Boots said, “That’s just the thing, my lady. We thought it best to fetch you. The creature is on a bender.”
Lady Maccon grabbed up her parasol and her reticule. “Of course, of course. I’ll come directly. Lend me your arm, please, Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps.”
As quickly as possible, the two young dandies helped Alexia to waddle out the front door and along the path past the lilac bushes into Lord Akeldama’s house.
The arched and frescoed hallway was packed with concerned-looking young men, several of them worse off than Boots and Tizzy. Two were even missing their cravats. A truly startling thing to see. They were milling about and talking in obvious trepidation, at a loss but eager to do something.
“Gentlemen!” Lady Maccon’s shrill feminine voice cut through the masculine hubbub. She raised her parasol on high as though about to conduct a concert. “Where is the beast?”
“Please, mum, it’s our master.”
Alexia paused in perplexity and lowered her parasol slightly. Lord Akeldama was a vampire, but no one would ever refer to him as a beast.
The dandies continued in a chorus of explanations and objections.
“He’s gone and locked himself in the drawing room.”
“With that monster.”
“I should never wish to question our lord’s choices, but really!”
“So ill-kempt. I’m convinced its fur had split ends.”
“Said he could handle it.”
“For our own good, he said. Not to let anyone in.”
“I’m not anyone.” Lady Maccon pushed her way through the throng of perfectly tailored jackets and high white collars, as one of those particularly chubby terriers might clear a path through a pack of poodles.
The young men gave way until she was faced with the gilt door, painted with white and lavender swirls, that led into Lord Akeldama’s infamous drawing room. She took a deep breath and knocked loudly with the handle of her parasol.
“Lord Akeldama? It’s Lady Maccon. May I enter?”
From behind the door came the sound of scuffling and possibly Lord Akeldama’s voice. But no one actually bid her entrance.
She knocked again. Even under the most dire of circumstances, one didn’t simply go bursting into a man’s private drawing room without sufficient provocation.
A particularly loud crash was all the response she got.
Alexia decided that this could be considered sufficient provocation and slowly turned the knob. Parasol at the ready, she waddled in as quick as she could, closing the door firmly behind her. Just because she was disobeying Lord Akeldama’s orders didn’t mean the drones could as well.
Her fascinated gaze fell upon quite the tableau.
Lady Maccon had witnessed an altercation between a vampire and a werewolf once before, but it had been inside a moving carriage and had rather rapidly relocated from carriage to road. Also, back then, the two opponents had genuinely been trying to kill each other. This was different.
Lord Akeldama was locked in single combat with a werewolf. The wolf was definitely trying to kill him, jaws snapping and all his supernatural strength bent on the vampire’s destruction. But Lord Akeldama, while fighting the wolf off, did not seem to be enthusiastic about killing him. For one thing, his favored weapon, a silver-edged glaive that masqueraded as a piece of gold plumbing, was still in its customary place above the mantelpiece. No, Lord Akeldama seemed to be employing mostly evasive strategies, which only served to frustrate and anger the wolf.
The beast lunged for the vampire’s elegant white neck, and Lord Akeldama dodged to the side, flicking out one arm in a blasé manner, as if flapping a large handkerchief at a departing steamer. It was a gesture that, for all its casualness, still lifted the werewolf up and entirely over the vampire’s blond head to land on his back near the fireplace.
Alexia had never had the chance to observe Lord Akeldama fight before. Of course, one knew Lord Akeldama must be able to fight. He was rumored to be quite old, and as such must be at least capable of combat. But this was akin to knowing, academically, that his chubby calico house cat was capable of hunting rats—the actual execution of the task always seemed highly improbable and possibly embarrassing for all concerned. Thus, she now found herself quite intrigued by the display before her. And soon discovered that she was wrong in her initial assumption.
Far from any discomfit or awkwardness, Lord Akeldama fought with a nonchalant lazy efficiency, as though he had all the time in the world on his side. Which Alexia supposed he did. His advantage was in speed, eyesight, and dexterity. The wolf had strength, smell, and sound to rely on, but he was inexperienced. The werewolf hadn’t an Alpha’s skill, either, which Lord Maccon had once described to his wife as fighting with soul. No, this wolf was moon mad. His jaws snapped and his claws speared surfaces without regard to logic or expense. The vampire’s perfectly elegant drawing room was faring no better than Alexia’s back parlor. He was also getting saliva all over the pretty throw cushions.
It would have been an entirely uneven match except that Lord Akeldama really was trying not to hurt Biffy.
Because that was who it was: Biffy, chocolate brown fur with an oxblood stomach.
“How on earth did you get out of the Woolsey dungeon?”
No one answered her, of course.
Biffy charged Lord Akeldama. The vampire seemed to flash spontaneously from one side of the room to the other, leaving the werewolf to complete his leap with no quarry at the end of it. Biffy landed on a gold brocade chair, overturning it so that its legs stuck up, shockingly bare, into the air.