“Of course, we require a new potentate. You are hereby granted the position. You possess the necessary qualifications, for you are a vampire and you are a rove.”
“I beg to differ, Your Majesty. It must be put to the hive vote, any new candidate to the potentate position.”
“You think they wil not approve your appointment?”
“I have many enemies, Your Majesty, even among my own kind.”
“Then you wil be in good company, potentate: so does Lady Maccon and so did Walsingham. We shal expect you at Thursday’s meeting of the Shadow Council.”
With that, Queen Victoria sailed out of the room, adrift on a sea of self-righteousness.
Lord Akeldama raised himself out of his bow, looking flabbergasted.
“Congratulations, my lord,” said Biffy timidly, attempting to stand shakily from the couch and approach his former master.
Professor Lyal hurried over to him. “Not yet, pup. You won’t have your legs back for a while longer.” He spoke the truth for, despite the fact that Biffy obviously wanted to walk on two legs, his brain seemed set on four, and he pitched forward with a surprised little cry.
Lyal caught him up and deposited him back on the couch. “It wil take some time for your mind to catch up to your metamorphosis.”
“Ah.” Biffy’s voice caught in his throat. “How sil y of me not to realize.”
Lord Akeldama came over as well , watching with hooded eyes as Lyal smoothed the blanket over the young man. “She has placed me in a most insufferable position.”
“Now you know how I feel most of the time,” said Professor Lyal under his breath.
“You are more than equal to the task, my lord.” Biffy’s eyes were shining and ful of faith as they looked upon his former master.
Wonderful, thought Lyal , a newly made werewolf in love with a vampire, and more apt to do his bidding than the pack’s. Would even Lord Maccon be able to break such a connection?
“I rather think the queen is getting the better end of the deal,” added Professor Lyal , intimating, but not actual y mentioning, Lord Akeldama’s fashionable yet efficient espionage regime.
Poor Lord Akeldama was not having a good night. He had lost his lover and his comparative anonymity in one fel swoop. “The pathetic reality is, my darlings, I am not even convinced the child of a preternatural and a werewolf wil be a soul-stealer. And if it is, wil it be the same kind of soul-stealer as it was when the sire was a vampire?”
“Is that why you remain unafraid of this creature?”
“As I said before, Lady Maccon is my friend. Any child of hers wil be no more or less hostile to vampires than she is. Although the way we are currently behaving may sour her against us. Aside from that, it is not in my nature to anticipate trouble with violence; I prefer to be in possession of al the necessary facts first. I should like to meet this child once it has emerged and then render my judgment. So much better that way.”
“And your other reason?” The vampire was stil hiding something; Lyal ’s well -honed BUR senses told him so.
“Must you hound him, Professor Lyal ?” Biffy looked worriedly from his former master to his new Beta.
“I think it best. It is, after al , in my nature.”
“Touché.” The vampire sat down once more next to Biffy on the settee and placed a passive hand casual y on the young man’s leg, as if out of habit.
Lyal stood up and looked down at them both from over his spectacles; he’d had enough of mysteries for one evening. “Wel ?”
“That soul-stealer, the one the Edict Keepers warn us of? The reason for al this twaddle? Her name was Al-Zabba and she was a relative of sorts.” Lord Akeldama tipped his head from side to side casual y.
Professor Lyal started. Of al the things, he had not expected that. “A relative of yours?”
“You might know her better as Zenobia.”
Professor Lyal knew about as much as any educated man on the Roman Empire, but he had never read that the Queen of the Palmyrene had anything more or less than the requisite amount of soul. Which led to another question.
“This soul-stealer condition, how exactly does it manifest?”
“I don’t know.”
“And that makes even you uneasy. Doesn’t it, Lord Akeldama?”
Biffy touched his former master’s hand where it rested on his blanket-covered thigh and squeezed as though offering reassurance.
Definitely going to be a problem.
“The daylight folk, back then, the ones who feared her, they cal ed her a skin-thief.”
That name meant something to Professor Lyal , where soul-stealer had not. It tickled memories at the back of his head. Legends about a creature who could not only steal werewolf powers but become, for the space of one night, a werewolf in his stead. “Are you tel ing me we wil have a flayer on our hands?”
“Exactly! So, you see how difficult it wil be to keep everyone from kil ing Alexia?”
“As to that problem”—Professor Lyal gave a sudden grin—“I may have a solution.
Lord and Lady Maccon wil not like it, but I am thinking you, Lord Akeldama and young Biffy, might find it acceptable.”
Lord Akeldama smiled back, showing off his deadly fangs. Professor Lyal thought them just long enough to be threatening without being ostentatious, like the perfect dress sword. They were quite subtle fangs for a man of Lord Akeldama’s reputation.
“Why, Dol y darling, do speak further; you interest me most ardently.”
