Competence

by Gail Carriger

  Rue sucked her teeth and looked at Tasherit, whose invisible tail was clearly twitching.

  “No, I can’t allow it,” Rue said finally in her captain’s voice. “I’m not comfortable sending you and Percy into a hive of fat-sucking vampires without protection!”

  “Neither am I!” added the werecat, throwing an arm about Prim and dragging her close.

  Primrose set down her teacup hurriedly before she spilled due to the violence of Tasherit’s affection. Prim liked the gesture, for all it interrupted her tea and came under the guise of thwarting her will. Although public affection was a bit embarrassing. “See here, we think rationally. We start with the classic calling card. We arrive punctually, in style, and appropriately attired. We observe all the proper forms of address and etiquette as established by vampires. Percy and I were raised with that, raised with the ancient Egyptian version, no less. Very old and well-established traditions and patterns of behaviour. I know these aren’t the same kind of vampire, but this is the best approach we have.”

  “But Prim, you’re food!” Rue could never be prey, since contact would always give her the advantage, so she’d never had to think of herself that way.

  Primrose straightened her spine. “Physically, not as much as you, apparently. I’ll barter a nibble or two if necessary.”

  “Oh no, you will not!” Tasherit did not like that idea at all. The arm about her tightened into an iron band.

  Primrose shrugged. “I’ve given blood before. Fat can’t be that bad. A little off the waist or a little off the hips, perhaps.”

  “No one,” Tasherit hissed, “is doing anything with your waist or hips. Unless it’s me, of course.” Her hand stroked the threatened parts of Prim’s anatomy.

  Primrose blushed heartily and batted her off. She was not to be detoured. “Can you think of a better way to handle this situation? Presuming the initial social gaffe was ours in approaching them without invite, then this is a vampire problem. Sending the children of vampires to fix it seems an elegant solution.” Carefully she poured Rue a bit more tea, soothing her with ritual.

  Rue considered Primrose, carefully tending to all their teatime needs despite the werecat’s hold, tidy in her dress and careful in her manner. She capitulated, as Prim knew she would. “Oh, very well.”

  “What? No!” Tasherit stood and pressed her hands to the table to steady herself.

  “So long as Percy agrees,” added Rue.

  “You’re leaving it up to Percy?” Tasherit hissed.

  Rue’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll go ask him and then send Prim’s calling card if he agrees. Prim, have you any on you?”

  Primrose took out her ledger and extracted two of her better calling cards. They were full sized, gilt embossed, and very elegant. These were the ones she used when she needed to impress.

  The Honourable Miss Primrose Tunstell, daughter of Baroness Ivy Tunstell, vampire queen, Wimbledon Hive, London, England.

  On the back of the card, Prim wrote carefully, mindful of preventing any further cultural confusion:

  Respectfully requests to call. The Honourable Professor Percival Tunstell as escort. She acts as hive representative and hopes to rekindle global relations between our queen and yours.

  She handed that and the blank one to Rue. “Have Percy translate my words to the blank one exactly as written, placement and everything.”

  Rue nodded, taking the two cards. “He’s going to need a bit more time to do his research. Shall we reconvene in an hour?” She looked pointedly back and forth between Tasherit and Primrose. “You’re welcome to try to persuade Prim to your way of thinking, Miss Sekhmet.” Rue’s grin was wicked.

  Anitra giggled.

  Rue’s tawny eyes focused on Anitra. “As for you, young lady…” Anitra was older than Rue, so this was a slight insult. “My cousin? Are you certain?”

  Anitra looked perturbed. “That’s hardly fair. You’re gallivanting illicitly about with Mr Lefoux. And Miss Tunstell is now gallivanting about with Miss Sekhmet, but my Rodrigo is not worthy of gallivanting?”

  Primrose objected mildly, as she wasn’t sure she qualified as a gallivanter yet, but nevertheless grinned at her friend. “That does seem particularly unfair, Rue.”

  “You’re defending this assignation? You, Prim?”

  Primrose only inclined her head. “Did you see him with that bread knife? He’s an asset.”

