Blameless

CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Picnicking with Templars
Alexia took a moment before breakfast to drag Floote into a secluded corner.
“We must get a message to the queen on this relic business. Or at least to BUR. I cannot believe you knew about it and never told anyone. Then again, I suppose, you never tell anyone anything, do you, Floote? Even me. Still, I know now and so should the British government. Imagine using preternatural body parts as weapons. Just think what they could do if they knew how to mummify.”
“You are no longer muhjah, madam. The supernatural security of the empire is not your concern.”
Alexia shrugged. “What can I say? I cannot help myself. I meddle.”
“Yes, madam. And on a grand scale.”
“Well, my mama always said, one should do what one is best at on as large a scale as possible. Of course, she was referring to shopping at the time, but I have always felt it was the only sensible sentence she ever uttered in her life.”
“Madam?”
“We have managed to keep the mummy business mum, even from Madame Lefoux. The point being, we cannot let anyone know that mummies are useful as a weapon. There would be a terrible run on Egypt. If the Templars are using dead preternatural body parts and they figure out the mummification process, I am in real trouble. Right now it is only natural decomposition, and the fact that they have to preserve tissue in formaldehyde, that keeps preternatural-as-weapon limited to special use.” Alexia wrinkled her nose. “This is a matter of supernatural security. Italy and the other conservative countries must be kept from excavating in Egypt at all costs. We cannot risk them figuring out the truth behind the God-Breaker Plague.”
“I see your reasoning, madam.”
“You will need to develop a sudden malaise that prevents you from attending this picnic the preceptor is dragging me on. Get to the Florentine aethographic transmitter by sunset and send a message to Professor Lyall. He will know what to do with the information.” Alexia rummaged about in the ruffle of her parasol until she located the secret pocket and extracted the crystalline valve, which she handed to Floote.
“But, madam, the danger of you traveling about Italy without me.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks. Madame Lefoux has entirely refitted my parasol with the necessary armaments. I shall have the preceptor and a cadre of Templars with me, and they’re bound to protect me even if they cannot look at me. I even purchased this.” Alexia exhibited a clove of garlic dangling from a long ribbon about her neck. “I shall be perfectly fine.”
Floote did not look convinced.
“If it will help allay your fears, give me one of your guns and some of the spare bullets you purchased yesterday.”
Floote did not seem at all mollified. “Madam, you do not know how to shoot.”
“How difficult can it be?”
Floote ought to have known after a quarter century of association with Alexia that he could not hope to win any argument, especially as a gentleman of few words and even less inclination to use them. With a faint sigh of disapproval, he accepted the responsibility of sending the transmission and left the room, without giving Alexia one of his guns.
Professor Lyall spent the last hour before dawn coping with the consequences of Biffy’s sudden change into a werewolf and the potentate’s sudden change into a corpse. He began by seeking out the closest safe house, where no one else would think to look for him and his new charge. And since Charing Cross Station was just south of Soho, he headed north toward the Tunstells’ apartments, in all their pastel glory.
While midnight was considered quite an acceptable hour for calling among members of the supernatural set and among the younger, more dashing mortal crowd—drivers of phaetons and the like—dawn was not. In fact, dawn might be considered the rudest time for anyone to call upon anyone else, with the possible exception of groups of hardy fishermen in the backwaters of Portsmouth.
But Lyall felt he had no choice. As it was, he had to bang on the door a good five minutes or so before a bleary young maid opened it cautiously.
“Yes?”
Beyond the maid, Lyall saw a head stick out of a bedroom far down the hall—Mrs. Tunstell in an outrageous sleeping cap that resembled nothing so much as a frothy lace-covered mushroom. “What has happened? Are we on fire? Has someone died?”
Professor Lyall, still carrying Biffy in wolf form, muscled his way past the astonished maid and into the house. “You might put it like that, Mrs. Tunstell.”
