Heartless pp-4 Read online

Without a backward glance at Lord Akeldama, she strode forward into the midst of the panicking hive. Or she would like to say she strode; it was more a gimpy kind of shuffle.

  “Wait, Alexia! Where is your parasol?” Lord Akeldama sounded more concerned than she had ever heard him, devoid of both italics and pet names.

  Lady Maccon gesticulated in an expressive way and yelled back to him, “Underneath what’s left of the hive house, I suspect.” Then she faced her muhjah duties full-on. “Right, you lot. I’ve had about enough of this waggish behavior.”

  Countess Nadasdy turned and hissed at her. Actually hissed.

  “Oh, really.” Lady Maccon was revolted. She looked at the Duke of Hematol. “Would you like me to sober her up?” She twiddled her naked fingers at him.

  Lord Ambrose snarled and leaped, in one of those fantastic supernatural feats of athleticism, to place himself between Lady Maccon and his queen.

  “Apparently not. Have you a better solution?”

  The duke said, “We could not have her mortal and vulnerable, not in such an unprotected state.”

  Behind them, clattering through the alley behind the long row of town houses, the Woolsey carriage drew to a stop, the chestnut travelers hitched up rather than the parade bays. The countess leaped toward it as though it were some fearsome foe. Lord Ambrose held her back by snaking both arms around her from behind in an embarrassingly intimate gesture. It was only an old-fashioned gingerbread coach with a massive crest on its side and just that kind of superfluous decadence that would appeal to Lord Akeldama but that Lady Maccon had always felt was ever so slightly embarrassing for Woolsey. It was built to make an impression, not for speed or nimbleness. But Alexia hardly thought even such grandiose ugliness warranted a vampire attack.

  “Well, then, as Lord Akeldama will not invite you in for tea and a sit-down, I was thinking I might suggest we retreat to Woolsey for the time being. Take refuge there.”

  All the assembled vampires, even the countess, who seemed to have only a limited ability to follow what was going on around her, paused to look at Lady Maccon as though she had just donned Grecian robes and begun hurling peeled grapes at them.

  “Are you certain, Lady Maccon?” asked one of them, almost timidly for a vampire.

  The doctor stepped forward, elongated and frail-looking, for all he held the struggling Quesnel as though the boy weighed no more than one of Madame Lefoux’s automated feather dusters. “You are inviting us to stay, Lady Maccon? At Woolsey?”

  Alexia did not see the source of their persistent confusion. “Well, yes. But I’ve only the one carriage, so you and the boy and the countess had best come with me. The others can run behind. Try to keep up.”

  Lord Ambrose looked at Dr. Caedes. “It is unprecedented.”

  Dr. Caedes looked at the Duke of Hematol. “There is no edict for this.”

  The duke looked at Lady Maccon, rolling his head from one side to the other. “The marriage was unprecedented, and so is the forthcoming child. She but maintains her brand of tradition.” The duke moved toward his mistress. Cautiously, careful not to make any sudden movements.

  “My Queen, we have an option.” He spoke precisely, careful to enunciate each and every word.

  Countess Nadasdy shook herself. “We have?” Her voice sounded hollow and very far away, as though emanating from the bottom of a mine. It reminded Alexia of something, but with the child inside her creating a fuss and the prospect of a long drive ahead, she couldn’t remember what.

  The countess looked to Lord Ambrose. “Who must we kill?”

  “It is an offer freely given. An invitation.”

  For a moment, Countess Nadasdy seemed to return to herself, focusing completely on the faces of her three most treasured hive members. Her supports. Her tentacles. “Well, let us take it, then. No time to spare.” She looked around, cornflower-blue eyes suddenly sharp. “Is that laundry? Where have you brought me?”

  With a nod to Lady Maccon, Lord Ambrose hustled his queen into the Woolsey carriage. Quicker than the mortal eye could follow, he ducked back out again, his movements made smoother without the need to monitor a hat. He leaped to the driver’s box, unceremoniously dismissing the perfectly respectable coachman who sat there and taking up the reins himself. Lady Maccon arched a brow at him.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I once raced chariots,” he explained with a grin that showed off his fangs to perfection.

