The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (124 page)

The body inside flopped over and against the cracked side of the tank, one hand dangling out through the broken glass. Quickly,
Alexia tugged off her glove and stepped up to it. She touched the cold dead hand once, flesh to flesh, and just like that,
it was over.

The wailing stopped. The body part wisps vanished—mist gone to aether. All that remained was the clanking sound of Madame
Lefoux's machines in motion and the empty air.

“May you find your stillness, Formerly Lefoux,” said Alexia.

She looked ruefully at the mess before her: broken glass, fractured tank, dead body. She abhorred such untidiness, but she
had no time to see to the cleanup. Best to contact Floote on the matter as soon as she found some time.

With that, she turned away and waddled back out of the chamber and into the passageway. She hoped the clientele above her
was still arguing over hairmuffs, for she had no time to scheme her way around exposing Madame Lefoux's secret entrance this
time. She must stop her friend from imprudent action. And, more importantly, she desperately needed to find out why. Why Madame
Lefoux, such an intelligent woman, would try to do something so dull-witted as mount a frontal attack on Buckingham Palace
in order to kill the Queen of England.

Fortunately, the hairmuff obsession was still in full sway. Almost no one noticed Lady Maccon scuttle, like some kind of gimpy
goose, out of the door in the wall. She then made her way through the myriad of dangling hats and out of the shop. A few remarked
upon the smell of formaldehyde, and one or two noted her ladyship's undignified ascension into the depths of her fancy carriage,
but few thought to connect the two. However, the head shopgirl did, and made a note to tell the mistress everything, before
returning to the sudden increase in hairmuff orders.

Lady Maccon remembered what Madame Lefoux had said about relocation. She'd arranged to utilize space in the Pantechnicon.
Alexia was unaware of the location of the warehouse consortium. Being a matter of
trade,
it was not something Lady Maccon
ought
to know. Sometimes Madame Lefoux's engineering interests led her into the most peculiar parts of London. Alexia had, of course,
heard of the Pantechnicon but had never had occasion to visit such a thing as the facility in which Giffard's Incorporated
housed and maintained its dirigible fleet. The
Pantechnicon stored and distributed a good deal of furniture as well. The very idea of a lady of good breeding visiting such
a place. There would be tables lying about, on their sides, naked! Not to mention
flaccid
dirigibles! Alexia shuddered at the very idea. However, sometimes the muhjah had to go where Lady Maccon would not, and so
she gave the order and trusted her driver to know the location, which turned out to be Belgravia, a deeply suspect part of
London.

After clattering for some time down one cobbled street after another, having passed through the worst and most raucous crowds
of the West End and moving toward Chelsea, the carriage drew to a stop. Lady Maccon's speaking tube rang imperiously.

She picked up the listening trumpet. “Yes?”

“Motcomb Street, madam.”

“Thank you.”
Never heard of it.
She looked suspiciously out the carriage window. What Lady Maccon had never quite fathomed was how extraordinarily large
the Pantechnicon had to be in order to accommodate both flaccid dirigibles and naked tables. She was in front of a massive
caterpillar of warehouses. Each one resembled a barn, only bigger, being several stories high with arched metal roofs. Alexia
assumed these must somehow open or come off in order to accommodate the dirigibles. The street was dimly lit by the flickering
yellow glow of torchlight rather than by the steady white of gas, and the area was bereft of humanity. This was a part of
the city that catered to day dealers, workers of transport and industry who loaded and unloaded their contraptions and carriers
under the light of the sun. It was not a place for the likes of Lady Maccon to be traipsing about on full moon.

But Alexia was not going to let a little thing like the dark emptiness of an alleyway prevent her from proceeding with her
intent to assist a friend in dire need of sensible council. So she alighted from the carriage, Ethel in one hand and her parasol
in the other. She waddled slowly along the row of gigantic structures, listening at the door of each, standing on tiptoe to
peer in at small dingy windows—the only means of viewing the interior. She rubbed the grimy coating on leaded glass with her
soiled glove. The Pantechnicon appeared to be as abandoned as the street. There was no sign of Madame Lefoux or her contraption.