The Templars seemed, if possible, less prepared to battle ticking ladybugs than Alexia had been when accosted in a carriage not so very long ago. They were so surprised by their unexpected visitors and were torn between squashing them and handling the now-free Alexia. It wasn’t until one of the ladybugs stuck a sharp needlelike antennae into one of the young Templars, who then col apsed, that the brothers took violently against them.
Once pricked into action, however, their retribution was swift and effective.
The remaining young Templar drew his sword and dispatched Alexia’s noble scuttling rescuers with remarkable efficiency. He then whirled to face Alexia.
She raised her stool.
Behind them, in the cel , the preceptor groaned. “What is going on?”
Since the ladybugs might have been sent either by the vampires to kil her or by Monsieur Trouvé to help her, Alexia could not rightly answer that question. “It would appear you are under attack by ladybugs, Mr. Templar. What else can I say?”
At which moment they al heard the growl. It was the kind of growl Alexia was definitely familiar with—low and loud and ful of intention. It was the kind of growl that said, clearly as anything, “You are food.”
“Ah, and now, I suspect, werewolves.”
And so it proved to be the case.
Of course, Alexia’s traitorous little heart hoped for a certain brindled coat, chocolate brown with hints of black and gold. She craned her neck over her brandished stool to see if the growling, slavering beast charging down the stone hal way would have pale yel ow eyes and a familiar humor crinkling them just so.
But the creature that bounded into view was pure white, and his lupine face was humorless. He launched himself upon the young Templar, without apparent care for the nak*d blade, which was, Alexia had no doubt, silver. He was a beautiful specimen of Homo lupis, or would have been beautiful had he not been bent on mauling and mayhem. Alexia knew those eyes were icy blue without having to look. She couldn’t real y fol ow, anyway, as man and wolf met in the hal way. With a vociferous battle cry, the preceptor charged out of the cel and joined the fray.
Never one to sit back and dither, Alexia grabbed the stool more firmly, and when the younger Templar fel back toward her, she clouted him with the stool on top of the head as hard as she possibly could. Real y, she was getting terribly good at bashing skul s in her old age—rather unseemly of her.
The boy col apsed.
Now it was just the werewolf against the preceptor.
Alexia figured that Channing could take care of himself and that she’d better break for freedom while the preceptor was preoccupied. So she dropped the stool, hiked her skirts, and took off pel -mel down what looked to be the most promising passageway.
She ran smack-dab into Madame Lefoux, Floote, and Monsieur Trouvé.
Ah, right passageway! “Wel , hel o, you lot. How are you?”
“No time for pleasantries, Alexia, my dear. Isn’t it just like you, to be already escaped before we had the opportunity to rescue you?” Madame Lefoux flashed her dimples.
“Ah, yes. well , I am resourceful.”
Madame Lefoux tossed something at her, and Alexia caught it with the hand not holding up her skirts. “My parasol! How marvelous.”
Floote, she noticed, was carrying her dispatch case in one hand, and he had one of those tiny guns in his other.
Monsieur Trouvé offered Alexia his arm.
“My lady?”
“Why, thank you, monsieur, very kind.” Alexia managed to grasp it and her parasol and her skirts without too much difficulty. “I am rather grateful for the ladybugs, by the way; very nice of you to send them on.”
The clockmaker began hustling her down the hal way. It wasn’t until that moment that Alexia realized how large the catacombs were, and how far she had been stashed underground.
“Ah, yes, I borrowed the adaptation from the vampires. I put a doping agent in the antennae instead of poison. It proved an effective alternative.”
“Very. Until the swords came out, of course. I am afraid your three minions are no more.”
“Ah. Poor little things. They aren’t exactly battle-hardy.”
They ascended a steep flight of stairs and then dashed down another long hal way, one that seemed to go backward above the one they’d just run up.
“If you don’t find it impertinent of me to ask,” Alexia panted, “what are you doing here, monsieur?”
The Frenchman answered between puffs. “Ah, I came with your luggage. Left a marker so Genevieve would know I was here. I didn’t want to miss al the fun.”
“You and I clearly do not share a definition of the word.”
The Frenchman looked her up and down, his eyes positively twinkling. “Oh, come now, my lady, I think we may.”
Alexia grinned, it must be admitted, a tad more ferociously than genteel y.
“Watch out!” came Floote’s shout. He was leading the charge, closely fol owed by Madame Lefoux, but he had stopped suddenly ahead of them and, after taking aim, fired one of his tiny guns.
A group of about a dozen or so Templars was coming down the passageway toward them, preceded by the tweed-covered, dwarflike form of a certain German scientist.
Adding to the general y threatening overtones of the party, Poche led the charge, yapping and prancing about like an overly excited bit of dandelion fluff wearing a yel ow bow.
Floote reached for his second gun and fired again, but there was no time to get the first reloaded before the Templars were upon them. Floote seemed to have missed, anyway, for the enemy advanced undaunted. The only member troubled by the shot was the dog, who went into highly vocalized histrionics.