God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (39 page)

I was home.

There wasn’t any merriment tonight. No one tried to give me fruit. There were no writhing humans. I wished there were. My heart hammered even harder than it had the first time I came down here. It was quiet. Where were the humans? There were miles and mazes of tunnels beneath London. The humans could be anywhere. Had they been killed? Eaten?

Would I be invited to stay for dinner? My stomach rumbled. Fuck, but I was twisted.

As I entered the great hall, I saw rows of furry bodies sitting on the floor in front of the prince’s throne. The sconces filling the room touched its broken pillars and remnants of Roman habitation with a mellow golden glow that didn’t offend sensitive eyes. Fires burned in hearths set into each well. The prince was in his seat of bone, reading to the gathered goblins from an old leatherbound book. I stood very still, listening to his raspy growl of a voice as he read. He read better than he spoke, and Henry Fielding’s
Tom Jones
was met with eager expressions.

They hadn’t noticed me come in. Or they’d been expecting me. I wasn’t sure which explanation was more – or less – comforting.

I stood at the back of the room, letting the heat from a nearby fire warm my damp skin and the prince’s voice push reality away for a few moments. When he was done reading, his audience clapped – the leathery slapping of paws – and when he lifted his head to look at me, every goblin in that hall turned to do the same.

I was a rabbit staring down a pack of drooling dingos. They tipped back their heads and sniffed the air, muzzles open, tasting my scent.

My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips – it was like dragging carpet over pressboard for all the moisture it dispersed.

The prince rose from his throne with that shark smile and came towards me with his bizarre gait that seemed both graceful and awkward at the same time. He didn’t look as though he should be able to walk on two feet, but he did it very well. I had no doubt that he could move just as easily, if not better, on all fours.

“Lady,” he greeted me. “You honour the plague.”

“I haven’t any tribute, Prince. I apologise.”

He tilted his head to one side, amber eye watching me closely. “No need for tribute, lady. No need.”

He was being so cordial – more than usual. My stomach dropped several inches. “You know. What I am, you know.”

The prince tapped the ragged leather patch over his right eye. “Since lady first met the prince. We have waited years for truth to find the pretty.”

I appreciated that he hadn’t denied it, or outright lied. Every one of these goblins had to know what I was. Didn’t they? When Avery accused me of smelling like wet goblin, was she smelling the den, or me? “Do I smell?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“Like plague?” He seemed surprised that I asked. When I nodded, he added, “Little. Unique. Wild. Smell like … hope.”

What the bloody hell did hope smell like? It was a nice sentiment, but utterly useless in this situation. Still, I didn’t say anything. Better not to anger him. I wasn’t sure just how my being a goblin changed our relationship, but he might see me as a subject now rather than an equal. Who was I kidding? As far as gobs went, he had no equal – that was why he was the prince. I might be a goblin, but I didn’t fit in here any more than I did cobbleside.

“Now your scent is blood.” His gaze brightened. “You’ve fed.”

Fang me. Heat rushed to my cheeks while my stomach revolted. “Yes. I’m not proud of it, Prince. I could have killed her – my own sister.”

He patted my shoulder. The pads of his palm – paw? – were rough enough that I could hear them scratch the fabric of my coat. “That happened not, did it? All is well.”

“All is well?” I echoed, anger seeping into my tone. “I’m a bloody freak. That is not well!”

He scowled, and for a second my heart literally stopped, I was certain of it. “Not freak. Pure blood.” As he spoke, he swept his arm wide to encompass the hall and all its occupants, who had now risen and stood watching the two of us as raptly as they’d listened to the prince read.

“The Xandra lady is plague’s hope,” he went on. “Hope to one day see sun. To bring plague cobbleside. One day all plague will be as pretty as you.”

Good Lord, they saw me as some sort of Chosen One! I was not going to mate with goblins. I didn’t care if I was one. That would break me for sure. Just the thought of it was enough to make me borderline hysterical.

“I’m not your saviour.”

The prince smiled – without teeth – and did not argue. I didn’t quite trust him. “One of us. Gave you dead friend as proof of
plague loyalty. Now I tell you ’twas the Churchill’s scent on the dead friend.”

I stared at him. “Churchill killed Simon? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Xandra lady would not have believed.”

He was right – I wouldn’t have. I wasn’t altogether sure I believed it now. I always had a tendency to believe what I wanted, and despite the bullets and this admission, I wanted to think the best of Church.

“The plague has proof,” the prince continued. “Surveillance of the Churchill leaving the halvie in the tunnels. Not the first he’s left.”

I didn’t want to know that. Ophelia had said Church was involved in experiments on halvies. I just couldn’t believe it, yet I’d seen the results in the dungeon at Bedlam. Goblins had been involved too …

I lifted my chin. “Did you know about the experiments?”

He shook his shaggy head. “Heard. Lost brethren to bastards. Never found where. One thing the plague does not know.”

So halvies weren’t the only targets. The people behind those atrocities better hope the goblins never found them, if the expression on the prince’s face was any indication.

They would keep records of their experiments, right? In case one happened to yield favourable results.

Like me.

I needed proof, or no one would ever believe me. The entire world thought my mother went hatters, my sister too. They’d believe it of me in a heartbeat. But if I could prove that these things were happening, then I just might survive this.

I’d start with Church. If he was involved – and I had to face the fact that he was – then he might have copies. There must be something linking him, surely?