“My goodness, Professor Lyall! What do you have there?” The head disappeared. “Tunny! Tunny! Wake up. Professor Lyall is here with a dead dog. Arise at once. Tunny!” She came bustling down the hallway wrapped in a voluminous robe of eye-searing pink satin. “Oh, the poor lamb, bring him in here.”
“Please do forgive me for the presumption, Mrs. Tunstell, but yours was the nearest house.” He lay Biffy down on the small lavender couch and quickly reached behind it to draw the curtains over the window, just as the sun’s first rays peeked above the horizon. Biffy’s previously still form stiffened and then began to shudder and convulse.
Throwing all decorum to the winds, Professor Lyall rushed at Ivy, got one arm firmly about her waist, and hustled her to the door. “Best you not be here for this, Mrs. Tunstell. Send in your husband, would you, once he awakens?”
Ivy opened and closed her mouth a couple of times like an affronted poodle, and then whirled to do as he had bidden. There was a woman, Lyall thought, forced into efficiency through prolonged exposure to Alexia Tarabotti.
“Tunny!” she called, trotting back down the hallway, and then with far greater sharpness, “Ormond Tunstell, wake up. Do!”
Professor Lyall closed the door and turned back to his charge. He reached into his waistcoat for one of his trusty handkerchiefs, only then remembering he was wearing no more than a greatcoat, retrieved from the shore, having dressed for change, not company. Wincing at his own temerity, he grabbed one of Ivy’s pastel throw pillows and wedged a corner of it into the new werewolf’s mouth, giving Biffy something to bite down upon and also muffling his whimpering. Then Lyall bent low, bracing the shuddering form of the wolf with his own body, curling about him tenderly. It was partly Beta instinct, to protect a new member of the pack, but it was also sympathy. The first time was always the worst, not because it got any better, but because it was so unfamiliar an experience.
Tunstell let himself into the room.
“God’s teeth, Professor, what is going on?”
“Too much to explain fully right now, I’m afraid. Can that wait until later? I’ve got a new pup on my hands and no Alpha to handle him. Do you have any raw meat in the house?”
“The wife ordered steak, delivered only yesterday.” Tunstell left without needing to be pressed further.
Lyall smiled. The redhead fell so easily back into his old role of claviger, doing what needed to be done for the werewolves around him.
Biffy’s chocolate fur was beginning to retreat up to the top of his head, showing skin now pale with immortality. His eyes were losing their yellow hue in favor of blue. Clutching that writhing form, Lyall could feel as well as hear Biffy’s bones breaking and re-forming. It was a long and agonizing shift. It would take the young man decades to master any level of competency. Rapidity and smoothness were markers of both dominance and age.
Lyall held Biffy the entire time. Held him while Tunstell returned with a large raw steak and fussed about with varying degrees of helpfulness. Held him until, eventually, he was left with an armful of nothing but naked Biffy, shivering and looking most forlorn.
“What? Where?” The young dandy pushed weakly against the Beta’s arms. His nose was twitching as though he needed to sneeze. “What is going on?”
Professor Lyall relaxed his embrace and sat back on his heels next to the couch. Tunstell came over with a blanket and a concerned expression. Just before he covered the young man over, Lyall was pleased to notice that Biffy appeared to be entirely healed from the bullet wound, a true supernatural, indeed.
“Who are you?” Biffy focused fuzzily on Tunstell’s bright red hair.
“I’m Tunstell. Used to be a claviger to Lord Maccon. Now I’m mostly just an actor.”
“He is our host and a friend. We will be safe here for the day.” Professor Lyall kept his voice low and calm, tucking the blanket about the still-shivering young man.
“Is there some reason we need to be? Safe, I mean.”
“How much do you remember?” Lyall swept a lock of brown hair back behind Biffy’s ear in a motherly fashion. Despite all his transformations, his nudity, and his beard, the young man still looked every inch the dandy. He would make an odd addition to the gruff soldiering masculinity of the Woolsey Pack.
Biffy jerked and fear flooded into his eyes. “Extermination mandate! I found out that there is a… Oh, dear God, I was supposed to report in! I missed the appointment with my lord.” He made as if to try and rise.
