The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set

by Gail Carriger

Professor Lyall sat up. “Took you long enough to get it to me.”

  “Sorry, sir. You’ve been so busy this evening; I didn’t want to disturb.”

  “Yes, well.” Professor Lyall made an impatient gesture with his left hand.

  Phinkerlington handed Professor Lyall a scrap of parchment paper, on which had been inked a message. It was not, as Lyall had hoped, from Alexia but was from, of all people, Floote.

  It was also so entirely off topic and unhelpful to the situation in hand as to give Lyall a brief but intense feeling of exasperation with Lady Maccon. This was a feeling that had, heretofore, been reserved solely for his Alpha.

  “Get queen to stop Italians excavating in Egypt. Can’t find soulless mummies, bad things result. Lady Maccon with Florentine Templars. Not good. Send help. Floote.”

  Professor Lyall, cursing his Alpha for departing so precipitously, balled up the piece of paper and, after minor consideration for the delicacy of the information it contained, ate it.

  He dismissed Phinkerlington, stood, and went to check on Biffy, finding the young man still sleeping. Good, he thought, best and most sensible thing for him to be doing at the moment. Just as he was tucking the blanket a little more firmly about the new werewolf, yet another person entered his office.

  He straightened up and turned to face the door. “Yes?”

  He caught the man’s scent: very expensive French perfume coupled with a hint of Bond Street’s best hair pomade and under that the slow richness of the unpalatable—old blood.

  “Ah. Welcome back to London, Lord Akeldama.”

  Lady Alexia Maccon, sometimes called La Diva Tarabotti, was quite comfortable with being abducted. Or, as it might better be phrased, she was growing accustomed to the predicament. She had led, up until a little over a year ago, quite an exemplary spinsterish existence. Her world had been plagued only by the presence of two nonsensical sisters and one even sillier mama. Her concerns, it must be acknowledged, were a tad mundane, and her daily routine as banal as that of any other young lady of sufficient income and insufficient liberty. But she had managed to avoid abductions.

  This, as matters would have it, was turning out to be one of the worst.

  Alexia found the experience of being blindfolded and carried over someone’s armor-clad shoulder like a sack of potatoes unconscionably undignified. She was hauled down a seemingly endless series of stairs and passageways, musty as only the deep underground can be. She gave a few experimental kicks and a wiggle, only to have her legs clamped down by a metal-covered arm.

  Eventually, they arrived at their final destination, which, she discovered once the blindfold had been removed, was some kind of Roman catacomb. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the dimness, and found herself in an underground ancient ruin dug into the bedrock, lit with oil lamps and candles. The small cell she now occupied was barred over on one side with modern-looking reinforcements.

  “Well, this is a much inferior living situation,” she objected to no one in particular.

  The preceptor appeared in the doorway, leaning up against the metal doorjamb, regarding her with lifeless eyes.

  “We found we could no longer adequately ensure your safety in your other location.”

  “I wasn’t safe in a temple surrounded by several hundred of the Knights Templars, the most powerful holy warriors ever to walk this earth?”

  He made no answer to that. “We shall see to your every comfort here.”

  Alexia looked around. The room was slightly smaller than her husband’s dressing chamber back at Woolsey Castle. There was a tiny bed in one corner covered in a faded quilt, a single side table with an oil lamp, a chamber pot, and a washstand. It looked neglected and sad.

  “Who will? No one has so far.”

  Wordlessly the Templar signaled and, out of nowhere, a bread bowl full of pasta appeared, and a carrot carved to resemble a spoon was handed over by some unseen companion. The preceptor gave them to Alexia.

  Alexia tried not to be pleased by the presence of the ubiquitous green sauce. “Pesto will keep you in my good graces for only so long, you understand?”

  “Oh, and then what will you do, devil spawn?”

  “Ah, I am no longer your ‘Soulless One,’ am I?” Alexia pursed her lips in deep thought. She was without her parasol, and most of her best threats involved its application. “I shall be very discourteous, indeed.”

