And then, leaping up to the balcony from the street below and charging into the room via the open window came a massive beast. And atop the wolf, looking as dignified and butlerlike as might be possible for a man riding a werewolf, was Floote.
Alexia stopped trying to touch Queen Matakara and turned in a slow, ponderous manner. She felt as though she were seeing and experiencing everything underwater.
“Conall Maccon, I thought you were dead!”
Lord Maccon looked up at his wife from where he had his jaws about a vampire’s leg, let go, and barked at her.
“Do you know how I’ve been suffering for the last week? How could you? Where have you been?”
He barked again.
Alexia wanted to throw herself at him and wrap both arms and legs about him. She also wanted to whack him over the head with her parasol. But he was there and he was alive and everything was suddenly working again. The numbness vanished and Alexia took in the world around her. Her brain, somewhat absent for the better part of a week, returned to full capacity.
She looked to her butler. “Floote, what have you done?”
Floote only pulled out a gun and began shooting vampires.
“Prudence,” Alexia called sharply, “come to Mama!”
Prudence, who had been, until that moment, busy trying to suck the blood out of the arm of a very surprised drone, stopped and looked over at her mother. “No!”
Alexia used that tone of voice. The voice that Prudence rarely heard but knew meant trouble. “Right this very moment, young lady!”
For Prudence, currently a vampire, right this very moment was very fast indeed. In a veritable flash, she was at Alexia’s side. Alexia grabbed her daughter, turning her human once more, and then, without any kind of compunction at all, lifted her up and set her in the lap of Queen Matakara of Alexandria.
Prudence said, “Oh, Dama,” in a very somber voice and looked deep into the tormented eyes of the ancient vampire. Her little face was as grave and gentle as any nurse ministering to the wounded on a battlefield. She stood up on the frail woman’s lap and reached for her face.
Madame Lefoux, having somehow determined what was happening, even through the chaos, appeared on the other side of the aged queen. The inventor assessed the situation. In a few quick movements, she flipped several toggles and snaps at the bottom of Queen Matakara’s mask. The awful thing fell away, exposing the vampire’s face fully to Prudence’s metanatural touch.
Under the mask, Matakara’s skin was sunken against the bones of her chin, but it was clear she had once been quite beautiful. Her face was heart shaped with an aquiline nose, broadly spaced eyes, and small mouth.
Prudence, drawn by the newly exposed flesh, placed one small, chubby hand to the vampire’s chin. It was a sympathetic, intimate gesture, and Alexia couldn’t help but imagine that her daughter somehow knew exactly what she was doing.
Complete and total pandemonium resulted.
All the vampires in the room turned as one, leaving off whoever they had been fighting with or feeding on. They charged. This only frightened Prudence who, now a vampire once more, leaped nimbly out of the way and dashed about the room pell-mell.
Matakara, mortal and still attached to her chair, jerked against the straps and tubes, letting out a silent scream of agony.
One of the vampires turned to Alexia. “You! Soulless. Make it stop!”
Lord Maccon, still a wolf, mouth dripping with old dark vampire blood, leaped to his wife’s defense. His hackles were up, his teeth bared in a snarl.
“She cannot die,” cried out one of the vampires. Clearly more of them spoke English than Alexia had previously supposed. “We have no new queen!”
“So you, too, will die.” Lady Maccon was unsympathetic.
“More than that, we will go mad. We will take Alexandria with us. Just think of the damage even six vampires can do to one city.”
Alexia looked around. Madame Lefoux had lost her hat but otherwise stood strong. She was tussling with the beautiful female drone on the opposite side of the throne. Mr. Tumtrinkle lay fallen in one corner. Alexia wasn’t certain he still breathed. Several of the other thespians were looking worse for the wear. One of the younger, prettier actresses bled copiously from multiple neck bites. Floote stood in the midst of the melee, wooden knife in one hand, an expression of utterly unbutlerlike ferocity on his face. When he caught Alexia’s eye, his customary impassivity immediately returned. Then, coming from the far side of the room, Alexia heard a strangled choking sound and saw Tunstell sobbing, his red head bent over the crumpled form of Ivy.
