“Well, you see, madam, we are currently out of the darker colors. If madam would like to put in an order—”
“No, madam would not like! Madam would like a set of the hairmuffs right this very moment!” At this juncture, Alexia contemplated stamping her foot, but that was probably excessively dramatic, even for this audience.
Instead, she waddled over to the muff display stand near the shop window. She grabbed a cluster of her own curls, artfully arranged over the shoulder of her blue and green plaid visiting dress, and waved them at the stand. Then she backed off as though physically repulsed by the mismatch.
“You see?” She stood away and pointed with the tip of her parasol at the offending hairmuffs.
The shopgirl did see. So, in fact, did all the other ladies present. What they saw was that Lady Maccon, only a few days from her confinement, had still extricated herself from bed and the bosom of her husband’s affection in order to come to this very shop to buy hairmuffs. They must, perforce, be back en mode. Lady Maccon, wife to the Earl of Woolsey, was known to fraternize with the trendsetters and fashion leaders of the ton. She herself might prefer more practical garb, especially in her present state, but if she was buying hairmuffs, then Lord Akeldama approved the accessory. If Lord Akeldama approved, then the vampires approved, and if the vampires approved, well, that was simply it: hairmuffs must be the living end.
Suddenly, every lady in that shop had to have a set of Mrs. Tunstells’ Hairmuffs for the Elevated Lady Traveler. They all stopped admiring whatever hat they were fawning over and swarmed the little stand. Even those who had absolutely no intention of ever setting foot on board a dirigible suddenly were in a mad passion to own hairmuffs. For what became fashionable for floating descended to the ground—witness the craze for decorative goggles.
Lady Maccon was swarmed by a gaggle of bustled and trussed ladies, all grabbing for the muffs, squealing at each other while they tried desperately to snatch the colors that matched their own coiffures. There was even a little pushing and some shortness of breath. It was practically a rout.
The shopgirls obligingly descended into the milieu as well, notepads out, trying to convince the ladies not to purchase right away but to place an order for the appropriate color and perhaps multiple styles and different-size ringlets as well.
In the resulting chaos, Lady Maccon extracted herself and lurched, as stealthily as was within her limited capacity, to the very back of the shop. Here, in a shadowed corner under an attractive display of gloves, was the handle to the entrance to the ascension chamber. She activated it, the hidden door swinging quietly open. Alexia noted with relief that the chamber was already at the upper level waiting for her. She clambered inside, drawing the door to the shop closed behind her.
After many months of friendship, not to mention parasol maintenance and aethographor repairs, Alexia was more than familiar with the operation of Madame Lefoux’s ascension chamber. What once had upset her stomach and frightened her was now standard procedure on her visiting rounds. She flipped the lever that operated the windlass machine and did not even stumble when the contraption landed with a jarring thud.
Lady Maccon waddled down the passageway and thumped loudly at the contrivance chamber door.
Silence.
Figuring that Madame Lefoux probably could not hear her knock, for inside the chamber was always a cacophony of mechanical noises, she let herself in.
It took her a long moment of scanning over all the piles of machinery, but she eventually became convinced that Madame Lefoux really was not in residence. Nor was her new contraption. The shopgirl had not lied in the interest of social niceties. Madame Lefoux was definitely unavailable. Alexia pursed her lips. Genevieve had said something about relocating in order to put the finishing touches to the latest invention. Alexia debated trying to remember where and following her there or simply leaving the papers behind. They’ll probably be safe enough. She placed them on a nearby metal tabletop and was about to depart when she heard something.
Alexia had no werewolf’s hearing to be able to note some strange noise among the rattling, humming, hissing clatter. Even without the Frenchwoman in residence, some machines never ceased their activity. But she definitely heard another sound, an underlying keen to the rattles that might, or might not, be human in origin.
It might also be a very excited mouse.
Lady Maccon contemplated not getting involved. She also contemplated not using her parasol—after all, some of the machines in that chamber might be engaged in some delicate feat of manufacturing that could not afford to be paused midclatter. In Alexia’s case, contemplation was never signified by more than a pause before performing the action she would have taken, contemplation or no.
She took her parasol firmly in hand, raised it high above her head, and activated the magnetic disruption emitter by pulling down on the appropriate lotus leaf in the handle with her thumb.
Silence descended—the unnatural silence of work stilled midmotion. If Alexia had been a fanciful girl, she would have said it was like time freezing, but she wasn’t, so she didn’t. She merely listened for the one sound that didn’t stop.
It came, a low keening wail, and Alexia realized that she was familiar with just such a noise. Not a sound made by the living, but still a sound made rather than a sound manufactured. It was the intermittent sharp cry of second-death, and Alexia had a pretty good guess as to who was suffering it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Formerly Beatrice Lefoux
Formerly Lefoux. Formerly Lefoux, is that you?” Alexia tried to make her voice gentle.
The silence stretched and then the faraway screaming came again.
