“Infant, keep pace but don’t startle the prancer.”
Rue resented being instructed by her mother to do something that she was going to do anyway. Being in the company of Lady Maccon without being able to speak might well drive Rue more bonkers than Paw. She was already regretting her offer. She bared her teeth.
Lady Maccon took off at a dangerous speed.
Rue ran after, wishing she could remind Mother that Paw was currently mortal, and perhaps a little care was warranted.
The dogcart careened around a corner, practically on one wheel.
Rue shook her head and put on a burst of speed to close the widening gap. Werewolves could outpace horses, especially one pulling Lord and Lady Maccon’s weight. She caught up and jogged behind, nostrils flaring to keep track of the cityscape around her. That had been one of the hardest things to learn as a werewolf pup, how her map of the world changed to one of scents.
They made good time across town. Fortunately, traffic was light, as it was early yet. Balls and shows were hours off starting so no one was trying to get anywhere important. Given that Lady Maccon was all over the road, this was a good thing. If Mother is the superior whip, Paw must be a sight.
By the time they drew up outside the All England Croquet, Lawn Tennis, and Airborne Polo Club, Rue’s senses already told her that things were in a bad state. The noise was absurd, a mix of yells, yips, growls, and foul language. The smells were those of sweat, fear, and blood.
Rue’s attention went to her ship.
The Spotted Custard floated in chubby majesty under the moonlight, well out of a werewolf’s leaping range. Decklings lined the railing of the main deck, armed to the teeth but not doing anything, simply watching the broiling mass below. Occasionally, one of them would point, shaking his head, and another would nod and spit in disgust. By deckling standards the fight was inferior entertainment.
There was a large, beautifully decorated hat among the spectators, which meant Primrose was there. Good, Prim is safe. No doubt Percy is in his library, uninterested in such a plebeian thing as a werewolf brawl.
It was quite the scrapper. All of the pack seemed to be there in wolf form. They were up against four vampires and a dozen drones, all male and all armed for battle with silver knives and grim expressions. None of them seemed to be packing serious firepower, but nevertheless an encounter between silver blade and werewolf flesh rarely worked out in the werewolf’s favour.
As a rule, werewolves didn’t fight vampires. Vampires were faster and better armed. Werewolves were stronger with both teeth and claws but couldn’t exactly carry wooden stakes or anything useful like that. There were, however, usually more werewolves in a pack than vampires in a hive. All things taken together, hives and packs were evenly matched, so why bother fighting?
In this case, it didn’t seem like the vampires were intent on serious damage. Their drones, on the other hand, were fighting with the white-eyed desperation of mortal against immortal and weren’t doing well.
Baroness Ivy Tunstell’s hive was, much to the general disgust of society, made up of mostly older Egyptian vampires, transported with her during her minting swarm all the way from Alexandria. They fought beautifully with swirling movements and lightning-fast flicks of the wrist. Over the past two decades, they’d learned not to kick – it wasn’t done in British society – but against werewolves they seemed to believe this rule did not apply.
Rue swung her head, ears swivelling, nose aquiver, eyes searching the fray. There was Tasherit, in cat form, sitting atop the official’s chair, whiskers twitching. She looked to be rendering amused judgement upon the mêlée, but she was a cat, and cats always looked to be rendering amused judgement.
Rue barked at her, sharply, once.
Brown cat eyes, so incongruous in the face of a lioness, swung regally in her direction.
Tasherit inclined her head.
Rue barked at her again.
Tasherit leaned over, whiskers arrowing in, eyes dilating to focus on the centre of the brawl, the swirling eye of the cyclone.
Rue stood on her hind legs like a circus dog and tried to see what it was.
Too many men and wolves were in between. The noise was too fearsome and the smells too potent for her to distinguish anything significant. She galloped over to the official’s chair and leapt to stand next to Tasherit.
The lioness hissed at her, but only in a “this is my post, stupid wolf” kind of way.
Rue muscled her aside, trying to see what the cat had been pointing at.
Rue saw her father wade in, fists flailing, roaring at his pack to cool their blasted tempers or he’d do it for them. Mother was behind him, trying to touch vampires and werewolves alike, intent on sucking them into mortality. Preternatural touch itself wasn’t deadly, but Rue knew from experience it was shocking, like having a chamber pot of humanity upended over one’s head. Gave a soul pause, if nothing else. With her other hand, Lady Maccon flailed about with her parasol, the fifth or sixth in a long line of hideous accessories. It housed under its canopy more covert anti-supernatural technology than one might think possible. Despite this fact, Rue had most commonly seen it applied as a bludgeon.
Then Rue saw what Tasherit had been whiskering at.
There in the centre of the fight, grappling with one another, each trying to go for the other’s throat, were the Right Honourable Professor Percival Tunstell and Chief Engineer Quesnel Lefoux.
FIVE
In Which Rue Breaks Things
Percy and Quesnel must have started the whole mess.
Aunt Ivy would have sent her darling baby boy some drone guards and Paw had Channing tailing Quesnel. There you have it, the perfect recipe for conflict. Paw, after all, hadn’t specified what Channing was to do with Quesnel. But if Percy or his vampires made the appearance of wanting to kill Quesnel? Well, Lord save anyone if a vampire tried to steal a werewolf’s prey, even if only to kill that prey himself. Especially then.