Madame Lefoux noticed her uncharacteristic silence.
“Are you feeling well , my dear?” The inventor placed a soft hand on Alexia’s upper arm.
Alexia started slightly and experienced an unacceptable well ing of tears. Real y, at her age! It seemed to have been a very long while since anyone touched her with genuine fondness. Air kisses and three-fingered pats on the head comprised the bulk of affectionate action in the Loontwil household, and had done since she was a child. It wasn’t until Conal had come into her life that Alexia became accustomed to physical intimacy. He enjoyed it immensely and had engaged in it with her at every possible opportunity. Madame Lefoux was not quite so aggressive, but she was French, and seemed to feel that verbal comfort ought to be companioned by a soothing caress.
Alexia leaned into the embrace. The hand around her shoulder was not large and cal oused, and Madame Lefoux smel ed of vanil a and engine oil, not open fields, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Oh, it is nothing. I was reminded of home there for one moment.” Alexia took another sip of the tea.
The German looked up at her curiously. “He did not treat you well ? The werewolf husband?”
“Not as such in the end,” Alexia prevaricated, never one to talk about personal matters with strange little Germans.
“Werewolves, ya. Difficult creatures. What is left of the soul is al violence and emotion. It is a wonder you English have managed to integrate them into society.”
Alexia shrugged. “I am under the impression the vampires are more difficult to handle.”
“Real y?”
Alexia, feeling she may have been traitorously indiscreet, grappled for the right way of phrasing it. “You know how vampires get, al high-up-mucky-mucky and I’m-older-than-thou.” She paused. “No, I suppose you do not know how they get, do you?”
“Mmm. I should have thought werewolves more an issue. With the running about in armies and the marrying of normal humans.”
“Wel my particular werewolf did turn out a bit difficult. But, to be fair, he was perfectly suitable right up until the end.” Alexia was painful y conscious that “perfectly suitable” was a rather understated way of putting it. Conal had been a model husband in his massive grumpy way: tender, except when it wasn’t necessary, and then rough until gentleness was cal ed for once more. She shivered slightly at the memories. He had also been loud and gruff and overprotective, but he had adored her. It had taken her a good deal of time before she believed that she was worth al that fierce affection he lavished upon her. To have it stolen away unjustly was that much more cruel.
“Isn’t the end result what counts?” Madame Lefoux cocked her head. She had taken against Conal most decidedly when he kicked Alexia out.
Alexia grimaced. “Spoken like a true scientist.”
“You cannot possibly forgive him for what he did?” Madame Lefoux seemed ready to reprimand Alexia.
Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf glanced up from his meal. “Cast you out, did he? Does he not think the child is his?”
“Howlers have never sung of a werewolf child.” Alexia couldn’t believe it, but she was actual y defending her husband. “And loving me apparently wasn’t enough to get him over that fact. He didn’t even give me a chance.”
The German shook his head. “Werewolves. Emotion and violence, ya?” Then he put down his stylographic pen decidedly and leaned forward over book and notepad. “I spent al morning with research. My records would seem to substantiate his assessment.
Although, lack of corroborative cases or other information does not make for real evidence. There are older records.”
“Records kept by vampires?” Alexia theorized, thinking of the Vampire Edicts.
“Records kept by Templars.”
Floote gave a little wince. Alexia glanced at him. He chewed his food impassively.
“So you think the Templars might have some hint as to how this is possible?” Alexia gestured delicately at her midsection.
“Ya. If this has happened before, they wil have records of it.”
Alexia had grand romantic visions of marching into Conal ’s office and slamming down proof of her innocence—of making him eat his words.
“And what of your theories, Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf?” asked Madame Lefoux.
“I believe, if I abandon the concept of undead but maintain my aetheric analysis of the composition of the soul, I might be able to explain this pregnancy.”
“Wil you be able to maintain the principles of epidermal contact?”
The German looked impressed. “You are indeed familiar with my work, madame. I thought you were an engineer by training?”
Madame Lefoux flashed her dimples. “My aunt is a ghost and so was my grandmother. I have a keen interest in understanding excess soul.”
The horrible little dog came over to yap at Alexia’s ankle, and then, to add insult to injury, began to chew on one of her bootlaces. Alexia picked the serviette up off of her lap and surreptitiously dropped it on Poche’s head. The animal attempted to back out from under it, with little success.
“You believe you may have excess soul?” The German was apparently unaware of his dog’s predicament.
The Frenchwoman nodded. “It seems likely.”
Alexia wondered what that might feel like, knowing one was likely to end life as a poltergeist. She herself would die with no possibility of salvation or immortality.
Preternaturals had no soul to save for either God or ghost.
“Then why not seek immortality, now that you live in England where such atrocities are openly encouraged?” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf curled his lip.
Madame Lefoux shrugged. “Despite my preferred mode of dress, I am stil a woman, and I know my chances of surviving a werewolf bite, not to mention vampire blooding, are extremely slim. Besides, I do not wish to lose what little skil I have as an inventor alongside the bulk of my soul. To become entirely dependent upon the goodwil of a pack or a hive? No thank you. And simply because my relatives were ghosts does not necessarily mean I, too, have excess soul. In the end, I am not that much of a risk taker.”
The little dog had managed to circumnavigate the entire table without shaking off the offending serviette. Alexia coughed and rattled her dinnerware to disguise the sound of the animal bumping into various objects about the room. Floote, now within reach, bent down and removed the cloth from the dog’s head, issuing Alexia a reproving look.
