Lyall was grateful to be out of the sun. He was old enough and strong enough not to be bothered by direct sunlight for short lengths of time, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the sensation. It felt like a tingling buzz just underneath the skin, highly unpleasant. Lord Maccon, of course, never seemed to notice sunlight at all, even when he was sober—Alphas!
“So where are you acquiring the alcohol, my lord?”
“Didna drink—hic—any alcohol.” Lord Maccon winked at his Beta and patted him on the shoulder affectionately, as though they were sharing some great secret.
Lyall was having none of that. “Well, my lord, I think perhaps you would have had to.”
“Nope.”
A tall, striking blond, with a perennially curled lip and hair in a military queue, rounded a corner of the hall and halted upon seeing them. “Is he soused again?”
“If you mean, ‘is he drunk still?’ then, yes.”
“Where, in all that is holy, is he getting the plonk?”
“Do you think I haven’t tried to figure that out? Don’t just stand there gawping. Make yourself useful.”
Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings slouched reluctantly over to brace his pack leader from the other side. Together the Beta and the Gamma steered their Alpha down the hall to the central staircase, up several floors, over, and up the final steps to the earl’s tower sleeping chamber. They managed this with only three casualties: Lord Maccon’s dignity (which hadn’t very far to fall at that point), Major Channing’s elbow (which met a mahogany finial), and an innocent Etruscan vase (which died so that Lord Maccon could lurch with sufficient exaggeration).
During the course of the proceedings, Lord Maccon started to sing. It was some obscure Scottish ballad, or perhaps some newer, more modern piece about cats dying—it was difficult to tell with Lord Maccon. Before his metamorphosis, he had been a rather well-thought-of opera singer, or so the rumors went, but all remnants of pitch were shredded beyond hope of salvation during his change to supernatural state. His skill as a singer had fled along with the bulk of his soul, leaving behind a man who could inflict real pain with the slightest ditty. Metamorphosis, reflected Lyall, wincing, was kinder to some than to others.
“Dinna wanna,” objected his lordship at the entrance to his sleeping chamber. “Reminds me.”
There was no trace of Alexia left in the room. She’d cleared out all of her personal possessions as soon as she returned from Scotland. But the three men in the doorway were werewolves; they merely needed to sniff the air and her scent was there—vanilla with a trace of cinnamon.
“This is going to be a long week,” said Channing in exasperation.
“Just help me get him into bed.”
The two werewolves managed, through dint of cajoling and brute force, to get Lord Maccon into his large four-poster bed. Once there, he flopped facedown, and almost immediately began snoring.
“Something simply must be done about him.” Channing’s accent was that of the privileged elite. It irritated Professor Lyall that the Gamma had never bothered to modify it over the decades. In the modern age, only elderly dowagers with too many teeth still spoke English that way.
Lyall refrained from comment.
“What if we have a challenger or a bid for metamorphosis? We should be getting more of both now that he has successfully changed a female into a werewolf. You cannot keep Lady Kingair a secret in Scotland forever.” Channing’s tone was full of both pride and annoyance. “Claviger petitions have already escalated; our Alpha should be handling those, not spending his days falling down drunk. This behavior is weakening the pack.”
“I can hold the challengers off,” said Professor Lyall with no shame, no modesty, and no boasting. Randolph Lyall might not be as large, nor as overtly masculine, as most werewolves but he had earned the right to be Beta in London’s strongest pack. Earned it so many times over and in so many ways that few questioned his right anymore.
“But you have no Anubis Form. You cannot cover for our Alpha in every way.”
“Just you mind your Gamma responsibilities, Channing, and leave me to see to the rest.”
Major Channing gave both Lord Maccon and Professor Lyall disgusted looks and then strode from the room, the tail of his long, blond hair swaying in annoyance.
Professor Lyall had intended to do the same, minus the long, blond hair, but he heard a whispered, “Randolph,” come from the wide bed. He made his way along the side of the big feather mattress to where the earl’s tawny eyes were once more open and unfocused.
