—the Templars were already retired for the evening, undertaking some form of extended silent prayer.
While Madame Lefoux fussed with refil ing the parasol and Floote went to do mysterious butler-type duties, Alexia hunted down the library. When no one stopped her, she began reading various books and records with interest. She had Ivy’s little clipping with her and paused to reread it now and again. A printed admission of guilt, imagine that? She found herself humming from time to time. You see, infant-inconvenience, it’s not so bad.
She did not find the information she was chiefly interested in: anything pertaining to the preternatural breeding program or concerning Templar use of soul ess agents.
However, she did find enough entertaining reading matter to keep her occupied well into the night. It was far later than she thought when she final y looked up to find the temple utterly silent around her, and not in the way of an edifice fil ed with prayer and soft movements. No, this was the silence of sleeping brains that only ghosts were comfortable experiencing.
Alexia padded toward her room, but then, sensing a presence she was not quite certain she could name, she shifted in her purposeful tread and veered down a smal hal way. It was undecorated: there were no crosses nor any other religious effigies, and it ended in a tight stairwel that she might have thought only used by servants, except that it was arched and mossy and had the feel of immense age about it.
Alexia decided to explore.
This was, it must be admitted, probably not the most intel igent decision of her life.
But how often is one given the opportunity to investigate an ancient passageway in a sacred temple in Italy?
The stairs down were indeed steep and slightly wet, as the back ends of caves wil get no matter the climate. Alexia steadied herself with one hand against the damp wal , trying not to think about whether said wal had been cleaned recently. The stairs seemed to go down a very, very long way, ejecting her at the end into another undecorated hal way that in turn ended in what was possibly the most disappointing little room imaginable.
She could see that it was a room because, and this was peculiar, the door to the room was glass. She walked up and peeked through.
A smal chamber lay before her, wal s and floors of dingy limestone, with no paint nor other form of decoration. The only piece of furniture was a smal pedestal in the center of the room, on top of which stood a jar.
The door was locked, and Alexia, resourceful as she was, had not yet learned to pick locks, though she mental y added it to her list of useful skil s she needed to acquire, along with hand-to-hand combat and the recipe for pesto. If her life were to continue on its present track, which, after twenty-six years of obscurity now seemed to mainly involve people trying to kil her, it would appear that acquiring a less savory skil set might be necessary. Although, she supposed, pesto-making ought to be termed more savory.
She squinted through the door. It was paned with smal squares of old leaded glass that were warping and sagging in their frames. This meant that the room within shifted and wiggled, and she squirmed around trying to see. She just couldn’t quite make out what was inside the jar, and then final y she got the correct angle and was abruptly rather queasy to her stomach.
The jar held a severed human hand. It was floating in some liquid, probably formaldehyde.
A tactful little cough sounded behind her, just soft enough not to startle.
Alexia stil jumped practical y out of her fril y orange dress in surprise. Upon landing, she whirled around.
“Floote!”
“Good evening, madam.”
“Come look at this, Floote. They have a human hand in a jar in the middle of an empty room. Aren’t the Italians strange?”
“Yes, madam.” Floote didn’t come over, only nodded as though every house in Italy had such a thing. Alexia supposed this might be possible. Gruesome, but possible.
“But don’t you think, madam, it may be time for bed? It would not do for anyone to find us in the Inner Sanctum.”
“Oh, is that where we are?”
Floote nodded and extended a gracious arm for Alexia to precede him back up the tiny staircase.
Alexia took his advice, as there was apparently nothing else to see besides the random human body part. “Is it very common, in Italy, to keep a jar ful of hand, just lying about?”
“For the Templars, madam.”
“Uh, why?”
“It is a relic, madam. Should the temple come under serious threat from the supernatural, the preceptor wil break the jar and use the relic to defend the brotherhood.”
Alexia thought she might understand. She had heard of holy relics in connection with some Catholic cults. “Is it the body part of some saint?”
“They have those, too, of course, but in this case, it is an unholy relic, a weapon. The body part of a preternatural.”
Alexia shut her mouth on her next question with a snap. She was surprised she hadn’t been physical y repulsed by the hand as she had been by the mummy. Then she remembered the daemon detector. She and the disembodied hand hadn’t been sharing the same air. She supposed that was why the jar had to be broken in case of emergency.
They proceeded the rest of the way to their rooms in silence, Alexia mul ing over the implications of that hand and becoming more and more worried as a result.
Floote stopped Alexia before she retired. “Your father, madam, was ful y cremated. I made absolutely certain.”
Alexia swal owed silently and then said fervently, “Thank you, Floote.”
He nodded once—his face, as always, impassive.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Great Scotch Egg Under the Thames
Much to Lord Maccon’s annoyance, the acquisition operation, as Professor Lyal had termed it, was taking far longer than intended. Impatient to be off after his errant wife, the Alpha was instead stalking back and forth in the drawing room of Buckingham Palace awaiting an audience with Queen Victoria.