Lyall held him back easily.
Biffy turned on him frantically. “You don’t understand—he’ll swarm if I don’t make it back. He knew I was going after the potentate. How could I have gotten caught? I’m such an imbecile. I know better than that. Why, he’ll…” He trailed off. “How long was I down there?”
Lyall sighed. “He did swarm.”
“Oh, no.” Biffy’s face fell. “All that work, all those agents pulled out of covert placement. It’ll take years to reintegrate them. He’s going to be so very disappointed in me.”
Lyall tried to distract him. “So, what do you remember?”
“I remember being trapped under the Thames and thinking I would never escape.” Biffy brushed one hand over his face. “And that I really needed a shave. Then I remember water flooding in and waking in the darkness to shouting and gunshots. And then I remember a lot of pain.”
“You were dying.” Lyall paused, searching for the right words. Here he was, hundreds of years old, and he could not explain to one boy why he had been changed against his will.
“Was I? Well, good thing that didn’t take. My lord would never forgive me if I up and died without asking permission first.” Biffy sniffed, suddenly distracted. “Something smells amazing.”
Professor Lyall gestured to the plate of raw steak sitting nearby.
Biffy tilted his head to see, then looked back at Lyall in confusion. “But it’s not cooked. Why does it smell so good?”
Lyall cleared his throat. As a Beta, he’d never had to perform this particular task. It was the Alpha’s job to acclimatize the newly turned, the Alpha’s job to explain and be there and be strong and be, well, Alphaish for a new pup. But Lord Maccon was halfway to Dover by now, and Lyall was left to deal with this mess without him.
“You know that dying issue I just mentioned? Well, it did take, in its way.”
At which juncture, Professor Lyall had to watch those beautiful blue eyes turn from dazed confusion to horrified realization. It was one of the saddest things he had ever seen in all his long life.
At a loss, Lyall handed Biffy the plate of raw steak.
Unable to control himself, the young dandy tore into the meat, gulping it down in elegant, but very rapid, bites.
For the sake of his dignity, both Professor Lyall and Tunstell pretended not to notice that Biffy was crying the entire time. Tears dribbled down his nose and onto the steak while he chewed, and swallowed, and chewed, and sobbed.
The preceptor’s picnic, as it turned out, was a little more elaborate than Alexia and Madame Lefoux had been led to believe. They trundled a sizable distance into the countryside, away from Florence in the direction of Borgo San Lorenzo, arriving eventually at an archaeological excavation. While the antiquated carriage attempted to park on a hillock, their Templar host announced with much pride that they would be engaging in an Etruscan tomb picnic.
The site was lovely, shaded with trees of various bushy Mediterranean inclinations that took being leafy and green quite seriously. Alexia stood up while the carriage maneuvered around, the better to take in her surroundings.
“Do sit down, Alexia! You shall fall, and then how will I explain to Floote that you had—” Madame Lefoux stopped herself before she inadvertently mentioned Alexia’s unfortunate condition in front of the preceptor, but it was clear her worry was largely for the child’s safety.
Alexia ignored her.
They were surrounded by a series of tombs: low, circular, and grass covered, almost organic in appearance, quite unlike anything Alexia had ever seen or read about. Never having visited anything more stimulating than a Roman bathhouse, Alexia was practically bouncing with excitement—if a lady once more corseted and trussed up to the height of proper British fashion and encumbered by both parasol and pregnancy could be described as “bouncing.” She sat down abruptly when their carriage went over a bump.
Alexia refused, on principle, to admit that her new high spirits were on account of Conall’s printed apology, but the world certainly seemed a far more fascinating place today than it had yesterday.
“Do you know anything of these Etruscans?” she whispered to Madame Lefoux.
“Only that they came before the Romans.”
“Were they supernaturally based or a daylight exclusive society?” Alexia asked the next most important question.
The preceptor overheard her.
