“You know the young lady?” asked the shadowed man, pulling out his pipe and a small velvet tobacco pouch. There was an octopus embroidered on the outside of the pouch, golden thread on chocolate brown velvet.
Mr. MacDougall looked up from where he knelt. “I certainly do. This is Miss Alexia Tarabotti,” he said angrily before Miss Tarabotti could stop him.
Oh dear, Alexia thought philosophically, the cat is well and truly out of the bag now.
Mr. MacDougall continued speaking, a flush staining his pasty, pudgy cheeks and a small sheen of sweat lining his brow. “To treat a young lady of such standing as shabbily as this!” he sputtered. “It is a grave blow, not only to the honor of the club, but also to that of the scientific profession as a whole. We should remove her restraints this moment! Shame on you.”
How did that saying go? Alexia wondered. Ah, yes, “Brash as an American.” Well, they had won their independence somehow, and it was not with politeness.
The man with the muttonchops filled his pipe bowl and nipped back into the hallway briefly to light it with one of the oil lamps. “Why does that name sound familiar?” He turned back and puffed for a moment, blowing fragrant vanilla-scented smoke into the cell. “Of course— the BUR records! Are you telling me this is the Alexia Tarabotti?” He took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed the long ivory stem at Alexia for emphasis.
“The only one I've met in your country so far,” answered Mr. MacDougall, sounding unbelievably rude — even for an American.
“Of course.” The shadowed man finally put two and two together. “This explains everything: her involvement with BUR, her visiting the hive, and her association with Lord Akeldama!” He looked to Miss Tarabotti severely. “You have led us a merry dance, young lady.” Then he looked back at Mr. MacDougall. “Do you know what she is?”
“Aside from manacled? Which she should not be. Mr. Siemons, give me the keys this minute!”
Miss Tarabotti was suitably impressed by Mr. Mac-Dougall's insistence. She had not thought he would be such a champion or possess such backbone.
“Ah, yes, of course,” Mr. Siemons said. At last the shadow man had a name. He leaned backward out the doorway and yelled up the hallway. Then he came inside the cell and bent down toward Miss Tarabotti. He grabbed her face quite roughly and turned her toward the light in the hall. He continued to puff on his pipe, blowing smoke into her eyes.
Alexia coughed pointedly.
Mr. MacDougall was further shocked. “Really, Mr. Siemons, such crass treatment!”
“Amazing,” said Siemons. “She seems perfectly normal. One would never be able to tell simply by looking, would one?”
Mr. MacDougall finally got over his gentlemanly instincts enough to allow the scientific part of his mental faculties to participate in the conversation. In a voice colored with both hesitation and dread, he asked, “Why shouldn't she be?”
Mr. Siemons stopped blowing smoke in Miss Tarabotti's face and blew it instead at the American scientist. “This young lady is a preternatural: a Homo exanimus. We have been looking for her since we first deduced her existence here in London. Which, I might add, was only shortly after finding out that preternaturals existed at all. Of course, if you follow the counterbalance theorem, her kind seems perfectly logical. I am surprised we never before thought to look. And, of course, we knew the supernatural set had ancient legends pertaining to certain dangerous creatures that were born to hunt them. The werewolves have their curse-breakers, the vampires their soul-suckers, and the ghosts their exorcists. But we did not know they were all the same organism and that that organism was a scientific fact, not a myth. They are startlingly uncommon, as it turns out. Miss Tarabotti here is a rare beast, indeed.”
Mr. MacDougall looked shocked. “A what?”
Mr. Siemons did not share his shock; in fact, he looked particularly delighted all of a sudden—a lightning change of mood that did not strike Miss Tarabotti as entirely sane.
“A preternatural!” He grinned, waving his pipe about haphazardly. “Fantastic! There are so many things we need to know about her.”
Alexia said,” You stole the paperwork from BUR.”
Mr. Siemons shook his head. “No, my dear, we liberated and then secured important documents in order to prevent dangerous societal elements from fraudulently identifying themselves as normal. Our initiative in this matter will enhance our ability to assess threat and confirm identity of those enabling the supernatural conspiracy.”
“She is one of them?” Mr. MacDougall said, still stuck on Miss Tarabotti's preternatural state. He jerked away from her and thus stopped supporting Alexia in her seated position. Luckily, she managed not to fall backward.
He seemed almost repelled by her. Alexia began to wonder about the story of his brother becoming a vampire. How much of that had been truth?
Mr. Siemons slapped Mr. MacDougall's back delightedly. “No, no, no, my good man. Quite the opposite! She is the antidote to the supernatural. If you can think of an entire living organism as an antidote. Now that we have her, the opportunities for study are endless! Simply think of what we could accomplish. Such possibilities.” He was positively gregarious. His watery blue eyes shone with an excess of scientific enthusiasm.
Alexia shuddered at the idea of what such a study might entail.
Mr. MacDougall looked thoughtful and then stood and pulled his companion out into the hallway. They engaged in a whispered conversation. During their brief absence, Miss Tarabotti tried frantically to slip free of her handcuffs. She had a sinking suspicion that she would not like anything they wanted to do to her in this ghastly place. But she could not even manage to stand upright.