Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (32 page)

“At this point? No. Stephen’s smart enough to know that what he’s done is unforgivable. Plus, I’m fairly certain he’d realise that you’d kill him. He’s afraid of goblins.”

Then I’d make certain he got to spend a lot of up-close-and-personal time with a few of my favourites.

“We can’t let them get away, Vex.”

He went to the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of trousers. No going back to bed for us. “Special Branch doesn’t have enough to arrest either of them without having to let them both go within a few hours. Stephen might have to spend time in a cell, but Bertie’s solicitor will make certain he doesn’t. We can kill them, but I doubt that will help our current situation other than giving us some satisfaction.”

He was right. We could feed Bertie to the goblins, but the Human League would never know he was behind the labs. The vampires who worked for him would continue their work, or perhaps stop, but they would probably get clean away.

Vardan and Dede would have died for nothing. And Churchill would mock me in my dreams. I was not going to carry him around for the rest of my life.

I grabbed my rotary from my bag and began typing a message to Avery. She would still be at the palace. Then I reached for the handset of the telephone on the desk. “Do you have Victoria’s number? I want to talk to her.”

Vex glanced down at my hand. “Line’s probably tapped.”

I smiled. “I hope so.”

By evening, the VBC stations on the box were going to be positively wild with news leaked from Buckingham Palace. It might have happened sooner had Victoria not been such a stubborn cow.

She’d gone along with me on the telephone, as I had messaged Avery to tell her to, but the minute that connection broke, she rang me on a secure line and demanded to know if I had woken her up just to make sport of her, and that if I had, she’d wear my entrails to tea.

It took me two hours to convince her this was the right course. One hour on my rotary, and when the battery in that died, I hightailed myself to the palace and talked at her for another sixty minutes in person while the Human League picketed her gates. A young halfie – I’d heard from Ophelia – had been taken to hospital because of injuries inflicted by a gang
of human ruffians. And then an HL-known gathering place had been trashed by a group of halfies in retaliation.

Our country was on the brink of something really terrible if we didn’t act.

“Do you want another insurrection?” I asked Victoria. “Because you’re going to get that and more if you don’t do this.”

She sniffed and looked down that imperious nose at me, even though I towered over her. “You do not know what it is you ask of me. No, I will not do it.”

Fang me, but she was stubborn. Finally, I sighed and sank to my knees before her. Her eyes widened as I took both her hands. I think Avery might have even gasped.

“Don’t get used to me being on my knees, Vic,” I said. “Look, you need to listen.
Listen
to me. I am not asking anything of you that you and Albert did not discuss eighty years ago, before the Insurrection happened. If you won’t do this for me, or your country, do it for him. Don’t let his or my father’s and my sister’s death have been for nothing.”

Her eyes filled with tears – they were pink. I’d never seen anyone cry blood tears before. “You are a terrible, manipulative, heartless girl to use him against me. Is it not enough that his own son was responsible for his death?”

“No,” I told her. “It’s not enough. You know it’s not.”

In the end, she relented, especially when I told her she was in charge of how far things went. Bit of a control freak, she was. I suppose I couldn’t blame her for that, as it would be pot calling kettle, but she was old, and habits weren’t so easily broken. She’d spent the last eighty years being afraid of and despising humans, and now, as they threw flaming bags of shit over her fence and called her names, I was asking her to show them fairness and extend an olive branch.

She would like to take said olive branch and roast one of the protesters on it. Honestly, I was desperate enough to take that as a step in the right direction.

I’d made arrangements with the morgue to be careful with today’s delivery. Wouldn’t do for a reporter or HL member to stumble upon the human corpse meant to feed my gobs, would it? But who would think to follow an unmarked van driven by a guy named Clive who smelled of ganja and Marmite?

The body was wrapped and in a wooden crate marked “Handle with Caution”. It looked as though I was getting a delivery of china or crystal.

“Done this sort of thing before, have you, Clive?” I asked.

For a human he was very relaxed in my presence, a trait I attributed to the acrid smoke that clung to his person like an American starlet clinging to her youth.

“Nah. Just seemed like a good thing, right? Who’s going to fret over a little box?”

It wasn’t little – it stood almost as high as my waist. “How did you… get it in there?”

Clive smiled. “Come in fresh, right? Only been dead a couple of hours – rigor ain’t set in. I folded her up just like origami. Course, she’ll be stiffening up now, so you might have to break the crate to get her out. If not, just save it and I’ll pick it up next time.”

And with that – and a generous tip – he sauntered back to his van and drove away. I’d left his name at the Mayfair gates so he wouldn’t have to go through all the security measures. I shouldn’t have worried too much; he seemed morally content with our arrangement.

