Changeless pp-2

by Gail Carriger

  “Yes, well, the fall was Angelique.”

  “Dinna change the subject, you impossible woman!”

  Lady Maccon switched to defending herself. “Well, I did suppose Tunstell would have told you. He took the brunt of the incident, after all. And he is your claviger. Normally he tells you everything. Regardless”—she turned back to Madame Lefoux—“you are after the humanization weapon as well, aren’t you?”

  Madame Lefoux smiled again. “How did you guess?”

  “Someone keeps trying to break into or steal my dispatch case. Since you knew about the parasol and all its secret pockets, I figured it had to be you, not Angelique. And what could you possibly want with it except my records as muhjah on the London humanization and the dewan and potentate’s findings?” She paused, her head cocked to one side. “Would you mind stopping now? It is most aggravating. There is nothing of import in the case, you do realize?”

  “But I am still eager to know where you hid it.”

  “Mmm, ask Ivy about lucky special socks.”

  Lord Maccon gave his wife a funny look.

  Madame Lefoux ignored that bizarre statement and moved on. “You did figure it out in the end, didn’t you? The source of the humanization? You must have, because”—she gestured to Lord Maccon’s wolf eyes—“it seems to have been reversed.”

  Lady Maccon nodded. “Of course I did.”

  “Yes, I thought you might. That was the real reason I followed you.”

  Lord Maccon sighed. “Really, Madame Lefoux, why not wait until BUR had it cleared and simply ask what had happened?”

  The inventor gave him a hard look. “When has BUR, or the Crown for that matter, ever shared such information openly with anyone? Let alone a French scientist? Even as a friend, you would never tell me the truth of it.”

  Lord Maccon looked like he would rather not comment on that statement. “Were you, like Angelique, being paid by the Westminster vampires to find this information out?” he asked, looking resigned.

  Madame Lefoux said nothing.

  Alexia felt rather smug at this point. It was rare for her to be able to put one over on her husband. “Conall, you mean to say you did not know? Madame Lefoux is not really working for you. She is not working for the hives either. She is working for the Hypocras Club.”

  “What! That canna be possible.”

  “Oh yes, it can. I saw the tattoo.”

  “No, really it is not,” Lord Maccon and Madame Lefoux said at the same time.

  “Trust me, my dear, we saw to it that the entire operation was disbanded,” added the earl.

  “That explains why you turned so cold toward me all of a sudden,” said Madame Lefoux. “You saw my tattoo and jumped to conclusions.”

  Lady Maccon nodded.

  “Tattoo, what tattoo?” Lord Maccon growled. He was looking ever more annoyed.

  Madame Lefoux yanked down her collar, which was easy without her cravat, exposing the telltale mark upon her neck.

  “Ah, my dear, I see the source of the confusion.” The earl seemed suddenly much calmer, rather than launching into violence over the octopus as Alexia had expected.

  He took his wife’s hand softly in his large paw. “The Hypocras was a militant branch of the OBO. Madame Lefoux is a member in good standing. Are you not?”

  The inventor gave a little half-smile and nodded.

  “And what, pray tell, is the OBO?” Lady Maccon yanked her hand out of her husband’s patronizing grip.

  “The Order of the Brass Octopus, a secret society of scientists and inventors.”

  Lady Maccon glared at the earl. “And you did not think to tell me about this?”

  He shrugged. “It is meant to be secret.”

  “We really must work on our communication. Perhaps if you were not so constantly interested in other forms of intimacy, I might actually have access to the information I need to survive with my temper intact!” Alexia poked at him with a sharp finger. “More talk, less bed sport.”

  Lord Maccon looked alarmed. “Fine, I shall make time to discuss these things with you.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “I promise.”

  She whirled about to look at Madame Lefoux, who was unsuccessfully trying to hide her amusement at Lord Maccon’s discomfort.

  “And this Order of the Brass Octopus, what are its policies?”

  “Secret.”

  A hard look met that remark.