He was stil unsure as to how Lyal had, in fact, managed to keep him in London al these days. Betas, in the end, were mysterious creatures with strange powers. Powers that, when al was said and done, seemed to involve nothing more than a continued battery of civilized behavior and an excess of manners. Effective, blast him.
Professor Lyal sat on an uncomfortable couch, one stylishly clad leg crossed over the other, and watched his Alpha pace.
“I stil don’t see why we had to come here, of al places.”
The Beta pushed at his spectacles. It was nearing the afternoon of his third day awake in a row, and he was beginning to experience the effects of prolonged daylight exposure. He felt drawn and tired, and al he wanted to do in the world was return to his tiny bed at Woolsey Castle and sleep the afternoon away. Instead, he was stuck dealing with an increasingly edgy Alpha. “I have said it before, and I shal say it again—you wil need sundowner authorization for this, my lord.”
“Yes, but couldn’t you have come and gotten it for me afterward?”
“No, I couldn’t, and you know it. This is too complicated. Stop complaining.”
Lord Maccon stopped for the simple reason that, as usual, Lyal was correct. It had gotten very complicated. Once they’d discovered the location of the stolen object, they’d sent a river rat in to assess the place. The poor lad had come back soaking wet and in an absolute panic, justly earned, as it turned out. Their quick theft and retrieval operation had turned into something far more problematic.
Professor Lyal was a wolf who liked to look on the practical side of any given situation. “At least now we know why Lord Akeldama went into such a tizzy, pul ed in al his drones, and ran.”
“I didn’t realize roves could swarm, but I suppose they have the same protective instincts as hives.”
“And Lord Akeldama is a particularly old vampire with a peculiarly large number of drones. He is liable to be overprotective when one is stolen.”
“I cannot believe I’m stuck here involving myself in vampiric tomfoolery. I should be hunting my wife, not one of Lord Akeldama’s drones.”
“The potentate wanted Lord Akeldama panicked for a reason. Your wife is that reason. So, essential y, this is your problem, and you have to deal with it before you leave.”
“Vampires.”
“Exactly so, my lord, exactly so.” Professor Lyal ’s calmness covered his genuine worry. He had met Biffy only once or twice, but he liked the lad. General y acknowledged as Lord Akeldama’s favorite, Biffy was a pretty young thing, calm and capable. He genuinely loved and was loved by his outrageous master. For the potentate to drone-nap him was the height of bad taste. The greatest unwritten law of the supernatural set was that one simply didn’t steal someone else’s human. Werewolves did not poach clavigers, for the key-keepers were vital to the safety of the greater population. And vampires did not take each other’s drones, because, quite frankly, one doesn’t interfere with another’s food source. The very idea! And yet, they were now in possession of eyewitness testimony to the fact that this was exactly what the potentate had done to Lord Akeldama.
Poor Biffy.
“Her Majesty wil see you now, Lord Maccon.”
The earl straightened his spine. “Righty’o.”
Professor Lyal checked his Alpha’s appearance. “Now be polite. ”
Lord Maccon gave him a dour look. “I have met the queen before, you know.”
“Oh, I know. That is why I am reminding you.”
Lord Maccon ignored his Beta and fol owed the footman into Queen Victoria’s il ustrious presence.
In the end, Queen Victoria granted Lord Maccon sanction in his attempt to rescue Biffy.
She refused to believe the potentate was involved, but if, in fact, a drone had been kidnapped, she thought it only right that the earl, in his capacity as head of the London BUR offices and chief sundowner, rectify the situation. It was untenable, she claimed, given her experience with vampire loyalty and trust, even among roves, that any vampire would steal another’s drone.
“But supposing, Your Majesty, just this once, it has accidental y occurred? And that Lord Akeldama has swarmed as a result.”
“Why, then you should carry on, Lord Maccon, carry on.”
“I always forget how short she is,” the earl commented to Professor Lyal as they readied themselves to “carry on” later that evening. Lord Maccon took the queen’s tacit permission to mean he could use his Galand Tue Tue, which he was busy cleaning and loading. It was a graceless little revolver, portly with a square grip and hardwood bul ets caged and capped with silver—the Sundowner model designed to kil mortals, vampires, or werewolves. Lord Maccon had designed a watertight, oiled leather case for the gun, which he wore about his neck so that it might be with him whether he was in wolf or human form. Since they would be traveling fast, wolf seemed the most sensible way to get through London.
Biffy, they had learned, was imprisoned inside a rather fantastic contraption. Lord Maccon was stil upset that the instal ation of this device had escaped BUR’s notice. It was, according to the trusty river rat, a man-sized sphere made of glass and brass with one large tube coming out its top. The tube was to conduct breathable air, because the sphere had been sunk into the middle of the Thames just under the Charing Cross Rail Bridge near Buckingham Palace. Not unsurprisingly, it had sunk not just into the water, but some way down into the thick mud and garbage at the bottom of the river as well .