“Wonderful, my lord. Thank you for your confidence.”
“Toodles.” And with that, Lord Maccon wiggled his fingers in the air in the most insulting way and disappeared around the side of a building. Presumably, he was heading for a busier part of London where he might stand a better chance of hailing a hackney posthaste for Dover.
Professor Lyall decided not to remind him that he was completely naked.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Picnicking with Templars
Alexia took a moment before breakfast to drag Floote into a secluded corner.
“We must get a message to the queen on this relic business. Or at least to BUR. I cannot believe you knew about it and never told anyone. Then again, I suppose, you never tell anyone anything, do you, Floote? Even me. Still, I know now and so should the British government. Imagine using preternatural body parts as weapons. Just think what they could do if they knew how to mummify.”
“You are no longer muhjah, madam. The supernatural security of the empire is not your concern.”
Alexia shrugged. “What can I say? I cannot help myself. I meddle.”
“Yes, madam. And on a grand scale.”
“Well, my mama always said, one should do what one is best at on as large a scale as possible. Of course, she was referring to shopping at the time, but I have always felt it was the only sensible sentence she ever uttered in her life.”
“Madam?”
“We have managed to keep the mummy business mum, even from Madame Lefoux. The point being, we cannot let anyone know that mummies are useful as a weapon. There would be a terrible run on Egypt. If the Templars are using dead preternatural body parts and they figure out the mummification process, I am in real trouble. Right now it is only natural decomposition, and the fact that they have to preserve tissue in formaldehyde, that keeps preternatural-as-weapon limited to special use.” Alexia wrinkled her nose. “This is a matter of supernatural security. Italy and the other conservative countries must be kept from excavating in Egypt at all costs. We cannot risk them figuring out the truth behind the God-Breaker Plague.”
“I see your reasoning, madam.”
“You will need to develop a sudden malaise that prevents you from attending this picnic the preceptor is dragging me on. Get to the Florentine aethographic transmitter by sunset and send a message to Professor Lyall. He will know what to do with the information.” Alexia rummaged about in the ruffle of her parasol until she located the secret pocket and extracted the crystalline valve, which she handed to Floote.
“But, madam, the danger of you traveling about Italy without me.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks. Madame Lefoux has entirely refitted my parasol with the necessary armaments. I shall have the preceptor and a cadre of Templars with me, and they’re bound to protect me even if they cannot look at me. I even purchased this.” Alexia exhibited a clove of garlic dangling from a long ribbon about her neck. “I shall be perfectly fine.”
Floote did not look convinced.
“If it will help allay your fears, give me one of your guns and some of the spare bullets you purchased yesterday.”
Floote did not seem at all mollified. “Madam, you do not know how to shoot.”
“How difficult can it be?”
Floote ought to have known after a quarter century of association with Alexia that he could not hope to win any argument, especially as a gentleman of few words and even less inclination to use them. With a faint sigh of disapproval, he accepted the responsibility of sending the transmission and left the room, without giving Alexia one of his guns.
Professor Lyall spent the last hour before dawn coping with the consequences of Biffy’s sudden change into a werewolf and the potentate’s sudden change into a corpse. He began by seeking out the closest safe house, where no one else would think to look for him and his new charge. And since Charing Cross Station was just south of Soho, he headed north toward the Tunstells’ apartments, in all their pastel glory.
While midnight was considered quite an acceptable hour for calling among members of the supernatural set and among the younger, more dashing mortal crowd—drivers of phaetons and the like—dawn was not. In fact, dawn might be considered the rudest time for anyone to call upon anyone else, with the possible exception of groups of hardy fishermen in the backwaters of Portsmouth.
But Lyall felt he had no choice. As it was, he had to bang on