“Well, that’s quite something, isn’t it.” The assassin produces a compact digital thaumometer and carefully scans the instrument. Instead of clicking or beeping the sensor emits an angry high-pitched whine, like a mosquito’s hatred-driven death throes. If it was a Geiger counter the assassin might expect to spend her last living weeks in a hospital bed while clinicians document her death for the medical journals. Luckily this isn’t radioactive decay: the assassin and the shopkeeper are both warded, and the back room is surrounded by containment grids. But it’s still alarming.

  “Hello, you,” says the assassin as she delicately touches a gloved fingertip to the instrument’s body. It’s not the first bone violin she’s met, although it’s by far the most powerful, and it purrs in anticipation at her touch.

  “Not in here, imbecile!” snaps the shopkeeper. “Take it away first, why don’t you.” She grumbles on in like vein for almost a minute, casting aspersions on the assassin’s sanity, probity, genealogy, and common sense.

  “As you wish.” The assassin closes the case and zips it shut. It’s clearly the real thing—not that the luthier would be stupid or ignorant enough to cross her. “An Erich Zahn original. I played one of its siblings…” It was a gift from the Doctor. She still has it, but it’s much weaker. That one lacked the Hilbert-space pickups made by Leon Theremin himself. It was un-hacked and pristine. This one—with an instrument this powerful, who needs amplification? The mind boggles. “Do you have the full provenance?”

  “Do I look like a moron?” The old woman snorts. “Dr. Mabuse himself commissioned it, using raw materials sourced from the medical facility at Dachau. Being taken in possession of one of these instruments would have earned you a date with la Guillotine right up until Mitterrand abolished it! Do you think he bothered with receipts?” she shrugs, and for a moment she looks haggard. “I just want it gone.”

  “Your fee.” The assassin turns the case over and adjusts the shoulder straps—it can be worn as a backpack—then hands the esoteric luthier a silvery coin.

  “A moment.” She whips out a monocle and peers at it. It bears an Elder Sign on one face and a spiral of hieroglyphs on the other: “Yes, that suffices.” The coin vanishes into her pocket. Rather than money it’s a token accepted by an obscure private bank in Basel. In conjunction with a codeword and a number, it will give the bearer access to a strongbox. “Now go on, get out, these old bones won’t stand forever and my supper is waiting.”

  “A pleasure doing business with you.” The shopkeeper watches her through narrowed eyes, half-anticipating a foolish and futile attempt to silence her on the way out: but this customer isn’t stupid enough to betray her. The shopkeeper has powerful protectors, and the only thing that can really hurt her these days is daylight.

  “Don’t forget to leave a Yelp review!” she sings out as the assassin opens the door.

  ALL GOOD DOGS GO TO HEAVEN

  The following Monday morning, the Prime Minister visits the Palace for His weekly audience with the Queen.

  One of the peculiarities of the British political system is that the Prime Minister—the chief executive of the government—is nevertheless a subordinate, who is regularly called to the boss’s office to report on what her government is doing.

  The PM’s role is as a supplicant, for Her Majesty is the landlord and the PM is merely a tenant: the PM is summoned to brief the Queen and to answer her questions. In the opposite direction, the Queen has seen governments rise and fall, and wars start and end: she is more than happy to discreetly steer a Prime Minister through crises she’s seen before, because when it comes down to it, if the PM fucks up, it’s her property that gets damaged.

  There’s a format to these talks. Her Majesty meets with the PM in one of the official reception rooms—usually a small drawing room with armchairs and a side table. Tea and refreshments may be served, depending on how welcoming the Queen feels toward her visitor of the hour. (No refreshments: she wants to keep the meeting short. No visitor seating: oh dear.) No staff are present (a footman and a butler wait outside the door), no notes are kept, and gossip is strongly discouraged.

  At least that’s how the British constitutional system works in normal times. When the PM is a regular politician and the Queen is the crowned ruler they advise and serve. But under the New Management things are slightly less clear-cut, and the Queen is clearly not comfortable with the current PM, much as a paralyzed caterpillar is not comfortable with a parasitic wasp injecting eggs into its abdomen.

