Ivy was watching Tunstell's retreating back. "Of course, Captain Featherstonehaugh was not exactly what I had hoped for. He is quite the military man, you understand, very stoic. That kind of thing would seem to suit you, Alexia, but I had hoped for a man with the soul of a bard."

Alexia threw her hands up into the air. "He is a claviger. You know what that means? Someday, relatively soon, he will pet.i.tion for metamorphosis and then probably die in the attempt. Even if he came through intact, he would then be a werewolf. You don't even is a claviger. You know what that means? Someday, relatively soon, he will pet.i.tion for metamorphosis and then probably die in the attempt. Even if he came through intact, he would then be a werewolf. You don't even like like werewolves." werewolves."

Ivy gave her an even-wider-eyed look as if b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in her mouth. The grapes bobbed. "He could always leave before that."

"To be what? A professional actor? Living on a penny a day and the approbation of a fickle public?"

Ivy sniffed. "Who says we are discussing Mr. Tunstell?"

Alexia was driven to distraction. "Get into the carriage, Ivy. I shall take you back to town."

Miss Hisselpenny nattered on about her impending marriage and its companion apparel, invitation list, and comestibles for the entirety of the two-hour ride into London. Not much was said, however, about the prospective groom. Alexia was made to realize, during the course of that drive, that he apparently was of little consequence to the proceedings. She watched her friend climb down and trot inside the Hisselpenny's modest town house with a slight pang of concern. What was Ivy doing? But with no time at the moment to worry over Miss Hisselpenny's situation situation, Lady Maccon directed the driver on to Buckingham.

The guards were expecting her. Lady Maccon was always at the palace two hours after dark on Sundays and Thursdays without fail. And she was one of the most unproblematic of the queen's regular visitors, being the least high-and-mighty, for all her forthright tone and pointed opinions. After the first two weeks, she had even gone to the trouble of learning all of their names. It was the little things that made someone grand. The ton were suspicious of Lord Maccon's choice, but the military was rather pleased with it. They welcomed straightforward talk, even from a female.

"You are late, Lady Maccon," said one, checking her neck for bite marks and her dispatch case for illegal steam devices.

"Don't I know it, Lieutenant Funtington, don't I know it," replied the lady.

"Well, we shan't keep you. Go on in, my lady."

Lady Maccon gave him a tight smile and went.

The dewan and the potentate were already waiting for her. Queen Victoria was not. The queen usually arrived nearer to midnight, after presiding over her family and supper, and stayed only to hear the results of their debate and formulate any final decisions.

"I cannot apologize enough for having kept you both," said Alexia. "I had unexpected squatters on my front lawn and an equally unexpected engagement to handle this evening. No excuses, I know, but those are my reasons."

"Well, there you have it," snarled the dewan, "The affairs of the British Empire must wait on squatters and your good graces." Landed as the Earl of Upper Slaughter but without any real country seat, the dewan was one of the few werewolves in England who could give the Earl of Woolsey a fight for his fur and had had occasion to prove it. He was almost as big as Conall Maccon but slightly older-looking, with dark hair, a wide face, and deep-set eyes. He ought to have been handsome, except that his mouth was a little too full, the cleft in his chin a little too p.r.o.nounced, and his mustache and muttonchops astonishingly a.s.sertive.

Alexia had spent long hours wondering over that mustache. Werewolves did not grow hair, as they did not age. Where had it come from? Had he always had it? For how many centuries had his poor abused upper lip labored under the burden of such vegetation?

Tonight, however, she ignored both him and his facial protuberances. "So," she said, sitting down and placing the dispatch case on the table next to her, "shall we on to business?"

"By all means," replied the potentate, his voice honeyed and cool. "Are you feeling well this evening, muhjah?"

Alexia was surprised by the question. "Quite."

The vampire member of the Shadow Council was the more dangerous of the two. He had age on his side and much less to prove than the dewan. Also, while the dewan made a show of disliking Lady Maccon for form's sake, Alexia knew for a fact that the potentate actually loathed her. He had registered an official complaint in writing on the occasion of her marriage to the Woolsey Pack Alpha and the same again when Queen Victoria brought her in to sit on the Shadow Council. Alexia had never discerned exactly why. But he had the support of the hives in this as in most things, which made him far more powerful than the dewan, for whom pack loyalty seemed wobbly.

"No stomach ailments?"

Alexia gave the vampire a suspicious look. "No, none. Could we get on?"

Generally, the Shadow Council administered supernatural interaction with the Crown. While BUR handled enforcement, the Shadow Council dealt with legislative issues, political and military guidance, and the occasional sticky-residue snafu. During Alexia's few months on board, discussions had ranged from hive authorization in the African provinces, to military code covering the death of an Alpha overseas, to neck-exposure mandates in public museums. They had not yet had a genuine crisis to deal with. This, Alexia felt, was going to be interesting.

