Changeless pp-2

by Gail Carriger

  Madame Lefoux, having talked herself out, nodded.

  Lady Maccon swore, using words her husband would have been proud of.

  Tunstell was shocked. He blushed.

  “I suspected she was a spy, of course, but I did not think she would become an active agent. She did such lovely things with my hair.”

  Madame Lefoux tilted her head as though she could understand perfectly.

  “What is she after? Why has she been doing this?”

  The Frenchwoman shook her head. With her top hat off and her cravat untied, she looked almost feminine, most unlike herself. Softer. Alexia was not certain she liked it. “I can only suggest—the same thing you are after, muhjah. The humanization weapon.”

  Lady Maccon swore again. “And, of course, Angelique was standing just there. Right behind me in the hallway when I figured out what it was.”

  Madame Lefoux’s eyes widened.

  But it was Tunstell who said, voice full of awe, “You figured it out?”

  “Of course I did. Where have you been?” Lady Maccon immediately headed toward the door. “Tunstell, my orders stand.”

  “But, mistress, you need—”

  “They stand!”

  “I do not think she wants to kill anyone but me,” Madame Lefoux called after her. “I really do not. Please, my lady, do not do anything… terminal.”

  Lady Maccon whirled back at the door and bared her teeth, looking for all the world like a bit of a werewolf herself.

  “She shot my husband, madame,” she said.

  Outside, where the Kingair Pack should have still stood, was only silence. Silence and a whole mess of plaid-skirted, large, sleeping bodies—quite the grand collapse.

  Lady Maccon closed her eyes and took a long, annoyed breath. Really, must she do everything herself?

  Gripping her parasol firmly, she armed the numbing spike, her finger hovering over the dart-ejection button, and charged up the stairs toward the mummy room. Unless she missed her guess, Angelique would try to get the creature out and on the road, probably by carriage, and back to her masters.

  She missed her guess. The moment she opened the door to the room, it became patently clear the mummy was still in residence and Angelique was not.

  Lady Maccon frowned. “What?”

  She tapped the tip of her parasol on the floor in annoyance. Of course! A vampire spy’s priority would be the transfer of information. It was the thing vampires valued most. Alexia changed her grip on the parasol and hurtled up too many staircases for her corset-clad self, arriving, panting, at the aethographic transmitter room.

  Without even bothering to see if it was in use, she aimed her parasol and pulled down on the appropriate lotus leaf in the handle, activating the magnetic disruptor emitter. For just one moment everything stopped.

  Then Alexia rushed forward and into the transmitting room of the apparatus.

  Angelique was already standing up from the station. The little arms of the spark emitters were stopped midmessage. The French maid looked directly at Lady Maccon and, without pause, dashed toward her.

  Alexia deflected the charge, but the girl’s intention obviously had not been to attack, for she simply shoved Alexia to one side and leaped from the room. Lady Maccon fell back against a tangle of gadgetry on one wall of the chamber, lost her balance, and hit the floor hard, landing on her side.

  She floundered among skirts, bustle, and petticoats, trying to regain her footing. As soon as she had, she raced to the transmitter cradle and grabbed out the metal scroll. Only three-quarters had burned through. Was it enough? Had her blast stopped the transmission, or did the vampires now have access to possibly the most dangerous information both about and to preternaturals?

  With no time to check, Lady Maccon thrust the slate to one side, whirled about, and dashed after Angelique, convinced that now the young woman would be after the mummy.

  This time she was correct.

  “Angelique, stop!”

  Alexia saw her from the landing above, struggling with the corpse of the long-dead preternatural, half carrying, half dragging the gruesome thing down the first set of stairs toward the front door of the castle.

  “Alexia? What is going on?” Ivy Hisselpenny emerged from her room, cheeks blotchy and tearstained.

  Lady Maccon took aim with her parasol, through the mahogany railing of the banister, and fired a numbing dart at her maid.

  The French girl twisted, holding the mummy up as a shield. The dart hit and hung half inside of wrinkled brown skin thousands of years old. Alexia pounded down the next set of stairs.

