My industrial freezers are overfull with parts of Derringer. I have him killed thrice a week now, for his "noble" attempts to ward Alastor away… but I cannot eat him, dear diary. No, he will be donated to the lower classes. A shame that he lives on: I do hate it when people stir up trouble between exterminations!

That aside, dear diary, I remained cautiously optimistic as I waited for my Dc to call. Oh, I had so many feelings as to be quite useless at work! Instead of helping clients, I waltzed the shop floor in a daydream, or kept my vulture-eye upon the telephone. Sally noticed, as did the new girl, Youko. (I would rather not have hired a squid-demon, but she comes highly recommended.) Anyway, they asked a few surface-level questions and let me get on with being useless.

Three days is the customary grace period, dear diary. Three! Had he forgotten me? I should have been furious with Alastor for taking so long. If I were but a newspaper illustration, my outline would be feathered and frayed beyond repair! But upon the fifth day, he called the downstairs number.

"Rosie's Antiques! Rosie speaking. How may I help you?

There came an unabashed singing down the line, which could only have been him; it was the song we first danced to at Medusa's. "I was blue and I was always wearing a frown, because my love-"

"-had turned me down!" I sang back. We carried on, "Then we met and you can bet from the first… you were my love, and that's when the old gray cloud burst!"

The silliness of that final shave-and-a-hair-cut rhythm made him laugh. "You harmonize well, darling! How are you?"

Darling! He called me darling!

"Good, thank you," I smiled down the receiver. "Yourself?"

"Splendid! Listen, my Friday night just opened up. Thought I'd go back to Medusa's, or someplace like it! Want to join me? Show those other cats how it's done?"

His tone was so cool, yet playful! I wonder if he was practicing before the call, dear diary… and I loved the unspoken sentiment that our dancing together was so inimitable. Once I got past that, however, I remembered my schedule.

"I'd love to," I began.

"But?"

"I've some important hounding to do," I said, "rather unavoidable." Then, before he could swear off extending social invitations, "But you should join me if you feel like it. We'll confab at my place first, get our appetites going."

Alastor paused. I wondered if it was the word 'confab'; it did sound strange coming out of me. "Excuse me?" he finally said, a little cautious - and I realized the insinuation.

"No, no! I'm making a light stew, that's all! We close the store at six, so you're welcome any time between then and eight. Just ring the bell."

"Wonderful," he said. "Then I'll see you tomorrow!"

Oh, I promised myself not to go crazy with the upstairs preparation - but of course I did, even moving the walls to lay out rooms more similarly to Alastor's apartment. This will make him feel at home, I thought, even if he can't tell why. Now my kitchen (including range and chimney) and my dining-room are left of the entryway, flowing into the sitting-room, with space thereafter for the piano and bookcase, then bedroom and bathroom on the far right. (His bathroom is the complete opposite end of his apartment, but I left mine where it was, not to catastrophically disturb the plumbing.)

Then of course I cleaned and dusted, all the time looking upon my home with new eyes. Soon Alastor would be here, gaining his first impression, and I hoped it would be a good one. In terms of decor, bien-aimé, I try to keep a cohesive style, as timelessly, classically appealing as I can. Most of the usable furniture, like the chairs, tables and couches, are Queen Annes passed down on my father's side, with smaller pieces I actually designed and lacquered myself. Other items are more eccentric, especially the ornaments, but always with those rich colors, and that deep glossy wood that one just longs to go swimming in!

Then I double-checked my hounding arrangements, since this evening was predicated around it, and made myself look decent, but a little undone. Believably frazzled is what I was aiming for, dear diary: soft, weary smiles, a few loose curls of hair, as if I'd been rushed off my feet - which I rather had, albeit not from keeping shop today. It can be somewhat appealing to the eye! The trick is to look upon your guest with comfort, as if all the day's stresses are melting away at the sight of them. Alastor is my comfort. He is my warm bath. Oh, I would like to be his.

Then I set the pot of stew to simmer and sat on my hands awhile. How rotten it is that I am the one who waits! I always thought men waited for women! Perhaps it's only an above-world thing… When the bell rang, I stood with an unexplained, choking anxiety. Surely something was wrong: the books too quirkily arranged, the choice of records too contrived? Perhaps there was something hideously embarrassing on my sitting-room rug that only Alastor could see.

But I pulled myself together and trotted downstairs to welcome him. Believably frazzled, I thought. Not so for my dear one behind the door!; he was flawless as ever, casually suited, holding a paper bag.

"Hallo!" I grinned through the glass as I let him in. My senses were heightened now he was here. I felt the metal scrape of the door latch in my bones. My nose rediscovered the pleasantly experienced smell of old wood that lingers in the shop. God, his skin was lovely. Like porcelain, brown porcelain.

"I brought a red," he said, letting it clink in the bag. "Let's hope that works!"

"Oh, a red like you!" I said, and brought him up the stairs. (They've creaked for years, but I like it, and won't fix it!) "Well, here we are," I said in the entryway, and I did see his eyebrows flicker.

"Nice place," he remarked. "Good heavens, maybe I should get into antiques. Family business? Oh! Can I look at this?" My Alastor was walking towards my radio, which stood like a sentry between the bedroom and bathroom doors.

"Of course." I took the wine off his hands as he crouched, on the radio's level.

"Now this is gorgeous!" he said, peering at it, stroking the sides (which made me set the bottle rather heavily). "They don't make them like this any more! All those good old vacuum tubes… marvellous!"

