Changeless Part 23

Kingair's aethographic transmitter was raised up on little legs above the stone floor of the castle. It looked somewhat like two attached privy houses with footstool feet. Everything was brightly lit with gas lamps, as the pack had clearly spared no expense on this room. It was also clean.

Lady Maccon craned her neck to see into the darkened interior of the chamber that Madame Lefoux worked under. It appeared that the transmitting mechanicals were the ones being problematical. The Frenchwoman had with her a hatbox that appeared to be no hatbox at all but a cleverly disguised toolkit. Lady Maccon instantly coveted one herself-so much less obvious obvious than a dispatch case. than a dispatch case.

The bespectacled claviger, with the ever-present expression of panic, crouched nearby, pa.s.sing the inventor, one after another, a string of exciting-looking tools.

"The magnetomotor modulating adjustor, if you please," Madame Lefoux would say, and a long, sticklike object with a corkscrew of copper at one end and a gla.s.s tube full of an illuminated liquid at the other was pa.s.sed over. Shortly after, there would emit another curse, the tool would be pa.s.sed back to the claviger, and a new one called for.

"Goodness gracious," exclaimed Alexia. "What are are you doing?" you doing?"

There came the sound of a thump, Madame Lefoux's legs jerked, and further cursing ensued. Moments later, the Frenchwoman wormed her way out and stood up, rubbing her head. The action only added to a vast collection of grease smudges covering her pretty face.

"Ah, Lady Maccon, how lovely. I did wonder when you would track us down."

"I was unavoidably delayed by husbands and Ivys," explained Alexia.

"These things, regrettably, are bound to occur when one is married and befriended." Madame Lefoux was sympathetic.

Lady Maccon leaned forward and, using her parasol as a prop, tried to see underneath the contraption. Her corset made this action mostly impossible, so she turned back to the Frenchwoman. "Have you determined the nature of the problem?"

"Well, it is definitely the transmitting chamber that is malfunctioning. The receiving room seems fully operational. It is hard to tell without an actual transmission of some kind."

Alexia looked to the claviger for confirmation, and the young man nodded. He did not appear to have much to say for himself, but he was eager to help. The best kind of person, felt Alexia.

"Well," said Lady Maccon, "what time is it?"

The young gentleman took out a small pocket watch and flipped it open. "Half past ten."

Lady Maccon turned to Madame Lefoux. "If you can get it ready by eleven, we can try to raise Lord Akeldama on his aethographor. Remember, he gave me the codes, a valve frequensor, and and an eleven o'clock time slot for open-scan transmission." an eleven o'clock time slot for open-scan transmission."

"But if he doesna have our resonance, what good is that? He willna be able to receive." The claviger snapped his watch closed and stashed it once more in his waistcoat pocket.

"Ah," Madame Lefoux jumped in, "he has a multiadaptive model that does not operate using crystalline compatibility protocol. All he need do is scan for a transmission to his frequency during the allotted time. We can receive back because Lady Maccon does does have the appropriate valve component." have the appropriate valve component."

The claviger looked even more surprised than usual.

"I understand they are dear friends." Madame Lefoux appeared to feel this would explain everything.

Alexia smiled. "On the evening of my wedding, I held his hand so he could watch the sunset."

The claviger looked confused. Again, more confused than usual (his was a difficult face for expressing the full range of human emotion).

Madame Lefoux explained, "Lord Akeldama is a vampire."

The young man gasped. "He trusted you with his life?"

Lady Maccon nodded. "So trusting me with a crystalline valve, however technologically vital, is no very great thing by comparison."

Madame Lefoux shrugged. "I do not know about that, my lady. I mean to say, one's life is one thing; one's technology is an entirely different matter."

"Nevertheless, I can provide you the means to test this aethographor's effectiveness, once it has been repaired."

The claviger gave her a look of burgeoning respect. "Efficient female, aren't you, Lady Maccon?"

Alexia was not certain whether she should be pleased or offended by the statement, so she chose to ignore it.

"So, I had better get to it, hadn't I?" Madame Lefoux turned and crawled back under the transmitter, returning to her tinkering.

m.u.f.fled words emanated a few moments later.

"What was that?"

Madame Lefoux's head reappeared. "I said, would you like to inscribe a message to Lord Akeldama while you are waiting?"

