappeared momentarily under a cloak of shadow, leaving Arthur disoriented on the floor. "There's really no need," she said curtly, busying herself with something Arthur couldn't see.

"You've sent for them already?" asked Arthur hopefully. If he could only force a little more blood into his limbs, he was sure that standing would become possible any moment now.

"The matter is in hand."

"In hand? How? Has he been captured?" Arthur frowned as realisation began to dawn. "My God – was it –? I mean to say, did I see – W, W, Wil-" As Arthur's words stuttered without conclusion, Cecily returned and studied him coolly.

"After a fashion," she said, evenly.

"Oh, God," moaned Arthur again, struggling unsuccessfully to get to his feet.

"Here, take some water. It'll restore you." Cecily pressed a tall glass into Arthur's hands, and he sipped distractedly.

"I never even imagined. I can't credit it," he mumbled, looking up at Cecily. "I don't understand anything," he admitted.

Cecily smiled unreadably. "You haven't been in London long, have you?"

"A few months. I'm to return to my studies in Edinburgh soon."

"A medical man like yourself should do well there."

Arthur looked at her in surprise. "How did you know I was studying medicine? I don't remember telling you so." A pleasant possibility occurred to him. "Unless you heard it from someone else?" Perhaps she had made enquiries about him!

"I've often met you smelling of iodine, and there's a bulge there in the side of your hat where you stow your stethoscope," Cecily said.

Arthur blinked.

"It's not a pleasant city, London," Cecily continued. "Too large and anonymous. An outsider here might very easily come undone."

Arthur looked at her, holding the glass in both hands. In the strained half-light of the pantry he could not fathom her eyes.

"One absolutely cannot get by in London without a friend. Have you a friend here, Mr Doyle?"

Arthur returned his focus to his water glass. "Well, I – that is, I know some fellows who I call upon. I, well, I get by quite nicely..." Later, he would try very hard to convince himself that he'd only imagined Cecily's responding soft laugh.

"I like you, Mr Doyle," she said. "And I don't wish to see you come to any harm in what I'm sure you can see are dangerous times. Now, I understand you are very upset." Arthur straightened his face concertedly. "But you would do me a great service if you would take from me a few matters on trust." She had leaned in close to him as she spoke, and Arthur saw her eyebrows raised.

"But you yourself must be upset!" he exclaimed, trying to wrest back a shred of control and masculine dignity. "Let me do something – fetch someone –" Arthur tried to scramble to his feet, but, finding his limbs weak and uncooperative, resorted to leaning limply against the wall. Cecily touched his arm lightly. He hoped the grainy shadows swallowed his blush.

"Really, it's quite alright," she assured him. "You are most kind. But I would take it as a great favour if you would indulge my wishes."

"Your wishes?" Arthur coughed manfully. His chest hurt.

"It would be better for you if you did not go to the police. I have arranged for the matter to be dealt with, but I must entreat you to be discreet."

"Discreet? No police? Miss Addams, I have no wish to be disrespectful, but I really –"

"You know not whereof you speak," snapped Cecily. She drew back the hand that had rested on Arthur's arm and fixed him with a gimlet stare, the moonlight making her large eyes glint in the darkness. "Arthur. There is more to this than you could understand. It's no fault of yours – but you do not know how these things work, as I do. These ... London things. You don't know what this is about."

"It seems to me it's about William murdering Mr Inglis! Am I mistaken?"

Cecily's eyes narrowed to daggers and it was all Arthur could do not to cringe.

"It's about who it is wise to antagonise."

"But... the police." Arthur had to fight not to duck his eyes from Cecily's glare. "Surely we must contact the police. You yourself could be in danger!"

Cecily gave something rather like a snort. "You must trust me when I tell you I am not." Then she rekindled her gentle smile. "Arthur, I am grateful for your kindness. But I know more of these affairs than you do. I have been here a great deal longer than you have, and I know people who can help. You must trust me on the importance of having the appropriate friends in London. I would like to count you among them." Her expression had shifted so dramatically in moments, it was almost as if a mask had been changed. Despite himself, Arthur was charmed. "I wonder," she said, confidentially, "If I might prevail on you for a favour?"

"Of course," replied Arthur with automatic chivalry, long before his brain could engage.

"I promise that something is being done about this... business ... but it is extremely delicate, and I must beg you not to go to the police. A false move could jeopardise the safety of all of us. It could compromise me irrevocably."

Arthur pressed his palm hard against his temple as if trying to still the torment within.

