Chapter Ten

In which yellow fog takes center stage and James the Inconsistent is officially following his companion Ladyship's example where the noble Watchmen are concerned

Madam rapped once on Louisa's bedroom door before throwing it open in a ladylike fashion.

The room was quite dark, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. For some reason, the shade was drawn, which was... unusual. The air felt warm and stuffy and dry. She frowned at the gloom hanging over elegant furniture and luxurious decor, peered at the bed, but the girl was nowhere to be seen.

She paused, went very still, and listened properly.

There was someone there. Rustling noises on the very edge of hearing, shadows that fell in the wrong places, something unfolding in the corner of her eye that could have been a wing -

She ducked.

There was a sound like tearing silk as claws ripped through the air where her head had just been and a curse. Madam took the opportunity to hurriedly step back into the hallway and also to wish, momentarily, for a nice, big machete. However, since she was unfortunately deficient in the area of big, lethal things at the moment, she chose instead to delicately lift her skirts a few inches from the floor, to avoid tangling, and kicked the tall, dark, and handsome figure taking up most of the doorway in the stomach. The sharp heel of her boot sank into the flesh, and she allowed herself a satisfied smirk, but a very brief one, because the intruder simply pulled the blade from his leg and twisted it into a perfect circle.

"My lord," said a quiet, mildly reproachful voice, and one of the shadows just behind her attacker's(a) shoulder opened two familiar blue eyes. "Really. It's not her fault; she has a naturally nosy nature."

"You had no such objection with that other man."

Louisa stepped forward, into the light, and waved one slender hand. "That was, sadly, necessary."

"And this is not? You said yourself, dearest, that she was... dangerously inquisitive."

"But had it not been for Bobbi, my lord, I would not be where I was today. I do retain some affection for her."

Madam almost opened her mouth, but thought better of it. There was no point in screaming, because from the speed at which he moved and the obvious enthusiasm he had for the prospect, she would be dead before she finished her sentence, always embarrassing in polite company. She listened with half an ear as they discussed what was, presumably, to be her fate, and concentrated on what she liked to call the little details.

The 'man' was somewhere around six feet, thin to the point of emaciation, and as pale as a corpse. She was pretty sure that the curving dark shapes that seemed to be part of or sprouted from his shoulder blades were wings, and she saw that he had long, perfectly manicured, not-quite-claw-like nails.

He also had fangs.

Vampire, she thought, and not, it would appear, a member of the illustrious League. One of the... hah... wild ones.

The argument seemed to be getting quite heated, and she considered making a break for it. It might not be fatal.

Don't move, said a voice in her head.

It was only natural that she obey it. In fact it was her whole purpose in life to obey the suggestions of that voice, which were entirely right and just and sensible, not like the shoddy, half-rate Hypnotic Voices you usually got nowadays. She immediately stopped looking thoughtfully at the stairs and became completely motionless. She did her best to breath shallowly.

Better, said the voice that was so very right, and turned its... attention... away from her, somewhat, and she caught the word 'bait' before falling back into oblivion.

Madam stared blankly, unseeing as they came to an agreement. When the voice started speaking again, she did as she was told, for once in her life.

None of the servants commented as Louisa and Madam left the building together. None noticed.

Nor did they notice, some time later, a noxious-looking yellow mist that seeped out of the window and quickly became lost in the heavier fog that was rolling over the city.

(a) This would be the person who had completely failed to actually injure her and whom she had just divested of several ounces of flesh. Madam had Views. Such people are not to be messed with.

---

By what was really, as has already been pointed out, a less-than-curious coincidence if you understood the mental workings of History personified, Constable Salacia(a) von Humpeding, Captain Carrot, and Sergeant Angua(b) came to the rescue...er... five minutes after Madam and Louisa had disappeared into the fog. Sally, who had been to the manor previously, led the way.

She looked, Carrot had commented earlier, rather vexed. He couldn't imagine why.

Angua, on the other hand, knew perfectly well why the vampire was vexed. The smell was faint, barely noticeable even by a werewolf's standards, at first sniff, but it seemed to distort all the other scents it brushed against and even at this level made her skin crawl. Definitely the same damn chemical.

They followed the rapidly disappearing constable through the gate and into the antechamber of the building, all gonnes metaphorically blazing. Sally was already making some relatively blameless clerk's life a small and private hell.

"...to see Madam Meserole," she finished, barely sparing a glance for her two colleagues. "There you are. Well, Mr. Samson? Where is she? And her ladyship, for that matter."

