Conall frowned. His wife knew perfectly well that the real reason he wished to accompany her was for security. He hated sending her into a hive alone. Alexia waggled her reticule at him. As yet, there was no new parasol in her life, but she still carried Ethel, and the sundowner gun was good enough when pointed at a vampire queen.
“I’m afraid this is important,” said a new voice from behind Professor Lyall, in the street.
Professor Lyall’s lip curled slightly. “I thought I told you to wait.”
“Dinna forget, I’m Alpha. You canna order me around like you do everyone else.”
Alexia thought that a tad unfair. Professor Lyall was many things, but he was not at all tyrannical. That was more Conall’s style. It might be better said that Professor Lyall arranged everyone and everything around him just so. Alexia didn’t mind in the least; she was rather fond of a nice arrangement.
A woman moved out of the gloom of the front garden and into the light cast by the bright gas chandeliers of Lord Akeldama’s hallway. Professor Lyall, polite man that he was, shifted to one side to allow their unexpected visitor to take center stage.
Sidheag Maccon, the Lady of Kingair, looked much the same as she had almost three years earlier, when Alexia had seen her last. Immortality had given her skin a certain pallor, but her face was still grim and lined about the eyes and mouth, and she still wore her graying hair back in one heavy plait, like a schoolgirl. She wore a threadbare velvet cloak that would do nothing to ward off the evening’s chill. Alexia noted the woman’s bare feet. Clearly, the cloak was not for cold but for modesty.
“Evening, Gramps,” said Lady Kingair to Lord Maccon, and then, “Grams,” to Alexia. Considering she looked older than both, it was an odd kind of greeting to anyone unfamiliar with the Maccon’s familial relationships.
“Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter,” responded Lord Maccon tersely. “To what do we owe this honor?”
“We have a problem.”
“Oh, do we?”
“Yes. May I come in?”
Lord Maccon shifted, making an open-hand gesture back at Lord Akeldama, this being the vampire’s house. Vampires were odd about inviting people in. Lord Akeldama had once muttered something about imbalance in the tether ratio after Lady Maccon entertained Mrs. Ivy Tunstell overly long in his drawing room. He seemed to have adjusted tolerably well to Prudence and her parents living under his roof, but after the Ivy tea incident, Alexia always made certain to entertain her guests next door, in her own parlor.
Lord Akeldama peeked over Lady Maccon’s shoulder, standing on tiptoe. “I don’t believe we have been introduced, young lady.” His tone of voice said much on the subject of any woman darkening his doorstep with plaited hair, a Scottish accent, and an old velvet cloak.
Alexia pivoted slightly and, after a quick consideration, decided Lady Kingair was just lady enough to warrant the precedence, and said, “Lady Kingair, may I introduce our host, Lord Akeldama? Lord Akeldama, this is Sidheag Maccon, Alpha of the Kingair Pack.”
Everyone waited a breath.
“I thought as much.” Lord Akeldama gave a little bow. “Enchanted.”
The female werewolf nodded.
The two immortals evaluated each other. Alexia wondered if either saw beyond the outrageousness of the other’s appearance. Lord Akeldama’s eyes gleamed and Lady Kingair sniffed at the air.
Finally Lord Akeldama said, “Perhaps you had best come in.”
Alexia felt a surge of triumph at the achievement of such civilized discourse under such trying social circumstances. Introductions had been made!
However, her pleasure was interrupted by a high-treble query from behind them. “Dama?”
“Ah, I see somebody is awake. Good evening, my puggle darling.” Lord Akeldama turned away from his new acquaintance to look fondly down the corridor.
Prudence’s little head poked out from the drawing room. Tizzy stood behind her, looking apologetic. “I am sorry, my lord. She heard your voices.”
“Not to worry, my ducky darling. I know how she gets.”
Prudence seemed to take that as an invitation and padded down the hallway on her little stubby legs. “Mama! Dada!”
Lady Kingair, momentarily forgotten, was intrigued. “This must be my new great-great-great-aunt?”
