God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (17 page)

She grabbed my hand. “Thank you, Xandy! I knew you couldn’t walk away.”

I stared at the ruined ring on her finger. “Don’t thank me.” I pulled my fingers free of hers. “This isn’t good, Dede. Not by any means. Don’t for a minute think I’m okay with it. I’m not.”

She nodded, looking crestfallen, and turned away. What the hell did she expect from me?

We walked the rest of the way in silence, me trailing after her like a trained dog. It occurred to me that she could be luring me into a trap, but paranoia wasn’t a good colour for me, so I kept my thoughts still and my senses alert, memorising every inch of the building we walked through. I ought to be ashamed of suspecting her capable of such deceit, but a week ago I wouldn’t have thought her capable of treason either.

“You might find some of these patients shocking,” Dede said as we went down one floor to the basement. “Some are in a very bad way.”

So there were actual hatters here – the ones who believed
Victoria the root of all evil. “I don’t think anything can shock me after seeing my mother.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

I nodded. I didn’t really want to talk about it. “Where are we?” I asked.

“The subterranean ward,” she replied, and gestured for me to follow her to a heavy steel door. “This is where some of the saddest souls you’ll ever see live. Shit. I don’t have a pass key.”

Remembering the card I’d stolen from the guard, I pulled it out of my pocket. “Try this.”

She stared at it, then at me; even the fingers that took it from mine seemed to express disbelief. “Fee’s going to pitch a fit when she finds out you had this.”

“She should. This place needs better security.”

She shot me a wry glance as she swiped the card through the lock. “After tonight I reckon it will.”

The light on the lock turned green and Dede turned the handle on the door. She did not give the card back to me, but tucked it into the pocket of her waistcoat.

It was darkish here – like a cinema during the previews. “Is it punishment?”

“Being kept down here? Nah. It’s quieter down here and sometimes the light bothers them.”

I peered around and felt a stirring of the fear I’d harboured for this place. “So the asylum isn’t just a cover for the resistance?”

Dede shook her head, then tossed a glance at me over her shoulder. “Oh no. We have a staff of trained professionals who look after the patients. We keep to the west wing above ground and the patients get the east. Works out well – it’s the last place anyone would want to look for us.”

She had that right. “You don’t find it a little bizarre hiding out in a madhouse?”

She stopped and turned to face me. Suddenly I found myself looking into the eyes of a woman, not the little girl I’d adored from the first moment I saw her. “For once I feel as though I have purpose – that I’m home.”

I swallowed, throat tight. I didn’t want to face the realisation that she hadn’t found that happiness with us. I hadn’t been able to give it to her.

We came to the first doors that lined either side of the corridor. Each was heavy and made of metal – iron, I suspected.

“They seem sturdy enough,” I remarked.

Dede flashed a sideways glance in my direction. “Even if they weren’t, the halvies on the other side wouldn’t bother. They know they’re safer here. Take a look.”

I peered through the small shatterproof glass window. Inside the cell was dark as pitch, save for one small light near the floor. It gave enough light for me to be surprised. The cell was carpeted and the walls had been papered in a pattern reminiscent of the nineteenth century. The bed was small, but made of carved mahogany and covered in a thick quilt. It looked more like a guest room than a prison cell. Even the loo was partitioned off. A stack of books sat on a table by the bed.

And on that bed a half-blood lay on her side, watching me as I peered about her room. I almost jumped when my gaze met hers.

She had short yellow hair that stood out in soft spikes all over her head, and a sweet round face. I guessed her age to be early thirties.

“My head hurts,” she informed me, in a flat tone. Her voice was amplified by the speaker on the outside wall by the door. A two-way intercom.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied.

Dede stuck her face near mine so that she could speak to the
halvie as well. “It’s all right, Georgianna. Your medicine will be here soon.”

My sister pulled me aside, towards another door. “She’s been here eight months. Her head hurts because they put bits of metal in her brain and we haven’t been able to get them all out yet.”

“Christ. Why would someone do that?” Her mind would try to heal around them – or worse, push them out.

“To see what would happen,” came Dede’s bluntly simple reply. “In the next cell we have Livia. She was rescued from a transport wagon five months ago. They kept her pregnant almost continuously for six years. As far as we can tell they gave her fertility drugs and impregnated her with goblin sperm to see what the child would be if it lived.”

Why in the name of sweet baby Albert would anyone do that? “How did they get a gob’s spunk?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine a goblin would just give it up.

“The old-fashioned way,” Dede said in a low, cold voice. “They let a goblin rape her. Repeatedly. You know she’s only eighteen. She doesn’t say much.”

Dear God. My stomach clenched so hard it felt as though it had turned inside out. I didn’t look into that cell and neither did Dede, but she placed her hand upon the door for a moment, as though the poor soul on the other side could feel it.

We went down the line. There were male halvies down here as well. The common denominator with most of them was sexual experiments. Some had been forced to endure horrific pain just to see how much they could take, their bodies forever disfigured by being made to heal in cruel and terrible ways. It was those ones – the mutilated ones – that made me realise this was real. These people – my people – had suffered horribly.

But I couldn’t believe they were part of some grand aristo plot to keep us all under the Crown’s thumb.

“How do you know humans didn’t do this?” I asked as we returned upstairs. I wanted to place the blame for these atrocities at feet I could accept.

“We have found human workers at some of the facilities, or driving transport vehicles, but it takes a lot of money to conduct this sort of work. A lot of secrecy. It’s too well hidden to be a human operation. Do you really believe a gob would work for humans?”

