Rue chased the parasol and the cat through the crowd. The assembled personnel seemed mainly annoyed by the disturbance. A few were quite upset by a rampaging lioness with an ugly accessory in her jaws – but their concern seemed more to do with the risk to the parasol rather than the presence of the lioness. Rue also garnered dirty looks. After all, since she was chasing after the beast, they assumed it was her lioness off-lead. The cat relaxed into an easy loping pace, fast enough so that Rue could not catch her but slow enough for her black tail tip to be ever beyond Rue’s reach, like an extremely frustrating fishing lure. Rue wished one of her father’s pack were nearby – if she could steal wolf form for a while she could certainly catch the blasted creature. Not that any werewolf could withstand being up so high and so close to the aetherosphere.
The lioness dodged between two food booths – one which dealt in fish and chips, the other smelling of curry. Behind the stands was a shanty town of dockworkers’ hovels made of old scrap metal and stretched fabric. Laundry dangled between and above the makeshift structures. Rue charged through, blissfully unaware of the impracticality of a lady of means running with skirts hiked up – and no bloomers – into what amounted to a sky-high slum.
The cat flicked inside one of the not-quite-buildings and Rue paused, suddenly aware of her surroundings. There were only a few people visible but she had the distinct impression of many eyes upon her. This was someone’s home she was about to enter, without invitation. Dama’s face appeared before her, finger shaking madly. Vampires were very taken with proper invitations. Then again, there was a lioness inside with her parasol! If anyone could think of a better excuse for barging in uninvited, she’d like to hear it.
So Rue barged.
There was no door, only a weight of bright material hanging long and heavy in the entranceway. Rue parted it and cleared her throat. “Um, pardon me, is anyone home?”
No answer.
“Yoo-hoo. May I come in, please? It seems your lioness has possession of my accessory.”
When still no one answered, Rue pushed through the fabric.
It was dim inside after the brightness of the station with all its gas lighting and colourful activity. It took Rue’s all-too-human eyes a moment to adjust. She simply stood still and waited.
The room was tiny, pleasantly furnished with a mismatch of crates draped in bright swathes of cloth and pretty cushions of varying shapes and sizes – so many pillows, in fact, that they fell about littering the carpeted floor. Glass baubles, strings of shells, golden fringe, and large tassels dangled from hooks and protuberances. It reminded Rue of a fortune-teller’s caravan or possibly a peddler’s covered wagon. Not that she’d had occasion to see many, but she could imagine what they might look like.
It was empty. No cat. No parasol.
Then out of the shadows and through a curtain of wooden beads walked the most unbelievably beautiful woman Rue had ever seen.
Rue’s perspective on beauty was not confined to those of British high society, although she could certainly see Prim’s loveliness, a classic English rose with milky complexion and dark chestnut curls. She could also see the Nordic beauty in her troublesome Uncle Channing for all his objectionable arrogance and uncertain temper, a chilly combination of ice and ivory. But she could also see beauty in the Fisk Jubilee Singers, all ebony and lace and sweet melodies, and in the copper-coloured drones Aunt Ivy had inherited with her Egyptian vampire hive.
This woman’s skin was a dark tea colour, her eyes huge and almond-shaped. Her cheekbones were high enough to etch glass and her neck was long and impossibly graceful. Her nose might be a tad assertive by British standards, straight and dominant, and her lips, though full and well-shaped, were set firm.
Rue’s breath actually whooshed out of her.
Finally she breathed in and coughed. All she could think to say was, “Are you on the stage? You should be.”
The women looked nonplussed and then, in a subtle shift of posture, she changed, becoming less showy and more dangerous about her beauty. Rue watched this, flabbergasted. How had she done it? Here was an acting skill Rue did not possess. Primrose, for most of their adult life, had used her appearance as if it were some delectable dessert. For the first time Rue realised that beauty might also be applied with power, like a particularly stinky but highly desirable cheese. Rue knew that she herself could never pass for anything more than cute. What does that make me in the after-dinner beauty metaphor? she wondered. The digestif? A sweet, alcoholic afterthought with possible vicious consequences.
