Heartless pp-4 Page 20

  Alexia awoke early the next evening to an unfamiliar sense of peace. She was not, by and large, a restful person. This did not trouble her overmuch. But it did mean that peace was, ironically, a slightly uncomfortable sensation. It drove her fully awake, sharp and sudden, once she had recognized and identified it. Her husband had slept pressed against her the whole day through, and she had been so very tired even the inconvenience of pregnancy had awakened her only a few times. She luxuriated in the pleasure of Conall’s broad, comforting presence. His scent was of open fields, even here in town. She reflected whimsically that he was the incarnation of a grassy hill. His face was rough with a full day’s growth. It was a good thing they were now encamped in Lord Akeldama’s house. If any household were to employ the services of an excellent barber, it was this one.

  Alexia pushed aside the bedding, the better to examine her personal territory with greater thoroughness. She smoothed her hands along her husband’s massive shoulders and chest, resting fingertips at the notch in the base of his throat. She petted him as though he were in wolf form. She rarely got to indulge in such a luxury; usually her preternatural touch turned him back to human before she even got in one good scratch. Sometimes, though, and no one had ever been able to tell her why, she could put on her gloves and pet his thick brindled coat, even tug on his velvety ears with no shifting. Yet another mystery of my state, she thought. It had happened once in Scotland, and then a few other times during the winter months. These days, however, her preternatural abilities seemed to be amplified. He went human simply by being close to her. I wonder if it has something to do with the pregnancy. I should do some experiments and see if I can isolate the conditions. Before her marriage, she’d never spent much time in the company of supernaturals, apart from Lord Akeldama, and she had never had the opportunity to really study her own abilities.

  But in the interim, she would continue petting whatever form he presented her with. She trailed her hands back over his chest, threading fingers through the hair there, tugging slightly, and then down along his sides.

  A rumbling snuffle of amusement met this action.

  “That tickles.” But Conall did not make any move to prevent her continued explorations. Instead, he picked up his own hand and began smoothing it over her protruding belly.

  The infant-inconvenience kicked in response, and Conall twitched at the sensation.

  “Active little pup, isn’t he?”

  “She,” corrected his wife. “As if any child of mine would dare be a boy.”

  It was a long-standing argument.

  “Boy,” replied Conall. “Any child as difficult as this one has been from the start must, perforce, be male.”

  Alexia snorted. “As if my daughter would be calm and biddable.”

  Conall grinned, catching one of her hands and bringing it in for a kiss, all prickly whiskers and soft lips. “Very good point, wife. Very good point.”

  Alexia snuggled against him. “Did you manage to settle Biffy?”

  Conall shrugged, an up and down of muscle under her ear. “I spent the remainder of last night with him. I think that helped mitigate the trauma. It is hard to tell. Regardless, by this point, I should be able to sense him.”

  “Sense, what do you mean, sense?”

  “Difficult to articulate. Do you know that sensation you get when there is someone else in the room, even if you cannot see them? For us Alphas, pack members are a little like that. Whether we are in the same room or not, we simply know the pack is there. Biffy, he isn’t a part of that yet. So he isn’t part of my pack.”

  Alexia was struck with a moment of inspiration. “You should encourage him and Lyall to spend more time together.”

  “Now, Alexia, are you trying to matchmake?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought you said Biffy did not need to be in love, he needed to find his place.”

  “Perhaps, in this matter, Biffy is not the half of the equation who needs to be in love.”

  “Ah. How did you know Randolph might favor . . . ? Never mind, I don’t want to know. It would never work. Not those two.”

  Alexia took mild offense. Biffy and Lyall were both such good men, so personable and kindly. “Oh, I don’t know about that. They seem eminently suited.”

  Lord Maccon looked up at the ceiling. Clearly he was trying to come up with a delicate way to phrase this. “They are both, uh, too much the Beta, if you take my meaning.”

  Alexia didn’t. “I don’t see how that can be an objection.”

  Lord Maccon obviously felt he could not go into the matter any further without spoiling what little was left of his wife’s feminine delicacy, so he grappled for a means of changing the subject. Only to recall exactly what night this was.

  “Oh, bugger it. It’s full moon, isna it?”

  “Indeed it is. Good thing we’re all cozied up together, isn’t it, my dear?”

  Lord Maccon pursed his lips, trying to decide what to do. He had not intended to sleep the whole day through but had wanted to be on his way back to the dungeons before moonrise. “I left orders for Lyall and Channing to transport Biffy back to Woolsey before sunset, but I really should get there myself.”

  “Too late now—the moon is up.”

  He grunted, annoyed with himself. “Would you mind terribly taking the journey with me? The wine cellar here might hold a new pup, but it won’t hold me. And I should be with him, tonight of all nights. Even moonstruck myself, my presence will soothe him. Besides, I can’t imagine you want to stay attached to me all night.”

  Alexia blinked at him flirtatiously. “You know, under more slender circumstances, I wouldn’t mind spending an evening thus occupied, but I really must be getting on with this investigation. I need to return some paperwork to Madame Lefoux, and I’m back to square one questioning the ghosts. I do wish this pregnancy didn’t make me so abstracted. I keep missing things, and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be so easily sidetracked by history.”

