A flying black hearse landed on the cracked flagstones with a dull thud. It rolled to a halt over the moss, hardy grass and snaking roots that stretched out over the stones like fingers from the gnarled tree as the driver, hunched over and cloaked in black, narrowly missed colliding with it. He swerved and collided with the brass fence instead, which enclosed the unlit balcony. The tarnished metal was festooned with some sort of trailing weed; likewise, on the house, shrivelled, reddish ivy clung to the crumbling sandstone walls, which were unprotected by cladding or clapboarding, so that the angular lines had been dissolved by the pollution that the big printing presses belched out in the lower city.


Inside the house, a series of gaslights flared to life in the saloon whose French doors opened onto the balcony. The clanging of the hearse’s nose against the metal fence had acted like a doorbell, drawing the occupant out from the shadows. The little driver jumped to attention and rapped on the roof of his vehicle, from which four figures, masked and hooded in black, emerged and quickly got to work. He kept on drumming his gloved fingers on the rooftop, eyes on the house as he waited impatiently for the house’s butler to leave his cushy place of office and give him gold for what had been an especially fraught and nettlesome retrieval.


“Hurry up!” He snapped at his comrades.


The wraith-men carefully eased something out of the hearse. It was a coffin, one that was small, quite narrow and made of plain, unvarnished wood, which peeked out when the black pall was momentarily pulled back; one of the creatures straightened it before helping to hoist the box to shoulder height. The four of them slowly carried it to the shadowy doorway, where a silhouette appeared and swung the fragile doors open for them. However, they did not step forward enough to be clearly discerned, preferring to stand back and watch as the faceless Retrievers crossed over the broken and overgrown stones. One of them nearly lost their footing, causing the coffin to wobble, but the wraiths did not drop the coffin and continued bearing it to the house in silence as yellowy-grey clouds drifted overhead, backed by the mined moon.


“Would you be careful with her?” The person in the doorway snarled, “My Lord does not wish for her to be damaged or else there will be great pain for you all!”


His words were understood and obeyed. The pace slowed to a crawl and the procession seemed to happen in slow motion as the creatures crept along with their cargo, wary of the roots and weeds beneath their feet as they approached the Yule marble doorway, which had been imported at a cost and slotted into the red sandstone. It made for a striking, and showy, look, whilst inside the house, which was carved out of the cliff face itself, the fireplace, windows, moulding and even the circuit board were carved from more white marble. However, all of it had been left to gather dust and grime, and was a sorry sight, just like the scratched, golden teak floor, to which mud and street muck adhered. The antique furniture was shoved aside against the walls and covered in mouldy, musty dustsheets. A heap of ancient ashes choked the grate and stirred as the Retrievers past it by and slid the coffin onto the large mahogany dining table, which was the only uncovered piece of furniture. The candelabrum on it was knocked flying, landing with a brassy thump on the floor as the coffin took up the whole of the tabletop.


The ‘butler’ came forward from his shadowed corner. He had a wolf’s head, brown prick ears and, on his forehead, a mesh of scars, red, bald and shiny, that made it look as though someone had tried, and somehow failed, to smash his head in with a sledgehammer. The rest of him was incredibly hirsute, with scruffy, velvet clothes and wolf’s eyes that glowed yellow in the gloom. He showed no fear of the creatures, only contempt, as he pushed through them and laid his clawed, paw-like hands on the coffin lid, from which he gingerly pulled back the pall. It was as if he were afraid that something would jump out and attack from within, and little did those around him know, but his fears were not entirely built on sand. He studied the splintery lid with morbid curiosity on his face, almost as though the unadorned wood was a fascinating map. He then dropped the sheet, returning his feral gaze to the dwarfish hearse driver hovering in the doorway.


“You are positive that she is undamaged?” He queried closely.


“As far as I know, she is.”


The latter shrugged, replying with a neither-here-nor-there tone of voice, but when the wolfish servant snarled at him, he elaborated, “A farmer outside of Berlin apparently found her sarcophagus in his potato field. She was in one of those effigy things-you know, white marble, like you get in those church things.”


He nodded at the fireplace, his dark eyes surreptitiously sweeping the room, scanning it for anything he could steal and sell without the wolfman noticing.


“Well where is it then?” Lycurgus growled, “All I see is a wooden box-”


“Hmmm?”


“The effigy!”


The driver sneered.


“Other than it would never fit in me vehicle,” he answered, “and it would never be able to take off with it on board, effigies are very collective amongst the First Class. Surely,” he waved around at the decaying house, “You can understand that. It was flogged by the time I retrieved the body, anyway, but I hear it got a lot of money at auction, despite that it had been damaged a bit-”


“Damaged?” The werewolf repeated quickly.


