Sebastian with us makes it easy." She gestured toward the lock. "If you would

be

so kind, Doctor?"

"My pleasure," Makepeace said. He waggled his fingers at the door lock, then

blew on the door. It swung open. "Voila!"

Blood glanced at him and shook his head. "Someone like you could make life

exceedingly unpleasant for me," he said. He looked around guiltily. "It's

hard

to believe that I'm actually doing this."

He pushed open the door and went inside, drawing his pistol from his belt

holster as he entered. Jacqueline pulled a small, lightweight, polymer-framed

10-mm semiautomatic from her purse.

"Where the devil did you get that?" said Blood.

"Surely you do not expect me to reveal all of my professional secrets, do

you,

Chief Inspector?" she said with a smile. She was tempted to tell him that it

was

a present from Modred, one of Morpheus's' special pistols that were

spellwarded

against detection so that it could ride in the hidden compartment of her

purse

and never be picked up by scanning devices.

They paused briefly in the entryway.

"Do you think guns will do any good against one of these Dark Ones?" Blood

whispered.

"I don't know," whispered Makepeace. "I've never met a Dark One. For that

matter, I've never fired a gun, either, so I suppose your guess is as good as

mine."

"Why are you two whispering?" said Jacqueline.

"In case someone can hear us," Blood whispered.

"I thought you said nobody was home."

"Ah, yes. Well..." Blood's voice trailed off lamely. He felt like a complete

fool. Of course, he knew better, but the very idea of breaking into a house

had

him feeling so preposterously nervous and guilty that he seemed unable to

mink

straight. And the prospect of encountering an immortal necromancer did

nothing

to placate his nerves, either.

"Look, no one is home," Jacqueline said, "and I could discover no alarm

system,

which means that if there is an alarm system, it is a very clever one and we

have already set it off, so whispering will not help us, n'est-ce pas!

Besides,

if Lord Carfax is what we think he is, then he has no need of alarm systems,

believe me. In that case we can. expect to encounter something a great deal

more