Imprudence by Gail Carriger Page B

twitching. She looked to be rendering amused judgement upon the mêlée, but she was a cat, and cats always looked to be rendering amused judgement.
    Rue barked at her, sharply, once.
    Brown cat eyes, so incongruous in the face of a lioness, swung regally in her direction.
    Tasherit inclined her head.
    Rue barked at her again.
    Tasherit leaned over, whiskers arrowing in, eyes dilating to focus on the centre of the brawl, the swirling eye of the cyclone.
    Rue stood on her hind legs like a circus dog and tried to see what it was.
    Too many men and wolves were in between. The noise was too fearsome and the smells too potent for her to distinguish anything significant. She galloped over to the official’s chair and leapt to stand next to Tasherit.
    The lioness hissed at her, but only in a “this is my post, stupid wolf” kind of way.
    Rue muscled her aside, trying to see what the cat had been pointing at.
    Rue saw her father wade in, fists flailing, roaring at his pack to cool their blasted tempers or he’d do it for them. Mother was behind him, trying to touch vampires and werewolves alike, intent on sucking them into mortality. Preternatural touch itself wasn’t deadly, but Rue knew from experience it was shocking, like having a chamber pot of humanity upended over one’s head. Gave a soul pause, if nothing else. With her other hand, Lady Maccon flailed about with her parasol, the fifth or sixth in a long line of hideous accessories. It housed under its canopy more covert anti-supernatural technology than one might think possible. Despite this fact, Rue had most commonly seen it applied as a bludgeon.
    Then Rue saw what Tasherit had been whiskering at.
    There in the centre of the fight, grappling with one another, each trying to go for the other’s throat, were the Right Honourable Professor Percival Tunstell and Chief Engineer Quesnel Lefoux.

FIVE

In Which Rue Breaks Things
    P ercy and Quesnel must have started the whole mess.
    Aunt Ivy would have sent her darling baby boy some drone guards and Paw had Channing tailing Quesnel. There you have it, the perfect recipe for conflict. Paw, after all, hadn’t specified what Channing was to do with Quesnel. But if Percy or his vampires made the appearance of wanting to kill Quesnel? Well, Lord save anyone if a vampire tried to steal a werewolf’s prey, even if only to kill that prey himself.
Especially
then.
    Rue leapt off the post and wove through the mass of tussling males. A vampire lurched in her direction. However, when she drew her lip back from canines and growled at him, he reconsidered. He was diverted by Hemming, who crashed into his side with a howl.
    Fur was flying, flesh was scoured, slow old black blood leaked everywhere.
    They were all enjoying themselves immensely.
    Rue ended her charge where Quesnel and Percy still grappled. Percy was yelling something about publishing rights and discovery notification and respect for intellectual property. Quesnel was yelling back about the public’s right to information and risk-aversion techniques and funding considerations.
    Rue wormed her way between them and reared up. Rue the wolf on her hind legs was about as tall as Rue the human, which is to say still shorter than both Percy and Quesnel.
    She did the only thing she could think of to distract them. She licked Quesnel across the face, a slobbering drenching wet slap. He smelled of lime and he tasted like meaty smoke. She rotated, put her paws on Percy’s shoulder, and did the same to him, knocking his glasses off. He tasted of leather and dust.
    Percy, with whom she had grown up playing games of “knight errant with his faithful werewolf companion,” knew exactly what she looked like in wolf form even amid a brawl.
    â€œRue!” He slapped away the tongue. “Get off!”
    Quesnel, thank heavens, had the grace to look ashamed and then the wherewithal to register the chaos around them.
    â€œGood heavens,”