“These little chubby puddings with the green sauce,” she declaimed, “must represent the food of the gods. I declare, the Templars may do what they like; I love this country.”
Madame Lefoux grinned. “So easily swayed?”
“Did you taste that green sauce? How did they refer to it? Pets-something-or-other. Sheer culinary genius.”
“Pesto, madam.”
“Yes, Floote, that! Brilliant. Full of garlic.” To illustrate her point, she took another mouthful before continuing. “Seems they put garlic in positively everything here. Absolutely fantastic.”
Floote shook his head faintly. “I beg to differ, madam. It is, in fact, the result of practicality. Vampires are allergic to garlic.”
“No wonder it is so rare back home.”
“Terrible sneezing fits, madam. Much in the manner that young Miss Evylin used to come over when faced with a feline.”
“And werewolves?”
“The basil, madam.”
“No? How intriguing. Same sort of sneezing?”
“I believe it makes the insides of the mouth and nose itch, madam.”
“So this pesto I enjoy so much is really an infamous Italian antisupernatural weapon?” Alexia turned accusing dark eyes on Madame Lefoux. “Yet there is no pesto in my parasol armament. I think we ought to rectify that immediately.”
Madame Lefoux did not point out that Alexia could hardly go traipsing around toting a parasol that smelled strongly of garlic and basil. She did not have to, as Alexia was distracted by the arrival of some variety of orange fruit—of course it was orange—wrapped in a thinly cut piece of pig meat that was almost, but not quite, bacon. Alexia was transported.
“I don’t suppose this is a weapon?”
“Not unless you have suddenly taken against the Jews, madam.”
It was fortunate that they ate, for no food awaited them upon their return. After a lengthy stop at the alchemist’s, which in Italy also stocked pharmaceuticals and fishing equipment, to purchase what Madame Lefoux referred to as “necessary supplies,” they returned to the temple. There they found that, despite the early hour—it was not yet six—the Templars were already retired for the evening, undertaking some form of extended silent prayer.
While Madame Lefoux fussed with refilling the parasol and Floote went to do mysterious butler-type duties, Alexia hunted down the library. When no one stopped her, she began reading various books and records with interest. She had Ivy’s little clipping with her and paused to reread it now and again. A printed admission of guilt, imagine that? She found herself humming from time to time. You see, infant-inconvenience, it’s not so bad.
She did not find the information she was chiefly interested in: anything pertaining to the preternatural breeding program or concerning Templar use of soulless agents. However, she did find enough entertaining reading matter to keep her occupied well into the night. It was far later than she thought when she finally looked up to find the temple utterly silent around her, and not in the way of an edifice filled with prayer and soft movements. No, this was the silence of sleeping brains that only ghosts were comfortable experiencing.
Alexia padded toward her room, but then, sensing a presence she was not quite certain she could name, she shifted in her purposeful tread and veered down a small hallway. It was undecorated: there were no crosses nor any other religious effigies, and it ended in a tight stairwell that she might have thought only used by servants, except that it was arched and mossy and had the feel of immense age about it.
Alexia decided to explore.
This was, it must be admitted, probably not the most intelligent decision of her life. But how often is one given the opportunity to investigate an ancient passageway in a sacred temple in Italy?
The stairs down were indeed steep and slightly wet, as the back ends of caves will get no matter the climate. Alexia steadied herself with one hand against the damp wall, trying not to think about whether said wall had been cleaned recently. The stairs seemed to go down a very, very long way, ejecting her at the end into another undecorated hallway that in turn ended in what was possibly the most disappointing little room imaginable.
She could see that it was a room because, and this was peculiar, the door to the room was glass. She walked up and peeked through.
A small chamber lay before her, walls and floors of dingy limestone, with no paint nor other form of decoration. The only piece of furniture was a small pedestal in the center of the room, on top of which stood a jar.
