Chapter 5

"I didn't know you weren't wholly human!" Castle defended. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have – I wouldn't have needed to."

"Needed?" Beckett said, in awful tones.

"Yes" – Castle began, and was interrupted.

"My lady Inconnue?" a thin, high voice began, and was also interrupted.

"Milady!" another, deeper voice, tinged with an Irish accent, said. "Don't listen to t'ose elves. They're talking cobblers!"

"What?" – Beckett didn't have a chance to finish her question.

"We are cobblers. We're the original cobblers. This leprechaun is a blow-in and can't possibly match our" –

"Blow-in? Blow-in? I'm as old as ye are and I've been cobbling for far longer." A small, greenish humanoid, dressed from head to toe in green leather, sprang up, squaring up to two lithe, beautiful, but tiny pointed-ear elves, also dressed in leather. All three had calloused hands. All three also had angry faces.

"Shush!" Castle commanded.

"Witchfinder! I appeal to yer sense of style. Ye have to tell the Lady Inconnue that my shoes are the best to be found in all the human and non-human worlds."

"No!" The elves shoved the leprechaun out of the way. "We are. Support us!"

"Quiet!" Beckett's low tones stopped the argument cold. "You are interrupting my dinner with Castle."

All three shoemakers cringed at her expression and tone. "We beg your forgiveness," they chorused. "We only wanted to offer our services…" They trailed off.

"And you think that the Hallowe'en Ball is an appropriate time?" Beckett asked icily. "It is not." They cringed further. "But," she added, and they fixed hopeful eyes upon her, "I will see all three of you, together, by appointment. You can suggest times by e-mail. I'm sure that you know how to contact Castle, so he can provide it. All three of you," she repeated, fixing them with a full-scale glare, "together."

"Thank you, milady!" They hurried off.

"Isn't she the firm commander?" the Dagda asked with a grin, appearing like the Cheshire Cat. "Your appetisers," he said, on receiving Beckett's glare. "Now, an' there aren't many who'd take that face to me, who was King in Erin once upon a time, an' due respect."

"America doesn't do kings," Beckett said, "and I respect those who respect me."

The Dagda's booming laugh broke through. "Oh, milady Inconnue, ye are wort'y of all the respect I can give. There aren't many who'd challenge me, either." For an instant, he drew on the mantle of his monarchy, standing taller, broader. Beckett stared back, unimpressed and showing it. "I'll claim a dance from ye, later." He cast Castle a glance. "The Witchfinder can't have ye all to himself."

Castle's expression strongly suggested that his intention had been to have Beckett all to himself. He suddenly thought that bringing Beckett – and why had he never heard that she was L'Inconnue? – had opened her up to a whole new range of beings, any of whom she might – but she wouldn't. She wouldn't.

"I might prefer to dance with Castle," Beckett said, and smiled beautifully at the Dagda. "But I'll take it under advisement." Her smile became even lovelier. "With respect, of course."

He grinned widely. "Ah, ye bait me. We'll see." The Dagda departed.

Beckett examined her appetiser, then took a cautious bite. Her face relaxed into utter bliss. "Wow," she said, and addressed herself solely to her food. It wasn't until every last scrap had been scraped up, and after she'd regarded the empty plate with regret, that she turned her gaze back to Castle. "So," she said ominously. "Why were you spying on me? And what did you mean if I'd known you weren't human I wouldn't have needed to, huh?"

"If I'd known you weren't human, I'd have told you I wasn't either." Castle frowned at her. "And then you pretended you didn't know what you were and misled me, so I thought if I brought you here, you'd find out."

Beckett's already sceptical face achieved levels of scepticism rarely seen outside a political press conference in Great Britain, that being the ultimate in disbelieving press persons, who were the height of scepticism. "Really? You thought that – if I didn't know my own nature, which even for you is crazy – dumping me into the biggest supernatural event of the year without warning was a good plan? What if I'd run out screaming?"

"You? You face down massive meatheads for breakfast, take them down, grind their bones to make your bread and then do it all over again ten minutes later without breaking a sweat. You run out screaming? More likely the rest of them would."

"The rest of them. Yeah. Let's just talk about the rest of them. How come I'm suddenly the star of a show you didn't tell me was playing?"

"I didn't expect that when I invited you!" Castle squawked. "It wasn't until" –

"Until what?"

