The man picked up the teapot, and Sophronia, with an apology to the tea gods for the waste, sprang at the man, animal-like. She had the acid spray pointed at him in one hand, and her trusty fan was open, leather guard flicked off, in the other.
The acid hit him first. It took the Pickleman a split second to react to her attack. That was often the problem with big thuggish men—they were slow.
Then he yelled, both hands flying to scrape at his face, dropping the teapot in his distress. This spilled hot liquid in his lap, which caused him to scream again. He fell backward in the chair, getting tangled up in its arms and legs. By which time Sophronia was on top of him. This was not a womanly maneuver, and he was certainly strong enough to toss her off, except that she had her fan pressed to his jugular. She made certain to prick his skin so there was no doubt as to the danger.
He was crying openly and wiping his eyes, but he stopped the moment he felt the sharp metal against his throat.
“May I suggest that you stay quite still, sir?” Sophronia was careful not to forget her manners. After all, the headmistress was right there. Her voice was deadly confident. “You, I do not feel so kindly toward as I did my last victim.”
“What? Who?” He shuddered, wanting desperately to toss her off.
Sophronia pocketed the acid without looking away. She brought her free hand to his neck, above where her fan pricked. She pressed down firm and steady, cutting into his air intake, listening for the wheeze.
“Don’t you worry about him, sir. He’s all taken care of. And now I’ll be taking care of you, too.” Without turning, Sophronia asked, “Mademoiselle Geraldine, do you think you can scoot your chair over here? I have a knife somewhere, for your bonds.”
Mademoiselle Geraldine’s voice replied, “No need, my dear. I’ve had them undone for some time.”
Sophronia was unsurprised, but she did not look up. “I suggest you unlock Professor Braithwope, then. We are, after all, enjoying tea. I should think he’d be grateful for a drop or two of the warm stuff himself, what with Professor Lefoux gone these many hours.”
“My dear girl, what a cracking idea.” There was a rustle of skirts as the headmistress moved around the prone Pickleman, feeling about his waistcoat for the keys. The man twitched. Sophronia pressed down with both her hands. A trickle of blood appeared from under the edge of her fan. Good. That would draw Professor Braithwope’s attention.
Deep Voice fell still.
The click and clang of the cage being unlocked followed, and then a faint hiss and the smell of escaping gas.
“He tapped this contraption into our own gas lighting lines—quite ingenious, actually.” Mademoiselle Geraldine seemed most impressed. “Best way to hold a vampire at short notice. Ah, there we are, my dear Professor. Right this way. We’ve prepared a light repast for you to enjoy after such a trying evening. I shall find your robe, shall I?”
A force slammed into Sophronia, pushing her violently aside. She rolled with it, away from the tea table, coming up to her feet, still holding the fan at the ready.
While Professor Braithwope might be insane by most standards, his feeding instincts functioned fine. They would be the last to go in any creature, Sophronia supposed. Although his table manners did leave something to be desired. This was only a casual tea, yet he was positively animalistic in his slurping.
The prone Pickleman writhed and gurgled but could do nothing to stop the vampire. Even weakened from torture, and having been confined without sustenance, Professor Braithwope was more than a match for a mere human. Not to mention the fact that after losing blood himself to the wooden knife of this captor, his urge to feed must be overwhelming. Really, the Pickleman had brought this on himself.
Mademoiselle Geraldine joined Sophronia, carrying Professor Braithwope’s yellow banyan robe and looking on with complete indifference.
“It is troubling when a civilized creature becomes so gutfoundered he forgets technique. I had a fancy man like that once.”
“Oh?” Sophronia was wildly curious, but the headmistress left it there.
The two ladies watched silently until Mademoiselle Geraldine added, “One ought to look away in disgust, I suppose.”
“Agreed,” said Sophronia. “But the one is our enemy and the other mad—we must think to our own skins.”
“Well put, young lady.” Mademoiselle Geraldine spoke to her as if she were almost an equal. It was charming. “You have a plan?”
“Of a kind.” Sophronia handed the headmistress her spare knife, filched from the kitchen, and the remaining acid. “Keep an eye on things here for a moment, would you, please?”
Mademoiselle Geraldine nodded.
Sophronia nipped out, retrieved Bumbersnoot and his two charges, and returned, shutting and locking the door behind her.
“Do we let him feed the man dry?” The headmistress’s tone was conversational.
Sophronia frowned. “I trust to your judgment in this. I will say, however, that if we did so, a man would be dead, and you likely know better than I how many legal issues always arise from that.”
The headmistress sniffed. “He wasn’t very nice to poor Professor Braithwope.”
“Perhaps we should ask him, then.”
“Excellent notion.” Mademoiselle Geraldine shook the vampire by the shoulder. “Oh, Professor?”
No response. The Pickleman was extremely pale under that seedling beard and looking husklike from lack of blood.