She snapped open the lid of her dispatch case and extracted her harmonic auditory resonance disruptor, a spiky little apparatus that looked exactly like two tuning forks sticking out of a crystal. She tapped one fork with her finger, waited a moment, and then tapped the other. The two produced a discordant, low-pitched humming noise, amplified by the crystal that would prevent their conversation from being overheard. She placed the device carefully in the middle of the ma.s.sive meeting table. The sound was annoying, but they had all learned to deal with it. Even inside the security of Buckingham Palace, one could never be too careful.

"What, exactly, has happened in London this evening? Whatever it was had my husband up scandalously early, just after sunset, and my local ghost informant in a positive fl.u.s.ter." Lady Maccon removed her favorite little notebook and a stylographic pen imported from the Americas.

"You do not know, muhjah?" sneered the dewan.

"Of course I know. I am simply wasting everyone's time by inquiring, for my own amus.e.m.e.nt." Alexia was sarcastic to the last.

"Neither of us look any different to you this evening?" The potentate steepled his long fingers together on the tabletop, pure white and snakelike against the dark mahogany, and looked at her out of beautiful, deep-set green eyes.

"Why are you humoring her? Obviously she must must have something to do with it." The dewan stood and began to pace about the room-his customary restless state during most of their meetings. have something to do with it." The dewan stood and began to pace about the room-his customary restless state during most of their meetings.

Alexia pulled her favorite gla.s.sicals out of her dispatch case and put them on. They were properly called monocular cross-magnification lenses with spectral modifier attachment monocular cross-magnification lenses with spectral modifier attachment, but everyone was calling them gla.s.sicals gla.s.sicals these days, even Professor Lyall. Alexia's were made of gold, inset with decorative onyx around the side that did not boast multiple lenses and a liquid suspension. The many small k.n.o.bs and dials were also made of onyx, but the expensive touches did not stop them from looking ridiculous. All gla.s.sicals looked ridiculous: the unfortunate progeny of an illicit union between a pair of binoculars and opera gla.s.ses. these days, even Professor Lyall. Alexia's were made of gold, inset with decorative onyx around the side that did not boast multiple lenses and a liquid suspension. The many small k.n.o.bs and dials were also made of onyx, but the expensive touches did not stop them from looking ridiculous. All gla.s.sicals looked ridiculous: the unfortunate progeny of an illicit union between a pair of binoculars and opera gla.s.ses.

Her right eye became hideously magnified out of all proportion as she twiddled one dial, homing in on the potentate's face. Fine even features, dark eyebrows, and green eyes-the face seemed totally normal, natural even. The skin looked healthy, not so pale. The potentate gave a little smile, all his teeth in perfect boxlike order. Remarkable.

There would be the problem. No fangs.

Lady Maccon stood and went to stand in front of the dewan, stopping him in his impatient movements. She trained the gla.s.sicals upon his face, focusing on the eyes: plain old brown. No yellow about the iris, no hidden quality of open-field or hunter instincts.

In silence, thinking hard, she sat back down. Carefully, she removed the gla.s.sicals and put them away.

"Well?"

"Am I to understand you are both laboring under a state, that is, afflicted with, um"-she groped for the correct way of putting it-"that is, infected by... normality?"

The dewan gave her a disgusted look. Lady Maccon made a note in her little journal.

"Astonishing. And how many of the supernatural set are also contaminated into being mortal?" she asked, stylographic pen poised.

"Every vampire and werewolf in London central." The potentate was incurably calm.

Alexia was truly stunned. If all of them were no longer supernatural, that meant that any or all of them could be killed. She wondered, as a preternatural, if she was being affected. She went introspective for a moment. She felt like herself-difficult to tell, though.

"What's the geographical extent of those disabled?" she asked.

"It seems to be concentrated around the Thames embankment area, extending in from the docklands."

"And if you leave the affected zone, do you return to your supernatural state?" the scientific side of Alexia instantly wanted to know.

"Excellent inquiry." The dewan disappeared out the door, presumably to send a runner to find out the answer to that question. Normally they would have had a ghost agent handle such a job. Where was she?

"And the ghosts?" Lady Maccon asked, frowning.

"That is how we know the extent of the afflicted area. Not a single ghost tethered in that zone has appeared since sundown. Every one has vanished. Exorcised." The potentate was watching her closely. He, of course, would a.s.sume Alexia had something to do with this. Only one creature had the inherent power to exorcise ghosts, as unpleasant a job as it was, and that creature was a preternatural. Alexia was the only preternatural in the London locale.

"G.o.ds," breathed Lady Maccon. "How many ghosts lost were in the Crown's employ?"