“Yes, my lord?”
“If”—the earl swallowed nervously—“if I am wrong, and I’m na saying I am, but if I am, well, I’ll have to grovel again, won’t I?”
Professor Lyall had seen Lady Maccon’s face when she returned home to pack up her clothing and quit Woolsey Castle. She wasn’t big on crying—practical minded, tough, and unemotional even at the worst of times, like most preternaturals—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t utterly gutted by her husband’s rejection. Professor Lyall had seen a number of things in his lifetime he hoped never to see again; that look of hopelessness in Alexia’s dark eyes was definitely one of them.
“I am not convinced groveling will be quite sufficient in this instance, my lord.” He was not disposed to allow his Alpha any quarter.
“Ah. Well, bollocks,” said his lordship eloquently.
“That is the least of it. If my deductions are correct, she is also in very grave danger, my lord. Very grave.”
But Lord Maccon had already gone back to sleep.
Professor Lyall went off to hunt down the earl’s source of inebriation. Much to his distress, he found it. Lord Maccon hadn’t lied. It was, in fact, not alcohol at all.
Alexia Maccon’s parasol had been designed at prodigious expense, with considerable imagination and much attention to detail. It could emit a dart equipped with a numbing agent, a wooden spike for vampires, a silver spike for werewolves, a magnetic disruption field, and two kinds of toxic mist, and, of course, it possessed a plethora of hidden pockets. It had recently been entirely overhauled and refurbished with new ammunition, which, unfortunately, did little to improve its appearance. It was not a very prepossessing accessory, for all its serviceability, being both outlandish in design and indifferent in shape. It was a drab slate-gray color with cream ruffle trim, and it had a shaft in the new ancient Egyptian style that looked rather like an elongated pineapple.
Despite its many advanced attributes, Lady Maccon’s most common application of the parasol was through brute force enacted directly upon the cranium of an opponent. It was a crude and perhaps undignified modus operandi to be certain, but it had worked so well for her in the past that she was loath to rely too heavily upon any of the newfangled aspects of her parasol’s character.
Thus she left Lord Akeldama’s chubby calico reclining in untroubled indolence and dashed to the side of the door, parasol at the ready. It was an odd set of coincidences, but every time she visited Lord Akeldama’s drawing room something untoward happened. Perhaps this was not quite so surprising if one knew Lord Akeldama intimately.
A top hat, with attached head, peeked into the room and was soon followed by a dashing figure sporting a forest-green velvet frock coat and leather spats. For a moment, Alexia almost pulled back on her swing, thinking the intruder was Biffy. Biffy was Lord Akeldama’s favorite, and prone to wearing things like velvet frock coats. But then the young man glanced toward her hiding spot—a round face sporting muttonchops and a surprised expression. Not Biffy, for Biffy abhorred muttonchops. The parasol hurtled in the unfortunate gentleman’s direction.
Thwack!
The young man shielded his head with a forearm, which took the brunt of the blow, and then twisted to the side and out of the parasol’s reach.
“Good gracious me,” he exclaimed, backing away warily and rubbing at his arm. “I say there, do hold your horses! Pretty poor showing, walloping a gent with that accessory of y
ours without even a by-your-leave.”
Alexia would have none of it. “Who are you?” she demanded, changing tactics and pressing one of the lotus petals on the shaft of her parasol, arming the tip with a numbing dart. This new stance did not look quite so threatening, as she now appeared to be about to issue a prod instead of a thwack.
The young gentleman, however, remained respectfully wary. He cleared his throat. “Boots, Lady Maccon. Emmet Wilberforce Bootbottle-Fipps, but everyone calls me Boots. How do you do?”
Well, there was no excuse for rudeness. “How do you do, Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps?”
The self-titled Boots continued. “All apologies for not being someone more important, but there’s no need to take on so vigorously.” He eyed the parasol with deep suspicion.
Alexia lowered it.
“What are you, then?”