  “I do not think it is quite the same thing, Lord Ambrose,” remonstrated Alexia.

  Dr. Caedes and Quesnel climbed inside next. And then, reluctantly, Lady Maccon. She struggled a bit with the steps, and no vampire was willing to offer her any kind of assistance, no touching, not even for politeness’ sake. Once inside, she was unsurprised to find that the vampires were seated together on one bench so that she must sit alone on the other.

  Lord Ambrose whipped the horses up and they took off at a canter, far too fast for the crowded streets of London. The clattering on the cobbles was awfully loud, and the carriage seemed to gyrate around the turns far more than Alexia had noticed before. Her belly protested the swaying.

  It ordinarily took just under two hours to reach Woolsey from central London, less time for a werewolf in full fur, of course. The Count of Trizdale once claimed to have run it in his highflyer coach in only an hour and a quarter. Lord Ambrose, it seemed, was intent on trying to break that record.

  Within London, the streets were worn enough into ruts for relatively smooth travel, and even though he had been tethered to Mayfair for hundreds of years, Lord Ambrose knew the way. Plenty of time to study maps, Alexia supposed. They took the lesser used road toward West Ham. However, upon exiting the city, everything went awry.

  Not that the evening’s events prior to that moment had been all sugared violet petals. But still.

  First, and worst, so far as Lady Maccon was concerned, they hit the dirt road of the countryside. It had never bothered her overmuch before, and the carriage was well sprung and padded inside. But the fast pace combined with more-than-was-normal jiggling did not amuse the infant-inconvenience. Fifteen minutes of that and Alexia felt a new bodily sensation commence—a dull ache in the small of her back. She wondered if she had damaged herself during one of the evening’s many bustle-crushing dismounts.

  Then they heard Lord Ambrose yell and smelled acrid smoke. Here, away from looming shadows of the city buildings and under the full moon’s light, everything was much easier to see. Alexia watched through the window as one of their vampire escorts put on a burst of speed, drew alongside the carriage, and leaped. The coach lurched but did not slow, and there came the sound of the roof above them being beaten viciously.

  “Are we on fire?” Lady Maccon shifted herself into a better position, drew down the window sash, and stuck her head out into the rushing air, trying to see behind them.

  It might have been difficult for her to make out their enemy, had there been a man on horseback or another carriage behind them, but the thing skittering after them over the fields and between the hedgerows was doing so on eight massive tentacles. Well, seven massive tentacles—it had the eighth in front of it spurting fire at the carriage. It was also several stories high.

  Alexia pulled her head back inside. “Dr. Caedes, I suggest you have your charge there show himself. It might prevent Genevieve from actually killing us.”

  The carriage lurched again and picked up speed. The vampire on the roof, having succeeded in beating out the flames, had jumped off. But they were moving nowhere near as fast as they had initially—the horses were tiring, if not becoming winded and destroyed by such cruel speed.

  The octomaton was gaining on them, and Woolsey still a good distance away.

  Dr. Caedes changed his grip on the boy and tried to force Quesnel to stick his head out of the carriage window. Quesnel was not at all inclined to do anything any of the vampires wanted. Alexia gave her friend’s son an almost imperceptible nod, at which point he did as directed. He stuc
k not only his head but also one skinny arm outside, waving madly at the creature behind them.

  The ache in Lady Maccon’s back intensified and she felt her stomach lurch, wavelike. She’d never experienced such a sensation before. She let out a squeak of alarm and fell back against the padded wall of the coach. Then it was gone.

  Alexia poked at her stomach with a finger. “Don’t you dare. Now is most inopportune! Besides, arriving early to a party is disrespectful.”

  The octomaton fell back just far enough to allow the carriage to slow, but if Alexia knew Madame Lefoux, this was only giving the inventor time to come up with a new plan of attack. Genevieve must realize Alexia was also in the carriage and that they were headed to Woolsey. There was no other reason to be on that road at that time, for aside from everything else, no one traveled to Barking at night and no one ever traveled to Barking at speed.