Alexia’s forehead creased. “Is that correct? Shouldn’t it be great-great-great-great-half sister?” She looked at her husband for support. “Immortality makes for some pretty peculiar genealogy, I must say.” No wonder the vampires refuse to metamorphose those with children. Very tidy of them. Vampires preferred to have everything in the universe neat. In that, Alexia sympathized with their struggles.
Lord Maccon frowned. “No, I believe it must be something more along the lines of—”
He never finished his sentence. Prudence, seeing that there was a stranger among her favorite people, and assuming that all who came into her presence would instantly adore her, charged Lady Kingair.
“Oh, no, wait!” said Tizzy.
Too late, Alexia dove to pick up her daughter.
Prudence dodged through the legs of the adults and latched on to Lady Kingair’s leg, which was quite naked under the velvet cloak. In the space of a heartbeat, the infant changed into a small wolf cub, muslin dress ripped to tatters in the process. The cub, far faster than a toddler, went barreling off down the street, tail waving madly.
“So that’s what flayer means,” said Sidheag, pursing her lips and arching her eyebrows. Her unnatural pallor was gone and the lines in her face were more pronounced—mortality had returned.
Without even a pause, Lord Maccon stripped smoothly out of his full evening dress in a manner that suggested he had been practicing of late. Alexia blushed.
“Well, welcome to London Town, indeed!” exclaimed Lord Akeldama, whipping out a large feather fan and fluttering it vigorously in front of his face.
“Oh, Conall, really, in full view!” was Alexia’s response, but her husband was already changing midstride from human to wolf. It was done with a good deal of finesse. Even if it was done right there for all the world to see. Sometimes being married to a werewolf was almost too much for a lady of breeding. Alexia contemplated divesting Lord Akeldama of his fan—her face was quite hot, and he no longer possessed the ability to blush. As if reading her mind, he angled about so that he could fan them both.
“That is a lovely fan,” said Alexia under her breath.
“Isn’t it marvelous? From a little shop I discovered off Bond Street. Shall I order one for you as well?”
“In teal?”
“Of course, my blushing pumpkin.”
“I do apologize for my husband’s behavior.”
“Werewolves will happen, my pickled gherkin. One has to merely keep a stiff upper lip.”
“My dear Lord A, you keep stiff whatever you wish—you always do.”
“Doesn’t it hurt her?” Lady Kingair asked rather wistfully as Alexia exited the vampire’s house down the front stoop to stand next to her, watching as the massive wolf chased the tiny cub.
“Not that we can tell.”
“And how long will this last?” Sidheag made a gesture up and down her own body, indicating her altered state.
“Until sunrise. Unless I intervene.”
Sidheag held a naked arm out at Lady Maccon hopefully.
“Oh, no, not you. The preternatural touch has no effect on you anymore. You’re mortal. No, I have to touch my daughter. Then immortality, sort of, well, reverberates back to you. Difficult to explain. I wish we understood more.”
Professor Lyall stood off to one side, a tiny smile on his face, watching the chaos in the street.
Prudence tried to hide behind a pile of delivery crates stacked on one side of the road. Lord Maccon went after her, knocking the crates to the ground with a tremendous clatter. The wolf cub went for the steam-powered monowheel propped against the stone wall of the Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher’s front yard. Mr. Colindrikal-Bumbcrunche
r was particularly fond of his monowheel. He had it specially commissioned from Germany at prodigious expense.
Prudence took refuge behind the spokes of the center area. Lord Maccon was having none of it. He wiggled one mighty paw through to get at her. The spokes bent slightly, Lord Maccon got stuck, and Prudence dodged out, pelting once more down the street. Her tail wagged even more enthusiastically at the delightful game.
Lord Maccon extracted himself from the monowheel, shaking loose and causing the beautiful contraption to crash over with an ominous crunch. Lady Maccon made a mental note to send a card of apology around to their neighbors as soon as possible. The unfortunate Colindrikal-Bumbcrunchers had suffered great travails over the past two years. The town house had been in Mr. Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher’s family for generations. Its proximity to a rove vampire was well known and tolerated, if not exactly accepted. Just as all the best castles had poltergeists, so all the best neighborhoods had vampires. But the addition of werewolves to their quiet corner of London was outside of enough. Mrs. Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher had recently snubbed Lady Maccon in the park, and frankly, Alexia couldn’t fault her for it.