“Oh, no one of significance, my lady. Just one of Lord Akeldama’s”—a hand waved about, indicating the general splendor of the house—“newer boys.” The young gentleman paused, frowning in concentration and stroking one of his muttonchops. “He left me behind to tell you something. A sort of secret message.” He winked conspiratorially and then seemed to think better of the flirtation when the parasol was raised against him once more. “I think it is in code.” He laced his hands behind his back and stood up straight as though about to recite some long Byronic poem. “Now what was it? You were expected sooner, and my memory is not so… Ah, yes, check the cat.”
“That was all he had to tell me?”
Green-clad shoulders shrugged. “’Fraid so.”
They spent several moments staring at each other in silence.
Finally, Boots cleared his throat delicately. “Very good, Lady Maccon. If you do not require anything further?” And without waiting for her to reply, he turned to leave the room. “Pip pip. Must, you understand, press on. Top of the morning to you.”
Alexia trailed him out of the room. “But where have they all gone?”
“Can’t tell you that, I’m afraid, Lady Maccon. I understand it’s not safe. Not safe at all.”
Alexia’s confusion turned to worry.
“Not safe for whom? You, me, or Lord Akeldama?” She noticed he hadn’t actually admitted to knowing his master’s new location.
Boots paused at the door and looked back. “Now, don’t you worry, Lady Maccon; it’ll be all right in the end. Lord Akeldama will see to it. He always does.”
“Where is he?”
“Why, with the others, of course. Where else would he be? Off and about, you know how it goes. A goodly numbered hunting party has gone afield, you understand, tracking, as it were. Gone to find…” He trailed off. “Oops. Never you mind, Lady Maccon. Just attend to what his lordship said about the cat. Toodles.” And, with that, he gave her a funny little half bow and let himself out of the house.
Alexia, mystified, returned to the drawing room where the calico still held court. The only thing odd about the animal, apart from the creature’s murderous tendencies toward tassels, was the metal collar about her neck. Alexia unclipped it and took it over to the window to examine it in the sunlight. It was thin enough to unroll into a flat ribbon and had been punched all along in an apparently random pattern of dots. It reminded Alexia of something. She ran one glove-covered fingertip along the indentations, trying to remember.
Ah, yes. It was very like the loops that fed through music machines, making those little chiming repetitive tunes that so delighted children and so annoyed adults. If this ribbon also made some kind of sound, she would need a means of listening to it. Rather than search Lord Akeldama’s entire house without knowing what exact device she was looking for, and figuring the vampire in question would not be so irresponsible as to leave it on the premises, anyway, she could think of but one person who could help her at this juncture—Madame Lefoux. She headed back out to her carriage.
CHAPTER THREE
Alexia Engages in Entomology
Someone was trying to kill Lady Alexia Maccon. It was most inconvenient, as she was in a dreadful hurry.
Given her previous familiarity with near-death experiences and their comparative frequency with regards to her good self, Alexia should probably have allowed extra time for such a predictable happenstance. Except that in this particular instance, the unpleasant event was occurring in broad daylight, while she was driving down Oxford Street—not, as a general rule, the expected time or location for such an event.
She wasn’t even in a rented hackney. She’d grown to anticipate regular attacks when hired transport was involved, but this time she was riding in a private conveyance. She had pinched Squire Loontwill’s carriage. As her dear stepfather was giving her the royal heave-ho, she figured he wouldn’t mind if she loaded his personal mode of transport with all her worldly goods and stole it for the day. As it turned out, he did mind, but she wasn’t there to witness his annoyance. He had ended up borrowing his wife’s pony and trap, a contraption decked in yellow tulle and pink rosettes, which was vastly ill suited to both his dignity and girth.
Her attackers didn’t appear willing to follow previously established patterns in the murder arena. For one thing, they weren’t supernatural. For another, they were ticking—quite loudly, in fact. Lastly, they were also skittering. They were undertaking the ticking because, so far as Alexia could determine, and she rather preferred not to get too close, they were clockwork, or some variety of windup mechanical. And they were undertaking the skittering because they were beetles—large, shiny red beetles with black spots and multifaceted crystal eyes, boasting nasty-looking syringes that poked upward in place of antennae.
