Conall, obviously still under the impression that Alexia was asleep, hurried around the bed and scooped the tiny creature up. The whining turned to a little snuffling howl, and there in his arms instead of a child, lay a newborn wolf cub.
Lord Maccon nearly dropped his daughter. “God’s teeth!”
Alexia sat up, not quite comprehending what she had just seen. “Conall, where’s the baby?”
Her husband, mute in shock, proffered the cub at her.
“What have you done to her?”
“Me? Nothing. I simply picked her up. She was perfectly normal and then poof.”
“Well, she’s unquestionably cuter in that form.” Alexia was prosaic.
“Here, you take her.” Lord Maccon put the squalling furry cub back into his wife’s arms.
At which juncture she promptly turned back into a baby. Alexia could feel the bone and flesh shifting under the swaddling clothes. It seemed to be relatively painless, for the infant’s cries did not modulate to those of real distress.
“Oh, my.” Alexia thought she sounded rather sedate, under the circumstances. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
Professor Lyall’s voice was awed. “Never thought I’d live to see a real skin-stalker born in my lifetime. Amazing.”
“Is that what it means?” Alexia looked down at the child. “How extraordinary.”
Professor Lyall smiled. “I guess it must. So, what’s her name, my lady?”
Alexia frowned. “Oh, yes, that.”
Lord Maccon grinned, looking down at his wife. “With us for parents, we ought to call her Prudence.”
Lady Maccon, however, did not seem to share the joke. “Actually, I rather like that. How about Prudence Alessandra, after my father? And then Maccon, because when Lord Akeldama adopts her, she’s going to be an Akeldama.”
Lord Maccon looked down at his daughter. “Poor little thing. That’s a lot of names to live up to.”
“My lord,” interjected his Beta, “not that I don’t see the importance of this particular matter, but can it wait? Biffy could use your proximity. And the vampires are kicking up quite the fuss. We’ve no justification for keeping them locked in the dungeon. What are we going to do about them?”
Lord Maccon sighed. “Sadly, it’s not them we have to find what to do with—it’s us. We can’t stay living here, not with a hive in residence as well, and they can’t leave. Not now. When you invited the countess in, Alexia, you gave them Woolsey Castle.”
“Oh, no, surely not.”
Professor Lyall sat down in a nearby chair. Alexia had never seen him look defeated before, but at that moment, Woolsey’s Beta looked as close to crushed as any man she’d ever seen.
Lord Maccon looked grim. “Nothing else for it. We’ll have to move the pack permanently into London. We will need to buy a second town house to accommodate us all and build dungeons.”
Professor Lyall protested this decision. “Where will we run? How will we hunt? My lord, there is no such thing as an urban pack!”
“This is the age of industry, invention, and refined behavior. I suppose Woolsey really will have to learn to move with the times and become civilized.” Lord Maccon was resolved.
Alexia looked at her child. “It would only be for sixteen years or so. Until Prudence is grown. Then we could look for a new territory. Sixteen years isn’t all that long for a werewolf.”
Professor Lyall did not look cheered by this shortening of his urban sentence. “The pack is not going to like this.”
“I have made my decision,” said his Alpha.
“The queen is not going to like this.”
“We’ll just have to persuade her it’s in the best interest of the Crown.”
“I think that’s a very good idea,” said Countess Nadasdy, entering the room at that moment, followed by Quesnel and Madame Lefoux.
Well, Alexia supposed, it’s her room now.
“How did you three get out?” griped Professor Lyall.
The countess gave him a withering look. “Did you think I was queen of the vampires for nothing? We are the original inventors of the idea of a mistress of the domain. This is now my domain. No cell in all of Woolsey will hold me for long.”
“Pish tosh. She can pick locks.” Madame Lefoux crossed her arms and looked at the vampire queen witheringly.
“It was marvelous,” added Quesnel, who seemed to be regarding Countess Nadasdy with real respect for the first time.
The countess ignored the Frenchwoman and her child and gave Alexia’s baby a wary look. “Just keep that thing away from me.”
Alexia rocked the newborn at her threateningly. “You mean this dangerous vampire-eating creature?”
The countess hissed and backed away, as though Alexia might throw baby Prudence at her.
Madame Lefoux wended her way to Lady Maccon’s bedside to coo over the infant.
Countess Nadasdy said, “Woolsey is ours now, unfortunately. It is hardly to be countenanced. Me living near Barking in the countryside. Why, it is positively leagues away from everywhere.”
Lord Maccon did not protest her claim. “We will need a few days to clear out. The youngsters of the pack can’t be moved until the moon fades.”
“Take all the time you need,” said the vampire queen magnanimously. “But the soul-sucker and her abomination of a child must leave tonight.” She twirled toward the door dramatically and then paused on the threshold. “And the boy is mine.”