She squinted at the Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher house, trying to see if an inquisitive face at a window might have observed Conall’s transformation in Lord Akeldama’s hallway. That would require an even more profound apology, and a gift. Fruitcake, perhaps. Then again, perhaps the sight of Lord Maccon’s backside might warrant less of an apology, depending on Mrs. Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher’s preferences. Lady Maccon was distracted from this line of thinking by Professor Lyall’s shout of amazement.
“Great ghosts, would you look at that?”
Alexia could not recall Professor Lyall ever raising his voice. She whirled about and looked.
Prudence had reached a good distance away, near to the end of the street, where an orange-tinted lamp cast a weak glow on the corner. There she had turned abruptly back into a squalling, naked infant. It was very embarrassing for all concerned. Particularly, if her screams of outrage were to be believed, Prudence.
“Well, my goodness,” said Alexia. “That’s never happened before.”
Professor Lyall became quite professorial. “Has she ever gotten that far away from one of her victims before?”
Lady Maccon was slightly offended. “Must we use that word? Victim?”
Professor Lyall gave her an expressive look.
She acquiesced. “Quite right, it is unfortunately apt. Not that I know of.” She turned to look at Lord Akeldama. “My lord?”
“My darling sweet pea, had I known that if we simply let her run a little distance she would work herself out, I would have let her gallivant about at will.”
Lord Maccon, still in wolf form, trotted over to pick up his human daughter. Possibly by the scruff of her neck.
“Oh, Conall, wait!” said Lady Maccon.
The moment he touched her, Prudence turned once more into a wolf cub, this time stealing her father’s skin, and he was left to stand in the middle of the street, starkers. Prudence tore off back toward the house. Lord Maccon made to follow, this time in his lumbering mortal form.
Alexia, forgetting the delicacy of the Colindrikal-Bumbcrunchers’ finer feelings, was seized with the spirit of scientific inquiry. “No, Conall, wait, stay there.”
Lord Maccon might have disregarded his wife, particularly if he had any thought of his own shame or the dignity of the neighborhood, but he was not that kind of husband. He had learned all of Alexia’s cadences and tones, and that one meant she was on to something interesting. Best to do as she asked. So he stood, watching with interest, as his little daughter dashed back the way they had come and then past the house in the opposite direction.
Just as before, at a distance from her victim, she turned back into a toddler. This time Lady Maccon went to retrieve her. What must the surrounding households think of us? Screaming baby, wolf cub, werewolves. Really, she would never put up with it herself were she not married into the madness. As she hoisted Prudence, she looked up to see Mr. and Mrs. Colindrikal-Bumbcruncher and their butler glaring daggers at her from their open front door.
Conall, with a little start, turned back into a wolf before heads turned in his direction and someone would be forced to faint. Knowing the Colindrikal-Bumbcrunchers, that someone would probably be the butler.
Sidheag Maccon began to laugh. Lord Akeldama hustled her swiftly inside, fanning himself with the feather fan.
Lord Maccon, once more a wolf, was in the door next. Alexia and her troublesome offspring followed, but not before she heard the Colindrikal-Bumbcrunchers’ door close with a definite click of censure.
“Oh, dear,” said Lady Maccon upon attaining the relative safety of Lord Akeldama’s drawing room. “I do believe we have become those neighbors.”
CHAPTER THREE
In Which Lord Maccon Wears a Pink Brocade Shawl
I don’t have much time,” said Alexia, sitting down with Prudence cuddled in her lap. After her exhausting shape-changing laps up and down the street, the infant had done the most practical thing and fallen asleep, leaving her parents to handle the consequences.
“That was a remarkable display of whatnot,” remarked Lady Kingair, settling herself gingerly into one of Lord Akeldama’s highest and stiffest-looking wingback chairs. She drew her shabby velvet cloak closely about her and tossed her long plait behind her shoulder.
“And an interesting newfound aspect of your daughter’s abilities.” Professor Lyall looked as though he might like a notepad and a stylus of some kind to make a note for BUR’s records.
