Such were the mundane thoughts that passed through a werewolf’s head as he ran the country lanes toward London. Woolsey Castle was some distance away from the metropolis, just north of Barking, a good two hours by carriage or dirigible and a little less on four legs. Time passed and eventually wet grass, neat hedgerows, and startled bunnies gave way to muddy streets, stone walls, and disinterested alley cats.
The earl found himself enjoying the run a good deal less when, just after entering the city proper, right around Fairfoot Road, he abruptly and completely lost his wolf form. It was the most astonishing thing—one moment he was dashing along on four paws, and the next his bones were crunching, his fur retreating, and his knees crashing down upon the cobbles. It left him, shivering and panting, naked in the road.
“Great ghosts!” exclaimed the aggrieved nobleman.
Never had he experienced the like. Even when his gloriously frustrating wife used her preternatural touch to force him back into humanity, it was not so sudden. She generally gave him some warning. Well, a little warning. Well, a yell or two.
He looked about, worried. But Alexia was nowhere near, and he was pretty darn certain he had managed to leave her safe, if fuming, back at the castle. There were no other preternaturals registered for the greater London area. What, then, had just happened?
He looked to his knees, which were bleeding slightly and quite definitely not healing. Werewolves were supernatural: such minor scrapes ought to be closing up right before his eyes. Instead they leaked his slow old blood onto the muddy stones.
Lord Maccon tried to change back, reaching for that place from which he drove his body to split its biological nature. Nothing. He tried for his Anubis Form, the Alpha’s ace, with the head of the wolf and the body of a man. Still nothing. Which left him sitting on Fairfoot Road, completely unclothed, and deeply confused.
Struck with the spirit of investigation, he backtracked a short way. He tried for Anubis Form, changing just his head into that of a wolf, an Alpha trick that was faster than full shift. It worked but left him in a conundrum: dally about as a wolf, or press on to the office naked? He changed his head back.
Normally, when there was a chance he might have to change publicly, the earl carried a cloak in his mouth. But he had thought to make it safely to the BUR offices and into the cloakroom there before decency became necessary. Now he regretted such careless confidence. Formerly Merriway had been right—something was terribly wrong in London, and that apart from the fact that he was currently lollygagging about starkers inside it. It would appear that it was not only the ghosts who were being affected. Werewolves, too, were undergoing alteration. He gave a tight smile and retreated hurriedly behind a pile of crates. He would lay good money that the vampires weren’t growing any feeding fangs tonight either—at least not the ones living near the Thames. Countess Nadasdy, queen of the Westminster hive, must be positively frantic. Which, he realized with a grimace, meant he was likely to get the unparalleled pleasure of a visit from Lord Ambrose later that evening. It was going to be a long night.
The Bureau of Unnatural Registry was not situated, as many a confused tourist expected, in the vicinity of Whitehall. It was in a small, unassuming Georgian building just off Fleet Street, near the Times offices. Lord Maccon had made the switch ten years ago, when he discovered that it was the press, not the government, that generally had a handle on what was truly transpiring around the city—political or otherwise. This particular evening, he had cause to regret his decision, as he now had to make his way through the commercial district as well as several crowded thoroughfares in order to get to his office.
He almost managed the trek without being seen, skulking through the grubby streets and around the mud-spattered corners—London’s finest back alleys. It was quite the feat, as the streets were crawling with soldiers. Fortunately, they were intent on celebrating their recent return to London and not his large white form. But he was spotted by the most unexpected individual, near St. Bride, the unfragrant scent of Fleet Street in the air.
A toff of the highest water, dressed to the nines in a lovely cut-front jacket and stunning lemon-yellow cravat tied in the Osbaldeston style, materialized out of the darkness behind a brewing pub, where no toff had a right to be. The man doffed his top hat amiably at the naked werewolf.
“Why, I do declare, if it isn’t Lord Maccon. How do you do? Fancy, aren’t we a tad underdressed for an evening’s stroll?” The voice was mildly familiar and laced with amusement.
“Biffy,” said the earl on a growl.
