The earl stepped inside his own waiting cell. It was the largest but also the most secure, empty except for chains and bolts. Nothing was safe when he changed. No foot-stool or periodical was in residence, just stone and iron and emptiness. He sighed heavily.
His clavigers slammed and triple bolted the iron door behind him. They stationed themselves outside it but across the passageway, so as to be entirely out of reach. In this, at least, they followed his orders impeccably.
The moon rose above the horizon. Several youngsters of the pack began to howl.
Lord Maccon felt his bones completely breaking and reforming, his skin stretching and shrinking, his tendons realigning, his hair shifting downward and becoming fur. His sense of smell sharpened. He caught a faint whiff of some familiar scent riding an air current down from the castle above.
Those few older members of the pack still partly human completed their final changes with him. The air was rent with growls and whines as the dregs of daylight disappeared. Bodies always resisted the cursed change, making the pain ever more excruciating. With flesh held together only by the threads of what remained of their souls, all sensibility converted to frenzy. The noise they made was the rampaging death-lust cry of the damned.
Any who heard those particular howls felt nothing but fear: vampire, ghost, human, or animal, it mattered not. Nor would it, in the end, for any werewolf freed of his fetters would kill indiscriminately. On full-moon night, the blood moon, it was not a matter of choice or necessity. It simply was.
However, when Lord Maccon raised his muzzle up to howl, his was not a mindless cry of wrath. The low tones of the Alpha’s voice were immeasurably mournful. For he had finally recognized the smell wafting down into the dungeon. Too late to say anything in human tongue. Too late to warn his clavigers.
Conall Maccon, Earl of Woolsey, crashed up against the bars of his cell, the last vestiges of his human side crying out: not to kill, not to be free, but to protect.
Too late.
For that little whiff bore the scent of sweet turpentine, and it was getting stronger.
The sign above the door to the Hypocras Club read PROTEGO RES PUBLICA, engraved into white Italian marble. Miss Alexia Tarabotti, gagged, trussed, bound, and carried by two men—one holding her shoulders, the other her feet—read the words upside down. She had a screaming headache, and it took her a moment to translate the phrase through the nauseating aftereffects of chloroform exposure.
Finally she deduced its meaning: to protect the commonwealth.
Huh, she thought. I do not buy it. I definitely do not feel protected.
There also appeared to be the emblem of some kind bracketing either side of the words. A symbol or some sort of excitable invertebrate? Was it a brass octopus?
Miss Tarabotti was strangely unsurprised to be brought to the Hypocras Club. She remembered Felicity reading out the Post’s proclamation detailing the “inception of an innovative social establishment catering to gentlemen of a scientific inclination.” Of course, she realized, now that it made perfect sense. After all, it was at the duchess’s ball, right next door to the new club, that she had killed that first mysterious vampire who started it all. This made for a rather tidy full circle. And, with all that chloroform, there would have to be scientists involved.
Had Lord Maccon discovered this as well? she wondered. Did he suspect just the club, or was the Royal Society itself implicated? Alexia doubted even the earl’s suspicious nature would stretch as far as that.
Her captors carried her into a small boxlike room with a concertina-style grating for a door. She could turn her head just enough to see the violet-clad form of Lord Akeldama being treated with equal disrespect: slung over someone’s shoulder like a side of beef and crammed into the tiny room with her.
Well, Miss Tarabotti reasoned, at least we are still together.
The wax-faced man, unfortunately still with them, was not engaged directly in Tarabotti/Akeldama transport. He closed the grated door and then cranked some sort of pulley device inset into one wall of the chamber. The most peculiar thing resulted. The whole of the tiny room began to move listlessly downward, carrying everyone inside with it. It was like falling slowly, and Alexia’s stomach, combining this with the added bonus of chloroform exposure, was not particularly thrilled by the experience.
She choked down a convulsive gag.
“This one does not like our ascension room,” snickered the man who held her feet, jiggling her rudely.
One of the other men grunted his agreement.
Through the grating, a flabbergasted Alexia watched as the first floor of the club vanished, and the ground itself appeared, then the foundations of the building, then a new ceiling, and, finally, the furniture and floor of underground chambers. It was really quite a remarkable experience.
The tiny room jolted to a stop. Miss Tarabotti’s stomach joined up with them shortly thereafter. The human transport flunkies slid back the grating, carried her and Lord Akeldama out, and laid them side by side on a plush Oriental carpet in the middle of a respectably sized receiving room. One of them took the precautionary measure of sitting on Lord Akeldama’s legs, although he was still asleep. They did not seem to feel Alexia warranted the same level of consideration.
A man, sitting in a comfortable brown leather armchair with silver studs and smoking a large ivory pipe, stood up at their arrival and walked over to look down at the two prisoners.
“Excellent work, gentlemen!” He bit down on his pipe and rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “Akeldama, according to the BUR records, is one of the oldest vampires in London. Next to one of their queens, his blood should be the most potent we have yet analyzed. We are in the middle of a transverse-sanguinity procedure at the moment, so put him into storage for now. And what is this?” He turned to look down at Alexia.