I’d thought he loved me. Cared about me. I respected him more than I respected my own father. Hell, I thought of him
as
a father. The thought of him betraying me … it made me angry. So fucking angry. Anger was good. I could work with anger. Anger kept my head out of my arse.

“I have to go,” I told the prince. Then another thought occurred to me. “Is there any way for me to get to Churchill’s without using the streets?” Even without the Butler, I was a familiar sight around these parts. Being spotted in Down Street was one thing, but I didn’t want anyone to remember seeing me around Churchill’s tonight.

The prince nodded. “Your prince will take you.”

“I’m not your responsibility. You don’t have to take me.”

He looked affronted. “Xandra lady is my responsibility. The prince is her servant.”

If he’d turned on me and bitten off my nose I would have been less surprised. “You are the prince of goblins,” I informed him softly. “You serve no one.” No, that wasn’t completely true, since the leader of each race – Vex for wolves, the Prince of Wales for vamps, the Prime Minister for humans, and the goblin prince – technically answered to Queen V, but the goblins had always been a bit of a wild card that way.

Would I still be knighted when Her Majesty learned what I was? Right now, it wasn’t much of a priority.

“Nice words,” the goblin replied in that crackling tone that made him sound like a prepubescent nightmare. “But untrue. Come, lady. Follow your prince.”

“You really are my prince,” I said as we began to walk. “At first I thought you were simply arrogant.”

I walked on the side of his good eye, so I didn’t miss the glance he shot me. “Not arrogant. Certain. Hmm, maybe a little arrogant.”

Was that humour?

“Do you eat all the bodies they toss down here?” I asked as we left the great hall and began to walk deeper into the den. A broken bone – a femur – lay against one wall. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. I’d be stupid to forget that this was one mass grave.

“Meat is meat,” he replied, as he had the other night at my house. “We cannot hunt far. Must take what is offered.”

“Why not cats and dogs?”

“Would pretty rather eat cat or human?”

“Human,” I replied immediately. Fang me, but I was a monster too. The idea of eating a poor little cat …

He must have read my expression, because he nodded. “Much we consume is carrion, but the plague won’t hunt what cannot fight.”

“You’re goblin. Nothing can fight you.”

He barked low – laughter, I realised. “Now who is arrogant?” He gestured to the leather where his eye had been. “Some things can fight.”

That took the mood down a notch or two. “I’m sorry. He shot you because of me.”

“The Churchill shot because he was afraid for the girl. No apologies for love.”

I snorted. “He shot me too.” Although I still clung to the hope that it had been an accident.

His fingers curled around mine, rough and warm. He squeezed – like a father might, like my mother used to. “Worry not. The plague will protect. Plague is family.”

Right
. Not sure how I felt about that, so I kept my mouth shut. I held his hand for a bit, though. It was comforting, strange as that might sound. Creepy, too.

“I’m supposed to be knighted,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I told him this. “I should be celebrating.”

“The lady cannot be knighted.” He said this with such gravity I sighed. His concern for my safety was too overwhelming. I couldn’t even respond.

We walked about a quarter of a mile, perhaps a little more, before the prince pushed on a door concealed in the stone wall. It slid open to reveal another tunnel – an old service route perhaps. Sewer, or waterway. Light from the street above slipped in through the manhole in the roof. The prince squinted at it, but seemed otherwise unaffected. It didn’t bother me, but then I spent most of my time above ground.

I could hear traffic, rather than the deep rumble of trains. There were few motor carriages in Mayfair, though certain aristos did own them. Here, the streets bustled with carts and coaches, and smelled of horse shit and hay.

“Here,” the prince said, pointing to a rusted ladder bolted into the pitted brick wall. “Up to Berkeley Square.”

“Brilliant.” Church lived in Berkeley Square. “Thank you. For everything.” Some part of my brain resisted being grateful, insisting that goblins were the root of all my troubles, but I hadn’t time to feel sorry for myself. Maybe I’d do that later. Right now, I was simply keenly aware that the prince had come through for me every time I needed him, and even when I hadn’t.

He amazed me by bowing over my hand. “Have a care, lady. Pretty blood could start a war if spilled.”

I swallowed. “You would go to war for me?”

“All the plagues in Britain would fight for the lady.”

“I wouldn’t want that.” The idea of it made me sick. A goblin attack would decimate the city. It would be like setting sharks on a tank of seals.

He patted my shoulder. “Then do not die.” This was followed by that terrible grin, only instead of shuddering, I smiled back. Then I climbed the ladder, opened the manhole cover enough to
make certain I wasn’t going to get trampled by a team of horses, and exited to the square.

Old-fashioned street lights lit the pavements and gardens. They weren’t gas-operated any more, but like most aspects of the past, the aesthetic was kept. The street was lined with mansions – some original, some new, and the rest memorials to those who were long gone. These houses had no entail, their owners being the last of their line, and were never rebuilt. Over the last twenty years or so, a few had been razed. Some foreign and lesser aristos had begun to build homes on the land – all in an architectural style at least a century old. It probably didn’t look much different than it had prior to ’32.

Church’s house was one of these newer dwellings. He had a family house in the country somewhere, but Mayfair was where he spent the majority of his time. His house was a lovely cream stone building that seemed incredibly large for one person to live in, but I supposed he planned on marrying one day.