Soulless

CHAPTER FOUR Our Heroine Ignores Good Advice

Alexia was embarrassed to find that she was reduced to shamefully sneaking out of her own home. It simply would not do to tell her mama she was paying a late-night call on a vampire hive. Floote, though disapproving, proved an able ally in her transgression. Floote had been Alessandro Tarabotti's valet before Alexia was even a twinkle in that outrageous gentleman's eye. As such, he knew a lot more than just how to butler, and that included a thing or two on the organization of misdemeanors. He hustled his “young miss” out of the servants' entrance at the back of the house. He had her carefully shrouded in the scullery maid's old cloak and managed to stuff her into a hired cab maintaining a stiff but capable silence all the while.

The hackney rattled through the darkened streets. Miss Tarabotti, mindful of her hat and hair, nevertheless drew down the widow sash and stuck her head out into the night. The moon, three-quarters and gaining, had not yet risen above the building tops. Above, Alexia thought she could make out a lone dirigible, taking advantage of the darkness to parade stars and city lights before one last load of passengers. For once, she did not envy them their flight. The air was cool and probably unbearably chilly so high up; this was no surprise, as London was generally a city not celebrated for its balmy evenings. She shivered and closed the window.

The carriage finally stopped at a good-enough address in one of the more fashionable ends of town, although not an end Miss Tarabotti's particular collection of acquaintances tended to frequent. Anticipating a brief engagement, she paid the hackney to wait and hurried up the front steps, holding high the skirts of her best green and gray check visiting dress.

A young maid opened the door at her approach and curtsied. She was almost too pretty, with dark blond hair and enormous violet eyes, and neat as a new penny in a black dress and white apron.

“Miz Tarabotti?” she asked in a heavy French accent.

Alexia nodded, pulling at her dress to rid it of travel wrinkles.

“Zi comtesse, she iz expecting you. Right diz way.” The maid led her down a long hallway. She seemed to sway as she moved with a dancer's grace and liquid movements. Alexia felt large, dark, and clumsy next to her.

The house was typical of its kind, though perhaps a touch more luxurious than most, and outfitted with every possible modern convenience. Miss Tarabotti could not help but compare it to the Duchess of Snodgrove's palatial residence. Here there was more real affluence and grandeur, the kind that did not need to display itself openly—it simply was. The carpets were thick and soft, in coordinating shades of deep red, probably imported directly from the Ottoman Empire three hundred years ago. There were beautiful works of art hanging on the walls. Some were very old; some were more contemporary canvases signed with names Alexia knew from newspaper gallery announcements. Luxuriant mahogany furniture showcased beautiful statues: Roman busts in creamy marble, lapis-encrusted Egyptian gods, and modern pieces in granite and onyx. Rounding a corner, Miss Tarabotti was treated to an entire hallway of polished machinery, displayed much as the statuary had been and with the same studied care. There was the first steam engine ever built, and, after it, a silver and gold monowheel; and, Alexia gasped, was that a model of the Babbage engine? Everything was perfectly clean and chosen with utter precision, each object occupying the space it had been given with immense dignity. It was more impressive than any museum Alexia had ever visited—and she was fond of museums. There were drones everywhere, all attractive and perfectly dressed, efficiently going about the business of running daylight interference and nighttime entertainment for the hive. They, too, were works of art, dressed in subdued elegance to match the tenor of the house, and collected with care.

Alexia did not have the soul to truly appreciate any of it. However, she understood style well enough to know that it surrounded her. It made her very nervous. She smoothed down her dress self-consciously, worried it might be considered too simple. Then she straightened her spine. A plain tan spinster like her could never compete with such grandeur; best take advantage of what assets she did have. She puffed up her chest slightly and took a calming breath.

The French maid opened a door to a large drawing room and curtsied her inside before gliding off, her feet silent on the red carpet, her hips swaying back and forth.

“Ah, Miss Tarabotti! Welcome to the Westminster hive.” The woman who came forward to greet Alexia was not at all what she had expected. The lady was short, plump, and comfortable-looking, her cheeks rosy and her cornflower-blue eyes sparkling. She looked like a country shepherdess stepped out of a Renaissance painting. Alexia glanced about for her flock. They were there, of a kind.

“Countess Nadasdy?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes, my dear! And this is Lord Ambrose. That is Dr. Caedes. That gentlemen there is His Grace the Duke of Hematol, and you know Miss Dair.” She gestured as she spoke. Her movements were simultaneously too graceful and too contrived. They looked as though they had been well studied, as carefully articulated as a linguist speaking a foreign tongue.

Aside from Miss Dair, who smiled kindly from her place on the settee, no one seemed particularly pleased to see her. Miss Dair was also the only drone present. Alexia was certain the other three were vampires. Though she knew none of them socially, she had read some of Dr. Caedes's research during her more adventurous academic pursuits.

“How do you do?” said Miss Tarabotti politely.

The party all made the requisite social murmurings.

