The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (55 page)

“Nothing has been settled,” Dubh said, returning hastily to his slumped position on the carpeted floor. He appeared to have
gotten the worse end of things. One of his arms looked broken, and there was a nasty gash in his left cheek.

However, Lady Maccon's brisk application of vinegar seemed to have shattered everyone else's collective inertia, for they
began bustling around the fallen Beta, splinting up his arm and tending to his wounds.

“You still abandoned us.” Dubh sounded like a petulant child.

“You all know
exactly
why I left,” Lord Maccon growled.

“Uh,” said Alexia timidly, raising a questioning hand, “I do not.”

Everyone ignored her.

“You couldna control the pack,” Dubh accused.

Everyone present in the room gasped. Except Alexia, who did not comprehend the gravity of the insult and was occupied trying
to pick the last of the meringue off her husband's dinner jacket.

“That isna fair,” said Lachlan, not moving from his stance. Unsure of his allegiance, the Gamma simply stayed away from both
Conall and Dubh.

“
You
betrayed
me.
” Lord Maccon did not yell, but the words carried and, even though he could not change to wolf form, there was wolf anger
in them.

“And you pay us back in kind? The emptiness you left, was that fair?”

“There is naught fair about pack protocol. You and I both know that; there is simply protocol. And there was none to cover
what you did. It was entirely unprecedented. So I was cursed with the dubious pleasure of having to make it up myself. Abandonment
seemed to be the best solution, since I didna want to spend another night in your presence.”

Alexia looked over at Lachlan. The Gamma had tears in his eyes.

“Besides”—Lord Maccon's voice softened—“Niall was a perfectly good Alpha alternative. He led you well, I hear. He married
my progeny. You were tame enough for decades under his dominance.”

Lady Kingair finally spoke. Her voice was oddly soft. “Niall was my mate, and I pure loved him. He was a brilliant tactician
and a good soldier, but he wasna a true Alpha.”

“Are you saying he wasna dominant enough? I heard naught of lack of discipline. Whenever I ran a recognizance on Kingair,
you all seemed to be perfectly content.” Conall's voice was soft.

“So you did check up on us, did you, old wolf?” Lady Kingair looked hurt at that rather than relieved.

“Of course I did. You
were
once my pack.”

The Beta looked up from where he still lay on the floor. “You left us weak, Conall, and you knew it. Niall had na Anubis Form,
and the pack couldna procreate. Clavigers abandoned us as a result, the local loners rebelled, and we didn't have an Alpha
fighting for the integrity of the pack.”

Lady Maccon glanced at her husband. His face was carved in stone, relentless. Or what little she could see behind the puffy
eye and bloodstained cravat seemed that way.

“You betrayed me,” he repeated, as though that settled the matter. Which, in Conall's world, it probably did. He valued few
things more than loyalty.

Alexia decided to make her presence known. “What is the point of recriminations? Nothing can be done about it now, since none
of you can change into any form at all, Anubis or otherwise. No new wolves can be made, no new Alpha found, no challenge battles
fought. Why argue over what was when we are immersed in what isn't?”

Lord Maccon looked down at her. “So speaks my practical Alexia. Now do you understand why I married her?”

Lady Kingair said snidely, “A desperate, if ineffectual, attempt at control?”

“Oooh, she has claws. Are you positive you never bit her to change, husband? She has the temper of a werewolf.” Alexia could
be just as snide as the next person.

The Gamma stepped forward, looking at Lady Maccon. “Our apologies, my lady, and you a newly arrived guest among us. We must
truly seem the barbarians you English take us for. 'Tis only that na Alpha these many moons is making us nervous.”

“Oh, and here I thought your behavior sprang from the whole not-being-able-to-change-shape quandary,” she quipped back sharply.

He grinned. “Well, that too.”

“Werewolves without pack leaders tend to get into trouble?” Lady Maccon wondered.

No one said anything.

“I don't suppose you are going to tell us what trouble you got into overseas?” Alexia tried to look as though she wasn't avidly
interested, taking her husband's arm casually.

Silence.

“Well, I think we have all had enough excitement for one evening. Since you have been human these many months, I assume you
are keeping daylight hours?”

A nod from Lady Kingair.

“In that case”—Lady Maccon straightened her dress—“Conall and I shall bid you good night.”

“We shall?” Lord Maccon looked dubious.

“Good night,” said his wife firmly to the pack and clavigers. Grabbing her parasol in one hand and her husband's arm in the
other, she practically dragged the earl from the room.