Then, finally, inside the last building in the row, Alexia caught sight of a spark of light. Inside, Madame Lefoux, or the
person she assumed must be Madame Lefoux, wore a glass and metal bucket over her head, like the offspring of a medieval knight's
helmet and a fishbowl. She was also wearing the most hideous pair of coveralls and was busy with a flaming torch, welding
great slabs of metal together. Her giant mechanical construct had taken its final form, and Alexia could not help but emit
a little gasp of amazement at the sight of the monstrous thing.

It was colossal, at least two stories high. The brimless bowler-hat portion now rested atop eight articulated metal tentacles
that hung down like pillars, but if Lady Maccon knew Madame Lefoux, each would be able to move independently of the others.
A remarkable creature, indeed. It looked like nothing so much as a massive upright octopus on tiptoe. Alexia wondered what
it said about her current state that this comparison made her hungry.
Ah, pregnancy.

She banged on the window to attract Madame Lefoux's
attention, but the French woman clearly could not hear, for she did not pause in her activities.

Lady Maccon circumnavigated the building, looking for an entrance. It had massive loading doors street-side, but these were
bolted firmly shut. There must be a smaller, more convenient, one-person door somewhere about the place.

Finally, she found it. It, too, was locked. She whacked at it with her parasol in frustration, but brute force was also ineffectual.
Not for the first time, Alexia wished she knew how to pick a lock. Conall had frowned most severely upon that particular request
and on her proposed venture into Newgate Prison in order to hire the necessary criminally minded individual as instructor.

She went back round to the front and considered breaking one of the lower windows; while it was too small to climb through,
even if she were not eight months pregnant, she could at least yell. A massive noise interrupted her right before she was
about to swing the parasol.

The building began shaking slightly, the metal roof creaking most terribly, and the two great loading bay doors clattered
against their hinges. Gouts of steam billowed from beneath the doors and around the edges. Metal screeched and the trundling
thrumming sound of a steam engine in full operation emanated from within. Alexia backed away from the door. The sounds began
to get louder and louder and the doors shook with more vigor. More steam puffed forth.

It was getting closer.

Lady Maccon waddled as fast as she could away from the doors, and just in the nick of time, too, for they burst open, crashing
against the sides of the building in a great splintering of wood, left to hang askew on their hinges.

A gigantic tiptoeing octopus came through, looking almost as though it floated atop the cloud of steam that gushed forth from
under its mantle to swirl about its tentacles. The doors were not quite tall enough to permit an easy exit, but this didn't
seem to trouble the creature. It simply took a chunk of the roof off with its head. Tiles fell and splintered, dust wafted
up, and steam wafted down as the world's biggest automated cephalopod tentacled its way into the London street.

“The octomaton, I presume. I see Genevieve didn't quite get the size measurements right,” said Alexia to no one in particular.

The octomaton didn't notice Lady Maccon, a rotund little being far below in the shadows, but it spotted her carriage. It raised
up one tentacle and took careful aim. A burst of fire came pouring out the tip. The beautifully matched horses (chosen for
appearance and docility around werewolves rather than for bravery) panicked, as did the stunned coachman (chosen for precisely
the same reasons). All three took off at high speed. The carriage careened wildly around a street corner, ribbons trailing
merrily behind it, and disappeared into the night.

“Wait!” cried Lady Maccon. “Come back!” But the conveyance was long gone. “Oh, bother. Now what?”

The octomaton, untroubled by Alexia's cry or predicament, began to make its way up the street away from her, following the
carriage. Lady Maccon raised her parasol and pulled at the special lotus leaf in the handle, activating the magnetic disruption
emitter. Even aimed directly at the massive creature, it had absolutely no effect. Either Madame Lefoux also had access to
the vampire's porcupine technology, or she had installed some kind of defensive
shield to protect her creation from Alexia's armament. Alexia was not surprised; after all, the Frenchwoman was not so thickheaded
as to build one weapon that could so easily be defeated by another of her own design. Especially if she knew Alexia was on
the case and might very well find her out.

