Changeless

by Gail Carriger

Page 38

 

  Angelique stumbled over the fallen form of one of the pack members.

  “Just you stop right there,” yelled Lady Maccon in her best muhjah voice.

  French maid and mummy were almost at the door when Lady Maccon pounced, prodding Angelique viciously with the tip of the parasol.

  Angelique froze, turning her head toward her former mistress. Her big violet eyes were wide.

  Lady Maccon gave her a tight little smile. “Now, then, my dear, one lump or two?” Before the girl could answer her, she hauled her arm back and bashed Angelique as hard as she could over the head.

  The maid and the mummy both fell.

  “Apparently, just one is sufficient. ”

  At the top of the stairs, Miss Hisselpenny gave a little cry of alarm and then clapped her hand to her mouth. “Alexia,” she hissed, “how could you possibly behave so forcefully? With a parasol! To your own maid. It simply is not the thing to discipline one’s staff so barbarically! I mean to say, your hair always looked perfectly well done to me. ”

  Lady Maccon ignored her and kicked the mummy out of the way.

  Ivy gasped again. “What are you doing? That is an ancient artifact. You love those old things!”

  Lady Maccon could have done without the commentary. She had no time for historical scruples. The blasted mummy was causing too many problems and, if left intact, would become a logistical nightmare. There was no way it could be allowed to exist. Hang the scientific consequences.

  She checked Angelique’s breathing. The spy was still alive.

  The best thing to do, Lady Maccon decided, was eliminate the mummy. Everything else could be dealt with subsequently.

  Resisting the intense pushing sensation that urged her to get as far away from the awful thing as possible, Alexia dragged the mummy out onto the massive stone blocks that formed the front stoop of the castle. No sense in putting anyone else in danger.

  Madame Lefoux had not designed the parasol to emit anything particularly toxic to preternaturals, if there existed such a substance, but Alexia was confident sufficient application of acid could destroy most anything.

  She opened the parasol and flipped it so she was holding the spike. Just to be on the safe side, she turned the tiny dial above the magnetic disruption emitter all the way to the third click. The parasol’s six ribs opened, and a fine mist clouded over the mummy, drenching dehydrated skin and old bone. She swayed the parasol back and forth, to be sure the liquid covered the entire body, and then propped it over the mummy’s torso and backed away, leaving mummy and parasol alone together. The pungent aroma of burning acid permeated the air, and Alexia moved even farther away. Then came an odor like nothing she had ever smelled before: the final death of ancient bones, a mix of musty attic, and coppery blood.

  The repelling sensation emitted by the mummy began to decrease. The creature itself was gradually disintegrating, turning into a lumpy puddle of brown mush, irregular bits of bone and skin sticking out. It was no longer recognizable as human.

  The parasol kept spraying, the stone steps becoming pitted.

  Behind Alexia, inside Kingair Castle, at the top of the grand staircase, Ivy Hisselpenny screamed.

  On the other side of the British isle, in a hired, unmarked cab outside what looked to be a quite innocent, if expensive, town house in a discreetly fashionable neighborhood near Regent’s Park, Professor Randolph Lyall and Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings sat and waited. It was a dangerous place for two werewolves to be, just outside the Westminster Hive. Doubly dangerous in that they were not there in any official capacity. If this got back to BUR, Lyall was tolerably certain he would be out of a job and the major cashiered.

  They both practically jumped out of their skins, a true skill for a werewolf, when the cab door crashed open and a body tumbled inside.

  “Drive!”

  Major Channing banged on the roof of the cab with his pistol and the hack jumped forward. The horse’s hooves emitted a shockingly loud clatter in the London night air.

  “Well?” questioned Channing, impatient.

  Lyall reached down to help the young man regain his feet and his dignity.

