“Do you agree?” His voice was a rumble under her ear.
“It is a possibility in this modern age, but it is only, at best, a working hypothesis. It might be that Darwin is right, and we have attained a new age of preternatural evolution. It might be that the Templars are somehow involved. It might be that we are missing something vital.” She directed a sharp glare at her silent spouse. “Well, what has BUR uncovered?”
Alexia had a private theory that this was part of her role as muhjah. Queen Victoria had taken an unexpectedly favorable interest in seeing Alexia Tarabotti married to Conall Maccon, prior to Alexia’s assumption of the post. Lady Maccon often wondered if that wasn’t a wish to see greater lines of communication open between BUR and the Shadow Council. Although, Queen Victoria probably did not think such communication would take place quite so carnally.
“How much do you know about Ancient Egypt, wife?” Conall dislodged her and leaned up on one arm, idly rubbing the curve of her side with his free hand.
Alexia tucked a pillow under her head and shrugged. Her father’s library included a large collection of papyrus scrolls. He had had some fondness for Egypt, but Alexia had always been more interested in the classical world. There was something unfortunately fierce and passionate about the Nile and its environs. She was much too practical for Arabic with its flowery scrawl when Latin, with all its mathematic precision, made for such an attractive alternative.
Lord Maccon pursed his lips. “It was ours, you know? The werewolves’. Way back, four thousand years or more, lunar calendar and everything. Long before the daylight folk built up Greece and before the vampires extruded Rome, we werewolves had Egypt. You have seen how I can keep my body and turn only my head into wolf shape?”
“The thing that only true Alphas can do?” Alexia remembered it well from the one time she had seen him do it. It was unsettling and mildly revolting.
He nodded. “To the present day, we still call it the Anubis Form. Howlers say that, for a time, we were worshipped as gods in Ancient Egypt. And that was our downfall. For there are legends of a disease, a massive epidemic that struck only the supernatural: the God-Breaker Plague, a pestilence of unmaking. They say it swept the Nile clean of blood and bite, of werewolves and vampires alike, all of them dying as mortals within the space of a generation, and no metamorphosis came again to the Nile for a thousand years.”
“And now?”
“Now in all of Egypt, there exists just one hive, near Alexandria, as north as it can get and still be delta. They represent what remains of the Ptolemy Hive. Just that one, and it came in with the Greeks, and is only six vampires strong. A few mangy packs roam the desert far up the Nile, way to the south. But they say the plague still dwells in the Valley of the Kings, and no supernatural has ever practiced any form of archaeology. It is our one forbidden science, even now.”
Alexia processed this information. “So you believe we may be facing down an epidemic? A disease like this God-Breaker Plague?”
“It is possible.”
“Then why would it simply disappear?”
Conall rubbed his face with his large callused hand. “I do not know. Werewolf legends are kept in the oral tradition, from howler to howler. We have no written edicts. Thus, they shift through time. It is possible the plague of the past was not so bad as we remember or that they simply did not know to leave the area. Or it is possible that what we have now is some completely new form of the disease.”
Alexia shrugged. “It is at least as good a theory as our weapon hypothesis. I suppose there is only one way to find out.”
“The queen has placed you on the case, then?” The earl never liked the idea of Alexia undertaking field operations. When he first recommended her for the job of muhjah, he thought it a nice, safe political position, full of paperwork and tabletop debate. It had been so long since England had a muhjah, few remembered what the preternatural advisor to the queen actually did. She was indeed meant to legislatively balance out the potentate’s vampire agenda and the dewan’s military obsession. But she was also meant to take on the role of mobile information gatherer, since preternaturals were confined by neither place nor pack. Lord Maccon had been spitting angry when he found out the truth of it. Werewolves, by and large, loathed espionage as dishonorable—the vampire’s game. He’d even accused Alexia of being a kind of drone to Queen Victoria. Alexia had retaliated by wearing her most voluminous nightgown for a whole week.
