“That is quite the quantity of facial hair. I didn’t know he had it in him. I suppose that fuzzy is more appropriate given the current situation.” Lord Akeldama raised one long, slim white hand to the base of his own throat, pinching at the skin there. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and looking down on his former drone once more. “He looks so young when he is sleeping. I have always thought so.” He swallowed audibly. Then he turned and came back to stand in front of Lyall.
“You have been riding, my lord?”
Lord Akeldama looked down at his clothing and winced. “Necessity sometimes demands a sacrifice, young Randolph. Can I call you Randy? Or would you prefer, Dolphy? Dolly, perhaps?” Professor Lyall flinched noticeably. “Anyway, as I was saying, Dolly, I cannot abide riding—the horses are never happy to seat a vampire, and it plays havoc with one’s hair. The only thing more vulgar is an open carriage.”
Professor Lyall decided on a more direct approach. “Where have you been this past week, my lord?”
Lord Akeldama looked once more down at himself. “Chasing ghosts while pursued by daemons, as it were, Dolly darling. I am convinced you must be aware of how it goes.”
Professor Lyall decided on a push, just to see if he might elicit a more genuine reaction. “How could you disappear like that, just when Lady Maccon needed you most?”
Lord Akeldama’s lip curled slightly, and then he gave a humorless little laugh. “Interesting query, coming from Lord Maccon’s Beta. You will forgive me if I am inclined to see it as my right to ask the questions under such circumstances.” He gestured with his head in Biffy’s direction, just a little jerk of controlled displeasure.
Lord Akeldama was a man who hid his real feelings, not with an absence of emotions but with an excess of false ones. However, Professor Lyall was pretty certain that there, lurking under the clipped civility, was real, deeply rooted, and undeniably justified anger.
Lord Akeldama took a seat, lounging back into it, for all the world as relaxed and untroubled as a man at his club. “So, I take it, Lord Maccon has gone after my dear Alexia?”
Lyall nodded.
“Then he knows?”
“That she is in grave danger and the potentate responsible? Yes.”
“Ah, was that Wally’s game? No wonder he wanted me swarming out of London. No, I mean to ask, Dolly dear, if the estimable earl knows what kind of child he has sired.”
“No. But he has accepted that it is his. I think he always knew Lady Maccon would not play him false. He was just being ridiculous about it.”
“Normally, I am all in favor of the ridiculous, but under such circumstances, you must understand, I believe it quite a pity he could not have come to that realization sooner. Lady Maccon would never have lost the protection of the pack, and none of this would have happened.”
“You think not? Yet your kind tried to kill her on the way to Scotland when she was still very much under Woolsey’s protection. Admittedly, that was done more discreetly and, I now believe, without the support of the hives. But they would all still have wanted her dead the moment they knew of her condition. The interesting thing is that you, apparently, do not want her dead.”
“Alexia Maccon is my friend.”
“Are your friends so infrequent, my lord, that you betray the clearly unanimous wishes of your own kind?”
Lord Akeldama lost some slight element of his composure at that. “Listen to me carefully, Beta. I am a rove so that I might make my own decisions: who to love, who to watch, and, most importantly, what to wear.”
“So, Lord Akeldama, what is Lady Maccon’s child going to be?”
“No. You will explain this first.” The vampire gestured at Biffy. “I am forced to swarm because my most precious little drone-y-poo is ruthlessly stolen from me—betrayed, as it turns out, by my own kind—only to return and find him stolen by your kind instead. I believe even Lord Maccon would acknowledge I am entitled to an explanation.”
Professor Lyall fully agreed with him in this, so he told the vampire the whole truth, every detail of it.
“So it was death or the curse of a werewolf?”
Professor Lyall nodded. “It was something to see, my lord. No metamorphosis I have ever witnessed took so long, nor was conducted with so much gentleness. To do what Lord Maccon did and not savage the boy in the heat of the need for blood, it was extraordinary. There are not many werewolves who possess such self-control. Biffy was very lucky.”
