The notice in the hotel window promises cash and a meal. You go in through the nearest door, which is already a mistake, and tell the man blocking the stairs that you have an appointment.
“With Mr. Dott?”
“That's right.”
You have never heard of Mr. Dott. But the notice says to ask for the manager, and you have found that people are much more helpful once they believe you know someone. At thirty-four, you possess no qualifications that fit neatly on an application. You can, however, talk a furious wedding guest into a taxi, persuade a caterer to pay you in cash, and carry three plates provided nobody speaks to you.
The man consults his watch. Eleven past eleven.
“He expected you earlier.”
“Well, I'm here now.”
It is an excellent answer. It contains no information anyone can dispute.
Upstairs, Mr. Dott sits at a little table in a very large office. Behind him are photographs of himself with people whose smiling faces suggest they would like their arms back. A second man stands beside an empty chair.
“No bag?” Dott asks.
“Was I supposed to bring something?”
The standing man looks at Dott, who makes a small movement with his fingers. The man steps away from the chair.
You sit. Good upholstery. This morning is improving.
“I need a guest removed from my private dining room,” Dott says. “Before lunch. Quietly.”
“Of course.”
“Permanently.”
“If you don't want him back, don't let him back in.”
Dott studies you. You give him the calm, attentive face that once got you an entire week's work supervising a warehouse. You learned a great deal about warehouses during that week.
“My people have tried,” he says.
“Sometimes a fresh face helps.”
“He hurt one of them.”
You glance at the thickset man behind your chair. A security job. You had hoped for waiting tables, but the right words can make a security job mostly administrative.
“The important thing is not to make it physical,” you say. “I've cleared whole rooms without laying a finger on anyone.”
At a wedding, this involved mentioning that the free bar had closed. It worked so well the bride's mother left.
Dott glances at the man behind you. Something passes between them that makes you wish you had claimed a little less.
“You won't be searched,” he says. “No offence was intended.”
“None taken.” You have not noticed an offence, but it would be unprofessional to admit it.
He pushes an envelope across the table. “Half now.”
You take it with a nod, resisting the urge to count it in front of him. The standing man opens the door. Clearly the interview is over. You rise, remembering the most important point just in time.
“This includes lunch?”
For a moment Dott looks almost pleased.
“If you have an appetite afterwards, you can eat anything in the building.”
In the corridor, you look in the envelope and stop walking.
The escort stops too. “Problem?”
It is more money than you have ever been handed at once, including the time somebody handed you the wrong pay packet and you spent seven glorious seconds considering a train journey.
“Just checking.”
“The broker said you'd be like this. Ordinary. No equipment.” The escort keeps his voice low. “Is it true you did six men with a spoon?”
You look up at him.
“I'm sorry?”
“The Velvet Goodbye. Every crew in the city has a story about you.” He laughs, apologetically. “You probably hate the name.”
There are two possibilities. Either this is an elaborate interview for a washing-up job, or you have just accepted a murder from a man whose staff think you are a legendary assassin.
The escort pulls back his jacket to adjust the gun at his belt.
One possibility.
“People talk too much,” you say, because a sentence is required, and he nods as though you have said something he will be able to repeat for years.
“I'll wait right outside. Mr. Dott wants me to bring you straight back when it's dead.”
Not he. It.
You put the money away. Your mouth has gone dry. On the other side of the door, someone is delicately ringing a spoon against a glass.
“Can I wash my hands first?”
“Certainly.” The escort opens the door for you. “There's a basin inside.”
He closes it behind you with considerable respect.
The dining room is set for twelve. Its only occupant sits at the far end, wrapped in a grey coat with a collar that hides most of its head. The curtains are drawn. Beneath a small lamp, a spoon circles the inside of an empty ice-cream dish.
“Finally,” says the occupant. “Another.”
“Another what?”
It turns towards you. You can make out a narrow face and two pale hands. A film producer, perhaps. Someone who has become accustomed to a private dining room and doesn't know how to stop having it. You have worked parties for such people. One demanded that you take the stairs out of a photograph.
“Another little person who believes I shall leave because it asks me to.”