“Can you think of someone better suited?”
“But, wife, this could become quite dangerous, if it is a weapon. If there is malice behind the action.”
Lady Maccon let out a huff of disgust. “For everyone but me. I am the only one who would not be adversely affected, and, so far as I can tell, I seem to be essentially unchanged. Well, me and one other type of person. Which reminds me—the potentate said something interesting this evening.”
“Really. What an astonishingly unusual occurrence.”
“He said that according to the edicts, there exists a creature worse than a soul-sucker. Or perhaps it used to exist. You would not know anything about this, would you, husband?” She watched Conall’s face quite closely.
There was a flicker of genuine surprise in his tawny eyes. In this, at least, he appeared to have no ready answer carefully prepared.
“I have never heard talk of such a thing. But then again, we are different in our perceptions, the vampires and the werewolves. We see you as a curse-breaker, not a soul-sucker and, as such, not so bad. So for werewolves, there are many things worse than you. For the vampires? There are ancient myths from the dawn of time that tell of a horror native to both day and night. The werewolves call this the skin-stealer. But it is only a myth.”
Alexia nodded.
A hand began gently stroking the curve of her side.
“Are we done talking now?” the earl asked plaintively.
Alexia gave in to his demanding touch, but only, of course, because he sounded so pathetic. It had nothing, whatsoever, to do with her own quickening heartbeat.
She entirely failed to remember to tell Conall about his former pack’s now-dead Alpha.
Alexia awakened slightly later than usual to find her husband already gone. She expected to encounter him at the supper table so was not overly troubled. Her mind already plotting investigations, she did not bother to protest the outfit her maid chose, replying only with, “That should do well enough, dear,” to Angelique’s suggestion of the pale blue silk walking dress trimmed in white lace.
The maid was astonished by her acquiescence, but her surprise was not sufficient to affect her efficiency. She had her mistress smartly dressed, if a tad too de mode for Alexia’s normal preferences, and down at the dining table in a scant half hour—a noteworthy accomplishment by anyone’s standards.
Everyone else was already seated at the supper table. In this particular case, “everyone else” included the pack, both residents and returnees, half the clavigers, and the insufferable Major Channing—about thirty or so. “Everyone else” did not, however, appear to include the master of the house. Lord Maccon made for a tangibly large absence, even in such a crowd.
Sans husband, Lady Maccon plonked herself down next to Professor Lyall. She gave him a little half-smile as a partial greeting. The Beta had not yet commenced his meal, preferring to begin with a hot cup of tea and the evening paper.
Startled by her sudden appearance, the rest of the table scrambled to stand politely as she joined them. Alexia waved them back to their seats, and they returned with much clattering. Only Professor Lyall managed a smooth stand, slight bow, and reseat with the consummate grace of a dancer. And all that without losing his place in his newspaper.
Lady Maccon quickly served herself some haricot of veal and several apple fritters and began eating so the others about the table could stop fussing and continue with their own meals. Really, sometimes it was simply too vexatious to be a lady living with two dozen gentlemen. Not to mention the hund
reds now encamped on the Woolsey grounds.
After only a moment to allow her husband’s Beta to acclimatize to her presence, Lady Maccon struck. “Very well, Professor Lyall, I shall bite: where has he gone now?”
The urbane werewolf said only, “Brussels sprouts?”
Lady Maccon declined in horror. She enjoyed most foods, but brussels sprouts were nothing more than underdeveloped cabbages.
Professor Lyall said, crinkling his paper, “Shersky and Droop are offering the most interesting new gadget for sale, just here. It is a particularly advanced form of teakettle, designed for air travel, to be mounted on the sides of dirigibles. It harnesses the wind via this small whirligig contraption that generates enough energy to boil water.” He pointed out the advertisement to Alexia, who was distracted despite herself.
“Really? How fascinating. And so very useful for those more frequent dirigible travelers. I wonder if…” She trailed off and gave him a suspicious look. “Professor Lyall, you are trying to persuade me away from the point. Where has my husband gone?”