  Biffy tossed back the black velvet cape that had fallen askew during his mad dash to safety. Lyall was at a loss to know how a cape could be of assistance when breaking and entering, but Biffy had insisted. “Dressing the part,” he had said, “is never optional. ”

  Professor Lyall grinned at the youngster. He really was a rather good-looking gentleman. Whatever else one might say about Lord Akeldama, and one might say a lot, he had excellent taste in drones. “So, how did it go?”

  “Oh, they have one, all right. Right up near the roof. A slightly older model than my master’s, but it looked to be in good working order. ”

  A good-looking and effective gentleman.

  “And?” Professor Lyall quirked an eyebrow.

  “Let us simply say, for the time being, that it is most likely not as useful as it was a little while ago. ”

  Major Channing looked at Biffy suspiciously. “What did you do?”

  “Well, you see, there was this pot of tea, simply sitting there…” He trailed off.

  “Useful thing, tea,” commented Lyall thoughtfully.

  Biffy grinned at him.

  It was not one of Ivy’s normal breathy, about-to-faint sort of screams. It was a scream of real terror, and it caused Lady Maccon to abandon her parasol to its acidic work and rush back inside, alone.

  The scream’s assertiveness had attracted the attention of others as well. Tunstell and a wobbly-looking Madame Lefoux both emerged from the downstairs parlor, despite Alexia’s orders to the contrary.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled at them. “Get back in there this instant!”

  But their collective attention was entirely held elsewhere. It was fixed on the landing above, where Angelique stood close behind Miss Hisselpenny, a deadly looking knife held to that young lady’s throat.

  “Miss Hisselpenny!” yelled Tunstell, his face suffused with horror. And then, abandoning all decency and decorum, “Ivy!”

  At the same time Madame Lefoux yelled, “Angelique, no!”

  Everyone charged toward the stairs. Angelique dragged Ivy back with her toward the room that had once housed the mummy.

  “Stay back or she will die,” said the maid in her native tongue, hand steady and eyes hard.

  Tunstell, not understanding, drew the Tue Tue and pointed it at the maid. Madame Lefoux pulled down on his arm. She proved surprisingly strong for one so recently injured. “You’ll hit the hostage. ”

  “Angelique, this is madness,” said Lady Maccon, trying to be reasonable. “I have destroyed the evidence. Soon the pack will be awake and recovered. Whatever drug you gave them will not last once they reclaim their supernatural state. It cannot possibly be long now. You simply will not be able to escape. ”

  Angelique continued to move backward, dragging the hapless Miss Hisselpenny with her. “Zen I have nothing to lose, non?” She continued into the room.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Lady Maccon and Tunstell both dashed up the stairs after her. Madame Lefoux tried to follow, but her progress was much slower. She was clutching at her wounded shoulder and breathing with difficulty.

  “I need her alive,” Alexia panted at Tunstell. “I have questions. ”

  Tunstell tucked the Tue Tue into his breeches and nodded.

  They attained the room at about the same time. They found Angelique, still armed, directing Ivy to open the shutters to the far window. Alexia bitterly regretted her lack of parasol. Really, she would have to chain the bloody thing to her side. Every time she did not have it, she found herself in grave need of its services. Before Angelique caught sight of them, Tunstell ducked down and to one side, using the various furnishings about the room to shield himself from the maid’s view.

&nbs
p; While he approached in secret, making his way cautiously about the room, Lady Maccon took it upon herself to distract the spy. It was not easy; Tunstell was not what one could describe as subtle. His flaming red hair bobbed up with each pointed and articulated footstep, as though he were some cloaked Gothic villain creeping across a stage. Melodramatic fat-head. It was a good thing the room was darkened, lit by only one gas lamp in the far corner.

  “Angelique,” Lady Maccon called.

  Angelique turned, jerking roughly at Miss Hisselpenny with her free hand, the other still clutching the wicked-looking knife at Ivy’s neck. “Hurry up,” she growled at Miss Hisselpenny. “You”—she jerked her chin at Alexia—“stay back and let me see your hands. ”

  Lady Maccon waved her empty hands about, and Angelique nodded, clearly pleased by the lack of weaponry. Alexia privately urged Ivy to faint. It would make matters much easier. Ivy remained stubbornly conscious and distraught. She never did faint when it was actually warranted.