  “Good morning, Your Majesty!” says the grinning spectral presence in the doorway. Elizabeth smiles by reflex, managing to suppress the cold shudder His presence inspires.

  “Enter,” she says. She gestures at the chair opposite: “Please, have a seat. I regret I can’t stand—”

  “That’s entirely understandable,” says the Prime Minister, with a small and perfectly eerie chuckle. “None of us are as spry as we used to be, alas!” And He’s right. Even though she doesn’t usually feel the full weight of her eighty-eight years, something about the Right Honorable Fabian Everyman MP makes her feel ancient, the weight of centuries pressing down on her. His centuries, she supposes. It’s difficult, keeping up the pretense that she doesn’t know exactly what He is, but she’s been briefed by ashen-faced civil servants. And all she can do is grin and bear it, like the caterpillar.

  “Thank you,” says the Prime-Minister-shaped Thing sitting in the armchair opposite. “I’m happy to be of service, Your Majesty.” A sardonic grin flutters across the blind spot fronting His head.

  She rings for the butler. “Would you care for tea, Prime Minister?” At least there is comfort to be found in small, familiar rituals.

  The formalities take a couple of minutes, during which neither of them feel much need to talk. A trolley is rolled in, a silver tea service is ceremonially arrayed on the side table, and a silver platter bearing her favorite shortbread fingers is proffered. “A gift from Balmoral,” says the Prime Minister, “I thought you might appreciate it.” It’s the sort of kind gesture a cunning monster might use to lend the semblance of humanity—even the butler seems appreciative.

  The Prime Minister pours tea for her, and gets it absolutely right even though He has never asked her how she takes it. She sips and nibbles a biscuit, and the PM gives her a brief recitation of this week’s government program. Another small cabinet reshuffle is in the cards—House of Cards, she thinks as He outlines His tentative plans. (The Black Pharaoh is very hard on Home Secretaries, this one only lasted two months before her breakdown.) “It’s hard to find high-functioning psychopaths with both the administrative track record and enough self-restraint to present a veneer of humanity, what?”

  The Queen blinks. “Oh, really?” Have you met Andrew? she thinks.

  “I have a few strong contenders but they’re not seasoned yet,” He explains: “Patel, Badenoch, and Braverman will go far, but they need more experience. Truss—” He snorts, almost giggles, then changes the subject.

  “Whuff?” A canine rump leans heavily against the Queen’s ankle.

  “Candy!” she chides sharply. The dorgi—a corgi/dachshund cross—looks up at the Queen adoringly and dribbles crumbs on the eighteenth-century Axminster.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Your Majesty,” says the footman, looking appalled. “She escaped from the Corgi Room while it was being cleaned and she nipped me when I tried to leash her, hence the bribe.”

  The Prime Minister points the front of His head at the errant pup. “Candy,” He says, His voice an echo of a distant thunderstorm, “return to your basket immediately.”

  The dog glances up at him, utters a chastened whine, and slinks away.

  “What did you give him?” asks the Queen.

  “A shortbread finger—”

  She nods. “Don’t do it again. Next time, ask James to deal with her.”

  The footman bows and retreats, still bowing. The Prime Minister’s eyebrows might be raised, if He had any such. “She’s on a strict diet,” says the Queen, unsure why she’s explaining herself.

  “I quite understand.” He sounds amused. “Dogs will be dogs.”

  That is something—one of a very few somethings—that they can agree on.

  The Queen eats another biscuit—they’re very more-ish—and asks the PM about His choice for the Ministry of Justice portfolio. It’s going to be Braverman: a barrister and a highly ambitious politician the PM is training up for a senior role. (Pay no attention to the rumors about the necromantic rituals she conducts at dead of night in Middle Temple: the eldritch horror knows his own.)

  After another twenty minutes the Queen is done, and so are the biscuits. The PM hasn’t touched His: a pity. “Thank you,” she says, putting down her empty teacup. “Was there anything else?” she asks pointedly.