"Six worked for us; four worked for BUR. Of the remaining specters, eight were in the poltergeist stage, so no one misses them, and eighteen were at the end stages of disanimus." The potentate tossed a pile of paperwork in Alexia's direction. She flipped through the stack, looking at the details.

The dewan came back into the room. "We will know your answer within the hour." He resumed his pacing.

"In case you are curious, gentlemen, I spent the entire day asleep at Woolsey Castle. My husband can attest to that fact, as we do not maintain separate bedrooms." Alexia blushed slightly but felt her honor demanded she stand up for herself.

"Of course he can," said the vampire who currently was no vampire at all but a natural human. For the first time in hundreds of years. He must be absolutely shaking in those hugely expensive Hessian boots of his. To face mortality after so very long. Not to mention the fact that one of the hives was in the afflicted zone-which meant a queen was in danger. Vampires, even roves like the potentate, would do almost anything to protect a queen.

"You mean, your werewolf husband who sleeps daylight solid. And whom I highly doubt you touch while you sleep?"

"Of course I do not." Alexia was taken aback that he need ask. Staying in contact with Conall all night, every night, would cause him to age, and while she abhorred the idea of growing old without him, she wasn't about to inflict mortality on him. He would also grow facial hair and come over more than usually scruffy of a morning.

"So you admit you could have snuck out of the house?" The dewan stopped pacing and glared at her.

Lady Maccon made a clucking noise of denial. "Have you met my staff? If Rumpet didn't stop me, Floote would, not to mention Angelique running about fussing over my hair. Sneaking out, I am sorry to say, is a thing of my past. But you are welcome to blame me if you are too lazy to try and figure out what is really going on here."

The potentate, of all people, seemed a little more convinced. Perhaps it was simply that he did not want to believe she had access to such an ability.

Alexia continued. "I mean, really, how could one preternatural, however powerful, affect an entire area of the city? I have to touch you in order to force your humanity. I have to touch a dead body in order to exorcise its ghost. I could not possibly manage to be in all those places at once. Besides which, I am not touching you right now, am I? And you are both mortal."

"So what are we dealing with? A whole pack of preternaturals?" That was the dewan. He was p.r.o.ne to thinking in numbers, the consequence of an overabundance of military training.

The potentate shook his head. "I have seen BUR's records. There are not enough preternaturals in all of England to exorcise so many ghosts at once. There are probably not enough in the civilized world."

Alexia wondered how how he had seen such records. She would have to tell her husband about that. Then she returned her attention to the business at hand. "Is there anything more powerful than a preternatural?" he had seen such records. She would have to tell her husband about that. Then she returned her attention to the business at hand. "Is there anything more powerful than a preternatural?"

The not-vampire shook his head again. "Not in this particular way. Vampire edict tells us that soul-suckers are the second most deadly creatures on the planet. But it also says that the most deadly of all is no leech, but a different kind of parasite. This cannot be the work of one of them."

Lady Maccon scribbled this down in her book. She was intrigued and a little put out. "Worse than us soul-suckers? Is that possible? And here I was thinking myself a member of the most hated set. And what do you call them them?"

The potentate ignored this question. "That will teach you to get full of yourself."

Alexia would have pressed the issue but suspected that line of questioning would be ignored. "So this must be the result of a weapon, a scientific apparatus. That is the only possible explanation."

"Or we could take that ridiculous man Darwin's theories to heart and postulate a newly evolved species of preternatural."

Alexia nodded. She had her reservations about Darwin and his prattle on origins, but there might be some little merit to his ideas.

The dewan, however, pooh-poohed the idea. Werewolves were, largely, of a much less scientific bent than vampires, except where advances in weaponry were concerned. "I am more sympathetic to the muhjah on this point if nothing else. If she isn't doing it herself, then it must be some newfangled contrivance of technical origin."

"We are are living in the Age of Invention," agreed the potentate. living in the Age of Invention," agreed the potentate.

The dewan looked thoughtful. "The Templars have finally managed to unify Italy and declare themselves Infallible; perhaps they are turning their attention outward once more?"

"You think this may herald a second Inquisition?" The potentate blanched. He could do that now.

The dewan shrugged.

"There is no point in wild speculation," said the ever-practical Lady Maccon. "Nothing suggests that the Templars are involved."

"You are Italian," grumbled the dewan.

"Oh, fiddlesticks, is everything in this meeting going to come back around to my being my father's daughter? My hair is curly too-could that somehow be involved? I am the product of my birth, and there is nothing I can change about that, or believe you me, I might have opted for a smaller nose. Let us simply agree that the most likely explanation for this kind of wide-scale preternatural effect is a weapon of some kind." She turned to the potentate. "You are positive positive you have never heard of this kind of thing happening before?" you have never heard of this kind of thing happening before?"

