Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (27 page)

They’d shocked her into submission, I reckoned. Nothing like a big bolt of electricity to make one compliant.

Fee stuck her head near mine so she could see as well. Bertie stood on the steps, also in a dressing gown. After putting my mother in a wagon designed to hold those of great strength, Maine came back to the prince.

“Thank you for your call, sir. It must have been difficult.”

“She’s a lovely woman,” Bertie remarked. “But Vardan was a good friend, and he deserves justice. Take care of her, Inspector.”

Ophelia stiffened. I glanced at her, only to see that her eyes
were wide and black, her face stark white. Surely seeing our mother arrested – forked over by her wanker bonk-buddy – wasn’t that distressing. She looked ready to pass out.

“Fee?” I whispered? Below us, Maine returned to his carriage.

“I know where I’ve heard him before.” Her voice was hoarse – strangled. Her creepy gaze turned to me. “The labs. I remember because I was blindfolded, put in a cell. He told one of the guards to ‘take care of her’, and then the bastard raped me.”

Oh fuck. Could it be? She hadn’t seen his face. Maybe… No, I couldn’t do that. Fee deserved more respect than that.

“Are you certain?” I asked. Below us, the door shut. Bertie had gone back in. I doubt he heard us whispering over the carriage, his own conversation and the noises of the night.

She nodded. “I’ll never forget that voice.”

It made sense in an awful way. Bertie had been Church’s mentor. Church had adored him. Would have done anything for him. He had told me that the laboratories, the experiments, all of it was above his rank. The duchess had been killed – or forced to commit suicide – to protect the secret. And whoever was in charge seemed to be one step ahead of us, as if they knew our plans.

Shit
.

My father had been a duke, and the only thing that outranked him other than Victoria – who seemed to have no freaking idea what was going on – was a prince.

I only knew two of those, and one was William. The other had shagged my mother, the leader of the Insurrectionists, before having her arrested – but he didn’t have her arrested before he’d had a look inside Bedlam and discovered where all
his other escaped “experiments” had gone. Travelling all over Europe promoting peace was just his cover. He’d been on the continent collecting samples, and forming alliances for the day he dispatched his mama.

“Who’s taking care of things at Bedlam tonight?” I asked, keeping my voice calm.

Ophelia frowned. “The usual security guards, a few halfies and Rye. Why?”

I didn’t want to be paranoid, but I had caught Ali’s scent around the palace, and I’d caught it here. I thought it was because she was hunting the royals, but now that Fee had recognised Bertie, I knew that wasn’t true. The reason we hadn’t found her wasn’t because she was so good at hiding, but because someone was very good at hiding her from us.

Bertie. And now he’d just taken care of the one person in Bedlam who might be able to stand against him – against Ali. Which inmate did he want? The little halfie girl who had been repeatedly raped by goblins? Or maybe the one with bits of metal in her brain.

“Xandra?” There was fear in my sister’s voice.

I swallowed against a lump in my throat the size of a croquet ball. “I think we ought to go to Bedlam. Now.”

That was all I needed to say. My sister snatched up all her gear and dropped over the edge of the roof once more. I followed on her heels. Within minutes we’d made it out of the garden and on to the street, where Fee had left a motor carriage a few blocks away.

We were in the North End, and Bedlam was across the river on Lambeth Road. We could get there in decent time if the traffic worked in our favour. Ali was on foot, so we had the advantage there, but she was incredibly fast and had a head start.

Rye might already be dead.

I pulled out my rotary and dialled Vex. I got his Britme service, so I left him a message letting him know what I suspected and that I was with Ophelia en route to Bedlam.

“I hope I’m wrong,” I said before disconnecting. “I’ve been wrong before, right?”

But I knew without a doubt that this was not going to be one of those times.

Bedlam was, well, a madhouse when we got there.

The place had a long history of treating the insane, and was now a front for the Insurrectionists. They still treated patients, however, and that was part of the reason I was anxious. There were halfies in that place that had been so ill-treated, they deserved what peace Bedlam could give them. They didn’t need another monster trying to tear them apart.

And quite frankly, Ophelia didn’t deserve to see more people she cared about killed.

The front gate – looming iron with the name “Bedlam” above – was intact when we arrived, but wide open. I couldn’t say the same about the front door, which had been ripped off its hinges and tossed aside. I ran in, but Ophelia came up short on the threshold. I would have spared her the sight if I’d been able.

The two guards at the hounds had had their throats ripped out. They hadn’t even had time to reach for their weapons. The hounds – those lovely scent-detecting machines – looked as though they’d been kicked apart. They crumpled towards the floor, smelling of burnt wire.

“James and Tully,” Ophelia whispered, white-faced, as she stared at the dead men. They’d been human. Never stood a chance.

“Come on.” I took her by the arm. “You can’t help them now.”

Thankfully – if there was anything to be thankful for – the trail of blood splatter led to the left. Patients were kept in the opposite wing both above ground and below. It was the ones beneath that I was most concerned about, so I was relieved that it seemed that at least Ali had left them alone.

But the bloody bootprints heading towards the lift suggested that someone else must have gone into the subterranean cells. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

If she had backup and they’d gone below, that meant that Ali was on clean-up, or assassination, detail. The fact that the blood continued down the corridor suggested that she’d been given a scent to track. It became obvious that she hadn’t stopped to randomly bust open doors; however, someone
had
opened a door at the end of the corridor, no doubt to see what was going on.

Ali was the last thing the woman saw before her face was torn off.

Ophelia’s voice was at the choked-sob phase now. “My God, Xandra. Why would she do this?”

I thought of my father, and the note she’d left. No one could make her rip someone’s face off. There were ways to kill that caused less suffering.

