The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (7 page)

Miss Tarabotti's hand became very warm, and she was finding that her knees reacted in a decidedly wobbly way to such close
proximity to the earl.
Stop it!
she instructed them fiercely. What was she supposed to say next? Right:
Do not be an idiot.
And then:
I needed help with a vampire, so I went to a vampire for help. No, that was not right. What would Ivy say? Oh yes.
“I was so upset, you see? I encountered a drone in the park yesterday, and Countess Nadasdy has requested my presence, this
very night.”

That
distracted Lord Maccon from his homicidal thoughts of Lord Akeldama. He refused to analyze why he was so opposed to the concept
of Alexia liking the vampire. Lord Akeldama was a perfectly well-behaved rove, if slightly silly, always keeping himself and
his drones in flawless order. Sometimes too flawless. Alexia
should
be entirely allowed to like such a man. His lip curled once more at the very idea. He shook himself and went on to the disturbing,
in quite a different manner, idea of Miss Alexia Tarabotti and Countess Nadasdy in the same room together.

He hustled Alexia over to a small couch and sat them both, with a crackle, on top of the airship transit maps scattered across
it.

“Start from the beginning,” he instructed.

Miss Tarabotti commenced with Felicity reading aloud the newspaper, went on to the walk with Ivy and the meeting with Miss
Dair, and ended with Lord Akeldama's perspective on the situation. “You know,” she added when she felt the earl tense at the
vampire's name, “he was the one who suggested I see you.”

“What!”

“I must know as much as possible about this situation if I am to go into a hive alone. Most supernatural battles are over
information. If Countess Nadasdy wants something from me, it is far better if I know what it is and whether I am capable of
providing it.”

Lord Maccon stood, slightly panicked, and said exactly the wrong thing. “I forbid you to go!” He had no idea what it was about
this particular woman that made him lose all sense of verbal decorum. But there it was: the unfortunate words were out.

Miss Tarabotti stood as well, instantaneously angry, her chest heaving in agitation. “You have no right!”

He circled her wrists with an iron grip. “I am BUR's chief sundowner, I'll have you know. Preternaturals fall under my jurisdiction.”

“But we are allowed the same degree of freedom as members of the supernatural set, are we not? Full societal integration,
among other things. The countess has asked me to attend her for one evening, nothing more.”

“Alexia!” Lord Maccon groaned his frustration.

Miss Tarabotti realized that the earl's use of her given name indicated a certain degree of irritation on his part.

The werewolf took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It did not work, because he was too close to Alexia. Vampires smelled
of stale blood and family lines. His fellow werewolves smelled of fur and wet nights. And humans? Even after all this time
of trapping himself away at full moon, the hunt forbidden, humans smelled like food. But Alexia's scent was something else,
something… not meat. She smelled warm and spicy sweet, like some old-fashioned Italian pastry his body could no longer process
but whose taste he remembered and craved.

He leaned into her.

Miss Tarabotti characteristically swatted him. “Lord Maccon! You forget yourself!”

Which was, Lord Maccon thought, exactly the problem. He let go of her wrists and felt the werewolf return: that strength and
heightened senses a partial death had given him all those decades ago. “The hive will not trust you, Miss Tarabotti. You must
understand: They believe you to be their natural enemy. Do you keep abreast of the latest scientific discoveries?” He rummaged
about on his desk and produced a small weekly news pamphlet. The lead article was titled the counterbalance theorem as applied
to horticultural pursuits.

Alexia blinked at it, not comprehending. She turned the paper over:
published by Hypocras Press.
That did not help either. She knew of the counterbalance theorem, of course. In fact, she found the tenets, in principle,
rather appealing.

She said, “Counterbalance is the scientific idea that any given force has an innate opposite. For example, every naturally
occurring poison has a naturally occurring antidote—usually located in proximity. Much in the way that the juice of crushed
nettle leaves applied to the skin relieves the nettle sting. What has this to do with me?”