The door was locked, and Alexia, resourceful as she was, had not yet learned to pick locks, though she mentally added it to her list of useful skills she needed to acquire, along with hand-to-hand combat and the recipe for pesto. If her life were to continue on its present track, which, after twenty-six years of obscurity now seemed to mainly involve people trying to kill her, it would appear that acquiring a less savory skill set might be necessary. Although, she supposed, pesto-making ought to be termed more savory.
She squinted through the door. It was paned with small squares of old leaded glass that were warping and sagging in their frames. This meant that the room within shifted and wiggled, and she squirmed around trying to see. She just couldn’t quite make out what was inside the jar, and then finally she got the correct angle and was abruptly rather queasy to her stomach.
The jar held a severed human hand. It was floating in some liquid, probably formaldehyde.
A tactful little cough sounded behind her, just soft enough not to startle.
Alexia still jumped practically out of her frilly orange dress in surprise. Upon landing, she whirled around.
“Floote!”
“Good evening, madam.”
“Come look at this, Floote. They have a human hand in a jar in the middle of an empty room. Aren’t the Italians strange?”
“Yes, madam.” Floote didn’t come over, only nodded as though every house in Italy had such a thing. Alexia supposed this might be possible. Gruesome, but possible.
“But don’t you think, madam, it may be time for bed? It would not do for anyone to find us in the Inner Sanctum.”
“Oh, is that where we are?”
Floote nodded and extended a gracious arm for Alexia to precede him back up the tiny staircase.
Alexia took his advice, as there was apparently nothing else to see besides the random human body part. “Is it very common, in Italy, to keep a jar full of hand, just lying about?”
“For the Templars, madam.”
“Uh, why?”
“It is a relic, madam. Should the temple come under serious threat from the supernatural, the preceptor will break the jar and use the relic to defend the brotherhood.”
Alexia thought she might understand. She had heard of holy relics in connection with some Catholic cults. “Is it the body part of some saint?”
“They have those, too, of course, but in this case, it is an unholy relic, a weapon. The body part of a preternatural.”
Alexia shut her mouth on her next question with a snap. She was surprised she hadn’t been physically repulsed by the hand as she had been by the mummy. Then she remembered the daemon detector. She and the disembodied hand hadn’t been sharing the same air. She supposed that was why the jar had to be broken in case of emergency.
They proceeded the rest of the way to their rooms in silence, Alexia mulling over the implications of that hand and becoming more and more worried as a result.
Floote stopped Alexia before she retired. “Your father, madam, was fully cremated. I made absolutely certain.”
Alexia swallowed silently and then said fervently, “Thank you, Floote.”
He nodded once—his face, as always, impassive.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Great Scotch Egg Under the Thames
Much to Lord Maccon’s annoyance, the acquisition operation, as Professor Lyall had termed it, was taking far longer than intended. Impatient to be off after his errant wife, the Alpha was instead stalking ba
ck and forth in the drawing room of Buckingham Palace awaiting an audience with Queen Victoria.
He was still unsure as to how Lyall had, in fact, managed to keep him in London all these days. Betas, in the end, were mysterious creatures with strange powers. Powers that, when all was said and done, seemed to involve nothing more than a continued battery of civilized behavior and an excess of manners. Effective, blast him.
Professor Lyall sat on an uncomfortable couch, one stylishly clad leg crossed over the other, and watched his Alpha pace.
“I still don’t see why we had to come here, of all places.”
The Beta pushed at his spectacles. It was nearing the afternoon of his third day awake in a row, and he was beginning to experience the effects of prolonged daylight exposure. He felt drawn and tired, and all he wanted to do in the world was return to his tiny bed at Woolsey Castle and sleep the afternoon away. Instead, he was stuck dealing with an increasingly edgy Alpha. “I have said it before, and I shall say it again—you will need sundowner authorization for this, my lord.”
“Yes, but couldn’t you have come and gotten it for me afterward?”
“No, I couldn’t, and you know it. This is too complicated. Stop complaining.”