  “I believe that’s everything, Your Majesty.” The PM rises and bows to her; she stands and dismisses Him.

  “I’m done,” she tells the butler, and he rolls his trolley over to the side table to clear up the tea and the uneaten biscuits. At a guess the shortbread won’t make it back to the pantry uneaten: the butler is a skinny fellow, on his feet all day.

  “I’ll check on Candy,” he murmurs, then he bows and removes the detritus.

  Neither of them notice the peculiar tarnish speckling the silver platter.

  * * *

  Mo is in her office, checking her secure email (which requires a wired ethernet connection and a circle of deconsecrated salt around the laptop, before the firewall will even consider letting anything through) when her land line rings.

  She picks up. “Dr. O’Brien here, Audit Office. How can I help you?”

  “Dominique, this is Iris. I see from your Outlook that you have a free slot between eleven and one today. Please block it for me.”

  Mo sits up. “Can do. You want anonymity?” The internal phone line is reasonably secure against eavesdroppers, but the departmental Outlook calendar used for meetings can be read by all sorts of intelligence officers, thaumaturges, and their mid- to upper-level managers. “Audit business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, consider me available. Is this a lunch date, or should I make alternative arrangements?”

  Iris hesitates a moment. “We can do lunch,” she agrees. “I’ll book us into the Director’s Dining Room, then swing by and collect you after my last interview of the morning.”

  “Jolly good,” Mo says briskly, then hangs up. Iris Carpenter is not her favorite person, to put it mildly. Nobody who tries to murder her husband is ever going to make her Christmas Card list, even though Iris was only following orders from, it transpires, the current Prime Minister. Awkward. But the PM said frog, so Mo will obediently hop when ordered and listen to the witch, and she might as well get a meal out of her in the process.

  Dining Room D is a small fistula off to one side of the staff refectory—a necessity, for it takes half an hour to leave and reenter the security cordon if you want to eat out. The single table in the middle of the room is set with stiffly starched linens, crystal glassware, and silver cutlery, thoroughly warded. The waiter is a relatively well-preserved Residual Human Resource: dead men tell no tales, after all.

  Today they’re serving posh pub grub: minestrone soup followed by Cumberland sausage in gravy with mash and steamed vegetables. But there’s a passable Sauvignon on the side, and as Mo picks at the main course Iris signals for a top-up. Obviously she prefers her prey well-lubricated. Finally she says, “I suppose you want to know why you’re here?”

  “POISON APPLE, I suppose.” Mo stares expressionlessly. “Are you Maleficent or Grimhilde in this remix?”

  “Very funny.” Iris’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “You asked Emma in HR to assign you a PHANG or two and someone from Forecasting Ops. Unfortunately Dr. Schwartz and Ms. Brewer are unavailable, but as it happens I have two alternates in mind for you. There’s just one problem—they were both part of the YELLOW OLYMPIC team and came back from D.C. infected with the wrong strain of V-symbionts.”

  The Nazgûl employ PHANGs too, but unlike the free-range maths vampires the Laundry employs, the Nazgûl are into selective breeding of nonhuman assets. They cooked up a slightly attenuated strain of V-parasites, the extradimensional symbionts that give thaumaturgists and mathematicians a power-up in return for regular blood meals. Nazgûl symbionts are weaker, easier to install in warm bodies sourced from the prison-industrial complex, and easier to mind control—but they’re not much better than zombies with superspeed and a taste for blood.

  “If they’re infected with the wrong strain…” Mo pauses.

  “Not anymore, they aren’t.” Iris shrugs. “There’s no cure, but He has a technique for reinfecting them with a more useful lineage.”

  “So they’re ours, now? Not Nazgûl meat puppets?”

  “Well, they wouldn’t be much use to us if they belonged to the Black Chamber, would they?”

  Mo nods. “So who are you talking about?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. You need Forecasting Ops input, and it so happens that when the Nazgûl bagged Derek the DM—”

  “What?” Mo is halfway out of her chair before she catches Iris’s smirk. Derek is one of the most powerful precognitives the Laundry has ever discovered. “Derek was in the field with YELLOW OLYMPIC and got caught? In which universe is that not a disaster?”