Ladybugs were invading her carriage, a whole herd of them.
Each ladybug was about the size of Alexia’s hand. They were crawling all over the conveyance, trying to break inside. Unfortunately, this did not require much diligence, as the window above the door was open wide enough for any old killer ladybug to sneak right in.
Alexia lurched up, crushing her poor hat against the ceiling of the cab, and tried to slam the sash closed, but she was far too slow. They were remarkably fast for such tubby creatures. A closer view of those antennae revealed tiny beads of moisture oozing from the tips—probably some brand of poison. She reworked her assessment of her attackers: homicidal mechanical dripping ladybugs—ugh.
She grabbed for her trusty parasol and bashed the first one that she could with the heavy handle. The bug crashed into the opposite wall, fell onto the back-facing seat, and scuttled once more in her general direction. Another mechanical beetle crawled up the wall toward her, and a third pushed itself off of the window sash at her shoulder.
Alexia squealed, half in fear, half in irritation, and began hitting at the creatures as hard and as fast as she could within the confines of the carriage, at the same time trying to think of some part of her parasol’s armament that might help her in this particular situation. For some reason, Madame Lefoux had never specified ladybug protective measures in its anthroscopy. The toxic mist wouldn’t cover enough territory to catch them all, and there was no guarantee either the lapis solaris or the lapis lunearis solutions would have any effect on the creatures. Those liquids were designed to eliminate organics, not metals, and the red and black shell looked to be some kind of shielding enamel or lacquer.
She struck out and whacked at three more of the bugs crawling across the cabin floor, holding the parasol by its tip and wielding it as though it were a croquet mallet. The carriage seemed to be positively swarming with the creatures, all attempting to stick those dripping antennae into some part of Alexia’s anatomy. One of them got perilously close to her arm before she punched it away. Another climbed all the way to her stomach and struck, only to be thwarted by the leather belt of her traveling dress.
She yelled for help, hoping all the banging and clattering she was making would convince the driver to stop and come to her rescue, but he seemed oblivious. She continued to catalog her parasol options. The numbing dart was use-less,
and the metal and wooden stakes equally so. It was then that she remembered the parasol was equipped with a magnetic disruption field emitter. Desperately, she flipped the accessory around to its normal position and groped along the handle for the one carved lotus petal that protruded slightly more than the others. Catching it with her thumbnail, she pulled it back, activating the emitter.
It appeared that the deadly ladybugs had iron parts, for the disruption field did as designed and seized up their magnetic components. The beetles, in deference to their nature, all stopped in their tracks and turned upside-down, little mechanical legs drawn up against their undersides just as ordinary dead beetles might. Alexia sent a grateful thank-you to Madame Lefoux for her forethought in including the emitter, and began hurriedly scooping up and throwing the ladybugs out the carriage window before the disruption field wore off, careful not to touch those sticky, dripping antennae. Her skin shivered in disgust.
The driver, finally discerning that something was not quite right with his passenger, drew up the carriage, jumped down from the box, and came around to the door, just in time to get bonked on the head with a discarded ladybug.
“All right there, Lady Maccon?” he asked, giving her a pained look and rubbing his forehead.
“Don’t just stand there waffling!” instructed her ladyship, as though she wasn’t bumping about the interior of the carriage, pausing only to throw enormous red bugs out of its windows. “Drive on, you cretin! Drive on!”
Best get myself into a public place, thought Alexia, until I’m certain I’m out of danger. And I need a moment to calm my nerves.
The driver turned to do her bidding, only to be forestalled by a “Wait! I’ve changed my mind. Take me to the nearest teahouse.”
The man returned to his post with an expression that spoke volumes on his feelings over how low the aristocracy had fallen. He clicked the horses into a trot and pulled the carriage back out into London traffic.
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