Lord Maccon stopped for the simple reason that, as usual, Lyall was correct. It had gotten very complicated. Once they’d discovered the location of the stolen object, they’d sent a river rat in to assess the place. The poor lad had come back soaking wet and in an absolute panic, justly earned, as it turned out. Their quick theft and retrieval operation had turned into something far more problematic.
Professor Lyall was a wolf who liked to look on the practical side of any given situation. “At least now we know why Lord Akeldama went into such a tizzy, pulled in all his drones, and ran.”
“I didn’t realize roves could swarm, but I suppose they have the same protective instincts as hives.”
“And Lord Akeldama is a particularly old vampire with a peculiarly large number of drones. He is liable to be overprotective when one is stolen.”
“I cannot believe I’m stuck here involving myself in vampiric tomfoolery. I should be hunting my wife, not one of Lord Akeldama’s drones.”
“The potentate wanted Lord Akeldama panicked for a reason. Your wife is that reason. So, essentially, this is your problem, and you have to deal with it before you leave.”
“Vampires.”
“Exactly so, my lord, exactly so.” Professor Lyall’s calmness covered his genuine worry. He had met Biffy only once or twice, but he liked the lad. Generally acknowledged as Lord Akeldama’s favorite, Biffy was a pretty young thing, calm and capable. He genuinely loved and was loved by his outrageous master. For the potentate to drone-nap him was the height of bad taste. The greatest unwritten law of the supernatural set was that one simply didn’t steal someone else’s human. Werewolves did not poach clavigers, for the key-keepers were vital to the safety of the greater population. And vampires did not take each other’s drones, because, quite frankly, one doesn’t interfere with another’s food source. The very idea! And yet, they were now in possession of eyewitness testimony to the fact that this was exactly what the potentate had done to Lord Akeldama. Poor Biffy.
“Her Majesty will see you now, Lord Maccon.”
The earl straightened his spine. “Righty’o.”
Professor Lyall checked his Alpha’s appearance. “Now be polite.”
Lord Maccon gave him a dour look. “I have met the queen before, you know.”
“Oh, I know. That is why I am reminding you.”
Lord Maccon ignored his Beta and followed the footman into Queen Victoria’s illustrious presence.
In the end, Queen Victoria granted Lord Maccon sanction in his attempt to rescue Biffy. She refused to believe the potentate was involved, but if, in fact, a drone had been kidnapped, she thought it only right that the earl, in his capacity as head of the London BUR offices and chief sundowner, rectify the situation. It was untenable, she claimed, given her experience with vampire loyalty and trust, even among roves, that any vampire would steal another’s drone.
“But supposing, Your Majesty, just this once, it has accidentally occurred? And that Lord Akeldama has swarmed as a result.”
“Why, then you should carry on, Lord Maccon, carry on.”
“I always forget how short she is,” the earl commented to Professor Lyall as they readied themselves to “carry on” later that evening. Lord Maccon took the queen’s tacit permission to mean he could use his Galand Tue Tue, which he was busy cleaning and loading. It was a graceless little revolver, portly with a square grip and hardwood bullets caged and capped with silver—the Sundowner model designed to kill mortals, vampires, or werewolves. Lord Maccon had designed a watertight, oiled leather case for the gun, which he wore about his neck so that it might be with him whether he was in wolf or human form. Since they would be traveling fast, wolf seemed the most sensible way to get through London.
Biffy, they had learned, was imprisoned inside a rather fantastic contraption. Lord Maccon was still upset that the installation of this device had escaped BUR’s notice. It was, according to the trusty river rat, a man-sized sphere made of glass and brass with one large tube coming out its top. The tube was to conduct breathable air, because the sphere had been sunk into the middle of the Thames just under the Charing Cross Rail Bridge near Buckingham Palace. Not unsurprisingly, it had sunk not just into the water, but some way down into the thick mud and garbage at the bottom of the river as well.