"Er...er..." said the unfortunate Samson, backing away from the vengeful Humpeding. He muttered something indistinct.

"Speak up."

"I... I believe they went out just a moment ago, miss..."

"Right. And I'm a constable, thank you so much!" she snapped. Carrot looked very serious. Angua hid a grin with one hand.

"Sorry, m-officer!"

"You'd do well to remember it. And thank you for your assistance, sir," she added, composedly.

In the background, Angua put her head in her hands and gave in to the oncoming flood of hilarity. Carrot gently steered the vampire away from her victim, who had retreated to his desk and was now so low down in his chair as to be hidden from any none too searching eyes, although an observant sort of person might have noticed that said desk was trembling oddly, because Samson was not a small man and he took up a certain necessary amount of space under the counter. The Captain refrained from sighing the weary sigh of an honest man much put-upon, but the thought was there.

"Have we got the search warrant?" Sally demanded, looking at the other two watchmen.

"Here," gasped Angua, once she had recovered. She waved the warrant(c) in the general direction of any desks that might be watching their antics in what could loosely be called an official manner.

There were no objections, so the trio ascended the stairs, at the top of which they separated in order to search the upper levels with maximum efficiency.

Sally went into Madam's chamber, and though she spent some time there, she found nothing helpful, although the extensive notes on the politics of the Sto Plains were mildly interesting, and because she was a kind soul at heart she replaced them in the loose panel under the loose floorboard in the fake bottom of the dresser and put the cloak over it properly. Never let it be said that vampires are not generous creatures. Soon after, she returned to the corridor to wait. Carrot had disappeared, and she could hear his voice, but something else was taking up most of her attention.

Angua was standing just outside of Louisa's bedroom, biting her own arm.

The constable blinked. "Uh... Sarge..."

Angua made a jerking motion with one hand that said very eloquently "Shutupshutupshutup."

A minute or so of awkward silence, and then Angua carefully let go of her abused arm and entirely failed to meet Sally's eyes.

"Don't go near the place," she muttered.

"Smelled it?"

The werewolf gave her a dry look. "Guess."

"Okay," Sally conceded, "Stupid question. How strong was it?"

"Not as strong as in Vimes' office, but I was out of there almost before I was in and I still... you saw."

"Yes."

Just then Carrot came out, a sickly-looking Jamie in tow.

"James here is coming with us back to the Watch House," he said, cheerfully. "I'm sure he will prove very willing and helpful and informative. No doubt this is all a mistake."

"No doubt," muttered Angua, but she looked slightly relieved. "Carrot? Louisa's room smelled of that... stuff."

His expression didn't change. "Ah? Then perhaps we ought to hurry."

(a) Sally's two most common greetings, upon meeting a person for the first time, were "My name is Salacia Deloresista Amanita Trigestra Zeldana Malifee von Humpeding (in the short form). Call me Sally!" and "Put down the stake and nobody gets hurt."

(b) On the other hand, Angua's most common greeting was "I'm sorry? Was there something you wanted?" This doesn't quite give an accurate sense of the total effect this innocuous greeting generally created; possibly it was the way she smiled in such an open, friendly fashion that really made the difference. Or the charming little noise she made in the back of her throat.

(c) A #2 sledgehammer from Chalky the troll's workshop. Well, needs must.

---

Igor was a teensy bit worried.

Like psychology, Igors didn't gravitate towards worry, or nervousness, on the whole. Nevertheless, this was definitely... well, apprehension at the very least. He made soothing cooing noises to his potatoes(a), mostly to sooth himself.

Frankly, Vimes was scaring him. At first, after the stupid doctor had gone away, Vimes had been quite inert again, leaving Igor free to sail around his domain (cell) muttering triumphant Igorisms(c). Though he was still forbidden to use his special techniques, it was definitely his win. But around one that morning, Vimes was still staring at the wall. In Igor's professional opinion, that was bloody odd; the man should have fallen asleep, no matter how mad, by now. And there was some new quality to Vimes' stare that was... unnerving.

Even to a modern Igor like himself.

He'd tried a little non-intrusive experimentation himself, too. He'd used, after a while, out of sheer exasperation, 'universe.'

What had scared him was that Vimes was no longer reacting to that.

Thus it had been something of a relief when Captain Carrot arrived, weird green stuff in hand, and asked him whether he would be able to make something of it, their registered alchemist being... otherwise occupied, earlier that morning.

