Professor Lyall stuck his head in to see if everything was sorted.

“Ah, good. You’ve managed matters.”

“Doesn’t she always?” grumbled her husband.

“Yes, Professor Lyall?” asked Alexia.

“I thought you should know, my lady, those results you wanted came in from our laboratory at BUR.”

“Yes?”

“On those little vials you, uh, found?”

“Yes?”

“Poison. All of them. Different kinds, different effectiveness levels. Some detectable, some not as such. Mostly for mortals but one or two that might put even a supernatural under the weather for some time. Nasty stuff.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Werewolves of Woolsey Castle

Having to keep Biffy mortal made for a pretty incommodious several hours. Ordinarily, Lady Maccon, even pregnant, could manage a meal and a carriage ride with aplomb, but when one must stay attached in some manner to a dandy, even the most mundane tasks become an exercise in complexity.

“It’s a good thing I enjoy your company, Biffy. I can’t imagine having to handle daily tasks with someone less agreeable affixed. Like my husband, for example.” Alexia shuddered at the very idea. She enjoyed having Conall affixed to her, but only for a limited amount of time.

The husband in question looked up at his lady with a grumbled, “Oh, thank you verra much, wife.”

They were sitting in the carriage together. Woolsey Castle loomed on the horizon—a sizable blob in the moonlight. Lady Maccon, being a woman of little artistic preference, regarded her domain with an eye toward its practicality as an abode for werewolves rather than an architectural endeavor. Which was good, as it was rather more of an architectural tragedy. Those unfortunate enough to happen upon it during daylight could tender only one compliment—that it was pleasingly situated. And it was, atop rising ground in extensive, if slightly unkempt, grounds with a cobbled courtyard and decent stables.

“Oh, you know perfectly well what I mean, husband. We’ve had to stay attached before, but customarily only when violence was imminent.”

“And sometimes for other reasons.” He gave her his version of a seductive look.

She smiled. “Yes, dear, exactly.”

Biffy said, being on his best behavior, “Thank you for the compliment, my lady, and I do apologize for the inconvenience.”

“So long as there are no more zombie porcupines, we should do very well.”

“Shouldn’t be,” said her husband. “Seems the hives have officially declared a cease-fire. Hard to tell truth with vampires but they appear to be pleased with the idea of Lord Akeldama adopting our child.”

“Well, at least someone is.”

Woolsey Castle was no castle at all but a large Georgian manor house augmented by mismatched Gothic-style flying buttresses. On her most recent trip to Italy, Lady Maccon had encountered a bug—a creature larger than her thumb that flew upright, like an angel, with a nose like an elephant, horns like a bull, and multiple wings. It stayed aloft in an erratic up-and-down manner as though it were remembering, occasionally, that a bug of its size and shape ought not to be able to fly. Woolsey Castle was built, in principle, upon much the same lines as that bug: improbably constructed, exceedingly ugly, and impossible to determine how it continued to stay upright or, indeed, why it bothered to do so.