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Iht in the alley beyond seeet to Alexia so long as the va

The sound of heavy-booted footsteps and a sharp, high-pitched whistle rent the night air Running around the corner of the back street caht pins decorated the front of their uniforht One of them held an Adam’s cross pistol, cocked and loaded with a deadly sharp wooden stake The other held a Colt Lupis revolver, the silver-bullet-slinger out of America--only the best fro the nature of the participants, he put the Colt away and pulled out a large wooden police in the alley yelled so in Latin Then he and his coents behind The wax-facedtoward Alexia’sInstead, he turned on the hapless fallen vampire and lashed out at the supernaturalbone Still, the vao The wax-faced , and then shifted doith his free foot, slaht Alexia heard another ghastly wet crunching sound With both wrists shattered, the varip With one final, erin up at Alexia, the wax-faced h the two policeh they were not even there The one with the cross pistol got off an excellent shot, but the wooden bullet did not even cause the wax man to stumble

Alexia’s vampire protector stood, shaky His nose was broken, and his wrists hung limply, but when he looked up at Miss Tarabotti, his face was full of satisfaction Alexia winced in sympathy at the blood spattered over his cheeks and chin She kneould heal quickly enough, especially if they could get hi eer, Alexia realized, a vampire, had just saved her from she knew not what unpleasantness Saved her, a preternatural She put her hands together and raised her fingertips to her lips, bowing forward in a silent prayer of thanks The vament and then motioned her to step back inside the bedroom

Miss Tarabotti nodded and retreated into the shadows of her sleeping cha on here, then, me lad?" she heard one constable ask as she closed the shutters firlary, I believe, sir," the vah caistration papers, please" To the other vaentlemen"

Miss Tarabotti had an understandably difficult ti back to sleep after that, and when she finally ed it, her dreams were full of vampires with lifeless faces and shattered wrists who kept turning multiple Lord Maccons into wax statues tattooed with the word VIXI over and over again

Miss Tarabotti’s family was unexpectedly en masse and entirely in an uproar when she arose for breakfast the nextUsually this was the calmest time of day, with Squire Loontwill up first, Alexia second, and the remainder of the household a distant third But, due to the exciteht, Miss Tarabotti was the last to awaken She deduced she must be uncommonly late indeed, for when she went down the stairs, it was to find that her nearest and dearest were crowded in the hallway rather than the breakfast roo her hands and looking more than usually dippy "Fix your hair, Alexia, do, dear, do Hurry! He has been waiting for nearly an hour He is in the front parlor Of course the front; nowhere else would do at all He would not let us wake you Lord knohy he wants to see you, but no one else will do I hope it is not official business You have not been up to anything, have you, Alexia?" Mrs Loontwill left off wringing her hands to flutter them about her head like a herd of excited butterflies

"He ate three cold roast chickens," said Felicity in a shocked voice "Three, at breakfast tih she was not certain which to be more offended by, the quantity or the hour

"And he still does not look happy," added Evylin, big blue eyes even bigger and bluer than usual in awe

"He arrived unfashionably early and did not even want to talk with Papa, and Papa illing to visit with him" Felicity was impressed

Alexia peeked in the hallway mirror and patted her hair into place Today she had dealt with the bruises on her neck by donning a teal paisley shawl over her black and silver day dress The shawl’s pattern clashed with the geo the fold of the dress, and it covered over the flattering square neckline of the bodice, but so with her hair, except that perhaps the simple knot was a bit old-fashioned, she turned to herin the parlor?"

Mrs Loontwill ignored the question, hustling her eldest daughter down the hall as though she were a blue frilly sheepdog and Alexia a reluctant black sheep

Alexia opened the door to the parlor and, when her mother and sisters would have followed her inside, shut it firmly and uncere in stony silence on the sofa farthest from the ith the carcasses of three chickens on silver platters before hirinned at him He simply looked so bashful, with all those chickens, like poultry skeleton sentries, standing guard before hih to ward off her smile "None of that, Miss Tarabotti Business first"

Miss Tarabotti would have been crestfallen, except for the "first" She also remembered Professor Lyall’s words She was supposed to make the nextoffense, she lowered her eyelashes, filed her smile away for later, and took a seat near to his you to call on , then, my lord? You certainly have thrown the Loontwill household into a tizzy" She tilted her head to one side and strove for cool politeness

"Uies for that" He looked abashedly at the chicken carcasses "Your faht word and then appearing to have come up with a new one of his own-- "fibberty-jibbitus, are they not?"

Alexia’s dark eyes twinkled at hi to live with theh it certainly speaks highly of your strength of character," he said, s unexpectedly The expression suffused his norht Until that ht of the earl as pretty But when he smiled Oh dear, it was most inconvenient to deal with Particularly before breakfast She wondered what exactly was entailed in hera first move

She removed her paisley shawl

Lord Maccon, who had been about to speak, paused, arrested ht by the low neckline of the dress The stark silver and black coloration of the ht out the creamy undertones of her Mediterranean skin "That dress will make your complexion come over all tan," Mrs Loontwill had criticized when she ordered it But Lord Maccon liked that It was delightfully exotic: the contrast of that stylish dress and the foreign tones of her co, wouldn’t you say?" said Miss Tarabotti, putting her wrap to one side in a way that caused her torso to dip forward slightly

Lord Maccon cleared his throat and ed to track dohat he had been about to say "Yesterday afternoon, while you and I were otherwise engaged, someone broke into BUR headquarters"

Miss Tarabotti’s rievously injured? Have you caught the culprits? Was anything of value stolen?"

Lord Maccon sighed Trust Miss Tarabotti to get straight to the meat of the issue He answered her questions in order "Not seriously No And mostly rove vampire and loner wolf files Some of the more detailed research docu his lips

Miss Tarabotti orried more by his expression than by his words She had never seen the earl with a look of such worry on his face "And?" she pro forward anxiously