"Until he started askin' all uv us t' make this the best dinner ye'd ever have had, or ever will – till next year," the Dagda said, gesturing to two spriggans in formal waiters' dress to clear the plates and the – now empty – wine glasses. Two more spriggans put new wine glasses down. "'Twas the brownie told us all."

"Sienna!" Beckett screeched.

"Did you call, darling?" Sienna appeared out of nowhere, sporting an exceedingly stylish dress in a Mary Quant-ish geometric pattern.

"You told every supernatural about me?"

"Of course I did. You're big news, my dear. Truly the biggest thing to have come out of Manhattan" –

"Straight Outta Compton," Castle muttered, and received three scalding glares.

" – ever. Embrace your fame."

"Fame isn't what I want," Beckett growled.

"But it's what ye've got," the Dagda put in. "We're charmed by ye. Ye can do it for a night. Everybody wants ye to enjoy yerself, so do."

"Eat, drink and be merry, darling. I'm sure the Dagda's already told you that. And be nice. We'll all want to see who you are at thirteen o'clock. Everyone will unveil then."

"Unveil?"

"Show off their talents, dear."

Beckett stared. "Display what I am?" she squeaked.

"Yes."

"Does he" – she gestured angrily at Castle – "have to?"

"Oh, yes. Everyone does." Sienna grinned. "But I display by showing your dress."

Beckett stared some more. "My dress?"

"A triumph of my art. It will only be exceeded by your wedding dress" –

Castle choked. "Wedding dress?" he repeated. "I haven't proposed yet. We're not even dating!"

"The whole world knows ye're courting her, Witchfinder. Ye didn't exactly keep it quiet. T'ose who've kissed the Blarney Stone are less voluble than ye are."

"Proposed yet?" Beckett gasped, seizing with unwelcome (to Castle) accuracy on the one word he'd hoped she'd miss. No chance. The universe hated him. "What do you mean, yet?"

Castle considered banging his head on the table, since there was no handy brick wall. "I want to date you," he said, commendably calmly. "When I Looked at you, it was to make sure you were exactly who I thought you were – extraordinary. I just found a bit more extraordinary than I expected – and anyway, wouldn't you have done the same?"

Beckett coloured.

"You did!" Castle thought for barely a microsecond. "That odd shift – that was you. What are you?"

"Dat's what we all wan' t' know," Baron Samedi noted. Everyone glared at him. "What? Me came t' ask de lady for a dance."

"This wasn't how I thought dinner would go," Castle half-wailed. "I only wanted to give you a great meal! I didn't expect everyone else would start trying to date you!"

"So was this supposed to be a date?" Beckett asked pointedly. "Because if so, I don't remember you ever actually saying so."

"I asked you to dinner! What part of going on a date don't you get?"

"Don't sound much like a date t' me," Baron Samedi said to Sienna and the Dagda. "Me think it a fight."

"'Tis not like wooin' in the Old Country, to be sure."

"I think, gentlemen, that we should leave them alone," Sienna said, "with the addition of your truly outstanding food and wine." She smirked at Castle and Beckett alike. "It might soften the edges of the discussion you're about to have, darlings. I do recommend it."

Wine duly arrived, though it was poured by a spriggan, not by the Dagda, who'd taken the hint provided by Beckett's Fomori-level glare, equal to Balor's single fiery eye, and retreated. Likewise, the entrees were served by another spriggan.

"So, this is a date?"

"Yes. And you knew that when you accepted."

"You normally expect your dates to be the centre of attention at a formal ball? Because this is not my idea of a good time." Castle's face collapsed. "I like quiet and discreet."

"This is discreet," Castle said, nettled. "Exactly who do you think would notice you here, that you'd meet back in the real world? It's not like Page Six can get into the Hallowe'en Ball." He scowled, and then took a sip of his wine. His eyebrows lifted. "Excellent. Anyway, nobody who knows you in normal life will get in here, but if I took you to Nobu or Balthazar or Le Cirque you'd be in the press a minute later." His scowl disappeared under the influence of another sip of the best red he'd ever tasted. "I wanted to have a nice dinner – well, a really excellent dinner – and show you what I am and what you are and the rest of our world." He pouted. "And then you went and got a dress from Umber" –

"Sienna" –

"She uses lots of names – and she told absolutely everyone that you were special but she won't tell anyone what your talent is and they're all getting in the way and interrupting. It's worse than Ryan." His pout deepened. "It's not fair. You know what I am and I haven't a clue about you."