Alexia’s friend lay broken and bloodied, her neck a ruin of torn flesh. Baby Primrose, unharmed, lay squalling in the crook of Ivy’s flaccid arm. Tunstell scooped the child up and clutched her to his breast, still sobbing.
A shout distracted Alexia from the tragic scene—one of the other vampires managed to capture Prudence. He ran toward Alexia with the toddler’s struggling form held out at arm’s length, as if in an egg-and-spoon race. Alexia knew he would try to hand her the child. She dodged away. Not that she didn’t love her daughter, but right then she certainly didn’t want to touch her.
Lord Maccon snarled and intercepted the attack, perfectly understanding Alexia’s predicament.
“Wait!” yelled Alexia. “I have an idea. Chancellor, what if we could get you a new queen?”The vampire stepped forward. “That is an acceptable proposal, if Matakara has the strength to try and we have a volunteer? Who do you suggest?”
Alexia looked thoughtfully at Madame Lefoux.
Even in the middle of grappling intimately with the beautiful drone, the Frenchwoman shook her head madly. The inventor had never sought immortality.
“Don’t worry, Genevieve, I had someone else in mind.”
Around her everything stilled as Alexia walked across the room to where Ivy Tunstell lay. Her bosom companion’s breathing was shallow, her face unnaturally pale. She did not look long for this world. Alexia was familiar enough with death to know when it stalked a friend. She swallowed down hard on her own unhappiness and looked to Ivy’s beloved husband. “Well, Tunstell, how would you like to be married to a queen?”
Tunstell’s eyes were red but it took him no time at all to make the decision. He had once been a claviger and had spent his life on the fringe of immortal society. He had sacrificed his own bid for metamorphosis to marry Miss Ivy Hisselpenny. He had no compunctions or reservations. If Ivy were to be dead or a vampire, he would rather her be a vampire. Tunstell was the most progressive man Alexia had ever met.
“Try it, Lady Maccon, I entreat you.”
So Alexia signaled to one of the vampires in that utterly autocratic way of hers. The vampire came to do her bidding, when only a few minutes earlier he might have killed her where she stood. He carried Ivy over to drape her on Matakara, setting the actress on the queen’s lap like a ventriloquist’s doll and arranging her to lie back so Ivy’s neck was near Matakara’s mouth. Ivy’s head lolled back.
Chancellor Neshi pulled a set of leather belts with chain links attached and strapped them over Ivy, lashing her tightly against his queen. Then he turned and nodded at Lady Maccon.
Alexia took Prudence into her arms.
Queen Matakara turned back to a vampire.
She began spouting a string of words, ancient-sounding words, not Arabic at all but some other language. Her voice was commanding, melodic, and very direct. Chancellor Neshi leaped to her side and bent to her ear, whispering frantically. The other vampires stilled, waiting.
Alexia wasn’t quite certain what they thought was happening. Would they know that their queen was still destined to die? Did they know the bargain the chancellor was striking? Did they understand the ancient tongue, or did they still think there was a chance?
Chancellor Neshi leaped back down and approached Alexia. When Conall growled and would not let him near, Alexia said, “All is well, husband. I do believe I know what he wants.”
Chancellor Neshi sidled past the still-bristling wolf. “She desires your assurance, Soulless, that you will see the deed done, whether this metamorphosis is successful or not.”
