Blameless

Lord Akeldama lifted his head from where it rested, cheek pressed against Biffy’s, and narrowed his eyes at the queen. He gently let his former drone go, stood, and bowed, exactly as deeply as he ought and not one jot more.

Biffy, for his part, was at a loss. He could not get up without exposing some part of himself, and he could not perform the appropriate obedience from a supine position. He looked with desperate eyes at the queen.

Professor Lyall came to his rescue. “You will have to forgive, uh,” he floundered, for he had never learned Biffy’s real name, “our young friend here. He has had a bit of a trying night.”

“So we have been given to understand. Is this, then, the drone in question?” The queen raised a quizzing glass and examined Biffy through it. “The dewan has said you were kidnapped, young man, and by our very own potentate. These are grave charges, indeed. Are they true?”

Biffy, mouth slightly open in awe, managed only a mute nod.

The queen’s face expressed both relief and chagrin in equal measure. “Well, at least Lord Maccon hasn’t bungled that.” She turned her sharp eye on Lord Akeldama.

The vampire, with a studied, casual air, fixed the cuffs of his shirtsleeves so they lay perfectly underneath his jacket. He did not meet her gaze.

“Would you say, Lord Akeldama, that death was an appropriate punishment for the theft of another vampire’s drone?” she inquired casually.

“I would say it is a bit extreme, Your Majesty, but in the heat of the moment, I am given to understand, accidents will happen. It was not intentional.”

Professor Lyall couldn’t believe his ears. Was Lord Akeldama defending Lord Maccon?

“Very well. No charges will be brought against the earl.”

Lord Akeldama started. “I did not say… that is, he also metamorphosed Biffy.”

“Yes, yes. Excellent, another werewolf is always welcome.” The queen bestowed a beneficent smile on the still-bemused Biffy.

“But he is mine!”

The queen frowned at the vampire’s tone. “We hardly see the need for such fuss, Lord Akeldama. You have plenty more just like him, do you not?”

Lord Akeldama stood for a moment, stunned, just long enough for the queen to continue on with her conversation, entirely ignoring his bemusement.

“We must suppose Lord Maccon has gone in pursuit of his wife?” A nod from Professor Lyall. “Good, good. We are reinstating her as muhjah, of course, in absentia. We were acting under the potentate’s advice when we dismissed her, and now we see he must have been furthering his own hidden agenda. For centuries, Walsingham has advised the Crown unerringly. What could have driven such a man to such lengths?”

All around her, silence descended.

“That, gentlemen, was not a rhetorical question.”

Professor Lyall cleared his throat. “I believe it may have to do with Lady Maccon’s forthcoming child.”

“Yes?”

Professor Lyall turned and looked pointedly at Lord Akeldama.

Following his lead, the Queen of England did the same.

No one would ever accuse Lord Akeldama of fidgeting, but under such direct scrutiny, he did appear slightly flustered.

“Well, Lord Akeldama? You do know, don’t you? Otherwise none of this would have happened.”

“You must understand, Your Majesty, that vampire records go back to Roman times, and there is mention of only one similar child.”

“Go on.”

“And, of course, in this case she was the child of a soul-sucker and a vampire—not a werewolf.”

Professor Lyall chewed his lip. How could the howlers not have known of this? They were the keepers of history; they were supposed to know about everything.

“Go on!”

“The kindest word we had for that creature was soul-stealer.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Ladybugs to the Rescue

Alexia fought hard. It took some substantial negotiating to convince the German scientist, but in the end all she needed was the right kind of logic.

“I am bored.”

“This does not trouble me, Female Specimen.”

“This is my heritage we are dealing with, you realize?”

“Ya, so?”

“I believe it may be possible for me to uncover something you and the Templars have missed.”

No response.

“I can read Latin.”

He pressed down on her stomach.

“Can you? My, my, you are well educated.”

“For a female?”

“For a soulless. Templar records hold that the devil spawn are not men of philosophy.”

“You see, I am different. I might spot something.”

The little German pulled out an ear tube from his case and listened to her belly attentively.

“I am telling you, I have excellent research skills.”

“Will it keep you quiet?”

Alexia nodded enthusiastically.

“I shall see what I can do, ya?”

Later that day, two nervous young Templars came in carrying some ancient-looking scrolls and a bucket of lead tablets. They must have been under orders to oversee the security of these items, for instead of leaving, they locked the cell door and then sat—on the floor, much to Alexia’s shock—crossed their legs, and proceeded to embroider red crosses onto handkerchiefs while she read. Alexia wondered if this were some kind of punishment, or if embroidery was what the Templars did for fun. It would explain the general prevalence of embroidered red crosses everywhere. Lord Akeldama, of course, had warned her. Silly to realize it now that it was far too late.

She bypassed the scrolls in favor of the more intriguing lead squares. They had Latin incised into them and were, she believed, curse tablets. Her Latin was rather rusty, and she could have used a vocabulary reference book of some kind, but she managed to decipher the first tablet after some time and the others came much easier after that. Most of them concerned ghosts and were designed to either curse someone into suffering after death as a ghost or exorcize a poltergeist that was already haunting a house. Alexia surmised that the tablets, in either case, would be entirely ineffective, but there certainly were a large number of them.

She looked up when Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf entered her cell with a new battery of tests. “Ah,” she said, “Good afternoon. Thank you for arranging for me to look at this remarkable collection. I did not realize curse tablets were so focused on the supernatural. I had read that they called upon the wrath of imaginary daemons and gods, but not the real supernatural. Very interesting, indeed.”

“Anything useful, Female Specimen?”

“Ow!” He poked at her arm with a syringe. “So far, they all have to do with hauntings. Very concerned with ghosts, the Romans.”

“Mmm. Ya. I had read of this in my own research.”

Alexia went back to translating the next tablet.

Having collected a sample of her blood, the German abandoned her once more to the tender mercies of the embroidering Templars.