“Ah. Welcome back to London, Lord Akeldama.”
Lady Alexia Maccon, sometimes called La Diva Tarabotti, was quite comfortable with being abducted. Or, as it might better be phrased, she was growing accustomed to the predicament. She had led, up until a little over a year ago, quite an exemplary spinsterish existence. Her world had been plagued only by the presence of two nonsensical sisters and one even sillier mama. Her concerns, it must be acknowledged, were a tad mundane, and her daily routine as banal as that of any other young lady of sufficient income and insufficient liberty. But she had managed to avoid abductions.
This, as matters would have it, was turning out to be one of the worst.
Alexia found the experience of being blindfolded and carried over someone’s armor clad shoulder like a sack of potatoes unconscionably undignified. She was hauled down a seemingly endless series of stairs and passageways, musty as only the deep underground can be. She gave a few experimental kicks and a wiggle, only to have her legs clamped down by a metal covered arm.
Eventually, they arrived at their final destination, which, she discovered once the blindfold had been removed, was some kind of Roman catacomb. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the dimness, and found herself in an underground ancient ruin dug into the bedrock, lit with oil lamps and candles. The small cell she now occupied was barred over on one side with modern looking reinforcements.
“Well, this is a much inferior living situation,” she objected to no one in particular.
The preceptor appeared in the doorway, leaning up against the metal doorjamb, regarding her with lifeless eyes.
“We found we could no longer adequately ensure your safety in your other location.”
“I wasn’t safe in a temple surrounded by several hundred of the Knights Templars, the most powerful holy warriors ever to walk this earth?”
He made no answer to that. “We shall see to your every comfort here.”
Alexia looked around. The room was slightly smaller than her husband’s dressing chamber back at Woolsey Castle. There was a tiny bed in one corner covered in a faded quilt, a single side table with an oil lamp, a chamber pot, and a washstand. It looked neglected and sad.
“Who will? No one has so far.”
Wordlessly the Templar signaled and, out of nowhere, a bread bowl full of pasta appeared, and a carrot carved to resemble a spoon was handed over by some unseen companion. The preceptor gave them to Alexia.
Alexia tried not to be pleased by the presence of the ubiquitous green sauce. “Pesto will keep you in my good graces for only so long, you understand?”
“Oh, and then what will you do, devil spawn?”
“Ah, I am no longer your ‘Soulless One,’ am I?” Alexia pursed her lips in deep thought. She was without her parasol, and most of her best threats involved its application. “I shall be very discourteous, indeed.”
The preceptor did not look at all threatened. He closed the door firmly behind him and left her locked in the silent darkness.
“Could I at least get something to read?” she yelled after, but he ignored her.
Alexia began to think all those horrible stories she had heard about the Templars might actually be true, even the one with the rubber duck and the dead cat that Lord Akeldama had once relayed. She hoped fervently that Madame Lefoux and Floote were unharmed.
There was something eerie about being so utterly separated from them.
Giving in to her frustration, Alexia marched over and kicked at the bars of her prison.
This only served to cause her foot to smart most egregiously.
“Oh, brother,” said Lady Maccon into the dark silence.
Alexia’s isolation did not last long, for a certain German scientist came to visit her.
“I have been relocated, Mr. Lange Wilsdorf.” Alexia was so distressed by her change in circumstances that she was moved to state the obvious.
“Ya, Female Specimen, I am well aware of the fact. It is most inconvenient, ya? I have had to move my laboratory as well, and Poche will not follow me down here. He does not like Roman architecture.”
“No? Well, who does? But, I say, couldn’t you persuade them to move me back? If one must be imprisoned, a nice room with a view is far preferable.”
The little man shook his head. “No longer possible. Give me your arm.”
Alexia narrowed her eyes suspiciously and then, curious, acquiesced to his request.
He wrapped a tube of oiled cloth about her arm and then proceeded to pump it full of air using a set of bellows via a mini spigot. The tube expanded and became quite tight. Pinching these bellows off, the scientist transferred a glass ball filled with little bits of paper to the spigot and let go. The air escaped with a whoosh, causing all the bits of paper to flutter about wildly inside the ball.
“What are you doing?”
“I am to determine what kind of the child you may produce, ya. There is much speculation.”
“I fail to see how those little bits of paper can reveal anything of import.” They seemed about as useful as tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. Which made her think yearningly of tea.
“Well, you had better hope they do. There has been some talk of handling this child… differently.”
“What?”
“Ya. And using you for how to say? spare parts.”
Bile, sour and unwelcome, rose in Alexia’s throat.
“What?”
“Hush now, Female Specimen, let me work.”
The German watched with frowning attention as the papers finally settled completely at the base of the ball, which, Alexia now realized, was marked with lines. Then he began making notes and diagrams of their location. She tried to think calming thoughts but was beginning to get angry as well as scared. She was finished with being thought of as a specimen.
“You know, they gave to me complete access to the records of their preternatural breeding program? They tried for nearly a hundred years to determine how to successfully breed your species.”
“Humans? Well that couldn’t have been too difficult. I am still human, remember?”
Mr. Lange Wilsdorf ignored this and continued his previous line of reasoning. “You always breed true, but low birth rate and rare female specimens were never explained. Also the program was plagued with the difficulty of the space allotment. Templars could not, for example, keep the babies in the same room or even the same house.”
“So what happened?” Alexia couldn’t help her curiosity.
“The program was stopped, ya. Your father was one of the last, you know?”
Alexia’s eyebrows made an inadvertent bid for the sky. “He was?” Hear that, infant inconvenience, your grandfather was bred by religious zealots as a kind of biological experiment. So much for your family tree.
“Did the Templars raise him?”
Mr. Lange Wilsdorf gave her a peculiar look. “I am not familiar with the specifics.”
Alexia knew absolutely nothing about her father’s childhood; his journals didn’t commence until his university years in Britain and were, she suspected, originally intended as a vehicle for practicing English grammar.
The little scientist appeared to decide that he ought to say no more. Turning back to his bellows and sphere device, he finished his notations and then began a complex series of calculations. When he had finished, he set down his stylographic pen with a pronounced movement.
“Remarkable, ya.”
“What is?”
“There is only one explanation for such results. That you have trace intrinsic aether affixed to the how to say? middle zone, but it is behaving wrong, as though it were bonded but also not, as if it were in the state of flux.”
“Well, good for me.” Then Alexia frowned, remembering their previous discussion. “But, according to your theory, I should have no intrinsic aether at all.”
“Exactly.”
“So your theory is wrong.”
“Or the flux reaction is coming from the embryo.” Mr. Lange Wilsdorf was quite triumphant in this proclamation, as though he was near to explaining everything.