  Tasherit nodded. “Can we keep him?”

  Primrose turned to glare at the werecat. “What’s with you and the keeping?”

  “Oh, not in the way I want to keep you, little one.” The chocolate eyes were warm and she raised a hand is if to pet Prim’s hair. Prim shook her head slightly and the werecat’s hand fell back to her side, reluctantly.

  Rue said to Anitra, “He’s likely still evil. I mean to say, we are doing our best, but ethical clarity doesn’t come easily to any of us. You marrying would be beneficial, I believe.”

  Anitra looked cheeky. “Yet you haven’t married Mr Lefoux.”

  Rue rolled her eyes. “He is not likely to murder us all in our beds. Quesnel has exemplary moral fibre and clear indications of soul. Rodrigo Tarabotti, on the other hand, needs mending. Marriage would do him good. Primrose? Tasherit?”

  Primrose nodded. “Yes, Anitra would set him a good example. Keep him tethered.”

  Tash shrugged. “I’ve never been married. But love is ever a stabilising influence on preternaturals. Or so my various encounters with the soulless would lead me to suspect.”

  Anitra clearly had objected only in order to make a point. Under the combined regard of all three ladies her token resistance crumbled. “We have discussed it.” She crossed her hands in her lap and lowered her gaze, hiding a small smile.

  “Oh, have you?” Rue didn’t like to be the last to know things aboard her ship.

  “Primrose said you were qualified to perform the ceremony. So I asked Rodrigo, and he found the idea hilarious.”

  “He thinks marrying you is amusing?” Rue was not pleased with that.

  “No, he thinks you officiating is.”

  Rue cast her hands up to heaven. “Fine, we will arrange a wedding, then. Perhaps after we settle the matter of annoyed fat-sucking vampires? Now, go on with the lot of you. I must go pacify Quesnel, he’s annoyed with me for some reason.”

  “You left him aboard ship and dashed into danger, as you do. He doesn’t like to be left behind,” Prim explained as she stood in response to Tasherit’s insistent tugging.

  “And yet I will continue to do so for the rest of our lives, I expect. Poor boy. Don’t worry, I’ve ways of making him forgive me.” Rue’s smile was wicked. “I’ll see you all in the stateroom in an hour. Use your time wisely.”

  Tasherit immediately dragged Primrose out the door and down the hallway.

  The werecat’s room was closest. Tasherit pushed her inside.

  “Wait, my tea!”

  Tasherit slammed the door, pushed Primrose up against the wall. She nudged in against her, rubbing their cheeks together, inhaling her scent.

  “I love the chase, little one, and you have led me a merry one, but I caught you fairly now.”

  “You have,” capitulated Prim, not caring anymore. It was too difficult to care. “So what will you do with me?”

  Tasherit leaned even farther into her, as if she were trying to shift into Primrose, inhabit her skin. Prim felt warm and flushed and itchy with want. Not knowing what to do, she made a small helpless whimper at her own inexperience.

  The noise seemed to spark something in the werecat. Tash took it as surrender. And perhaps it was.

  Tash lifted her easily (supernatural strength and all) and tossed her to the bed. Prim had hardly a moment to realise she was sprawled back before the werecat pounced down atop her.

  Tash kissed her then, licking into her mouth with hungry murmurs. Prim thought it was like being loved by a sunbeam - a damp sunbeam, but still. She thr
illed under the attention, her skin drawn and hungry although Tash was the one nibbling. Tiny bites, small hints of teeth along neck and sides.

  The werecat’s response to Prim’s underthings was priceless.

  “Why so many ruffles?”

  Her frustration with the stays nearly resulted in her rending the laces asunder.

  “I must have a knife here somewhere.”

  Prim glared and laughed at the same time.

  “Don’t you dare, it’s my best corset!” Prim showed her how to unlace the back and then pop open the front.

  Tash stripped her of the last of her undergarments and frowned over the wrinkled fabric impressions the tight restriction had left on Prim’s ribs and stomach.

  “They go away in a short while.”

