The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (125 page)

Sure enough, there were several headed sedately in her direction, having caught sight of the fire and redirected their lazy
circling toward an intriguing new attraction. They were safely above the conflagration, not yet in the aether but high enough
to avoid any risk associated with even the most massive of ground fires.

Lady Maccon waved her parasol commandingly and yelled, but she was a mere speck far below, unless someone had a pair of Shersky
and Droop's latest long-distance binoculars. Since her marriage, Alexia had adopted a more respectable and somber color palette
than that of the pastel-inclined unattached young lady. This made her even less visible in the flickering shadows of Motcomb
Street.

It was then that Alexia noticed that the Giffard symbol (a shaping of the name that turned the
G
into a massive red and black balloon) on a nearby warehouse was modified with a kind of starburst pattern at its end and
a phrase underneath that read
PYROTECHNIC DIVISION LTD.
She stopped, turned on her heel, and headed for a nearby lamppost. With barely a pause for consideration, she hauled off,
took careful aim, and threw her parasol hard at the torch section. The parasol, spearlike, crashed into the lamp and brought
both it and the hot coals inside down to the ground with a clang.

Lady Maccon huffed her way over to the coals, retrieved her now-slightly-scorched and sooty accessory by its tip, and, holding
it like a mallet, used the chubby handle to hit one particularly nice-looking coal along the street toward the Giffard pyrotechnic
warehouse. It was a excellent thing, reflected Alexia at that juncture, that she was good at croquet. At a nice distance,
she took
careful aim and, with a kind of scooping action, struck the wedge of coal hard. It arced splendidly upward, crashing through
the window of the warehouse in a most satisfactory manner.

Then she waited, long, slow counts, hoping the coal had managed to hit upon something reliably explosive.

It had. A popping, cracking noise came first, then some whizzing and whirling sounds, and finally a series of loud gunshots.
The doors and windows of the warehouse exploded outward, pushing Alexia backward. Instinctively, she popped open her parasol
to shield herself as the world around her turned into a smoking cornucopia of brightly flashing lights and loud noises. The
entire stockpile of what she imagined must be a very expensive collection of gunpowder display sparkles and sky-lighters exploded,
shimmering and flashing in an ever-increasing series of flares.

Lady Maccon cowered in the road—there was really no other way of putting it—behind her open parasol, trusting in the durability
of Madame Lefoux's design to protect her from the worst of it.

Eventually, the popping detonations slowed, and she began to register the heat of the real fire as it crept down Motcomb Street
toward her. She coughed and waved her parasol. The moonlight made the residual smoke silvery white, as if a thousand ghosts
were collected around her.

Alexia, eyes watering, blinked and tried to take shallow, steady breaths. Then, through the dispersing smoke, a massive upside-down
shepherdess-style bonnet appeared, hovering some two stories above the ground and heading toward her. As the smoke vanished,
the cumbersome form of a small private dirigible bobbed into view above the bonnet, proving that it was, in fact, not a hat
at all but the
gondola portion of the air conveyance. The pilot, some miracle worker of the first order, navigated the small craft down toward
Lady Maccon, lowering it carefully between the rows of buildings while battling to keep it away from the flames of the burning
Pantechnicon.

I
t was Giffard's smallest craft, short-range and generally hired only for classified recognizance or personal pleasure jaunting.
The gondola portion, even more strongly resembling a shepherdess's hat upon close inspection, was big enough for only five
people. The model was based off of Blanchard's original balloon. It had four dragonfly-like wing rudders, sprouting below
the passenger section. There was a small steam engine and propeller at the back, but the captain had to steer by means of
multiple levers and tillers, making him perform a frantic dance. In usefulness, it resembled those small Thames crossing barges
so favored by the criminally minded. Giffard had come out with a whole fleet recently, at luxury prices, so the affluent could
invest in private air transport. Alexia found them undignified, not the least because there was no door. One had to actually
clamber over the edge of the gondola to get inside. Imagine that, fully grown adults clambering! But when one was stranded
in an alley with a burning
Pantechnicon and a rampaging octomaton, one really couldn't afford to be picky.

Two of the figures inside the hat leaned over the edge, pointing at her.

“Yoo-hoo!” yodeled one of them jovially.

“Over here! Quickly, gentlemen, please, this way!” replied Alexia at full volume, waving her parasol madly.

One of the gentlemen touched the brim of his top hat at her (no tipping was possible with a hat tied down for air travel).
“Lady Maccon.”

“By George, Boots! How the deuce can you possibly tell that there is Lady Maccon?” queried the other top-hated gentleman.

“Who else would be standing in the middle of a street on full-moon night with a raging ruddy fire behind her, waving a parasol
about?”

“Good point, good point.”

“Lady Maccon,” came the yell. “Would you like a lift?”

“Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps,” said Alexia in exasperation, “ask a silly question…”

The dirigible gondola bumped softly down, and she toddled over to it.

Boots and the second young dandy, who proved to be Viscount Trizdale, hopped nimbly out and came to assist her. Tizzy was
a slight, effete young blond with an aristocratic nose and a partiality for the color yellow. Boots had a bit more substance
in physicality and taste, but not much.

Lady Maccon looked from one to the other of the two gentlemen and then at the side of the gondola that she must now scale.
With great reluctance and knowing she had no other choice, she put herself into their well-manicured hands.

No one, later that evening, nor ever again so long as any of them lived, mentioned what had to be done in order to get a very
pregnant Lady Maccon into that passenger basket. There was some heaving, and a good deal of squeaking (both from Alexia and
Tizzy), and hands might have had to be placed upon portions of the anatomy pleasing to neither Alexia nor her rescuers. Suffice
it to say that Lady Maccon had cause to be grateful Lord Akeldama insisted that his drones undertake some sporting activity,
for all their fashionable proclivities.

Alexia landed upon her bustle, legs slightly in the air. Gravity being even more forthright than Lady Maccon, she flailed
about before managing to roll to one side and climb laboriously to her feet. She had a rather severe stitch in her side, a
few bruises on her nether regions, and she was flushed with heat and exertion, but everything else, including the child, seemed
to be in working order. The two young men jumped back inside after her.

“What are you doing here?” Lady Maccon demanded, still in shock that her plan to signal for help had actually worked. “Did
my husband put a tail on me? What is it with werewolves and tails?”

Tizzy and Boots looked at each other.

Finally Boots said, “It wasn't entirely the earl, Lady Maccon. Our lord asked us to keep an eye on you this evening as well.
He indicated things might come to pass on full moon that required additional recognizance in this part of London, if you take
my meaning.”

“How on earth would he know to do a thing like that? Oh, forget I asked. How does Lord Akeldama know anything?” Logic returned
along with dignity, and Alexia took stock of her change in circumstances.

Boots shrugged. “Things
always
come to pass on full moon.”

Without having to be directed, the pilot was already taking the small craft back up, away from fire and smoke. He was a diminutive
man, clean-shaven, with a snubbed nose and a mercurial expression. His cravat was very well tied and it coordinated perfectly
with his waistcoat.

“Don't tell me.” Alexia looked him up and down. “This dirigible happens to be owned by Lord Akeldama?”

“If that's what you desire, my lady, we won't tell you.” Boots looked guilty, as though he were somehow failing her in this
request.

Lady Maccon twisted her lips together in thought. The infant-inconvenience kicked at her mightily, and she clutched reflexively
at her stomach. “I hate to do this to you, gentlemen, but I find myself in desperate need to call upon Westminster Hive, as
quickly as possible. How fast does this contraption go?”

The pilot gave her a cheeky grin. “Oh, you'd be surprised, my lady. Very surprised. Lord Akeldama had this little beauty retrofitted
by Madame Lefoux. That he did.”

“I didn't know they had professional dealings with each other.” Lady Maccon arched an eyebrow.

“I understand this was a first commission. The very first. Lord Akeldama was delighted with her work. Quite delighted. As,
indeed, am I. Can't try floating himself, poor man.” The pilot looked as though he really felt genuinely sorry for the vampire's
inability. “But he's had this beauty put through her paces around the green, and I assure you, that Frenchwoman is a miracle
worker. A miracle worker, I say. The things she can do with aeronautics.”

“She did comment once that it was her specialty at
university. And, of course, there's always Monsieur Trouvé and the ornithopter.”

The pilot looked up from his activities with a gleam of interest. “Ornithopter you say? I'd heard the French were branching
out. My goodness, what a sight that must be.”

“Yes.” Lady Maccon's voice was low. “Better to see in action than to use oneself, if you ask me.” She raised her voice. “About
this dirigible going faster? It's very important that I put in an appearance within the next few minutes. Why don't you show
me the full extent of this lovely craft's paces?”

Another grin met that request. “Just point me in the appropriate direction, my lady!”

Alexia did so, gesturing north. They were already above the rooftops, the fire well behind them. She toddled to the edge and
looked down: Hyde Park was to their left and a little ahead, while Green Park and the Palace Garden lay spread behind them
and to the right. Even so high, she could hear the howling of Queen Victoria's personal werewolf guard, the Growlers, locked
away in one special wing of Buckingham below.

She indicated a point ahead and slightly to the right, between the two parks—the center of Mayfair. The pilot pulled down
hard on a doorknob-ended lever, and the craft lurched in that direction, faster than Alexia had thought dirigibles could go.
Madame Lefoux's touch, indeed.

“Does she have a name, Captain?” she yelled into the rushing air.

