The brass mermaid doorknocker confronts the world with a knowing smile. Milady Web eyes it with grim intent. Her hand curls round the tail and beats the brass against the timber until tenuous cracks appear in both.

Silence seethes.

Web presses her bruised hand to her lips and glances over her shoulder at the pearl-grey fog wandering in off the bay. It thickens like porridge along the street known as The Last Dance.

The lady growls softly. Her attention returns to the mermaid knocker, whose smile has slipped from sly to panicky. Before her hand lifts more than an inch, the door opens, slowly, grudgingly, on hinges in desperate need of oil, and Web stares directly into Glory's remote and striking eyes.

Beautiful eyes he has indeed, but when the rest of him is factored in� oh, my. It is easy to see why he's known as Glory.

'Damn it,' Web mutters. 'I have to find myself another town to run, one that isn't filled with gorgeous, brooding cranky guys who do nothing for me other than aesthetically. There is definitely something wrong with this picture.' She pushes past him and step-by-step, arms extended before her, makes her way down the shadow-shrouded hall. 'But first I'm going to find the light switches or the curtains, or something that will get a bit of light in here.'

Glory's weary exhalation barely stirs the air. Under guidance from one palely elegant hand the heavy door swings shut. 'I thought you could see in the dark.'

'Do I look like a bat to you?' Web asks, venom coating her black magic voice.

'Bat's use sonar,' Glory points out.

Web snaps her fingers and summons a ball of witchlight. Its eerie amethyst glow highlights her frown. 'That was a rhetorical question.'

'Apologies.' Glory drifts past her, soft as dust falling, and fades through a doorway into perpetual twilight.

Web whips after him, her highwayman coat trailing after her and the witchlight bobbing along like a helium balloon. Its clear radiance flares across� not very much.

The room is huge and bare apart from one low wide chair and a round clawfooted table for two set beside. From the beam-exposed vaulted ceiling fraying banners hang in the best medieval style, battling for space with curtains of gunsmoke-grey cobwebs, brittle and soft as Persian fairy floss. The lacy hems melt into the dust that coats the flagstone floors, the panelled walls, and now Milady Web's blood-plum over-the-knee boots.

Web sets her hands on her hips and her coat opens, revealing the delicate line of her collarbone and her low-cut bodice of foxglove purple. She burns brightly in this static pastel realm.

'My compliments to your decorator, darling. I do so love what you've done with this space. Very tomb-like, very Gothic. And complete with a cursed and doomed master.'

Glory inclines his head and eases down into the embrace of the chair draped in pale sheets. His head rests on the high back. Every movement of his long lean body is slow, infused with weariness.

'This is not good. Not good at all.' Web's boots tap as she paces, stirring up the dust. She sneezes, three tiny cat sneezes, and shuts her eyes, breathing shallowly until the fit passes.

'I may have to import that witch doctor after all.' Web taps a finger against her lower lip. 'Or perhaps a psychiatrist would do.'

A hint of amusement flits across Glory's face. 'As if you'd let a psych within a ten kilometre radius of you.'

'It might be worth the risk.'

Severity is an unusual mode for the light-hearted and mischievous Milady Web but she can fake it when she has to. Only� she's not pretending anything now. She spears long fingers into the damp and tangling mass of her witchy hair.

'Call me greedy, call me selfish, but I'm not in the mood to lose anyone else I love. Especially through their own folly.'

'Ha.' Glory's hands rest limp, one on the arm of the chair, one by his hip. 'Go meddle in someone else's life. I don't need you to pick me up and dust me off.'

'Newsflash, honey. You don't have a life; you have an existence and barely that. You're shut down, closed off. So emotionally detached you don't feel anything. Look at you.'

The sharp edges scorn lends to her velvet voice provoke a minute flinch. Web notes it with satisfaction. 'It's so cold in here I can see my own breath and you're sitting there in a t-shirt. I'll admit that it's very nice, top quality, but short sleeves are short sleeves. Furthermore, bare feet in these conditions is simply begging for trouble.'

Glory summons enough energy to shut his eyes. 'Go away.'

'What? Leave you to rest in peace?' Web laughs mockingly. 'I don't think so. We owe each other more than that and I don't intend to let you go so easily.' She pounces. Hands on the chair arms and one knee braced on the seat, Web leans in until their noses almost touch. 'Are you even listening to me?'

This close Web can feel the bone deep cold that holds him fast. Her winged eyebrows touch and she listens. Just on the edge of hearing, wrapping round Glory like a cloak of ice crystals are whispers, spectral scribbles in the air, weaving a spell to pull him down with them forever. It's the flip side of possessing the ability to talk to the dead and ill-fated.

Web's mouth draws straight and her frown deepens. 'You must have a resting pulse of twenty beats per minute. Or less.' She pokes his chest with a silver-frosted fingernail. Her finger bounces off muscle and she taps again. 'Is there anyone in there?'

Glory looks down at her piquant face framed by red and black curls tinged with mauve. 'Is that another rhetorical question?' he asks gravely.

She spins away, hisses of pure frustration escaping her. The tattered ivory banners trailing from the ceiling writhe, caught up in her mad waltzing wake which stirs the heavy air, mingling her raspberry whimsy scent with those of dryness and decay that haunt the room. Sparks of silver from her rings and the stars in her hair burn though the shadows.

Glory watches and makes no move. All too soon her bittersweet brilliance is back before him.

Web seizes his face between her palms. Her hands are warm and capture his attention long enough for him to become lost in the summer-sky blue of her eyes. She's looking for a spark of something, of interest, irritation� even anger would be welcome. But there's nothing, nothing except the terrible flatness of terminal ennui.

That's unacceptable.

Fear collides with grief and explodes. Milady Web is spitting-ember angry and makes no attempt to hide it. The witchlight responds to her mood, pulsing silver at the core and streaking violet along the snaky tendrils.

'All right. Let's try the fairy tale method.' She rubs the pads of her thumbs over his cheekbones and rocks her mouth over his in a kiss that is wickedly wildly passionately reckless.

Oh.

The potent kiss sends a jolt straight to his heart to rival a defibrillator. Glory's eyes flare wide. It's like being struck by lightning, holding the moon in his hand, and standing in the middle of a rainbow all at once.

Web releases him, one hand to his chest to hold him upright as his lungs struggle to drag in enough oxygen. His heart thumps beneath her palm.

Instinctively Glory reaches out to draw her back, but her footsteps already echo down the hall only to be cut off by the hinges of the front door squealing to rival the tortured damned.

Then there's only the flittering noise of the fraying banners twisting in the chill air. The last traces of witchlight wink out and everlasting dusk seeps out of the cracks.

Glory wraps his arms round himself, rubbing his hands over his sleeves, noticing the drag of cotton against his palms. He's cold. So cold. He slides from the chair, his knees landing on the flagstones. The jarring impact spins through his body and Glory sucks in his breath. His head falls forward.

Cat soft, Milady Web settles cross-legged on the floor behind him. Her arms gather him in.

'I thought you left.'

'You think a lot of things, many of them wrong.' Web rubs her cheek against his, rocks a little, and holds him closer. 'I thought I'd wait around a while, see you smile again.'