Late at night, NATO Intelligence Headquarters, Bonn.
 
The feeling that he was no longer alone made the hair on the back of Klaus’s neck prickle. Abruptly, he looked up; his eyes widened for a second, then he fixed a baleful glare on the tall man who leaned nonchalantly against the wall, watching him.

“How did you get through security?” Klaus demanded. “And who the hell are you?”

The unexpected visitor raised one eyebrow. “Your security system didn’t register my presence. And I’m surprised you don’t recognize me.”

Klaus ground his teeth; if this was a game of sarcasm, two could play at it. “I can see you’re in costume for a fancy-dress ball,” he sneered. “Or is it one of those comic-book events being held in town this week?”

The visitor smirked faintly. “In denial about what you see, Klaus? Again?" Panther-like, he moved away from the wall to stand beside Klaus’s chair. “You know who I am.”

With a last poisonous look at his visitor, Klaus focused his attention firmly back on the papers on his desk. “F**k off, Pumpkin Pants. You’ve been dead for more than four hundred years. You don’t exist anymore.”

Tyrian seemed startled and a bit hurt to be so rudely addressed for a second, but his smirk returned almost instantly. “You’re right; I don’t, so you might as well stop reaching for that weapon,” he remarked. “Not like you can kill me with it.”

Angry to have been seen through, Klaus withdrew his hand from his office drawer and glowered at his long-dead ancestor again. “If you have something to say, then say it and get the hell out of here,” he barked. “You may have all eternity to laze about but I’m a busy man.”

“Dear me, such appalling manners; almost as dreadful as that tasteless attire,” Tyrian said with the same infuriating smirk; Klaus had a good mind to punch it off his face, but that probably wouldn’t work against a ghost. Instead he transfixed him again with his infamous glare, but unfortunately that didn’t seem to work either. “I hope you didn’t come from the afterlife to give me fashion tips,” he said acidly.

Tyrian didn’t answer; instead he leaned from behind Klaus’ chair and whispered softly in his ear, “You really don’t like me, do you, Klaus…even though you’re almost the spitting image of me.”

“I am nothing like you,” Klaus ground out through clenched teeth. “And you manage to give me trouble even when you’re stuck in a canvas, so I have every reason not to like you.”

“Oh, you mean because Dorian is trying to steal me all the time?” Tyrian said with a smug smile. “Such an adorable young man…he reminds me of Benedict so much,” he went on with a wistful look, then turned to Klaus again. “Why won’t you let him have me anyway? You don’t want me around in the first place…and truthfully I’d rather be owned by someone who would appreciate me as I deserve.”

“That portrait of yours is worth as much as a tank,” Klaus said matter-of-factly. “I’m not about to give it away to some pesky thief.”

“Come now, Klaus, you don’t actually expect me to believe that,” Tyrian cooed in his ear. “You and I both know that money means nothing to you. Besides, that way you’d get rid of both him and me…isn’t that what you want?”

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Klaus said stubbornly. “Whether I like it or not you are part of Germany’s cultural heritage and as such it is my duty to guard you.”

“You’re lying again,” Tyrian said with a knowing smile. “The real reason you won’t let go of me…is that you are afraid.”

Klaus whisked around sharply to face the meddlesome ghost. With a look on his face which would have made all of his alphabets request a transfer to Alaska, effective immediately, he said in a low, dangerous voice, stressing on every syllable, “I. am. not. afraid. of. anything.”

“Oh, but you are,” whispered Tyrian behind him, once again showing no sign of being intimidated. “You are very much afraid…that once Dorian gets his hands on me, he may never come looking for you again. We are, after all, practically identical…only I am much more charming.” He let out a soft chuckle; enraged, Klaus turned once again to glare at him, only to come face to face with the bare wall. The ghost, or whatever it was, had vanished into thin air.

Half an hour later, Schloss Eberbach.

Herr Hinkel put down the receiver, shaking his head perplexedly. Another servant passing by noticed his troubled expression and asked him what was the matter.

“I’ll never understand what the young master is thinking,” the elderly butler said with concern. “Remember that painting he was trying to sell behind the master’s back a few years ago – the one of his ancestor? Even though I told him time and again what an important piece of the family collection it was he still was determined to sell it; he seemed to hate it for some reason.” He shook his head again. “Well, just now he called to tell me he’s having the latest security system installed around it first thing tomorrow.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “My word, I can never tell what’s going on in the lad’s head.”