I was glad to see his interest. "You listen to radio much?" I asked.

"Listen? I was on it!" said Alastor, still admiring. "Mostly announcements, but I also handled some music programmes. Rather good at it, too!"

"Naturally!"

"Although," he confided, standing straight again, "it could get tricky. Not just technically either."

"Oh?" I drifted away a little to check on the stew, expecting him to go on talking. Instead he loped towards me, to inspect the pot himself. My hummingbird heart was set a-buzzing as our arms touched, but he didn't notice.

"Hm," he said. "You mind if I spruce it up?"

"Um… what with?"

Alastor reached into his suit and took out a shaker of mixed spices, twirling it like a gunslinger. The act was so unexpected, so inherently absurd, that it made me laugh unreservedly. I had to apologise.

Thenceforth, he informed me that for a pot of this size, the best way was to shake until my wrist grew tired (though of course it didn't, and he let me stop within the minute). We didn't take much stew - it was an appetizer, not to spoil the later consumption of somebody deserving. But my word, bien-aimé! It was the most hot and peppery thing I'd ever tasted! I had to abandon it, for my nose was streaming! What an embarrassment. Clearly I know nothing about New Orleans and their culture! That simply must be fixed. At least he found it amusing.

Alastor seemed keen to get into the wine, so we retired to the sitting room and listened to some gramophone records. Adjacent couches, dear diary, and he made himself quite at home, hooking his elbow over the back, wine glass lightly spinning in that hand. I suppressed concern for the upholstery. It was good that he felt so at home; he should!

"You seem to enjoy many things," he said, gesturing to my abode.

"Yes! I'm just… well, I'm interested in everything," I said, smiling. "You're in Hell now, my dear; you've got to snatch any bit of joy you can find!"

"True! We share a philosophy."

"Hedonism, I suppose." I took a pack of cigarettes from the table drawer. "Or… well, to learn as much as one can, it's something Plato would… damn it! No lighter!"

As Alastor gave his breast pocket (spice rack) a perfunctory pat, I clicked my fingers and used that flame to light the cig. Afterwards, he was looking at me curiously. He hadn't known I could do that.

"Party trick!" I said. "Every sinner can do something. Can't you?"

He paused, then spoke again. "I can do this," he said, voice crackling and fuzzing like the radio. Now I knew how Alastor felt when he saw that first edition book, dear diary. Oh, it sent a jolt clean through me! He knew it, too, relishing my surprise. "Just an affectation," he said, still affecting it, "it's quite easy to do!"

"Then you should do it more often," I grinned stupidly. Silly Rosie! I had to pull myself together. "You were telling me about the… difficult aspects of your job?"

"Mmmn," he said, partway through a gulp of wine, and he set the glass down. The AM fuzz had gone, but I didn't mind. He was so wonderful to listen to anyway. "Again, the technical side… I picked it up pretty quick, because my father was familiar with the workings; helped me get my foot in the door…" His voice dipped in disdain. "But the station-owner, he was a piece of work."

"How so?"

"Hated me from the outset. N'Orleans wasn't all bad, but that lot made out like I was only serviceable - even though I was damn good at my job! I've decided, Rosie: all mankind is the same sinful, hateful garbage! And I don't care for a single one of them, besides my mother."

Could I someday become the secondary exception, I wondered? I offered him a cigarette, but he didn't want one. "The station-owner."

"Yes. It was hard enough to be hired in the first place. Then our paper didn't write about the new hire - a paper he and his daddy ran - and when I pressed him about it, they did run a little footnote, only they used my father's picture. Not by accident."

I screwed my face appropriately. "Why would they do a thing like that?"

He gave me a look. "Why do you think?" he said, like I should have guessed. And truthfully, dear diary, I hadn't; people are pointlessly cruel all the time. What was the point? What was the secret I was being let in on?

"Well," I said, "nothing to do with your character, I guess. But you look and speak so finely, I can't think what superficial… prejudice." Then it clicked. "I don't… Oh." He was looking at me. I thought it best not to stumble on the word. "You were colored, is what you're saying?"

Alastor gave me a world-weary smirk; I'd guessed right, but said something wrong. "Were," he echoed ironically. "Is it like that? Just… wipes away in death?"

"Oh, I mean-"

"Forget it."

He was right! God, I felt so foolish, dear diary, and so afraid to lose him. "I don't care!" I said. "Not a bit. It doesn't matter to me."

"Sounds like it didn't occur to you, but I appreciate it."

"I'm sorry, sweetpea. Go back to the station owner. He was foul to you?"

"Oh yes! And to his secretary. And an adulterer in his spare time. I so wanted to kill him, but the connection was too obvious!" he said, and finished his wine. "I mean, eventually I did, but we'll get into it some other time." His smile returned as he thought back on it.

Dear diary, I promised to punish myself later for the faux pas, but for now I smiled in turn and leaned closer. "Speaking of which," I said, "are you a hunter or a hound?"

"I assumed they were the same."

"Not quite, darling! When we hunt, it's anyone, whether they're colony-outsiders, or stupid enough to cut through between tram rides. Hounding is regular and repeated punishment. A small percentage of those victims will actually accept it, seek it out. In return, we protect their businesses."

Alastor shifted on the couch, interested now. "Well, that takes some of the fun out of it! And hounds can offer such protection?"

"Some, yes. The powerful ones," I said, then checked the clock on the wall. "We should make tracks in half an hour, and I can show you how it's done."