  “Oh, my goodness.” Lady Maccon had the most uncomfortable feeling that she had lost some of her legendary control, over the physical, if not the mental. A wet sensation in her lower area indicated that her bustle, and quite possibly the rest of her dress, really was not going to survive this night. Then came that wavelike feeling again, starting at the top of her stomach and working its way down.

  Dr. Caedes, who wasn’t a real doctor, was nevertheless perceptive enough to see that the tenor of Lady Maccon’s distress had changed.

  “Lady Maccon, have you commenced? That would be most unfortunate timing.”

  Alexia frowned. “No, I absolutely forbid it. I will not—Oooh.” She ended on a groan.

  “I believe you have.”

  Quesnel perked up at this. “Bully! I’ve never seen a birth before.” He turned big lavender eyes onto the now-sweating Lady Maccon.

  “You’re not going to tonight, either, young man,” Alexia reprimanded between puffs of breath.

  The countess, who was still twitchy as all get out and only partly paying attention to any conversation, looked with bright suspicious eyes at Alexia. “You can’t. Not while I am here with you. What if it comes out and we have to touch it? Dr. Caedes, throw her out of the carriage at once.”

  Even with the strange wave sensation and a burgeoning pain, Alexia was quick enough to reach into her reticule and pull out Ethel before Dr. Caedes could stop her.

  Not that he tried. Instead, he attempted to reason with the countess. “We can’t, my queen. We need her to get us inside the house. She is our invitation.”

  Lady Maccon felt compelled to add, “And this is my carriage! If anyone is getting out, it’s you!” She felt an additional downward pressure from the child inside her. “No, not you!” Then she looked wildly around. “This is not allowed,” she said in a blanket kind of way, including both the imminent baby, the vampires, Quesnel, and the octomaton. She looked down at her belly. “I will not begin our relationship with disobedience. I get enough of that from your father.”

  The countess looked like she had eaten something foul, like a piece of fresh fruit. “I cannot be in proximity to an abomination! Do you know what might transpire?”

  Now, this form of panic could be useful. “No, why don’t you enlighten me?”

  Too late. A crushing, grinding noise came from behind them. Alexia had no idea what the octomaton was up to, but when she stuck her head out of the window, she saw it was no longer following them. The carriage had turned off the main track, into the long weaving roadway that wended through Woolsey’s grounds.

  They were almost home.

  Mere moments later, a tremendous crash came in front of them and the carriage slewed to one side and came to a rocking halt. Out of the window Alexia could see Woolsey just ahead atop its rise of ground, silvered under the moonlight, looking as though it had its own form of stone tentacles embodied in multiple flying buttresses.

  It might as well have been a thousand leagues away, for the octomaton had felled a tree across the road before them. Lord Ambrose could not turn the carriage around, even if the high hedges permitted such a thing, for behind them the massive metal creature barred the way. The vampire escort, panting from their long run, instinctively formed a barrier before the coach, as though they could stop any attack by physically imposing themselves between the octomaton and their queen.

  Alexia glanced around in desperation. She was among enemies, exhausted, and about to give birth. She was running out of options and would have to trust one of the vampires. Opening the carriage door, she yelled at the vanguard, “Your Grace, I have a proposition for you.”

  The Duke of Hematol turned to face her.

  “We need some help, and we need a distraction if we are to make our destination.”

  “What do you suggest, Lady Maccon?”

  “That we call out the hounds.”

  “And how do we do that? You definitely can’t run to the castle from here, none of us can carry you to Woolsey, and no claviger will take the word of a vampire messenger.”

  “Listen to me. You tell them that Lady Maccon says it is a matter of urgency. The Alpha female requires her pack to attend her, regardless of their current state.” I will have to change the secret phrase now.

  “But—”

  “It will work. You must trust me.” She wasn’t certain, of course. A matter of urgency was pack code for Lady Maccon acting as muhjah. She had rarely had to use the summons, and then only with a perfectly sane husband or Beta, never with only clavigers. Would the message even be understood?