Lord Maccon lumbered obediently after her.

The room they left behind was filled with half-thoughtful, half-amused faces.

“What are you about, wife?” Conall asked as soon as they were upstairs and out of everyone's earshot.

His wife plastered herself up against him and kissed him fiercely.

“Ouch,” he said when they pulled apart, although he had participated with gusto. “Busted lip.”

“Oh, look what you did to my dress!” Lady Maccon glared down at the blood now decorating the white satin trim.

Lord Maccon refrained from pointing out that she had initiated the kiss.

“You are an impossible man,” continued his ladylove, swatting him on one of the few undamaged portions of his body. “You could
have been killed in such a fight, do you realize?”

“Oh, phooey.” Lord Maccon waved a dismissive hand in the air. “For a Beta, Dubh is not a verra good fighter even in wolf form.
He is hardly likely to be any more capable as a human.”

“He is
still
a trained soldier.” She was not going to let this rest.

“Have you forgotten, wife, that so am I?”

“
You
are out of practice. Woolsey Pack Alpha has not been on campaign in years.”

“Are you saying I'm getting old? I'll show you old.” He swept her up like some exaggerated Latin lover and carried her into
their bedchamber.

Angelique, who was engaged in some sort of tidying of the wardrobe, quickly made herself scarce.

“Stop trying to distract me,” said Alexia several moments later. During which time her husband had managed to divest her of
a good percentage of her clothing.

“Me, distract you? You are the one who dragged me off and up here right when things were getting interesting.”

“They are not going to tell us what is going on no matter how hard we push,” said Alexia, unbuttoning his shirt and hissing
in concern at the array of harsh red marks destined to become rather spectacular bruises by the morning. “We are simply going
to have to figure this out for ourselves.”

He paused in kissing a little path along her collarbone and looked at her suspiciously. “You have a plan.”

“Yes, I do, and the first part of it involves you telling me exactly what happened twenty years ago to make you leave. No.”
She stopped his wandering hand. “Stop that. And the second part involves you going to sleep. You are going to hurt in places
your little supernatural soul forgot it could hurt in.”

He flopped back on the pillows. There was no reasoning with his wife when she got like this. “And the third part of the plan?”

“That is for me to know and you not to know.”

He let out a lusty sigh. “I hate it when you do that.”

She waggled a finger at him as though he were a schoolboy. “Uh-uh, you just miscalculated, husband. I hold all the high cards
right now.”

He grinned. “Is that how this works?”

“You have been married before, remember? You should know.”

He turned on his side toward her, wincing at the pain this caused. She lay back against the pillows, and he ran one large
hand over her stomach and chest. “You are perfectly correct, of course; that is exactly how this works.” Then he made his
tawny eyes wide and batted his eyelashes at her, pleading. Alexia had learned that expression from Ivy and had employed it
effectively on her husband during their, for lack of a better word, courtship. Little did she know how persuasively it could
be applied in the opposite direction.

“Are you going to at least see me settled?” he murmured, nibbling her neck, his voice gravelly.

“I might be persuaded. You would, of course, have to be very very nice to me.”

Conall agreed to be nice, in the best nonverbal way possible.

Afterward, he lay staring fixedly up at the ceiling and told her why he had left the Kingair Pack. He told her all of it,
from what it was like for them, as both werewolves and Scotsmen, at the beginning of Queen Victoria's rule, to the assassination
attempt on the queen planned by the then Kingair Beta, his old and trusted friend, without his knowledge.

He did not once look at her while he talked. Instead his eyes remained fixed on the stained and smudged molding of the ceiling
above them.

“They were all in on it. Every last one of them—pack and clavigers. And not a one told me. Oh, not because I was all that
loyal to the queen; surely you know packs and hives better than that by now. Our loyalty to a daylight ruler is never unreserved.
No, they lied to me because I was loyal to the cause, always have been.”

“What cause?” wondered his wife. She held his big hand in both of hers as she lay curled toward him, but otherwise she did
not touch him.

“Acceptance. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had succeeded? A Scottish pack, attached to one of the best
Highland regiments, multiple campaigns served in the British Army, killing Queen Victoria. It would have thrown over the whole
government, but not only that, it would have taken us back to the Dark Ages. Those daylight conservatives who have always
been against integration would call it a nationally supported supernatural plot, the church would regain its foothold on British
soil, and we would be back to the Inquisition quicker than you could shake a tail.”

