Timeless pp 5, p.29
Timeless pp-5, page 29
part #5 of Parasol Protectorate Series
Taking advantage of the confusion, Alexia and Conall jumped to their feet and dashed up the hill toward the balloon, the earl pushing his wife before him.
They almost reached the top. The balloon was higher now, and Alexia could make out the long rope ladder dangling down and trailing toward them in the sand. She ran to it, faster than she had ever thought possible. The repulsion pressure was bearing down on her hard, there being far more mummies at the top of the hill. She could feel the blackness closing in—too many dead preternaturals pressing against her skull.
I can’t faint again. Now is not a good time, even if I were the fainting type, she remonstrated with herself.
Conall paused, turned, and fired. The snail was in motion again, the disruption worn off, but some of the men had given up waiting for it and had taken off after them on foot up the hill. When Conall paused to shoot, so did they.
Alexia heard her husband cry out and he jerked backward against her. The bottom fell out of her world as she turned frantically, half supporting his massive weight, desperately looking to this new injury. A bloom of red appeared over his ribs, staining the shirt. He wasn’t wearing a waistcoat.
“Conall Maccon,” she cried, shaking off the blackness, “I forbid you to die.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, woman. I’m perfectly fine,” he replied, dropping Ethel to clutch at his side, gasping and terribly pale under the beard.
Alexia bent to scoop up her gun.
“Leave it. We’re out of ammunition anyway.”
“But!”
Conall began climbing up the hill, bent almost double against the pain.
Alexia turned to follow, only to find herself seized about the waist by one of the white-clad enemy. She screamed in rage and swung her parasol up and back hard, hitting the man squarely atop the head.
He let go of her.
She was out of numbing darts but there was more than that in her accessory’s arsenal. She twisted the nodule closest to the shade, hoping she had the correct direction for the correct liquid. Either the acid for vampires or the silver nitrite for werewolves would work on humans, but the acid was nastier. She couldn’t remember which was which, so she simply hoped.
Alexia met the man’s eyes over the top of the parasol and felt a brief flash of recognition. She had seen him before, on the train to Woolsey back in England.
“What?” she said, pausing in her action. Then remembering her husband’s wounds, she let loose the spray.
The man, as shocked as she, leaped backward out of harm’s way, tripped on his long robe, and tumbled down the hill before regaining his feet. Instead of continuing his pursuit, he whirled about, running back toward the gastropod waving his arms wildly in the air.
Alexia couldn’t understand a word he said except one. He kept repeating something that sounded Italian, not Arabic: “Panattone.”
The peace brought about by this startling reversal didn’t last long for, despite his gesticulations, the other white-clad men continued to fire. One or two ran past their erstwhile companion and continued after her.
Conall, who had reached the ladder and was holding on to it, had turned back at Alexia’s yell. He was looking even whiter, and there was a good deal more blood running down his side than Alexia had ever seen spilling out of anyone.
Her world was closing in. It was like being inside a black tunnel, the repulsion pressing against the corners of her eyes. Pushing herself, slogging that last short distance to her husband took herculean effort. But then she was there, and Conall was pressing the rope into her hands.
“Go on!” he yelled, pushing up on her bustle as though he might hoist her into the air. He was nowhere near strong enough for that in his current state.
Alexia stuffed the cloth of her parasol into her mouth, holding it with her teeth, and began to climb. She paused halfway up to glance back, making certain her husband was following her.
He was, but he did not look well. His grip must be very weak, particularly with that injured arm.
The moment they latched on to the ladder, Zayed, blessed man, gave the balloon some heat, and it floated up.
Below them they could hear more guns firing. Alexia felt one whiz past her ear and heard a thunk as it lodged itself in the wicker of the basket.
Madame Lefoux and Prudence’s heads poked over the edge. They both looked terrified. There was nothing they could do to help.
“Genevieve, take Prudence to cover!” Conall yelled.
The heads disappeared for a moment and then only the inventor’s reappeared.
