“Oh, don’t fuss about her,” yelled Felicity. “Help me! I’m far more important.”

Boots ignored Miss Loontwill and directed the pilot to float in until the gondola section of the basket was just under Lady Maccon.

The building lurched at exactly that moment, and Alexia, with a cry, lost her purchase on the beam.

She landed with a thud inside the basket. Her feet failed her and she went backward, once more onto the bustle, which had very little resilience left after the evening’s extensive abuse. After a moment’s consideration, Alexia just flopped right there on her back. Enough was enough.

“Now me, now meee!” shrieked Felicity, and she seemed to have good cause, for the structure was indeed falling.

Boots looked the young woman up and down, no doubt taking in the bite marks on her white neck. The remains of the house might well be tumbling down that very moment, but he hesitated.

“Lady Maccon?” Boots was a very well-trained drone.

Alexia sucked at her teeth and looked up at her sister. “If we must.”

The pilot gave the balloon some lift and it rose. Tizzy put out his arm politely, as though escorting Miss Loontwill in to dinner, and Felicity stepped off the ledge and into the dirigible with all the dignity of a terrified kitten.

The building crumbled behind her. The pilot pulled one of his propeller levers hard, and the airship let out a great puff of steam and surged forward, just in time to escape a large chunk of roof as the last of the hive house crumbled to the ground.

“Where to, Lady Maccon?”

Alexia looked up at Boots, who was crouched over her in evident concern. The child inside her was continuing to express its distress with the night’s events. Lady Maccon could think of but one place to go, with her husband out of commission and the moon still high and bright above them. All of her normal hidey-holes were inaccessible: Madame Lefoux’s contrivance chamber was out of the picture, and the Tunstells were still in Scotland.

BUR, she was confident, would already be investigating the scene of the destruction below or chasing the octomaton as it crashed through the city. BUR had an arsenal of weaponry at its disposal—their own aethertronic Gatling guns, mini-magnatronic cannons, not to mention Mandalson custard probes. Let them try to stop Madame Lefoux for a while. They probably wouldn’t be any more successful than she, given the inventor’s intellectual skills and mechanical abilities, but they might slow her down. Alexia, after all, had only a parasol. Then she swore, realizing that she didn’t even have that anymore. It was lying below, probably buried under half a collapsed building. Ethel was secured in the reticule tied at her waist, but her precious parasol was gone.

“I’m certain you gentlemen would agree with me. It’s at times like this that what a girl needs is some serious council on her attire.”

Boots and Tizzy looked with deep concern at Alexia’s sorry state of dress, her bustle flattened, her hem filthy, her lacy trim soot-covered and burned.

“Bond Street?” suggested Tizzy seriously.

Alexia arched a brow. “Oh, no, this is a profound clothing emergency. Please, take me to Lord Akeldama.”

“At once, Lady Maccon, at once.” Boots’s face was suitably grave behind the muttonchops. The dirigible floated up a little higher and, with another violent puff of steam, set a brisk glide north toward Lord Akeldama’s town house.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Where Dirigibles Fear to Tread

Lord Akeldama had arranged for a dirigible landing green to be built on the roof of his town house. It was shifted off to one side, allowing room for his aethographor’s cuspidor-like receiver. Lady Maccon wondered that she had not noticed this before, but then she didn’t spend much time investigating rooftops as part of her daily routine.

The dirigible touched down as light as a meringue. Given that bipedal motion hadn’t been doing her many favors that evening, Alexia reluctantly clambered to her feet. Much to her delight, Lord Akeldama had made allowances for a dignified exit from the transport here at its home base. A drone bustled over with a specially designed peaked step ladder that flipped over the side of the gondola basket and then telescoped out to the required height on each side. This permitted one to climb up one side and down the other with great solemnity and aplomb.

“Why,” wondered Alexia, “don’t you float around already carrying that little ladder?”

“We thought nobody would be disembarking before we returned home.”

Felicity climbed out after her sister and stood in haughty disapproval to one side. “What a way to travel! One can hardly countenance how acceptable floating has become. So unnaturally high up. And to land on a roof! Why, Alexia, I can see the tops of buildings. They are not landscaped properly!” All the while complaining, Felicity patted at her hair to ensure it hadn’t been disturbed by air travel or her near-death experience.

“Oh, Felicity, do be quiet. I have had quite enough of your prattle for one evening.”

Summoned by that secret instinct possessed only by the very best of servants, who always know when the mistress is in residence, Floote appeared at Alexia’s elbow.

“Oh, Floote!”

“Madam.”

“How did you know I would be here?”

Floote arched a brow as though to say, Where else would you possibly end up on full-moon night but on Lord Akeldama’s rooftop?

“Yes, of course. Would you please take Felicity here back to our house and lock her in a room somewhere? The back parlor. Or possibly the newly configured wine cellar.”

Felicity shrieked, “What?”

Floote looked at Felicity with an expression that was as close to a smile as Alexia had ever seen on his face—a tiny little crinkle at one corner of his mouth. “Consider it done, madam.”

“Thank you, Floote.”

The butler took a very firm grip on Felicity’s arm and began leading her off.

“Oh, and, Floote, please send someone to check around the rubble of the Westminster Hive house right away, before the scavengers get there. I believe I accidentally dropped my parasol. And there might be some nice bits of art lying about.”

Floote didn’t even flinch at the knowledge that one of the most respected residences in London was now in ruins. “Of course, madam. I assume it is now permitted to give out the address?”

Lady Maccon gave it to him.

He moved smoothly off, dragging the protesting Felicity behind him.