“Ah, My Soulless One, you ask one of the most troublesome questions of the great Etruscan mystery. Our historians, they continue to investigate this matter. I did think, however, that given your peculiar skill set, you might…” He trailed off meaningfully as though intentionally leaving the thought unfinished.
“Well, my dear Mr. Templar, I fail to see how I could possibly be of assistance. I am no trained antiquarian. The only thing I can identify with any consistency is my own kind. I—” It was Alexia’s turn to leave a thought unfinished, as she realized the implications of his statement. “You believe there might be a preternatural focus to this culture? How remarkable.”
The Templar only shrugged. “We have seen the rise and fall of many great empires in the past, some run by vampires, others by werewolves.”
“And some that have been founded upon the persecution of both.” Alexia was thinking of the Catholic Inquisition, an expurgation movement the Templars were rumored to have taken a keen and active interest in promoting.
“But never yet have we found evidence of a civilization built to incorporate your kind.”
“As difficult as that kind of proximity might be?” Alexia was puzzled.
“Why do you think the Etruscans might be the exception?” Madame Lefoux asked.
The coach stopped and the preceptor stepped down. He did not offer Alexia a hand, allowing Madame Lefoux to jump out and take over that dubious honor. Some distance away, the Templar cavalry dismounted as well and stood about as though waiting for orders. The preceptor gave them one of those hand signals, and the men relaxed into a casual milling group. The silent efficiency was unsettling, to say the least.
“Don’t say much, do they?”
The preceptor turned his emotionless eyes on Alexia. “Would you ladies prefer to explore or eat first?”
“Explore,” said Alexia promptly. She was wildly curious to see the inside of the strange round tombs.
The preceptor led them down into the dry, dim interior of the already cracked tomb. The underground walls were lined with limestone. Steps led into a single chamber, not much bigger than Alexia’s drawing room back at Woolsey Castle. The limestone was elaborately carved to look like the inside of a house, with nooks, stone columns, and even ceiling beams picked out in the sandy, porous rock. It was the interior of a home, frozen in stone. Alexia was reminded of the elaborate jelly sculptures she had eaten at fancy dinner parties, made of aspic and formed with the aid of a mold.
There was no furniture, nor any other artifacts inside the tomb, the sole object being an extremely large sarcophagus in the center of the room. On the top lay two full-sized clay figures: a man lounging on his side and leaning up on one elbow behind a woman doing the same, his free arm draped affectionately over her shoulder.
It was a lovely sculpture, but despite what the preceptor had said, Alexia experienced no sense of repulsion, no feeling about the place that she would have expected when in the presence of a preserved preternatural body. Either there was none present, or the remains had long since decomposed beyond effectiveness. The Templar was staring at her, monitoring her reactions closely. Face impassive, she walked about, self-conscious under his dead-eyed scrutiny, examining some painted images on the walls.
The place smelled musty, in the same way that old books do, only with an overlay of dirt and cold stone. But there was nothing there that engendered any adverse reaction in Alexia. In fact, she found the ancient abode quite comforting and restful. She was glad of this. She would hate to have to hide her instinct to run if there had been some kind of preternatural mummy in residence.
“I am sorry to say, Mr. Templar, I do not think I can be of any help. I do not even see why one might associate this culture with my kind.”
The preceptor looked disappointed.
Madame Lefoux, who had been watching him while he watched her friend, turned sharply to stare down at the sarcophagus.
“What were they holding?” she asked.
Alexia wandered over to see what Madame Lefoux was on about. She was struck by the pleasantness in the almond-shaped eyes of the statues, but upon looking closer, she realized what it was that had drawn Madame Lefoux’s attention. The man was leaning on the elbow of one arm, the hand of which was up and flat as though offering a carrot to a horse. His other hand, behind the woman’s neck, had thumb and forefinger curved in the act of holding some small object. The woman had both hands curved in such a way as one might pour libations or offer up a flask of wine.
“Good question.”
Both ladies turned to look at the preceptor inquiringly.
“The woman held an empty ceramic flask, its contents long since dried and evaporated into aether. The man was offering a piece of meat on his open palm. The archaeologists found an animal bone resting there. He was holding something very strange in his other hand.”