“And how is your lovely wife?” Biffy was a drone of reputation, and his vampire master, Lord Akeldama, was a dear friend of Alexia’s. Much to Lord Maccon’s annoyance. So, come to think of it, was Biffy. Last time the drone had visited Woolsey Castle with a message from his master, he and Alexia had spent hours discussing the latest hairstyles out of Paris. His wife had a penchant for gentlemen of the frivolous persuasion. Conall paused to deduce what that said about his own character.
“Hang my lovely wife,” he answered. “Get into that tavern there and wrestle me up a coat of some kind, would you?”
Biffy arched an eyebrow at him. “You know, I would offer you my coat, but it’s a swallowtail, hardly useful, and would never fit that colossal frame of yours anyway.” He gave the earl a long, appraising look. “Well, well, isn’t my master going to be all of a crumble for not having seen this?”
“Your impossible patron has seen me naked already.”
Biffy tapped his bottom lip with a fingertip and looked intrigued.
“Oh for goodness’ sake, you were there,” said Lord Maccon, annoyed.
Biffy only smiled.
“A cloak.” A pause, then the added grumble of, “Please!”
Biffy vanished and returned with alacrity, bearing an oilskin greatcoat of ill design and briny smell but that was at least large enough to cover the earl’s indignities.
The Alpha shrugged it on and then glared at the still-smiling drone. “I smell like parboiled seaweed.”
“Navy’s in town.”
“So, what do you know of this madness?” Biffy might be a pink, and his vampire master even more so, but Lord Akeldama was also London’s main busybody, and he ran his ring of impeccably clad informants so efficiently it put anything the government could muster to shame.
“Eight regiments came into port yesterday: the Black Scotts, Northumberland, the Coldsteam Guards—”Biffy was pointedly obtuse.
Lord Maccon interrupted him. “Not that—the mass exorcism.”
“Mmm, that. That is why I was waiting for you.”
“Of course you were,” sighed Lord Maccon.
Biffy stopped smiling. “Shall we walk, my lord?” He took up position next to the werewolf, who was no werewolf at all anymore, and they strode together toward Fleet Street. The earl’s bare feet made no noise on the cobbles.
“What!” The amazed exclamation emanated from not one, but two sources: Alexia and the heretofore forgotten Tunstell. The claviger had sat down behind the corner of the stoop to nurse the results of Major Channing’s discipline.
Upon hearing Miss Hisselpenny’s news, however, the gangly actor reappeared. He was sporting a large red mark about the right eye, which was destined to darken in a most colorful manner, and was pinching his nose to stanch the flow of blood. Both Alexia’s handkerchief and his own cravat appeared much the worse for the experience.
“Engaged, Miss Hisselpenny?” In addition to his disheveled aspect, Tunstell was looking quite tragic, in a Shakespearean comedy kind of way. From behind the handkerchief, his eyes were wide in distress. Tunstell had been mighty taken with Miss Hisselpenny ever since they danced together at Lord and Lady Maccon’s wedding, but they had not been allowed to mingle socially since. Miss Hisselpenny was a lady of consequence, and Tunstell was but a lowly claviger and an actor to boot. Alexia had not comprehended the extent of his attachment. Or perhaps the attachment meant more now that it was no longer possible.
“To whom?” Lady Maccon asked the obvious question.
Ivy ignored her and dashed to Tunstell’s side.
“You are injured!” she gasped, bunches of grapes and silk strawberries bobbing about. She pulled out her own minuscule handkerchief, embroidered with small clusters of cherries, and dabbed at his face unhelpfully.
“A mere scratch, Miss Hisselpenny, I assure you,” said Tunstell, looking pleased by her ministrations, as ineffectual as they may be.
“But you are bleeding, simply gouts and gouts of it,” insisted Ivy.
“Not to worry, not to worry, the business end of a fist will do that to a person, you know.”
Ivy gasped. “Fisticuffs! Oh, how perfectly horrid! Poor Mr. Tunstell.” Ivy petted an unbloodied corner of the man’s cheek with her white-gloved hand.