  Lord Maccon didn’t bother trying to argue. Given her ankle and her pregnancy, his wife was in no condition to do any such thing as continue an active inquiry. It was full moon. What could he do to see her safe except have her tailed? Which, naturally, he’d been doing for the past five weeks. For one moment, he did consider coming up with some kind of excuse to keep her at Woolsey even while he, himself, was incapacitated.

  Instead, he growled out, “Very well. But, please, take some precautionary measures?”

  Lady Maccon grinned. “Oh, my love, but that is so very boring.”

  Lord Maccon growled again.

  Alexia kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

  “Why is it that I am always at my most terrified when you say that?”

  * * *

  Above the ghost, under a full moon, the living celebrated being alive.

  Mortals trotted about in shoes and corsets made to limit movement, fashion for prey. They drank (becoming pickled as any gherkin) and puffed at cigars (becoming smoked as any kipper), behaving like the food they were. Silly, thought the ghost, that they couldn’t see such simple comparisons.

  Immortals saluted the full moon with blood, some in crystal glasses, others by tearing into meat and howling. Aside from the ancient Greeks and their long-ago offerings, there was no blood for ghosts. Not anymore.

  The ghost could hear herself crying. Not the herself that still remembered what being herself meant. Some other part of her, the part that was fading into aether.

  She wished she had studied more on the nature of the supernatural and less on the nature of the technological world. She wished her passions had taken her into a learning that would allow her to tolerate the sensation of disanimus with dignity. But there was no dignity in death.

  And she was alone. Perhaps that was not so bad, under such ignominious circumstances?

  Still, where were the scientific pamphlets that taught a woman how to listen to herself die?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN />
  Wherein Hairmuffs Become All the Rage

  Lady Maccon accompanied her husband home to Woolsey Castle and saw him safely locked away in its well-fortified dungeons. He shared a cell with Biffy, both of them tearing into the walls of their impenetrable prison—and into each other. They would do no permanent damage, but still Alexia could not watch. As with most things in life, Lady Maccon preferred the civilized exterior to the dark underbelly (with the exception of pork products, of course).

  “This is an odd world I have become part of, Rumpet.” The Woolsey butler was helping her back to the carriage to return to town. Woolsey’s formal coach was fitted out with full-moon regalia: ribbons tied to the top rails, crest newly polished, a matched set of parade bays hitched to the front. Lady Maccon gave the nose of one a pat. She liked the bays; they were steady, sensible horses with high prances and the general temperaments of gormless newts. “And I used to think werewolves were such simple, basic creatures.”

  “In some ways, madam, but they are also immortal. Dealing with eternity requires a certain complexity of spirit.” The butler handed her up into the carriage.

  “Why, Rumpet, have you been hiding the soul of a philosopher under that efficacious exterior?”

  “What butler isn’t, madam?”

  “Good point.” Lady Maccon signaled the coachman to drive on.

  London at full moon was a different city entirely from any other time of the month. For this one night, out of default or desire, the vampires ruled. Hives throughout England hosted parties, but the biggest occurred in London proper. Roves were at liberty to roam undisciplined and unmonitored. It wasn’t that the werewolves necessarily kept vampire largess in check, just that with guaranteed werewolf absence, the vampires had the autonomy to be that little bit more toothsome than normal.

  It was also an excuse for the daylight folk to dance the night away. Or, in the case of the conservatives who wanted nothing to do with immortals and their ilk, to dirigible the night away. Most of the Giffard fleet was afloat at full moon, running short-haul tourist jaunts above the city. Some were rented out for private parties; others simply took advantage of the moonlight and the festivities to run special offers at high expense for the fashionable to display their latest floating attire. A few airships were outfitted with firework display apparatuses, shooting off colorful explosions of red and yellow sparkles, like hundreds of shooting stars, into the sky.

  It was always a challenging night for BUR. Several core staff were werewolves—three from Woolsey, two from HM Growlers, and one new loner. A number of clavigers also held commissions. All were conspicuous by their absence. Top that off with the vampire agents away enjoying the revels, and full moon left the Bureau understaffed and unhappy about it. There were a few contract ghosts paying very close attention to what went on during the extravagances, but they couldn’t exactly provide physical enforcement if such became necessary. That left the mortal agents at the fore during moon time, spearheaded by the likes of Haverbink—capable, tough, working-class men with a taste for danger and an ear for trouble. Of course, the potentate’s drones were also out and about, but they couldn’t be trusted to report their findings to BUR, even if the rumors were true and Lord Maccon was sleeping in Lord Akeldama’s closet.

  Lady Maccon liked full moon. There was something irrepressibly celebratory about it. London came alive with excitement and dark ancient mysteries. Admittedly, there were fangs and blood and equally acrimonious things, but full moon also brought with it blood-sausage pies, candy sugar wolves, and other tasty treats. Lady Maccon was easily ruled by her stomach into approval of any event. It was the poor quality of the comestibles, not the company, that caused her to continually refuse invitation to most public assembly rooms. The rest of the ton thought this snobbish and approved. They did not realize it was solely based on the shabbiness of the provisions.