“They do need the room.” You try the door handle behind your back. It turns, but the escort clears his throat on the other side. “Are you waiting for something?”
“More of this.” It taps the dish with its spoon. “The kitchen refuses to send it.”
“Well. That's a fairly strong hint.”
The spoon stops.
“I am Vhulcren.”
You wait for the name to become helpful.
“I do not take hints.”
“Right.” You loosen your collar. There is a second door near the far end of the room. Light shows beneath it. “Let's go and talk to someone about your pudding.”
Vhulcren leans forward. The collar shifts. What you took for a face is a small flat area above a mouth that continues well past the edge of the lamplight.
“I ate kings before your people had houses.”
You have begun edging towards the second door. The table is reassuringly wide. Everything else about the room is becoming less so. Nevertheless, the voice is that voice: the special, carrying voice of a customer who has discovered that volume can obtain things unavailable on the menu.
You answer it on habit. “Yes, and I've been dealing with spoiled little monsters since before you had teeth. Come on. Up you get.”
Vhulcren rises.
Its coat drops to the floor. The body unfolding above it has too many joints to count while you are moving backwards. Pale limbs plant themselves on the carpet, one after another; the ceiling presses down on a smooth, breathing bulk. A hanging light tilts against its side.
You hit a chair and sit involuntarily.
“Before teeth?”
The voice is softer now, coming from several places. You cannot tell which is nearest your ear.
“I—”
“When I was fed through the soft seams.” A long, jointed limb slides across the table. “You knew me then?”
You grip the chair. The limb stops just short of your hand, as if awaiting permission to touch it.
“In the nursery dark,” Vhulcren says. “Before they uncovered us.”
It bows its enormous body. Dust drifts from the ceiling onto the laid plates. “I had thought no one older remained.”
For the second time this morning, somebody has supplied you with qualifications.
You would like to correct the mistake. You would also like to be outside. The latter is a much stronger wish, especially since one of Vhulcren's lower mouths is opening and closing against the tablecloth.
“It's been a while,” you manage.
“What form did you wear? I remember so little clearly. Such a long time in that miserable nursery, with the others shoving, always shoving. Were you our keeper?”
You shake your head quickly. Keeper sounds like a job with obligations.
“No. No, let's not go into all that.”
“Of course.” The limb withdraws. “Forgive me.”
The door opens behind you. Your escort peers in, takes one look at the ceiling, and begins shutting it again.
“Stay,” Vhulcren says. “You will bring a fresh dish for my elder.”
The escort looks at you. It is very hard to project mastery while gripping the seat of a dining chair.
“Actually,” you say, “we were just going through there.”
You point at the far door.
“The lounge?” the escort asks.
“Yes.” Thank goodness it has a name.
“I'll tell Mr. Dott.”
“You do that.”
He leaves at a brisk walk. You stand, with the chair still briefly attached to your hands, and put it down. Vhulcren has to ease several limbs out from beneath the table before it can follow. The table rises six inches and lands with a crash of cutlery.
“I have become clumsy,” it says.
“These rooms are badly laid out.”
“They are.” The relief in its voice is astonishing. “They are too small.”
You open the lounge door and slip through while it gathers its coat.
The lounge has windows, chairs, a large clock showing twenty-seven minutes to twelve, and a door with a brass push plate. You cross straight to that door. Locked.
You press harder, which sometimes helps with cheap locks. This is a very good hotel.
“It leads to the service stairs,” says a woman behind you. “They keep it locked.”
She has come out of a little washroom. Her white suit fits her beautifully, her dark hair is swept away from her face, and she looks about your age. She is holding a handbag open and frowning into it.
“I was looking for the lobby,” you say.
“Through the dining room.”
Something large scrapes against the other side of that door.
“A different lobby.”
She looks up from the bag. Then at the door. “That's Vhulcren. I heard it through the washroom wall, calling someone its elder.”
“It gets carried away.”
“I've noticed.” She shuts the bag. “I'm Sathrie.”
You introduce yourself with your actual first name. It comes out a little croaky. For once, nobody seems to require a title.
“What are you doing for lunch?” she asks.
“Leaving.”
