Upon arrival in Nice, Lydia led them to a small door that once might have been colored blue, and then yellow, and then green, a history proudly displayed in crumbling strips of paint all down the front. The inventor knocked softly at first, and then more and more loudly until she was banging quite violently on the door.

The only reaction the racket caused was the immediate commencement of an unending bout of hysterical barking from some small dog on the other side of the door.

After a good deal more banging and barking, the door cautiously opened a crack to reveal a woman with a piercing glare.

"Lydia? What are you doing here?"

"I thought Stiles might like to meet a supernatural biologist like you."

"Stiles? Stilinski? Really?"

Stiles tried not to be creeped out by the way she said his name. He failed spectacularly.

"Come in, please."

The woman paused upon noticing Finstock for the first time.

"And who is this?"

"Uh, this is Finstock, my bodyguard."

The woman – Stiles still didn't know her name - went to walk a slow turn around Finstock.

"Is he, is he really? Nothing more evil than that? No? Are you certain?" She reached out and yanked down Finstock's shirt, checking the neck area for marks.

"Do you mind?" Finstock gave the woman an odd look.

Seeing nothing incriminating, the woman left off. She grabbed Stiles by the hand and dragged him into her tiny house. She gestured for the other two to follow, giving Finstock another dubious once-over.

"Well, you realize, under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't. Not a man, not so late at night. Never can tell with Americans. But I suppose, just this once. Though, I did hear some of the terrible, terrible rumors about you." The woman gave Stiles that creepy glare again.

"Heard you married a werewolf. What a thing for a preternatural to go and do. A most unfortunate choice."

"Is it?" Stiles managed to get just those two words in before the woman continued on without apparent pause or need for breath, shepherding them into a messy little living room.

"Yes, well, we all make mistakes."

"You have no idea," muttered Stiles, feeling a strange aching pain of loss.

Lydia began poking about the room with interest. Finstock took up his customary position by the door, his hand at his waist. He had reloaded his gun on the helicopter.

Their host went over to a side table and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of a drawer. "Cigarette?" She offered the pack around.

Everyone declined. The woman seemed unwilling to accept Finstock's refusal. "I insist."

"I'm fine."

"Really, I insist." The woman's eyes were hard again.

Finstock shrugged and took a cigarette. He allowed the woman to light and he inhaled. When Finstock showed no abnormal reaction, the woman stopped watching him and Finstock was able to put out the cigarette.

Lydia tried to fill the silence. "Victoria has been studying the preternatural state for many years."

"It has been difficult, most difficult, to find a live specimen. Trouble with the church, you see."

"Excuse me?"

The woman almost looked embarrassed for a moment, before she went back to her cold expression. "A little bother. Had to move to France and leave much of my research behind. A travesty."

Stiles looked to Lydia for explanation.

"She was excommunicated," said the inventor in a grave, hushed voice.

"I take it she told you?" The woman – Victoria – asked.

Lydia shrugged and nodded, but didn't say anything.

Victoria sighed. "Well, regardless, you brought me a fine visitor. A living preternatural. May I ask you some questions, Mr. Stilinski? Maybe a test or two?"

She started trying to force tea on everyone – Earl Grey, with lemon – when Stiles finally realized what was going on.

"You realize that vampires are perfectly capable of consuming citrus, right? They just don't like it."

"Yes, of course, I'm well aware. But it is a good initial check until the sun comes up. Like the cigarettes."

Finstock sighed. "I'm not supernatural."

Stiles snickered. Finstock looked about one more odd imposition from a full-on rant.

Victoria did not seem convinced by verbal guarantees. She kept a suspicious eye on Finstock.

"You could still be a claviger or a drone."

Finstock suck in air – probably to start a rant.

Stiles cut him off. "You already checked him for bite marks."

"Absence of marks is not absolute proof, especially as he may be a claviger. You did marry a werewolf, after all."

Lightning quick, the suspicious woman's mood changed and she looked with new suspicious at Stiles. "I need to be sure you are who you say as well. I have a little ghost problem. Perhaps you could exorcise it? Should not be hard." She glanced out a small window at the rapidly brightening dawn. "Before sunrise?"

Stiles sighed. "This could not possibly wait until tomorrow? We've been traveling most of the night."

The woman just stared at him.

"Fine." Stiles put down the tea that he hadn't taken a sip of. If it was necessary for this woman to trust them in order to get some answers, he would do it. Stiles sighed, angry once more at his husband's rejection. He wasn't entirely certain how just yet, but he intended to blame this latest nuisance on Derek as well as everything else.

They went downstairs into a tiny cellar. Lydia and Finstock remained upstairs. Finstock did not seem to think Victoria was any threat.

The cellar was gloomy and included a ghost, just as Victoria had said. The ghost was very messy. It was flitting around the dark in pale wisps.

"You really should have had this taken care of weeks ago. You shouldn't have let it get this bad."

"I was studying it," was the woman's only response. She did not explain further.

Victoria pointed out the body. What was left was a crumpled skeleton, mostly defleshed by maggots and mold. He chose the least decomposed part of the head and touched there quickly. The flesh was squishy and it compressed like wet sponge cake.

Stiles jerked back in disgust.

The ghost vanished instantly.

"Extraordinary. I have not observed a preternatural end a ghost before now. Well, that confirms you are preternatural. Congratulations."

As if I have won some sort of prize, Stiles thought bitterly.

They made their way back up to join Lydia and Finstock.

"Why all this testing?" Stiles asked, when it became obvious the woman still wasn't going to offer them a place to sleep until it was full light and she was sure Finstock was not supernatural.

"My research is delicate – dangerous, even. If I am to trust you, or to help you, it is important that none of you are undead."

Stiles winced. Lydia straightened out abruptly, must less drowsy.

"That's rather crude."

"Is it? You Americans and your semantics."

"But 'undead' certainly is not apt."

The woman's eyes went hard. "I suspect that depends on what you define as living. Given my current studies, 'undead' suits very well."

"Maybe not for long," Lydia chimed in.

"You know something of relevance?"

Stiles glared at Lydia. She should really stop sharing this with strangers. Lydia ignored him. "We think there is a child with Stiles as father and a vampire mother."

"Really? What a fantastic abomination!" Victoria said in a chilling tone.

Stiles, loathe though he was to worry about the child who still didn't have a name, did not like how this woman talked about him. "Excuse me?"

Victoria ignored him. She was starting to go through a stack of papers – her research, Stiles supposed.

Lydia grabbed a hold of Stiles's arm. "We'll just find a guest room ourselves, then."

She practically drug him down the hall, Finstock trailing behind.

"Stiles," she hissed when they were out of the room. "She may be able to help us figure out how this happened. Don't piss her off."

"She better be as good as you think she is," was Stiles's only response.