Heartless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth Read Online Free

pearl handle—the former for ease of concealment and the latter to match Lady Maccon’s hair accessories.
    Alexia named the gun Ethel.
    She could hit the Woolsey pot shed at six paces if she concentrated, but anything smaller or farther away was rather beyond her skill level. This didn’t stop her from carrying Ethel, usually inside a reticule made to match her gown. However, it did stop her from pointing Ethel at any of the creatures near her husband. She could just as easily damage him as them.
    Conall had managed to pull out most of the spines embedded in his body, but new and freshly equipped porcupines only fired at him again. Alexia tried to stop herself from panicking, as those projectiles might, just possibly, be silver tipped. However, while he seemed a tad overwhelmed and groggy, none had managed to hit him in any vital organs. Not yet. He was snapping and snarling, trying to get his deadly jaws about the creatures, but they seemed to move remarkably quickly for such pudgy animals.
    In the interest of scientific experimentation, Alexia fired Ethel out the carriage window at a porcupine nearer to the edge of the undulating herd. Proximity and density combined to result in her actually hitting one. Not the one she’d aimed at, but . . . The animal in question fell heavily to one side and began to slowly bleed, thick black blood, the kind of blood emitted by vampires. Alexia wrinkled her nose in disgust. Once in her past, a certain wax-faced automaton had also oozed such blood.
    Another shot rang out. The coachman, a newer claviger, was also firing on their attackers.
    Lady Maccon frowned. Were these porcupines already dead?
Zombie porcupines?
She snorted at her own flight of fancy.
Surely not.
Necromancy had long since been disproved as mere superstitious folderol. She squinted. They did seem to have oddly shiny quills.
Wax perhaps? Or glass?
    Alexia’s gun was outfitted with sundowner bullets, although no one had authorized her to carry them. Conall had positively insisted, and Alexia was not one to stand against him on matters of munitions. Undead or not, the porcupine she had shot stayed down. That was something to note. Although, truth be told, sundowner bullets would work just as well on any normal porcupine. Still, there were positively masses, and Conall had fallen once more to his side, writhing and howling under the swarm of quills.
    Alexia put away Ethel and armed herself with her parasol once more. She poked it fully out the carriage window, opened it up, and then in one practiced movement flipped it about so that she held the tip, her fingers poised on the deadly dial there. Her husband would take some time to recover from the resulting injuries, and she loathed causing him pain, but sometimes circumstances warranted extreme measures. Making very certain she was dialing to the second and not the first or third position, she sprayed out a mixture of lapis solaris diluted in sulfuric acid. The liquid, designed to combat vampires, was still strong enough to burn any living creature—causing severe pain at the very least.
    The mist floated out, coating the porcupines. The unmistakable smell of burning fur permeated the air. Her husband, now almost entirely covered in the creatures, avoided most of the spray as the porcupines took the brunt of the falling acid.
    Eerily, they made no noise. The acid burned through the fur covering their faces but had little effect on the quills that continued to jab into Lord Maccon. The parasol sputtered and the spray turned to a dribble. Alexia shook it, flipped it up, and caught it in reverse before closing it.
    With a roar so loud it was guaranteed to shake the porcupines in their boots, had they been wearing any, her husband shook off the creatures and reared back, as though luring them to follow him. Perhaps he was not so disabled as he pretended. Perhaps he was trying to draw them away from Alexia.
    Struck with a sudden inspiration, Lady Maccon yelled to her