Soulless

there came an unexpected noise. One designed, Miss Tarabotti suspected, by this newfangled concept of evolution to chill the bones of mankind. It was a vast, roaring, snarling howl. It shivered the air and the blood and the flesh all up and down one's spine. It was the cry a predator made only once, when the prey was not yet dead, but the kill was assured. In this particular case, it was followed by a loud thump as something hit the front of the cab hard enough to rattle the two who struggled within.

The carriage, which had been picking up some speed, jerked to an abrupt halt. Alexia heard the screaming cry of a terrified horse. There came a snap as the animal broke free of its traces, and then the sound of galloping hooves as it took off alone through the London streets.

Another loud thump reverberated—flesh against wood. The cab shook again.

Miss Tarabotti's attacker became distracted. He left off forcing the handkerchief on her and instead pulled down the window sash and leaned out, craning his head around toward the driver's box. “What is going on out there?”

No answer was forthcoming.

Miss Tarabotti kicked the back of his knee.

He turned around, grabbed her boot, and jerked it forward.

She fell back against the door, hard enough to bruise her spine on the handle, her layers of dress and corset failing to shield her.

“You are beginning to annoy me,” the shadowed man growled. He yanked her foot sharply upward. Alexia struggled valiantly to stand upright on only one leg and screamed again, this time more of a shriek of anger and frustration than distress.

As though in response, the door she leaned against opened.

With a small squeak of alarm, Miss Tarabotti fell backward out of the cab, legs and arms flailing. She landed with an “oof” on something solid but fleshy enough to comfortably break her fall.

She took a deep breath of the stale London air and then coughed. Well, at least it was not chloroform. She had not met the chemical in person before, it being only newly circulated among the most scientifically minded of the medical profession, but she had a good idea that must be what saturated the shadowed man's ominous handkerchief.

Her landing mattress squirmed and growled. “Good God, woman! Shift off.”

Miss Tarabotti was no lightweight. She made no bones about enjoying food—on a fairly regular basis and generally of the toothsome variety. She kept her figure through regular exercise, not a tightly controlled diet. But Lord Maccon, for it was he who squirmed, was very strong and ought to have shifted her easily. Instead he seemed to be having some trouble removing her from atop of him. It took an inordinate amount of time for such a big man, even if such intimate contact with a preternatural canceled out his supernatural strength.

As a general rule, Lord Maccon appreciated a voluptuous woman. He liked a bit of meat on the female form, more to grab on to—and more to chew off. His voice, annoyed as always, belied the gentleness in his big hands as he took the excuse of removing Alexia's generous curves from his person to check for injuries.

“Are you unhurt, Miss Tarabotti?”

“You mean, aside from my dignity?” Alexia suspected Lord Maccon's handling was a tad more than was strictly called for under the circumstances, but she secretly enjoyed the sensation. After all, how often did a spinster of her shelf life get manhandled by an earl of Lord Maccon's peerage? She had better take advantage of the situation. She smiled at her own daring and wondered who could be said to be taking advantage of whom!

Eventually, the earl levered her into a sitting position. He then rolled out from under her and stood, jerking her unceremoniously to her feet.

“Lord Maccon,” said Miss Tarabotti, “why is it that around you I always end up in some variety of indelicate and prone position?”

The earl arched a debonair eyebrow at her. “The first time we met, I believe it was I who took a particularly undignified tumble.”

“As I have informed you previously”—Alexia brushed off her dress—”I did not leave the hedgehog there intentionally. How was I to know you would sit on the poor creature?” She looked up from her ministrations and gasped in shock. “There is blood all over your face!”

Lord Maccon wiped his face hurriedly on his evening jacket sleeve, like a naughty child caught covered in marmalade, but did not explain. Instead he growled at her and pointed into the hackney. “See what you have gone and done? He got away!”

Alexia did not see, because there was nothing inside the cab to see any longer. The shadowed man had taken the opportunity her unfortunate tumble afforded to escape.

“I did not do anything. You opened the door. I simply fell out of it. A man was attacking me with a wet handkerchief. What else was I supposed to do?”

Lord Maccon could not say much in response to such an outlandish defense.

So he merely repeated, “A wet handkerchief?”

Miss Tarabotti crossed her arms and nodded mutinously. Then, in typical Alexia fashion, she opted to go on the attack. She had no idea what it was about Lord Maccon that always made her so inclined, but she went with the impulse, perhaps encouraged by her Italian blood. “Wait just a moment now! How did you find me here? Have you been following me?”

Lord Maccon had the good grace to look sheepish—if a werewolf can be said to look sheepish. “I do not trust vampire hives,” he grumbled, as though that were an excuse. “I told you not to come. Didn't I tell you not to come? Well, look what happened.”

“I would have you know I was perfectly safe in that hive. It was only when I left that things went all”— she waved a hand airily—“squiffy.”

“Exactly!” said the earl. “You should go home and stay inside and never go out again.”

He sounded so serious Alexia laughed. “You were waiting for me the entire time?” She looked curiously up at the moon. It was past three-quarters in size—an easy-change moon. She remembered the blood on his mouth and put two and two together. “It is a chilly night. I take it you were in wolf form?”

Lord Maccon crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

“How did you change so quickly and get dressed so fast? I heard your attack cry; you could not have been human at that point.” Miss Tarabotti had a good idea how werewolves worked, though admittedly she had never seen the earl himself change shape. In fact, she had never seen anyone do it outside of the detailed sketches in some of her father's library books. Still, there the earl stood before her, top hat to tails, untidy hair and hungry yellow eyes, nothing out of place—apart from the odd bit of blood. Lord Maccon grinned proudly, looking like a schoolboy who had just managed to translate his Latin perfectly. Instead of answering her question, he did the most appalling thing. He changed into wolf shape— but only his head—and growled at her. It was utterly bizarre: both the act itself (a weird melting of flesh and crunching of bones, most unpleasant in both appearance and sound) and the sight of a gentleman in perfect evening dress with an equally perfect wolf's head perched atop a gray silk cravat.

“That is quite revolting,” said Miss Tarabotti, intrigued. She reached forward and touched his shoulder so that the earl was forced to return to fully human form. “Can all werewolves do that, or is it an Alpha thing?”

Lord Maccon was a bit insulted by the casualness with which she assumed control of his change. “Alpha,” he admitted. “And age. Those of us who have been around the longest control the change best. It is called the Anubis Form, from the olden days.” Brought to fully human state by Alexia's hand still resting on his shoulder, he seemed to register their surroundings with new eyes. The hackney's wild flight and sudden halt had placed them in a residential part of London, not quite so up-market as the hive neighborhood but not so bad as it could be.

“We should get you home,” Lord Maccon asserted, looking around furtively. He removed her hand gently from his shoulder and curled it about his forearm, leading her at a brisk pace down the street. “Sangria is just a few blocks away. We should be able to hail a cab there at this time of night.”

“And somehow you think it is a good idea for a werewolf and a preternatural to show up at the front door of the most notorious vampire club in London looking for a hackney?”

“Hush, you.” Lord Maccon looked faintly offended, as though her statement were one of doubt in his ability to protect her.

“I take it you do not want to know what I found out from the vampire hive, then?” Miss Tarabotti asked.

He sighed loudly. “I take it you want to tell me?”