The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (92 page)

The preceptor dove forward. He was grinning—a real smile for the first time. Maniacal, but real.

Alexia took a firm grip on her parasol with both hands and used a hacking blow to stab with the wooden spike at any part of
the vampire that emerged from the wrestling match long enough for her to pin it down. It was a little like trying to hit the
heads of ground moles as they appeared out of their holes. But soon enough, Alexia was getting quite into the game of it.

“Touch it!” yelled the preceptor at Alexia. “Touch it so I can kill it.”

The preceptor was an excellent fighter, for he was single-minded in his attempt to drive his wooden weapon into the creature's
heart or some other vital organ. But he was simply not fast enough, even when Madame Lefoux came to his aid. Madame Lefoux
got in a couple of wicked strikes to the vampire's face with her cravat pin, but the cuts began to heal almost as soon as
she had delivered them. With the air of one swatting at an irritating bug, the vampire casually backhanded the inventor with
a closed fist. She fell hard against the inside of the carriage and then slumped inelegantly to the floor, eyes closed, mouth
slack, and mustache fallen entirely off.

Before Alexia had a chance to react, the vampire managed to heave the Templar up and forward. He hurled the preceptor against
the driver so that both fell out of the carriage into the country lane below.

The horses, spooked into screams of panic, took off in a crazed gallop, surging forward, straining against their traces in
a most alarming manner. Alexia tried to maintain her footing in the wildly pitching carriage. The four cavalry Templars, who
had almost caught up to the ruckus, were left behind in a cloud of swirling dust kicked up by frantic hooves.

The vampire lunged toward Alexia again. Alexia took a firm grip on her parasol and gritted her teeth. Really, she was getting
very tired of these constant bouts of fisticuffs. One would think she was a boxer down at Whites! The vampire lunged. Alexia
swung. But he batted the parasol away and was upon her, hands wrapped around her neck.

He sneezed.
Aha,
thought Alexia,
the garlic!

When he touched her, his fangs vanished and his strength became that of an ordinary human. She saw in his beautiful brown
eyes a look of surprise. He may have known what she was intellectually but had clearly not experienced the sensation of preternatural
touch before. Yet his fingers tightened inexorably around Alexia's throat. He might be mortal but he was still strong enough
to strangle her, no matter how she kicked and struggled.

I'm not ready to die,
thought Alexia.
I haven't yelled at Conall yet.
And then she thought about the baby really as a baby and not an inconvenience for the very first time. We're
not ready to die.

She heaved upward, pushing the vampire up and off.

And just then, something white hit the vampire crosswise so hard that Alexia heard bones breaking—after all, the vampire
was
currently quite mortal and lacking any supernatural defenses. The vampire screamed in surprise and pain.

The hit broke his hold around her neck, and Alexia stumbled back, panting hard, eyes fixed on her former attacker.

The white thing resolved itself into the frenzied figure of a massive wolf, growling and thrashing against the vampire in
a whirlwind of teeth and claws and blood. The
two supernatural creatures scrabbled together, werewolf strength against vampire speed, while Alexia pushed herself and her
parasol back into one corner of the seat, protectively shielding Madame Lefoux's fallen form from claws, teeth, and fangs.

The wolf had the advantage, having attacked while the vampire was rendered vulnerable through preternatural contact, and he
never lost it. In very short order, he wrapped his powerful jaws about the vampire's neck, sinking his teeth into the man's
throat. The vampire gave a gurgling howl, and the smell of rotten blood filled the fresh country air.

Alexia caught a flash of ice-blue eyes as the wolf gave her one meaningful look before he hurled both himself and the vampire
out of the moving carriage, hitting the ground with a tremendous thud. The sound of their battle continued but was rapidly
lost in the clattering of hooves as the horses raced onward.

Alexia realized it must have been the scent of the wolf that initially panicked the horses. It was now up to her to slow them
down before the terrified creatures broke their traces or overturned the carriage, or worse.

She scrambled up onto the driver's box, only to find that the reins had fallen forward and were hanging down near the shackle,
perilously close to the kicking hind legs of the horses. She lay, belly down over the box, holding on with one hand and desperately
reaching with the other. No luck. Seized with an inspiration, she retrieved her parasol. It still had the two spikes sticking
out from its tip, and she managed to use those to catch the dangling reins and pull them sufficiently close to grasp. Victorious,
she only then remembered she had never actually driven
a carriage before. Figuring it couldn't be too difficult, she tried a gentle tug backward on the reins.

Absolutely nothing changed. The horses continued their mad dash.

Alexia took a firmer grip with both hands and yanked backward, leaning back and applying all her weight. She was not as strong
as a gentleman of the Corinthian set might be, but she probably weighed about the same. The sudden pressure caused the animals
to slow, first to a canter and then to trot, sides heaving and flanks lathered with sweat.