  “In all honesty, we do agree with the Hypocras Club to a certain degree: that the supernatural must be monitored, that there should be checks in place. I am sorry, my lord, but it is true. Supernaturals continue to tamper with the world, particularly the vampires. You get greedy. Look at the Roman Empire.”

  The earl snorted but was not particularly offended. “As though the daylight folk have done so well: never forget, your lot boasts the Inquisition.”

  Madame Lefoux turned to Alexia, trying to explain. Her green eyes were oddly desperate, as though this, of all things, was terribly important. “You, as a preternatural, must understand. You are the living representation of the counterbalance theorem in action. You are supposed to be on our side.”

  Alexia did understand. Having worked alongside the dewan and the potentate for several months, she could comprehend this desperate need the scientists felt to constantly monitor the supernatural set. She wasn’t yet quite certain which side she came down on, but she said firmly, “You understand Conall has my loyalty? Well, him and the queen.”

  The Frenchwoman nodded. “And now that you know my allegiances, will you tell me what caused the mass negation of the supernatural?”

  “You want to harness it into an invention of some kind, don’t you?”

  Madame Lefoux looked arch. “I am convinced there is a market. How about it, Lord Maccon? Imagine what I could do for a sundowner, with the ability to turn vampires and werewolves mortal. Or, Lady Maccon, what new gadget I might install in your parasol? Think of the control we could have over supernaturals.”

  Lord Maccon gave the inventor a long, hard look. “I didna realize you were a radical, Madame Lefoux. When did that happen?”

  Lady Maccon decided then and there not to tell the inventor about the mummy. “I am sorry, madame, but it would be best if I kept this to myself. I have removed the cause, obviously”—she gestured to the pack, still hovering hopefully in the doorway—“with the help of your excellent parasol, but I am thinking this is knowledge best kept out of the public domain.”

  “You are a hard woman, Lady Maccon,” replied the inventor, frowning. “But you do realize, we will figure it out eventually.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it. Although it may be too late. I believe our little spy may have managed to get the word out to the Westminster Hive despite my precautions,” said Lady Maccon, suddenly remembering the aethographic transmitter and Angelique’s message.

  She turned and strode toward the door. Madame Lefoux and Lord Maccon followed.

  “No.” She looked at the inventor. “I am sorry, Madame Lefoux. It is not that I do not like you. It is simply that I do not trust you. Please remain here. Oh, and give me back my journal.”

  The inventor looked confused. “I did not take it.”

  “But I thought you said…”

  “I looked for the dispatch case, but it was not me who broke into your room on board the dirigible.”

  “Then who did?”

  “The same person who tried to poison you, I suppose.”

  Alexia threw her hands up. “I don’t have time for this.” And with that, she led her husband from the room at a brisk trot.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Changes

  Lord Maccon checked the hall. It was empty, the pack having filed into the mummy room or gone to collect Angelique’s body. Seeing no one around to forestall his action, the earl slammed his wife up against the wall, pressing the full length of his body against hers.

  “Ooomph,” said his wife. “Not now.”
>
  He nuzzled in at her neck, kissing and licking her softly just below her ear. “Just a moment,” he said. “I need a small reminder that you are here, you are whole, and you are mine.”

  “Well, the first two should be patently obvious, and the last one is always in question,” replied his lady unhelpfully. But she wrapped her arms about his neck and pressed against him despite all protestations to the contrary.

  He resorted, as always, to action over words and sealed his lips atop hers, stopping that wicked tongue.

  Alexia, who had, until that moment, managed to remain rather pulled together and tidy, despite all of her dashing about the castle, cast herself into a willing state of hopeless disarray. There was really nothing else to do when Conall was in one of these moods but enjoy it. Her husband drove his hands into her hair, tilting her head to the correct angle for ravishment. Ah well, at least he was good at it.

  Alexia sacrificed herself on the altar of wifely duty, enjoying every minute of it, of course, but still determined to pull him back and get on to the aethographor.