Madame Lefoux had one of her deadly little wrist darts out and was aiming it down. Startled, Alexia thought she was pointing it at her or Conall. In that moment, she wondered, yet again, if she had misjudged the Frenchwoman’s loyalty.
Genevieve fired. The dart hurtled past Alexia’s ear. There came a cry, and it hit the man Alexia hadn’t even realized was there. A man in white robes dangling off the very bottom of the ladder let go and fell, screaming.
The balloon lifted again, and Alexia felt a lightening of that horrible sensation of repulsion, the black tunnel receding from around her vision. She wished the balloon would go faster, but they were at the mercy of the sky now.
Finally, after what felt like an age, bullets whizzing by all the while, Alexia attained the basket lip and tumbled in. She spat out her parasol and instantly turned to see to her husband.
Conall was still some ways behind her, slowed by his wounds. Below him she could see the gastropod, tracking them across the sands, still close enough to be a danger. Alexia went for her parasol, prepared to use the grapple attachment.
The firing continued but the balloon was out of range.
Then, one of the enemy pulled out a different kind of gun, a huge fat rifle that looked like it was designed for large game. He fired. Whether he was aiming to bring down the balloon or not, he hit Lord Conall Maccon.
Alexia wasn’t certain where he was hit exactly, but she could see her husband’s face, already ashen under the beard, turned up toward her. A ghastly expression of profound surprise suffused his handsome visage and he let go and fell. Desperate, Alexia shot the parasol grapple at her husband and missed. Conall fell for what seemed leagues, silent, not screaming, not uttering a sound, to land in a broken heap in the desert far below.
Biffy was worried. He wasn’t a man to let slide his training—the many years under Lord Akeldama, the few under Professor Lyall. His training taught him to be practical, to look to the evidence, to watch and observe, never to assume, and always to be stylish about it. But he was still worried, for something was wrong. He had received no message from Lady Maccon in three sunsets. He had faithfully, every evening, climbed to the attic aethographic chamber and waited, at first only for a quarter of an hour or so, but as the days passed, he waited longer and longer.
He mentioned his concerns to Professor Lyall and the Beta made sympathetic murmurs, but what could they do? Their orders were to remain in London, keep things in check. That was difficult enough with Lady Kingair convinced they should send someone after Floote and Channing convinced they were lying about Biffy’s new state.
“Prove it!” Major Channing said the moment Lyall made the announcement to the pack. “Go on. Show me Anubis form!”
“It’s not like that. I can’t control it yet.” Biffy spoke calmly.
The Gamma was unconvinced. “There’s no way you’re an Alpha. You’re a ruddy dandy!”
“Now, now, Channing. I saw it. So did Lady Kingair.” Professor Lyall’s voice was mellow and calm.
“I dinna ken what I saw,” said that lady most unhelpfully.
“See? Do you see?” Channing turned back to Biffy, his shapely lip curled in disgust. His face, though handsome, was disagreeably set and his blue eyes icy. “Go on, then. Can’t show me the head? Fight me for dominance.” The Gamma really looked as though he might strip right there in the dining room and change to a wolf, simply to prove Biffy was lying.
“You think I desired this state?” Biffy was outraged at being accused of making such a thing up. “Do I look like the kind of man who wants to be Alpha?”
“You don’t look like an Alpha at all!”
“Exactly. Look at Lady Kingair and Lord Maccon—clearly being Alpha plays hell with one’s wardrobe!”
Professor Lyall stepped in again. “Stop it, both of you. Channing, you will have to take my word for it. You know how long it takes to control wolf form, let alone master a second one. Give the pup a chance.”
“Why should I?” The white wolf was petulant.
“Because I said so. And because he might be your Alpha someday. Wouldn’t want to get off on the wrong paw, now, would you?”
“As if Lord Maccon would allow any such thing.”
“Lord Maccon is in Egypt. You take your orders from me.”
Biffy had never heard Lyall sound so forceful before. He rather liked it. It worked, for Channing backed down. He was willing to fight Biffy, but not Lyall; that was clear.