(Aw, look. He really wanted a date-date, and it's all spoilt.)

Beckett's little voice, irritating as it was, had a point. She ate some of her excellent entrée while trying to work out what to say, and then sipped her wine. She was still cross with Castle for spying on her and then not telling her he wasn't human either as soon as he knew she wasn't, but he had tried to make this a real date. (Which was what you wanted.) Anyway, it would be interesting to see what other non-humans lurked in the shadowed, supernatural world.

"Okay. Let's start again," she said, and then snickered. "Do you come here often?"

Castle stared, then laughed, with a large helping of relief. "Every year, since I knew I was a Witchfinder. You?"

"You know I haven't. I didn't even know there were other non-humans in Manhattan, let alone the USA." Beckett's brow creased. "How did you get to be a Witchfinder, anyway?"

He shrugged. "It appeared when I finished puberty – seventeen, eighteen, that sort of time."

"Don't tell me you didn't research."

Another shrug. "Yep."

"And?" inquired Interrogation Beckett, with a strong note of talk or else.

"Once upon a time," Castle began. Beckett made a rude noise. "Well, how else do you start a fairy tale – where the fairies are hardly sweet little things with wings. Stop spoiling my story before I've really begun." He took another breath. "Once upon a time, back in Britain – England, Wales and Scotland – people were scared of witches. So a bunch of men called themselves Witchfinders, and travelled around the country harassing scared, mostly old, single women – though there were some young and beautiful ones – and investigating accusations of witchcraft. Nobody actually got burned in Britain – or here – they were mostly hanged, and in Scotland strangled. The bodies were burned in Scotland… Anyway. Most of the accusations were nonsense, driven by jealousy, envy, misogyny, and general nastiness; and most of the Witchfinders were as human as Ryan or Espo."

"They're completely human?"

"Yep." Castle's ears coloured. "I Looked. Stop interrupting the story." Beckett made a go-on-then gesture, sipped her wine, and sat back. "Anyway. One or two of the Witchfinders weren't human – double agents. They spent their time hiding as many of the true non-humans as they could." He paused. "I think that's where it came from. A recessive gene in Mother – for God's sake don't tell her anything about it" – Beckett shook her head firmly. Martha was quite histrionic enough as a human – "and I guess my unknown father must have had it too." He looked down, then gulped at the wine. "I did some research into genetics, and that's the best I can do."

Beckett hummed to herself. "I guess it was a bit of a surprise?"

"Yeah," he replied dryly. "You could say that. Finding that I could Look at people and see their…um…ethics and nature, I guess. I just wish I'd done it on a few more people, earlier."

Beckett looked at Castle's wry, bitter smile, and didn't ask about his ex-wives.

"What about you?" he asked.

Beckett ignored the question in favour of her own. "So you were Looking" – she matched the emphasis that Castle had given the word – "at me – no, us. All three of us."

He nodded.

(He wanted to check he wasn't making a mistake. Awwww, sweet. He really does wanna date you. And what was that about weddings? He hasn't proposed yet? He's got it bad, considering that you're barely even nice to him half the time. I'm nice to him! When? When the moon is blue? Shut up. You're no help.)

"Spying on me in my own bed?"

He nodded again.

"Sitting on it, while I was asleep?"

Another nod.

"And then you kissed me."

Castle's blush roared through his cheeks. Beckett waited, smiling slightly. "Yes," he confessed. "You looked adorable. All soft and sleepy and tousled and cute. How was I supposed to resist that?"

"By not being in my bedroom?"

"But Beckett, being in your bedroom has been the dream of my life since I met you," he said soulfully. "If you prefer, though, you could be in mine." His eyes said just say the word.

(You'd love that. Either way. Shut up.) She glared.

"Or we could have dinner, and then dance."

"Dance?"

"This is a ball. Therefore, Beckett, we dance."

"Indade ye do," the Dagda said from behind Castle. "The dancing begins after the unveiling, at t'irteen o'clock." He summoned his waiter-spriggans to clear the perfectly emptied plates, and poured more wine. "Have ye got yer dance card, milady Inconnue?"

"Dance card?"

"To be sure."

"Yes, she has," Castle interrupted. "Here, Beckett."

