“You mean now that we know I am an Alpha?” Biffy considered the question. To be reassured that he had a safe place to die as a werewolf when once, an age ago now, he had thought to live forever as a vampire? He gave a tiny sigh. “Yes, I suppose I am.” He paused. “How long do I have?”
Professor Lyall gave a little huff of amusement. “Oh, a few hundred years at least, possibly more, if you settle well. You still have to do military service, of course. That’s always a risk.”
“Learn to fight?”
“Learn to fight. I shouldn’t worry, my dandy. Lord Maccon will make an excellent teacher.”
“You think he’s coming back?”
“Yes, I do. If only to yell at me over the sins of the past.”
“Optimistic.”
“I think, in this matter, young pup, I know our Alpha better than you.”
“He will tolerate my presence, even with…?” Biffy gestured at his head.
“Of course. You are young yet and certainly no challenge to an Alpha of his standing.”
“Funny, I was beginning to feel rather old.”
Professor Lyall gave a tiny smile. “Come on, then, to bed with us, and I will remind you, in the best possible way, how young you really are.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Ah, Biffy, I rather think that now that is my line.”
Biffy laughed and straightened his spine, grabbing the Beta by the hand. “Right’o, come along, then.”
“Very good, sir.” Professor Lyall managed, somehow, to make his reply sound like a change in rank, a promise of wickedness, and the approval of a favorite teacher, all in one simple phrase.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Curative Properties of Nile Bathing
Alexia, Conall, and Prudence were five days with the balloon nomads of Egypt floating south. Five days drifting at speed above the long rope of the Nile River, a deep, dark blue-green during the day and a silvered strand at night. During those five days, the full moon came and went, with Conall, for the first time in hundreds of years, unaltered by its presence. The earl could freely play with and, much to Lady Maccon’s delight, take care of his daughter any time of the day or night without repercussions. He also grew a very large and scruffy beard, with which she was far less delighted.
“A man’s virility is in his beard,” he insisted.
To which Alexia replied, “And a woman’s is in her décolletage. Yet you don’t see me allowing mine to get out of control, now, do you?”
“If wishes were balloons,” was his only response.
Drifting was, thought Alexia, a most agreeable pastime. True, the accommodations on board left something to be desired and were rather cramped, but there were some wonderful moments that could only be experienced on a trip by way of balloon. For two days they linked up with what appeared to be most of Zayed’s extended family. They, too, sported bright balloons, mostly of a purple color, which drifted up close to Zayed’s, then floated a short distance off and hitched in to the same aether current. Zayed cast out a massive circular net, and as each new balloon arrived, they would pick up a section of net, until there they were, all linked together, with a kind of immense hammock dangling under and between them. This became the walkway by which certain matters of business were conducted and a playground for the children. Conall, still mostly uncomfortable with being up high at all, refused point-blank to even test it, but Alexia was never one to shirk a new experience when it presented itself with such appeal. She set forth, even knowing that should anyone on the ground have binoculars they might very well see up her skirts. Soon enough, she found herself bouncing and tumbling across the wide net. It was not so easy to traverse as it looked. She was entirely unable to effect the smooth bobbing walk of the Drifter women, who managed to go from basket to basket, in an odd reflection of the British housewife paying a social call, with great mounds of food balanced atop their heads.
Prudence, of course, took to the new sky-high transport like a newly minted vampire to blood, springing about with little Anitra, who was her new favorite person in the world. Alexia was tolerably assured that Anitra, who had been raised on such folderol as nets in the aether, knew more than the average child about falling. Alexia also noticed that there always seemed to be older children or mothers about with a watchful eye to the net’s edge, and so she relaxed some of her own vigilance. Not so Conall, whose eyes stayed fixed in horrified terror on first his daughter and then his wife. Each of whom he would yell to in turn. “Now, Prudence, don’t jump so high!” “Alexia, if you fall off, I shall kill you!” “Wife, look to our daughter!” Prudence, blissfully uncaring of her father’s concern, continued to bounce. Alexia ignored his rantings as those of a man whose feet, two or four, ought to always be on the ground.
During their five days of travel, they landed only once, on the evening in which they were linked to the other balloons. Zayed insisted that they needed to rest and restock both fuel and water. They drifted down slowly after the sun had set, pulling the net in as they went and coming to ground by a little oasis. The tingly feeling of the God-Breaker Plague was much stronger in the desert. It was almost uncomfortable for Alexia, as it had not been while floating. She felt the beginnings of that odd little push, that physical repulsion she had first experienced in the presence of one very small mummy, decorated with a broken ankh. Prudence, too, wasn’t happy grounded. “Up,” she kept saying. “Mama, up!” Only Conall was pleased, rolling about in the sand like a puppy before stripping down to bathe in the oasis. Alexia supposed not even the God-Breaker Plague could really get the wolf out of Lord Conall Maccon.
Two days later, they arrived at the bend in the Nile.
Alexia was hypnotized by the spot as they floated over it. It was the early evening, so their descent was slow and measured. From the sky, the place looked oddly familiar, the wide curve of the river forming a shape in the desert that Alexia was certain she recognized. But it was like trying to see a figure in the clouds. Then, as they dropped down closer and closer, she realized what it was.
She beckoned autocratically at her massive husband. “Conall, do come over here. Do you see that?”
The earl gave his wife a very dour look. “Alexia, I am trying not to look down.” But he made his way over to her.
“Yes, but, please? Just there. Zayed, if you could spare a moment? What is that?”
Their host came over to where the Maccons stood, Alexia leaning over the basket’s edge, looking down intently.
He nodded. “Ah, yes, of course. The Creature in the Sands.”
Alexia pointed it out for the benefit of her husband, even though Conall clearly wasn’t interested. “See there, the curve of the river? That is its head, and there, stretching out in ribbons into the desert, those are its legs. Are those pathways, Zayed?” The earl, unwilling to study further the ground he would probably describe as rushing toward them, went over to lie down on a pile of colorful blankets, shutting his eyes.
Zayed confirmed Alexia’s assessment. “Ghost trails into the desert.”
“Really, made by actual ghosts? Before the plague, I assume?”
“So they say. Not just any ghosts, lady. Ghosts of kings and queens and the servants of kings and queens. Must be ghosts, lady. What living man would walk voluntarily into the desert sands?”
“Eight trails, eight legs,” ruminated Alexia thoughtfully. It is an octopus. But an upside-down octopus? Of course, because the Nile runs backward! She continued interrogating her host. “And that spot there? The one that represents its eye?”