  Her determination notwithstanding, it was several long moments before he finally raised his head.

  “Right,” he said, as though he had just finished a refreshing beverage. “Shall we continue on, then?”

  “What?” Alexia asked, dazed, trying to recall what they had been about before he started kissing her.

  “The transmitter, remember?”

  “Oh yes, right.” She swatted him out of habit. “Why did you want to go and distract me like that? I was quite in my element and everything.”

  Conall laughed. “Someone has to keep you off balance; otherwise you’ll end up ruling the empire. Or at least ordering it into wretched submission.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny.” She started down the hallway at a brisk trot, bustle waggling suggestively back and forth. Halfway down, she paused and looked back at him over one shoulder coquettishly. “Oh, Conall, do get a move on.”

  Lord Maccon growled but lumbered after her.

  She stopped again, cocking her head. “What is that preposterous noise?”

  “Opera.”

  “Really? I should never have guessed.”

  “I believe Tunstell is serenading Miss Hisselpenny.”

  “Good heavens! Poor Ivy. Ah well.” She started onward again.

  As they wound their way up through the castle toward the top turret where the aethographor resided, Alexia explained her theory that the now-destroyed mummy had once been a preternatural, that, after death, it had turned into some strange sort of soul-sucking weapon of mass disintegration. And that Angelique, believing the same, had tried to steal the mummy. Probably to get it into the hands of the Westminster Hive and Countess Nadasdy’s pet scientists.

  “If Angelique did manage to reveal all to the hive, no possible good can come of it. We might as well tell Madame Lefoux; at least she will use the knowledge to make weapons for our side.”

  Lord Maccon looked at his wife oddly. “Are there sides?”

  “It would appear to be that way.”

  Lord Maccon sighed, his face worn with care, if not the passage of time. Alexia realized she was gripping his hand tightly and had thus brought him back into mortal state. She let go. He probably needed to be a werewolf right now, tapping into his reserves of supernatural strength.

  He grumbled. “The last thing we need is a competition over weaponry based on dead preternaturals. I shall issue standing orders that all soulless are to be cremated after death. Covertly, of course.” He looked to his wife, for once not angry, simply concerned. “They would all be after you and those of your kind dotted about the empire. Not only that, but you would also be more valuable dead if they knew that mummification worked as a preservation technique for your power.”

  “Luckily,” Alexia said, “no one knows how the ancients conducted mummification. It gives us some time. And perhaps the transmission did not go through. I did manage to blast the aethographor with my magnetic disruption emitter.”

  She retrieved Angelique’s metal scroll from where she had stashed it. It was not reassuring. The spy’s message was burned completely through, and the track marks from the spark readers were evident across most of it.

  Lady Maccon swore an impressive blue streak. The earl gave her a look that was half disapproval, half respect.

  “I take it the message was sent on successfully?”

  She passed the slate over to him. It read simply, “Dead mummy is soul-sucker.” Not so many words in the end, but enough to complicate her life considerably in the future.

  “Well, that has gone and torn it,” was Lady Maccon’s first cogent sentence.

  “How can we be certain it went through to the other side?”

  Alexia picked up a faceted crystalline valve, completely intact, from where it rested in the resonator cradle. “This must belong to the Westminster Hive.” She tucked it into her parasol, in the pocket next to the one for Lord Akeldama’s valve.

  Then, with a thoughtful frown, she pulled that one out and examined it, twisting it this way and that in her gloved hand. What had Lord Akeldama’s message said when they were testing Madame Lefoux’s repairs? Something about rats? Oh no, no, it had been bats. Old-fashioned slang for the vampire community. If Lord Akeldama was monitoring the Westminster Hive, as she’d thought at the time, would he, too, have received the transmission about the mummy? Would him knowing be any worse or better?

  Only one way to find out. Try sending him a message and see if he responded.