Alexia decided there was no point in stopping entirely and kept the horses headed back into the city. It was probably better
to attain the relative safety of the temple as quickly as possible in case the rest of that vampire's hive were also after
her.

Two of the mounted Templars, white nightgowns floating becomingly in the breeze about them, finally caught up. They took up
position, one to either side of the carriage, and without acknowledging or even looking at her, proceeded to act as escort.

“Do you think we might just pause and check on Madame Lefoux?” Alexia asked, but no verbal response was garnered. One of the
men actually looked at her, but then he turned aside and spat as if his mouth had been filled with something distasteful.
Fear for her friend's well-being notwithstanding, Alexia decided that getting to safety was probably most important. She glanced
at her two stony-faced escorts once more. Nothing. So she shrugged and clucked the horses into a more enthusiastic trot. There
had been four Templars on horseback originally. She assumed that of the other two, one went back
for the fallen preceptor and the other was off hunting the vampire and the werewolf.

With nothing else to occupy her but idle speculation, Alexia wondered if this white werewolf was the same as the white creature
she had seen from the ornithopter, the one that had attacked the vampires on Monsieur Trouvé's roof. There was something awfully
familiar about those icy-blue eyes. With a start, she realized that the werewolf, the white beast, and the man in the mask
at the customs station in Boboli Gardens were all the same person and that she knew him. Knew him and was, at the best of
times, not particularly fond of him: her husband's arrogant third in command, Woolsey Pack's Gamma, Major Channing Channing
of the Chesterfield Channings. She decided she'd been living too long with a werewolf pack if she could recognize him as a
wolf in the middle of a battle when earlier, as the masked gentlemen, she had not been able to place him at all.

“He must have been following and protecting me since Paris!” She said out loud to the uninterested Templars, her voice cutting
into the night.

They ignored her.

“And, of course, he couldn't help us that night on the Alpine pass because it was
full moon
!” Alexia wondered why her husband's third, whom neither she nor Conall particularly liked, was risking his life inside the
borders of Italy to protect her. No werewolf with half a brain would voluntarily enter the stronghold of antisupernatural
sentiment. Then again, there was some question, so far as Alexia was concerned, as to the extent of Channing's brains. There
was really only one good explanation: Channing would be guarding her only if Lord Conall Maccon had ordered it.

Of course, her husband was an unfeeling prat who should have come after her himself. And, of course, he was also an annoying
git for meddling in her business when he had taken such pains to separate it from his own. But the timing meant he still cared
enough to bark out an order to see her safe, even before he had printed that apology.

He must still love her.
I think he might actually want us back,
she told the infant-inconvenience with a giddy sense of elation.

               

E
ventually Biffy slept and Professor Lyall could afford to do the same. They were safe under the watchful eye of Tunstell,
and then Mrs. Tunstell, if such a thing was to be imagined. The two werewolves dozed throughout the day and well into early
evening. Eventually, Ivy went off to check on the hat shop, and Tunstell, who had rehearsals to attend, felt it safe enough
to wake Lyall.

“I went to the butcher for more meat,” he explained as the Beta sawed off a chunk of raw steak and popped it into his mouth.

Professor Lyall chewed. “So I taste. What's the word on the street, then?”

“It's very simple and baldly put, and everyone is talking about it. And I do mean
everyone.
”

“Go on.”

“The potentate is dead. You and the old wolf had a busy night last night, didn't you, Professor?”

Lyall put down his utensils and rubbed at his eyes. “Oh, my giddy aunt. What a mess he has left me with.”

“One of Lord Maccon's defining characteristics, as I recall—messiness.”

“Are the vampires very upset?”

“Why, Professor, are you trying to be sarcastic? That's sweet.”

“Answer the question, Tunstell.”

“None of them are out yet. Nor their drones. But the rumor is they find the situation not ideal, sir. Not ideal at all.”

Professor Lyall stretched his neck to each side. “Well, I have been hiding out here long enough, I suppose. Time to face the
fangs.”

Tunstell struck a Shakespearean pose. “The fangs and canines of outrageous fortune!”

Professor Lyall gave him a dour look. “Something like.”

The Beta stood and stretched, looking down at Biffy. The rest was doing him good. He looked if not healthier, at least less
emaciated. His hair was matted with muck from the Thames, and his face was streaked with dirt and tears, but he still managed
an air of dandified gentility. Lyall respected that in a man. Lord Akeldama had done his work well. Lyall respected that,
too.

Without further ado, he swung the blanket-wrapped Biffy up into his arms and headed out into the busy London streets.