Lord Ambrose was a large, exceedingly comely man, looking the way romantic schoolroom girls expect vampires to look—dark and broodingly arrogant with aquiline features and deep meaningful eyes. Dr. Caedes was also tall but skinny as a walking stick, with thinning hair stopped mid-retreat by metamorphosis. He had with him a doctor's bag, though Alexia knew from her readings that his Royal Society membership rested on his extensive engineering work, not a physician's license. The last hive member, the Duke of Hematol, was nondescript in a premeditated way that reminded Alexia of Professor Lyall. Consequently, she regarded him with great wariness and respect.

“If you do not mind, my dear, might I shake your hand?” The Westminster queen moved toward her with that abrupt and smooth supernatural suddenness.

Alexia was taken aback.

Up close, Countess Nadasdy looked less jolly, and it was clear her rosy cheeks were the product of artifice, not sunlight. Under layers of cream and powder, her skin was ashen white. Her eyes did not sparkle. They glittered as hard as the dark glass used by astronomers to examine the sun.

Miss Tarabotti backed away.

“We need to confirm your state,” the hive queen explained, still coming at her.

She grabbed Alexia's wrist firmly. The countess's tiny hand was impossibly strong. The moment they touched, much of the hive queen's hardness vanished, and Miss Tarabotti was left wondering if once, long, long ago Countess Nadasdy had actually been a shepherdess.

The vampire smiled at her. No fangs.

“I object most strenuously to this action, my queen. I want it known before the hive that I disagree with this approach to our situation,” Lord Ambrose spoke curtly.

Alexia was not certain if he was angry at her preternatural state or at her physical effect on his queen.

Countess Nadasdy let go of her wrist. Her fangs reappeared. They were long and thin, almost biologically spiny, with what looked like barbed tips. Then, with a lightning-fast movement, she lashed out to the side with sharp clawlike fingernails. A long line of red appeared on Lord Ambrose's face. “You overstep your bond duties, child of my blood.”

Lord Ambrose bowed his dark head, the shallow wound already closing and healing itself. “Forgive me, my queen; it is only your safety that concerns me.”

“Which is why you are my praetoriani.” In an abrupt change of mood, Countess Nadasdy reached to caress the very part of Lord Ambrose's face she had just sliced open.

“He speaks nothing but truth. You allow a soul-sucker to touch you, and once you are mortal, all it takes is one fatal injury.” This time is was Dr. Caedes who spoke. His voice was slightly too high-pitched, with a fuzziness around the edges, a sound wasps make before they swarm.

To Alexia's surprise, the countess did not claw his face open. Instead she smiled, showing off the full length of her sharp barbed fangs. Alexia wondered if they had been filed into that extraordinary shape.

“And yet, this girl does nothing more threatening than stand before us. You are all too young to remember what real danger is inherent in her kind.”

“We remember well enough,” said the Duke of Hematol. His voice was calmer than the other two but more malicious in cadence—soft and hissing like steam escaping a boiling kettle.

The hive queen took Miss Tarabotti gently by the arm. She seemed to breathe in deeply, as though Alexia smelled of some scent she loathed but was trying desperately to identify. “We were never in any direct danger from the female preternaturals; it was only ever the males.” She spoke to Alexia in a conspiratorial whisper. “Men, they do so enjoy the hunt, do they not?”

“It is not the ability to kill that worries me. Quite the opposite,” said the duke softly.

“In which case it is you gentlemen who should avoid her and not I,” replied the countess slyly.

Lord Ambrose laughed snidely at that remark.

Miss Tarabotti narrowed her eyes. “You asked me to come here. I do not wish to be an imposition, and I will not be made to feel unwelcome.” She jerked her arm away, sharp enough to break the countess's grip, and turned to leave.

“Wait!” The hive queen's voice was sharp.

Miss Tarabotti continued moving toward the door. Fear made her throat tight. She comprehended what it must be like to be some trapped furry creature in a reptilian den. She stopped when she found her way barred. Lord Ambrose had moved with a vampire's characteristic swiftness to prevent her departure. He sneered at her, tall and distressingly gorgeous. Alexia found she much preferred Lord Maccon's brand of largeness: gruff and a little scruffy round the edges.

“Remove yourself from my path, sir!” hissed Miss Tarabotti, wishing she had brought her brass parasol. Why had she left it behind? What this man seemed most in need of was a good sharp prod to the nether regions.

Miss Dair stood and came over to her, all blond ringlets and troubled blue eyes. “Please, Miss Tarabotti. Do not leave just yet. It is only that their memories are longer than their tempers.” She gave Lord Ambrose an evil look. Taking Alexia solicitously by the elbow, she led her firmly toward a chair.

Miss Tarabotti acquiesced, sitting with a rustle of green and gray taffeta and feeling even more at a disadvantage until the hive queen sat down across from her.

Miss Dair rang the bell rope. The pretty violet-eyed maid appeared in the doorway. “Tea, please, Angelique.”