  The preceptor did not look at all threatened. He closed the door firmly behind him and left her locked in the silent darkness.

  “Could I at least get something to read?” she yelled after, but he ignored her.

  Alexia began to think all those horrible stories she had heard about the Templars might actually be true, even the one with the rubber duck and the dead cat that Lord Akeldama had once relayed. She hoped fervently that Madame Lefoux and Floote were unharmed.

  There was something eerie about being so utterly separated from them.

  Giving in to her frustration, Alexia marched over and kicked at the bars of her prison.

  This only served to cause her foot to smart most egregiously.

  “Oh, brother,” said Lady Maccon into the dark silence.

  Alexia’s isolation did not last long, for a certain German scientist came to visit her.

  “I have been relocated, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf.” Alexia was so distressed by her change in circumstances that she was moved to state the obvious.

  “Ya, Female Specimen, I am well aware of the fact. It is most inconvenient, ya? I have had to move my laboratory as well, and Poche will not follow me down here. He does not like Roman architecture.”

  “No? Well, who does? But, I say, couldn’t you persuade them to move me back? If one must be imprisoned, a nice room with a view is far preferable.”

  The little man shook his head. “No longer possible. Give me your arm.”

  Alexia narrowed her eyes suspiciously and then, curious, acquiesced to his request.

  He wrapped a tube of oiled cloth about her arm and then proceeded to pump it full of air using a set of bellows via a mini spigot. The tube expanded and became quite tight. Pinching these bellows off, the scientist transferred a glass ball filled with little bits of paper to the spigot and let go. The air escaped with a whoosh, causing all the bits of paper to flutter about wildly inside the ball.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am to determine what kind of the child you may produce, ya. There is much speculation.”

  “I fail to see how those little bits of paper can reveal anything of import.” They seemed about as useful as tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. Which made her think yearningly of tea.

  “Well, you had better hope they do. There has been some talk of handling this child… differently.”

  “What?”

  “Ya. And using you for—how to say?—spare parts.”

  Bile, sour and unwelcome, rose in Alexia’s throat.

  “What?”

  “Hush now, Female Specimen, let me work.”

  The German watched with frowning attention as the papers finally settled completely at the base of the ball, which, Alexia now realized, was marked with lines. Then he began making notes and diagrams of their location. She tried to think calming thoughts but was beginning to get angry as well as scared. She was finished with being thought of as a specimen.

  “You know, they gave to me complete access to the records of their preternatural breeding program? They tried for nearly a hundred years to determine how to successfully breed your species.”

  “Humans? Well that couldn’t have been too difficult. I am still human, remember?”

  Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf ignored this and continued his previous line of reasoning. “You always breed true, but low birth rate and rare female specimens were never explained. Also the program was plagued with the difficulty of the space allotment. Templars could not, for example, keep the babies in the same room or even the same house.”

  “So what happened?” Alexia couldn’t help her curi
osity.

  “The program was stopped, ya. Your father was one of the last, you know?”

  Alexia’s eyebrows made an inadvertent bid for the sky. “He was?” Hear that, infant-inconvenience, your grandfather was bred by religious zealots as a kind of biological experiment. So much for your family tree.

  “Did the Templars raise him?”

  Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf gave her a peculiar look. “I am not familiar with the specifics.”

  Alexia knew absolutely nothing about her father’s childhood; his journals didn’t commence until his university years in Britain and were, she suspected, originally intended as a vehicle for practicing English grammar.

  The little scientist appeared to decide that he ought to say no more. Turning back to his bellows and sphere device, he finished his notations and then began a complex series of calculations. When he had finished, he set down his stylographic pen with a pronounced movement.

  “Remarkable, ya.”

  “What is?”

  “There is only one explanation for such results. That you have trace intrinsic aether affixed to the—how to say?—middle zone, but it is behaving wrong, as though it were bonded but also not, as if it were in the state of flux.”

  “Well, good for me.” Then Alexia frowned, remembering their previous discussion. “But, according to your theory, I should have no intrinsic aether at all.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So your theory is wrong.”