"Superb idea." Lady Maccon turned to the claviger. "Would you mind finding me a blank scroll, a stylus, and some acid?"

The young man jumped to oblige. While she waited for the supplies, Alexia poked about looking for the pack's valve frequensor library. Who did Kingair communicate with? Why had they bothered to invest in the aethographor at all? She found the crystalline valves in a small set of unlocked drawers off to one side. There were only three, but they were all entirely unlabeled and without any other identification.

"What are you doing, Lady Maccon?" The claviger came up behind her, looking suspicious (an expression entirely unsuited to his face).

"Just pondering why a Scottish pack would need an aethographor," replied Alexia. She was never one to dissemble when forthrightness could keep others off guard.

"Mmm," the young man replied, noncommittal. He handed her a metal scroll, a small vial of acid, and a stylus.

Lady Maccon set herself up in one corner of the room, tongue sticking out slightly as she attempted to be as neat as possible inscribing one letter into each grid square on the scroll. Her penmans.h.i.+p had never won her any school awards, and she wanted to make it as clear as possible.

The message read, "Testing Scots. Please reply."

She removed Lord Akeldama's crystalline valve from the secret pocket of her parasol, carefully using her copious skirts to shroud her movements so the claviger could not see where it was hidden.

Madame Lefoux was still puttering, so Lady Maccon entertained herself by exploring the receiving room, the part of the aethographor on which Madame Lefoux was not working. She tested her own memory on the parts. They were, in general, larger and less streamlined than on Lord Akeldama's transmitter, but they were in the same place: filter to eliminate ambient noise, dial for amplifying incoming signals, and two pieces of gla.s.s with black particulate between.

Madame Lefoux surprised Alexia with a gentle touch on her arm.

"We are almost ready. It is five minutes until eleven. Shall we set the machine to transmit?"

"Will I be allowed to watch?"

"Of course."

The three of them crammed into the tiny transmitting room, which, like the receiving room, was packed with machinery that looked like Lord Akeldama's-except that the gadgetry was more tangled, something Alexia had not thought possible, and the dials and switches were more numerous.

Madame Lefoux smoothed out and slotted Alexia's metal scroll into the special frame. Alexia placed Lord Akeldama's valve into the resonator cradle. After confirming the time, Madame Lefoux pulled down on a large k.n.o.b-ended switch and engaged the aetheric convector, activating the chemical wash. The etched letters began to phosph.o.r.esce. The two small hydrodine engines spun to life, generating opposing aetheroelectric impulses, and the two needles raced across the slate. Sparking brightly whenever they were exposed to one another through the letters, transmission commenced. Alexia worried about the rain causing delay, but she had faith that Lord Akeldama's improved technology was capable of greater sensitivity and could cut though climatic interference.

"Testing... Scots... please... reply" sped invisibly outward.

And leagues to the south, at the top of a posh town house, a well-trained vampire drone, dressed like a candied orange peel, who looked as though his gravest concern was whether winter cravats permitted paisley or not, sat up straight and began recording an incoming transmission. The source was unknown, but he had been told to sweep on broad receiving at eleven o'clock for several nights straight. He took down the message and then noted the transmission coordination frequency and the time before das.h.i.+ng off to find his master.

"It is hard to know for certain, but I believe everything went smoothly." Madame Lefoux switched off the transmitter, the little hydrodine engines spinning quietly down. "Of course, we will not know if communication has been established until we receive an answering transmission."

The claviger said, "Your contact will have to determine the correct frequency from the incoming message so that he can dial it in from his end, without a companion valve frequensor. How long will such an endeavor take?"

"No way to know," replied the Frenchwoman. "Could be quite rapid. We had best go turn the receiving room on."

So they let themselves into the other chamber and lit the silent little steam engine located under the instrument board. Then came a long quarter of an hour simply sitting, as quietly as possible, waiting.

"I think we will give it just a few more minutes," Madame Lefoux whispered. Even her whisper caused the magnetic resonator coils to shake slightly.

The claviger frowned at her and went to retune the ambient noise filtration component.

Then, with no warning at all, Lord Akeldama's message slowly began to appear between the two pieces of gla.s.s on the receiver. The small hydraulic arm with its mounted magnet began painstakingly moving back and forth, s.h.i.+fting the magnetic particulate one letter at a time.