  It was well past her arranged transmission time, of course, but Lord Akeldama’s was the kind of apparatus that, if it was on and directed toward the appropriate frequency, would receive whatever was sent. If he had intercepted something significant, he would be expecting Alexia to contact him.

  Instructing her husband to please stay as silent as possible, with a glare that indicated real consequences should he misbehave, Alexia went to work. She was getting quite adept at running the aethographor. She etched in her message as quickly as possible. Fitting Lord Akeldama’s valve into the cradle and the slate into its holder and activating the machine to transmit was much less difficult this time. Her message consisted of two things: “?” and “Alexia.”

  As soon as the transmission was complete, she went into the receiving chamber. Her husband merely continued to stand outside the aethographor, arms crossed, watching his wife’s frilly form. She scuttled about, twiddling various dials and flipping large, important-looking switches. He might approve of her bluestocking tendencies, but he would never understand them. Back at BUR, he had people to run his aethographor for him.

  Lady Maccon appeared to have things well in hand, however, as a message began to appear, letter by letter, in the magnetic particulate. As quietly as possible, she copied it down. It was rather longer than any transmission she had received before. It took a good deal of time to come in and even longer for her to determine where the breaks were between words and how it should read. When she finally managed it, Lady Maccon began to laugh. “My petal.” The italics were visible even across the length of England. “Westminster’s toy had tea issues. Thank Biffy and Lyall. Toodle pip. A.”

  “Fantastic!” said Lady Maccon, grinning.

  “What?” Her husband’s head looked in at the door to the receiving chamber.

  “My favorite vampire, with the help of your illustrious Beta, managed to get his fangs into the Westminster Hive’s transmitter. Angelique’s last message never made it through.”

  Lord Maccon frowned darkly. “Randolph was working with Lord Akeldama?”

  Lady Maccon patted his arm. “Well, he is far more accepting than you about these things.”

  The frown increased. “Clearly.” A pause. “Well, then, let me just…” Her husband, still holding the slate with Angelique’s message on it, twisted the dangerous thing around itself, his muscles expanding impressively, and then crushed the scroll together until all that remained was a crumpled metal ball. “W
e had better melt it down as well,” he said, “just to be on the safe side.” He looked to his wife. “Does anyone else know?”

  “About the mummy?” She bit her lip in thought. “Lachlan and Sidheag. Possibly Lord Akeldama and Professor Lyall. And Ivy, but only in that way Ivy knows things.”

  “Which is to say, not with any real cogency?”

  “Exactly.”

  They smiled at each other and, after Alexia shut down the machine, made their way leisurely back downstairs.

  * * *

  “Miss Hisselpenny has eloped.”

  After the general chaos of the night before, everyone had retired to their respective beds. Those still affected by Angelique’s sleep drug were carried up by the pack. Then most of them, werewolves driven once more by antisun instincts and everyone else through pure exhaustion, slept the day away.

  When Alexia came down for her first meal of the day, right about teatime, the sun had just set. It was as though her old pattern of nighttime living had miraculously transplanted itself to the Scottish Highlands.

  The Kingair Pack sat about munching down fried kippers at the rate of knots, all looking brighter and bushier of tail, seeing as they now could go back to having tails. Even Lady Kingair seemed in slightly better spirits. She certainly relished delivering the news that Tunstell and Ivy had set out for Gretna Green sometime that morning, while everyone was still abed.

  “What?” barked Lady Maccon, genuinely surprised. Ivy was silly, but was she really that silly?

  Felicity, whom Alexia had, it must be admitted, entirely forgotten about in the chaos of the night before, looked up from her meal. “Why, yes, sister. She left you a note, with me of course.”

  “Did she, by George?” Alexia snatched the scribbled missive from her sister’s pink-gloved hand.

  Felicity grinned, enjoying Alexia’s discomfort. “Miss Hisselpenny was awfully distraught when she composed it. I noticed no less than ten exclamation marks.”

  “And why, pray tell, would she leave it with you?” Alexia sat down and served herself a small portion of haggis.