  “Or the flux reaction is coming from the embryo.” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf was quite triumphant in this proclamation, as though he was near to explaining everything.

  “Are you implying that you understand the nature of my child?” Alexia was prepared to get equally excited. Finally!

  “No, but I can say with the absolute confidence that I am very, very close.”

  “Funny, but I do not find that at all reassuring.”

  Lord Akeldama stood in the doorway of Professor Lyall’s office, dressed for riding. It was hard to read his face at the best of times and, under such circumstances as these, nigh on impossible.

  “How do you do this evening, my lord?”

  “La, my dear, tolerably well. Tolerably well. And you?”

  They had, of course, met on more than one occasion in the past. Lyall had spent centuries nibbling about the great layer cake that was polite society while Lord Akeldama acted the part of the frosting on its top. Lyall knew a man was smart who kept a weather eye on the state of the frosting, even if most of his time was spent cleaning up crumbs. The supernatural set was small enough to keep track of most members, whether they skulked about BUR offices and the soldier’s barracks or the best drawing rooms the ton had to offer.

  “I must admit to having had better evenings. Welcome to BUR headquarters, Lord Akeldama. Do come in.”

  The vampire paused for a moment on the threshold, catching sight of Biffy’s sleeping form. He made a slight gesture with one hand. “May I?”

  Professor Lyall nodded. The question was a veiled insult, reminding them both of what had been taken from the vampire unjustly. That he must now ask to look upon what had once been his. Lyall let him get away with it. Currently the vampire held all the cards, but Professor Lyall was reasonably convinced that if he just gave Lord Akeldama enough cravat material, he might be able to fashion it into a bow pleasing enough for all parties. Of course, the vampire might also turn it into a noose; it depended entirely on the outcome of this conversation.

  Professor Lyall knew that vampires had a limited sense of smell and no clear method of sensing right away that Biffy was now a werewolf. But Lord Akeldama seemed to realize it, anyway. He did not try to touch the young man.

  “That is quite the quantity of facial hair. I didn’t know he had it in him. I suppose that fuzzy is more appropriate given the current situation.” Lord Akeldama raised one long, slim white hand to the base of his own throat, pinching at the skin there. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and looking down on his former drone once more. “He looks so young when he is sleeping. I have always thought so.” He swallowed audibly. Then he turned and came back to stand in front of Lyall.

  “You have been riding, my lord?”

  Lord Akeldama looked down at his clothing and winced. “Necessity sometimes demands a sacrifice, young Randolph. Can I call you Randy? Or would you prefer, Dolphy? Dolly, perhaps?” Professor Lyall flinched noticeably. “Anyway, as I was saying, Dolly, I cannot abide riding—the horses are never happy to seat a vampire, and it plays havoc with one’s hair. The only thing more vulgar is an open carriage.”

  Professor Lyall decided on a more direct approach. “Where have you been this past week, my lord?”

  Lord Akeldama looked once more down at himself. “Chasing ghosts while pursued by daemons, as it were, Dolly darling. I am convinced you must be aware of how it goes.”

  Professor Lyall decided on a push, just to see if he might elicit a more genuine reaction. “How could you disappear like that, just when Lady Maccon needed you most?”

  Lord Akeldama’s lip curled slightly, and then he gave a humorless little laugh. “Interesting query, coming from Lord Maccon’s Beta. You will forgive me if I am inclined to see it as my right to ask the questions under such circumstances.” He gestured with his head in Biffy’s direction, just a little jerk of controlled displeasure.

  Lord Akeldama was a man who hid his real feelings, not with an absence of emotions but with an excess of false ones. However, Professor Lyall was pretty certain that there, lurking under the clipped civility, was real, deeply rooted, and undeniably justified anger.

  Lord Akeldama took a seat, lounging back into it, for all the world as relaxed and untroubled as a man at his club. “So, I take it, Lord Maccon has gone after my dear Alexia?”

  Lyall nodded.