The claviger, whose name Alexia still did not know, began carefully and quietly copying down the incoming letters on a soft piece of washed canvas using a stylographic pen. Lady Maccon and Madame Lefoux held their collective breaths and tried not to move. Silence was vital. After each letter was complete, the arm reset itself and the gla.s.s shook softly, erasing the previous letter and preparing for the next.

Eventually, the arm stopped moving. They waited a few more minutes, and when Alexia went to speak, the claviger held up his hand autocratically. Only when he had switched everything off did he nod, allowing them to talk. Lady Maccon realized why he had charge of the aethographor. The Scots were a silent, dour lot, but he seemed to have the least to say of any of them.

"Well? Read out the message," she demanded.

He cleared his throat and, blus.h.i.+ng slightly, read out, " 'Got you. Scots taste good?' "

Lady Maccon laughed. Lord Akeldama must have misread her message. Instead of "testing Scots," he had read "tasting Scots." "Regardless of the reply, we know that this transmitter is working. And I can gossip with Lord Akeldama."

The claviger looked offended. "An aethographor isna intended for gossip gossip, Lady Maccon!"

"Tell that to Lord Akeldama."

Madame Lefoux's dimples appeared.

"Could we send him one more message to be certain as to the efficaciousness of the transmitting room?" Lady Maccon asked hopefully.

The claviger sighed. He was reluctant to agree but was apparently also unwilling to resist the request of a guest. He wandered off and returned with another metal scroll.

Alexia inscribed, "Spy here?"

From what she could recall, Lord Akeldama's newer model had the ability to overhear other transmissions, if it knew where to look.

Minutes later in the other room, the reply came. "Not mine. Probably chatty bats."

While the other two looked confused, Alexia only nodded. Lord Akeldama thought that any spy would belong to the vampires. Knowing her friend, he would now take it upon himself to start monitoring the Westminster Hive and nearby roves. She could just imagine him rubbing pink-gloved hands together, thrilled with the challenge. With a smile, she removed Lord Akeldama's valve and, when the claviger was not looking, stashed it back in her trusty parasol.

Lady Maccon was exhausted by the time she sought her bed. It was not a small bed by any means, yet her husband seemed to be occupying the entirety of it. He was sprawled, snoring softly, wrapped every which way in a ragged and much-abused (clearly throughout its long and not very successful life) coverlet.

Alexia climbed in and applied a tried-and-true technique she had developed over the last few months. She braced herself against the headboard and used her legs to push him as much to one side as possible, clearing sufficient s.p.a.ce for her to worm her way down before he took to sprawling once more. She supposed he had spent decades, even centuries, sleeping alone; it would take some time to retrain him. In the meantime, she was developing some decent thigh muscles from her nightly ritual. The earl was no lightweight.

Conall growled at her slightly but seemed pleased enough to find her next to him once she snuggled against his side. He rolled toward her, nuzzled the back of her neck, and wrapped a heavy arm about her waist.

She tugged hard at the coverlet, which would not budge, and settled for arranging the earl's arm about her instead of the blanket. As a supernatural creature, Conall was supposed to be cold most of the time, but Alexia never felt it. Whenever she touched him, he was mortal, and his mortal body seemed to run at temperatures something akin to a high-end steam boiler. It was nice to be able to sleep touching him for once, with no worries she might cause him to age.

And on that note, Lady Maccon drifted off.

She awoke still warm. But her husband's affection, or possibly his hidden murderous tendencies, had shoved her so far toward the edge of the bed that she was partly suspended in midair. Without his arm about her waist, she would most certainly have tumbled off the side. Her nightgown was, of course, gone. How did he always manage to do that? The nuzzling at the back of her neck had turned into nibbles.

She cracked an eyelid: it was just about dawn, or the gray and depressing Highland winter version of dawn. Kingair heralded the day with a sad, reluctant spit of light, which in no way encouraged one to spring swiftly from the bed and trip lightly the morning dew. Not that Alexia was any kind of springer or tripper first thing on normal occasions.