The French maid vanished and moments later reappeared pushing a fully laden tea trolley, complete with cucumber sandwiches, pickled gherkins, candied lemon peel, and Battenberg.

Countess Nadasdy served the tea. Miss Tarabotti took hers with milk, Miss Dair took hers with lemon, and the vampires took theirs with a dollop of blood, still warm and poured out of a crystal pitcher. Alexia tried not to think too hard about its origin. Then the scientific part of her wondered what would happen if that jug contained preternatural blood. Would it be toxic or just convert them to human state for a certain length of time?

Alexia and Miss Dair helped themselves to food, but no one else in the room bothered to partake. Unlike Lord Akeldama, they clearly did not appreciate the taste of food nor feel compelled by common courtesy to make a show of consuming it. Alexia felt awkward eating while her hostess touched nothing, but she was not the type to ever be put off good food, and the tea, like everything else in the hive house, was of the very highest quality. She refused to rush, sipping slowly from the exquisite blue and white bone china cup and even asking for a second helping.

Countess Nadasdy waited until Miss Tarabotti was halfway through a cucumber sandwich to reopen their conversation. They talked on safe and banal subjects: a new play down the West End, the latest art exhibit, the fact that full moon was just around the corner. Full moon was a regular holiday for working vampires, since were-wolves had to absent themselves.

“I hear a new gentleman's club has opened near the Snodgrove town house,” Miss Tarabotti offered, getting into the spirit of the small talk.

Countess Nadasdy laughed. “I understand the duchess is in high dudgeon. Apparently, it brings down the whole tenor of the neighborhood. She should count her blessings; if you ask me, it could be decidedly worse.”

“It could be Boodles,” giggled Miss Dair, clearly thinking how embarrassing the duchess would find country squires hanging about all day and night.

The duke added, “Or scandal of scandals, it could be Claret's.” He named the gentleman's club that catered to werewolves.

The vampires all laughed uproariously at that. It was creepy in its lack of decorum.

Miss Tarabotti decided in an instant that she did not like the Duke of Hematol one jot.

“Speaking of the Duchess Snodgrove.” The hive queen segued in a slithery fashion onto the subject she had really summoned Alexia in to discuss. “What was it that happened during her ball the night before last, Miss Tarabotti?”

Alexia put her teacup down carefully into its saucer, then set both onto the tea trolley with a faint clatter. “The papers described it accurately enough.”

“Except that you were not named in any of them,” said Lord Ambrose.

“And there was also no mention of the deceased young man being supernatural,” added Dr. Caedes.

“And no reference to the fact that you had executed the killing blow.” Countess Nadasdy sat back, a faint smile on her round pleasant face. The smile did not sit well there, not with the four fangs and the little dents they left in those full shepherdess lips.

Miss Tarabotti crossed her arms. “You seem well informed. Why do you need me here?”

No one said anything.

“It was an accident,” grumbled Alexia, relaxing her defensive posture. She took a bite of Battenberg without really tasting it. It was an insult to the little cake, for it was usually good and worth appreciating: thick sponge with homemade marmalade and crystallized almond paste on the outside. This sponge seemed dry and the almond paste gritty.

“It was a very tidy stake to the heart,” corrected Dr. Caedes.

Alexia went immediately on the defensive. “Too tidy: he barely bled. Do not blindside me with accusations, venerable ones, I did not drive him to starvation.” No sane person would ever describe Miss Tarabotti as a shrinking violet. When attacked, she fought back with interest. It could have been the result of her preternatural state; then again, it could simply be a ridiculously stubborn disposition. She spoke decidedly, as though to a sulking child. “That vampire was suffering from serious hive neglect. He had not even been trained out of larvae stage well enough to recognize me for what I clearly am.” If Alexia had been sitting close enough, she probably would have prodded the queen with a sharp finger to the sternum. Scratch me, Alexia thought. I'd like to see her try! She contented herself with frowning fiercely.

Countess Nadasdy looked taken aback, not having anticipated such a shift. “He was not one of mine!” she said defensively.

Miss Tarabotti stood, back straight, glad for once that she had an assertive figure: tall enough to tower over every one but Lord Ambrose and Dr. Caedes. “Why do you play these games with me, venerable one? Lord Maccon said he could smell your bloodline in that dead boy. He must have been metamorphosed by you or one of your get. You've no right to pin your carelessness and inability to safeguard your own interests upon me, especially when I only acted in self-defense.” She held up a hand to forestall interruption. “True, I have better defensive mechanisms than most daylight folk, but I am not the one being careless with hive blood.”

Lord Ambrose hissed, his fangs fully extended, “You go too far, Soulless.”

Miss Dair stood, one hand raised to her mouth in shock at such indelicate behavior. Her big blue eyes were wide and shifted between Alexia and Countess Nadasdy like those of a frightened rabbit.

