Lord Akeldama and Alexia both stood. Alexia grabbed her brass parasol, gripping it firmly in both hands. Lord Akeldama reached for the gold pipe art piece from the mantel. He pressed hard at a hidden button in the midpoint, and a curved, hooklike blade sprang out each end of the pipe and clicked into place. One was sharpened ironwood, the other solid silver. Not art, as it turned out.
“Where are my on-premises drones?” wondered Lord Akeldama.
“Never mind that,” said Alexia. “Where are my vampire guards?”
The man in the doorway had no answer for either of them. He did not even appear to hear. He did not approach but merely stood, blocking their sole avenue of escape.
“He has got a female with him,” he shouted back to someone in the hallway.
“Well, bring them both,” came the sharp reply. Then some kind of complex Latin phrases were issued. The terms used were outside of Miss Tarabotti's limited education and spoken in such a strange old-fashioned accent as to make them particularly difficult to decode.
Lord Akeldama tensed. He clearly understood what was said, or at least what it implied. “No. That is impossible!” he whispered.
Miss Tarabotti felt that if he had not been vampire-white already, he would have blanched. His supernatural reflexes seemed stalled by some horrific realization.
The stranger in the doorway vanished to be replaced by an all-too-familiar figure: a man with a stagnant, wax-like face.
CHAPTER TEN
For the Good of the Commonwealth
Miss Tarabotti's nemesis held a brown glass bottle up high in one hand. She was momentarily hypnotized by the repulsive fact that he seemed to have no fingernails.
Closing the door firmly behind him, the wax-faced man advanced toward Miss Tarabotti and Lord Akeldama, un-stopping the bottle and spilling its contents about the room as he went. He did so with infinite care, as a conscientious flower girl scatters petals before an advancing bride.
Invisible fumes rose up from the drops of liquid, and an odd smell permeated the air. Alexia knew that odor well by now: sugary turpentine.
Miss Tarabotti held her breath, plugging her nose with one hand and raising her parasol into guard position with the other. She heard a dull thud as Lord Akeldama collapsed to the floor, his golden pipe weapon rolled away, unused. Clearly, all his plethora of information did not include the latest medical pamphlets on the application, use, and smell of chloroform. Either that, or vampires were more quickly affected by the drug than preternaturals.
Alexia felt light-headed, not certain how long she could hold her breath. She fought the sensation as much as possible and then broke toward the drawing room door and fresh air.
The wax-faced man, apparently unaffected by the fumes, shifted to prevent her egress. Miss Tarabotti remembered from the night before how fast he could move. Supernatural? Perhaps not if the chloroform had no effect. But assuredly faster than she was. Miss Tarabotti cursed herself briefly for not bringing her conversation with Lord Akeldama more rapidly around to the topic of this man. She had meant to ask. It was just, now... too late.
She swung her deleterious parasol. Brass haft and silver tip made satisfying contact with the man's skull, yet neither seemed to have any effect.
She hit him again just below the shoulder. He brushed her weapon aside with the flick of one arm.
Alexia could not help but gasp in astonishment. She had hit him very hard. But no sound of breaking bone came when buckshot-filled ferrule met arm.
The wax-faced man grinned his horrible not-teeth grin.
Too late. Miss Tarabotti realized that she had breathed inward in her surprise. She cursed herself roundly for a fool. But self-recriminations were to no benefit. The sweet chemical smell of the chloroform invaded her mouth, permeated her nose and throat, and then her lungs. Blast it, thought Alexia, borrowing one of Lord Maccon's favorite curses.
She hit the wax-faced man one last time, mostly out of orneriness. She knew it would result in nothing. Her lips began to tingle and her head spun. She swayed dangerously and reached forward with her nonparasol hand, groping for the wax man, preternatural her last resort. Her hand came to rest against his horrible smooth temple, just below the Von VIXI. His skin felt cold and hard. Nothing at all happened to him at the contact. No change back to normal human, no return to life, no soul-sucking. Definitely not supernatural. Here, Miss Tarabotti realized, was the real monster.
“But,” Alexia whispered, “I am the soulless one...” And with that, she dropped her parasol and pitched forward into darkness.
***
Lord Maccon arrived home in the nick of time. His carriage clattered up the long cobbled drive to Woolsey Castle just as the sun set behind the high trees planted along the western edge of its extensive grounds.
Woolsey Castle stood a respectable distance from town—far enough away for the pack to run and close enough for them to take advantage of all the amusements London afforded. Woolsey Castle was also not the impenetrable fortress its name implied but instead a sort of trumped-up family manor house with multiple stories and excessively excitable buttresses. Its most important feature, so far as the werewolves were concerned, was a very large and secure dungeon, designed to accommodate multiple guests. The original owner and designer was reputed to have had some rather indecent proclivities, outside of his fondness for flying buttresses. Whatever the cause, the dungeons were extensive. Also key, in the pack's
opinion, was the large number of private bedchambers above dungeon level. Woolsey Castle had to house a goodly number of residents: werewolves, clavigers, and servants.