The man’s face closed down.
Alexia sighed and switched topics. “If you don’t think it interfering, may I ask? We are very low—how can we float at night?”
“Ah, lady. You know some of our ways. Let me show you.” He made his way over to the middle and threw several blankets off what looked to be a container of gas, of the kind used for lamp lighting back home in London. “For special, we have this.”
Alexia was instantly intrigued. “Will you show me?”
The man flashed a brief grin of excitement and began unhitching and hooking in various tubes and cords. He hoisted the canister so its mouth pointed into the massive balloon.
While he was busy fussing, Alexia took a moment to take in her surroundings.
The balloon was utterly unlike the British-made dirigibles Alexia had utilized in the past. She had traveled in both small pleasure-time floaters and the larger mail post and passenger transports—the company-owned monsters. This balloon was similar to neither. For one thing, the balloon part itself hadn’t the shape of a dirigible and was entirely made of cloth. It was guided by means of opening and closing flaps rather than by a propeller of any kind. For another, the basket was bigger than a personal jaunt dirigible but much smaller than one of the larger cross-country behemoths. It was twice the length of a rowboat but basically square. In the center was the mooring for the balloon and all the associated straps and contraptions required to see it float and directed properly. As the basket slowly spun with the balloon, there seemed to be no particular front or back. There was an area clearly used for sleeping, another for cooking, and one tented corner that Alexia could only assume was meant for doing one’s private business. She supposed that the family lived in the basket and that the various hanging sacks over the edge and from the base of the balloon—which she had assumed were ballasts—were probably goods and supplies.
Prudence went wobbling past, the Drifter girl on her tail, both of them giggling madly and having a grand old time. Alexia made her way to Conall, to defend him from possible contact with his daughter. The last thing they needed was an airsick werewolf pup dashing about the craft. Better to have a large airsick man instead.
A blast of flame and a whoop of delight from the boy, Baddu, and the balloon began a stately rise upward, fuel from the gas giving them a boost of speed high toward the aethersphere. There was no lurching sensation; in fact, the movement hardly registered except that the ground retreated below them and Alexia’s ears popped.
Alexia knew in principle what the Drifters were aiming for. If they could get the balloon up and into an aether stream, they could hook into a current that would carry them south, up the Nile. It was a tricky maneuver, for should the balloon rise too much into the aether, there was a possibility of it getting torn apart, or caving with the sheer of crosscurrents, or the gas flame blowing out, causing them to drop out and down toward the desert.
Alexia tried not to think about it, instead looking down as Alexandria fell away under them.
Poor Conall, at this point reduced to dry heaving and little whimpers of distress, had his eyes tightly shut and his big hands white-knuckled about the side of the basket. Alexia wondered if she shouldn’t get Prudence to take on wolf form. Perhaps they could trap her as a pup in the corner? Prudence didn’t seem to feel the pain of werewolf shift, so perhaps she didn’t get airsick either? She certainly wasn’t suffering from the affliction now. She was having a wonderful time. And, Alexia noted with pleasure, always stopping politely should any of their hosts wish to show her the correct anchoring of a cord or explain to her the thermodynamics of floating—in Arabic, mind you. If Lord Akeldama did nothing else, he was instilling in his adopted daughter the very best manners.
Soon they had risen high enough to turn Alexandria into a spot of faint torchlight. Below and ahead, Alexia could see only the dark of the desert, here and there a lonely fire, and, glinting under the moonlight, the hundreds of long silver snakes that made up the Nile Delta. A sudden flurry of activity in the basket, and Alexia looked over to see Zayed hauling hard on one of the ropes while Baddu offloaded some weight. Then there came a jerk and a woof noise, and the top of the balloon caught an aether stream. Zayed turned up the gas and angled the canister toward the cave-in and the balloon rose up fully into the aether stream. It immediately began to float, with much greater speed, due south. Despite this change in pace, Alexia felt almost nothing. Unlike a dirigible, there were no breezes; the balloon was moving with the currents.
Conall straightened, looking markedly better and less green.
Alexia patted him sympathetically. “Human?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t do much good. I think I simply got everything, well, out. If you know what I mean?”
Alexia nodded. “Could it be our current proximity to the aether?”
“Could be. Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to make a note of it, wife? Seems that the God-Breaker Plague reaches all the way up to the aether.”
“Either that, or the aethersphere itself counteracts your supernatural abilities.”
“Well, if that were the case, scientists would have figured that out by now, wouldn’t they?”
Lady Maccon took out a tiny notebook from one of the secret pockets of her parasol and a stylographic pen from another. “Oh, yes? And how would they have done that? Vampires can’t float up that high, because they are tethered too short. And werewolves don’t float at all, because they get sick.”
“You can’t tell me no one has transported a ghost and body via float before?”
Alexia frowned. “I don’t know, but it’s worth researching. I wonder if Genevieve and her deceased aunt came via float or ferry when they left Paris for London.”
“You’ll have to ask her when we catch up.” They paused in their conversation, awkward for a moment; then Conall asked, “Can you feel the plague?”
“You mean that odd tingly sensation I felt at the edge of Alexandria?”
He nodded.
“Difficult to tell, since the feeling was already similar to that of aether breezes.” Alexia closed her eyes and leaned her arms out of the balloon basket, embracing the air.
The earl immediately grabbed her shoulder and pulled her backward. “Don’t do that, Alexia!” He was looking green again, this time with fear.
Alexia sighed. “Can’t tell. Could be the plague, could be proximity to the aethersphere. We’ll simply have to wait and see what happens as we move farther toward the epicenter.”