Miss Tarabotti ignored Lord Ambrose, which was difficult, as her skin was prickling in reaction, and the prey part of her brain wanted desperately to run and hide behind the chaise lounge. She forced down the instinct. It was preternaturals who hunted vampires, not the other way around. Technically, Lord Ambrose was her rightful prey. He should be trembling behind the sofa! She leaned on the tea trolley, bending toward the queen. She tried to loom like Lord Maccon loomed, but suspected her green and gray check visiting dress and ample bosom mitigated any threatening aspect.

Affecting indifference, Alexia spiked a second piece of Battenberg hard with a fork. Metal clanked loudly against serving plate. Miss Dair jumped.

“You are correct in one aspect, Miss Tarabotti. This is our problem,” said the queen, “hive business. You should not be involved. BUR should not be involved, although they will continue to interfere. Not until we know more about the situation anyway. The werewolves should certainly keep their furry noses out of it!”

Miss Tarabotti pounced on the hive queen's indiscretion. “So there has been more than one of these mysterious vampire appearances?” Countess Nadasdy sneered at her.

Alexia said, “The more BUR knows, the easier it will be to figure out why and how this is happening.”

“This is hive business; it is not a matter for the Registry,” the queen reiterated, saying nothing more.

“Not if unregistered roves are roaming London outside hive dominion. Then it is BUR business. Do you want to go back to the Dark Ages, when humans feared you and preternaturals hunted you? Vampires must at least appear to be under government control; that is part of BUR's mandate. You and I both know that. Everyone in this room must know that!” Miss Tarabotti spoke firmly.

“Roves! Do not talk to me about roves—nasty, ungoverned madmen, the lot of them.” Countess Nadasdy bit her lip. It was a strangely endearing gesture from one of the oldest immortals in England.

At that sign of confusion, Alexia finally realized what was really going on. The hive queen was frightened. Like Lord Akeldama, she expected to fully comprehend what occurred in her territory. Hundreds of years of experience colored every new occurrence with predictability and ennui. Yet this was something new and thus outside her comprehension. Vampires did not like surprises.

“Tell me, please.” Miss Tarabotti mollified her tone. It had worked with Lord Maccon. Perhaps the trick to dealing with the supernatural set was merely to play the social submissive. “How many have there been?”

“My queen, be cautious,” the Duke of Hematol advised.

Countess Nadasdy sighed. She looked from one to the next of the three male vampires. Then she said, “Three in the past two weeks. We managed to catch two of them. They know nothing of vampire etiquette, are confused and disoriented, and usually die within a few days despite our best efforts. As you say, they are ignorant of the preternatural threat, of the proper respect due to a hive queen, and even the office of the potentate. They know little of BUR and its laws of registration. It's as though they sprung, fully formed, onto the streets of London— like Athena from the mind of Zeus.”

“Athena was the goddess of war,” said Alexia nervously.

“In all my centuries, nothing like this has ever occurred. There were vampire hives on this tiny island before there were human governments. The feudal system was based on hive and pack dynamics. The Roman Empire took its style of organization and efficiency from our kind. The hive structure is more than just a social institution. It is supernatural instinct. No vampire is born outside the hive, because only a queen can bring about metamorphosis. It has been our greatest strength, the control this engenders, but it has also been our greatest weakness.” The countess looked down at her small hands.

Miss Tarabotti sat silent throughout this speech, watching the hive queen's face. Countess Nadasdy was definitely scared, but there was an edge of hunger to her fear. To make vampires without a queen! The hive wanted to know how it was occurring so they could master the technique themselves. Such a technology was more than any vampire could wish. It was one of the reasons they invested so heavily in the modern sciences. The gadgetry in the receiving room alone was meant for more than just to amaze and delight. The hive must boast several inventor drones. There were rumors Westminster held a controlling interest in the Giffard dirigible company. But their real hope was always for just such a scientific breakthrough— supernatural birth without blood bite. Miraculous, indeed.

“What will you do next?” Miss Tarabotti asked.

“I have already done it. I have involved a preternatural in hive business.”

“The potentate will not be pleased.” The Duke of Hematol seemed more resigned than annoyed. It was, in the end, his duty to support his queen and her decisions.

The potentate served as advisor to Queen Victoria, acting the vampire equivalent of a prime minister. Usually a well-known rove of extensive political acumen, the potentate was elected to the position by vote from all hives in the United Kingdom and served until someone better came along. It was the only way a rove could achieve any kind of serious social standing among the vampires of the ton. The current potentate had occupied the position since Queen Elizabeth I sat on the throne of England. Queen Victoria was reported to find his advice invaluable, and there were rumors that the success of the British Empire was due in large part to his skills. Of course, they said the same thing about the dewan, Her Majesty's werewolf advisor. He was a loner who had been around almost as long as the potentate, concerned himself mostly in military matters, and stayed out of pack squabbling. The two stood head and tail above other pack and hive outsiders as invaluable political liaisons to the daylight camp. But like all outsiders in good faith with the establishment, they tended to forget their revolutionary roots and side with the establishment. The potentate would bow to the hives in the end.

“The potentate is not a queen. This is hive business, not politics,” countered Countess Nadasdy sharply.

