Miss Tarabotti's nemesis held a brown glass bottle up high in one hand. She was momentarily hypnotized by the repulsive fact that he seemed to have no fingernails.
Closing the door firmly behind him, the wax-faced man advanced toward Miss Tarabotti and Lord Akeldama, unstopping the bottle and spilling its contents about the room as he went. He did so with infinite care, as a conscientious flower girl scatters petals before an advancing bride.
Invisible fumes rose up from the drops of liquid, and an odd smell permeated the air. Alexia knew that odor well by now: sugary turpentine.
Miss Tarabotti held her breath, plugging her nose with one hand and raising her parasol into guard position with the other. She heard a dull thud as Lord Akeldama collapsed to the floor, his golden pipe weapon rolled away, unused. Clearly, all his plethora of information did not include the latest medical pamphlets on the application, use, and smell of chloroform. Either that, or vampires were more quickly affected by the drug than preternaturals.
Alexia felt light-headed, not certain how long she could hold her breath. She fought the sensation as much as possible and then broke toward the drawing room door and fresh air.
The wax-faced man, apparently unaffected by the fumes, shifted to prevent her egress. Miss Tarabotti remembered from the night before how fast he could move. Supernatural? Perhaps not if the chloroform had no effect. But assuredly faster than she was. Miss Tarabotti cursed herself briefly for not bringing her conversation with Lord Akeldama more rapidly around to the topic of this man. She had meant to ask. It was just, now... too late.
She swung her deleterious parasol. Brass haft and silver tip made satisfying contact with the man's skull, yet neither seemed to have any effect.
She hit him again just below the shoulder. He brushed her weapon aside with the flick of one arm.
Alexia could not help but gasp in astonishment. She had hit him very hard. But no sound of breaking bone came when buckshot-filled ferrule met arm.
The wax-faced man grinned his horrible not-teeth grin.
Too late. Miss Tarabotti realized that she had breathed inward in her surprise. She cursed herself roundly for a fool. But self-recriminations were to no benefit. The sweet chemical smell of the chloroform invaded her mouth, permeated her nose and throat, and then her lungs. Blast it, thought Alexia, borrowing one of Lord Maccon's favorite curses.
She hit the wax-faced man one last time, mostly out of orneriness. She knew it would result in nothing. Her lips began to tingle and her head spun. She swayed dangerously and reached forward with her nonparasol hand, groping for the wax man, preternatural her last resort. Her hand came to rest against his horrible smooth temple, just below the Von VIXI. His skin felt cold and hard. Nothing at all happened to him at the contact. No change back to normal human, no return to life, no soul-sucking. Definitely not supernatural. Here, Miss Tarabotti realized, was the real monster.
“But,” Alexia whispered, “I am the soulless one...” And with that, she dropped her parasol and pitched forward into darkness.
Lord Maccon arrived home in the nick of time. His carriage clattered up the long cobbled drive to Woolsey Castle just as the sun set behind the high trees planted along the western edge of its extensive grounds.
Woolsey Castle stood a respectable distance from town—far enough away for the pack to run and close enough for them to take advantage of all the amusements London afforded. Woolsey Castle was also not the impenetrable fortress its name implied but instead a sort of trumped-up family manor house with multiple stories and excessively excitable buttresses. Its most important feature, so far as the werewolves were concerned, was a very large and secure dungeon, designed to accommodate multiple guests. The original owner and designer was reputed to have had some rather indecent proclivities, outside of his fondness for flying buttresses. Whatever the cause, the dungeons were extensive. Also key, in the pack's
opinion, was the large number of private bedchambers above dungeon level. Woolsey Castle had to house a goodly number of residents: werewolves, clavigers, and servants.
Lord Maccon jumped out of his carriage, already feeling those heady tingles and carnivorous urges only the full moon whipped into rampancy. He could smell the blood of prey on the evening air, and the urge to hunt, and maim, and kill, was approaching with the moon.
His clavigers were waiting for him in a large tense group at the door to the castle.
“You are cutting it a bit close for comfort, my lord,” remonstrated Rumpet, head butler, taking the Alpha's cloak.
Lord Maccon grunted, shedding his hat and gloves onto a long hallway stand designed expressly for that purpose.
He squinted into the assembled masses, searching for Tunstell. Tunstell was his personal valet and default captain of the household clavigers. Spotting the gangly redhead, Lord Maccon barked, “Tunstell, you dreadful young blunt, report.”
Tunstell bounced up and flourished a bow. His customary smile dimpled his freckled face. “All the pack's accounted for and locked down, sir. Your cell is clean and waiting. Best we get you down there right quick, I'm thinking.”
“There you go with the thinking thing. What have I told you?”
Tunstell only grinned wider.
Lord Maccon held his wrists outward. “Precautionary measures, Tunstell.” Tunstell's chipper smile diminished. “Are you certain that is necessary, sir?”
The earl felt his bones beginning to self-fracture. “Drat it, Tunstell, are you questioning orders?” The small part of his logical brain still functioning was saddened by this lapse. He had great affection for the boy, but every time he thought Tunstell might be ready for the bite, he behaved like a fathead. He seemed to have plenty of soul, but did he have enough sense to become supernatural? Pack protocol was not to be taken lightly. If the redhead survived the change but continued with this cavalier attitude toward regulations, would anyone be secure?
Rumpet came to his rescue. Rumpet was no claviger. He had no intention of bidding for metamorphosis, but he did enjoy executing his job efficiently. He had been butler to the pack for a long time and was easily double the age of any of the clavigers present in that hallway. Usually he exhibited more aptitude than all of them combined.
Actors, thought Lord Maccon in exasperation. It was one of the downsides of fleecing that particular profession. Men of the stage were not always men of sagacity.
The butler proffered a copper tray with a set of iron manacles atop it. “Mr. Tunstell, if you would be so kind,” he said.
The redheaded claviger already carried his own set of handcuffs, as all clavigers did. He sighed resignedly, plucking them off the tray and snapping them firmly around his master's wrists.
Lord Maccon sighed in relief. “Quickly,” he insisted, already slurring his words as the change reformed his jawbone away from any capacity for human speech. The pain was intensifying as well, the horrible bone-wrenching agony to which, in all his long life, Lord Maccon had never yet become accustomed.
The proto-pack of clavigers surrounded him and hustled him down the winding stone staircase and into the castle dungeon. Some, the earl noticed in relief, were sensibly armored and armed. All wore sharp silver cravat pins. A few carried silver knives sheathed at their waists. These stayed to the outskirts of the crowd, carefully distanced from him, until such a time when he might make it necessary for them to use those knives.