Changeless

“To whom?”

She shook her head, hair falling down now that she wore no cap. “Just you do your job, Tunstell, and let me do mine. I will want to know immediately if either of them awaken or worsen. Understood?”

The redhead nodded.

She scooped up the large pile of Madame Lefoux’s gadgets, stuffing them into her lace cap as a kind of bag. Her hair was loose about her face, but sometimes one must sacrifice appearance to cope with trying circumstances. Grasping the cap of booty in one hand and her parasol in the other, she exited the parlor, pulling the door firmly closed with her foot.

“I am afraid I must inform you, Lady Kingair, that no one is to go in or out of that room, including yourself, for the foreseeable future. I have left Tunstell exceedingly well armed and with strict instructions to fire on any who attempt to enter. You would not want to test his obedience to me, now, would you?”

“Under whose authority have you done this? The earl’s?” Lady Kingair was shocked.

“My husband has become”—Alexia paused—“indisposed at the moment. So, no, this is no longer a BUR matter. I have taken it under my own jurisdiction. I have tolerated this shilly-shallying and hedging of yours long enough. I have pandered to your pack problems and your pack ways, but this is outside of enough. I want this plague of humanization lifted, and I want it lifted now. I will not have anyone else shot at, or attacked, or spied upon, or any further rooms ransacked. Things are getting far too messy, and I cannot abide a mess.”

“Temper, Lady Maccon, temper,” remonstrated Lady Kingair.

Alexia narrowed her eyes.

“Why should we do what you say?” Dubh was militant.

Alexia shoved the letter of marque under the Beta’s nose. He left off his grumbling, and the oddest expression suffused his wide, angry face.

Lady Kingair grabbed the paperwork and held it up to the indifferent light of a nearby oil lamp. Satisfied, she passed it on to Lachlan, who appeared the least surprised by its contents.

“I take it you were not informed of my appointment?”

Sidheag gave her a hard look. “I take it you didna marry Lord Maccon purely for love?”

“Oh, the political position was a surprise advantage, I assure you.”

“And one that wouldna have been given to a spinster.”

“So you know the queen’s disposition sufficiently to predict that at least?” Alexia took her marque back and tucked it carefully down the front of her bodice. It would not do for the pack to be made aware of her parasol’s hidden pockets.

“Muhjah has been vacant for generations. Why you? Why now?” Dubh was looking less angry and more thoughtful than Alexia had yet seen him. Perhaps there was brain behind all that brawn and bluster.

“She did offer it to your father,” Lachlan pointed out.

“I had heard something to that effect. I understand he turned it down.”

“Oh no, no.” Lachlan gave a little half-smile. “We filibustered.”

“The werewolves?”

“The werewolves and the vampires and one or two ghosts as well.”

“What is it with you people and my father?”

At that Dubh snorted. “How much time do you have?”

The grandfather clock, locked in the room with Tunstell and his two comatose charges, tolled a quarter ’til.

“Apparently, not enough. I take it you accept the letter as authentic?”

Lady Kingair was looking at Alexia as though a good number of her previous questions about one Lady Maccon had now all been answered. “We will accept it, and we will defer to your authority in this.” She gestured to the closed parlor door. “For the time being,” she added, so as not to lose face in front of the pack.

Lady Maccon knew this was as good as she was going to get, so, in characteristic fashion, she took it and asked for more. “Very good. Next I will need to compose and send a message on your aethographor. While I am doing that, if you would please collect all the artifacts you brought back from Egypt into one room. I should very much like to peruse them as soon as my message has been sent. If I cannot determine which artifact is most likely causing the humanity problem, I shall have my husband removed to Glasgow, where he should return to supernatural and recover with no ill effects.” With that, she headed up to the top of the castle and the aethographor.

She was in for a prodigious surprise. For what should she find on the floor of the aethographor room but the comatose form of the bemused claviger who was caretaker of the machine and every single valve frequensor in Kingair’s library broken to smithereens. The place was littered with glittering crystalline shards.

“Oh dear, I knew they ought to have been locked away.” Lady Maccon checked the claviger, who was still breathing and as fast asleep as her husband, and then picked her way through the wreckage.

The apparatus itself was undamaged. Which made Alexia wonder; if the objective in destroying the valve frequensors was to prevent outside communication, why not take down the aethographor itself? It was, after all, an awfully delicate gadget easily and quickly disabled. Why smash all the valves instead? Unless, of course, the culprit wanted continued access to the aethographor.

Alexia rushed into the transmitting chamber, hoping that the fallen claviger had disturbed the vandal in the act. It looked like he had, for there, still sitting in the emitter cradle, was a unrolled scroll of metal with a burned- through message clearly visible upon it. And it was not the message she had sent to Lord Akeldama the evening before. Oh no, this message was in French!

Lady Maccon was not quite as good at reading French as she should have been, so it took her long precious moments to translate the burned-through metal.

“Weapon here but unknown,” it said.

Lady Maccon was disgruntled that the bloody thing did not read like an old-fashioned ink-and-paper letter, with a “dear so-and-so” and a “sincerely, so-and-so,” thus revealing all to her without fuss. Who had Madame Lefoux sent the message to? When had the message been sent—just before she was shot, or earlier? Was it really the inventor who had also destroyed the valve frequensors? Lady Maccon could not believe that wanton destruction of technology was Madame Lefoux’s style. The woman adored all gadgetry; it would be against her nature to destroy it with such abandon. And, regardless of all else, what had she been trying to tell them right before she was shot?

With a start, Alexia realized it was getting on toward eleven o’clock, and she had best etch her message and prepare it to send right away. Currently, the only concrete action she could think to take was consultation with Lord Akeldama. She did not have the valves to contact the Crown or BUR, so the outrageous vampire would have to do.

Her message read simply, “Floote check library: Egypt, humanization weapon? BUR send agents to Kingair.”

It was a long message for the aethographor to handle, but it was the shortest she could formulate. Lady Maccon hoped she could remember the pattern of movements the young claviger had used the evening before. She was generally good about such things, but she might have missed a button or two. Still, there was nothing for it but to try.

The tiny transmitting room was much less crowded with only one person. She extracted Lord Akeldama’s valve from her parasol and placed it carefully into the resonator cradle. She slotted the inscribed metal into the frame and pulled down the switch that activated the aetheric convector and chemical wash. The etched letters burned away, and the hydrodine engines spun to life. It was easier than she had thought. The director of the Crown’s aethographic transmitter said one needed special schooling and certification to run the complicated apparatus—little liar.

The two needles raced across the slate, sparking as they met. Alexia sat in perfect silence throughout the transmission, and when it was finished, she removed the slate from the cradle. She wouldn’t want to be so careless as the spy had been.

Lady Maccon bustled into the other chamber, which proved far more difficult to operate. No matter how many knobs she twiddled or cogs she turned, she could not get the ambient noise down far enough to receive. Luckily, Lord Akeldama took his sweet time replying. She had nearly half an hour to get the receiving chamber quiet. She did