  Angelique pulled the mummy across her back so that it could protect her as she ran, but her progress was hampered by the awkwardness of having to carry the creature.

  Lady Maccon paused on the staircase and took aim once more.

  Miss Hisselpenny appeared in Alexia’s line of view, standing on the landing above the first staircase, looking down at Angelique, entirely blocking Alexia’s chance at a second shot.

  “Ivy, move!”

  “Goodness, Alexia, what is your maid up to? Is she wearing a mummy?”

  “Yes, it is the latest Paris fashion, didn’t you know?” replied Lady Maccon before, quite rudely, shoving her friend out of the way.

  Miss Hisselpenny squeaked in outrage.

  Alexia took aim and shot again. This time the dart missed entirely. She swore. She would have to get in some target practice if she were to continue this line of work. The parasol carried only a two-dart armament, so she increased her speed and went for the old-fashioned option.

  “Really, Alexia, language. You sound like a fishmonger’s wife!” said Miss Hisselpenny. “What is going on? Did your parasol just emit something? How untoward of it. I must be seeing things. It must be my deep love for Mr. Tunstell clouding my vision.”

  Lady Maccon entirely ignored her dear friend. The power of the mummy to repel her notwithstanding, she charged down the staircase, parasol at the ready. “Stay out of the way, Ivy,” she ordered.

  Angelique stumbled over the fallen form of one of the pack members.

  “Just you stop right there,” yelled Lady Maccon in her best muhjah voice.

  French maid and mummy were almost at the door when Lady Maccon pounced, prodding Angelique viciously with the tip of the parasol.

  Angelique froze, turning her head toward her former mistress. Her big violet eyes were wide.

  Lady Maccon gave her a tight little smile. “Now, then, my dear, one lump or two?” Before the girl could answer her, she hauled her arm back and bashed Angelique as hard as she could over the head.

  The maid and the mummy both fell.

  “Apparently, just one is sufficient.”

  At the top of the stairs, Miss Hisselpenny gave a little cry of alarm and then clapped her hand to her mouth. “Alexia,” she hissed, “how could you possibly behave so forcefully? With a parasol! To your own maid. It simply is not the thing to discipline one’s staff so barbarically! I mean to say, your hair always looked perfectly well done to me.”

  Lady Maccon ignored her and kicked the mummy out of the way.

  Ivy gasped again. “What are you doing? That is an ancient artifact. You love those old things!”

  Lady Maccon could have done without the commentary. She had no time for historical scruples. The blasted mummy was causing too many problems and, if left intact, would become a logistical nightmare. There was no way it could be allowed to exist. Hang the scientific consequences.

  She checked Angelique’s breathing. The spy was still alive.

  The best thing to do, Lady Maccon decided, was eliminate the mummy. Everything else could be dealt with subsequently.

  Resisting the intense pushing sensation that urged her to get as far away from the awful thing as possible, Alexia dragged the mummy out onto the massive stone blocks that formed the front stoop of the castle. No sense in putting anyone else in danger.

  Madame Lefoux had not designed the parasol to emit anything part
icularly toxic to preternaturals, if there existed such a substance, but Alexia was confident sufficient application of acid could destroy most anything.

  She opened the parasol and flipped it so she was holding the spike. Just to be on the safe side, she turned the tiny dial above the magnetic disruption emitter all the way to the third click. The parasol’s six ribs opened, and a fine mist clouded over the mummy, drenching dehydrated skin and old bone. She swayed the parasol back and forth, to be sure the liquid covered the entire body, and then propped it over the mummy’s torso and backed away, leaving mummy and parasol alone together. The pungent aroma of burning acid permeated the air, and Alexia moved even farther away. Then came an odor like nothing she had ever smelled before: the final death of ancient bones, a mix of musty attic, and coppery blood.

  The repelling sensation emitted by the mummy began to decrease. The creature itself was gradually disintegrating, turning into a lumpy puddle of brown mush, irregular bits of bone and skin sticking out. It was no longer recognizable as human.

  The parasol kept spraying, the stone steps becoming pitted.

