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.
Biffy lashed out with his tail, slamming the door closed behind them.
Professor Lyall changed form, standing before the furious she-wolf. “Lady Kingair, don’t you think we might talk about this civilly, just this once?”
The rangy wolf sat back on her haunches, as though considering this proposition, and then, after a moment, the graying fur of her coat retreated, and she stood before Lyall.
Sidheag Kingair was a fine figure of a woman for all she had been converted later in life. She crossed her arms, utterly unself-conscious. “Professor, I dinna want tae be civil. If that man killed my Beta, ’tis my right tae take his blood.”
“If.”
She looked at Biffy, now sitting back on his haunches, tongue out and panting after such a run. “But I heard him say that—”
“You heard him speculate. Nothing has been proven.”
“That dinna sound like speculation tae me.”
Biffy wondered if he, too, should change his form, or if such a thing would be wasted on the Alpha’s rage. He wanted to have some input, however, aside from wagging his tail and twitching his ears, so he sought out his reserves of courage, faced the pain, and shifted.
“We need to act within the confines of British law, Lady Kingair, as well as pack protocol. The first thing to do is confront the man and inquire further.”
Lady Kingair’s lip curled. “Inquire? If you insist.”
Professor Lyall turned to Biffy. “If you would like to lead the way?”
Biffy would not like, but he did as he was told by his Beta, moving with a certain amount of embarrassed poise through the house in full view of half the servants.
Thus they trooped down to the wine cellar—to find the door slightly open with no sign of being forced and the cellar itself completely empty.
Floote was gone.
Lady Kingair erupted into immediate fury. “He’s escaped!”
Professor Lyall shook his head. “Not possible. We secured this room to hold werewolves.”
“Then someone must have let him out. Or not locked the room down properly.” She snarled at Biffy.
Biffy was affronted. “I assure you, it was securely locked, and I searched his person for tools.”
“You must have missed something, pup!”
“Perhaps I missed the utterly ridiculous idea that a butler could pick locks!”
“Perhaps you did, you little—”
Professor Lyall stepped in. “Now wait just a moment, Lady Kingair. Did you search Floote’s room just now when you were looking for him?”
The Alpha shrugged, the long fall of her thick hair shifting against her naked breasts. She still glared at Biffy.
Unashamed, knowing he had done all that could be asked of someone in his position, Biffy pretended to examine his manicure. For some reason, shifting forms played hell on the cuticles.
Lyall continued his questioning. “Had he taken his belongings?”
Lady Kingair wasn’t interested in figuring out the minutiae of Floote’s disappearance. She was interested in blaming someone for it—Biffy.
Biffy turned away to poke about the cellar, trying to find any clues that might represent Floote’s ability to escape a heretofore impenetrable wine cellar.
He did not see her shifting forms. The only warning he got was Lyall’s shout.
Afterward, Biffy was never quite certain what he did or why it happened. He reacted out of instinct, but there were two instincts in place—the werewolf one that wanted to shift forms out of self-preservation and the Biffy one that hated the pain of shifting more than anything, more than a badly cut jacket or a loose cravat. Those two instincts went to battle against each other as the great vicious she-wolf charged toward him.
He shifted.
He simply didn’t quite manage to shift everything.
Only his head went over.
That action stopped Lady Kingair in a way that nothing else possibly could. She halted her charge, stood on four legs stiffed in surprise, and stared at him.
Biffy didn’t understand what was going on. He still felt like himself, and there was very little pain, but his head felt swollen and heavy, as though he had caught a cold, and his senses were suddenly far more acute.