Gail Carriger - Timeless

Alexia looked out over the tendrils extending off into the sands, disappearing from sight. “My people.”

Madame Lefoux stood up from where she had crouched down to examine yet another mummy. “Preternaturals, all of them?”

“That would do it.”

“Do what, exactly?” The Frenchwoman goaded her into saying it out loud.

“Cause the plague. Dry desert air combined with hundreds of dead preternaturals, basically—oh, I don’t know how to put it properly— outgassing .”

“That’s a lot of dead preternaturals,” said her husband.

“Collected from all around the world for hundreds and hundreds of years, I suppose. There aren’t that many of us to start with. Could also be that originally they were all piled up and that forty years ago someone decided to start spreading them out.”

Lord Maccon glanced over at Genevieve. “That would take quite an operation.”

Alexia added, “Two operations: one to get it started originally and another to start it up again forty years ago.”

Madame Lefoux looked back at them, her dark head twisting between the two and her green eyes grave. “It isn’t me! This is the first I’ve heard of it, I promise you!”

“Yes,” agreed Alexia, “but it is the kind of thing that might require a secret society. A massive underground secret society, of scientists, perhaps, who might not get so squeamish as others about handling the dead and collecting them from all over the world.”

“You think the OBO is doing this!” Madame Lefoux rocked back on her heels, genuinely surprised by the idea.

“It is an octopus .” Alexia was having none of that kind of silliness.

“No, you mistake me. The Order did spawn the Hippocras Club. I read the reports. I know we are capable of monstrous things. I simply don’t believe this is us. To have such knowledge, to know what the body of a dead preternatural could do and not tell any other members? It is all very well to have a secret society of geniuses, but to keep such information secret from the members defeats the purpose. It’s ridiculous. Think of the weapons I could have devised against vampires and werewolves had I known this. No, not the Order. It must be some other operation. The Templars, perhaps. They certainly have the infrastructure and the inclination.”

Alexia frowned. “Don’t you think the Templars might have done more with such knowledge? Might have developed weapons, as you say, from the technology. Or more likely, have collected the bodies in Italy to protect the homeland there. Move the God-Breaker Plague rather than expand it.”

Conall Maccon joined the fray. “You know what I think?”

Both ladies turned to look at him, surprised that he was still there. Alexia’s husband had their daughter propped on his hip. He was looking scruffy and hot. Prudence was inordinately quiet and somber, faced with all the bodies. She ought to have screamed and cried with fear, like any ordinary child, but instead she had merely looked at them, muttered, “Mama” in a very humble way, and buried her face in her father’s neck.

“What do you think, oh, werewolf one?” asked Alexia.

It was hard to make out her husband’s expression behind all that beard. “I think Matakara started it all those thousands of years ago. I think she started it to get rid of the werewolves and it got out of hand. She might even have done it at Alexander’s behest. After all, when the Greeks came to Egypt and took over, they were very antisupernatural. She might have struck up a deal. A deal that left her the lone vampire in Alexandria and everyone else gone.”

“It’s as good a theory as any,” agreed his wife.

“And then what?” Madame Lefoux wanted to know.

“Someone figured out what she did. Someone who wanted to expand it.”

Alexia could guess that one. “My father.”

Madame Lefoux picked up the story. “Of course. Alessandro Tarabotti had the contacts. The OBO tried to recruit him after he broke with the Templars. There were a number of people throughout Europe, including my father, who he might have turned to such a cause as this. Can you imagine? The promise of mass supernatural extermination? Start up a worldwide preternatural body-collecting scheme.”

“How macabre.” Alexia did not approve of this stain on the family name. “Why does my father always have to be so difficult? He’s dead after all. Couldn’t he have left it at that?”

“Well, you must have gotten the inclination for trouble from someone,” ruminated her husband.

“Oh, thank you, darling. Very sweet.” Alexia felt the repulsion building up, pressing against her skin. The sun had risen and it was already doing its best to see her dry and suffering. She turned to one of the Egyptians. “Splash, please.”

He made a gesture down at the nearby mummy.

“Oh, yes, I suppose water would damage it.” She moved away from the bodies, and the man doused her thoroughly.

“Lady,” he said, “we are running out of water.”

“Oh, dear. Well, I suppose that means I, at least, had better head back.” She looked pointedly at her husband and the French inventor. “Are you coming? I don’t think there is much more to learn here.” Another thought occurred to her. “Should we stop it?”

Lord Maccon and the inventor looked at her, not quite understanding.

“End the plague, I mean to say. We could try. I’m not certain how. My parasol’s acid worked on the mummy in Scotland, but I’ve nowhere near enough for all these. Water might work, dissolve some of the mummies. It’s the dry air that keeps them preserved. Just think, we might destroy the God-Breaker Plague right here and now.”

Madame Lefoux looked conflicted. “But the loss of all the mummies. The science, I don’t…” She trailed off.

Alexia said, with a tilt to her head, “Do I need to remind you that you are indentured to the Woolsey Hive? You must consider the best interests of your queen.”

The Frenchwoman grimaced.

Lord Maccon interjected. “I think we should wait, Alexia. It is enough to know.”

His wife was suspicious. “Why?”

“The plague has its uses.”

“But to allow it to expand?”

“I didn’t say that was a good idea. It might be a moot point anyway. Your father might not have known about the disruption of water. Will the plague even be able to cross the Mediterranean?”

“But if we can visit this location and discover the truth, so can others.”

The earl was not about to give quarter. “It’s important to have a part of the world that is free of supernaturals.”

“Why is that?” Alexia was even more suspicious. It wasn’t like her husband to argue against destructive behavior. She felt the repulsion building against her skin and decided it was an argument they might continue back at camp, preferably in the Nile. “We can discuss it later. Shall we?”

Madame Lefoux looked reluctant. “I should like to take a few samples, to see what…” She trailed off again, her eye caught by something behind them, up the hill above the temple.

A man was standing there, waving at them madly.

“Laydeeee,” the man called out, “ they are coming!”

“Is that Zayed? What is he…? Oh my goodness gracious!” Alexia turned to look in the direction Zayed pointed, and there across the desert, running low and fast, a thing was moving toward them. It was a thing straight out of one of Madame Lefoux’s sketches. In principle it resembled an enormous snail, its eye stalks belching gouts of flame into the air. It couldn’t possibly operate on steam power, for where would one get the water in the desert? It must have multiple wheels, like those on farming equipment, under its shell. It was made of brass and glinted in the sun.