“Lucky?” Lord Akeldama fairly spat the word, jumping to his feet. “Lucky! To be cursed by the moon into a slathering beast? You would have done better to let him die. My poor boy.” Lord Akeldama was not a big man, certainly not by werewolf standards, but he moved so quickly that he was around Professor Lyall’s desk, slim hands about the werewolf’s throat, faster than Lyall’s eyes could follow. There was the anger Professor Lyall had been waiting for and, with it, a degree of pain and hurt he would never have expected from a vampire. Perhaps he had pushed a little harder than was strictly necessary. Lyall sat still and passive under the choking hold. A vampire could probably rip a werewolf’s head clean off, but Lord Akeldama was not the kind of man to do such a thing, even in the heat of anger. He was too controlled by age and etiquette to make more than a show of it.
“Master, stop. Please. It was not their fault.”
Biffy sat up slightly on the couch, eyes fixed in horror at the sight before him.
Lord Akeldama immediately let go of Professor Lyall and dashed over to kneel by the young man’s side.
Biffy spoke in a jumble of words and guilt. “I should not have allowed myself to be captured. I was careless. I did not suspect the potentate of such extremes of action. I was not playing the game as you taught me. I did not think he would use me like that to get to you.”
“Ah, my little cherry blossom, we were all playing blind. This is not your fault.”
“Do you really find me cursed and disgusting now?” Biffy’s voice was very small.
Driven beyond his instincts, the vampire pulled the newly made werewolf against him—one predator consoling another, as unnatural as a snake attempting to comfort a house cat.
Biffy rested his dark head on Lord Akeldama’s shoulder. The vampire twisted his perfect lips together and looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and then looked away. Through the fall of the vampire’s blond hair, Professor Lyall caught a glimpse of his face.
Ah, oh dear, he really did love him. The Beta pressed two fingers against his own eyes as though he might stopper up the tears in theirs. Curses.
Love, of all eccentricities among the supernatural set, was the most embarrassing and the least talked about or expected. But Lord Akeldama’s face, for all its icy beauty, was drawn with genuine loss into a kind of carved marble agony.
Professor Lyall was an immortal; he knew what it was to lose a loved one. He could not leave the room, not with so many important BUR documents scattered about, but he did turn away and put on a show of busily organizing stacks of paperwork, attempting to provide the two men some modicum of privacy.
He heard a rustle—Lord Akeldama sitting down upon the couch next to his former drone.
“My dearest boy, of course I do not find you disgusting—although, we must really have a serious discussion about this beard of yours. That was only a little turn of phrase, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. You see, I did so look forward to the possibility of having you by my side as one of us. Joined to the old fang-and-swill club and all that.”
A sniff from Biffy.
“If anything, this is my fault. I should have kept a better watch. I should not have fallen for his tricks or sent you in against him. I should not have allowed your disappearance to cause me to panic and swarm. I ought to have recognized the signs of a game in play against me and mine. But who would have believed my own kind—another vampire, another rove—would steal from me? Me! My sweet citron, I did not see the pattern. I did not see how desperate he was. I forgot that sometimes the in
formation I carry in my own head is more valuable than the daily wonders you lovely boys unearth for me.”
At which point, when Professor Lyall really felt things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a bang came on the office door, which then opened without his bidding.
“What—?”
It was Professor Lyall’s turn to look up at the ceiling in an excess of emotion.
“Her most Royal Majesty, Queen Victoria, to see Lord Maccon.”
Queen Victoria marched through the door and spoke to Professor Lyall without breaking stride. “He is not here, is he? Wretched man.”
“Your Majesty!” Professor Lyall hurried from behind his desk and performed his lowest and best bow.
The Queen of England, a deceptively squat and brown personage, swept the room with an autocratic eye as though Lord Maccon, sizable specimen that he was, might manage to hide in a corner somewhere or under the rug. What her eye rested upon was the tableau of a tear-stained Biffy, clearly naked under his blanket, caught up in the arms of a peer of the realm.
