“Where’s—?” But Biffy did not get to finish his thought, for the vampire’s return shot scooted right past both Lord Maccon and his Beta, striking the poor drone in the stomach. Biffy’s sentence stopped midquestion with a cry, as his body, emaciated from weeks in confinement, convulsed and writhed.
Lord Maccon’s second shot back at the vampire did not miss. It was a lucky one, for at such a distance, even his trusty Tue Tue was unreliable. Nevertheless, the bullet struck home.
The vampire fell from the bridge with a shout, hitting the Thames with a loud splash. Immediately his agents—or were they drones?—ceased paddling about, recovering from their altercation with the earl, and swam over to him. From the resulting cries of distress, what they discovered was not to their liking.
Lord Maccon’s attention remained fixed on the tableau in the water, but Professor Lyall was once more focused on Biffy. The blood leaking from the young man’s injury smelled divine, of course, but Lyall was no pup to be diverted by the scent of fresh meat. The drone was dying. No doctor in Britain could patch up a damaged gut like that. There was really only one solution and no one, in the end, was going to be happy with it.
Taking a deep breath, the Beta reached into the wound, fishing about for the bullet with no care for Biffy’s finer feelings. The young man conveniently fainted from the pain.
Lord Maccon came to kneel on the step below them.
He gave a confused whine, unable to talk, as his head was still that of a wolf.
“I’m trying to get out the bullet,” Professor Lyall explained.
Another whine.
“It’s
The earl began violently shaking his shaggy brindled head and backing slightly away.
“He is dying, my lord. You have no other choice. You’re already in Anubis Form. You might as well make the attempt.”
Lord Maccon continued to shake his wolf head. Professor Lyall fished out the offensive bullet, hissing in pain as the vile silver thing burned his fingertips.
“Don’t you think Lord Akeldama would rather have him still alive, or at least partly alive, than dead? I am aware that it is not done. Unheard of, even, for a werewolf to poach a drone, but what else can we do? You have to at least try.”
The Alpha cocked his head to one side, ears drooping. Professor Lyall knew what he was thinking. If this failed, Biffy would be found dead, savaged by a werewolf. How could they possibly explain that to anyone?
“You metamorphosed a female recently. You can do this, my lord.”
With a small shrug that said as clearly as any words that if this didn’t work, he would never forgive himself, the Alpha bent over the boy’s neck and bit.
Normally, metamorphosis was a violent savaging of flesh, an infliction of a curse as much as a conversion to immortality, but Biffy was so very weak and had lost so much blood already that Lord Maccon took it slowly. He was able to. Conall Maccon had more self-control than any other Alpha Lyall had ever met, for all his Scottish heritage and grumpy temper. Lyall could only imagine how sweet the boy’s blood must taste. In answer to that thought, Lord Maccon stopped biting and bent to lap at the bullet wound. Then he went back to biting. The idea of metamorphosis, most scientists believed, was to get the werewolf saliva, carrier of the curse, into the petitioner and to get sufficient human blood out. This would break mortal ties and tether the remnant soul. Supposing there was, of course, excess soul present.
It seemed to take a very long time. But Biffy kept breathing, and so long as Biffy kept breathing, Lord Maccon resolutely continued his repetitive action: bite, lick, bite, lick. He was not to be distracted even by the sloshing arrival of their opponents.
Professor Lyall stood to defend their position, prepared to change form if needed, the moon well overhead and the smell of human blood giving him added strength. But the three young men emerging from the water were obviously uninterested in any further hostility. They hauled themselves out onto the bottom step and held up empty hands at Professor Lyall’s threatening stance. Their faces were lined with distress—one was crying openly, and another was keening softly at the limp form cradled in his arms. The third, a grim-faced boy holding one mostly gnawed hand against his chest, spoke.
“We’ve no reason to fight you further, werewolf. Our master is dead.”
Professor Lyall sniffed, trying to catch the scent of the vampire over the smell of human blood and putrid water. The horror of it hit him broadside, and he stumbled back against the stone of the embankment. It was there, the faint odor of old blood and decay that meant vampire, mixed with almost alcoholic overtones that, like the subtle difference between fine wines, indicated lineage. And Lyall smelled an old lineage, with a film of pine resin to the wine, and no ties to the modern hives. It was a scent long since lost and no longer emitted except by this one man. Lyall could have guessed the identity of the vampire from that scent, even were he not already familiar with its owner—the potentate. Or, as the vampire was dead and no longer a denizen of the Shadow Council, Lyall supposed he must be remembered now under his old name, Sir Francis Walsingham.
“Queen Victoria,” he said to his Alpha, “is
Lord Maccon did not look up from his self-prescribed penance: bite, lick, bite, lick.
Together, the three drones hefted their dead master and made their way slowly up the stairs around the earl and Biffy’s still form. Even in their grief, they winced away from the sight of an Anubis feeding. As they passed, Professor Lyall noticed that Lord Maccon’s bullet had hit Walsingham directly in the heart—a lucky shot, indeed.
A vampire was dead. There weren’t enough of them around to forgive a transgression like that, even from BUR’s chief sundowner. The potentate was a rove, with no major hive connections, and for that Professor Lyall was grateful. But there would be blood payment due to the greater community regardless, and it was the potentate’s relationship with Buckingham Palace that was the real stickler. Even if, by his actions, this vampire had shown himself a traitor to his own kind, kidnapping another’s drone, his absence left a gap Queen Victoria would find hard to fill. He had served as advisor to the throne since Queen Elizabeth’s day. It was his knowledge of Roman strategy and supply management that drove the expansion of the British Empire. For someone like that to die because he had made a mistake, because Alexia Maccon, soulless, had become pregnant by a werewolf and he panicked, was a loss to every British citizen. Even the werewolves would mourn him, in their way.
Professor Lyall, who was cultured and not given to profanity, watched the drones cart the disanimated potentate away and said curtly, “What a bloody awful mess.”
After which he stood, silent and waiting, wary and alert, for five long hours while Lord Maccon, stubborn to the last, held Anubis Form and worked over the dying drone.
The earl’s stubbornness was rewarded when, just before dawn, before all his labor would be lost to the sun, Biffy’s eyes opened, as yellow as buttercups. He howled out his pain and confusion and fear as his form shifted, and he lay there, shuddering but whole, a lovely chocolate-brown wolf with oxblood-red stomach fur.
Lord Maccon changed out of Anubis Form and grinned hugely at his Beta. “And there’s another one for the howlers to sing about.”
“What is it with you, my lord? Can you only metamorphose the difficult cases?” Professor Lyall was impressed despite himself.
“Yes, well, he is your charge now.” Lord Maccon stood and stretched, his spine popping as it realigned. His tawny eyes turned with surprise toward the rapidly lightening sky.
“Best get him indoors right quick.”
Professor Lyall nodded and bent to pick up the newly made wolf. Biffy struggled halfheartedly before sagging weakly into the Beta’s strong arms. Metamorphosis took even the best of them like that.
Lyall made his way silently up the steps to the top of the embankment, thinking hard. They would have to find shelter nearby. A new pup couldn’t take direct sunlight without considerable damage, and poor Biffy had been through more than enough for one night. Just as he figured out a destination and headed purposefully north toward Charing Cross Station, he noticed his Alpha wasn’t following him.
“Now where are you going, my lord?” he hollered after Lord Maccon’s rapidly retreating back.
The earl yelled over his shoulder without breaking stride. “I have a boat to catch and a wife to find. You can carry on from here.”
Lyall would have rubbed his face with his hands, except his arms were full. “Oh, yes, certainly, feel free to