"You're tired, and disturbed," said Cecily kindly. "I have a cab waiting: please, go home tonight and sleep, and do nothing til morning. I shall send for you then, and all shall be made clear."

"I – I think that will be best," murmured a deeply perplexed Arthur. Cecily smiled widely.

She watched the cab depart until the horses' hoof-beats and the rumble of the carriage's wheels faded into the general murmur of the Marylebone night, then stepped back into the house and sighed in the darkness of the hallway. Her housekeeper regarded her steadily. "Why," asked Cecily, "is there always a boy?" She shook her head and set her piled-up curls trembling. "Always a hapless, naïve, interfering, good soul. I have matters of my own to attend to!" The housekeeper offered a minute smile. "Have you undertaken the business we discussed?" Cecily asked.

"As you asked, madam," replied the housekeeper, indicating a large padlocked trunk by the door. Cecily nodded. "It'll be dispatched before dawn," she instructed.

"Very good."

Cecily pressed the housekeeper's hand, then began to ascend the stairs. She was interrupted before she reached the landing. "I beg your pardon, ma'am," called the housekeeper. Cecily looked down. "Master William – was he a – a va-"

"It don't think we'll see anything of William any more," cut in Cecily. She continued up the stairs with a smile that defied interpretation. "One of them has finally managed to make something of himself."

Drusilla reclined on her stomach on the roof of the rail shed. People were telling stories of a pale female ghost in Euston. She liked to see them pull their hats low on their heads, shrug deep into their coats, and scurry home, casting anxious looks about them all the while, as if any of it could save them. Rolling over on to her back, Drusilla splayed her limbs and considered the heavens: cold to her now; remote depths she'd never plumb. She was lost for hours, dreamily trying to remember if she'd ever known the path to them, til a soft thud announced the arrival on the roof of her lover. He dropped to his knees alongside her, scooped her up into his embrace, and kissed her deeply. When they drew apart, she saw that his eyes were hard and bright as polished stones. For the first time, his new strength was shining through even in his human face. Dru broke into a delighted smile.

"You've done something marvellous," she breathed. Her lover only smiled and kissed her again. He slid a hand on to her breast, thumbing the budding nipple through the light fabric, and moved it in slow, insistent circles.

"Tell me," pleaded Drusilla, arching backwards under his touch.

"You can read it in the papers," he mumbled into her neck, stamping the white skin with insistent, sucking kisses.

"I can read it in the stars!"

"The Stars, the Mercury and Heralds, the Chronicles," he confirmed. "I'm making a name for myself."

"What name?" Dru tangled her fingers into his hair to hold him close, and he manoeuvred his body over hers. In answer to her question, he ran his cool tongue up to the soft spot where her jaw met her throat, making her shiver, and reached into the folds of his coat. He produced a thick length of blackened metal and held it up for Dru to admire. Her eyes went black and round and she sat up, pushing her lover onto his back so she was on top of him. "Oh, Spike," she breathed admiringly, taking the instrument from him and running a finger up to the tip. She licked his cheekbone, and a lower shudder ran over his muscles.

"Pinch me," he asked her suddenly. Drusilla blinked up at him owlishly, then pinched his full, tender lower lip between her long-nailed forefinger and thumb. His eyes drifted shut in ecstasy, missing Dru's delighted smile. He didn't care. Just submerged straight away into that other world, hazed red from the insides of his eyelids, where he had lived secretly for great interrupted swathes of his life. He'd been living half-outside of the world long before he died. He grew up respectable, comfortably-off, painfully shy and fatherless: the world for him was responsibility, propriety, and thanking God piously for the world He'd made that kicked William in the teeth with such workaday compunction. William had fallen through a doorway into another world more than a decade before, the night he dreamt in black and red. The dream world had sensations and no words, it was hot and hard and soft and sensual and he'd been just a body lying back and wanting to burst. He had woken aghast. It was a sin, it was disgusting, and it would make him go blind.

Dru's fingernail broke through the infinitely soft skin of his lip and blood welled thickly into his mouth. That was how the dream world tasted: like sweet blood. He couldn't keep himself from going back there in his dreams, even though he doused himself with freezing water as soon as he woke to try to lance away the shame. He tried everything: wore gloves to bed, did sit-ups before sleeping to exhaust himself, tucked the covers around his body so tightly he shouldn't have been able to move. It was no use: he still got there in his sleep, and, worse, the fantasy place gained definition and detail on every visit. He saw a girl there: dark and black-eyed, with spilling breasts, like the one sitting over him now, grinding her hips into his so he choked with desire. Worst of all, he found himself drawn into that world even before he fell asleep. Swathed in bed clothes, eyes screwed shut in the dark, mind racing at the speed of the blood through his heart. That's why his fantasies tasted of blood: when he went there when awake, he had to bite through his tongue to stay silent.