“Husband”—Alexia was mildly startled, but only because she'd never given Conall's political views much consideration—“you
are a progressive!”

“Damn straight! I couldna believe
my pack
would put all werewolves into such a position. And for what? Old resentments and Scottish pride? A weak alliance with Irish
dissidents? And the worst of it was, not a one had told me of the plot. Not even Lachlan.”

“Then how did you find out about it in the end?”

He huffed in disgust. “I caught them mixing the poison. Poison, mind you! Poison has no place on pack grounds or in pack business.
It isna an honest way to kill anyone, let alone a monarch.”

Alexia suppressed a smile. This would appear to be the aspect of the conspiracy that upset him the most.

“We werewolves are not known for our subtlety. I had realized they were plotting something for weeks. When I found the poison,
I forced a confession out of Lachlan.”

“And you ended up having to fight and kill your own Beta over it. Then what, you simply took off for London, leaving them
without leadership?”

He finally turned and looked at her, propping himself on his elbow. Seeing no judgment or accusation in her eyes, he relaxed
slightly. “There is no pack protocol to cover this kind of situation. A large-scale betrayal of an Alpha with no qualified
reason or ready replacement. Led by my own Beta.” His eyes were agonized. “My
Beta
! They deserved to be without metamorphosis. I could have killed them all, and not a one would have objected, least of all
the dewan, save that they were not plotting against me; they were plotting against a daylight queen.”

He looked to her and his eyes were sad.

She tried to distill the story down into one manageable chunk. “So your leaving was a point of pride, honor, and politics?”

“Essentially.”

“I suppose it could have been worse.” She smoothed away the frown creasing his forehead.

“They could have succeeded.”

“You realize, as muhjah, I am forced to ask: will they try again, do you think? After two decades? Could that explain the
mysterious weapon?”

“Werewolves have long memories.”

“In the interest of Queen Victoria's safety, is there a way for us to provide a surety against this?”

He sighed softly. “I dinna know.”

“And that's why you came back? If it's true, you'll have to kill them all, won't you, sundowner?”

He turned away from her words, his broad back stiff, but he did not deny them.

U
sing the information Lord Akeldama had provided, and with the assistance of a personable young man the vampire referred to
only as Biffy, Professor Lyall set up an operation. “Ambrose has been meeting with various members of the incoming regiments,”
Lord Akeldama had informed him over an aged scotch—a warm fire in the grate and a plump calico cat on his knee. “At first
I thought it was
simply
opiates or some other form of illegal trade, but now I believe it to be something more sinister. The hive is not only employing
its vampire contacts—it's approaching any common soldier. Even the ill-dressed. It's
horrible.
” The vampire gave a delicate little shudder. “I cannot discern what it is they are buying up so greedily. You want to find
out what Westminster is up to? Tap into those werewolf military connections of yours,
darling
, and set up an offer. Biffy can take you to the preferred venue.”

And so it was, on the information provided by a rove vampire, that Professor Lyall now sat in a very seedy pub, the Pickled
Crumpet, accompanied by a spectacularly well-dressed drone and Major Channing. A few wobbly tables away sat one of Major Channing's
most trusted soldiers, clutching several suspicious packages and looking nervous.

Professor Lyall slouched down and nursed his beer. He hated beer, a vile common beverage.

Major Channing was twitchy. He shifted long legs, jostling the table and sloshing their drinks.

“Stop that,” his Beta instructed. “No one's come yet. Be patient.”

Major Channing only glared at him.

Biffy offered them a pinch of snuff. Both werewolves declined in thinly veiled horror. Imagine mucking about with one's sense
of smell! Such a vampiric kind of affectation.

Some while later, with Professor Lyall's beer barely touched but Major Channing on his third pint, the vampire entered the
pub.

He was a tall, exceedingly comely individual, who looked exactly as a novelist might describe a vampire—sinister and pensive
with an aquiline nose and unfathomable eyes. Professor Lyall sipped his beer in salute. He had to give Lord Ambrose tribute—the
man put on an excellent show. Top marks for dramatic flair.

Lord Ambrose made his way straight to the soldier's table and sat down without introduction. The tavern was loud enough to
make an auditory disruptor unnecessary, and even Lyall and Channing with their supernatural hearing caught only about one
word in ten.

The exchange moved quite rapidly and culminated in the soldier showing Lord Ambrose his collection of goods. The vampire looked
each one over, then shook his head violently and stood to leave.