“What was that?”
The Templar shrugged and fished about his high collar with one finger, finally pulling out a chain that was around his neck. Carefully he lifted it out from underneath nightgown, jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. All three of them moved toward the light streaming down from the entrance. A small gold charm dangled from the end of the chain. Alexia and Madame Lefoux bent to examine it.
“An ankh?” Alexia blinked in amusement.
“From Ancient Egypt?” Madame Lefoux arched one perfect black eyebrow.
“Were the two cultures chronologically comparable?” Alexia scrabbled to remember the dates of Egyptian expansion.
“It is possible they had some form of contact, but it is more likely that this little object came into Etruscan hands through trade with the Greeks.”
Alexia studied the small piece of gold closely but, uncharacteristically, pursed her lips and said nothing. She found it odd that an Etruscan statue would offer up the Egyptian symbol for eternal life, and while, to be sure, she had many theories on the subject, she was unwilling to share them with a Templar.
The preceptor tucked his charm away when neither lady had anything further to say and led the way back up the limestone stairs and out onto the sun-dappled hillside. The other tombs were much the same, only in not quite such good repair.
The picnic that followed was an uncomfortably silent affair. Alexia, Madame Lefoux, and the preceptor were seated on a square of quilted gingham spread atop the tomb while the other Templars enjoyed their own meal a short distance away. One of the Templars did not eat, but instead read from the Bible in lugubrious tones. The preceptor seemed to feel this was an excuse not to engage in any conversation with his two companions.
Alexia ate an apple, two rolls of crunchy bread spread with some kind of tomato sauce, and three hard-boiled eggs dipped in more of the green stuff that had so delighted her the day before.
With meal finished and Bible put away, the party prepared to leave. There was one benefit to picnicking, Alexia realized. As she had used no utensils, nothing needed to be destroyed because of contamination.
“It is not a bad life we lead here, is it, My Soulless One?” The preceptor spoke to her at last.
Alexia was forced to admit that it didn’t appear so. “Italy is a lovely country. And I cannot fault your cuisine or climate.”
“You are—how do I say this politely—unwelcome back in England?”
Alexia was going to correct him and boast of Conall’s public apology but then thought better of it. Instead she said, “That is a very diplomatic way of putting it, Mr. Templar.”
The preceptor smiled his horrible cheerless grimace. “Perhaps, My Soulless One, you might consider staying here with us, then? It has been a long time since we of the temple at Florence had a preternatural in residence, let alone a female of the species. We would make sure of your every comfort while we studied you. Provide for you your own, more isolated quarters.”
Alexia’s face soured as she thought back to her unfortunate encounter with Dr. Siemons and the Hypocras Club. “I have entertained such an offer before.”
The Templar tilted his head, watching her.
Since he seemed, once more, to be in a chatty frame of mind, Alexia asked, “You would put up with devil spawn permanently in your midst?”
“We have done so before. We of the brotherhood are God’s best weapon against the supernatural threat. We were made to do what needed to be done no matter what the cost or personal risk. You could be very useful to our cause.”
“Goodness gracious, I had no idea I was that appealing.” Alexia waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Madame Lefoux joined the conversation. “If that is the case, why are you not equally welcoming to werewolves and vampires?”
“Because they are not born daemons. To be born with the eternal sin is not much more than to be born with original sin. The soulless suffer, as we all do, under the metaphorical cross, only for them there is no salvation. The vampires and werewolves, on the other hand, have chosen their path voluntarily. It is a matter of intention. They have turned their backs on salvation in a way far more reprehensible, because they once had excess soul. They could have ascended into heaven had they only resisted Satan’s temptation. Instead, they traded the bulk of their soul to the devil and became monsters. They are offensive to God, for only he and his angels are allowed immortality.” He spoke calmly, with no emotion, no inflection, and no doubt.
Alexia felt chilled. “Which is why you wish to see all supernatural folk dead?”
