Blameless

“Wait, lemme ponder that.” Lord Maccon paused, as though giving the matter deep consideration. “Nope.”

They made their way inside Woolsey Castle, which was no castle at all but more a manor with delusions of dignity. There were stories about the previous owner that no one entirely believed, but one thing was for certain: the man had an unhealthy passion for flying buttresses.

Lyall was grateful to be out of the sun. He was old enough and strong enough not to be bothered by direct sunlight for short lengths of time, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the sensation. It felt like a tingling buzz just underneath the skin, highly unpleasant. Lord Maccon, of course, never seemed to notice sunlight at all, even when he was sober—Alphas!

“So where are you acquiring the alcohol, my lord?”

“Didna drink—hic—any alcohol.” Lord Maccon winked at his Beta and patted him on the shoulder affectionately, as though they were sharing some great secret.

Lyall was having none of that. “Well, my lord, I think perhaps you would have had to.”

“Nope.”

A tall, striking blond, with a perennially curled lip and hair in a military queue, rounded a corner of the hall and halted upon seeing them. “Is he soused again?”

“If you mean, ‘is he drunk still?’ then, yes.”

“Where, in all that is holy, is he getting the plonk?”

“Do you think I haven’t tried to figure that out? Don’t just stand there gawping. Make yourself useful.”

Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings slouched reluctantly over to brace his pack leader from the other side. Together the Beta and the Gamma steered their Alpha down the hall to the central staircase, up several floors, over, and up the final steps to the earl’s tower sleeping chamber. They managed this with only three casualties: Lord Maccon’s dignity (which hadn’t very far to fall at that point), Major Channing’s elbow (which met a mahogany finial), and an innocent Etruscan vase (which died so that Lord Maccon could lurch with sufficient exaggeration).

During the course of the proceedings, Lord Maccon started to sing. It was some obscure Scottish ballad, or perhaps some newer, more modern piece about cats dying—it was difficult to tell with Lord Maccon. Before his metamorphosis, he had been a rather well-thought-of opera singer, or so the rumors went, but all remnants of pitch were shredded beyond hope of salvation during his change to supernatural state. His skill as a singer had fled along with the bulk of his soul, leaving behind a man who could inflict real pain with the slightest ditty. Metamorphosis, reflected Lyall, wincing, was kinder to some than to others.

“Dinna wanna,” objected his lordship at the entrance to his sleeping chamber. “Reminds me.”

There was no trace of Alexia left in the room. She’d cleared out all of her personal possessions as soon as she returned from Scotland. But the three men in the doorway were werewolves; they merely needed to sniff the air and her scent was there—vanilla with a trace of cinnamon.

“This is going to be a long week,” said Channing in exasperation.

“Just help me get him into bed.”

The two werewolves managed, through dint of cajoling and brute force, to get Lord Maccon into his large four-poster bed. Once there, he flopped facedown, and almost immediately began snoring.

“Something simply must be done about him.” Channing’s accent was that of the privileged elite. It irritated Professor Lyall that the Gamma had never bothered to modify it over the decades. In the modern age, only elderly dowagers with too many teeth still spoke English that way.

Lyall refrained from comment.

“What if we have a challenger or a bid for metamorphosis? We should be getting more of both now that he has successfully changed a female into a werewolf. You cannot keep Lady Kingair a secret in Scotland forever.” Channing’s tone was full of both pride and annoyance. “Claviger petitions have already escalated; our Alpha should be handling those, not spending his days falling down drunk. This behavior is weakening the pack.”

“I can hold the challengers off,” said Professor Lyall with no shame, no modesty, and no boasting. Randolph Lyall might not be as large, nor as overtly masculine, as most werewolves but he had earned the right to be Beta in London’s strongest pack. Earned it so many times over and in so many ways that few questioned his right anymore.

“But you have no Anubis Form. You cannot cover for our Alpha in every way.”

“Just you mind your Gamma responsibilities, Channing, and leave me to see to the rest.”

Major Channing gave both Lord Maccon and Professor Lyall disgusted looks and then strode from the room, the tail of his long, blond hair swaying in annoyance.

Professor Lyall had intended to do the same, minus the long, blond hair, but he heard a whispered, “Randolph,” come from the wide bed. He made his way along the side of the big feather mattress to where the earl’s tawny eyes were once more open and unfocused.

“Yes, my lord?”

“If”—the earl swallowed nervously—“if I am wrong, and I’m na saying I am, but if I am, well, I’ll have to grovel again, won’t I?”

Professor Lyall had seen Lady Maccon’s face when she returned home to pack up her clothing and quit Woolsey Castle. She wasn’t big on crying—practical minded, tough, and unemotional even at the worst of times, like most preternaturals—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t utterly gutted by her husband’s rejection. Professor Lyall had seen a number of things in his lifetime he hoped never to see again; that look of hopelessness in Alexia’s dark eyes was definitely one of them.

“I am not convinced groveling will be quite sufficient in this instance, my lord.” He was not disposed to allow his Alpha any quarter.

“Ah. Well, bollocks,” said his lordship eloquently.

“That is the least of it. If my deductions are correct, she is also in very grave danger, my lord. Very grave.”

But Lord Maccon had already gone back to sleep.

Professor Lyall went off to hunt down the earl’s source of inebriation. Much to his distress, he found it. Lord Maccon hadn’t lied. It was, in fact, not alcohol at all.

* * *

Alexia Maccon’s parasol had been designed at prodigious expense, with considerable imagination and much attention to detail. It could emit a dart equipped with a numbing agent, a wooden spike for vampires, a silver spike for werewolves, a magnetic disruption field, and two kinds of toxic mist, and, of course, it possessed a plethora of hidden pockets. It had recently been entirely overhauled and refurbished with new ammunition, which, unfortunately, did little to improve its appearance. It was not a very prepossessing accessory, for all its serviceability, being both outlandish in design and indifferent in shape. It was a drab slate-gray color with cream ruffle trim, and it had a shaft in the new ancient Egyptian style that looked rather like an elongated pineapple.

Despite its many advanced attributes, Lady Maccon’s most common application of the parasol was through brute force enacted directly upon the cranium of an opponent. It was a crude and perhaps undignified modus operandi to be certain, but it had worked so well for her in the past that she was loath to rely too heavily upon any of the newfangled aspects of her parasol’s character.

Thus she left Lord Akeldama’s chubby calico reclining in untroubled indolence and dashed to the side of the door, parasol at the ready. It was an odd set of coincidences, but every time she visited Lord Akeldama’s drawing room something untoward happened. Perhaps this was not quite so surprising if one knew Lord Akeldama intimately.

A top hat, with attached head, peeked into the room and was soon followed by a dashing figure sporting a forest-green velvet frock coat and leather spats. For a moment, Alexia almost pulled back on her swing, thinking the intruder was Biffy. Biffy was Lord Akeldama’s favorite, and prone to wearing things like velvet frock coats. But then the young man glanced toward her hiding spot—a round face sporting muttonchops and a surprised expression. Not Biffy, for Biffy abhorred muttonchops. The parasol hurtled in the unfortunate gentleman’s direction.

Thwack!

The young man shielded his head with a forearm, which took the brunt of the blow, and then twisted to the