Blameless

killing vampires and werewolves for a sect of religious fanatics was not precisely what she had been hoping for.

“Have you any idea how rare you are, a female of the species?”

“I am beginning to get the impression that I am more rare than I had thought.” Alexia looked about suddenly, feigning physical discomfort. “Do you think I might visit a convenient bush, before we depart for the long drive back?”

The Templar looked equally discomforted. “If you insist.”

Alexia tugged at Madame Lefoux’s sleeve and dragged her off behind the tomb and down the side of the hill a little ways to a small copse of trees.

“It took Angelique this way,” commented Madame Lefoux, referring to her former lover. “During her pregnancy, she always had to… well... you know.”

“Oh, no, that was merely a ruse. I wanted to discuss something with you. That ankh around his neck, did you notice that it had been repaired?”

Madame Lefoux shook her head. “Is that significant, do you think?”

Alexia had never told Madame Lefoux about the mummy nor the broken ankh symbol. But in her experience, it was the hieroglyphic sign of a preternatural.

So she quickly moved on. “I think the terra-cotta man in the tomb was a preternatural, and the woman was a vampire, and the offering of meat was for the werewolves.”

“A harmonious culture? Is that possible?”

“It would be terribly arrogant of us British to think England was the first and only progressive society.” Alexia was worried. If the Templars comprehended the significance of the ankh, she was in more danger than she had thought. They would find a way to turn her into a tool, living or dead.

“I do hope Floote managed to send that message to BUR.”

“Love note to your werewolf?” Madame Lefoux sounded wistful. Then she looked about the empty hillside, suddenly nervous. “I think, my dear Alexia, we should head back to the carriage.”

Alexia, enjoying the countryside and the intellectual advantages afforded by their ancient surroundings, had not registered the lateness of the hour. “Ah, yes, you may be correct.”

It was, unfortunately, well into nighttime before they were even halfway back to Florence. Alexia felt awfully exposed in the open-topped carriage. She kept her parasol close and began to wonder if this whole excursion was not an attempt by the Templars to use her as some kind of bait. After all, they fancied themselves great supernatural hunters and might very well risk her safety simply to draw local vampires out. Especially if the Templars had enough foolish pride in their own abilities to believe there was little true peril. The moon was just rising, no longer entirely full but still quite bright. In its silvery light, Alexia could make out a gleam of anticipation in the preceptor’s normally emotionless eyes. You rotten sod, this was all a setup, she was about to say, but too late.

The vampire appeared out of nowhere, leaping with exceptional speed from the dirt road into the carriage. He was single-minded in his attack, heading straight for Alexia, the only apparent female of the group. Madame Lefoux gave a yell of warning, but Alexia had already thrown herself forward onto the open seat opposite her own, next to the preceptor. The vampire ended up where she had just been sitting. Alexia fumbled with her parasol, twisting the handle so that the two sharp spikes, one wood and one silver, sprang out from its tip.

The preceptor, suddenly brandishing a long, evil-looking wooden knife, gave a yell of pleasure and attacked. Madame Lefoux had her trusty cravat pin already out and in play. Alexia swung her parasol, but all were merely normal humans pitted against superhuman strength, and even fighting off multiple bodies in the awkwardly tiny venue of an open-topped carriage, the vampire was holding his own.

The preceptor dove forward. He was grinning—a real smile for the first time. Maniacal, but real.

Alexia took a firm grip on her parasol with both hands and used a hacking blow to stab with the wooden spike at any part of the vampire that emerged from the wrestling match long enough for her to pin it down. It was a little like trying to hit the heads of ground moles as they appeared out of their holes. But soon enough, Alexia was getting quite into the game of it.

“Touch it!” yelled the preceptor at Alexia. “Touch it so I can kill it.”

The preceptor was an excellent fighter, for he was single-minded in his attempt to drive his wooden weapon into the creature’s heart or some other vital organ. But he was simply not fast enough, even when Madame Lefoux came to his aid. Madame Lefoux got in a couple of wicked strikes to the vampire’s face with her cravat pin, but the cuts began to heal almost as soon as she had delivered them. With the air of one swatting at an irritating bug, the vampire casually backhanded the inventor with a closed fist. She fell hard against the inside of the carriage and then slumped inelegantly to the floor, eyes closed, mouth slack, and mustache fallen entirely off.

Before Alexia had a chance to react, the vampire managed to heave the Templar up and forward. He hurled the preceptor against the driver so that both fell out of the carriage into the country lane below.

The horses, spooked into screams of panic, took off in a crazed gallop, surging forward, straining against their traces in a most alarming manner. Alexia tried to maintain her footing in the wildly pitching carriage. The four cavalry Templars, who had almost caught up to the ruckus, were left behind in a cloud of swirling dust kicked up by frantic hooves.

The vampire lunged toward Alexia again. Alexia took a firm grip on her parasol and gritted her teeth. Really, she was getting very tired of these constant bouts of fisticuffs. One would think she was a boxer down at Whites! The vampire lunged. Alexia swung. But he batted the parasol away and was upon her, hands wrapped around her neck.

He sneezed. Aha, thought Alexia, the garlic!

When he touched her, his fangs vanished and his strength became that of an ordinary human. She saw in his beautiful brown eyes a look of surprise. He may have known what she was intellectually but had clearly not experienced the sensation of preternatural touch before. Yet his fingers tightened inexorably around Alexia’s throat. He might be mortal but he was still strong enough to strangle her, no matter how she kicked and struggled.

I’m not ready to die, thought Alexia. I haven’t yelled at Conall yet. And then she thought about the baby really as a baby and not an inconvenience for the very first time. We’re not ready to die.

She heaved upward, pushing the vampire up and off.

And just then, something white hit the vampire crosswise so hard that Alexia heard bones breaking—after all, the vampire was currently quite mortal and lacking any supernatural defenses. The vampire screamed in surprise and pain.

The hit broke his hold around her neck, and Alexia stumbled back, panting hard, eyes fixed on her former attacker.

The white thing resolved itself into the frenzied figure of a massive wolf, growling and thrashing against the vampire in a whirlwind of teeth and claws and blood. The two supernatural creatures scrabbled together, werewolf strength against vampire speed, while Alexia pushed herself and her parasol back into one corner of the seat, protectively shielding Madame Lefoux’s fallen form from claws, teeth, and fangs.

The wolf had the advantage, having attacked while the vampire was rendered vulnerable through preternatural contact, and he never lost it. In very short order, he wrapped his powerful jaws about the vampire’s neck, sinking his teeth into the man’s throat. The vampire gave a gurgling howl, and the smell of rotten blood filled the fresh country air.

Alexia caught a flash of ice-blue eyes as the wolf gave her one meaningful look before he hurled both himself and the vampire out of the moving carriage, hitting the ground with a tremendous thud. The sound of their battle continued but was rapidly lost in the clattering of hooves as the horses raced onward.

Alexia realized it must have been the scent of the wolf that initially panicked the horses. It was now up to her to slow them down before the terrified creatures broke their traces or overturned the carriage, or worse.

She scrambled up onto the driver’s box, only to find that the reins had fallen forward and were hanging down near the shackle, perilously close to the kicking hind legs of the horses. She lay, belly down over the box, holding on with one hand and desperately reaching with the other. No luck. Seized with an inspiration, she retrieved her parasol. It still had the two spikes sticking out from its tip, and she managed to use those to catch the dangling reins and pull them sufficiently close to grasp. Victorious, she only then remembered she had never actually driven a carriage before. Figuring it couldn’t be too difficult, she tried a gentle tug backward on the reins.