Floote was still out when Alexia pulled her panting horses to a stop at the door of the temple. Madame Lefoux was immediately
whisked away to the infirmary, which left
Alexia to make her way alone through the luxurious building. And, because she was Alexia, she made her way to the calm sanity
of the library. Only in a library did she feel completely capable of collecting her finer feelings and recuperating from such
a wearying day. It was also the only room she could remember how to get to.

In a desperate bid to cope with the violence of the attack, her discovery of Channing's presence in Italy, and her own unanticipated
affection for the infant-inconvenience, Alexia extracted some of Ivy's precious tea. Quite resourcefully, she felt, she managed
to boil water over the hearth fire using an empty metal snuffbox. She had to do without milk, but it was a small price to
pay under the circumstances. She had no idea if the preceptor had yet returned, or even if he had survived, for as usual,
no one spoke to her. With nothing else to do for the moment, Alexia sat in the library and sipped.

It was foolish of her not to realize that the all-pervading silence was not one of prayer but one of impending disaster. Her
first warning came in the form of a volatile four-legged duster that hurtled into the library, breaking the calm quiet with
a bout of such crazed yipping that a lesser dog would have become ill at the effort.

“Poche? What are you doing here, you vile animal?” Alexia fiddled with her snuffbox of tea.

Apparently, Poche's current and sole desire in life was to launch a vicious attack on Alexia's chair leg, which he got his
little teeth around and was gnawing on passionately.

Alexia contemplated whether she should attempt to shake him off, kick him with her foot, or simply disregard him entirely.

“Good evening, Female Specimen.”

“Why, Mr. German Specimen, what an unexpected surprise. I thought you had been excommunicated. They let you back into Italy?”

Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf walked into the room, stroking his chin with the air of one who has suddenly acquired the upper hand and
was reveling in the state of affairs. “I found myself in the possession of some, shall we call it, negotiating power, ya?”

“Ya?” Alexia was irritated enough to mimic him.

Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf came to stand near her, looking down. Which must be a particularly unusual experience for him given his
diminutive stature, Alexia thought nastily.

“The Templars will, with the information I provided, convince His Holiness Pope Blessed Pius IX to repeal my excommunication
and accept me back into the fold.”

“Will they, indeed? I had no notion they possessed such influence.”

“They possess many things, Female Specimen, many things.”

“Well”—Alexia was suddenly quite nervous—“felicitations on your reintegration.”

“I have my laboratory back,” he continued proudly.

“Good, perhaps you can figure out how—”

The preceptor came into the library. Alexia stopped midsentence and looked him over, noticing bandages about his limbs and
scrapes across his face. He was clearly a little worse for his encounter with the vampire and subsequent fall from the carriage.

“Ah, how are you feeling, Mr. Templar?”

Not bothering to answer, the preceptor came over,
crossed his arms, and looked down at her as well. Eventually he spoke to her as though she were a recalcitrant child. “I am
confused, My Soulless One.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Yes. Why is it you chose not to inform us of your delicate condition? We would have taken far greater care of your person
had we known of it.”

Oh, mercy me.
Alexia shifted, wary. She put down the snuffbox and grabbed her parasol. “Would you, indeed? Do you imply that you would
not have, for example, used me as bait in a vampire trap?”

The preceptor ignored her barb. “Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf informs us that not only are you with child, but that the child's father
is a werewolf. Is this—”

Alexia held up a commanding hand. “Do not even begin that line of questioning with me. My husband
is
a werewolf, and despite any and all accusations to the contrary, he is undoubtedly the father. I will neither argue nor tolerate
any insinuations against my integrity. I may be soulless, gentlemen, but I assure you I am faithful. Even Conall, blast him,
has finally admitted that.”

The Templar snapped his mouth shut and nodded. She wasn't convinced that he believed her, but frankly she didn't care.

Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf rubbed his hands together. “Indeed, in conjunction with your insistence, I have devised a new theory as
to the nature of soul that I believe not only supports but indeed
relies
upon your avowal that the child has a supernatural father.”

“Are you saying the only way I could still be pregnant is if I were telling the truth?” Alexia felt her breath quicken in
anticipation.
Vindication at last!

“Well, ya, Female Specimen, precisely.”

“Would you care to elaborate?”

The little German seemed a tad taken aback by her calm acceptance. He did not notice how one of Alexia's hands was now delicately
fiddling with the handle of her parasol. She was also watching the Templar almost as closely as she watched him.

“You are not angry with me for the telling to the Templars of your little secret?”

Alexia was, but she pretended to be blasé. “Well, it was all over the London papers. I suppose they would have found out eventually.
Still, you are a bit of a repulsive weasel, aren't you?”

“Perhaps. But if this theory is correct, I will also be a most famous weasel.”

The Templar had taken a fascinated interest in Alexia's snuffbox full of tea and was examining it. Alexia gave him a narrow
look, daring him to comment on her idiosyncratic solution to the fact that none of the temple staff would respond to any of
her requests. He said nothing.

