I slammed the car door loudly, enjoying the echoes, and then locked it. Not because it was necessary, or even because it would stop whomever they sent to move it. I just wanted to make it clear to everyone that I didn’t trust anyone here. The Hall rose up before me like a tidal wave cast in stone. It looked even bigger than I remembered, up close, and even more forbidding. I could feel its mass, its centuries of accumulated duty and responsibility, trying to suck me in like a black hole, but I balked at the front door. I was supposed to walk straight in and present myself to the Matriarch, as custom and tradition demanded…but I’ve never been big on doing what I’m supposed to do. And since I was still more than a bit resentful at being summoned back so abruptly, I decided that the Matriarch could wait while I went for a little walk.

I turned my back on the front door, humming aloud in an unconcerned sort of way, and strolled past the many arched and stained-glass windows at the front of the house. I could feel their presence, like the pressure of so many watching eyes, so I kept my own gaze resolutely straight ahead. The gravel crunched loudly under my feet as I headed past the east wing, rounded the corner, and smiled for the first time as I beheld the old family chapel. Tucked away out of sight and set firmly apart, the chapel was a squat stone structure with crucifix windows. It looked Saxon but was actually an eighteenth-century folly. The family had its own chapel inside the Hall now, pleasant and peaceful and graciously multidenominational, and the old building had been left to rot. It is currently occupied by the family ghost, Jacob Drood, cantankerous old goat that he is. He’s my great-great-great-grandfather, I think. Genealogy never was my strong point.

On the whole, my family discourages ghosts, otherwise we’d be hip deep in the things. If any do come bleating back to the Hall after being killed in the field, they get dispatched on to the Hereafter pretty damned sharply. The family looks strictly forward, never back, and there just isn’t room in the Hall for anyone to be sentimental. Jacob is allowed to linger on in the chapel through some technicality I’ve never really understood, mostly because the few people who do know are just too embarrassed to talk about it. All families have the odd skeleton in the closet, and ours is Jacob. The family ostentatiously hasn’t been on speaking terms with him for years, and he couldn’t care less. Mostly he just sits around in his ghostly underwear, watching the memories of old television shows on a set with no insides in it. Now and again he keeps a spectral eye on what the family’s up to, just because he knows he’s not supposed to.

Jacob and I have always got along fine.

I first found out about him when I was eight. Cousin Georgie dared me to go peek in the window of the forbidden chapel, and I never could resist a dare. I was caught (of course) and punished (of course) and told that the chapel and its occupant were strictly off-limits. After that, I couldn’t wait to meet him. I just knew we’d be kindred spirits. So I sneaked out that night and basically ambushed the old ghost in his den. He made a few halfhearted attempts to scare me off, but his heart wasn’t in it. He’d waited a long time for the family to throw up another black sheep like him. We quickly warmed to each other, and after that no one could keep us apart. The family did try, but Jacob came striding out of the chapel and right into the Matriarch’s private chambers, and whatever was said there, after that the two of us were left strictly to ourselves.

Jacob was perhaps the only real friend I had, then. Certainly the only one I could trust. He encouraged all my early rebellions and was the only one who was always on my side. He was the one who told me to get out, first chance I got. He approved of me; said I reminded him of himself as a teenager. Which was rather worrying, actually.

The chapel looked as squat and ugly as ever; rough stone buried under thick mats of ivy that stirred and twisted threateningly as I approached the open front door. Part of Jacob’s early warning system. I patted the ivy and spoke to it in a friendly fashion, and it relaxed again as it remembered and recognised my voice. The door was stuck halfway open, as always, and I put my shoulder to it. The heavy wood scraped loudly across the bare stone floor, raising a cloud of dust. I coughed and sneezed a few times and peered into the gloom. Nothing had changed.

The pews were still stacked up against the far wall to make room for Jacob’s giant black leather reclining chair, and beside it sat an old-fashioned refrigerator that was somehow always full of ethereal booze. A massive old television stood before the chair, with real rabbits’ ears piled on top to help with the reception. Jacob didn’t look around as I approached. He sprawled bonelessly in his great chair, a gray wispy figure who flickered in and out as his concentration wavered. He looked older than death, his face a mass of wrinkles, his bony skull graced with just a few long flyaway hairs. He was currently wearing faded Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt bearing the legend Ghosts Do It from Beyond. He chugged down the last of his beer and threw the can away. It disappeared before it hit the floor. Jacob waved a gray hand jerkily in my direction, leaving thin trails of ectoplasm on the air.

"Come in, Eddie, come in! And shut the door behind you. The draughts play havoc with my old bones."

I stood my ground beside his chair, my arms folded across my chest. "And what bones would those be, you disgusting old revenant?"

He scowled at me from under bushy white eyebrows. "You get to be as ancient as me, lad, you’ll suffer a few aches and pains too. It’s not easy, being this old. Or everybody would be doing it."

"How can you have aches and pains? You’re dead. You don’t have an actual body anymore."

"That’s right! Rub it in! Just because I’m dead, it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. The way the family treats me these days makes me spin in my grave."

"You were cremated, Jacob."

"All right, I’ll turn in my urn!" He shut down his ghostly television set with a snap of his fingers and finally turned to smile at me. "Damn, it’s good to have you back, lad. None of the current generation have the spunk to come out and talk to me. How long has it been, Eddie? I lose track in here…"

"Ten years," I said.

He nodded slowly. "You’ve filled out nicely, lad. Good outfit, rotten attitude, and you look like you could punch your weight. A credit to my teachings. But what the hell are you doing back here, Eddie? You did the one thing even I couldn’t do; you escaped."

"The family called me home," I said, trying hard to keep my voice light and unconcerned. "I was kind of hoping you might know why."

Jacob sniffed and settled back in his reclining chair. The ghost of a pipe appeared in his hand, and he sucked thoughtfully on the stem, releasing thick puffs of ectoplasm that drifted up to the cobwebbed ceiling. "Not much point in asking me, lad. The family’s been keeping me even more at arm’s length than usual, of late. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from keeping a watchful eye on them…" He grinned nastily at me. "You want all the latest gossip, Eddie lad? You want to know who’s having who, who messed up in the field again, and who came back stoned out of her mind and crashed the autogyro on the roof landing pad?"

"Tell me everything," I said. "I think I need to know everything."

Jacob waved his pipe away, and it disintegrated into drifting streams of ectoplasm. He sat up straight in his chair and fixed me with a steady gaze, his ancient eyes pinning me where I stood. "To start with, there’s a new faction in the family. Gaining a lot of support, especially among the youngsters. Basically, it boils down to a Let’s get them before they get us strategy. This new faction is talking very loudly about the virtues of preemptive strikes and a zero tolerance for all identified bad guys. No more dealing with problems as they arise; stick it to the bad guys with extreme prejudice, whether we can prove anything or not."