With that, she swept out, presumably to release the rest of her hive. “Oh,” Alexia heard her say to no one in particular as she walked down the stairs, “simply everything will have to be redecorated! And those buttresses!”
Madame Lefoux stayed behind. She looked worn and tired from the events of the night before, not to mention her own trials. Quesnel was practically stuck to her side, his grubby little hand entwined with hers. Madame Lefoux had grease stains on her fingertips and a smudge on her chin.
“You can’t let her take him away from me.” The Frenchwoman appealed to the assembled dignitaries with anguished green eyes. “Please.”
Now, Alexia’s subconscious had apparently given this conundrum some thought while she dozed. For a solution instantly proposed itself. “Speaking as muhjah, there is nothing we can legally do to remove him from the hive. If Angelique’s testament is as they say, and you never formally adopted Quesnel under British law, then her claim is valid and legally recognized in this country.”
Madame Lefoux nodded morosely.
Alexia pursed her lips. “You know vampires and solicitors—practically indistinguishable. I’m sorry, Genevieve, but Quesnel belongs with Countess Nadasdy now.”
Quesnel gave a little whimper at that statement. Madame Lefoux clutched him to her and looked wild-eyed at Lord Maccon. As though, somehow, he might save her.
Alexia continued. “Now, before you go off and build a gigantic squid, I should tell you that I also intend to give you to Countess Nadasdy, Genevieve.”
“What!”
“It is the only viable solution.” Alexia wished she had a judge’s wig and a mallet, for she felt like she’d done rather well with this verdict. “Quesnel is what, ten? He comes into his majority at age sixteen. So, with Countess Nadasdy’s approval—and I hardly think she’ll object—you will serve as drone to the Westminster Hive for the next six years. Or, I should say, the Woolsey Hive. I can make a case with the queen and the countess not to press charges if such an indenture could be arranged instead. Given your distaste for the hive, this should be a rather fitting punishment. And you get to stay with Quesnel.”
“Ah,” said her husband proudly, “good plan. If we cannot bring Quesnel to Madame Lefoux, we bring Madame Lefoux to Quesnel.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“This is a terrible idea!” wailed Madame Lefoux.
Alexia ignored this. “I suggest you take over Professor Lyall’s sheep-breeding shed for your contrivance chamber. It is already rather well equipped and could easily be expanded.”
“But—” protested Madame Lefoux.
“You can think of a better solution?”
“But I hate Countess Nadasdy.”
“I suspect you have that in common with most of her drones and some of her vampires. I will have Floote draw up the necessary documentation and make the legal arrangements. Look on the bright side, Genevieve. At least you can temper the hive’s influence over Quesnel. He will still have his maman to teach him how to make things explode and all the wisdom of the vampires at his fingertips.”
Quesnel looked up at his mother, his big violet eyes pleading. “Please, Maman. I like to explode things!”
Madame Lefoux sighed. “I have gotten myself neatly enmeshed, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you have.”
“Do you think the countess will approve such a bargain?”
“Why shouldn’t she? She gets patronage, patent, and control over your inventions for the next six years. Quesnel stays with you both. Plus, think of the havoc Quesnel could cause living in a hive house! Keep them all on their toes and out of London politics for a while.”
Madame Lefoux brightened slightly at that suggestion.
Quesnel’s face lit up. “No more boarding school?”
Professor Lyall frowned. “This shifts England’s vampire power structures significantly.”
Alexia grinned. “Lord Akeldama thought he’d have London under his purview. I am merely balancing the scales. Now my pack will be living in his territory full-time, and Countess Nadasdy has Madame Lefoux working for her.”
Professor Lyall stood, still looking a little sad. “You are a very good muhjah, aren’t you, Lady Maccon?”
“I like to be tidy about it. While we are on the subject, Madame Lefoux, when you have cleared out your contrivance chamber, I thought that might be a good space for us to build the pack a London dungeon.”
Lord Maccon grinned. “It’s big enough, and underground, and easy to secure. An excellent idea, my love.”
Madame Lefoux looked resigned. “And the hat shop?” Even though the shop had been a front to cover over her more nefarious dealings, she’d always had an affection for the establishment.
Alexia cocked her head. “I thought Biffy might do. You remember, my dear, we discussed that he was in great need of useful employment, and such a venture might suit him better than a position at BUR.”
This time it was Professor Lyall who smiled in approval. “Wonderful notion, Lady Maccon.”
“My darling wife,” said Lord Maccon, “you think of everything.”
Alexia blushed at the compliment. “I try.”
So it was that the werewolf pack formerly of Woolsey Castle became the first ever to claim an urban hunting ground. In the late summer of 1874, they officially changed their name to the London Pack and took up residence next door to the rove vampire and potentate, Lord Akeldama. Where they kept their full-moon dungeon no one knew, but it was noted with interest that the new pack seemed to have developed a keen interest in lady’s headgear.