There was something inexorably sad about the sound, as though it were that much worse to die a second time. It moved even Lady Maccon’s practical heart. “Formerly Lefoux, please, I will not harm you. I promise. I can bring you peace, if you would like, or simply be here with you. I promise, no soulless touch unless you request it. Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing I could do. I don’t even know where your body is kept.”
The magnetic disruption wore off at that juncture, and the contrivance chamber sprang back into humming, clanking motion. Right next to Alexia’s head, a contraption that looked like a tuba, a sleigh, and a mustache trimmer cobbled together let out the most amazing sound of reverberating flatulence. Lady Maccon started in disgust and moved hurriedly away.
“Please, Formerly Lefoux, I should very much like to ask you something. I need your help.”
The ghost materialized into existence out of a massive glass valve to Alexia’s left. Or, more properly, she materialized as much as she was able into existence, which wasn’t all that much anymore. Bits of her were now drifting off in spiraling fuzzy tendrils. Her shape was no longer human, but more cloudlike, as little wisps of her noncorporeal form fought against the aether currents. Many of those currents were now centered in on Lady Maccon, so the ghostly parts were carried toward Alexia. The vampires called preternaturals soul-suckers, but science was coming around to thinking of them more as aether absorbers. This particular phenomenon of her physiology was only really visible when she shared the room with a dying ghost.
“Soulless!” screamed Formerly Lefoux once she had found her voice, or possibly, found her voice box. She spoke in French. “Why are you here? Where is my niece? What has she done? What have you done? Where is the octomaton? What. What? Who is that screaming? Is that me? How can that be me and this be me, talking to you? You. Soulless? What are you doing here? Where is my niece?”
It was like some broken symphony destined to repeat the same few lines of music over and over again. The ghost was caught up in a loop of reasoning. Periodically, Formerly Lefoux interrupted herself to cry out, a long low moan of agony to accompany the wail of second-death. Whether it was pain of the spirit or pain in truth was difficult to tell, but it sounded to Alexia not unlike poor Biffy being forced into werewolf shift.
Alexia straightened her spine. Before her lay her preternatural duty, staring her in the face. That didn’t occur very often. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have asked Genevieve for permission, but the inventor was gone. She had abandoned her poor aunt in this state. The ghost was suffering.
“Formerly Lefoux,” she said politely, “I am in the unique position to offer you?.?.?.?that is, I could?.?.?.?Oh, dash it, would you like an exorcism?”
“Death? Death! Are you asking me if I want death, soulless? To not exist at all.” The ghost twirled like a child’s toy, spiraling all the way up to the beams of the contrivance chamber ceiling. The tendrils of her fleshless body swirled around like the feathers of one of Ivy’s more excitable hats. Floating far above, the ghost became contemplative. “I have served my time. I have taught. Not many get to say that. I have touched lives. I have finished them all. And I have done it after I died as well.” She paused and drifted back down. “Not that I like children all that much. What can a ghost do? When my niece, my lovely intelligent girl, became enamored of that awful woman. All I taught her was gone. Then the boy. Just like his mother. Devious. Who thought I should end up teaching a boy child? And now. Look what it has all come to. Death. My death, and a soulless offering me succor. Unnatural. All of it. Preternatural girl, what good are you to me?”
“I can give you serenity.” Lady Maccon’s eyebrow was quirked. Really, ghosts in near poltergeist phase did ramble most awfully.
“I don’t want peace. I want hope. Can you give me that?”
Sympathy, so far as Alexia was concerned, only went so far. “Very well, then, this is getting disturbingly philosophical. Formerly Lefoux, if you’d rather not have my aid in the matter of your existence, or lack thereof, I should probably be on my way. Do try not to wail so loudly. They will hear you in the street above, and then BUR will be called. Frankly, the Bureau really doesn’t need this kind of additional work on full moon.”
The ghost floated back down. For a moment, she recollected herself, switching from French to heavily accented English. “No, wait. I will?.?.?.?What will I? Oh, yez, I will show you. Follow me.”
She began bobbing slowly across the room. She had no concern for obstacles or pathways through the devices, instruments, and tools of Madame Lefoux’s collection, merely floating in a straight line. Alexia, who was more substantial in every understanding of the word, made her cumbersome way after. She lost sight of the ghost on more than one occasion, but eventually they ended up in a corner of the massive room, next to a large barrel that rested on its side and was marked with the logo of a well-respected pickled onion manufacturer.
As Formerly Lefoux neared the barrel, she became more and more substantial, until she was almost her old self—the ghost Alexia had first met nearly half a year ago. A tall, gaunt, severe-looking older woman, in clothing years out of date and small spectacles, who bore a marked resemblance to Madame Lefoux. There might even once have been dimples.
The keening wail was much louder here, although it still seemed to be coming from some distance away, with an echo as though emanating from the bottom of a mine.
“I do apologize. I can’t stop that,” said the ghost at Alexia’s wince.