The Beta put down the now-useless newspaper and dished himself a fine piece of fried sole from a silver platter. “Lord Maccon left at the crack of dusk.”
“That was not what I asked.”
On the far side of Lyall, Major Channing chuckled softly into his soup.
Alexia glared at him and then turned a sharp look onto the defenseless Tunstell, seated at the other side of the table among the clavigers. If Lyall would not talk, perhaps Tunstell would. The redhead met her glare with wide eyes and quickly stuffed his face with a large mouthful of veal, trying to look as if he knew absolutely nothing.
“At least tell me if he was dressed properly?”
Tunstell chewed slowly. Very slowly.
Lady Maccon turned back to Professor Lyall, who was calmly slicing into his sole. Lyall was one of the few werewolves she had met who actively preferred fish to meat.
“Did he head off to Claret’s?” she asked, thinking the earl might have business at his club before work.
Professor Lyall shook his head.
“I see. Are we to play at guessing games, then?”
The Beta sighed softly through his nose and finished his bite of sole. He put down his knife and fork with great precision on the side of his plate and then dabbed, unnecessarily, at his mouth with the corner of his serviette.
Lady Maccon waited patiently, nibbling at her own dinner. After Professor Lyall had put the damask serviette back into his lap and shoved his spectacles up his nose, she said, “Well?”
“He had a message this morning. I’m not privy to the particulars. He then swore a blue streak and set off northward.”
“Northward to where, exactly?”
Professor Lyall sighed. “I believe he has gone to Scotland.”
“He did what?”
“And he did not take Tunstell with him.” Professor Lyall stated the obvious in clear annoyance, pointing to the redhead who was looking ever more guilty and ever more eager to continue chewing rather than participate in the conversation.
Lady Maccon worried at that information. Why should Conall take Tunstell? “Is he in danger? Shouldn’t you have gone with him, then?”
Lyall snorted. “Yes. Picture the state of his cravat without a valet to tie him in.” The Beta, always the height of understated elegance, winced in imagined horror.
Alexia privately agreed with this.
“Could not take me,” muttered the Tunstell in question. “Had to go in wolf form. Trains are down, what with the engineer’s strike. Not that I should mind going; my play’s finished its run, and I’ve never seen Scotland.” There was a note of petulance in his tone.
Hemming, one of the resident pack members, slapped Tunstell hard on the shoulder. “Respect,” he growled without looking up from his meal.
“Where, precisely, has my husband taken himself off to in Scotland?” Lady Maccon pressed for details.
“The southern part of the Highlands, as I understand it,” replied the Beta.
Alexia recovered her poise. What little she had. Which admittedly wasn’t generally considered much. The southern Highland area was the vicinity of Conall’s previous abode. She thought she understood at last. “I take it he found out about his former pack’s Alpha being killed?”
Now it was Major Channing’s turn to be surprised. The blond man practically spat out his mouthful of fritter. “How did you know that?”
Alexia looked up from her cup of tea. “I know many things.”
Major Channing’s pretty mouth twisted at that.
Professor Lyall said, “His lordship did say something about dealing with an embarrassing family emergency.”
“Am I not family?” wondered Lady Maccon.
To which Lyall muttered under his breath, “And often embarrassing.”
“Careful there, Professor. Only one person is allowed to say insulting things about me to my face, and you are certainly not large enough to be he.”
Lyall actually blushed. “All apologies, mistress. I forgot my tongue.” He emphasized her title and pulled his cravat down to show his neck ever so slightly.
“We are all his family! And he simply left us.” Major Channing seemed to be even more annoyed by Alexia’s husband’s departure than she was. “Pity he didn’t talk to me beforehand. I might have given him reason to stay.”
Alexia turned hard brown eyes on Woolsey’s Gamma. “Oh yes?”
But Major Channing was busy puzzling over something else. “Of course, he might have known, or at least guessed. What did they get up to those months without an Alpha to guide them?”