There was something familiar about the set of his face, although at that particular angle it was almost completely in shadow. That shadow was also familiar. The man from the carriage! Miss Tarabotti had almost forgotten about him in the horror of her recent encounters with the wax-faced monster.
He clearly had not forgotten about her. “Well, what do you know? This one simply keeps turning up, does she not?” He puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. “First visiting the Westminster hive, now found in the august presence of specimen Akeldama. How does she fit into the picture?”
“We do not know yet, sir. We will have to consult the records. She is no vamp: has neither the teeth nor queen-level protection. Though she did have two vampire guards tailing her.”
“Ah, so, and…?”
“We eliminated them, of course. Could be BUR agents; difficult to tell these days. What do you want done in the meantime?”
Puff, puff, puff. “Put her into storage as well. If we cannot find anything out about how she fits into our investigations, we will have to force it out of her. Terribly gauche thing to do to a lady, of course, but she is clearly fraternizing with the enemy, and sometimes sacrifices must be made.”
Miss Tarabotti was confused by the players in this little game. These men did not seem to know who or, more precisely, what she was. Yet, clearly they were the ones who wanted her. They had sent the wax-faced man to her house in the middle of the night only recently. Unless there existed two wax-faced men in London, both of them after her. Alexia shuddered at the very idea. They must have gotten her home address from her BUR records. Yet, now they did not seem to know who she was. It was as though they were thinking of her as two separate persons. The one who kept interfering with their plans, and the Miss Alexia Tarabotti, preternatural, of BUR’s records.
Then Alexia recalled that BUR did not keep sketches on file, for safety reasons. Her record contained only words, notes, and brief descriptive details, and most of that in code. These men had not made the connection to the fact that she was Alexia Tarabotti, because they did not know what Alexia Tarabotti looked like. Excepting only the wax-faced man, who would have seen her face in
her bedroom window. She wondered why he had not revealed her secret.
Her question remained unanswered. The thugs lifted her up, in response to the shadowed man’s order, and carried her after Lord Akeldama out of the plush reception room.
“And, now, where is my precious baby?” she heard the shadowed man ask as they departed. “Ah, there he is! And how did he behave on this outing? Good? Of course he did, my darling.” Then his words degenerated into Latin.
Miss Tarabotti was carried through a long narrow corridor, painted white and lined with institutional-looking doors. It was lit with white ceramic oil lamps atop short marble pedestals dispersed between the doors. It all looked very ritualistic, like some sort of ancient place of worship. Oddly, the door handles were made to look like octopuses and so, upon closer inspection, were the lamps.
Miss Tarabotti was maneuvered down a long flight of stairs and into another corridor with more doors and lamps, exactly the same as the first.
“Where shall we put them?” asked one of the men. “Space is scarce, since we have vamped up operations, so to speak.”
The other three snickered at the terrible pun.
“Just put them in the cell at the end. It does not matter much if they are left together; the doctors will be taking Akeldama off soon enough for processing. The gray coats have been waiting to get their hands on him a good long while now.”
One of the others licked his fatty lips. “We ought to be getting quite large bonuses for this little collection venture.”
Murmurs of agreement met that statement.
They reached the last door in the corridor and slid aside the body section of its brass octopus handle, revealing a large keyhole. Opening the door, they unceremoniously deposited Miss Tarabotti and the supine form of Lord Akeldama inside the room. Alexia landed hard on her side and attempted not to cry out in pain. They slammed the door shut, and Alexia heard them chatting as they walked away.
“Bodes well for a success in the experiments, eh?”
“Hardly.”
“What do we care so long as the pay is good?”
“Too true.”
“You know what I think? I think…”
And then their voices became faint and faded to silence.
Miss Tarabotti lay wide-eyed, staring about at the chamber in which she now found herself. Her pupils took a while to adjust to the blackness, for there were no oil lamps here and no other source of illumination. The cell did not have bars, just a seamless door with no inside handle, and felt more like a closet than a prison. Nevertheless, she knew instinctively that it was a prison. It had no windows, no furniture, no rug, and no other decoration of any kind—just herself and Lord Akeldama.
Someone cleared his throat.
With difficulty, her limbs being tightly bound and her physical dexterity further impeded by her dratted corset and bustle, Miss Tarabotti wiggled from lying on her back to lying on her side, facing Lord Akeldama.
The vampire’s eyes were open, and he was staring at her intently. It was as though he were trying to speak to her with simply the power of a glare.
Alexia did not speak glare-ish.
Lord Akeldama began undulating toward her. He managed to writhe his way across the floor, like some sort of purple snake, the velvet of his beautiful coat slippery enough to aid his progress. Eventually he reached her. Then he flipped about and twiddled his bound hands until Miss Tarabotti understood what he was after.
Alexia flipped back over, inched down, and pressed the back of her head to his hand. The vampire was able to undo the gag tied over her mouth with his fingertips. Her wrists and legs, unfortunately, were manacled with steel bonds, as were his. Such cuffs were beyond even a vampire’s ability to break.
With great difficulty, they managed to reverse positions so that Miss Tarabotti could untie Lord Akeldama’s gag. Then they were at least able to talk.
