The mysterious abeyance was over, with the aroma of roasted meats and
spiced brews quickly giving way before the godawful stench of aerosol
poisons and beetles flambe as Pete defended himself.

In the coatroom, Sebastian wrestled with the charred angel-corpse
which held him. The casual nonchalance which usually accompanied the
goings on in this place yielding inexorably to panic as he realized
none of Arcadia's more potent residents had materialized to save him.
Cassandra looked on helplessly as the blackened, almost featureless
face of the damned thing pressed its lips over Sebastian's. The soft
tissues of Sebastian's face split and sizzled... and there was a
sucking sound, as the horror began to draw the loyal servitor's soul
from his body.

"Oh no you don't!" Cassandra hissed, flowing forward. As a ghost, she
had limited options when it came to fighting incarnate beings. But in
the realms of the immaterial, she was a veteran. Abandoning her human
semblance, Cassandra stabbed towards the lip-locked adversaries as a
stream of pure etheric force... She passed through angel and man at a
right angle, snatching Sebastian's soul away an instant before it was
devoured. She sailed through the walls of the coatroom and out
towards other parts of the house, trailing a dazed and disoriented
and uncharacteristically non-corporeal Sebastian in her shimmering
wake...

"Uh, my body!?" he prodded...

"Worry about it later," Cassandra snapped back. "I've gotten on
without one for years... and if you're that attached to it, maybe we
can find a way to get you back into it... but for now... how about
a 'thank you?' Or would you have preferred to be left to that thing's
hunger!?"

"Hmmm... I suppose you have a point..."

Meanwhile, the subject of the spirits' discussion had suddenly lost
the attention of the blasted angelic. Dropping Sebastian's blistered
and listless body, it moved to rejoin the rest of the hoard...