She laughs and opens the bag again, rummaging in a different pocket. “I'd like to. My father chose this place. We used to come here when I was little, and he's never accepted that I might want to eat somewhere else.”
An ally. A prosperous ally with a grievance against the premises. You move towards her, stepping around a low chair, and catch a flash of gold beneath it. A ring lies against the back leg, set with a red stone almost the size of your thumbnail.
Nothing ingratiates you with a rich person like returning an expensive object you could have stolen. You bend to pick it up, discover your arm is just too short, and go down on one knee. Your trousers pull unpleasantly tight.
“We could go somewhere else,” you say, reaching.
“You and me?”
“Why not?” Your fingertips close around the ring. You turn towards her, still kneeling because the chair arm is across your shoulder. “I can't imagine anyone I'd rather go with. Will you have me?”
You hold out the ring.
She looks up from the bag. Her gaze moves from your face to your bent knee and back. She sets the bag down very slowly.
“Yes,” she says.
You smile. What a recovery. Dott's envelope may be more trouble than it is worth, but you have found a way out, possibly a lunch companion, and—
“Yes. I'll marry you.”
—a use for the large clock, which you stare at in the hope that you have somehow missed several important intervening months.
“Oh,” you say.
She takes the ring and looks at it properly for the first time. She turns it over, sees the little nick on the back, and laughs in delight.
“It's mine! I've been looking everywhere. You proposed with my own ring.” She holds it out towards you again. “Go on, then.”
“I was just—”
The dining-room door strikes the wall. Vhulcren squeezes through sideways, one long limb reaching for you. You jerk upright and Sathrie catches your arm.
“Careful,” she tells it. “We're having a moment.”
Vhulcren stops. Its nearest mouths close.
“Daughter of Satan.”
You look at her.
“Sathrie,” she tells it. “We've discussed this.”
“Satan,” you repeat.
“My father. I mentioned him.” She slides the ring onto her finger herself. “He'll be here at twelve. Oh, he'll have plenty to say about us getting married.”
Two small horns push up through her dark hair. She reaches up and tucks a loose strand around one of them, smiling at the prospect.
You have not moved from beside the chair. Your knee hurts. Somebody appears to have turned the heating up, although that may be the hand she has tucked through your elbow.
“I did not know you were betrothed,” Vhulcren says to you.
“Neither did I,” you say, accurately and uselessly.
Dott arrives through the dining room with both of the large men. He is carrying an open napkin, as if his hands began doing something ordinary and haven't been told about the rest of his morning.
He sees Vhulcren. He sees you. His escort gestures at you with the helpless annoyance of a man whose report has just been proven correct.
“We had an arrangement,” Dott says.
“We've just become engaged,” Sathrie tells him. “Do congratulate us.”
The escort moves towards you, one hand held out for your arm. A blue flame runs across Sathrie's knuckles. Dott catches his man's wrist before he reaches you, and the flame goes out.
“Congratulations,” Dott says. His eyes stay on you.
“I hope the old gentleman will be pleased,” Vhulcren says. “He has always admired seniority.”
“You can tell him so at lunch,” Sathrie says.
Vhulcren's pale limbs shuffle nearer the dining-room door. “I had not intended to remain.”
Dott hears this too. You can tell by the tiny change in his face: the first suggestion that the morning might contain an outcome he wants.
Sathrie pulls gently at your sleeve. “Come and sit down. You're shaking.”
“It's been quite a morning.”
“I'll get you a drink.” She releases you and turns to Dott. “Something cold.”
Dott ignores her and beckons you a little way aside. You go because both men have spread themselves across the doorway, and because Sathrie has begun examining the bottles on a sideboard.
“I didn't pay for a social visit,” he says beneath his breath.
“You're going to get your room back.”
“I paid for a dead thing.”
You glance past him at Vhulcren. It is trying to get a sleeve onto a limb that has acquired an extra joint. It could kill Dott very easily. It could probably kill everybody in this room without ceasing to be annoyed by its coat. You take out the envelope.
“Then you can have this back.”
He doesn't reach for it.
Your hand hangs between you. The money is enough to pay your rent for a long time. You bring it closer to him before you can think about that properly.