  The duke gave her one hard, long look. Then he whirled and ran, leaping the fallen tree with almost as much ease as a werewolf, heading directly for the castle, supernatural speed in full effect.

  With one of their oldest and wisest gone and the great metal octopus looming above their unprotected queen, the vampires around Lady Maccon went ever so slightly insane themselves. Not as mad as the countess, but definitely wild. One of them charged the octomaton, only to be swept easily aside.

  The metal creature raised up a tentacle to its eye slit, once more opening the tip and flipping out the bullhorn that allowed Madame Lefoux to speak.

  “Give me Quesnel. You are out of options.” There came a short pause. “I can hardly believe it of you, Alexia, helping vampires. They tried to kill you!”

  Alexia stuck her head out of the door-side window of the carriage and yelled back, “So? Recently, you also tried to kill me. In my experience, murder could almost be an expression of affection.” It took an enormous effort to yell, and she fell back into the carriage, moaning and clutching at her stomach. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Alexia Maccon was afraid.

  Then came the noise, an eerie blessing of a sound, one that Alexia had grown to love very much over the past year or so.

  Wolves. Howling.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A Clot of Vampires

  The Woolsey Pack was a large collective, a good dozen strong. And a dozen werewolves is like two dozen regular wolves in size alone. Normally, they were also one of the better-behaved packs. When other packs were feeling snide, they called Woolsey tame. But no werewolf behaves himself on full moon.

  Lady Maccon knew very well that she was taking a grave risk. She also knew her smell would attract her husband. Even in the throes of full-moon’s curse, he would run to her. He might try to kill her, but he would come. He was Woolsey’s Alpha for a reason, with enough charisma to hold his pack and drag them with him, no matter how strong the need to break away and trail blood and raw meat across the countryside. They would all follow him, which meant he would bring them all to her.

  So it proved to be.

  They poured out the lower doors and windows of the castle, howling to the skies. They evolved into a kind of cohesive moving liquid, flowing down the hillside as one silvered blob, like mercury on a scientist’s palm. The howling became deafening as they neared, and they were swifter than Alexia remembered, full of eternal rage at a world that forced such a cost of immortality upon them. Any human would flee, and Alexia could see that even the vamp
ires were tempted to run away from the massive supernatural force charging toward them.

  At the front ran the biggest of the lot, a brindled wolf with yellow eyes, intent on but one thing—a smell on the evening breeze. It was the scent of mate, and lover, and partner, and fear, and something new coming. Near to that, twining with it, was the scent of young boy, fresh meat to be consumed. Underneath was the smell of rotten flesh and old bloodlines—other predators invading his territory. Dominating it all was the odor of industry, a monstrous machine, another enemy.

  Lady Maccon stepped out of the carriage and slammed the door behind her, placing herself before the boy and the queen, knowing that she would be the last possible defense, that if nothing else, she had her bare hands.

  Her legs, however, refused to obey her. She found herself leaning against the door, wishing she had her parasol for leverage.

  The pack was there. The blur of fur and teeth and tail turned into individual wolves. Lord Conall Maccon came to a sliding halt before his wife.

  Alexia never quite knew how to handle her husband when he was in such a state. There was nothing of the man she loved in those yellow eyes, not during full moon. Her only hope was that he would perceive the octomaton as more of a threat than the vampires. That his driving instinct would be to defend territory first and eat later, thus ignoring her and Quesnel, who represented fresh meat.

  Her hope proved to be the case, for Conall’s yellow eyes flashed once, almost human, and he lolled his tongue out at her. Then the pack turned in a body and launched itself at the octomaton. One wolf per tentacle, the remaining four at the neck. Supernatural teeth were guided by instinct toward joints and arteries, even if those joints were made of ball bearings and pulleys and those arteries hydraulic steam-powered cables.

  Alexia could only watch, admiring the grace in their amazingly high leaps. She held Ethel in one hand, but the gun dangled uselessly. She was nowhere near good enough to hit even something the size of the octomaton without also risking a wolf. The vampires made no move to help. This might have been because they were afraid a werewolf would take this ill and start attacking them, or it might be because they were vampires.