She scanned it. "How peculiar," she said sardonically. "Most of the dances are already taken."

Castle smiled rakishly. "I wouldn't want to miss out," he said.

"I'd better book my dance with ye," the Dagda decided, and scribbled a name against one of the very few spaces left. "Don't ye be forgettin' Baron Samedi, now, or ye'll be made to do the limbo."

"Uh…"

"Me claim my dance now – and not de limbo," Baron Samedi said. "De rest, dey be linin' up behind me."

They were. Beckett's dance card was full, with many expressions of deep annoyance from those who hadn't managed to make it. Castle maintained a smug, I-got-there-first smile and refused point-blank to give up a single one of his dances. He'd barely restrained himself from taking the lot, but he'd thought that Beckett might object so strenuously that she rubbed him out of all of them, which would have been highly undesirable. Dancing with Beckett at the MADT ball had left him with a deep desire to do it many times more.

Finally, the queue of hopeful dance partners dissipated, not without some black looks and the miasma of wish-I-could-curse-the-Witchfinder.

"Now that they've gone," Beckett said, "why were you Looking at us?"

"To make sure you were who I thought you were." His voice dropped to almost inaudible. "Too many times people weren't." And back to normal. "Except you weren't. The other two were, but you weren't, and I don't know what you are. I always know what people are, except you."

"I'm not a ghost," Beckett said smartly. "You'll have to wait to find out."

"That's not fair."

"Peeking at me when I was asleep and then kissing me when I couldn't feel it wasn't fair either" – Beckett's brain abruptly caught up with her tongue, as Castle's eyes flared hotly.

"You'd rather I kissed you when you could feel it? I'm sure I can manage that. When would you like me to kiss you? Now?"

"No!"

Castle pouted, and batted his big blue eyes, hoping to look more than usually adorable. "Later, then," he decided. "When we don't have an interested audience of every supernatural in America. Kissing in public is…um…a statement." He paused. "A bit like that dress. That's a statement."

"Oh?"

"It says – I'm the most gorgeous being here. Umber-Sienna knew exactly what she was doing."

(He's pretty gorgeous himself. And I notice you aren't telling him not to kiss you later.)

"Now," Castle said to Beckett's dropped jaw, "shall we have dessert?"

"I guess," she said, weakly.

Dessert was as wonderful as the rest of the meal had been, with the accompanying Sauternes a classic of its kind. Beckett sipped the superb coffee, nibbled on the best chocolate she'd ever tasted, and relaxed into good conversation.

Gradually, as the full moon shone down on the assembled company, the human-seemings began to fade a little, offering hints of the forms beneath. Baron Samedi became yet more skeletal, his skull-face grinning; the Dagda seemed to grow, and his formal tux shifted to hint at robes. Sienna's tiny form shrank yet further, her face indescribably no longer human. The spriggans' legs and arms became longer, their heads larger. Across the cemetery, Cimarron's robes ebbed and flowed, her hair becoming a surf-tipped wave; beside her willowy women brought branches to mind in the set of their fingers and arms, their eyes somehow recalling berries, bright and shining in the moonlight.

In the centre of the space, magically, the gravestones drew back, leaving open a large circle, smooth-surfaced: a dance-floor. To one side, a group of musicians tuned up, at the other, a low dais stretched along a quarter of the circle.

"What's happening?" Beckett asked suspiciously.

"It's almost thirteen o'clock. Everyone takes their true form, and those who have two show both." Castle, watching Baron Samedi with increasing nervousness as the grin on his bony face widened, still could hardly contain his anticipation at finally finding out Beckett's talent.

The clock struck: heavy, elegiac notes, tolling out the thirteenth hour. The throng fell silent. Baron Samedi moved to the centre of the dais, and gestured with his black walking stick, banded top and bottom with bone-white. "De Hallowe'en Ball," he announced. "De thirteenth hour. De honour of de first unveiling, and de first dance, goes to de Witchfinder and de Lady Inconnue!"

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Much appreciated.

The tale of the elves/leprechauns and the cobbler is pretty common across Britain, Ireland and Europe. Whichever non-human it is, they produce the most wonderful shoes possible. You can see why Beckett would be interested...at the right time.

Spriggans are a Cornish spirit, traditionally unpleasant, but here (as with everything else I've, er, borrowed) updated for the modern world.