“Did no one ever tell you, wife, that it’s rather dangerous to do scientific experiments on oneself?”
“Now, dear, don’t fuss. To be fair, I’m doing them on you as well.”“How verra reassuring.”
Biffy knocked politely on Lyall’s office door. He sniffed the air while he waited to be bidden entrance. He smelled the usual odors of BUR—sweat and cologne, leather and boot polish, gun oil and weaponry. In the end it was most similar to a soldier’s barracks. He did not scent another pack. Wherever she was at the moment, Lady Kingair was not there.
“Enter,” came Lyall’s mild bidding.
Biffy was shocked by how warm simply the sound of that voice made him feel. Almost reassured. Whatever they were building together, Biffy decided at that moment that it was good and worth fighting for. Which, being a werewolf, he supposed might actually be more of a literal than figurative way of putting matters.
The young dandy took a breath and entered the room, his pleasure subdued under the weight of the information he had to impart. The burden of a spy, Lord Akeldama always said, was not in the knowing of things but in knowing when to tell such things to others. That and the fact that creeping around could be dusty work, terrible on the knees of one’s trousers.
Biffy felt that there was no point in barking about the dell. “I know who killed Dubh, and no one is going to like it.” He moved across the room, pausing only to remove his hat and place it on the stand near the door. The poor hat stand was already overloaded with coats and wraps and chapeaus as well as a number of less savory items—leather collars with gun compartments, Gatling straps, and what looked to be a plucked goose made of straw.
Once he stood across the cluttered desk from Lyall, Biffy removed the bullet from his waistcoat pocket and slapped it down on the dark mahogany.
Professor Lyall put aside the papers he had been studying and picked up the bullet. After a moment of close examination, he tipped a pair of glassicals down from where they perched atop his head and studied the bullet even more carefully through the magnification lens.
He looked up after a long moment, the glassicals distorting one hazel eye out of all proportion.
Biffy winced at the asymmetry.
Lyall took the glassicals off, set them aside, and handed the bullet back to Biffy. “Sundowner ammunition. Old-fashioned. Of the kind that shot Dubh.”
Biffy nodded, face grave. “You’ll never guess who from.”
Professor Lyall sat back, vulpine face impassive, and raised one dark blond eyebrow patiently.
“Floote.” Biffy waited for a reaction, wanted one.
Nothing. Lyall was good.
“It was all Floote. He had opportunity. He was free at the time of the initial attack at the train station. He had access to Lord Akeldama’s dirigible, which he could fly back, setting part of London on fire to delay Lady Maccon. Do you recall, Dubh mentioned something to her ladyship about not wanting to go with her home? He said it wasn’t safe. I believe that was because he knew Floote would be there. Then when Lady Maccon brought the wounded Beta back, who did she leave him alone with in the sickroom for those few minutes?”
“Floote.”
“And what happened?”
“Dubh died.”
“Exactly.”
“But opportunity is not motive, my dear boy.” Professor Lyall, for all his passivity, was unwilling to believe.
“I confronted him, but you know Floote. He claimed it was something to do with Alessandro Tarabotti, orders left behind when he died. Something wasn’t supposed to get out. Lady Maccon wasn’t supposed to know. Of course, she left for Egypt anyway. You know what I think? I think Alessandro Tarabotti somehow set the God-Breaker Plague into motion, and Floote has been seeing that it continues to expand. Those were the orders Mr. Tarabotti left, and Floote’s been secretly conducting a long-distance supernatural extermination mandate ever since. I think Dubh simply got in the way and Floote had no other choice.”
“Ambitious, but what do you—” Lyall paused and sniffed the air. “Oh, dear,” he said succinctly.
Biffy sniffed as well. He caught a whiff of open fields and country air, although not of the kind he might be familiar with from his own pack. This was a damp, lush, impossibly green field leagues to the north—Scotland.
Biffy whirled and ran to the door, throwing it open, only to see Lady Kingair’s graying tail tip disappear out the front entrance of BUR and into the night, at speed.
He felt Lyall’s presence next to him. “What did you do with Floote, my dandy?”
“Locked him in the wine cellar, of course.”
“This is not good. Given half a chance, she’ll kill him before we extract any additional information out of him.”
“Not to mention that it’s a bad idea to eat one’s domestic staff.”
The two men looked at one another and then, by mutual accord, began to strip out of their clothes. At least, Biffy consoled himself, BUR agents were accustomed to such eccentricities.
Professor Lyall gave up about halfway through and simply sacrificed his wardrobe to the cause. Biffy watched him run after the Alpha. He hoped fervently they weren’t in for another fight with the she-wolf; he didn’t think he had it in him. However, Biffy did spare a few moments to divest himself of his favorite waistcoat and cravat before shifting form. The trousers and shirt could be replaced, but not that waistcoat; it was a real pip.
Biffy took off after Lyall, pushing himself hard, so hard he caught up to the slighter wolf just before they reached the pack’s town house. Professor Lyall was reputed to be one of the fastest fighters in England, but Biffy still had enough muscle mass on him to catch up in a straight race. He was inordinately proud of himself.
They pushed in the open door to the Maccon’s town house to find Lady Kingair snuffling about, dashing frantically from room to room, evidently having started her hunt for the butler on the top floor in the servants’ quarters. Luckily, she had not yet reached the wine cellar. Floote’s scent was so prevalent throughout the house it must be throwing her off.
Biffy and Lyall looked at one another, yellow eyes to yellow eyes. Then they both leaped toward the angry Alpha and backed her into the front parlor by dint of surprise, rather than power.