“It is our eternal crusade.”
Alexia did some calculations. “Over four hundred years or so. Commendably committed of you all.”
“A God-sanctioned purpose, to hunt and kill.” Madame Lefoux’s tone was full of censure, not unsurprising given her choices in life—she was a creator, an engineer, and a builder.
The preceptor looked from the Frenchwoman to Alexia. “And what do you think her God-given purpose is, Scientist Lefoux—a soulless creature whose only skill is in neutralizing the supernatural? Do you think she was not placed on this earth as a tool? We can give her purpose, even if she is only a female.”
“Now, wait just a minute there!” Alexia remembered once complaining to Conall, before their marriage, that she wanted something useful to do with her life. Queen Victoria had made her muhjah, but even with that gone, killing vampires and werewolves for a sect of religious fanatics was not precisely what she had been hoping for.
“Have you any idea how rare you are, a female of the species?”
“I am beginning to get the impression that I am more rare than I had thought.” Alexia looked about suddenly, feigning physical discomfort. “Do you think I might visit a convenient bush, before we depart for the long drive back?”
The Templar looked equally discomforted. “If you insist.”
Alexia tugged at Madame Lefoux’s sleeve and dragged her off behind the tomb and down the side of the hill a little ways to a small copse of trees.
“It took Angelique this way,” commented Madame Lefoux, referring to her former lover. “During her pregnancy, she always had to… well… you know.”
“Oh, no, that was merely a ruse. I wanted to discuss something with you. That ankh around his neck, did you notice that it had been repaired?”
Madame Lefoux shook her head. “Is that significant, do you think?”
Alexia had never told Madame Lefoux about the mummy nor the broken ankh symbol. But in her experience, it was the hieroglyphic sign of a preternatural.
So she quickly moved on. “I think the terra-cotta man in the tomb was a preternatural, and the woman was a vampire, and the offering of meat was for the werewolves.”
“A harmonious culture? Is that possible?”
“It would be terribly arrogant of us British to think England was the first and only progressive society.” Alexia was worried. If the Templars comprehended the significance of the ankh, she was in more danger than she had thought. They would find a way to turn her into a tool, living or dead.
“I do hope Floote managed to send that message to BUR.”
“Love note to your werewolf?” Madame Lefoux sounded wistful. Then she looked about the empty hillside, suddenly nervous. “I think, my dear Alexia, we should head back to the carriage.”
Alexia, enjoying the countryside and the intellectual advantages afforded by their ancient surroundings, had not registered the lateness of the hour. “Ah, yes, you may be correct.”
It was, unfortunately, well into nighttime before they were even halfway back to Florence. Alexia felt awfully exposed in the open-topped carriage. She kept her parasol close and began to wonder if this whole excursion was not an attempt by the Templars to use her as some kind of bait. After all, they fancied themselves great supernatural hunters and might very well risk her safety simply to draw local vampires out. Especially if the Templars had enough foolish pride in their own abilities to believe there was little true peril. The moon was just rising, no longer entirely full but still quite bright. In its silvery light, Alexia could make out a gleam of anticipation in the preceptor’s normally emotionless eyes. You rotten sod, this was all a setup, she was about to say, but too late.
The vampire appeared out of nowhere, leaping with exceptional speed from the dirt road into the carriage. He was single-minded in his attack, heading straight for Alexia, the only apparent female of the group. Madame Lefoux gave a yell of warning, but Alexia had already thrown herself forward onto the open seat opposite her own, next to the preceptor. The vampire ended up where she had just been sitting. Alexia fumbled with her parasol, twisting the handle so that the two sharp spikes, one wood and one silver, sprang out from its tip.
The preceptor, suddenly brandishing a long, evil-looking wooden knife, gave a yell of pleasure and attacked. Madame Lefoux had her trusty cravat pin already out and in play. Alexia swung her parasol, but all were merely normal humans pitted against superhuman strength, and even fighting off multiple bodies in the awkwardly tiny venue of an open-topped carriage, the vampire was holding his own.
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.