  Behind Alexia, inside Kingair Castle, at the top of the grand staircase, Ivy Hisselpenny screamed.

  * * *

  On the other side of the British isle, in a hired, unmarked cab outside what looked to be a quite innocent, if expensive, town house in a discreetly fashionable neighborhood near Regent’s Park, Professor Randolph Lyall and Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings sat and waited. It was a dangerous place for two werewolves to be, just outside the Westminster Hive. Doubly dangerous in that they were not there in any official capacity. If this got back to BUR, Lyall was tolerably certain he would be out of a job and the major cashiered.

  They both practically jumped out of their skins, a true skill for a werewolf, when the cab door crashed open and a body tumbled inside.

  “Drive!”

  Major Channing banged on the roof of the cab with his pistol and the hack jumped forward. The horse’s hooves emitted a shockingly loud clatter in the London night air.

  “Well?” questioned Channing, impatient.

  Lyall reached down to help the young man regain his feet and his dignity.

  Biffy tossed back the black velvet cape that had fallen askew during his mad dash to safety. Lyall was at a loss to know how a cape could be of assistance when breaking and entering, but Biffy had insisted. “Dressing the part,” he had said, “is never optional.”

  Professor Lyall grinned at the youngster. He really was a rather good-looking gentleman. Whatever else one might say about Lord Akeldama, and one might say a lot, he had excellent taste in drones. “So, how did it go?”

  “Oh, they have one, all right. Right up near the roof. A slightly older model than my master’s, but it looked to be in good working order.”

  A good-looking and effective gentleman.

  “And?” Professor Lyall quirked an eyebrow.

  “Let us simply say, for the time being, that it is most likely not as useful as it was a little while ago.”

  Major Channing looked at Biffy suspiciously. “What did you do?”

  “Well, you see, there was this pot of tea, simply sitting there…” He trailed off.

  “Useful thing, tea,” commented Lyall thoughtfully.

  Biffy grinned at him.

  * * *

  It was not one of Ivy’s normal breathy, about-to-faint sort of screams. It was a scream of real terror, and it caused Lady Maccon to abandon her parasol to its acidic work and rush back inside, alone.

  The scream’s assertiveness had attracted the attention of others as well. Tunstell and a wobbly-looking Madame Lefoux both emerged from the downstairs parlor, despite Alexia’s orders to the contrary.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled at them. “Get back in there this instant!”

  But their collective attention was entirely held elsewhere. It was fixed on the landing above, where Angelique stood close behind Miss Hisselpenny, a deadly looking knife held to that young lady’s throat.

  “Miss Hisselpenny!” yelled Tunstell, his face suffused with horror. And then, abandoning all decency and decorum, “Ivy!”

  At the same time Madame Lefoux yelled, “Angelique, no!”

  Everyone charged toward the stairs. Angelique dragged Ivy back with her toward the room that had once housed the mummy.

  “Stay back or she will die,” said the maid in her native tongue, hand steady and eyes hard.

  Tunstell, not understanding, drew the Tue Tue and pointed it at the maid. Madame Lefoux pulled down on his arm. She proved surprisingly strong for one so recently injured. “You’ll hit the hostage.”

  “Angelique, this is madness,” said Lady Maccon, trying to be reasonable. “I have destroyed the evidence. Soon the pack will be awake and recovered. Whatever drug you gave them will not last once they reclaim their supernatural state. It cannot possibly be long now. You simply will not be able to escape.”

  Angelique continued to move backward, dragging the hapless Miss Hisselpenny with her. “Zen I have nothing to lose, non?” She continued into the room.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Lady Maccon and Tunstell both dashed up the stairs after her. Madame Lefoux tried to follow, but her progress was much slower. She was clutching at her wounded shoulder and breathing with difficulty.

  “I need her alive,” Alexia panted at Tunstell. “I have questions.”

  Tunstell tucked the Tue Tue into his breeches and nodded.

  They attained the room at about the same time. They found Angelique, still armed, directing Ivy to open the shutters to the far window. Alexia bitterly regretted her lack of parasol. Really, she would have to chain the bloody thing to her side. Every time she did not have it, she found herself in grave need of its services. Before Angelique caught sight of them, Tunstell ducked down and to one side, using the various furnishings about the room to shield himself from the maid’s view.