Under his heaving breath the dream world had been soundless. This was different. His chest was still but Dru was humming quietly as she twisted his lip between her fingers. The dream girl had never spoken, but Drusilla asked "Does it hurt, my wicked boy?" Pretty voice, Dru had. Coarser accent, but her intonation wasn't unlike Cecily's. There were things you could not do to girls who spoke nicely, who spoke to you at all, whose arm you held to walk together. You could marry them, write verses about them, even have babies with them through a procedure involving averted eyes and duty. You couldn't let them pinch through your lip, then release it and push your jacket off your shoulders; unfasten your belt, press a lascivious hand against your stomach, unbuttoning your shirt from the bottom up; or press the tip of a railway spike into the low hollow between your collarbones. He groaned very quietly, feeling the chords in his throat vibrate against the metal weighting his skin. Making the sound felt so good that he did it again, louder.

"It hurts the nice way," Dru pronounced. She twirled the spike without removing its point from his throat, and he saw her on the inside of his closed eyelids. She came from his dreams, black and imagined. But she spoke, she was real, she played with him and was there when he woke up too. It didn't make sense. He felt a last thread in his middle holding back. Either love her or take her. Choose one. "Drusilla –" he gasped. Blood welled over his lip. She traced the spike downwards over his chest, over his still heart, down the slight central valley that bisected his body, pausing half an inch above his navel. Lightning sparked out from its tip, melting and hardening his body at the same time. The ghost of horror imprisoned inside him bent against the burgeoning desire and screamed at him to leave.

"Shan't go any further unless you open your eyes." Dru's voice was teasing but dark. "Won't do it for a man who isn't there."

Get up, William, and leave.

Not William any more.

He opened his eyes.

She shimmered and was solid all at once. Dark hair glorious around her sculpted face with its large, feline-set eyes and pouting lower lip. Head raised high above a long, delicate throat, thrown back slightly so she looked down her nose at him, imperious as the perfect, prim women at home in drawing rooms and libraries, poised above him. He waited for her to hurt him.

She leant in close enough for him to see the planets orbiting round her head, brought her soft mouth to his, and kissed him. Delicate, pillow kisses that pressed softnesses together, so he felt that restraint inside him melt away rather than snap. Trembling and tingling kisses that made his lips part wider and let her plunge her tongue between them, filling his mouth, lapping the blood from his palate. He kissed her back. It had never been like this.

A drumming sensation had been pounding in his head all night, and he only noticed now that it left his skull and moved lower at Drusilla's command. She withdrew her tongue from his mouth, kissed over his throat, and licked down along the trail the spike had blazed down his body. The drumming had stopped, but it had beaten thought out of him. When she reached his navel she thrust her tongue in, making him writhe so hard that she grasped his hips to hold him still. Her fingernails broke the white skin and crescents of blood sprang up beneath them. He felt his blood beading, pain swelling exquisitely. Drusilla made a low sound in her throat, transfixing him with a glance from her black eyes, and moved her head to lick up the blood. He knew then that he had loved her for a very long time. Each trace of her tongue grew longer, heading in toward the centre of his body, laving into the inside of his thighs. His eyes fell shut without his even knowing.

Then her tongue lashed over the head of his cock. His eyes flew open again and he saw it: the dream world had burst out into the real world all around him. She was there, blackly radiant, plum and blood and cocoa-coloured, regal and real. He was beneath her while she loved him. She was the centre of a whirlpool, his only anchor. Every tiny kiss she pressed to the tip of his cock made the furore accelerate. He spun faster out of control until she opened her mouth and, in one world-ending movement, swallowed him whole.

He didn't close his eyes again. She undulated over his rapidly disintegrating body, grazed him with her blunt teeth, held him in the back of her throat, immolated him from inside. When he couldn't keep from jerking involuntarily, the nails digging into his hips wrought brilliant sparks of sensation that flared alongside the fire inside him. It hit his spine, ignited it like a trail of petroleum, and burned straight to his head. His face shivered and the back of his skull blew out.

Drowned, incinerated, and torn apart. Sight returned to his wide-open eyes in the instant when he came, and he saw deep into Drusilla's. She was seeing the future. It was all love; everything from here on in.