“Well, vampires believe that preternaturals are their counterbalance. That it is your elemental purpose to neutralize them.”

Now it was Miss Tarabotti's turn to snort. “Preposterous!”

“Vampires have long memories, my dear. Longer even than us werewolves, for we fight too often among ourselves and die centuries
too young. When we supernaturals hid in the night and hunted humankind, it was
your
preternatural ancestors who hunted us. It was a violent kind of balance. The vampires will always hate you and ghosts always
fear you. We werewolves are not so certain. For us, metamorphosis is part curse, one that sees us imprisoned each month for
everyone's safety. Some of us see preternaturals as the cure for the full moon's curse. There are stories of werewolves who
turned themselves to pets, hunting their own as payment for a preternatural's touch.” He looked disgusted. “All this is better
understood since the Age of Reason brought about the concept of a measured soul and the Church of England broke with Rome.
But new science, such as this theorem, raises old memories in the vampires. They named preternaturals
soul-suckers
for good reason. You are the only one registered in this area. And you have just killed a vampire.”

Miss Tarabotti looked grave. “I already accepted Countess Nadasdy's invitation. It would be churlish to refuse now.”

“Why must you always be so difficult?” wondered Lord Maccon in utter exasperation.

Alexia grinned. “No soul?” she suggested.

“No sense!” corrected the earl.

“Nevertheless”—Miss Tarabotti stood—“someone has to discover what is going on. If the hive knows anything about this dead
vampire, I intend to find out what it is. Lord Akeldama said they wanted to know how much I knew because they either understood
more or they understood less. It is to my advantage to figure out which is the case.”

“Lord Akeldama again.”

“His advice is sound, and he finds my company restful.”

That
surprised the werewolf. “Well, I suppose somebody must. How peculiar of him.”

Miss Tarabotti, affronted, gathered up her brass parasol and made to leave.

Lord Maccon slowed her with a question. “Why
are
you so curious about this matter? Why do you insist on involving yourself?”

“Because someone is dead and it was by my own hand,” she replied, looking gloomy. “Well, by my own parasol,” she amended.

Lord Maccon sighed. He figured someday he might win an argument with this extraordinary woman, but clearly today was not that
day.

“Did you bring your own carriage?” he asked, admitting defeat with the question.

“I shall hire a hackney, not to worry.”

The Earl of Woolsey reached for his hat and coat in a very decisive manner. “I have the Woolsey coach and four here. At least
let me drive you home.”

Miss Tarabotti felt she had rung enough concessions out of Lord Maccon for one morning. “If you insist, my lord,” she acquiesced.
“But I must ask you to drop me a little ways from the house. My mama, you see, is wholly unaware of my interest in this matter.”

“Not to mention her shock at seeing you alight from my carriage without a chaperone. We would not want to compromise your
reputation in any way, now, would we?” Lord Maccon actually sounded riled by the idea.

Miss Tarabotti thought she understood the reasoning behind his tone. She laughed. “My lord, you could not possibly think I
have set my cap for
you
?”

“And why is that such a laughable idea?”

Alexia's eyes sparkled in merriment. “I am a spinster, long on the shelf, and you are a catch of the first water. The very
notion!”

Lord Maccon marched out the door, dragging her behind him. “Don't ken why you should find it so devilish funny,” he muttered
under his breath. “Leastways you are nearer my age than most of those so-called incomparables the society matrons persist
in hurling at me.”

Miss Tarabotti let out another trill of mirth. “Oh, my lord, you are too droll. You are nearing what? Two hundred? As if my
being eight or ten years older than the average marriage-market chit should matter under such circumstances. What delightful
nonsense.” She patted him approvingly on the arm.

Lord Maccon paused, annoyed at her belittling of herself and him. Then he realized what a ridiculous conversation they were
having and how nearing dangerous it had become. Some of his hard-won London social acumen returned, and he held his tongue
determinedly. But he was thinking that by “nearer his age” he had not meant nearer in years but in understanding. Then he
wondered at his own recklessness in thinking any such thing. What was wrong with him today? He could not stand Alexia Tarabotti,
even if her lovely brown eyes twinkled when she laughed, and she smelled good, and she had a particularly splendid figure.