Poor Mr. Tunstell did not seem to mind, if this was the result. “Oh, please, do not trouble yourself so,” he said, leaning into her caress. “My, what an enchanting hat, Miss Hisselpenny, so”—he hesitated, searching for the right word—“fruity.”
Ivy blushed beet red at that. “Oh, do you like it? I bought it specially.”
That did it. “Ivy,” said Alexia sharply, bringing her friend back around to the important business at hand. “To whom have you gotten yourself engaged, exactly?”
Miss Hisselpenny snapped back to the present, drifting away from the alluring Mr. Tunstell. “His name is Captain Featherstonehaugh, and he has just returned with the Northumberling Fusilli, all the way from Inja.”
“You mean the Northumberland Fusiliers.”
“Is that not what I just said?” Ivy was all big-eyed innocence and excitement.
The dewan’s army reshuffling clearly involved far more regiments than Alexia had thought. She would have to find out what the queen and her commanders were about at the Shadow Council meeting.
The meeting she was now inexcusably late for.
Miss Hisselpenny continued. “It is not a bad match, although Mama would have preferred a major at the very least. But you know”—she lowered her voice to almost a whisper—“I haven’t really the luxury of choice at my age.”
Tunstell looked quite put out upon hearing that. He thought Miss Hisselpenny a grand catch, older than he to be sure, but imagine her having to settle on a mere captain. He opened his mouth to say so but showed unexpected restraint upon receipt of a high-stakes glare from his mistress.
“Tunstell,” instructed Lady Maccon, “go away and be useful. Ivy, felicitations on your impending nuptials, but I really must be off. I have an important meeting, for which I am now late.”
Ivy was watching Tunstell’s retreating back. “Of course, Captain Featherstonehaugh was not exactly what I had hoped for. He is quite the military man, you understand, very stoic. That kind of thing would seem to suit you, Alexia, but I had hoped for a man with the soul of a bard.”
Alexia threw her hands up into the air. “He is a claviger. You know what that means? Someday, relatively soon, he will petition for metamorphosis and then probably die in the attempt. Even if he came through intact, he would then be a werewolf. You don’t even like werewolves.”
Ivy gave her an even-wider-eyed look as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The grapes bobbed. “He could always leave before that.”
“To be what? A professional actor? Living on a penny a day and the approbation of a fickle public?”
Ivy sniffed. “Who says we are discussing Mr. Tunstell?”
Alexia was driven to distraction. “Get into the carriage, Ivy. I shall take you back to town.”
Miss Hisselpenny nattered on about her impending marriage and its companion apparel, invitation list, and comestibles for the entirety of the two-hour ride into London. Not much was said, however, about the prospective groom. Alexia was made to realize, during the course of that drive, that he apparently was of little consequence to the proceedings. She watched her friend climb down and trot inside the Hisselpenny’s modest town house with a slight pang of concern. What was Ivy doing? But with no time at the moment to worry over Miss Hisselpenny’s situation, Lady Maccon directed the driver on to Buckingham.
The guards were expecting her. Lady Maccon was always at the palace two hours after dark on Sundays and Thursdays without fail. And she was one of the most unproblematic of the queen’s regular visitors, being the least high-and-mighty, for all her forthright tone and pointed opinions. After the first two weeks, she had even gone to the trouble of learning all of their names. It was the little things that made someone grand. The ton were suspicious of Lord Maccon’s choice, but the military was rather pleased with it. They welcomed straightforward talk, even from a female.
“You are late, Lady Maccon,” said one, checking her neck for bite marks and her dispatch case for illegal steam devices.
“Don’t I know it, Lieutenant Funtington, don’t I know it,” replied the lady.
“Well, we shan’t keep you. Go on in, my lady.”
Lady Maccon gave him a tight smile and went.
The dewan and the potentate were already waiting for her. Queen Victoria was not. The queen usually arrived nearer to midnight, after presiding over her family and supper, and stayed only to hear the results of their debate and formulate any final decisions.
