“Quoo?” questioned the clock as it flew.
Then the clockmaker began to yell. “That was a prototype atmos clock with a dual regulatory aether conductor! A groundbreaking invention and utterly irreplaceable.”
The cuckoo clock hit the vampire broadside, startling him considerably. It did minimal damage, landing with a sad little “Quooooo?”
Alexia decided it was probably a good time to start shooting. So she shot.
The poisoned dart hissed slightly as it flew, struck one of the vampires dead center to the chest, and stuck there. He looked down at it, up at Alexia with an expression of deep offense, and then crumpled limply to the floor like an overcooked noodle.
“Nicely shot, but it won’t hold him for long,” said Madame Lefoux, who should know. “Supernaturals can process the numbing agent faster than daylight folk.”
Alexia armed her parasol and shot a second dart. Another vampire collapsed, but the first was already beginning to struggle groggily to his feet.
Then the remaining two were upon them.
Madame Lefoux shot at one with a wooden dart from her wristwatch, missing his chest and hitting the meaty part of his left arm. Hah, thought Alexia. I knew it wasn’t an ordinary watch! The Frenchwoman then slashed at that same vampire with her wooden cravat pin. The vampire began to bleed from two spots, arm and cheek, and backed away warily.
“We are not interested in you, little scientist. Give us the soul-sucker and we’ll be away.”
“Now you want to engage in conversation?” Alexia was annoyed.
The last of the vampires lunged for her, clearly planning to drag her off. He had one hand wrapped around her wrist when he realized his miscalculation.
Upon contact with her, his fangs disappeared, as did all of his extraordinary strength. His pale, smooth skin turned fleshy peach with freckles—freckles! He was no longer capable of dragging her off, yet no matter how hard Alexia pulled, she could not break his grip. He must have been a strong man before he changed. She began bashing at the no-longer-supernatural creature with her parasol, but he did not let go, even as she inflicted real injury upon him. He seemed to be recovering his powers of deduction and realized he would have to fall back on leverage for this task. So he shifted about, preparing to haul Alexia up and over one shoulder.
A gunshot rattled throughout the shop, and before he could do anything further, the vampire collapsed backward, letting go of Alexia in order to clutch at his own side. Alexia glanced to her left, astounded to see the unflappable Floote pocketing a still-smoking, single-shot derringer with an ivory handle. It was undoubtedly the tiniest pistol Alexia had ever seen. From the same pocket, he pulled a second slightly bigger gun. Both were horribly antiquated, thirty years or more out of date, but still effective. The vampire Floote had shot stayed down, writhing in agony on the floor. Unless Alexia missed her guess, that bullet was made of a reinforced wood of some kind, for it seemed to continue to cause him harm. There was a good chance, Alexia realized with a sick kind of dread, that a vampire could actually die from a shot like that. She could hardly countenance it, the very idea of killing an immortal. All that knowledge, gone just like that.
Monsieur Trouvé seemed momentarily captivated. “That’s a sundowner’s weapon you have there, isn’t it, Mr. Floote?”
Floote did not respond. There was accusation inherent in the term, for “sundowner” implied official sanction from Her Majesty’s government to terminate the supernatural. No British gentleman without such authorization ought to carry such a weapon.
“Since when would you know anything about munitions, Gustave?” Madame Lefoux issued her friend an imperiously quirked brow.
“I’ve developed a keen interest in gunpowder recently. Terribly messy stuff, but awfully useful for a directed mechanical force.”
“I should say so,” said Alexia, readjusting her parasol and shooting her last dart.
“Now you’ve wasted them all,” accused Madame Lefoux, letting fly with her own, more effective wooden dart at the groggy vampire just after Alexia’s projectile struck home. It hit him in the eye. Sluggish black blood oozed out from around it. Alexia felt ill.
“Really, Genevieve, must you go for the eye? It’s so unsightly.” Monsieur Trouvé appeared to agree with Alexia’s disgust.
“Only if you promise never to use a pun like that again.”
Thus two of the vampires were now incapacitated. The other two had retreated out of range to regroup, clearly not having anticipated such resistance.
Madame Lefoux glared at Alexia. “Stop stalling and use the lapis solaris.”
“Are you certain that is strictly necessary, Genevieve? It seems so discourteous. I could accidentally kill one of them with such a substance. We’ve already had a little too much of that kind of tomfoolery.” She nodded with her chin at the vampire Floote had shot, who now lay ominously still. Vampires were scarce, and generally rather old. Murdering one even in self-defense was like thoughtlessly destroying a rare aged cheese. True, a fanged and murderous rare aged cheese, but…