“Sister, really, this is uncalled for. Is it the tooth marks? Is that what has you overset? There are only a few.”

“Miss Felicity,” Alexia heard Floote say, “do try to behave.”

Boots, finished mooring down the dirigible, came up next to Alexia and offered her his arm. “Lady Maccon?”

She took it gratefully. The infant-inconvenience really was being quite troublesome at the moment. She felt as though she’d swallowed a fighting ferret.

“Perhaps you could take me to the, uh, closet, Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps? I feel I ought to lie down. Just for a moment, mind you. There is still a loose hive to deal with. I suppose I should try to determine where Countess Nadasdy has gone. And Madame Lefoux, of course. She should not be allowed to rampage.”

“Certainly not, my lady,” agreed Boots. Who clearly felt, as Alexia did, that rampaging under any circumstances was uncalled for.

They had barely made it off the roof and down the staircases toward Lord Akeldama’s second best closet when a panting drone appeared before them. He was a tall and comely fellow with an affable face, a mop of curly hair, and a loose, floppy way of walking. He also had the most poorly tied cravat Alexia had ever seen within walking distance of Lord Akeldama. She looked with shock at Boots.

“New drone,” Boots explained to Lady Maccon before turning amicably to face the young man.

“What ho, Boots!”

“Chip chip, Shabumpkin. Looking for me?”

“Rather!”

“Ah! Need a mo’ to see her ladyship squared away properly.”

“Oh, no, not just you, my dear chap. Looking for Lady Maccon as well. Care to follow?”

Alexia looked at the young man as though he had crawled from somewhere smelly. “Must I?”

“?’Fraid so, your ladyship. Himself has called an emergency meeting of the Shadow Council,” explained the drone.

“But it’s full moon??the dewan can’t attend.”

“Several of us pointed this out to him. Niggling detail, said he.”

“Oh, dear. Not at Buckingham, I hope?” Alexia clutched at her stomach, appalled at the very idea of any further travel.

The dandy grinned. “In his drawing room, madam. Where else?”

“Oh, thank goodness. Have Floote follow me there, would you, please? Once he’s finished with his current line of business.”

“?’Course, Lady Maccon. My pleasure.”

“Thank you, Mr., uh, Shabumpkin.”

At which Boots straightened his spine, took a firmer grip on Alexia’s arm, and guided her carefully down the next few sets of stairs and into Lord Akeldama’s infamous drawing room. Once there, Shabumpkin nodded to them amiably and gangled off.

Lord Akeldama was waiting for her. Alexia was unsurprised to note that while she’d been dashing about London tracking an octomaton, the vampire had engaged in nothing more stressful than a change of clothing. He was wearing the most remarkable suit of tails and britches she had ever seen, candy-striped satin in cream and wine. This he had paired with a pink waistcoat of watered silk, pink hose, and pink top hat. His cravat, a waterfall of wine satin, was pinned with a gold and ruby pin, and matching rubies glittered about his fingers, monocle, and boutonniere.

“Can I get you anything, Lady Maccon?” offered Boots after seeing her safely ensconced in a chair, obviously concerned over her evident physical discomfort.

“Tea?” Alexia named the only thing she could think of that universally cured all ills.

“Of course.” He vanished after a quick exchange of glances with his master.

However, when the tea was brought in some five minutes later, it was Floote who brought it, not Boots. The butler left quickly but Alexia was in no doubt he’d taken up residence very close to the outside of the door.

Lord Akeldama, in some distress, did not produce his harmonic auditory resonance disruptor, and Alexia did not remind him. She figured she might need Floote’s advice on whatever occured next.

“So, my lord?” said she to the vampire, not at all up for dillydallying.

Lord Akeldama got straight to the point. Which was, in and of itself, a marker of his distress.

“My precious plum blossom, do you have any idea who is sitting in the back alleyway behind the kitchen right this very moment?”

Since Alexia was pretty darned convinced she would have spotted the octomaton from the roof, she took her second best guess.

“Countess Nadasdy?”

“Behind the kitchen! By my longest fang! I—” He interrupted himself. “Gracious me, buttercup, but how did you know?”

Even coping with the violent kicking and squirming in her tummy, Alexia couldn’t help but smile. “Now you know how I always feel.”

“She swarmed.”

“Yes, finally. You wouldn’t believe what it took to chivy her out of that place. You’d think she was a ghost, so tightly tethered as to never be separated from her fixing point.”

Lord Akeldama sat down, took a deep breath, and composed himself. “Darling marigold, please don’t tell me you’re responsible for?.?.?.?you know.” He fluttered one perfectly white hand in the air, like a dying handkerchief.

“Oh, no, silly. Not me. Madame Lefoux.”

“Oh. Of course. Madame Lefoux.” The vampire’s expression was arrested, deadpan at this latest bit of information.

Lady Maccon swore she could see the cogs and wheels of his massive intellect whirring away behind that effete painted face.

“Because of the little French maid?” He finally hazarded a guess.

Lady Maccon was enjoying having the upper hand for once. She had never dared to hope that someday she would have more information in a crisis than Lord Akeldama.

“Ah, no—Quesnel.”

“Her son?”

“Not exactly hers.”

Lord Akeldama stood up from his casual lounging posture. “The little towheaded lad the countess has with her? The one who ripped my jacket?”

“That sounds like Quesnel.”

“What’s the hive queen doing with a French inventor’s son?”

“Ah, apparently, Angelique left a will.”

Lord Akeldama tapped one fang with the edge of his gold and ruby monocle, pulling all the threads together right before Alexia’s eyes. “Angelique is the boy’s real mother, and she left him to the tender care of the hive? Silly bint.”