“Nevertheless, he will have to be told,” insisted the duke, running a fine-boned hand through his thinning hair.

“Why?” Lord Ambrose was clearly disinclined to tell anyone. He obviously objected to Alexia being consulted, and he certainly did not like the idea of involving a politician.

Miss Dair cleared her throat delicately, interrupting them. “Gentlemen, I am quite certain this is a subject best left for later.” She gestured with her head at Miss Tarabotti, who had momentarily been forgotten.

Miss Tarabotti munched down her third piece of Battenberg and tried to look cunning.

Dr. Caedes swung around and gave her a very hard look. “You”—his tone was excessively accusatory—“are going to be trouble. Preternaturals always are. Just you keep a careful eye on those moon howlers you keep walking out with. Werewolves also have an agenda to keep to. You do realize that?”

“And you bloodsuckers, of course, are all sweetness and light with only my best interests at heart,” Alexia shot back, brushing Battenberg crumbs casually off her lap.

“Look at the plucky young thing! She is trying to make a funny,” said Lord Ambrose snidely.

Miss Tarabotti stood and nodded to the assembled company. The words being bandied about were getting dangerously rude. So rude, in fact, that unless she missed her guess, actions would soon be required. She would rather cut her visit short at words. This seemed an opportune moment to vacate the premises.

“Thank you for a delightful visit,” she said, smiling in a way she hoped looked predatory. “It has been most”— she paused, deliberating, choosing her words carefully— “educational.”

Miss Dair looked to the hive queen. At the countess's nod, she pulled a nearby bell rope that was discreetly hidden behind a heavy velvet drape. The beautiful blond maid appeared once more in the doorway. Miss Tarabotti followed her out, feeling a bit like she had just escaped the jaws of some unpleasant beast.

She was just starting down the front steps toward her cab when she was waylaid by a fierce grip on her upper arm. The lovely Angelique was far stronger than she appeared to be. It was not supernatural strength either; she was only a drone.

“Yes?” Miss Tarabotti tried to be polite.

“You are of ze BUR?” The maid's violet eyes were wide, earnest.

Alexia did not know quite what to say to that. She did not wish to lie, for she had no official sanction. A pox on Lord Maccon and his archaic principles! “I am not quite official, but—”

“You could take zem a message, yez?”

Miss Tarabotti nodded, leaning forward. Partly to appear interested, partly to ease the viselike grip the girl persisted in maintaining on her arm. Tomorrow, she thought, I will be covered in bruises.

“Tell me.”

Angelique glanced around. “Ask zem. Ask zem, please, to look for ze missing ones. My master, he iz a rove. He vanishez last week. Poof.” She snapped her fingers. “Like zat. Zey brought me to ze hive because I am pretty and do good work, but ze comtesse, she only just toleratez me. Without hiz protection, I do not know how long I will last.”

Miss Tarabotti had no idea what the girl was on about. Lord Akeldama once said hive politics put the workings of the British government, whether daylight or shadow, to shame. She was beginning to understand the truth of his words. “Uh, I am not sure I quite follow.”

“Please try.”

Well, thought Alexia, no harm in trying. “Try to do what, exactly?”

“To find out where ze roves are gone. Az well az why ze new onez come.” Clearly, Angelique liked listening at keyholes.

Miss Tarabotti blinked, trying to follow. “Vampires are going missing, as well as appearing out of thin air? You are certain they are not the same, with, say, lots of makeup and appalling shirts to make them look like new larvae?”

“No, miz.” The maid gave Alexia's weak attempt at humor a reproachful look.

“No, I suppose they would not be so unfashionable, even as a hoax.” Miss Tarabotti sighed and nodded. “Very well, I shall try.” She was thinking that the world was getting even more confusing, and if the hive had no idea what was going on, and BUR even less, what could she possibly do to comprehend the situation?

Nevertheless, the maid seemed satisfied. Clearly, she did not share Alexia's reservations. She let go of Miss Tarabotti's arm and slipped back into the house, closing the massive door firmly behind her.

Alexia, frowning in puzzlement, marched down the stairs and into the waiting hackney. She did not notice that it was not the same hackney as the one she had originally arrived in, nor that it was driven by a different coachman.

She did, however, realize instantly that there was someone already residing inside the cab. “Oh dear, I do beg your pardon! I thought this carriage was available,” said Miss Tarabotti to the bulky individual slouched in the corner of the facing seat. “I told my driver to wait, and here you were in exactly the same spot, with the cab door open. I simply assumed. I do apologize. I...” She trailed off.

The man's face was in shadows, his features obscured by a wide coachman's hat. He did not seem to have anything to say. No greeting, no acceptance of her apologies. He did not even bother to move his gray-gloved hand to tip that horribly inappropriate hat to a strange lady blundering about in his rented transport.

“Well,” said Miss Tarabotti, disgusted by his rudeness, “I shall just be off then.”