The soldier stood as well, leaning forward to ask a question.

Lord Ambrose clearly took offense, for he lashed out with supernatural speed, striking the man across the face so fast even
a soldier's reflexes stood him in poor stead.

Major Channing immediately jumped to his feet, his chair crashing back as he surged forward. Professor Lyall grabbed his wrist,
halting his protective instinct. Channing all too often thought of his soldiers as pack.

The vampire's head swiveled around, focusing in on their little band. He hissed through his teeth, the tips of both fangs
visible over thin lips. Then with a swirl of long burgundy greatcoat, he swept majestically from the inn.

Professor Lyall, who had never done anything majestically in all his life, faintly envied the man.

The young soldier came over to them, a harsh red welt about the side of his mouth.

“I'll murder the liverless bastard,” swore Major Channing, making as if to follow Lord Ambrose out into the street.

“Stop.” Professor Lyall's hand tightened on the Gamma's arm. “Burt here is perfectly fine. Aren't you, Burt?”

Burt spat out a bit of blood but nodded. “Dealt with worse at sea.”

Biffy picked his snuffbox off the table and tucked it into a coat pocket. “So”—the young man gestured for the soldier to pull
up a chair and join them—“what did he say? What are they looking for?”

“It's the weirdest thing. Artifacts.”

“What?”

The soldier bit his bottom lip. “Yeah,
Egyptian
artifacts. But not objects as we might have thought. Not a weapon as such. That's why he was so angry with my offerings.
Thems is looking for scrolls. Scrolls with a certain image on 'em.”

“Hieroglyphic?”

Burt nodded.

“What image, did he say?”

“Seems they're quite desperate, 'cause it was pretty indiscreet of him to tell me, but, yeah, he said. Something called an
ankh, only they want it broken. You know, in the picture, like the symbol was cut in half.”

Professor Lyall and Biffy looked at one another. “Interesting,” they both said at the same time.

“I wager the edict keepers have some kind of record of the symbol.” Biffy, of course, had some knowledge of vampire information
sources.

“Which means,” Lyall said thoughtfully, “this has happened before.”

Alexia left her husband soundly asleep. After centuries as an immortal, he had forgotten how a mortal body seeks succor in
slumber when it has injuries to deal with. Despite the excitement, the night was young and most of the rest of the castle
was still awake.

She nearly ran full tilt into a rapidly scuttling Ivy in the hallway. Miss Hisselpenny had a fierce frown decorating her normally
amiable face.

“Good Lord, Ivy, what an expression.” Lady Maccon leaned casually on her parasol. The way things were progressing this evening,
she was unwilling to part with the accessory.

“Oh, Alexia. I do not mean to be forward, but I really must venture: I simply loathe Mr. Tunstell.”

“Ivy!”

“Well, I mean to say, well, really! He is so very impossible. I was given to understand that his affection for me was secure.
And one little objection and he switches allegiance quite flippantly. One might even call him flighty! To bill and coo around
another female so soon after I went to such prodigious lengths to break his heart. It gives him the countenance of a, well,
a vacillating butterfly!”

Lady Maccon was arrested trying to imagine a cooing butterfly. “Really, I thought you were still quite enamored of him, despite
rejecting his suit.”

“How
could
you think such a thing? I positively detest him. I am in full agreement with myself on this. He is nothing more than a billing-cooing
vacillator
! And I shall have nothing more to do with a person of such weakened character.”

Lady Maccon was not quite certain how to converse with Miss Hisselpenny when she was in such a mood. She was accustomed to
Ivy-overset and Ivy-chatterbox, but Ivy-full-of-wrath was a new creature altogether. She opted for the fallback position.
“You are clearly in need of a fortifying cup of tea, my dear. Shall we go and see if we can hunt one down? Even the Scots
must stock some form of libation.”

Miss Hisselpenny took a deep breath. “Yes, I think you may be right. Excellent notion.”

Lady Maccon solicitously shepherded her friend down the stairs and into one of the smaller drawing rooms, where they ran into
two clavigers. The young gentlemen were more than eager to hunt down the requisite tea, see to Miss Hisselpenny's every whim,
and generally prove to the ladies that all good manners had not fled the Highlands along with its complement of trousers.
As a result, Ivy forgave them their kilts. Lady Maccon left her friend to their stimulating accents and tender care and went
in search of Madame Lefoux and the broken aethographor, hoping for a peek at its functional component parts.