  Tasherit rubbed Primrose then, elegant golden hands on Prim’s pale flesh. Primrose thought she had never seen anything more arousing in her life. It was as if Tash thought she could stroke away the remnants of Prim’s self-inflicted confinement.

  “Tash,” Prim whispered, arching into the touch. Reminding her there was no injury here, there was something else that needed attention. Something Prim could not name and did not understand.

  But Tasherit did. Decades on this earth, and she understood it very well indeed. She was a patient tutor and a delighted guide, and a single point of joy both in finding Prim’s pleasure and in taking her own.

  For the first time in her life, Primrose forgot entirely about her tea.

  An hour later, after retreating to his library, Percy reluctantly left it once more and joined the rest of the officers, and Rodrigo, in the stateroom.

  Primrose had laid out a nice little spread of snacks, but the tea was cold and overbrewed. It had been left sitting out. There was no other explanation. He was aghast.

  Percy glanced around suspiciously. Everyone looked awfully relaxed: Quesnel and Rue shared that secret smile of theirs, Anitra and Rodrigo were billing and cooing as if they were, in fact, doves, Tasherit looked even smugger than usual, and Primrose was positively dishevelled.

  Percy was tolerably certain that his sister had never in her life left out the tea things. And was she wearing one of Tasherit’s robes? In public?

  Tasherit nuzzled - really, actually nuzzled! - his sister’s ear. Primrose giggled (positively giggled) like a schoolgirl. Percy suppressed an inclination to shudder.

  I mean to say! It’s all very well for things to have finally settled in that regard, but to nuzzle and giggle? Percy glared. Puts a man off his feed, that kind of behaviour with sisters. He pushed away his plate of food petulantly.

  “Percy, what have you got for us?” Thank heavens Rue decided to get onto official business. All these happy satisfied couples were quite messing with Percy’s peace of mind.

  Percy cleared his throat. “If we can get them to swarm - and no, I’ve no idea how that might work exactly - but if we can get them into motion, then our only option is to send them north.”

  He brought out a map. “Central America, here, and the Mexican territory above that, here, are both also Catholic countries. So we must get the pishtacos through those fast. I recommend we put them on a sleeper train out of Lima. If we rent the whole first-class carriage, board over the windows, and hire guards, it is two weeks’ journey into that new state that just got approved, here. California.” He traced the route with his fingertip.

  Rue frowned. “But isn’t North America just as bad about vampires as the church?”

  “No, they aren’t just as bad. They’re differently bad. California is a mere infant, but still vested in the United States and that silly constitution of theirs.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Rue wanted to know.

  Percy felt this should be perfectly obvious so he glared around the table, waiting for someone else to know the answer.

  “Separation of church and state?” suggested Quesnel.

  “Exactly, Mr Lefoux. No Inquisition is permitted within the United States.”

  “But don’t they still hate vampires?” Rue was like a dog with a nice juicy bone, or a vampire with a nice juicy neck - she would not let it go.

  Percy could only explain what he’d read. “California doesn’t have any vampires of record, never has. There are no vampire hives west of the Rocky Mountains. Settlers’ records suggest this had something to do with coyotes. I’m not clear on the particulars. Regardless, if we can get these pishtacos up there, and convince the locals that these aren’t real vampires, we might have an in.”

  “Why?”

  “Americans,” said Percy succinctly, “like to be skinny.”

  Primrose brightened up. “Oh, Percy, very nicely done. Prey on their vanity? I applaud this idea.”

  Percy gave her an assessing look. “With you for a sister I could hardly discount the importance of appearances.”

  “I don’t know whether to be insulted or not.”

  Percy rolled his eyes. “Appearances kept you from doing what was needed for near on your whole life. If you can’t resist, neither can all of North America.”

  “He’s right, you know,” said Quesnel. “Morality has a way of folding under the pressure of vanity.”

  Prim frowned, “Hey now—”

  Percy cut her off. They hadn’t time for her to get huffy. “We simply must convince them that pishtacos are the latest and greatest diet scheme ever, and the local Californians will welcome them with open arms.”

