Lord Ambrose made a move forward, thinking Lady Maccon’s attention distracted.
Ethel swung once more toward the countess. Alexia’s hand was remarkably steady. “Ah, ah, ah.”
The vampire backed away again.
“Now,” said Alexia, “I do so hate to do this to you all. But really, our safest bet would be to get out of here. And quickly.”
The countess shook her head. “You may leave, of course, Lady Maccon, but—”
“No, no, both of us, I insist.”
“Foolish child,” said the Duke of Hematol, coming back into the room. “How can anyone know so little of vampire edict and sit the Shadow Council? Our queen cannot leave this house. It is not a matter of choice—it is a matter of physiology.”
“She could swarm.” Lady Maccon swung her gun once more toward the vampire queen.
Lord Ambrose hissed.
Lady Maccon said, “Go on, Countess, swarm. There’s a good vampire.”
The duke let out an annoyed sigh. “Save us all from the practicality of soul-suckers. She can’t swarm on command, woman. Queens don’t just up and swarm when told they have to. Swarming is a biological imperative. You might as well tell someone to spontaneously combust.”
Alexia looked at Lord Ambrose. “Really? Would that work on him?”
At which juncture the most tremendous crash reverberated through the house, and guests at the party below started screaming.
The octomaton had arrived.
Lady Maccon gestured with her gun in an arbitrary manner. “
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In Which Lady Maccon Mislays Her Parasol
The countess jumped to her feet. So, too, did Felicity. Lord Ambrose decided Lady Maccon was no longer the greatest threat in his world and turned toward the racket.
“Now would be an excellent time,” prodded Alexia.
The countess shook her head in exasperation. “Swarming is not something one chooses. I know this is difficult for you to understand, soul-sucker, but not everything is the result of conscious thought. Swarming is instinct. I have to know, deep down in my soul on a supernatural level, that my hive is no longer safe. Then I would have to source a new hive, never to return to this one. Now is not that time.”
The house fairly rattled on its foundations as another mighty crash rent the air.
“Are you convinced of that?” wondered Alexia.
Something was literally tearing its way through the building, as a child will rip paper twists to get at the sugar candy inside.
Felicity started to scream.
“Where did you stash Quesnel, Countess Nadasdy?” Lady Maccon raised her voice to carry over the din.
The countess was distracted by the commotion. “What?”
“I was simply suggesting you might want to retrieve him. Have him with you, and soon.”
“Oh, yes, excellent plan. Hematol, would you fetch the boy?”
“Yes, my queen.” The duke, having only just appeared, looked reluctant to obey; no vampire wishes to leave the side of his queen when she is in danger. But a direct order was a direct order, so he bowed perfunctorily and scurried off.
Yet another crash sounded. The door burst open. Dr. Caedes, a number of the footman-drones, and several other hive vampires ran into the room. Mabel Dair was the last inside, slamming the door behind her. The actress’s beautiful gold gown was ripped, and her hair had fallen down about her face. She looked as though she were just about to perform Ophelia’s death scene to a packed audience.
“My queen, you would not believe the monster down there! It is horrible! It ripped right through the wall, the one with the Titian. And it broke the bust of Demeter.”
The countess was obligingly sympathetic to the trauma. “Come to me, my dear.”
Mabel Dair ran to her mistress, knelt at her feet, and buried her face in the vampire’s full skirts. Her hands were trembling where they gripped the fine taffeta material.
Alexia was tempted to clap.
The queen set one perfect white hand atop Miss Dair’s cascading blond curls and looked to her hive. “Dr. Caedes, report! What is the octomaton’s armament? Is it standard to the earlier model?”
“No, my queen, it seems to have been modified.”
“Fire?”
“Yes, but only one tentacle. And the customary wooden blades. But a third seems to be able to shoot stakes. And the fourth has bullets.”
“Go on. That’s only four.”
“It hasn’t yet used any of the others yet.”
“If this is Madame Lefoux we are dealing with, she’ll have armed every single tentacle with something deadly. That’s how she thinks.”
Alexia couldn’t help but agree. Genevieve was like that about her gadgets—the more uses the better.
The wall on the opposite side of the room shook. They heard a horrible, wrenching, tearing, crashing noise. It was the sound of metal and wood and brick colliding. The entire wall before them was ripped asunder. Once the dust settled, the domed head of the octomaton became visible, balanced atop its many tentacles. The creature scrabbled for purchase within the rubble of what had once been one of London’s most stylish residences. The silver light of the moon and the bright gas of the streetlamps lit up the gleaming metal hide of the mechanical creature. Alexia could just see the fleeing forms of the countess’s party guests in the street below.
Alexia raised her parasol and stood. She pointed the frilly accessory at the octomaton accusingly. “Genevieve, I do hope you didn’t kill anyone.”
But if Madame Lefoux was in there, guiding the creature, she did not acknowledge Lady Maccon. She had one intended target and one target only—Countess Nadasdy.
A gigantic tentacle wormed its way up into the room and hit out at the vampire queen, trying to crush her. Alexia preferred to lead with an airborne offensive, but Madame Lefoux was opting for hand-to-hand—or was that hand-to-tentacle?—combat. Possibly to protect as many innocents as she could.
The queen, supernatural in speed and cunning, simply dodged out of the way of the massive metal thing. But she was well and truly trapped, for there were no other doors out of that room, and half of her house was now destroyed.
Felicity let out another scream and then did the most sensible thing she could do under the circumstances— she fainted. At which point, everyone else did an equally sensible thing and ignored her.
Lord Ambrose charged. Alexia had no idea what he intended to do or how he intended to do it, but he seemed bent on something. He leaped, impossibly fast and high, landing atop the head of the creature, where he began trying to scrabble for a way inside.
Lady Maccon figured that was a pretty intelligent plan, but the vampire was thwarted in his attempts to pull off the hatch of the dome. He tried to punch through the helmetlike mantle, but Madame Lefoux was a master worker in such matters. The head was practically seamless, with no possible way of getting in from the outside, not even for a vampire. She had given herself slits to see out of, but those slits were just big enough to peer through; they were not sufficiently large for a vampire to get his fingers inside and pry open the casing.
A tentacle whipped around and with a casual gesture brushed Lord Ambrose off as if he were a crumb. The vampire fell past the edge of the floor where the wall once had stood, grabbing wildly and missing, and disappeared out of sight. Only to reappear moments later, simply leaping up from one story to the next until he was back inside.
This time Lord Ambrose dove for the root of one of the tentacles, trying to tear it off the body. Relying on all