  Apart from the food and the pleasant aspect of dirigibles silhouetted against the moon, Alexia also enjoyed the fact that a night ruled by vampires meant everyone was in their best looks and tip-top manners. While her own taste was, frankly, pedestrian, Lady Maccon did enjoy seeing what all the peacocks had arranged to drape themselves with. In the better parts of London, one could run into almost anything: the latest evening gowns from Paris, floating dresses to the extremes of practicality from the Americas, and the fullest, most complex cravat ties imaginable. One could witness a veritable cornucopia of visual delights merely by driving through the crowded streets.

  If Alexia had not been so enthralled, with her face pressed firmly to the carriage window, she would have missed the porcupine. But she was and so she didn’t.

  She banged on the roof of the carriage with her parasol, sharp and loud. “Halt!”

  The coachman pulled the bays up, right there in the middle of the busy thoroughfare—aristocracy had its privileges and Woolsey’s carriage was crested.

  Lady Maccon lifted up the speaking tube she’d recently had installed and belled through to the box.

  The coachman picked up his receiver. “Yes, madam?”

  “Follow that porcupine!”

  “Certainly, madam.” In his years of service to Lord Maccon, the poor man had received far more ludicrous requests.

  The carriage lurched to the side, causing Alexia to drop her end of the tube, which swung from its heavy metal cord and whacked her in the arm. There was no high-speed chase—for which Alexia was grateful, as she’d had quite enough of those to last a lifetime, thank you very much!—because the porcupine, which happened to be on a lead like a little dog, was moving at a sedate pace often interrupted by curious bystanders. The creature was obviously out for a stroll for that purpose, to attract interest and attention on a night practically designed for such displays of eccentricity and ostentation.

  Eventually, traffic allowed the carriage to pull a little ahead of the porcupine and stop. The coachman came around and let Lady Maccon down in time for her to accost the owner.

  “Ah, pardon me, madam,” said Lady Maccon to the young lady in charge of the porcupine before realizing that they were already acquainted. “Why, Miss Dair!”

  “Goodness me, Lady Maccon? Should you be in public in your condition? You are looking most encumbered.” The vampire drone seemed genuinely surprised to see her.

  “But it is a lovely evening to be out, as you obviously realize, Miss Dair.”

  “Indeed, the moon has got his cravat on.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what on earth are you doing strolling the streets of London with a zombie porcupine?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be enjoying the company of my new pet?” Miss Mabel Dair, renowned actress, was exactly the type of original female to elect to keep a pet porcupine, but Lady Maccon would have none of it.

  “New pet, indeed! A whole herd of those nasty creatures attacked me and my husband only recently.”

  The actress paused, a look of defensiveness suffusing her pretty face. “Perhaps the inside of your carriage, Lady Maccon, might be a better place for this conversation?”

  Mabel Dair boasted a stylish figure, if a little round, with an arrangement of curves that cemented her appeal firmly among a specific class of fashionable gentlemen. And, if the rumors were to be believed, one very fashionable woman, Countess Nadasdy. Miss Dair had risen to prominence and become the reigning darling of the West End via the Westminster Hive’s unflagging support. She’d engaged in no less than three continental tours and garnered a considerable amount of popularity in the colonies as well. She had copious blond curls done up in high piled coques of the very latest style, and her face was pleasingly sweet. She gave off an entirely unwarranted air of innocence, for Miss Dair was a woman of strong character—an excellent rider, a dab hand at cards, and a personal friend to the countess as well as being her drone. She also had very good taste in evening dresses. A woman not to be taken lightly, porcupine or no.

  She and her pet climbed inside the Woolsey carriage, leaving her escort to shadow them on t
he street. Lady Maccon turned her attention from the actress to the porcupine. It looked very like those that had attacked her husband, which is to say, not exactly alive.

  “An undead porcupine,” insisted Lady Maccon with conviction.

  “Ah, yes, I see how you might make that kind of assessment, but no. That is not possible, as it was never alive.” The actress settled herself in the facing seat next to Alexia, smoothing out the silk skirts of her green gown as she did so.

  “It can’t be mechanical. I tried a magnetic disruption emission on them and nothing resulted.”

  “Oh, did you? Well, it’s worth knowing Albert here has been field tested against one of the best. I should like to see the emitter you used.”

  “Yes, I wager you would.” Alexia made no move to show her anything whatsoever about her parasol or its armament. She gestured at the porcupine, which had settled into a kind of crouch at the actress’s feet. “May I?”

  Mabel Dair considered the request. “If you must.” Then she bent and lifted the little creature up to the bench between them so that Lady Maccon could examine it at her leisure.

  At such close range, it became clear rather quickly that there was no way it had been, or ever would be, alive. It was a construct of some kind, its inner workings covered over in skin, fur, and spines that made it look like a porcupine.

  “I thought mechanimals were outlawed.”

  “This is not a mechanimal.”

  “It has been made without any ferric parts? Inspired, indeed.” Lady Maccon was duly impressed. She was no Madame Lefoux, to be able to understand the construct’s makeup fully in the space of only a few minutes’ examination, but she was well enough versed in scientific literature to know she held some very advanced technology in her grasp.