  While he approached in secret, making his way cautiously about the room, Lady Maccon took it upon herself to distract the spy. It was not easy; Tunstell was not what one could describe as subtle. His flaming red hair bobbed up with each pointed and articulated footstep, as though he were some cloaked Gothic villain creeping across a stage. Melodramatic fat-head. It was a good thing the room was darkened, lit by only one gas lamp in the far corner.

  “Angelique,” Lady Maccon called.

  Angelique turned, jerking roughly at Miss Hisselpenny with her free hand, the other still clutching the wicked-looking knife at Ivy’s neck. “Hurry up,” she growled at Miss Hisselpenny. “You”—she jerked her chin at Alexia—“stay back and let me see your hands.”

  Lady Maccon waved her empty hands about, and Angelique nodded, clearly pleased by the lack of weaponry. Alexia privately urged Ivy to faint. It would make matters much easier. Ivy remained stubbornly conscious and distraught. She never did faint when it was actually warranted.

  “Why, Angelique?” Lady Maccon asked, genuinely curious, not to mention eager to keep the maid’s attention off of the blatantly skulking Tunstell.

  The French girl smiled, her face even more beautiful. Her large eyes shone in the light of the gas lamp. “Because she asked me to. Because she promised she would try.”

  “She. She who?”

  “Who do you think?” Angelique practically snapped back.

  Lady Maccon caught a whiff of vanilla scent, and then a soft voice spoke from her side. Madame Lefoux leaned weakly against the doorjamb next to her. “Countess Nadasdy.”

  Lady Maccon frowned and bit at her lip, confused. She continued to speak to Angelique, only half acknowledging the inventor’s presence. “But I thought your former master was a rove. I thought you were at the Westminster Hive under sufferance.”

  Angelique prodded at Ivy again, this time using the tip of the knife. Ivy squeaked and fumbled with the latch of the shutters, finally managing to throw them back. The castle was old, with no glass in its windows. Cool, wet night air r
ushed into the room.

  “You think too much, my lady,” sneered the spy.

  Tunstell, having finally made his way about the room, sprang forward at that moment, launching himself at the Frenchwoman. For the first time in their acquaintance, Alexia felt he was finally showing some of the grace and dexterity one would expect in a soon-to-be werewolf. Of course, it could all be showmanship, but it was impressive nevertheless.

  Miss Hisselpenny, seeing who it was who had come to her rescue, screamed and fainted, collapsing to one side of the open window.

  Finally, thought Alexia.

  Angelique reeled around, brandishing the knife.

  Tunstell and the maid grappled. Angelique struck out at the claviger with a wicked slash, training and practice behind the movement. He ducked, deflecting the blade with his shoulder. A bloody gash appeared on the meat of his upper arm.

  Lady Maccon jerked forward to go to Tunstell’s aid, but Madame Lefoux held her back. Her foot came down with a sad little crunch noise, and Alexia tore her gaze away from the grappling forms to see what had caused it. Ugh! The floor was littered with dead scarab beetles.

  The claviger was unsurprisingly stronger than Angelique. She was a delicate little thing, and he was built on the larger end of the scale, as both werewolves and stage directors preferred. What he lacked in technique, he more than made up for in brawn. He came up out of the crouch, twisting to push his uninjured shoulder to the maid’s gut. With a scream of anger, the woman fell backward out the window. This was probably not quite what she had originally intended upon opening it, if the rope ladder was any indication. She let forth a long, high scream that ended in a crunchy kind of thud.

  Madame Lefoux screamed herself and left off holding back Lady Maccon. The two dashed over to look out the window.

  Below, Angelique lay in a crumpled heap. Probably not the landing she had intended either.

  “Did you miss the part where I said I needed her alive?”

  Tunstell’s face was white. “Then she isn’t? I killed her.”

  “No, she flew off into the aether. Of course you killed her, you—”

  Tunstell forestalled his mistress’s wrath by fainting into a freckled heap.