“Because someone let her.” Ali was childlike, and with that came the ability to be carelessly cruel. Her mind, however, was not always her own, and it seemed that whoever had made her had fixed it so that she could be easily nudged into killer mode.

Bertie, you naughty, naughty bastard
. I could try to talk myself out of it, but those instincts I was supposed to trust were screaming that it was him. Why he’d done it didn’t matter. There was nothing he could say that would excuse this, or my father. Or Vex. Or Dede. Or Ophelia and Rye. Me. And countless others who had suffered because of him.

“Fee!” cried a voice behind us.

We both whirled around. There, at the end of the corridor, not far from the dead guards, stood two large male halfies. Between them they held a halfie girl who was obviously medicated. She had coral-coloured hair and wide eyes. She looked terrified, poor thing. I didn’t need to know her name to realise who she was. One look was all I needed to know that she was the one that had been repeatedly raped by goblins. She had finally found sanctuary, and now this. How could she ever feel safe again?

“Don’t hurt her!” Fee moved forward, but stopped abruptly when one of the men pulled a needle out of his pocket. He used his teeth to pull off the cap before jabbing the sharp into the girl’s neck.

“No!” screamed my sister, running forward. The men threw the girl towards her, and then ran for the exit.

I let them go – it was not like I would ever forget their faces or their scent. And I knew who they worked for. Right now, that little girl was more important.

“She’s alive,” Fee said when I reached them.

“Any idea what he gave her?”

She shook her head as she knelt beside the halfie, cradling her bright coral head.

“Right.” I glanced down the corridor one way and then the other. When a door behind me opened, I pulled my dagger from my corset and whirled around, ready to fight.

It was one of my mother’s half-bloods. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, but even I wasn’t scary enough to keep her from Fee and the girl.

“Get her inside,” I ordered. “Lock the door. Help is coming.”

“She’s been injected with something,” Fee explained, handing over the unconscious girl. “Take care of her, Gladys.”

The halfie nodded. She was pale and frightened, but she was in control. Good. She took the girl into the room with her. The bolt slid into place with a thunk.

Above us, something crashed hard into the floor. The sound of shattering glass and voices raised in panic followed.

And then a roar. It was Ali.

My goblin responded to that roar. Saliva flooded the back of my mouth and my gums began to ache. I ran faster towards the set of stairs partially concealed by the wall at the end of the corridor. Ophelia was close behind me.

As I climbed, more and more of the upstairs hall came into view. One of the doors had been ripped clean off frame and hinges, and lay splintered on the carpet. A swipe of blood marred the wall outside.

“That’s Rye’s room,” Ophelia said. I could hear the fear in her voice. She had feelings for Rye, and she’d already lost one lover because of this nonsense. Although that one had been a spy for Church. If he’d been a better spy, perhaps Bedlam would have been raided long before this, but he’d taken the location to his grave.

Had my mother given Bedlam up? God, she couldn’t be that stupid, could she?

It didn’t matter. A door down the corridor flew out and smashed against the opposite wall. A tangle of fur and limbs, snarling and bleeding, tumbled out, followed by a number of
halfies and humans wielding weapons or wounded. Four halfies were propped up against the wall closest to us. One had a broken arm, one a broken jaw. The third was bleeding badly from the shoulder and the fourth… the fourth was dead.

The snarling fur monster was Rye and Ali. Both were in wolf form. No wonder Church had wanted Rye to poke and prod at. To take samples from. He could shift just like Vex’s son. So many “special” half-bloods running around, and most of us knew nothing about them because they’d been scooped up to be studied and abused.

I smelled Rye’s blood, hot and rich – that earthy scent that was uniquely wolf. It was a good thing he could shift. She probably would have killed him by now. I didn’t know what they’d done to him in that lab, but he fought like an animal, and that worked to his advantage.

“Rye!” Ophelia’s voice cracked as she rushed forward. I stopped her with my arm. Her eyes were wild with fear. There would be no denying her feelings for Rye after this. It was plain to see how much she loved him.

That was reason enough for me to throw myself into the fray. “Don’t be stupid.

When I toss him out, I want you to get him as far away from her as possible, understand? Get him to Vex.” I had no way of knowing if Vex had received my message or not, and it was too late to call William. I ought to have been smarter than this. Storming Bedlam would probably be the end of me.

Or not, I thought, as I slid my lonsdaelite dagger from its sheath in my leather corset and dived into the middle of the fight. A halfie punched me in the jaw – he’d been aiming for Ali. Good thing he got me instead, because she would have snapped his fist off at the wrist.

I managed to insert myself between Rye and Ali, earning a rake of claws across my back. I hissed, but didn’t stop. I planted my foot against Rye’s furry belly as he reared up, and pushed him backwards, towards Ophelia. He was wounded and bleeding – one ear was badly torn, and he favoured his front right leg. With treatment and blood he would be fine.

And it was only because of the halfies and humans who fought with him. There were four more dead in the room they’d just busted out of.

With Rye suddenly gone, Ali stopped to take stock of the situation. I took that opportunity to shove the dagger between her ribs.
Fuck!
I missed her heart.

She shifted before me, despite the injury I’d inflicted and those handed out by Rye. Like something liquid, she turned into the form that looked the most like me. Her hair was wild – like blood-soaked candy floss – and she wore the blood of others on her skin. She was completely naked, and I could see the muscles rippling beneath her velvet-textured flesh.

My blade was still in her as she changed. I tightened my grip and yanked it free before she could. Then I backed up – out of arm’s reach.

She looked down at the blood running down her side. “That wasn’t nice,” she said, her voice a mix of child sing-song and goblin growl that made my spine shudder.

“Just a little poke,” I said. “You’ve done worse to the people here.”