Alexia switched to Ethel, raising and firing the gun. The bullet bounced harmlessly off the octomaton's metal exterior. It
left behind a dent, but once again, the massive creature did not register her tiny efforts against it.

It proceeded down the street in a not-very-dignified manner. Madame Lefoux had not gotten the en pointe tentacle balance quite
right. Windows rattled as it passed, and periodically it staggered slightly to one side, crashing into and partly destroying
the sides of buildings. At last, rounding the corner away from the Pantechnicon, it lurched into one of the streetlamps, an
old-fashioned brassier-style torch, tipping it onto the thatched roof of a storage shed. Almost immediately the shed caught
fire, and the flames began to spread. Metal roof notwithstanding, it presently became apparent that even the Pantechnicon
could not resist the blaze.

Alexia was at a loss. None of her parasol's special abilities were designed to deal with fire. In her current state, she reckoned
her best option was to beat an undignified retreat to safety. After all, she was practical enough to know when there was little
even she could do to rectify such a situation. She turned south, toward the river.

As she limped along, Alexia's mind whirled with confusion. Why would Madame Lefoux build such a creature? She was, by and
large, a woman of subtlety in both life
and art. Why was she heading north and not due east to Buckingham? Queen Victoria never left the safety of her palace on full
moon—it was simply too wild a night for her staid sensibilities. If Madame Lefoux had designs on the queen, she was going
in the wrong direction. Alexia frowned.
I am clearly missing something. Either something Genevieve said, or did not say, or something Formerly Lefoux said or did
not say. Or…

Lady Alexia Maccon stopped in her very solid tracks and hit her forehead with the butt of her hand. Fortunately, it was the
hand that held Ethel, not the hand that held her parasol, or she might have done herself damage.

“Of course! How could I be so silly? I have
the wrong queen.
”

Then she started walking again, her mind now calculating in a steel-traplike fashion—that is, if the trap were of the spring-loaded,
not-very-sensitive variety. Lady Maccon was not one to do too many things at once, especially not right now, but she was tolerably
convinced she could handle bipedal motion and thought at the same time.

The original ghostly messenger had never specified Queen Victoria, and neither had Formerly Lefoux. Genevieve Lefoux and her
octomaton weren't after the monarch of the empire; oh, no, they were after a hive queen. That made far more sense. Genevieve
had never liked the vampires, not since they corrupted Angelique (although she was always content enough to take their money).
Given their rocky history, again over that troublesome violet-eyed French maid, Alexia would wager good money Genevieve was
after Countess Nadasdy. This made sense given the northward direction of her tentacleing, toward
Mayfair. Somehow, Madame Lefoux had deduced the whereabouts of the Westminster Hive.

Another mystery. The location of a hive was a guarded secret. Lady Maccon herself knew of it, of course, but that was only
because…

“Oh, Alexia, you idiot!”
The burglary at Woolsey!
Madame Lefoux must have been the thief, stealing those old missives because among them was Alexia's original invitation from
Countess Nadasdy to visit the hive. It had been delivered to her by Mabel Dair in Hyde Park the afternoon after Alexia killed
her first vampire. It contained the address of the hive house, and Alexia had foolishly never thought to destroy it.
When did I tell Genevieve that story?

Lady Maccon cast desperately about the empty street. She had to reach the Westminster Hive, and fast. Never before had she
resented the infant-inconvenience more than at this moment, not to mention her dependence on horse-drawn transport. She even
had an invitation that would get her in the door, but no way to get there in time to warn them of imminent tentacled doom.
She was stranded in the wilds of Belgravia!

She waddled faster.

The fire was spreading and whooshing behind her. The once-dim alley was alight with a flickering orange and yellow glow. The
din of collapsing buildings and roaring flames was added to by the loud clanging bell of an approaching fire engine. One of
the dirigibles must have spotted the blaze and drop-messaged the appropriate authorities. If anything, this made Alexia move
faster. The last thing she needed was to be detained trying to explain her presence at the Pantechnicon. It also reminded
her to look up to see if she could spot a dirigible.