“Such an unpleasant fellow, and so attractive; it makes it that much worse,” commented Biffy to Lyall later that night.
“Now, don’t you worry about Channing. You’ll be able to handle him eventually. Attractive, is he?”
“Not so much as you, by any means.”
“Right answer, my dandy. Right answer.”
Someone was screaming.
It took Alexia a long time to realize it was her. Only then did she stop, turn, and charge across the balloon to Zayed.
“Go back down! We must go back for him!”
“Lady, it is full sun. We cannot go down in daylight.”
Alexia gripped his arm desperately. “But you must! Please, you must.”
He shook her off. “Sorry, lady, there is only up now. He is dead anyway.”
Alexia staggered back as though physically struck. “Please, don’t say such a thing! I beg you.”
Zayed only looked at her calmly. “Lady, no one could survive that fall. Find yourself a new man. You are still young. You breed well.”
“He isn’t just any man! Please go back.” Alexia tried to grab at his hands. She had no idea how the balloon worked but she was willing to try.
Madame Lefoux came to her, pulling her gently off of Zayed. “Come away, Alexia, please.”
Alexia shook Genevieve off and stumbled to the side of the basket, craning her neck to see, but they were rising fast. Soon they would hit the aether currents and then there really would be no going back.
She saw Conall lying in the sand. She saw the gastropod give up chasing the balloon and stop next to her husband. The men in white jumped down and surrounded his broken form.
Alexia opened her parasol. Perhaps it would help if she jumped; perhaps somehow it would catch the air and slow her fall.
She climbed up onto the edge of the basket, parasol open.
Madame Lefoux tackled her and yanked her back inside the basket.
“Don’t be an imbecile, Alexia!”
“Someone has to go back for him!” Alexia struggled against her friend.
Zayed left off supervision of the balloon to come and sit on Alexia’s legs, immobilizing her. “Lady, don’t die. Goldenrod wouldn’t like it.”
The Frenchwoman grabbed Alexia by the face, one hand to each cheek, forcing her to look deep into her green eyes. “He’s dead. Even if the fall didn’t get him, he was badly wounded, and there was that shot from the smoothbore elephant gun. No mortal could survive both. It’d be hard for a werewolf to survive such a thing and he’s no werewolf anymore.”
“But I never told him I loved him. I only yelled at him!” Alexia felt as if there was nothing securing her to reality but Genevieve’s green eyes.
Genevieve wrapped her arms about Alexia. “For you two, that was loving.”
Alexia refused to believe he was gone. Not her big strong mountain of a man. Not her Conall. The desert warmth surrounded her. The sun shone bright and cheerful. The sensation of repulsion had lifted at last. But she was cold; her face felt sunken in against the hollows of her cheeks, and her mind was blank.
A small, soft hand pressed against her freezing cheek. “Mama?” said Prudence.
Alexia stopped thinking that her parasol might allow her to jump out of an air balloon. She stopped feeling like she was splitting in half, like her soul, if she had had one, was being wrenched down through her feet, a tendril, a tether to the man far below.
She stopped feeling anything at all.
The balloon jerked, catching first the southern current that had brought them to Luxor, and then after a few masterful manipulations from Zayed, floated up into a higher western current, one that, Alexia vaguely heard him say to Genevieve, would connect them to the northern route.
Even though they spoke directly above her head, Genevieve still holding her close, Prudence still cuddled up against her, the little girl’s eyes huge and dark and worried on her mother’s face, it all seemed to be occurring far away.
Alexia let it. She let the numbness take over, immersed herself in the lack of feeling.
Five days later, in the darkness several hours before dawn, they landed in Alexandria.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Truth Behind the Octopus
Everything was still chaos around her, but Lady Alexia Maccon sailed through it all on a sea of profound numbness. She allowed Madame Lefoux to take charge. The French inventor told the acting troupe about Lord Maccon’s death. She explained what had happened using scientifically precise language. She also informed them that they had failed to find Primrose.
