The buckshot gave the brass parasol just enough heft to make a deliciously satisfying thunk. She whacked the vampire right on top of the head with it as he tried to extract himself from his newly intimate relations with the tea trolley. It was of a style entirely of her own devising: a black frilly confection with purple satin pansies sewn about, brass hardware, and buckshot in its silver tip. It was terribly tasteless for her to be carrying a parasol at an evening ball, but Miss Tarabotti rarely went anywhere without it. She was particularly fond of treacle tart and had been looking forward to consuming that precise plateful. Miss Tarabotti was most distressed by this. He landed right on top of a plate of treacle tart. He stumbled over the fallen tea trolley, lost his balance in a manner astonishingly graceless for a vampire, and fell to the floor. So Alexia, who abhorred violence, was forced to grab the miscreant by his nostrils, a delicate and therefore painful area, and shove him away. Who was not friendly with Lord Akeldama? But no vampire had ever actually attempted to feed on her before! She knew one or two by reputation, of course, and was friendly with Lord Akeldama. Miss Tarabotti had never actually had a vampire try to bite her. Clearly not the sharpest of prongs, he then darted forward from the neck like a serpent, diving in for another chomp. Physical contact broken, his fangs reappeared.
He reared away from Alexia, knocking over a nearby tea trolley. The vampire recovered his equanimity quickly enough. Certainly, most daylight folk wouldn't peg her as anything less than a standard English prig, but had this man not even bothered to read the vampire's official abnormality roster for London and its greater environs? Miss Tarabotti was not in the least surprised soullessness always neutralized supernatural abilities. He was simply standing there, the faint sounds of a string quartet in the background as he foolishly fished about with his tongue for fangs unaccountably mislaid. However, the moment he touched Miss Tarabotti, he was suddenly no longer darkly doing anything at all. Yet he moved toward her, darkly shimmering out of the library shadows with feeding fangs ready.
For Miss Alexia had been born without a soul, which, as any decent vampire of good blooding knew, made her a lady to avoid most assiduously. In this particular case, what he did not know could hurt him. For there she sat, without escort, in a low-necked ball gown. To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire.įor his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his ball experience immeasurably. Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event.
Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening.
SOULLESS BY GAIL CARRIGER FULL
Soulless is the first book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart? With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire - and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead.
SOULLESS BY GAIL CARRIGER SERIES
Buffy meets Jane Austen in the first book of this wickedly funny NYT bestselling series about a young woman whose brush with the supernatural leads to a deadly investigation of London’s high society.Īlexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations.
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