“I don’t know,” pressed Alexia, although his talk was clearly not directed at her. “Why don’t you tell me what you were going to tell him?”
Major Channing started and managed to look both guilty and angry at the same time. Everyone’s attention was on him.
“Yes,” came Lyall’s soft voice, “why don’t you?” There was steel there, behind the studied indifference.
“Oh, it is nothing much. Only that, while we were on the boat and for the entirety of the journey over the Mediterranean and through the straits, none of us could change into wolf form. Six regiments with four packs, and we all grew beards. Basically, we were mortal the whole time. Once we left the ship and traveled some ways toward Woolsey, we suddenly became our old supernatural selves once more.”
“That is very interesting given recent occurrences, and you didn’t manage to tell my husband?”
“He never had time for me.” Channing seemed angrier than she was.
“You took that as a slight and did not make him listen? That is not only stupid but could prove dangerous.” Now Alexia was getting angry. “Is someone a little jealous?”
Major Channing slammed his palm down on the table, rattling the dishes. “We have only just arrived back after six years abroad, and our illustrious Alpha takes off, leaving his pack to go and see to the business of another!” The major practically spat the words out in his self-righteousness.
“Yup,” said Hemming from nearby, “definitely jealous.”
Major Channing pointed a threatening finger at him. He had wide, elegant hands, but they were callused and rough, making Alexia wonder what backcountry he had fought to tame in the years before he became a werewolf. “Take greater caution with your words, runt. I outrank you.”
Hemming tilted his head, exposing his throat in acknowledgment of the threat’s validity, and then proceeded to finish his supper and keep his opinions to himself.
Tunstell and the rest of the clavigers watched the conversation with wide-eyed interest. Having the entire pack home was a novel experience for them. The Coldsteam Guards had been stationed in India long enough for most of the Woolsey clavigers to have never met the full pack.
Lady Maccon decided she had had enough of Major Channing for one evening. With this new information, it was even more urgent she head into town, and so she rose from her chair and called for t
he carriage.
“Back into London again this evening, my lady?” wondered Floote, appearing in the hallway with her mantle and hat.
“Unfortunately, yes.” His lady was looking perturbed.
“Will you be needing the dispatch case?”
“Not tonight, Floote. I am not going as muhjah. Best to remain as innocuous-looking as possible.”
Floote’s silence was eloquent, as so many of Floote’s silences were. What his beloved mistress made up for in brains she lacked in subtlety; she was about as innocuous as one of Ivy Hisselpenny’s hats.
Alexia rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, well, I take your point, but there is something I am missing about last night’s incident. And now we know that whatever it was came into town with the regiments. I simply must see if I can catch Lord Akeldama. What BUR did not uncover, his boys will have.”
Floote looked slightly perturbed by this. One eyelid fluttered almost imperceptibly. Alexia would never have noticed had she not labored under twenty-six years of acquaintance with the man. What it meant was that he did not entirely approve of her fraternization with the most outlandish of London’s vampire roves.
“Do not alarm yourself, Floote. I shall take prodigious care. Pity I do not have a legitimate excuse for going into town tonight, though. People will remark upon my break from the normal schedule.”
A timid feminine voice said, “My lady, I may be able to assist with that.”
Alexia looked up with a smile. Female voices were rare about Woolsey Castle, but this was one of the few commonly heard ones. As ghosts went, Formerly Merriway was an amenable one, and Alexia had grown fond of her over the last few months. Even if she was timid.
“Good evening, Formerly Merriway. How are you tonight?”
“Still holding myself together, mistress,” replied the ghost, appearing as nothing more than a shimmery grayish mist in the brightness of the gas-lit hallway. The front hall was at the farthest end of her tether, so it was difficult for her to solidify. It also meant her body must be located somewhere in the upper portion of Woolsey Castle, probably walled in somewhere, a fact Alexia preferred not to think about and hoped fervently never to smell.
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