She turned to leave, but the driver had climbed down off the box and now stood outside in the street, barring her exit. His features were not shadowed. A nearby gas lamp lit them silky gold and shiny. Alexia jerked backward in horror. That face! It was like a wax copy of something not quite human, smooth and pale with no blemish, no scar, and no hair to speak of. On the forehead four letters had been written in some sort of smudged black substance: VIXI. And those eyes! They were dark and curiously blank, so flat and expressionless it was as though nothing lived within the mind behind them. Here was a man who watched the world without blinking, yet somehow refrained from looking directly at anything.

Miss Tarabotti backed away from that smooth face in repugnance. The apparition reached forward and slammed the door to the cab, jerking the handle to lock it closed. Only then did his set expression change. He grinned a slow lazy grin that crept across his waxy face the way oil spreads over water. His mouth was full of straight white squares, not teeth. Alexia was certain that smile would haunt her dreams for years to come.

The wax man vanished from the door window, presumably to pull himself onto the driver's box, for, within the next moment, the carriage jerked and began to move. It rattled and creaked over the London street cobbles, heading toward a place Alexia was reasonably confident she had no desire to visit.

Miss Tarabotti grabbed the handle of the door, rattling it ineffectively. She braced one shoulder against it and pushed hard, putting her entire weight behind the shove. Nothing.

“Now, my dear,” said the shadowed man, “no cause to carry on like that.” His face remained obscured, although he was now leaning toward her. There was an odd smell in the air, like sweet turpentine. It was by no means a pleasant odor.

Miss Tarabotti sneezed.

“All we want to know is who you are and what you are doing visiting the Westminster hive. This will not hurt a bit.” He lunged at her. He was holding a damp handkerchief in one hand—the apparent source of the unpleasant smell.

Alexia was not given to bouts of hysterics. However, she was also not one to stay quiet when circumstances warranted volume. She screamed, loud and long. It was one of those shrill, high shrieks, the kind only terrified women or very good actresses can produce. The scream exited the hackney cab as though no walls stood in the way and rent the quiet London night, cutting through the sound of horse hooves on stone. It rattled the leaded glass of the slumbering residences. It caused more than one stray cat to look about, suitably impressed.

At the same time, Miss Tarabotti braced herself back against the locked door. Without her parasol, her best defense was a good sharp-heeled kick. She was wearing her very favorite walking boots. They had lovely hourglass heels made of wood that gave her a little too much height for fashion but were pretty enough to make her feel almost elegant. They were also the pointiest pair of shoes she owned. Her mother had considered their purchase quite shockingly French. Alexia aimed one hard heel at the shadowed man's kneecap.

“No call for that!” he said, dodging the kick.

Miss Tarabotti was not certain if he was objecting to the kick or the scream, so she issued both again— with interest. He seemed to be having a difficult time negotiating Alexia's multiple layers of skirts and ruffles, which formed a particularly efficacious barrier in the tight confines of the hackney. Unfortunately, Alexia's own defensive movements were equally restricted. She leaned back stubbornly and kicked out again. Her skirts swished.

Despite Miss Tarabotti's best efforts, the shadowed man's handkerchief was coming inexorably toward her face. She twisted her head away, feeling dizzy. The sweet fumes were almost overwhelming. Her eyes began to water slightly. Time seemed to slow. Alexia could not help wondering what she had done to offend the heavens so much they sent two attackers at her in the space of one short week.

Just when she felt there was no more hope and she was in imminent danger of succumbing to the fumes, there came an unexpected noise. One designed, Miss Tarabotti suspected, by this newfangled concept of evolution to chill the bones of mankind. It was a vast, roaring, snarling howl. It shivered the air and the blood and the flesh all up and down one's spine. It was the cry a predator made only once, when the prey was not yet dead, but the kill was assured. In this particular case, it was followed by a loud thump as something hit the front of the cab hard enough to rattle the two who struggled within.

The carriage, which had been picking up some speed, jerked to an abrupt halt. Alexia heard the screaming cry of a terrified horse. There came a snap as the animal broke free of its traces, and then the sound of galloping hooves as it took off alone through the London streets.

Another loud thump reverberated—flesh against wood. The cab shook again.

Miss Tarabotti's attacker became distracted. He left off forcing the handkerchief on her and instead pulled down the window sash and leaned out, craning his head around toward the driver's box. “What is going on out there?”

No answer was forthcoming.

Miss Tarabotti kicked the back of his knee.

He turned around, grabbed her boot, and jerked it forward.

She fell back against the door, hard enough to bruise her spine on the handle, her layers of dress and corset failing to shield her.

“You are beginning to annoy me,” the shadowed man growled. He yanked her foot sharply upward. Alexia struggled valiantly to stand upright on only one leg and screamed again, this time more of a shriek of anger and frustration than distress.

As though in response, the door she leaned against opened.

With a small squeak of alarm, Miss Tarabotti fell backward out of the cab, legs and arms flailing. She landed with an “oof” on something solid but fleshy enough to comfortably break her fall.