“Or failing.” Lady Maccon was not so certain she liked the idea of her invincible little daughter having this weakness. Given Alexia’s own experience, it was more likely than not that someone, more probably several someones, would try to kill Prudence over the course of her lifetime. It was far less comfortable knowing that all they would have to do was determine the limits of her abilities.
“That’s what it is, isn’t it?” Alexia looked to Professor Lyall, the only one who might qualify as an expert so far as these things went. “It’s a tether, much like a ghost’s to her corpse.”
“Or a queen’s to her hive,” added Lord Akeldama.
“Or a werewolf’s to his pack,” added Lord Maccon.
Lady Maccon pursed her lips and looked down at her daughter. The poor thing had inherited her mother’s complexion and curly hair. Alexia hoped the nose would not follow. She brushed back some of that dark hair. “Why should she be any different, I suppose?”
Lord Maccon came over to his wife and placed his hand on the back of her neck, caressing the nape with his calloused fingers. “Even you have limits, my dear wife? Who would have thought?”
That wrested Alexia out of her maudlin humors. “Yes, thank you, darling. We must press on. Woolsey is calling. So, if Lady Kingair would like to inform us as to the nature of her visit?”
Lady Kingair, it seemed, was a tad reluctant to do so in Lord Akeldama’s well-appointed drawing room surrounded by the expectant faces of not only her great-great-great-grandfather, but also his wife, his Beta, a very eccentric sort of vampire, that vampire’s lemon-colored drone, a sleeping child, and a fat calico cat. It was more audience than any lady of quality should have to endure when paying a social call on family.
“Gramps, could we nae go somewhere more private?”
Lord Maccon rolled his eyes around, as if only now noticing the crowd. He was a werewolf, after all; he naturally acclimatized to the pack around him, even if that pack had gotten a little bizarrely dressed of late.
“Well, what I know, my wife and Randolph know. And, unfortunately, what Alexia knows, Lord Akeldama knows. However, if you insist, we could put out the drone.” He paused while Tizzy tried to look as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, or on his trousers for that matter. “And the cat, I suppose.”
Lady Kingair emitted an exhalation of exasperation. “Oh, verra well. To cut to the crux of it: Dubh has
disappeared.”
Lord Maccon narrowed his eyes. “That’s not like a Beta.”
Professor Lyall looked concerned by this news. “What happened?”
Alexia wondered if he and the Kingair Beta had ever met.
Sidheag Maccon was clearly searching for a way of putting it that would not make her seem in the wrong. “I sent him away to investigate some small matter of interest to the pack, and we havena heard back from him.”
“Begin at the beginning,” instructed Lord Maccon, looking resigned.
“I sent him to Egypt.”
“Egypt!”
“To track down the source of the mummy.”
Lady Maccon looked to her husband in exasperation. “Isn’t that just like one of your progeny? Couldn’t just let sleeping mummies lie, could she? Oh, no, had to go off, nosing about.” She rounded on her several-times-removed stepdaughter. “Did it occur to you that I exhausted my parasol’s supply of acid to destroy that blasted creature for a very good reason? The last thing we need is more of them entering the country! Just look at the havoc the last one caused. There was mortality simply everywhere.”
“Oh, really, no. I dinna want to collect another one. I wanted to find out the particulars of the condition. We need to know where it came from. If there are more, they need to be controlled.”
“And you couldn’t have simply suggested that to BUR instead of trying to manage the situation yourself?”
“BUR’s jurisdiction is homeland only. This is a matter for the empire, and I had the feeling that we wolves needed tae see tae it. So I sent Dubh.”
“And?” Lord Maccon’s expression was dark.
“An’ he was supposed tae report in two weeks ago. He never made the aethographic transmission. Then again last week. Still naught. Then, two days past, this came through. I dinna think it’s from him. I think it’s a warning.”
She threw a piece of paper down on the tea table before them. It was plain parchment of the kind employed by transmission specialists the empire over for recording incoming aetherograms. Only, instead of the usual abrupt sentence, one single symbol was drawn upon it: a circle atop a cross, split in two.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 123