“Well,” said Lord Akeldama, “this is a pretty kettle of fish. I think those miscreants have just ruined one of my best evening jackets. How very vexing. It is a particular favorite of mine. I am sorry to have dragged you into this, my dear, almost as much as having dragged the evening jacket into it.”
“Oh, don’t be so nonsensical. My head is still spinning from that blasted chloroform, and there is no need for you to be tiresome on top of it,” remonstrated Miss Tarabotti. “This situation could not possibly be misconstrued as your fault.”
“But they were after me.” In the dark, Lord Akeldama actually looked guilty. But that could have been a trick of the shadows.
“They would have been after me as well, if they only knew my name,” insisted Miss Tarabotti, “so let us hear nothing more about it.”
The vampire nodded. “Well,” he said, “my buttercup, I suggest we keep that name of yours quiet as long as possible.”
Alexia grinned. “You should not find that a particularly difficult endeavor. You never do use my real name anyway.”
Lord Akeldama chuckled. “Too true.”
Miss Tarabotti frowned. “We may not need to bother with subterfuge. The wax-faced man knows. He saw me in the carriage outside the Westminster hive, and he saw me at my window one night when they came to abduct a known preternatural. He will put two and two together and realize I am the same person.”
“Cannot be done, dewdrop,” said Lord Akeldama confidently.
Alexia shifted, trying to relieve the pain in her manacled wrists. “How could you possibly know that?” she asked, wondering at his confident tone.
“The wax-faced man, as you call it, cannot tell anyone anything. He has no voice, little tulip, none at all,” replied Lord Akeldama.
Alexia narrowed her eyes at him. “You know what he is? Do tell! He is not supernatural; I can tell you that much.”
“It, not him, my lightning bug. And, yes, I know what it is.” Lord Akeldama wore a coy expression, one that usually accompanied his fiddling with his cravat pin. As his arms were cuffed behind his back, and his pin had been judiciously removed, he could do nothing to add to the expression but purse his lips.
“Well?” Miss Tarabotti was itching with curiosity.
“Homunculus simulacrum,” said Lord Akeldama.
Miss Tarabotti looked back at him blankly.
He sighed. “A lusus naturae?”
Alexia decided he was playing with her and gave him a nasty look.
He explained further. “A synthetic creature formed by science, an alchemical artificial man…”
Miss Tarabotti wracked her brain and finally came up with a word from some long-ago religious text in her father’s library. “An automaton?”
“Exactly! They have existed before.”
Miss Tarabotti’s generous mouth fell open. She had thought them mere creatures of legend, like unicorns: freaks of a purely mythical nature. The scientific side of her intellect was intrigued. “But, what is it made of? How does it work? It seems so very much alive!”
Lord Akeldama took exception to her word choice once again. “It is moving, animated, and active, yes. But, my dear bluebell, alive it most certainly is not.”
“Yes, but how?”
“Who knows what dastardly science went into its creation—a metal skeleton perhaps, a small aetheromagnetic or steam engine of some kind. Perhaps it has clockwork parts. I am no engineer to know the truth of it.”
“But why should anyone wish to build such a creature?”
“You are asking me to explain the actions of a scientist? I hardly know how to put it, petunia petal. Your friend there would appear to be the perfect servant: unflagging and loyal to the last. Of course, one would suppose all orders must be very precise.” He would have continued, but Miss Tarabotti interrupted him.
“Yes, yes, but what about killing them?” Alexia went straight for the heart of the matter. Really, she quite adored Lord Akeldama, but he did tend to blather on.
Lord Akeldama looked at her reprovingly. “Now, do not be too hasty, my darling. All in good time.”
“Apparently not. I need hardly remind you, sweetheart, that those men are coming back for me. Shortly. Or so they implied.”
“You were awake the entire time.” Miss Tarabotti was somehow unsurprised.
“I awoke in the carriage on the way here. I feigned sleep, as there seemed nothing advantageous in alerting them to my consciousness. Pretending afforded me an opportunity to overhear interesting information. Unfortunately, I heard nothing of any consequence. Those”— he paused as though searching for the right way to describe the men who had abducted them—“degenerates are mere minions. They know only what they have been told to do, not why they were told to do it. Just as bad as the automaton. They were not interested in discussing this business, whatever it is, among themselves. But, marigold—”
Miss Tarabotti interrupted him again. “Please, Lord Akeldama, I do not mean to be rude, but the homunculus simulacrum?”
“Quite right, my dear. If I am to be taken off presently, you should have as much information as I can relay. In my limited experience, automatons cannot be killed. Because how does one kill something that is not alive? The homunculus simulacrum can be disanimated, though.”
Miss Tarabotti, who had developed rather unladylike homicidal tendencies toward the repulsive wax-faced thing, asked eagerly, “How?”
“Well,” said Lord Akeldama, “activation and control is usually in the form of a word or phrase. If one can find a way to undo that phrase, one can, in effect, turn the homunculus simulacrum off, like a mechanical doll.”
“A word like VIXI?” suggested Alexia.
“Very like. You have seen it?”
“Written across its forehead, in some kind of black powder,” Miss Tarabotti confirmed.
Soulless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the First Page 21