I couldn’t believe a goblin would work for anyone they could easily eat. That wasn’t the only reason I had for finding this all hard to swallow.

“You don’t believe aristos would do such things.”

“No,” I replied, meeting her gaze with a direct one of my own. “I don’t.”

My sister stepped out of the lift as the gate creaked open. I followed, stopping when she did. She didn’t look angry or mental, or even mildly put out. She simply gazed at me with sincerity in her wide eyes. “What are we, Xandy?”

“Sisters.” When she shook her head, I caught her meaning. “Halvies.”

“That’s right. We’re neither entirely human nor aristo. That makes us freaks to both sides. I don’t think the vampires and weres like us any more than most humans do, maybe even less. We’re protection and lab rats to them, and little more.”

“You’re basing that on a handful of halvies who have had awful things done to them.”

“And on what Fee has told me of their experiences.”

I snorted. “Because Fee wouldn’t lie.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Yeah?” Dede might have grown a backbone, but she was still as naïve as a child. ‘Because the night I saved her sorry arse from a gang of betties – the same night she stole my hospital records –
she was with an aristo. If she hates them so much, why did she leave with the fucking alpha?”

My sister blinked. She didn’t have an answer for that one. Ha. I’d made her doubt her precious new best friend.

“We’re more than a means to an end to our father,” I added, even though I wasn’t certain.

She gave me a sad smile. “He had to fuck a human for each of us to exist. Do you think he liked it? Do you think he made sure those women enjoyed it?”

I hadn’t thought of it before. It was just how things worked – how halvies came to be. Like most, I tried not to think about my parents shagging.

Dede walked away, leaving me with my thoughts as I followed behind. When we returned to the room where my mother had been, she and Ophelia were waiting.

“How was the tour?” Ophelia smiled mockingly. “Did you stop by the gift shop?”

“I’ll do that on my way out,” I retorted. That was assuming they let me go. I jerked my chin towards her. “What’s that?”

She glanced down at the syringe in her hand. I was suddenly wary and on guard, ready to fight if I had to. “I would like to take a sample of your blood.”

“Fuck that.”

Dede held up a flimsy file folder. From where I stood I could read my own name on the label. “Wouldn’t you like to know why you’re tested more than other halvies? Or why your medical records aren’t where they should be? I don’t want you to be an experiment, Xandy.”

My poor misguided baby sister. I couldn’t even be angry at her right then. Oh, for certain she was mad as a syphilitic monk, but that was real worry in her eyes. Worry for me.

“Plus we won’t let you leave without it,” Fee added.

My gaze moved carefully from Dede to Ophelia, then to my mother. I could cheerfully take on Fee, but I wasn’t certain I could fight Juliet, no matter how hurt and angry I was. And I didn’t know how many guards there were. There was a very good chance I wouldn’t make it out of there alive if I used violence.

If I let them take my blood I could get out unscathed and still report this to … well, someone. Val would be the best bet, or maybe Church. One of them would know how to handle the situation without Dede ending up dead or imprisoned.

Without scandal.

The only way things could possibly end up all right was if I continued to play along. I rolled up my sleeve, presenting Ophelia with the vulnerable underside of my left arm.

“Do it.”

“This won’t hurt a bit,” Ophelia said, as she positioned the syringe over my flesh. The sharp tip pierced my skin and the vial quickly began to fill with rich red blood. My sister glanced up from her work to give me an arch look. “Just a little prick.”

“Aren’t they all,” we said in unison, then stared at one another, unsure of how to react. Fang me, we really were sisters. For a moment I wished things were different – that Ophelia wasn’t a traitorous bitch and that we had known each other before this. Blood – family – was important. It was sad that I hadn’t even known her well enough to recognise her when we first met.

I didn’t want to feel any regret when it came to Fee. As she slid a second vial into the tube, I turned to our mother. She stood a few feet away, watching.

“You’re not mad, are you?” I asked, voice shamefully hoarse. After years of wondering if I’d succumb to the same dementia, I needed to know. Though she had to be at least half hatters to be part of this lot.

Her blue eyes clouded. “No. I might have been, though. Once.”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “You have to know that I wanted to contact you. I’ve watched you from afar whenever I could.”

Oddly enough, I believed her. Something inside me melted at those words. I was such a fool. She was only telling me what she thought I needed to hear to soften me up. “Of course you couldn’t trust that I would keep your secret.”

Ophelia pulled the needle from my arm and placed her thumb over the tiny hole. “
Can
we trust you?”

“For now,” I replied honestly. But once I was outside these walls …

Ophelia stared at me for a moment, as though trying to gauge my sincerity. She looked almost sad. I wasn’t fooling her. Dede and my mother maybe, but not this one. We were too much alike for her to believe I’d keep quiet.

“Here, take this with you.” She handed me one of the vials of my blood.

“What’s that for?”

“For you to get tested yourself,” she replied, and dropped the used syringe in the small bin by her feet. “So you’ll know we aren’t lying about the results. Take it somewhere discreet. And for the love of God, don’t tell anyone it’s yours.”

Her words raised anxiety in my chest. The vial was warm against my palm. I slipped it into my coat pocket. It seemed so strangely earnest a gesture that, for a moment, I actually wondered if maybe – just maybe – they really were telling me the truth, and all my convictions were horribly wrong.

“Fee, love,” came a familiar voice from the door. “Are you almost … Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude.”

I turned. It was the doctor from the morgue – the one who had been in there when Val and I identified that charred body that wasn’t Dede. He looked much more approachable in trousers and
loose shirt. I fancied I could smell the warm salt-musk of his blood.