Now, then, he bustled about, back to the Commander, and started playing with his chemicals, and did not notice the draft when the window creaked open slightly and let in a curling tendril of yellow mist.

(a) Which had fins and swam around in an old aquarium he'd acquired, somehow or other, in Uberwald. When he was just a little Igor, already aware that he was different, he'd dreamed of running a seafood restaurant when he grew up. For now, he liked working for the Watch as much as anyone ever did; but he still cherished his hopes and dreams of bringing to Ankh-Morpork of the fish and chips of the future. Next kidney transplant(b), certainly, he often told himself.

(b) The most common unit of time for the average Igor.

(c) "Take that, you righteouth bathtard."

---

As a child, Louisa had been renowned (by her parents, anyway) for her patience, complacence, and general amiable demeanor.

Madam's teaching had stripped away some of that, but at heart Louisa knew she would always be an innocent, selfless, loyal girl whose only ambition was for her loved ones, and the laid-back personality went hand in hand with the matter.

Really, she and Bobbi were two of a feather.

The Alchemist's Guild was not the ideal place for a secret hideout. Where, Louisa wanted to know, were the cold cement cells, chains and manacles, rough benches and table, tin mugs, and other trademarks of kidnappings and abductions and drug dens the world over?

At least the atmosphere was that of thick, fuggy smoke, she thought, and glanced at Madam.

The old lady seemed to have crumbled slightly when the Lord had overruled her will; now she stood slouchingly in the center of the basement, eyes fixed on some point behind Louisa's head. Louisa frowned at her.

"Bobbi, you ought to be pleased. Here you are in this lovely temporary resting place his lordship has fixed for you, and you look positively disgruntled."

Madam murmured something inaudible. Louisa frowned. She would have to have a word with the Lord about the strength of his mind games; Madam would be more useful sane and coherent, she was sure. Or at least as sane and coherent as she had ever been, which was, Louisa was prepared to admit, not an extraordinary amount.

She left Madam to amuse herself for a while and glided over to the alchemists huddled over the cauldron.

"Hello, honored sirs," she said brightly. Several of them jumped. Old fools. Pity neither she nor the Lord had had a passable knowledge of alchemy, but it couldn't be helped.

"Um. Hello, your ladyship," muttered the one she judged to be the most competent of the lot, not a terribly hard thing to achieve.

"Amadeus," she said, rather coolly. "And how goes your very important work?"

"Um. We. Um."

He was shaking and looked ashen, she noted. Interesting.

"Well?"

"We think. Um. We think there may be some, um, unforeseen complications. Uh."

"Unforeseen complications?" she said, and tittered. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Amadeus. I'm afraid I never studied alchemy."

"Um. It's, the, uh, octiron. That we burned. You remember?"

"Oh, you mean that shiny purplish green stuff?" said Louisa, taking terrible pleasure in the way he winced.

"Um. Yes. We think it... affected the solution."

"Oh dear. How?"

He gaped at her, and finally mumbled, staring at the tips of his pointy shoes, "we'renotreallyentirelysuremiss."

"Goodness gracious me. But of course you have a guess?" You could have used her voice to hack through ice, or someone's spinal cord.

"wethoughtmaybeitmight-"

"Slow down."

He looked helplessly at his colleagues, who inched away from him. Their chairs made little scraping noises as they squeaked across the floor.

"We think it may spread of its own accord, your ladyship."

She smiled pleasantly at him. "Pardon?"

He was positively curling in on himself, now. "I mean it can leap from person to person once it's infected one."

"I see. And how is it passed?"

"I don't know!"

"Hmm," she murmured, in a way that struck even more fear into the hearts of all alchemists present. "That is unfortunate. I believe I will have words for the Lord."

There was a general sigh of relief hanging in the air above the little cluster's head, so she added, for their benefit, "We will have to see about remedying the problem."

The relieved sigh in the air immediately disappeared. Alchemists have enough experience with the corporate world (a) to know what that means.

(a) It may seem unusual for a group of people generally oblivious to the concerns of reality and so forth to have any understanding of financespeak, but in fact a moment's thought will show that this is perfectly sensible. After all, the primary talent of alchemists is the far too common ability to turn gold into less gold(b), so they are constantly in 'slight difficulties' with their investors, or rather, their investors' attorneys, since anyone who invests in the Alchemists' Guild is undoubtedly gullible, if not masochistic or weary of life.
(b) On some occasions they are also able to turn a house into a hole in the ground, or a national landmark into gnoll fodder and the basis of Harry King's industry.