It took her some time to track the massive machine down. Castle Kingair was a real castle, with none of Woolsey's practical
notions on conservation of space and gridlike layout. It was very large, with a propensity for confusing itself with additional
rooms, towers, and gratuitous staircases. Lady Maccon was logical in her approach (which may have been her mistake). She surmised
that the aethographor must be located in one of the many castle turrets, but
which one
proved to be the difficulty. There was a decided overabundance of towers. Very concerned with defensibility, the Scots. It
took a good deal of time to climb the winding steps to each turret. She knew she was in the right area, however, when she
heard the cursing. In French, of course, and not words that she was familiar with, naturally, but she was in no doubt as to
their profane nature. Madame Lefoux appeared to be experiencing some form of inconvenience.

When she finally attained the room, Alexia came face-to-face, or as is were, face-to-bottom, with yet another good reason
for the lady inventor to don trousers. Madame Lefoux was on her back, half underneath the apparatus, only her legs and backside
visible. Had she been in skirts, it would have been a most indelicate position.

Kingair's aethographic transmitter was raised up on little legs above the stone floor of the castle. It looked somewhat like
two attached privy houses with footstool feet. Everything was brightly lit with gas lamps, as the pack had clearly spared
no expense on this room. It was also clean.

Lady Maccon craned her neck to see into the darkened interior of the chamber that Madame Lefoux worked under. It appeared
that the transmitting mechanicals were the ones being problematical. The Frenchwoman had with her a hatbox that appeared to
be no hatbox at all but a cleverly disguised toolkit. Lady Maccon instantly coveted one herself—so much less
obvious
than a dispatch case.

The bespectacled claviger, with the ever-present expression of panic, crouched nearby, passing the inventor, one after another,
a string of exciting-looking tools.

“The magnetomotor modulating adjustor, if you please,” Madame Lefoux would say, and a long, sticklike object with a corkscrew
of copper at one end and a glass tube full of an illuminated liquid at the other was passed over. Shortly after, there would
emit another curse, the tool would be passed back to the claviger, and a new one called for.

“Goodness gracious,” exclaimed Alexia. “What
are
you doing?”

There came the sound of a thump, Madame Lefoux's legs jerked, and further cursing ensued. Moments later, the Frenchwoman wormed
her way out and stood up, rubbing her head. The action only added to a vast collection of grease smudges covering her pretty
face.

“Ah, Lady Maccon, how lovely. I did wonder when you would track us down.”

“I was unavoidably delayed by husbands and Ivys,” explained Alexia.

“These things, regrettably, are bound to occur when one is married and befriended.” Madame Lefoux was sympathetic.

Lady Maccon leaned forward and, using her parasol as a prop, tried to see underneath the contraption. Her corset made this
action mostly impossible, so she turned back to the Frenchwoman. “Have you determined the nature of the problem?”

“Well, it is definitely the transmitting chamber that is malfunctioning. The receiving room seems fully operational. It is
hard to tell without an actual transmission of some kind.”

Alexia looked to the claviger for confirmation, and the young man nodded. He did not appear to have much to say for himself,
but he was eager to help. The best kind of person, felt Alexia.

“Well,” said Lady Maccon, “what time is it?”

The young gentleman took out a small pocket watch and flipped it open. “Half past ten.”

Lady Maccon turned to Madame Lefoux. “If you can get it ready by eleven, we can try to raise Lord Akeldama on his aethographor.
Remember, he gave me the codes, a valve frequensor,
and
an eleven o'clock time slot for open-scan transmission.”

“But if he doesna have our resonance, what good is that? He willna be able to receive.” The claviger snapped his watch closed
and stashed it once more in his waistcoat pocket.

“Ah,” Madame Lefoux jumped in, “he has a multiadaptive model that does not operate using crystalline compatibility protocol.
All he need do is scan for a transmission to his frequency during the allotted time. We can receive back because Lady Maccon
does
have the appropriate valve component.”

The claviger looked even more surprised than usual.

“I understand they are dear friends.” Madame Lefoux appeared to feel this would explain everything.

Alexia smiled. “On the evening of my wedding, I held his hand so he could watch the sunset.”

The claviger looked confused. Again, more confused than usual (his was a difficult face for expressing the full range of human
emotion).

Madame Lefoux explained, “Lord Akeldama is a vampire.”

The young man gasped. “He trusted you with his life?”

Lady Maccon nodded. “So trusting me with a crystalline valve, however technologically vital, is no very great thing by comparison.”