“What is this? Sentiment! Who is that there? Lord Akeldama? Really, this will not do at all. Compose yourself this instant.”
Lord Akeldama lifted his head from where it rested, cheek pressed against Biffy’s, and narrowed his eyes at the queen. He gently let his former drone go, stood, and bowed, exactly as deeply as he ought and not one jot more.
Biffy, for his part, was at a loss. He could not get up without exposing some part of himself, and he could not perform the appropriate obedience from a supine position. He looked with desperate eyes at the queen.
Professor Lyall came to his rescue. “You will have to forgive, uh,” he floundered, for he had never learned Biffy’s real name, “our young friend here. He has had a bit of a trying night.”
“So we have been given to understand. Is this, then, the drone in question?” The queen raised a quizzing glass and examined Biffy through it. “The dewan has said you were kidnapped, young man, and by our very own potentate. These are grave charges, indeed. Are they true?”
Biffy, mouth slightly open in awe, managed only a mute nod.
The queen’s face expressed both relief and chagrin in equal measure. “Well, at least Lord Maccon hasn’t bungled that.” She turned her sharp eye on Lord Akeldama.
The vampire, with a studied, casual air, fixed the cuffs of his shirtsleeves so they lay perfectly underneath his jacket. He did not meet her gaze.
“Would you say, Lord Akeldama, that death was an appropriate punishment for the theft of another vampire’s drone?” she inquired casually.
“I would say it is a bit extreme, Your Majesty, but in the heat of the moment, I am given to understand, accidents will happen. It was not intentional.”
Professor Lyall couldn’t believe his ears. Was Lord Akeldama defending Lord Maccon?
“Very well. No charges will be brought against the earl.”
Lord Akeldama started. “I did not say… that is, he also metamorphosed Biffy.”
“Yes, yes. Excellent, another werewolf is always welcome.” The queen bestowed a beneficent smile on the still-bemused Biffy.
“But he is mine!”
The queen frowned at the vampire’s tone. “We hardly see the need for such fuss, Lord Akeldama. You have plenty more just like him, do you not?”
Lord Akeldama stood for a moment, stunned, just long enough for the queen to continue on with her conversation, entirely ignoring his bemusement.
“We must suppose Lord Maccon has gone in pursuit of his wife?” A nod from Professor Lyall. “Good, good. We are reinstating her as muhjah, of course, in absentia. We were acting under the potentate’s advice when we dismissed her, and now we see he must have been furthering his own hidden agenda. For centuries, Walsingham has advised the Crown unerringly. What could have driven such a man to such lengths?”
All around her, silence descended.
“That, gentlemen, was not a rhetorical question.”
Professor Lyall cleared his throat. “I believe it may have to do with Lady Maccon’s forthcoming child.”
“Yes?”
Professor Lyall turned and looked pointedly at Lord Akeldama.
Following his lead, the Queen of England did the same.
No one would ever accuse Lord Akeldama of fidgeting, but under such direct scrutiny, he did appear slightly flustered.
“Well, Lord Akeldama? You do know, don’t you? Otherwise none of this would have happened.”
“You must understand, Your Majesty, that vampire records go back to Roman times, and there is mention of only one similar child.”
“Go on.”
“And, of course, in this case she was the child of a soul-sucker and a vampire—not a werewolf.”
Professor Lyall chewed his lip. How could the howlers not have known of this? They were the keepers of history; they were supposed to know about everything.
“Go on!”
“The kindest word we had for that creature was soul-stealer.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ladybugs to the Rescue
Alexia fought hard. It took some substantial negotiating to convince the German scientist, but in the end all she needed was the right kind of logic.
“I am bored.”
“This does not trouble me, Female Specimen.”
“This is my heritage we are dealing with, you realize?”
“Ya, so?”
“I believe it may be possible for me to uncover something you and the Templars have missed.”
No response.
“I can read Latin.”
He pressed down on her stomach.