  “Then he knows?”

  “That she is in grave danger and the potentate responsible? Yes.”

  “Ah, was that Wally’s game? No wonder he wanted me swarming out of London. No, I mean to ask, Dolly dear, if the estimable earl knows what kind of child he has sired.”

  “No. But he has accepted that it is his. I think he always knew Lady Maccon would not play him false. He was just being ridiculous about it.”

  “Normally, I am all in favor of the ridiculous, but under such circumstances, you must understand, I believe it quite a pity he could not have come to that realization sooner. Lady Maccon would never have lost the protection of the pack, and none of this would have happened.”

  “You think not? Yet your kind tried to kill her on the way to Scotland when she was still very much under Woolsey’s protection. Admittedly, that was done more discreetly and, I now believe, without the support of the hives. But they would all still have wanted her dead the moment they knew of her condition. The interesting thing is that you, apparently, do not want her dead.”

  “Alexia Maccon is my friend.”

  “Are your friends so infrequent, my lord, that you betray the clearly unanimous wishes of your own kind?”

  Lord Akeldama lost some slight element of his composure at that. “Listen to me carefully, Beta. I am a rove so that I might make my own decisions: who to love, who to watch, and, most importantly, what to wear.”

  “So, Lord Akeldama, what is Lady Maccon’s child going to be?”

  “No. You will explain this first.” The vampire gestured at Biffy. “I am forced to swarm because my most precious little drone-y-poo is ruthlessly stolen from me—betrayed, as it turns out, by my own kind—only to return and find him stolen by your kind instead. I believe even Lord Maccon would acknowledge I am entitled to an explanation.”

  Professor Lyall fully agreed with him in this, so he told the vampire the whole truth, every detail of it.

  “So it was death or the curse of a werewolf?”

  Professor Lyall nodded. “It was something to see, my lord. No metamorphosis I have ever witnessed took so long, nor was conducted with so much gentleness. To do what Lord Maccon d
id and not savage the boy in the heat of the need for blood, it was extraordinary. There are not many werewolves who possess such self-control. Biffy was very lucky.”

  “Lucky?” Lord Akeldama fairly spat the word, jumping to his feet. “Lucky! To be cursed by the moon into a slathering beast? You would have done better to let him die. My poor boy.” Lord Akeldama was not a big man, certainly not by werewolf standards, but he moved so quickly that he was around Professor Lyall’s desk, slim hands about the werewolf’s throat, faster than Lyall’s eyes could follow. There was the anger Professor Lyall had been waiting for and, with it, a degree of pain and hurt he would never have expected from a vampire. Perhaps he had pushed a little harder than was strictly necessary. Lyall sat still and passive under the choking hold. A vampire could probably rip a werewolf’s head clean off, but Lord Akeldama was not the kind of man to do such a thing, even in the heat of anger. He was too controlled by age and etiquette to make more than a show of it.

  “Master, stop. Please. It was not their fault.”

  Biffy sat up slightly on the couch, eyes fixed in horror at the sight before him.

  Lord Akeldama immediately let go of Professor Lyall and dashed over to kneel by the young man’s side.

  Biffy spoke in a jumble of words and guilt. “I should not have allowed myself to be captured. I was careless. I did not suspect the potentate of such extremes of action. I was not playing the game as you taught me. I did not think he would use me like that to get to you.”

  “Ah, my little cherry blossom, we were all playing blind. This is not your fault.”

  “Do you really find me cursed and disgusting now?” Biffy’s voice was very small.

  Driven beyond his instincts, the vampire pulled the newly made werewolf against him—one predator consoling another, as unnatural as a snake attempting to comfort a house cat.

  Biffy rested his dark head on Lord Akeldama’s shoulder. The vampire twisted his perfect lips together and looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and then looked away. Through the fall of the vampire’s blond hair, Professor Lyall caught a glimpse of his face.

  Ah, oh dear, he really did love him. The Beta pressed two fingers against his own eyes as though he might stopper up the tears in theirs. Curses.