Both the interest and the title earned Lady Maccon a great deal of loyalty from the young pilot. “'Course she does, my lady.
Himself calls her
Buffety,
for the rocking motion, I suspect. She's on the registry as
Dandelion Fluff
Upon a Spoon.
Don't know as I can rightly explain that one.”

Tizzy tittered knowingly. Lady Maccon and the pilot looked at him, but the young lordling seemed disinclined to elaborate.

Lady Maccon shrugged. “I suppose Lord Akeldama names in mysterious ways.”

Boots, his eyes on Alexia's other hand, which was still wrapped protectively about her swollen belly, inquired solicitously,
“Is it the child, Lady Maccon?”

“The reason for our urgency? Oh, no. I have an invitation to attend Countess Nadasdy's full-moon party, and I am late.”

Boots and Tizzy nodded their full understanding of this grave social necessity. All speed was indeed called for.

“We shall make haste, then, my lady. We wouldn't want you to arrive beyond the fashionable hour.”

“Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps.”

“And the fire, my lady?” Boots's muttonchops fluffed up in the breeze.

Alexia batted her eyelashes. “Fire? What fire?”

“Ah, is that how it is?”

Lady Maccon turned to look once more out of the gondola. She could make out the massive form of the octomaton, careening through
the corner of Hyde Park behind Apsley House directly below them. But with another pull on that lever,
Dandelion Fluff Upon a Spoon
surged ahead and on into Mayfair, leaving the rampaging octopus far behind. The drones, having noticed the great crashing
beast, made little warbling noises of distress before insisting Alexia tell them
all about it.

The Westminster Hive house was one of many similar fashionable residences. It stood at the end of the block and a little apart
from the row, but nothing else distinguished it as special or supernaturally inclined. Perhaps the grounds were a little too
well tended and the exterior a little too clean and freshly painted, but no more or less than that customarily afforded by
the very wealthy. It was a good-enough address, but not too good, and it was large enough to accommodate the countess, the
primary members of her hive, and their drones, but not too large.

On this particular full moon, it was busier than usual, with a number of carriages pulling in at the front and disgorging
some of the ton's very highest and most progressive politicians, aristocrats, and artists. Alexia, as muhjah, knew (although
others might not) that the assembled were all in the vampire's enclave, or employ, or service, or all three. They were attired
in their very best, collars starched high, dresses cut low, britches tight, and bustles shapely. It was a parade of consequence—Countess
Nadasdy would allow nothing less.

High floating was assuredly a fashionable way to arrive at a party, the latest and greatest, some might say. But it was not
at all convenient for a street already clogged with private carriages and hired hansoms. As the dirigible neared, a few of
the horses spooked, rearing and neighing. Ground conveyances crashed into one another in their efforts to clear space, which
resulted in a good deal of yelling.

“Who do they think they are, arriving like that?” wondered one elderly gentleman.

Vampires enjoyed investing in the latest inventions,
and they did have trade concerns, most notably with the East India Company, but they were traditionalists at heart. So, too,
were their guests. For no matter how modish the private pleasure dirigible might be in principle, no one approved of it disturbing
their own dignified arrival with its puffed-up sense of novelty. Dignity aside, the dirigible was going to land whether they
liked it or not, and consequently, space was eventually made. The gondola bumped down in front of the hive house's wrought-iron
fence.

Lady Maccon was left in a quandary. She now had to get out over the side of the passenger basket. She could conceive of no
possible way her exit would be any less humiliating than her entry. She did not want to go through such a process again, let
alone in front of such august bodies as those now glaring at her. But she could swear she heard the crashing sound of the
octomaton, and she really had no time to spare for anyone's decorum, even her own.

“Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps, Viscount, if you would be so kind?” She puffed out her cheeks and prepared herself for mortification.

“Of course, my lady.” The ever-eager Boots stepped over to assist her. Tizzy, it must be admitted, moved with less alacrity.
As they prepared to boost her (there really was no other way of putting it) over the edge of the gondola (at which juncture
she foresaw landing on her much-abused bustle yet again), a savior appeared.

No doubt alerted by the disapproving cries and exacerbation of activity in the street, Miss Mabel Dair emerged from the hive
house, dramatically silhouetted against the crowded, well-lit interior. She paused, center stage, on the front stoop. She
wore an evening gown the color of old gold
with a low square neckline, trimmed with loops of black lace and pink silk roses. There were fresh roses in her hair and her
bustle was full—the more risqué trends out of Paris with the smaller bustle and form-fitting bodice were not for her. No,
here, under her mistress's guarded eye, even an actress like Miss Dair dressed demurely.

Lady Alexia Maccon, at the side of a dirigible passenger basket, looked as though she was in imminent danger of not playing
by the rules.