“Master, stop. Please. It was not their fault.”

Biffy sat up slightly on the couch, eyes fixed in horror at the sight before him.

Lord Akeldama immediately let go of Professor Lyal and dashed over to kneel by the young man’s side.

Biffy spoke in a jumble of words and guilt. “I should not have al owed myself to be captured. I was careless. I did not suspect the potentate of such extremes of action. I was not playing the game as you taught me. I did not think he would use me like that to get to you.”

“Ah, my little cherry blossom, we were al playing blind. This is not your fault.”

“Do you real y find me cursed and disgusting now?” Biffy’s voice was very smal .

Driven beyond his instincts, the vampire pul ed the newly made werewolf against him

—one predator consoling another, as unnatural as a snake attempting to comfort a house cat.

Biffy rested his dark head on Lord Akeldama’s shoulder. The vampire twisted his perfect lips together and looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and then looked away.

Through the fal of the vampire’s blond hair, Professor Lyal caught a glimpse of his face.

Ah, oh dear, he really did love him. The Beta pressed two fingers against his own eyes as though he might stopper up the tears in theirs. Curses.

Love, of al eccentricities among the supernatural set, was the most embarrassing and the least talked about or expected. But Lord Akeldama’s face, for al its icy beauty, was drawn with genuine loss into a kind of carved marble agony.

Professor Lyal was an immortal; he knew what it was to lose a loved one. He could not leave the room, not with so many important BUR documents scattered about, but he did turn away and put on a show of busily organizing stacks of paperwork, attempting to provide the two men some modicum of privacy.

He heard a rustle—Lord Akeldama sitting down upon the couch next to his former drone.

“My dearest boy, of course I do not find you disgusting—although, we must real y have a serious discussion about this beard of yours. That was only a little turn of phrase, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. You see, I did so look forward to the possibility of having you by my side as one of us. Joined to the old fang-and-swil club and al that.”

A sniff from Biffy.

“If anything, this is my fault. I should have kept a better watch. I should not have fal en for his tricks or sent you in against him. I should not have al owed your disappearance to cause me to panic and swarm. I ought to have recognized the signs of a game in play against me and mine. But who would have believed my own kind—another vampire, another rove—would steal from me? Me! My sweet citron, I did not see the pattern. I did not see how desperate he was. I forgot that sometimes the information I carry in my own head is more valuable than the daily wonders you lovely boys unearth for me.”

At which point, when Professor Lyal real y felt things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a bang came on the office door, which then opened without his bidding.

“What—?”

It was Professor Lyal ’s turn to look up at the ceiling in an excess of emotion.

“Her most Royal Majesty, Queen Victoria, to see Lord Maccon.”

Queen Victoria marched through the door and spoke to Professor Lyal without breaking stride. “He is not here, is he? Wretched man.”

“Your Majesty!” Professor Lyal hurried from behind his desk and performed his lowest and best bow.

The Queen of England, a deceptively squat and brown personage, swept the room with an autocratic eye as though Lord Maccon, sizable specimen that he was, might manage to hide in a corner somewhere or under the rug. What her eye rested upon was the tableau of a tear-stained Biffy, clearly naked under his blanket, caught up in the arms of a peer of the realm.

“What is this? Sentiment! Who is that there? Lord Akeldama? Real y, this wil not do at al . Compose yourself this instant.”

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 Lyal came to his rescue. “You wil 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. “Wel , 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 casual y.

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

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

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

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

“Yes, yes. Excel ent, another werewolf is always welcome.” The queen bestowed a beneficent smile on the stil -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 Lyal . “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?”

Al around her, silence descended.

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

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

“Yes?”

Professor Lyal turned and looked pointedly at Lord Akeldama.

Fol owing 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.

“Wel , 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 Lyal 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 al 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 soul ess. Templar records hold that the devil spawn are not men of philosophy.

”

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

The little German pul ed out an ear tube from his case and listened to her bel y attentively.

“I am tel ing you, I have excel ent research skil s.”

“Wil it keep you quiet?”

Alexia nodded enthusiastical y.

“I shal see what I can do, ya?”

Later that day, two nervous young Templars came in carrying some ancient-looking scrol s 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 cel 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. Sil y to realize it now that it was far too late.

She bypassed the scrol s 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 cel with a new battery of tests.

“Ah,” she said, “Good afternoon. Thank you for arranging for me to look at this remarkable col ection. I did not realize curse tablets were so focused on the supernatural. I had read that they cal ed 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 al 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 col ected a sample of her blood, the German abandoned her once more to the tender mercies of the embroidering Templars.

The moment she started reading the next tablet, Alexia knew she wasn’t going to tel Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf about it. It was a smal one, and the boxy Latin letters were exceptional y tiny and painful y neat, covering both sides. Where al the previous tablets had been dedicated to daemons or to the spirits of the netherworld, this one was markedly different.

“I cal upon you, Stalker of Skins and Stealer of Souls, child of a Breaker of Curses, whoever you are, and ask that from this hour, from this night, from this moment, you steal from and weaken the vampire Primulus of Carisius. I hand over to you, if you have any power, this Sucker of Blood, for only you may take what he values most. Stealer of Souls, I consecrate to you his complexion, his strength, his healing, his speed, his breath, his fangs, his grip, his power, his soul. Stealer of Souls, if I see him mortal, sleeping when he should wake, wasting away in his human skin, I swear I wil offer a sacrifice to you every year.”

Alexia surmised that the term “Breaker of Curses” must correlate to the werewolf moniker for a preternatural, “curse-breaker,” which meant that the curse tablet was cal ing upon the child of a preternatural for aid. It was the first mention she had yet run across, however minor, of either soul ess or a child of a soul ess. She placed a hand upon her stomach and looked down at it. “Wel , hel o there, little Stalker of Skins.” She felt a brief fluttering inside her womb. “Ah, would we prefer Stealer of Souls?” The fluttering stil ed. “I see, more dignified, is it?”

She went back to the tablet, reading it over again, wishing it might give her more of a clue as to what such a creature could do and how it came into existence. She supposed it was possible that this being was just as nonexistent as the gods of the netherworld that the other tablets cal ed upon. Then again, it could be as real as the ghosts or vampires they were asked to fight against. It must have been such an odd age to have lived in, so ful of superstition and mythology, to be ruled by the Caesar’s empire hives and a bickering line of incestuous vampires.