  “Why, Angelique?” Lady Maccon asked, genuinely curious, not to mention eager to keep the maid’s attention off of the blatantly skulking Tunstell.

  The French girl smiled, her face even more beautiful. Her large eyes shone in the light of the gas lamp. “Because she asked me to. Because she promised she would try. ”

  “She. She who?”

  “Who do you think?” Angelique practically snapped back.

  Lady Maccon caught a whiff of vanilla scent, and then a soft voice spoke from her side. Madame Lefoux leaned weakly against the doorjamb next to her. “Countess Nadasdy. ”

  Lady Maccon frowned and bit at her lip, confused. She continued to speak to Angelique, only half acknowledging the inventor’s presence. “But I thought your former master was a rove. I thought you were at the Westminster Hive under sufferance. ”

  Angelique prodded at Ivy again, this time using the tip of the knife. Ivy squeaked and fumbled with the latch of the shutters, finally managing to throw them back. The castle was old, with no glass in its windows. Cool, wet night air rushed into the room.

  “You think too much, my lady,” sneered the spy.

  Tunstell, having finally made his way about the room, sprang forward at that moment, launching himself at the Frenchwoman. For the first time in their acquaintance, Alexia felt he was finally showing some of the grace and dexterity one would expect in a soon-to-be werewolf. Of course, it could all be showmanship, but it was impressive nevertheless.

  Miss Hisselpenny, seeing who it was who had come to her rescue, screamed and fainted, collapsing to one side of the open window.

  Finally, thought Alexia.

  Angelique reeled around, brandishing the knife.

  Tunstell and the maid grappled. Angelique struck out at the claviger with a wicked slash, training and practice behind the movement. He ducked, deflecting the blade with his shoulder. A bloody gash appeared on the meat of his upper arm.

  Lady Maccon jerked forward to go to Tunstell’s aid, but Madame Lefoux held her back. Her foot came down with a sad little crunch noise, and Alexia tore her gaze away from the grappling forms to see what had caused it. Ugh! The floor was littered with dead scarab beetles.

  The claviger was unsurprisingly stronger than Angelique. She was a delicate little thing, and he was built on the larger end of the scale, as both werewolves and stage directors preferred. What he lacked in technique, he more than made up for in brawn. He came up out of the crouch, twisting to push his uninjured shoulder to the maid’s gut. With a scream of anger, the woman fell backward out the window. This was probably not quite what she had originally intended upon opening it, if the rope ladder was any indication. She let forth a long, high scream that ended in a crunchy kind of thud.

  Madame Lefoux screamed herself and left off holding back Lady Maccon. The two dashed over to look out the window.

  Below, Angelique lay in a crumpled heap. Probably not the landing she had intended either.

  “Did you miss the part where I said I needed her alive?”

  Tunstell’s face was white. “Then she isn’t? I killed her. ”

  “No, she flew off into the aether. Of course you killed her, you—”

  Tunstell forestalled his mistress’s wrath by fainting into a freckled heap.

  Alexia turned her ire on Madame Lefoux. The inventor was staring, white-faced, down at the fallen maid.

  “Why did you hold me back?”

  Madame Lefoux opened her mouth, and a sound like stampeding elephants halted whatever she had been about to say.

  The members of the Kingair Pack appeared around the open doorway. They were minus their human companions, as the clavigers and Lady Kingair still labored under the effects of Angelique’s sleep drug. The fact that they were up and about indicated that the mummy must have finally and completely dissolved.

  “Move, you mongrels,” growled a vehement voice behind them. Just as quickly as they had appeared, the pack disappeared, and Lord Conall Maccon strode into the room.

  “Oh, good,” said his wife, “you are awake. What took you so long?”