Unfortunately, with his first target underwater, the vampire simply moved on to the second best option. He fired at Professor Lyall and his charge as they hunched unprotected against the embankment. The bullet whizzed by perilously close to Lyall’s head and struck the stone wall, causing fragments of rock to pellet downward. Lyall curled himself over the drone’s body, shielding it with his own.
Then Biffy began to cough and sputter, spewing out Thames river water in a manner that Professor Lyall felt, while inelegant, was most prudent of him. The drone’s eyes opened, and he stared up into the werewolf’s sympathetic face.
“Do I know you?” Biffy asked between coughs.
Lord Maccon reached the steps at that point and hauled himself up, still in Anubis Form. He reached for his neck, unclasping the leather case safely fastened there, and pulled out his gun. The case had served its purpose, for the Tue Tue was still dry. He took aim at the vampire silhouetted against the moon and fired.
He missed.
“I’m Professor Lyall. We have met before. Remember the aethographor and the tea? How do you do?”
“Where’s—?” But Biffy did not get to finish his thought, for the vampire’s return shot scooted right past both Lord Maccon and his Beta, striking the poor drone in the stomach. Biffy’s sentence stopped midquestion with a cry, as his body, emaciated from weeks in confinement, convulsed and writhed.
Lord Maccon’s second shot back at the vampire did not miss. It was a lucky one, for at such a distance, even his trusty Tue Tue was unreliable. Nevertheless, the bullet struck home.
The vampire fell from the bridge with a shout, hitting the Thames with a loud splash. Immediately his agents—or were they drones?—ceased paddling about, recovering from their altercation with the earl, and swam over to him. From the resulting cries of distress, what they discovered was not to their liking.
Lord Maccon’s attention remained fixed on the tableau in the water, but Professor Lyall was once more focused on Biffy. The blood leaking from the young man’s injury smelled divine, of course, but Lyall was no pup to be diverted by the scent of fresh meat. The drone was dying. No doctor in Britain could patch up a damaged gut like that. There was really only one solution and no one, in the end, was going to be happy with it.
Taking a deep breath, the Beta reached into the wound, fishing about for the bullet with no care for Biffy’s finer feelings. The young man conveniently fainted from the pain.
Lord Maccon came to kneel on the step below them.
He gave a confused whine, unable to talk, as his head was still that of a wolf.
“I’m trying to get out the bullet,” Professor Lyall explained.
Another whine.
“It’s silver. It must come out.”
The earl began violently shaking his shaggy brindled head and backing slightly away.
“He is dying, my lord. You have no other choice. You’re already in Anubis Form. You might as well make the attempt.”
Lord Maccon continued to shake his wolf head. Professor Lyall fished out the offensive bullet, hissing in pain as the vile silver thing burned his fingertips.
“Don’t you think Lord Akeldama would rather have him still alive, or at least partly alive, than dead? I am aware that it is not done. Unheard of, even, for a werewolf to poach a drone, but what else can we do? You have to at least try.”
The Alpha cocked his head to one side, ears drooping. Professor Lyall knew what he was thinking. If this failed, Biffy would be found dead, savaged by a werewolf. How could they possibly explain that to anyone?
“You metamorphosed a female recently. You can do this, my lord.”
With a small shrug that said as clearly as any words that if this didn’t work, he would never forgive himself, the Alpha bent over the boy’s neck and bit.
Normally, metamorphosis was a violent savaging of flesh, an infliction of a curse as much as a conversion to immortality, but Biffy was so very weak and had lost so much blood already that Lord Maccon took it slowly. He was able to. Conall Maccon had more self-control than any other Alpha Lyall had ever met, for all his Scottish heritage and grumpy temper. Lyall could only imagine how sweet the boy’s blood must taste. In answer to that thought, Lord Maccon stopped biting and bent to lap at the bullet wound. Then he went back to biting. The idea of metamorphosis, most scientists believed, was to get the werewolf saliva, carrier of the curse, into the petitioner and to get sufficient human blood out. This would break mortal ties and tether the remnant soul. Supposing there was, of course, excess soul present.
It seemed to take a very long time. But Biffy kept breathing, and so long as Biffy kept breathing, Lord Maccon resolutely continued his repetitive action: bite, lick, bite, lick. He was not to be distracted even by the sloshing arrival of their opponents.