When they arrived at the spot, Lord Maccon dove with alacrity off the newly completed Victoria Embankment and into the filthy water. Professor Lyall was more fastidious and thus more reticent. Nothing the Thames could throw at him could damage him permanently, but that didn’t prevent his shuddering at the inevitability of the smell he was destined to produce: wet dog mixed with Thames river water.
Lord Maccon’s brindled head appeared, fur slicked back like a seal, and he barked at his Beta imperiously. Professor Lyall locked his jaw and leapt stiffly into the water, all four legs extended in disgust. Together, looking like nothing so much as two stray dogs after a stick, the two made their way under the bridge.
Since they knew what they were looking for, they managed to find the breathing tube affixed to one of the piers. It was stretched upward well out of the high-tide mark. It looked as though it could have also been used as a drop for food and water bags. At least the potentate had no intention of actually killing poor Biffy. Still, it was carelessly done. Should the tube fall, some misguided boat crash into it, or one curious animal climb up and stopper it over, Biffy would suffocate to death.
Lord Maccon dove down to investigate the contraption. This was hard to do in wolf form, and it was hard to see much in the blackness of the river. But he had supernatural strength and wolf night vision helping him. He surfaced looking pleased with himself, tongue lolling.
Professor Lyall winced at the very idea of tongue having any proximity to the Thames.
Lord Maccon, being Lord Maccon and good at such things, then changed, right there in the Thames, from dog-paddling wolf to large man treading water. He did so flawlessly, so that his head never went under the water. Professor Lyall suspected him of practicing such maneuvers in the bathtub.
“That is one interesting little contraption he has down there, like some species of mechanical Scotch egg. Biffy’s still alive, but I have absolutely no idea how to get him out, short of simply muscling the blasted thing open and dragging him up through the water. Do you think a human could survive such an experience? There seems to be no means of attaching a crank or pulley to the sphere, nor of getting a net underneath, even if we had ready access to such things.”
Professor Lyall sacrificed his meticulousness to the winds and changed form. He was not so good as Lord Maccon, sinking down slowly in the process so that he bobbled up, sputtering and disgruntled, to his Alpha’s amused gaze.
“We could raid Madame Lefoux’s contriva
nce chamber, but I think time is of the essence. We are werewolves, my lord. Muscling things is our specialty. If we can open it fast enough, we should be able to get him out with relatively little harm.”
“Good, because if I do damage him, my wife will never let me hear the end of it. Once she decides to speak to me again, that is. She is awfully fond of Biffy.”
“Yes, I recall. He helped with the wedding.”
“Did he really? Well, what do you know? So, on the count of three? One, two, three.”
Both men inhaled deeply and dove down to crack open the sphere.
It was constructed in two halves, joined by means of large metal ribs, screwed tightly together. From these stretched a cagelike lattice with glass in between, each square far too small for a man to squeeze through. Each werewolf grabbed at one bolt and began to unscrew it as fast as possible. Soon enough, the pressure of the air within caused the upper half of the sphere to separate from the bottom. Air began to escape and water rushed in to fill the vacancy.
Professor Lyall caught sight of Biffy’s panicked expression, his blue eyes wide in a face bushy with weeks’ worth of beard. He could do nothing to help free himself. Instead he fought the inrushing water, trying to keep his head afloat and tilted toward the air tube as long as possible.
With two bolts gone, the two werewolves wedged their bodies into the opening and began to physically push, muscles screaming, tearing the sphere apart bodily. The metal buckled, glass broke, and water filled the small compartment.
Even in all the chaos, Professor Lyall heard several out-of-context noises and, moments later, saw from the corner of his eye as the earl popped out of the sphere and began wildly thrashing about. But Lyall maintained his focus on Biffy. Pushing forward with both legs off the edge of the sphere, he dove for the drone, grabbed him around the waist, and with another tremendous push, shot upward toward the surface.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 81