  “Stop right now.” Iris raises her wine glass. “He was unconscious for most of it right up until the prisoner exchange. The Black Chamber didn’t get anything useful out of him before His Majesty replaced his V-symbionts. Whole blood transfusion, very pricey.” She winces slightly, does a double take at the red liquid in her wine glass, and puts it down. “Anyway he’s recovering from having his carotid chewed on, but he’ll be out of rehab soon and he’s eminently qualified for your team, so he’s yours. But Derek’s not really the problem.”

  “Problem.” Mo doesn’t like turning into an echo but Iris is doing a very good job of keeping her off-balance.

  “One of the other new PHANGs has special needs.” And now Iris pulls a face.

  Mo swallows her exasperation: “Who is it?”

  “It’s Pete”—the Reverend Peter Russell, D.Div, PhD in theology, friend and occasional consultant to the Laundry on matters relating to Christian apocrypha—“he’s taking his new dietary requirements really badly. I want you to take him on for POISON APPLE and see if you can fix him. Think of it as the quid pro quo for getting exactly what you want.” Iris smiles brightly, then stands. “See you later.” And she leaves, without waiting for a reply.

  * * *

  No plan survives contact with the enemy, or in this case, Human Resources, in a ghastly pincer movement with External Assets. EA say who we get from the roster of heavy hitters: they get to sign off on all PHANG assignments. Which is why we aren’t getting Dr. Schwartz and the All-Highest of the Host of Air and Darkness, who are a package deal and also reasonably hard to break.

  Instead we’re getting Derek the DM, who was on our gimme list for the planning team but isn’t exactly James Bond, and Pete, who is an actual fucking Vicar. I mean Jesus, why?

  Pete’s supposed to be in an office in London, writing reports on absurd apocrypha. He’s almost a civilian—he’s a part-timer with a parish to run, married with a toddler. How was he even exposed to hostile PHANGs in the first place?

  When I finish swearing Mo fixes me with a glare that could scorch concrete and says, “You know this is all your fault, right?”

  “I—well, fuck.” She’s right. “Fuckety-fuck. So where is he now?”

  “Not at home, obviously. He’s out of hospital, in some kind of safe house with PHANG-specific affordances. It’s not safe for him to see Sandy and Elinor yet”—Elinor is their year old—“except for video calls.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Language, Bob.” Mo doesn’t say that because I’m swearing but because it’s getting repetitive. Nothing annoys her quite like tedious repetitive swearing, unless it’s drum machines.

  “Swive, then. What kind of safe house?”

  She sighs. “How well do you know the banksters?”

  “The—oh. Which banksters do you have in mind?”

  Flashback time: You can catch the V-parasites that cause PHANG syndrome by doing the Wrong Kind Of Magic in your head, or by knowingly engaging in brain-curdling mathematics. A team of magically illiterate quants—physics and maths PhDs working in the market analysis arm of an investment bank owned by an elderly vampire—fell victim to it while testing a new visualization algorithm. Some of them survived: we made them a job offer they weren’t allowed to refuse. Of those, a couple took to it like ducks to the proverbial pond. But others were less, shall we say, adaptable. So arrangements were made for keeping them alive because vampires are not in fact soulless monsters, they’re people just like us, and tomorrow it could be one of us in the frame.

  Now, I had the misfortune to be the bloke who uncovered the vamps in the bank. So I have some relevant experience.

  “Facilities runs a halfway house for PHANGs in Upminster. It started out as a normal employee house but they added special affordances: blackout blinds, a secure porch, fireproof panic room in the cellar. A live-in house master keeps the baby vamps in line. Pete’s rooming there for the time being, along with Dick—who is on probation again—and Derek, when he gets out of rehab.”

  I get sidetracked. “House master? What is this, type O positive Hogwarts?”

  “Focus, Bob. Right now the house mistress is Janice. I know you’ve met her: she tried to throw you through a wall, didn’t she?”