He frowned and rubbed at the crease between his green eyes with the tip of one white finger. It was an oddly human gesture. "I will consult the edict keepers on the subject, but, no, I do not think so."

Alexia looked to the dewan. He shook his head.

"So the question is, what could someone hope to gain by this?"

Her supernatural colleagues looked at her blankly.

A tap came on the closed door. The dewan went to answer it. He spoke softly for a moment through the crack and then returned with an expression transformed from scared to bemused.

"The effects would appear to be negated just outside the afflicted zone we discussed earlier. Werewolves, at least, revert back to fully supernatural. The ghosts, of course, cannot relocate to take advantage of this fact. And I cannot speak for the vampires."

What he did not say was that what changed werewolves was also likely to change vampires-they were more alike than either race preferred to admit.

"I shall look into this myself, personally, as soon as our meeting is concluded," said the potentate, but he was clearly relieved. It had to be a product of his human condition; normally his emotions were not so obvious.

The dewan sneered at him. "You will be able to move that endangered queen of yours, should you deem it necessary."

"Do we have any further business to address?" asked the potentate, ignoring the comment.

Alexia reached forward to tap at the harmonic auditory resonance disruptor with the b.u.t.t end of her stylographic pen, getting it vibrating once more. Then she looked to the dewan. "Why have so many regiments returned home recently?"

"Indeed, I had noticed something of an overabundance of the military roaming the streets as I left my house this evening." The potentate looked curious.

The dewan shrugged, trying for casualness and failing. "Blame Cardwell and his blasted reforms."

Alexia sniffed pointedly. She approved of the reforms, far more humane to cut out flogging and change enlistment tactics. But the dewan was an old-timer; he liked his soldiers disciplined, poor, and mildly b.l.o.o.d.y.

He continued as though she hadn't sniffed. "We had that steamer in from West Africa several months ago crying that the Ashantis were giving us h.e.l.l. The Secretary of War pulled everyone we could spare out of the east and back here for rotation."

"Do we still have that many troops in India? I thought the region was pacified."

"Not hardly. But we have the numbers to pull several regiments out and leave the East India Company and its mercenaries to take the brunt of it. The empire should stay sound. The duke wants proper regiments with werewolf attachments down in West Africa, and I can't say I blame him. It's a nasty business down there. These incoming regiments you see around London are to reconfigure as two separate battalions and ship back out within a month. It's causing a moon's worth of mess. Most had to be routed through Egypt in order to get back here fast enough, and I still don't know how we are going to stretch to fill the orders. Still, they're here now, clogging up the London taverns. Best get them fighting again right quick."

He rounded on Lady Maccon. "Which reminds me. Get your husband to keep his ruddy packs under control, would you?"

"Packs? There was only the one last time I checked, and let me inform you, it is not my husband who has to discipline them. Constantly."

The dewan grinned, causing his ma.s.sive mustache to wiggle. "I am guessing you met Major Channing?" There were just few enough werewolves in England that, as Alexia had come to learn, they all seemed to know one another. And gracious did they enjoy a good gossip.

"You would be guessing correctly." Lady Maccon made a sour face.

"Well, I was referring to the earl's other pack, the Highland one, Kingair," said the dewan. "They were running with the Black Watch regiment, and there's been a bit of a dust-up. I thought your husband might stick a paw in."

Lady Maccon frowned. "I doubt it."

"Lost their Alpha out there, the Kingair Pack, you do realize? Niall something-or-other, a full colonel, nasty business. The pack was ambushed during high noon, when they were at their weakest and couldn't change shape. Threw the whole regiment over for a while there. Losing a ranking officer like that, werewolf Alpha or not, caused quite a fuss."

Alexia's frown deepened. "No, I was not aware." She wondered if her husband knew of this. She tapped her lip with the back of her pen. It was highly unusual for a former Alpha to survive the loss of his pack, and she had never managed to extract from Conall the whys and wherefores of his abandonment of the Highlands. But Alexia was pretty darn certain that a leadership void placed him under some sort of obligation to his former pack, even if it had been decades.

The discussion moved on to speculation as to who might be responsible for the weapon: various not-as-secret-as-they-wanted societies, foreign nations, or factions within the government. Lady Maccon was convinced it was Hypocras Club style scientists and held firm on her stance over deregulation. This frustrated the potentate, who wanted the surviving Hypocras Club members released to his tender mercies. The dewan sided with the muhjah. He wasn't particularly interested in scientific research of this kind, but he wasn't about to see it fall wholly into vampire hands. This derailed the conversation onto distribution of Hypocras goods. Alexia suggested they go to BUR, and despite her husband's charge of the inst.i.tution, the potentate agreed so long as a vampire agent was attached.