She took a deep breath of the stale London air and then coughed. Well, at least it was not chloroform. She had not met the chemical in person before, it being only newly circulated among the most scientifically minded of the medical profession, but she had a good idea that must be what saturated the shadowed man's ominous handkerchief.

Her landing mattress squirmed and growled. “Good God, woman! Shift off.”

Miss Tarabotti was no lightweight. She made no bones about enjoying food—on a fairly regular basis and generally of the toothsome variety. She kept her figure through regular exercise, not a tightly controlled diet. But Lord Maccon, for it was he who squirmed, was very strong and ought to have shifted her easily. Instead he seemed to be having some trouble removing her from atop of him. It took an inordinate amount of time for such a big man, even if such intimate contact with a preternatural canceled out his supernatural strength.

As a general rule, Lord Maccon appreciated a voluptuous woman. He liked a bit of meat on the female form, more to grab on to—and more to chew off. His voice, annoyed as always, belied the gentleness in his big hands as he took the excuse of removing Alexia's generous curves from his person to check for injuries.

“Are you unhurt, Miss Tarabotti?”

“You mean, aside from my dignity?” Alexia suspected Lord Maccon's handling was a tad more than was strictly called for under the circumstances, but she secretly enjoyed the sensation. After all, how often did a spinster of her shelf life get manhandled by an earl of Lord Maccon's peerage? She had better take advantage of the situation. She smiled at her own daring and wondered who could be said to be taking advantage of whom!

Eventually, the earl levered her into a sitting position. He then rolled out from under her and stood, jerking her unceremoniously to her feet.

“Lord Maccon,” said Miss Tarabotti, “why is it that around you I always end up in some variety of indelicate and prone position?”

The earl arched a debonair eyebrow at her. “The first time we met, I believe it was I who took a particularly undignified tumble.”

“As I have informed you previously”—Alexia brushed off her dress—”I did not leave the hedgehog there intentionally. How was I to know you would sit on the poor creature?” She looked up from her ministrations and gasped in shock. “There is blood all over your face!”

Lord Maccon wiped his face hurriedly on his evening jacket sleeve, like a naughty child caught covered in marmalade, but did not explain. Instead he growled at her and pointed into the hackney. “See what you have gone and done? He got away!”

Alexia did not see, because there was nothing inside the cab to see any longer. The shadowed man had taken the opportunity her unfortunate tumble afforded to escape.

“I did not do anything. You opened the door. I simply fell out of it. A man was attacking me with a wet handkerchief. What else was I supposed to do?”

Lord Maccon could not say much in response to such an outlandish defense.

So he merely repeated, “A wet handkerchief?”

Miss Tarabotti crossed her arms and nodded mutinously. Then, in typical Alexia fashion, she opted to go on the attack. She had no idea what it was about Lord Maccon that always made her so inclined, but she went with the impulse, perhaps encouraged by her Italian blood. “Wait just a moment now! How did you find me here? Have you been following me?”

Lord Maccon had the good grace to look sheepish—if a werewolf can be said to look sheepish. “I do not trust vampire hives,” he grumbled, as though that were an excuse. “I told you not to come. Didn't I tell you not to come? Well, look what happened.”

“I would have you know I was perfectly safe in that hive. It was only when I left that things went all”— she waved a hand airily—“squiffy.”

“Exactly!” said the earl. “You should go home and stay inside and never go out again.”

He sounded so serious Alexia laughed. “You were waiting for me the entire time?” She looked curiously up at the moon. It was past three-quarters in size—an easy-change moon. She remembered the blood on his mouth and put two and two together. “It is a chilly night. I take it you were in wolf form?”

Lord Maccon crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

“How did you change so quickly and get dressed so fast? I heard your attack cry; you could not have been human at that point.” Miss Tarabotti had a good idea how werewolves worked, though admittedly she had never seen the earl himself change shape. In fact, she had never seen anyone do it outside of the detailed sketches in some of her father's library books. Still, there the earl stood before her, top hat to tails, untidy hair and hungry yellow eyes, nothing out of place—apart from the odd bit of blood. Lord Maccon grinned proudly, looking like a schoolboy who had just managed to translate his Latin perfectly. Instead of answering her question, he did the most appalling thing. He changed into wolf shape— but only his head—and growled at her. It was utterly bizarre: both the act itself (a weird melting of flesh and crunching of bones, most unpleasant in both appearance and sound) and the sight of a gentleman in perfect evening dress with an equally perfect wolf's head perched atop a gray silk cravat.

“That is quite revolting,” said Miss Tarabotti, intrigued. She reached forward and touched his shoulder so that the earl was forced to return to fully human form. “Can all werewolves do that, or is it an Alpha thing?”

Lord Maccon was a bit insulted by the casualness with which she assumed control of his change. “Alpha,” he admitted. “And age. Those of us who have been around the longest control the change best. It is called the Anubis Form, from the olden days.” Brought to fully human state by Alexia's hand still resting on his shoulder, he seemed to register their surroundings with new eyes. The hackney's wild flight and sudden halt had placed them in a residential part of London, not quite so up-market as the hive neighborhood but not so bad as it could be.