Conall's nibbles turned into slightly more insistent bites. He was fond of a bite here or there. Sometimes Alexia was given to wonder if, had she not been a preternatural, he would not have actually eaten a chunk of her once in a while. There was something in the way his eyes came over yellow and hungry when he was in an amorous mood. She had ceased fighting the fact that she loved Conall, but that did not stop her from being practical about his requirements. Baser instincts were baser instincts, after all, and, her touch aside, he was still a werewolf. On occasions like this, she had reason to be glad her own powers kept his teeth nice and square. Although, of course, the way things stood in Kingair, had she been in full possession of a soul, she still would not have had to worry.

He turned his attention to her ear.

"Stop that. Angelique will be in presently to see me dressed."

"Bother her."

"For goodness' sake, Conall. Think of her delicate sensibilities."

"Your maid is a prude," was her husband's grumbled reply. He did not leave off his romantic attentions. Instead he moved his arm to better facilitate his notion of acceptable morning activities. Unfortunately, he neglected to realize his arm was all that was holding his wife in the bed.

With an undignified squawk, Alexia tumbled to the floor.

"Good Lord, woman, what'd you do that that for?" her husband asked in profound confusion. for?" her husband asked in profound confusion.

Lady Maccon checked to see that everything was unbroken and then stood, angrier than a hornet. She was just about to sting her husband into oblivion with the sharper side of her already-sharp tongue when she remembered that she was naked. At that same moment, she came to the sudden realization of exactly how cold a stone castle could get during a Highland winter. Cursing her husband a blue streak, she jerked the covers off of him and launched herself at him, burrowing into his warmth.

Seeing how this put her naked body plastered on top of him, Lord Maccon had no objection. Except that his wife was still annoyed and was now wide awake and twitchy, and he was aching something awful from his fight the night before.

"I am going to find out what is going on with this pack of yours today if it is the last thing I do," she said, swatting at his hands when they attempted to make interesting forays. "The longer I spend lazing about in bed, the less time I have to investigate."

"I wasna planning on being lazy," came the growl.

Lady Maccon decided that, in the interest of economy, she would have to face the cold, or her husband would carry on about this for hours. When he took it into his head to do a thing, he liked to see it done properly.

"It will have to wait until this evening," she said, extracting herself from his embrace. In a swift movement, she rolled off of him to one side, spinning the coverlet around herself. She part rolled, part hopped off the edge of the bed to her feet and shuffled across the floor toward her pelisse. This left her poor husband naked on the bed behind her. He was less disturbed by the cold, for he simply propped himself up on a pillow, folded his hands behind his head, and watched her out of heavy-lidded eyes.

Which was the scene poor Angelique came in upon-her mistress wrapped in a blanket like a large upended sausage roll, and her master sprawled naked for all the world to see. The maid had been living among werewolves, and in the presence of Lord and Lady Maccon, long enough not to have this bother her overmuch. She squeaked, winced, averted her eyes, and carried the basin of was.h.i.+ng water over to the little stand provided.

Lady Maccon hid a smile. Poor Angelique. To come from the world of hives into the chaos that was pack life must be disconcerting. After all, no one was more civilized than the vampires, and no one less civilized than werewolves. Alexia wondered if vampires ever even made it to bed sport; they were so busy being polite to one another. At least the werewolves lived large: loud and messy, but also large.

She thanked the maid and took pity on her, sending her off to find tea. Then she quickly dropped the blanket to wash.

Conall lumbered off the bed and came over to see if he could "help" with her ablutions. His a.s.sistance caused some giggling, and a lot of splas.h.i.+ng, and a certain degree of wetness that was not necessarily water related. But she did manage to be safely enshrouded in her pelisse and to see him shoved off into his dressing chamber and under the tender ministrations of Tunstell's waistcoat choices before Angelique reappeared.

She sipped tea while the maid picked out a perfectly serviceable tweed day dress and underthings. She pulled these on in an apologetic silence, with not even a token complaint, figuring they had already put the poor woman's finer feelings through the wringer that morning.

She huffed a little as the corset went on. Angelique was merciless. Soon enough Alexia was seated, docile and dressed, while the Frenchwoman did her hair.

Angelique asked, "So, ze machine, iz it fixed?"

Alexia gave her a suspicious look through the mirror. "Yes, we believe so. But I wouldn't be too excited; Madame Lefoux shows no inclination to depart anytime soon."

Angelique made no reply.