there were few references to preternaturals, even less about any female examples of such, and nothing at all about their progeny.
He sighed and looked up, resting his eyes. Dawn was imminent, and if Lord Maccon didn’t arrive back presently, he’d be arriving back naked.
The door to the office creaked open, as though activated by that thought, but the man who walked in wasn’t Lord Maccon. He was almost as big as the Woolsey Alpha and walked with the same air of self-assurance, but he was fully clothed and clearly in disguise. However, when Lyall sniffed the air, there was no doubt as to his identity—werewolves had an excellent sense of smell.
“Good morning, Lord Slaughter. How do you do?”
The Earl of Upper Slaughter—commander in chief of the Royal Lupine Guard, also known as Her Majesty’s Growlers; sometime field marshal; holder of a seat on Queen Victoria’s Shadow Council and most commonly known as the dewan—pushed his hood back and glared at Professor Lyall.
“Not so loudly, little Beta. No need to broadcast my presence here.”
“Ah, not an official visit, is it? You haven’t come to challenge for Woolsey, have you? Lord Maccon is currently out.” The dewan was one of the few werewolves in England who could give Lord Maccon a fight for his fur and had reputedly done so, over a game of bridge.
“Why would I want to do a thing like that?”
Professor Lyall gave an elegant little shrug.
“The trouble with you pack types is you always assume us loners want what you’ve got.”
“Tell that to the challengers.”
“Yes, well, the last thing I need is the additional responsibility of a pack.” The dewan fussed with the hood about his neck, arranging it to suit his taste.
The dewan was a man who had taken the curse later in life, resulting in a permanently jowly face, lined about the nose and mouth, with bags under the eyes. He sported a full head of dark hair, with a touch of gray at the temple, and fiercely bushy brows over deep-set eyes. He was handsome enough to have broken hearts in his day, but Lyall had always found the man’s mouth a little full and his mustache and muttonchops quite beyond the limits of acceptable bushiness.
“To what, then, do I owe the honor of your visit at such an early hour?”
“I have something for you, little Beta. It is a delicate matter, and it goes without saying that it cannot be known that I am involved.”
“Oh, it does, does it?” But Lyall nodded.
The werewolf pulled forth a rolled piece of metal from his cloak. Professor Lyall recognized it at once—a slate for the aethographic transmitter. He reached into his desk for a special little cranking device and used it to carefully unroll the metal. What was revealed was the fact that a message had been burned through—already transmitted. The note was short and to the point, each letter printed neatly in its segment of the grid, and, rather indiscreetly, it had been signed.
“A vampire extermination mandate. Ordering a death bite on Lady Maccon’s neck. Amusing, considering she cannot be bitten, but I suppose it is the thought that counts.”
“I understand it is just their turn of phrase.”
“As you say. A death order is a death order, and it is signed by the potentate, no less.” Professor Lyall let out a deep sigh, placed the metal down with a tinny sound on the top of his desk, and pinched the bridge of his nose above his spectacles.
“So you understand the nature of my difficulty?” The dewan looked equally resigned.
“Was he acting under the authority of Queen Victoria?”
“Oh, no, no. But he did use the Crown’s aethographor to send the order to Paris.”
“How remarkably sloppy of him. And you caught him in the act?”
“Let us say, I have a friend on the transmitter-operating team. He swapped out the slates so that our sender there destroyed the wrong one.”
“Why bring it to BUR’s attention?”
The dewan looked a little offended by the question. “I am not bringing it to BUR; I am bringing it to the Woolsey Pack. Lady Maccon, regardless of the gossip, is still married to a werewolf. And I am still the dewan. The vampires simply cannot be allowed to indiscriminately kill one of our own. It’s not on. Why, that is practically as bad as poaching clavigers and cannot be allowed, or all standards of supernatural decency will be lost.”
“And it cannot be known that the information came from you, my lord?”