  “Percy - and you know I don’t say this lightly, because I hate to have to do it…”

  Percy looked at his captain with expectant dread. “Yes, Rue?”

  “You’re a genius.”

  Percy let out a long breath. “Oh, good. Yes, well. I know that. Nice of you to say, though.”

  Primrose put down her fork and grinned at him then, in a way he found most suspicious. “So, brother darling, are you ready to go try to persuade them of your genius plan?”

  Percy nodded. He hated the idea, of course he did, but he could see why Prim suggested the approach. They had been raised in a hive, and as a rule, people that his sister couldn’t convince with charm, he could persuade with facts. It’d worked before.

  Primrose sipped her tea and looked pleased with herself. No one would dare tell either of them how much she looked like him in that moment. But Percy knew it to be true.

  “They shot a message dart up with an affirmative acceptance of our call. We are to be welcomed to supper.”

  Percy suddenly wished he’d put on a great deal more weight, just in case he and Primrose were the supper in question.

  “I don’t think this your best idea, Tiddles, in terms of our safety.”

  “But you do think we can do it, right? Persuade them.”

  Percy gave her his best supportive look. “Don’t be silly. Of course we can do it.”

  Primrose did not put on her best visiting dress. Instead she opted for her minty disguise, as she called it, because it was one of the few gowns she owned that made her look slender. There was something about the very simplicity of cut and colour that turned her curves into planes. Ordinarily, this was to be avoided, but occasionally some role or another drove her to present as a stylish maiden aunt or severe chaperone or young-but-strict governess, rather than the coquette. This dress was a very pale sateen with a reverse scalloped edge worn over cream watered silk.

  The minty disguise was all over pale mint in colour, with nothing to disturb its refreshing qualities. It had a tiny bit of cream lace in a military detail about the shoulders and a very high collar, but otherwise nothing but mint. It was severe rather than flattering, and had such long tight sleeves no part of it might be thought of as an invitation. With the addition of cream gloves, every part of Prim’s skin was covered except her face. She wore a pearl brooch that she could afford to lose, and silk flowers in her hair.

  Despite the fact that it clashed most awfully and was low on darts and acid, Primrose took her
battle parasol along. She had great faith in her own abilities, but it was always best to have a parasol in reserve.

  Then she went to retrieve her final accessory - Percy.

  She found him mostly dressed in a very dark green evening suit that emphasised his lanky form. But he was only mostly dressed. He was facing up against his valet, who was practically in tears, on the subject of headgear.

  Virgil was wringing his hands. “But sir, you can’t go calling on vampires without a hat!”

  “I refuse to wear that bally fez any longer!” The fez in question had been cast in disgust upon the bed, where Footnote was pacifying it into submission through the simple expedient of wrapping his teeth about the edge to hold it steady and attempting to eviscerate it with his back legs.

  Primrose felt that both Footnote and her brother were correct in their fez offensive. The royal blue velvet clashed with his green suit, the silver embroidery was garish to say the least. And frankly, one couldn’t go calling on pishtacos in a Turkish lounging cap, that absolutely wasn’t the done thing. But Virgil was a sensitive lad and Prim didn’t wish to hurt his feelings unduly.

  “Gentlemen, what seems to be the issue?” She pushed her way into Percy’s room.

  “Oh, Miss Tunstell!” Virgil turned wet pleading eyes on Primrose. She suspected some of those tears were from frustration, and the rest from the idea of Percy heading into grave danger, with or without a hat. Virgil was oddly fond of her brother.

  The little valet wrung his hands together. “He hasn’t any top hats left, and he can’t just go visiting immortals hatless. What will he take off at the front door? It’s not dignified.”

  “Your valet has a valid point, Percy. Virgil, run and ask Quesnel if we can borrow one of his top hats for the evening. This is an important visit and a formal matter of ship’s business, I’m sure he’ll be accommodating.”

  “Oh, thank you, Miss Tunstell!” Virgil scampered off.

  “I agree about the fez, brother dear.” Primrose decided to try and get on Percy’s good side. The last thing she needed was a hostile sibling while headed into hostile territory. “It’s perfectly horrid.”