“Can you? My, my, you are well educated.”
“For a female?”
“For a soulless. Templar records hold that the devil spawn are not men of philosophy.”
“You see, I am different. I might spot something.”
The little German pulled out an ear tube from his case and listened to her belly attentively.
“I am telling you, I have excellent research skills.”
“Will it keep you quiet?”
Alexia nodded enthusiastically.
“I shall see what I can do, ya?”
Later that day, two nervous young Templars came in carrying some ancient-looking scrolls and a bucket of lead tablets. They must have been under orders to oversee the security of these items, for instead of leaving, they locked the cell door and then sat—on the floor, much to Alexia’s shock—crossed their legs, and proceeded to embroider red crosses onto handkerchiefs while she read. Alexia wondered if this were some kind of punishment, or if embroidery was what the Templars did for fun. It would explain the general prevalence of embroidered red crosses everywhere. Lord Akeldama, of course, had warned her. Silly to realize it now that it was far too late.
She bypassed the scrolls in favor of the more intriguing lead squares. They had Latin incised into them and were, she believed, curse tablets. Her Latin was rather rusty, and she could have used a vocabulary reference book of some kind, but she managed to decipher the first tablet after some time and the others came much easier after that. Most of them concerned ghosts and were designed to either curse someone into suffering after death as a ghost or exorcize a poltergeist that was already haunting a house. Alexia surmised that the tablets, in either case, would be entirely ineffective, but there certainly were a large number of them.
She looked up when Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf entered her cell with a new battery of tests. “Ah,” she said, “Good afternoon. Thank you for arranging for me to look at this remarkable collection. I did not realize curse tablets were so focused on the supernatural. I had read that they called upon the wrath of imaginary daemons and gods, but not the real supernatural. Very interesting, indeed.”
“Anything useful, Female Specimen?”
“Ow!” He poked at her arm with a syringe. “So far, they all have to do with hauntings. Very concerned with ghosts, the Romans.”
“Mmm. Ya. I had read of this in m
y own research.”
Alexia went back to translating the next tablet.
Having collected a sample of her blood, the German abandoned her once more to the tender mercies of the embroidering Templars.
The moment she started reading the next tablet, Alexia knew she wasn’t going to tell Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf about it. It was a small one, and the boxy Latin letters were exceptionally tiny and painfully neat, covering both sides. Where all the previous tablets had been dedicated to daemons or to the spirits of the netherworld, this one was markedly different.
“I call upon you, Stalker of Skins and Stealer of Souls, child of a Breaker of Curses, whoever you are, and ask that from this hour, from this night, from this moment, you steal from and weaken the vampire Primulus of Carisius. I hand over to you, if you have any power, this Sucker of Blood, for only you may take what he values most. Stealer of Souls, I consecrate to you his complexion, his strength, his healing, his speed, his breath, his fangs, his grip, his power, his soul. Stealer of Souls, if I see him mortal, sleeping when he should wake, wasting away in his human skin, I swear I will offer a sacrifice to you every year.”
Alexia surmised that the term “Breaker of Curses” must correlate to the werewolf moniker for a preternatural, “curse-breaker,” which meant that the curse tablet was calling upon the child of a preternatural for aid. It was the first mention she had yet run across, however minor, of either soulless or a child of a soulless. She placed a hand upon her stomach and looked down at it. “Well, hello there, little Stalker of Skins.” She felt a brief fluttering inside her womb. “Ah, would we prefer Stealer of Souls?” The fluttering stilled. “I see, more dignified, is it?”
She went back to the tablet, reading it over again, wishing it might give her more of a clue as to what such a creature could do and how it came into existence. She supposed it was possible that this being was just as nonexistent as the gods of the netherworld that the other tablets called upon. Then again, it could be as real as the ghosts or vampires they were asked to fight against. It must have been such an odd age to have lived in, so full of superstition and mythology, to be ruled by the Caesar’s empire hives and a bickering line of incestuous vampires.
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