By that time the shock had worn off, and Rue could feel every hackle she had inherited from her werewolf father rise. If she had been in wolf form, her tail and ears would be down and her canines exposed. As it was, she smoothed out her skirts, straightened her spine and prepared to do battle with every tool from her other father’s repertoire. Unless she had missed her guess, the best approach was to be very polite and outwardly ridiculous. She reached for her vampire father’s personality and donned it as is if were some sparkly diamond make.
“How do you do?” she said. “Amazing!” She waved a hand about, taking in the colourful surroundings. “Charming fabric and cushions and things you have here.” Perhaps not her best opening sally, but true.
The woman was taken aback, but she clearly spoke English and knew some etiquette, for her response was a musically accented, “How do you do, Lady Prudence?”
“Ah, you know my name – we are already acquainted?” Rue was certain she would have remembered.
“No, but I have been eager to meet you since I learnt of your existence.”
Rue winced. Was this stunning female one of those fanatics? The ones crazy to encounter a real live metanatural? How disappointing. Rue tried to change the subject. “Was that your lioness I met recently?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Rue followed this line of thought, familiar as she was with Footnote and Dama’s Madam Pudgemuffin. “Ah yes, cats – difficult to speak of in terms of ownership as a rule. I’m afraid she rather, um, borrowed something from me.”
“Indeed?” The woman glided forward slightly. She wore a long robe of white silk. “Is this the object in question?” She produced Rue’s parasol from some fold of her attire. It looked, if possible, more ugly by contrast to such impossible loveliness.
The flowing swathes of fabric seemed to be all the strange woman wore. They wrapped up once about her head like the veil of a mourner, around her body, and then draped back over her shoulder in a cascade. Her dark hair was long and loose and aggressively straight, and she wore no jewellery or cosmetics of any kind. Rue suspected this woman of being bare-footed as well – her steps were absolutely silent. Rue sniffed but could detect no prominent smell – perhaps a hint of amber but nothing more. She wished, once again, for wolf form.
The woman handed the parasol to Rue. It seemed none the worse for fangs and a bit of cat slobber.
“Thank you very much, miss…?” Rue trailed off, hoping for an indication of identity.
“You may call me Sekhmet.”
Without doubt that was not the woman’s real name.
“Very well, then. Thank you, Miss Sekhmet.”
Rue turned to leave, oddly frightened to present her back. If they were not hundreds of storeys up in the air, she would have said that this woman was supernatural. But no vampire queen would go unprotected or live in a slum, quite apart from the fact that a vampire tethered to the Maltese Tower would be known throughout the empire. And no werewolf Rue had ever heard of could withstand heights. Wolves could handle travel by sea but not by air.
Rue was almost at the door when that smooth voice lilted at her: “A moment more of your time, if you would be so kind, skin-stalker?” Her English really was good.
This encounter had rapidly taken a turn from extremely odd to entirely surreal. Rue turned back and the woman approached. Rue realised that she had been wrong. She did wear jewellery – a single chain about her neck from which dangled two small charms – one looked like a sword and the other a shield.
“Trust me, Miss Sekhmet, you have my attention.” As I am certain you are accustomed.
A tiny smile tilted the lady’s full lips. “I am one of those who respects what you are and does not fear it. There are few – very few, I am sad to say – like me left to fight for your rights, skin-stalker. None of them is in India. I would not go there, if I were you.”
Rue frowned. “How did you know I was going to India?”
No answer.
“Well, while I appreciate the warning, you must understand that I can’t change my plans on the whim of some stranger in robes.”
“Plans? Then you are being sent to India on purpose? So you know? And your parents – they know too?” A pause. “This is not good.”
No, thought Rue, this isn’t good. Obviously this Sekhmet represents a counter-tea interest, after the new plants. And foolishly I’ve revealed too much. Rue plucked at her parasol, brushing away cat saliva. Yech. She stumbled on, awkwardly, intent upon giving away nothing further. “Nice as you seem, Miss Sekhmet, and grateful as I am for the return of my…”
She trailed off. She was speaking to an empty room. The beautiful woman had vanished. Rue poked about, searching the small space, three rooms all similarly covered in colourful cloth and pillows, and no evidence of the woman, the lioness, or even a regular occupant.