“I cannot apologize enough for having kept you both,” said Alexia. “I had unexpected squatters on my front lawn and an equally unexpected engagement to handle this evening. No excuses, I know, but those are my reasons.”
“Well, there you have it,” snarled the dewan, “The affairs of the British Empire must wait on squatters and your good graces.” Landed as the Earl of Upper Slaughter but without any real country seat, the dewan was one of the few werewolves in England who could give the Earl of Woolsey a fight for his fur and had had occasion to prove it. He was almost as big as Conall Maccon but slightly older-looking, with dark hair, a wide face, and deep-set eyes. He ought to have been handsome, except that his mouth was a little too full, the cleft in his chin a little too pronounced, and his mustache and muttonchops astonishingly assertive.
Alexia had spent long hours wondering over that mustache. Werewolves did not grow hair, as they did not age. Where had it come from? Had he always had it? For how many centuries had his poor abused upper lip labored under the burden of such vegetation?
Tonight, however, she ignored both him and his facial protuberances. “So,” she said, sitting down and placing the dispatch case on the table next to her, “shall we on to business?”
“By all means,” replied the potentate, his voice honeyed and cool. “Are you feeling well this evening, muhjah?”
Alexia was surprised by the question. “Quite.”
The vampire member of the Shadow Council was the more dangerous of the two. He had age on his side and much less to prove than the dewan. Also, while the dewan made a show of disliking Lady Maccon for form’s sake, Alexia knew for a fact that the potentate actually loathed her. He had registered an official complaint in writing on the occasion of her marriage to the Woolsey Pack Alpha and the same again when Queen Victoria brought her in to sit on the Shadow Council. Alexia had never discerned exactly why. But he had the support of the hives in this as in most things, which made him far more powerful than the dewan, for whom pack loyalty seemed wobbly.
“No stomach ailments?”
Alexia gave the vampire a suspicious look. “No, none. Could we get on?”
Generally, the Shadow Council administered supernatural interaction with the Crown. While BUR handled enforcement, the Shadow Council dealt with legislative issues, political and military guidance, and the occasional sticky-residue snafu. During Alexia’s few months on board, discussions had ranged from hive authorization in the African provinces, to military code covering the death of an Alpha overseas, to neck-exposure mandates in public museums. They had not yet had a genuine crisis to deal with. This, Alexia felt, was going to be interesting.
She snapped open the lid of her dispatch case and extracted
her harmonic auditory resonance disruptor, a spiky little apparatus that looked exactly like two tuning forks sticking out of a crystal. She tapped one fork with her finger, waited a moment, and then tapped the other. The two produced a discordant, low-pitched humming noise, amplified by the crystal that would prevent their conversation from being overheard. She placed the device carefully in the middle of the massive meeting table. The sound was annoying, but they had all learned to deal with it. Even inside the security of Buckingham Palace, one could never be too careful.
“What, exactly, has happened in London this evening? Whatever it was had my husband up scandalously early, just after sunset, and my local ghost informant in a positive fluster.” Lady Maccon removed her favorite little notebook and a stylographic pen imported from the Americas.
“You do not know, muhjah?” sneered the dewan.
“Of course I know. I am simply wasting everyone’s time by inquiring, for my own amusement.” Alexia was sarcastic to the last.
“Neither of us look any different to you this evening?” The potentate steepled his long fingers together on the tabletop, pure white and snakelike against the dark mahogany, and looked at her out of beautiful, deep-set green eyes.
“Why are you humoring her? Obviously she must have something to do with it.” The dewan stood and began to pace about the room—his customary restless state during most of their meetings.
Alexia pulled her favorite glassicals out of her dispatch case and put them on. They were properly called monocular cross-magnification lenses with spectral modifier attachment, but everyone was calling them glassicals these days, even Professor Lyall. Alexia’s were made of gold, inset with decorative onyx around the side that did not boast multiple lenses and a liquid suspension. The many small knobs and dials were also made of onyx, but the expensive touches did not stop them from looking ridiculous. All glassicals looked ridiculous: the unfortunate progeny of an illicit union between a pair of binoculars and opera glasses.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 33