Alexia had never thought to ask, but come to think of it, it was indeed odd that an inventor of Madame Lefoux’s particularly high creative skil level should have no supernatural patron. The Frenchwoman maintained good working relationships with the Westminster Hive and the Woolsey Pack, but she also dealt with loners, roves, and daylight folk. Alexia had thought the inventor’s avoidance of metamorphosis and supernatural patronage stemmed from personal objections, not practical ones. Now she was forced to consider, had she herself been born with Madame Lefoux’s options, would she choose the same path?
The German was not impressed. “I should prefer if you were a religious protester rather than an ethical objector, Madame Lefoux.”
“It is better, then, Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf, that I act to suit myself and not you. Is it not?”
“So long as the end result is one less supernatural.”
“Oh, real y. Must we talk politics while eating?” Alexia interjected at this juncture.
“By al means, Female Specimen, let us turn the conversation back to you.” The little man’s eyes were quite hard as he focused them upon her, and Alexia had a sudden sense of alarm.
“It is quite remarkable, you understand, your pregnancy. Until last night, I would have sworn that vampires and werewolves could only breed through metamorphosis. Ya? Your preternatural touch, it does not cancel out the fact that the supernatural person has, already, mostly died. It turns them mortal, ya, but not human, certainly not sufficient to procreate natural y.”
Alexia nibbled a piece of fruit. “Obviously this is an incorrect statement you make, sir.
”
“Obviously, Female Specimen. So I have—how do you say?—rethought the situation. There is one line of scientific evidence to support your claim. That line is the fact that both vampires and werewolves stil engage in”—the little man paused, a bright flush suffusing his pale features—“wel , bedroom activities.”
“Of an extensive and rather experimental nature, if the rumors are to be believed.”
Madame Lefoux waggled her eyebrows suggestively. Trust the only French person at the table to be at ease with this topic of conversation. Alexia, Floote, and Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf al looked painful y uncomfortable and shared a moment of awkward solidarity. Then the little German soldiered bravely on.
“There has to be a reason the procreative urges aren’t eliminated postmetamorphosis. Yet, none of my books could adequately address this concern. If they real y were undead, werewolves should no longer have need of that particular biological function.”
“So how, exactly, does this pertain to my situation?” Alexia stopped eating to listen with renewed interest.
“It seems clear that your husband’s capacity to continue to, er, perform, even as a werewolf, must be linked to an instinctual need to produce offspring the old-fashioned way. Modern science tel s us that, thus, offspring must be a possibility, however infinitesimal. You, it would appear, are that infinitesimal possibility. The problem is, of course, the inevitable miscarriage.”
Alexia blanched.
“I am sorry to say there is no way around that fact. If the Templar preternatural breeding program proved nothing else, it proved that preternaturals always breed true.
And similarly that they cannot occupy the same air space. Essential y, Female Specimen, you have an intolerance for your own child.”
Alexia had shared a room with a preternatural mummy once; she knew the feeling of discomfort and repulsion that would be her fate should she ever encounter another preternatural. But she had not yet felt that feeling from the embryo inside her.
“The child and I are not sharing any air,” she objected.
“We are aware that preternatural abilities are a matter of physical contact. In this, the Templar records are clear, and I recal them well . Al Female Specimens experimented upon over the centuries were barren or unable to carry a child. It is not a matter of if you wil lose this embryo—it is a matter of when. ”
Alexia sucked in her breath. Unexpectedly, it hurt. Quite apart from the loss of the child, this would mean that Conal ’s rejection and abuse had al been for naught. It was stupid, and hopeless, and…
Madame Lefoux came to her rescue. “Except that this may not be an ordinary preternatural child. You said it yourself—they are usual y the result of daylight and preternatural crossings. Alexia’s baby has a werewolf father, and as mortal as her touch would have made him at the time of conception, he was stil not human. Not entirely, for he had already lost much of his soul. This child is something different. It must be.” She turned to look at her friend. “It is a safe bet that the vampires aren’t trying to kil you simply because you are about to miscarry a soul ess. Particularly not the English vampires.”
Alexia sighed. “It is at times like this I wish I could talk to my mother.”
“Good gracious, what good would that do, madam?” Floote was moved to speak by the outrageousness of Alexia’s statement.
“Wel , whatever she said, I could simply take the opposite point of view.”
Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf was not to be distracted by family history. “You have felt no queasiness or revulsion for the specimen inside?”
Alexia shook her head.
The German began muttering to himself. “Something must be off in my calculations.
Perhaps the aetheric exchange conduction between mother and child is limited by partial soul retention. But why, then, wouldn’t a child retain part of the soul of a daylight father? Different kind of soul, perhaps?” He scratched out his careful notes with a sweeping motion of the stylographic pen, flipped to a new page, and began scribbling again.
They al watched him in silence, Alexia having mostly lost her appetite, until he stopped midnotation.
He looked up, his eyes popping wide as the second half of Madame Lefoux’s statement final y worked its way into his brain. “Vampires trying to kil her? Did you say they were trying to kil her? That thing, sitting there at my table, in my house!”
Madame Lefoux shrugged. “Wel , yes. Who else would they want to kil ?”
“But that means they wil be coming. They wil be fol owing her. Here! Vampires. I hate vampires!” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf spat noisily on the floor. “Nasty, bloodsucking tools of the devil. You must get out. You must al leave, now! I am terribly sorry, but I cannot have you here under such circumstances. Not even for the sake of scientific research.”