“You have my word,” said Alexia. She was thinking of Countess Nadasdy, a younger and stronger queen. The countess had failed to metamorphose a new queen. Yet here Alexia was wagering all their lives on Ivy Tunstell having excess soul and Queen Matakara enough strength to draw it out of her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
How to Retire to the Countryside
Chancellor Neshi nodded, once, to the ancient queen. At his signal, Matakara bent forward, opening her mouth wide. Unlike Countess Nadasdy, she didn’t appear to need any kind of drinking cup for preparation. Her fangs, Alexia noted, were particularly long—her makers even longer than her feeders. Perhaps it was a factor of her age. Perhaps when queens got too old, all they could do was try to make a replacement queen. Perhaps that was the problem: Matakara needed to breed more than she needed to eat. She had been kept alive long past that time. Her hive should have been doing nothing but giving her girls to try to change over, thought Alexia. Then again, she probably would have gone through a large number of girls that way. Local authorities wouldn’t have been too chuffed.
The ancient vampire sank both sets of fangs deep into the flesh of Ivy’s already-lacerated neck. Matakara could not move her arms to hold Ivy. She kept herself attached by the strength of her jaw and with the aid of the straps that held Ivy against her. The queen’s dark eyes, visible over the fall of Ivy’s black hair, had lost a little of their eternal sorrow and looked almost contemplative. She moved not one muscle as she sucked, except that like Countess Nadasdy, there was a strange up-and-down fluttering in her emaciated neck.
Ivy Tunstell remained limp for a very long time. Everyone in that room held their breath, waiting. Except Conall, of course, who paced around growling at people. The earl had very little sense of gravity in any given situation.
Then Ivy’s whole body jerked and her eyes popped open, wide, startled, looking directly at Alexia. She began to scream. Tunstell made a lunge toward her but one of the other vampires grabbed him and held him back. Ivy’s pupils dilated, darkening and extending outward until both her eyeballs were a deep bloodred.
Alexia knew what came next. Ivy’s eyes would begin to bleed, and she would continue to scream until those screams became garbled by the blood pouring from her mouth. Of course Ivy doesn’t have excess soul! Stupid of me to even think it.
Except that Ivy’s eyes did not start to drip blood. Instead, the darkness in them began to recede, until eventually they were the velvety brown of her true self. Ivy stopped screaming, closed her eyes, and began to jerk violently from side to side as though undergoing a kind of fit. Her copious dark ringlets bobbed about her face and her tiny admiral’s cap gave up its grip upon her hair—after enduring so much during the battle—and tumbled to the floor, its white plume sagging sadly.
Ivy opened her mouth once more, but not to scream this time. Oh, there was blood dripping out, but it was blood from the fangs, four of them, as they broke through her gums and extended forth, shining in the candlelight. Ivy’s face, already fashionably pale, became ashen white. Her hair took on an even bouncier and glossier sheen, and she opened her eyes once more. With a tiny shrug, she threw off the thick leather and metal straps, snapping them easily as if they were no more than gossamer silk. She leaped down from the throne to land, light and easy on the floor of the chamber.
She lisped around her new teeth, “What an odd sethathion. Tunny dathling, did I faint? Oh, my hath!” Bending, she retrieved her admiral’s hat and popped it firmly back upon her head.
Behind her, Queen Matakara looked even more sunken and bloodless than ever before. She slumped forward, only the artifice of the chair keeping her upright.
Chancellor Neshi said to Alexia, “Your promise, Soulless?”
Alexia nodded and moved forward, this time unhindered by any vampires. She climbed upon the dais and pressed her hand to the ancient vampire’s arm in one small spot where the skin was free of straps and tubes.
Queen Matakara, King Hatshepsut, last of the Great Pharaohs, Oldest Vampire, died right then and there at Alexia’s touch. There was no fanfare, no screaming in pain. She let out a tiny sigh and slipped out of her immortal cage at last. It was both the worst thing Alexia’s preternatural state had forced her to do and the best, for the expression in those dark eyes was, for the very first time, one of absolute peace.
In the silent stillness of wonder that followed, while drones and vampires adjusted themselves and their tethers to a new queen, Chancellor Neshi picked up Prudence. Prudence turned, yet again, into a vampire, and before anyone could stop him, the chancellor dashed on chubby legs out the window to the balcony and jumped over the edge, falling to his death in the street below.