“We should get you home,” Lord Maccon asserted, looking around furtively. He removed her hand gently from his shoulder and curled it about his forearm, leading her at a brisk pace down the street. “Sangria is just a few blocks away. We should be able to hail a cab there at this time of night.”

“And somehow you think it is a good idea for a werewolf and a preternatural to show up at the front door of the most notorious vampire club in London looking for a hackney?”

“Hush, you.” Lord Maccon looked faintly offended, as though her statement were one of doubt in his ability to protect her.

“I take it you do not want to know what I found out from the vampire hive, then?” Miss Tarabotti asked.

He sighed loudly. “I take it you want to tell me?”

Alexia nodded, tugging down the sleeves of her over jacket. She shivered in the night air. She had dressed to go from carriage to house, not for an evening stroll.

“The countess seems an odd sort of queen,” Miss Tarabotti began her story.

“You did not let her appearance mislead you, did you? She is very old, not very nice, and only interested in advancing her personal agenda.” He removed his evening jacket and wrapped it around Alexia's shoulders.

“She is frightened. They have had three unexplainable new vampires appear inside Westminster territory in the past two weeks,” said Miss Tarabotti, snuggling into the jacket. It was made from a high-end Bond Street silk blend, cut to perfection, but it smelled of open grassland. She liked that.

Lord Maccon said something very rude, and possibly true, about Countess Nadasdy's ancestry.

“I take it she did not inform BUR?” Alexia pretended artlessness.

Lord Maccon growled, low and threatening. “No, she most certainly did not!”

Miss Tarabotti nodded and looked at the earl with wide innocent eyes, imitating Ivy as best she could. It was harder than one would have thought. “The countess gave me tacit permission to involve the government at this time.” Bat, bat, bat, went the eyelashes.

This statement, in conjunction with the lashes, seemed to make Lord Maccon even more annoyed. “As if it were her decision! We should have been informed at the onset.”

Miss Tarabotti put a cautionary hand on his arm. “Her behavior was almost sad. She is quite frightened. Although she would never openly admit to being unable to cope with the situation. She did say the hive has managed to catch two of these mystery roves and that they died shortly thereafter.”

Lord Maccon's expression said he would not put it past vampires to kill their own kind.

Alexia continued. “The mysterious newcomers seem entirely new. She said they arrive knowing nothing of customs, laws, or politics.”

Lord Maccon walked along silently, processing this information for a few steps. He hated to admit it, but Miss Tarabotti had single-handedly ascertained more about what was transpiring than any of his agents. He was forced into feeling... What exactly was that sensation? Admiration? Surely not.

“Do you know what else these new ones do not know about?” asked Alexia nervously.

The earl suddenly had a very odd expression of confusion upon his face. He was eyeing her as though she had changed unexpectedly into something entirely non-Alexiaish.

“You seem to be far better informed than anyone else at the moment,” responded the earl nervously with a sniff.

Miss Tarabotti touched her hair self-consciously under his appraising look, and then she answered her own question. “They do not know about me.”

Lord Maccon nodded. “BUR, the packs, and the hives try to keep preternatural identity as secret as possible. If these vampires are being metamorphosed outside the hive, they would have no reason to know your kind even existed at all.”

Miss Tarabotti was struck by something. She stopped in her tracks. “That man, he said they wanted to know who I was.”

“What man?”

“The man with the handkerchief.”

Lord Maccon groaned. “So they were after you specifically, blast it! I thought they might be after any drone or vampire, and you were just exiting the hive at the wrong time. You do realize they are going to try again?”

Alexia glanced up at him, pulling his jacket closer about her. “I guess I had best not give them another opportunity. “

Lord Maccon was thinking exactly the same thing. He moved a little closer, curling her arm more firmly about his. He started them both moving once more toward Sangria, light, and company, and away from the empty, echoing side streets. “I'll have to set a watch on you.”

Miss Tarabotti snorted. “And what happens at full moon?”

Lord Maccon winced. “BUR has daylight and vampire agents, as well as werewolves.”

Alexia got on her proverbial high horse. “I will not have strangers dogging my every step, thank you. You, certainly, Professor Lyall if I must, but others...”

Lord Maccon grinned foolishly at that particular prioritization. His company had just merited a “certainly.” What she said next, however, drove the smile right off his face.

“What if I arrange to be around Lord Akeldama during the full moon?”

The earl looked daggers. “I am certain he would be extremely helpful in a fight. He could ruthlessly flatter all your attackers into abject submission.”

Miss Tarabotti grinned. “You know, your intense dislike of my dear vampire friend could almost sound like jealousy if the idea were not so patently absurd. Now, listen, my lord, if you simply let me—”

Lord Maccon let go of her arm, stopped, turned, and, to her complete surprise, kissed her full on the lips.