He hustled his lady guest down the passageway, intent upon getting her into the carriage and out of his presence as quickly
as possible.

Professor Randolph Lyall was a professor of nothing in particular and several subjects in broad detail. One of those generalities
was a long running study on the typical human behavioral response when faced with werewolf transformation. His research on
the subject had taught him it was best to change out of wolf shape away from polite company, preferably in a corner of a very
dark alley where the only person likely to see him was equally likely to be crazy or drunk.

While the population of the greater London area, in specific, and the British Isle, in general, had learned well enough to
accept werewolves on principle, to be faced with one engaging in the act of conversion was an entirely different matter. Professor
Lyall considered himself rather good at the change—elegant and graceful despite the pain. Youngsters of the pack were prone
to excessive writhing and spinal gyrations and sometimes a whimper or two. Professor Lyall simply melted smoothly from one
form to the next. But the change was, at its root,
not natural.
Mind you, there was no glow, no mist, no magic about it. Skin, bone, and fur simply rearranged itself, but that was usually
enough to give most daylight folk a large dose of the screaming heebie-jeebies.
Screaming
being the operative word.

Professor Lyall reached the Canterbury BUR offices just before dawn still in wolf shape. His animal form was nondescript but
tidy, rather like his favorite waistcoat: his pelt the same sandy color as his hair but with a sheen of black about the face
and neck. He was not very big, mostly because he was not a very big human, and the basic principles of conservation of mass
still applied whether supernatural or not. Werewolves had to obey the laws of physics just like everyone else.

The change took only moments: his fur crawling away from his body and moving up to become hair, his bones breaking and reforming
from quadruped to biped, and his eyes going from pale yellow to gentle hazel. He had carried a cloak in his mouth during his
run, and he threw it on as soon as he was back to human form. He left the alleyway with no one the wiser to the arrival of
a werewolf in Canterbury.

He rested against the BUR office's front doorjamb, dozing softly, until morning caused the first of the standard-issue clerks
to make his appearance.

“Who are you, then?” the man wanted to know.

Professor Lyall eased himself away from the door and stepped aside so that the clerk could unlock it.

“Well?” The man barred the way when Lyall would have followed him inside.

Lyall bared his canines. It was not an easy trick in the morning sun, but he was an old enough werewolf to make it look easy.
“Woolsey Castle pack Beta, BUR agent. Who is in charge of vampire registration in this office?”

The man, unperturbed by Lyall's demonstration of supernatural ability, replied without shilly-shallying. “George Greemes.
He will be in around nine. Cloakroom is 'round that corner over there. Should I send the boot-boy to the butcher for you when
he gets in?”

Professor Lyall moved off in the direction indicated. “Yes, do: three dozen sausages, if you would be so kind. No need to
cook them.”

Most BUR offices kept spare clothing in their cloakrooms, the architectural conceit of cloakrooms having spawned from generations
of werewolf arrivals. He found some relatively decent garments, although not precisely to his exacting taste, and, of course,
the waistcoat was significantly under par. He then gorged on several strings of sausage and settled in on a convenient ottoman
for a much needed nap. He awoke just before nine, feeling much more human—or as human as was supernaturally possible.

George Greemes was an active BUR agent but not a supernatural one. He had a ghost partner who compensated for this disadvantage
but who, for obvious reasons, did not work until after sunset. Greemes was therefore accustomed to quiet days full of paperwork
and little excitement and was not pleased to find Professor Lyall waiting for him.

“Who did you say you were?” he asked as he came into his office to find Lyall already in residence. Greemes slapped his battered
pork pie hat down over a pot full of what looked like the internal guts of several much-abused grandfather clocks.

“Professor Randolph Lyall, second in command of the Woolsey Castle pack and assistant administer of supernatural relations
in London central,” said Lyall, looking down his nose at Greemes.