Reynard bends down and retrieves, there it is, her sweater, a dainty thing of buttons and stitching. Both men imagine it being torn off, it already looks that way, in Reynard’s clawish hand. “Not in my experience,” the ghost says, and Martin quickly leans at him, almost a lunge, still holding Rachel by the shoulders. Reynard does not hiss and rear back, he does nothing vampiric or lycanthropic, he does not vow, eyes blazing, that he has not and will never be defeated before vanishing in choking black smoke that will rise out of Bottle Grove’s door into a dark pillar making villagers shiver for miles around. But it sure seems like it. It really does, to Martin, who heaves his arms under Rachel so it’s less like dragging a rug and more like carrying a maiden, such as a shiny knight or a giant ape might do, and makes his way with her down the spiral staircase. The purse scatters, the other shoe drops. Stanford watches, dumbstruck and struck dumb, until Martin is panting with her in the speakeasy.

“Jesus,” Stanford says.

“Boy oh boy,” Martin says, and lays her out on the big wooden table, “do they walk amongst us.” Her head lolls. “Do we have something for her to be comfortable? Some horse blankets?”

“Horse blankets?” Stanford repeats. “Oh, sure. The bootblack left some last time he was here for a flagon of ale.”

It’s the lingering spell of whoever that was, Martin thinks, what he just said. What is a copse, anyway? He just sees a wild place, or just a wild feeling. “That guy,” he says out loud, “you fucked and his wife got furious.”

Stanford runs a hand over his hair. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“At the wedding.”

“The vicar?”

“He,” Martin says, “was no vicar.”

Stanford has put the box down and puts a very strong and toned arm on Martin’s. “What happened?” he asks quietly.

“He was going to hurt her.”

“Wait, the vicar did this?”

“Maybe, or it wasn’t him. I thought I recognized him and then, it was just a man his height.”

“Martin, what are you talking about?”

“He had her, I don’t know how to put it.”

“Try.”

“In thrall. So I slipped her some ouzo.”

“Wait, what?”

“Among other things,” Martin says, looking at her. The skirt is up a little, from moving her onto the table, but to reach over and tug it down would be dirtier, worse. “She was overserved.”

“Wait, so you did this?”

“I passed her out, basically, yeah.”

“Wait.”

“Stop saying wait. I couldn’t. There wasn’t time.”

They both look at her, two men in a boarded-up basement.

“It was a rescue,” Martin says. “You should have seen it. He was like a fucking monster on her. Believe me, it’s very, very I tell you, bad.”