“Every penny,” you say. “And it goes. Now.”
Behind Dott, Sathrie puts down a bottle with an impatient clack. “Are you two going to be much longer?”
Dott holds your gaze for another second. Then he takes the envelope and puts it inside his jacket.
“Don't bring it back.”
You turn before he can decide to qualify this.
“We're going out,” you announce. “Vhulcren, would you join us?”
“For lunch?” Sathrie asks.
“For a walk. First.” You put a hand on her arm, with all the intimate assurance of someone who has managed seven minutes of engagement. “Before your father gets here. Just a little time without an audience.”
She looks towards Vhulcren.
You are not yet good at being engaged.
“It was leaving anyway,” you add.
“I would not intrude upon a family occasion,” Vhulcren says quickly. “I can accompany you as far as the street.”
“Wonderful. Mr. Dott, the service stairs?”
You point to the brass plate. A short route. No lobby staff to stop you. No father arriving through the front doors.
“Too narrow,” Dott says, looking at Vhulcren. He snaps his fingers at the escort. “Clear the front.”
You walk beside Sathrie through the dining room, around the table where one plate has been crushed into glittering powder. Vhulcren follows, stooping beneath the lintel. Nobody applauds. You had not expected anybody to, but some entirely unhelpful part of you thinks it has been rather well done.
At the stairs you offer Sathrie your hand. Vhulcren takes your other one. Its touch is cool and softly ridged, and its weight obliges you to descend very carefully while the escort stares up from the bottom.
“I had forgotten,” Vhulcren says quietly, “what it was to be the younger.”
You cannot look at it without looking away from the stairs.
“Watch that last step.”
“Yes.”
The escort holds the front door. As you pass, he murmurs, “Not a mark on it. I don't know how you do it.”
You are tempted. Even now, with your shirt wet under the arms and Satan due at any moment, you are tempted to give him something to remember.
Sathrie tugs you out into the daylight.
On the pavement, Vhulcren releases your hand and draws its coat together. It has folded itself into a shape that almost passes for a tall person carrying too many umbrellas.
“We shall speak again,” it says. “When you are less occupied.”
“No hurry.”
“Indeed.” Several parts of its face turn towards the approaching cars. “Please convey my good wishes to the bride's father.”
Before she can answer, it steps off the kerb and spreads two pale membranes from beneath its coat. The downstroke knocks your hair into your eyes. By the time you brush it away, Vhulcren is above the opposite rooftops, beating vigorously towards somewhere else.
Sathrie watches it go. “He isn't that bad.”
You don't ask which of them she means.
The street clock reads eleven fifty-six. A bus rattles past. You have enough money for the next one, and Sathrie is no longer holding your arm.
“About the ring,” you say.
She turns to you.
“I found it under the chair. I was giving it back. When I said, will you have me, I meant lunch. Or a walk. Getting out of the hotel, mostly.”
Her smile disappears. She takes a step back and looks you over, from the cheap shoes to the collar you have pulled out of shape.
“You weren't proposing.”
“No.”
A delivery driver honks at a taxi. Behind you, the escort carefully shuts the hotel door.
“Oh, that's embarrassing,” she says.
“I'm sorry.”
She rubs her forehead between the horns. “I told Vhulcren.”
“And Mr. Dott.”
“Yes, I remember.”
You shut your mouth.
She looks down at her ring, then across the road towards the bus stop. You could go. A pleasant nod, an apology, fifty yards. You are much better at finding opportunities than recognizing when to leave them alone.
“I did mean I'd like to go with you,” you say.
“You don't know anything about me.”
“I know where you don't want to have lunch.”
She considers you. “There's a place round the corner. The chairs don't match and the bread's good. Nobody there will ask about the wedding.”
You look at the hotel. “Won't your father be waiting?”
“I'll call him.” She takes out her phone. “If you're coming, you can carry my bag while I do it.”
You take the bag. It is unexpectedly heavy. The bus stop is still there, perfectly accessible, with an entirely ordinary future queueing beside it.
“What should I say you do?” she asks, thumb poised over the screen.
“Guest relations,” you say, and follow her round the corner.