For ten days, Ivy and Tunstell had waited, with no contact from the kidnappers, their hopes pinned on Alexia and Conall discovering the whereabouts of their daughter. Now Lady Maccon had returned with the earl dead, and Primrose still missing.
And Lady Maccon? Lady Maccon was also missing. Nothing seemed to reach her. She responded to direct questions but softly, quietly, and with long pauses. She was also uninterested in food. Even Ivy was shaken out of her own worry enough to be upset by this.
But Alexia did cope. Alexia was always one to cope. She did what needed to be done, once someone pointed it out to her.
Ivy, between tears, managed to explain that she had been unable to convince the aethographor to give her Lady Maccon’s messages. So Alexia went to bed, slept most of the day away with dreams full of Conall’s face as he fell, woke up, dressed automatically, and went to get the messages herself. There were nine of them from Biffy, one for every sunset she had missed. The more recent were merely worried notes of “Where are you?” but the earlier ones told such a depressing truth that Alexia was almost glad she was too numb to be affected by it.
Not Floote.
Not her Floote.
Not the man who had always been there for her. Always provided her with the necessary cup of tea and a soothing, “Yes, madam.” Who had changed her nappies as a baby, who had helped her sneak out of the Loontwills’ house as a young woman. Not Floote. Yet, it made horribly perfect sense. Who else but Floote would have had all the necessary contacts? Who else but Floote would have the training in how to kill a werewolf? Alexia had seen him take on vampires firsthand; she knew he had the ability.
Lady Maccon returned to the hotel, clutching her stack of messages in one hand, moving like an automaton through the bustling city streets that only a week and a half earlier she had found more friendly and charming than any other. In the hotel, she caught sight of Madame Lefoux and Ivy in one of the private parlors off the reception area. She floated past, not even realizing that she should extend an evening greeting. There was nothing left in her for even the social graces. She felt, in fact, very absent from herself. Adrift, as if nothing might bring her back again. Not even tea.
But at Madame Lefoux’s summoning gesture, she wandered into their private boudoir and, in answer to her friend’s polite inquiry as to her health, said, “As it turned out, it was Floote.”
Genevieve looked confused.
Ivy gasped and said, “But he was here. Floote was here, looking for you. We sent him down the Nile after you. I thought… Oh, silly me, he isn’t with you? I thought he would have caught up. Oh, I don’t know what I thought.”
Even that didn’t pull Alexia back to the here and now. “Floote was looking for me? He probably wanted to explain himself.”
Madame Lefoux pressed for details. “Explain what, exactly, Alexia?”
“Oh, you know, the God-Breaker Plague. Killing Dubh. That kind of thing.” Alexia tossed Genevieve the little stack of papyrus papers from the aethographor station. “Biffy says…” Alexia trailed off, standing quietly while Madame Lefoux read over the notes.
Ivy said, “Oh, Alexia, do sit down!”
“Oh, should I?” Alexia sat.
Prudence came running in. “Mama!”
Alexia didn’t look up.
The little girl grabbed at her hand. “Mama, bad men! Back.”
“Oh, yes? Did you hide under the bed again?”
“Yes!”
The nursemaid came in, clutching Percy to her trembling breast. “They came back, Mrs. Tunstell! They came back!”
Ivy stood, face pale, clutching at her throat with both hands. “Oh, heavens. Percy, is he all right?”
“Yes, madam. Yes.” The nursemaid passed over the redheaded infant to Ivy’s clutching embrace. Percy, unperturbed, burped contentedly.
“See,” said Prudence, still trying to get her mother’s attention.
“Yes, dear, very wise. Hiding under the bed, good girl.” Alexia was busy staring off into space.
“Mama, see!” Prudence was waving something in front of her mother’s face.
Madame Lefoux took it from her gently. It was a roll of heavy papyrus tied with cord. The inventor unwound it and read the missive aloud.
“ ‘Send Lady Maccon for the baby, alone. Tonight, after sunset.’ ” She added, “And they provide an address.”
“Oh, Primrose!” Ivy burst into floods of tears.