“Nothing serious, mind,” the driver answered casually, “A nose knocked off, a few fingers there…I suppose the plough prongs caught it. The farmer wrote a letter to a collector, but you know how the authorities have to come down and check for bodies…? Well, they found one, so they swooped and took it.”


He nodded at the coffin.


“Course, mummies aren’t easy to come by these days, what with the Fertiliser Crises of the 6180s,” he went on, “and don’t forget those that needed a special cabinet to be preserved-they all rotted. This one,” he nodded again, “wasn’t identified and nobody claimed the corpse, so when the two-and-a-half months were up-they sold ‘er.”


The wolfman, whose furry paw had been gently stroking the coffin lid, froze for a moment, then asked, “To whom?”


The small driver shrugged, replying disinterestedly, “Some Old Blood in France purchased the effigy, but the corpse went straight to Edinburgh Castle-”


“-leading political prison in Great Britain,” the wolfman muttered darkly, “Whose Chief Warden is believed to be a raging necrophiliac. Wonderful,” he shook his head, “May I ask how the bloody Hell you managed to steal-?”


The hearse driver smirked wickedly, and looked around at his creatures, who chucked very quietly with a hissing noise that raised the hairs on the back of the wolfman’s neck. He growled softly, and the driver answered almost cruelly, “We just burnt his favourite mummy to ashes.”


His hairy host frowned, slightly disgusted, and smoothed the pall vainly to distract himself. He glanced at the faceless beings that gathered around him in a half circle, and said, in a very low voice, “And what do these creatures want for their silence?”


“They will not be deported to their home planet,” was the driver’s rather uncaring reply, “I, meanwhile, was promised my fee-”


A velvet purse bounced off his hooded head with a clink of coins, and the little man scooped eagerly to pick it up. He tipped its guts out and counted his money with a falling face.


“-my fee in double,” he pressed angrily, “If I brought the stiff intact-!”


The wolfman snarled and shouted, “You get what you’re given-!”


“I get what I agreed on or I take that carcass and sell it back to the Chief Warden of Edinburgh Castle!” The dwarf snapped, his creatures swishing ominously, “Or failing that, I could probably find a farmer or apothecary that would relish a bit of old mummy-”


His round, bald head retracted sharply beneath his woollen cowl as a second pouch of gold was hurled at him. This he grabbed from the floor too, and having counted the shiny metal rhombuses, nodded silently at his patron’s servant with a sneer. He jerked his head at the silent creatures, and they followed him, filing out of the room one by one and clambering back into the hearse as the wolfman added, calling out, “You’ve done well, I guess, but you’ll go and never come back-and if you ever say anything, My Lord will make sure that up you end up in Edinburgh-!”


The hearse spluttered into life, and he was drowned out by the noise of the engine choking and farting acrid smoke as the driver twisted the wheel and reversed out of the fence and back into the twisted old tree. The clouds above coagulated into a dirty mass; spots of toxic rain began to fall and the wolfman quickly grabbed the French doors and shut them, watching as the rickety vehicle took off with a roar, disappearing amidst the thick smoke that unfurled blackly from the juddering exhaust pipe.


Slowly, the werewolf drew the heavy drapes, sneezing as ancient dust filled his nose. The window panes were spattered with large gobs of murky water that ran down the doors, giving him pause for a moment as he made a mental note to kick the parahuman and get her to do some cleaning. He gave the coffin one last look whilst he was at it, before trotting outside into a narrow, panelled hallway lit by gas that was generated by rotting material kept beneath the cliff; like in the loggia, the light was greenish and smoky, allowing shadows to spring from the cobwebby corners. His hobnailed shoes clattered on the floor, which was tiled in a monochrome chequered pattern and covered in crud carried in from the street. However, the stairs were carved from the same red sandstone as the house and were carpeted, although the carpet in question was hardly a thread thick from both age and wear. It did nothing to muffle the sound of his hobnailed shoes as he bounded up them and dodged the ancient suit of armour that stood sentry on the landing. He turned the corner and entered a corridor that was like the rest of the house; dusty and shabby and unlit but for the sliver of light that stuck out from under the slightly ajar door at the very end, which he approached with sudden, growing trepidation. He pushed on the door, opening it and finding himself in a dark room lit solely by the fire in the marble fireplace’s grate. A red armchair was placed squarely in front of it and a singed rug between them; as he stepped closer, the heat from the roaring fire blistered his nose. The wolfman came to stand beside the armchair in question, his threadbare sleeves brushing the velvet upholstery and his feet scuffing the wood covered floor.


He bowed his head respectfully and wrung his furry hands nervously as he waited to be acknowledged, all the while glancing around warily at the faded green wallpaper as he made sure that there was no hired murderer hiding in the dark.


“My Lord,” he murmured reverently after several minutes’ silence.


“Speak,” intoned Lord Ultralon.

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