“Very well, tell me of this theory of yours. And would you mind, terribly, removing your dog from my chair?”

Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf swooped down and scooped up his energetic little animal. The creature immediately relaxed into a floppy,
partly comatose state in his master's arms. Draping the dog over one arm as a footman would a dishtowel, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf
proceeded to use the beastie as a teaching tool for his explanation.

“Let us assume that there are certain particles in the human body that bond to ambient aether.” He prodded at the dog with
one finger unhelpfully. “I shall call these particles ‘pneuma.'” He raised his poking finger into the
air dramatically. “Supernaturals have broken this bond, losing most of their pneuma. They become immortal by reconfiguring
what trace amounts of pneuma they have left into a
flexible
bond with ambient aetheric particles.”

“You are saying that the soul is not a measurable substance after all, but is in fact the type and rigidity of this bond?”
Alexia was intrigued despite herself, and she switched the bulk of her attention to the German.

Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf shook Poche at Alexia in his enthusiasm. “Ya! It is a brilliant theory, ya? It explains why we had no luck
over the years measuring soul. There is nothing to measure—there is instead only type and strength of bond.” He swooped the
dog about the room as though flying. “You, Female Specimen, as a preternatural, are born with the pneuma but no bonded aether
at all, thus you are always sucking the aetheric particles out of the air. What you do when you touch the supernatural creature
is break their flexible bond and suck all the aether out of them, turning them mortal.” He made a grasping motion with his
hand over the dog's head, as though scooping out the little beast's brains.

“So, when the vampires called me a soul-sucker, they were not so far from the truth of it. But how does this explain the child?”
Alexia attempted to refocus the little man on the most important part of his explanation.

“Well, the problem with two preternaturals is that they are both trying to suck aetheric particles at the same time. Thus
they cannot share the same air space. But”—and in a triumphant crescendo, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf held his little white dog over
his head in victory—“if the other parent is a
supernatural,
the child can inherit the flexible
bond, or as we might think of it, a bit of the leftover excess soul.”

Poche gave a funny little howl as though to punctuate his owner's final statement. Realizing he was waving about his pet in
a most indiscriminate manner, the German put his dog back down on the floor. Immediately, Poche began barking and bouncing
about, eventually deciding to launch a full-blown attack on a small golden throw pillow that was now not long for this world.

Alexia hated to admit it, but Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf's theory was a sound one. It explained many things, not the least of which
was why such children as the infant-inconvenience might be so very rare. Firstly, they required a supernatural to preternatural
pairing, and the two species had hunted each other for most of recorded history. Secondly, they required either a female soulless,
a female vampire, or a female werewolf. Preternaturals were rarely allowed near hive queens, and female werewolves were almost
as rare as female preternaturals. There simply wouldn't have been much of an opportunity for interbreeding.

“So, the question is, what kind of child am I going to produce, given Conall's, uh,
flexible bond
?” Said in conjunction with her husband's name, and considering his carnal preferences, Alexia found the terminology salacious.
She cleared her throat, embarrassed. “I mean to say, will it be born preternatural or supernatural?”

“Ah, ya, well, difficult to predict. But I am thinking, perhaps, in my theory, that is to say, neither. The child, it could
be simply normal. Perhaps possessing less soul than most.”

“But I will not lose it as you had previously thought?”

“No, no, you will not. If you are sensible with your own well-being.”

Alexia smiled. True, she was still not quite settled into the idea of being a mother, but she and the infant-inconvenience
did seem to be arriving at some kind of arrangement.

“Why, that is superb news! I must go tell Genevieve immediately.” She stood, with every intention of dashing off to the infirmary,
regardless of how this might upset any Templars she barreled into along the way.

The preceptor stood up from his crouch, where he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to wrestle the pillow away from Poche, and
spoke. Alexia had almost forgotten his presence. “I am afraid that will not be possible, My Soulless One.”

“Why not?”

“The French female was treated for her injuries and released into the care of the Florentine Hospitallers.”

“Were her injuries that serious?” Alexia felt a sudden pang of guilt. Had she been enjoying snuffbox-scented tea and good
news while her friend lay dying?

“Oh, no, quite superficial. We simply found we could no longer offer her our hospitality. Mr. Floote as well was not invited
to return and stay with us.”

Alexia felt her heart sink low into her chest, where it commenced a particular variety of rapid thumping. The sudden reversal
from what, seconds before, might have been elation caused her to come over almost dizzy. She breathed in sharply through her
nose.

Almost without thought, she opened her parasol, prepared to use even the sulfuric acid, undoubtedly the vilest of its armaments,
if need be. Madame Lefoux had managed to find some replacement fluids. But before she had
a chance to flip it around to the appropriate position, the library door opened.