I took the crate down in the lift, and then down the stairs far below into the great hall of the plague den.

William met me, along with George and another male, who took the crate further into the hall to be opened and the meat shared. My prince was dressed in a new frock coat – black velvet with gold buttons. It fitted him perfectly. His fur smelled freshly washed, and had been brushed until it gleamed in the torchlight.

“Someone’s all dolled up. What’s the occasion?”

He smiled – even his teeth had been scrubbed. “Two things, lady. This night Elsbeth becomes my mate. Also, our lady becomes our lady.”

“Congratulations. That last part lost me. How can I become what I already am?”

His smiled widened, canines glistening. “You understand.”

Actually, no. I really didn’t. I narrowed my eyes. “What’s this about?”

He offered me his hand. “Come.”

“William, I don’t really have time for this…” I stopped in the centre of the hall. The torches had dimmed, bringing the altar to my notice. It was old and worn, and had blotches of candle wax that had to be older than Victoria herself dripped along its scarred surface. Beautiful white candles burned on it, flames flickering. And there on the dais was the body Clive had delivered. It was a woman of middle age, with full lips and a soft belly. She had laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, and even in death she appeared to wear a bit of a smile. She was lovely.

“The woman is perfect for what we ask,” William said, stepping up to the altar and raising his right hand. I watched as the hand lengthened, fingers curving like talons as his nails grew and thickened, becoming wicked-looking claws. How much shifting power did it take to change just one body part? It was difficult for goblins to hold any form but their own for long
because it required so much energy. But William made it look easy.

He brought his hand down, index finger neatly slicing through the woman’s breastbone to make a standard Y incision. The air bloomed with the smell of blood, still relatively fresh, and the gathered goblins howled, their voices rising around me like a choir.

Something tugged at my trouser leg. I looked down to see little Alexandra there, grinning up at me. Today she looked like a cross between a puppy and a human toddler – huge eyes, long lashes and lots of teeth. She was the most adorable thing. When she held her arms up to me, I bent and picked her up, holding her so she sat on my forearm with her arms about my neck. She sniffed my hair and nuzzled her head against mine.

A cracking sound echoed around us – William had separated the ribs. He removed the heart and set it aside, then took out the other internal organs and divided those up amongst those who needed them most – the old, the sick and the young. Alexandra sucked up a piece of liver like it was pudding.

It didn’t bother me so much any more. In fact, I dabbed away a little blood from her chin and licked my thumb.

William and Elsbeth shared a piece of meat, one feeding it to the other. That was the key element of the goblin wedding ceremony, the sharing of food. Then they shared a glass of blood and kissed. Voilà! They were goblin and wife.

It was time for me to go. I had to get to the palace. For that matter, so did William, or had he forgotten that he was going to accompany me to the meeting? How could he forget? It had to be on the news by now.

Queen Victoria and the faction leaders were going to sit down with the prime minister and human officials to broker a
peace – the sort that should have happened a long time ago. The kind that involved Victoria giving up most of her power.

It was the only thing I could think of to remedy every issue. If Victoria made it so the monarch had limited power, or was abolished, Bertie had nothing. I was rather impressed with myself for thinking of it.

I was still holding Alexandra when William turned to me. “Xandra, lady, you will join me.”

A command rather than a request. Hmm. I stepped up on to the worn platform. “What’s going on, William?”

He drew a stiletto from an old leather sheath; the blade gleamed in the candlelight. Elsbeth held a golden goblet beneath his hands. He took the knife and made a small cut on his thumb, which he then squeezed over the goblet. A drop of crimson fell into the bowl. Then he handed the weapon to Elsbeth and held the goblet for her, and then for little Alexandra, who cried when he pricked her finger, but laughed when I stuck it in my mouth.

“William, what the hell?”

“Patience, lady,” he said.

Once the goblet and blade had made their way to every goblin in the hall, William turned and took my crown, which sat on a pillow of red velvet, and placed it on my head. It was carved from bone – mostly a skull. It was morbid, grotesque, awesome and delicate, with perfectly sculpted points and smooth edges that had been lovingly fashioned.

That was when I noticed the other crown – the ancient one with Roman coins in its eyes, crystals glittering around it. Vines had grown through it at one time, and hand-hammered bronze formed its bone-spiked base. It was her crown – the first queen.

William held it out for all to see, then showed it to me. “Ancient was she whence we met,” he began. “Saved your prince as a pup. Tossed out of the palace, denied my birthright. She took me in. Brought me here. Was a mother to me.”

He didn’t need to tell me this. “William…”

He held up one hand to silence me. The cut on his thumb had already healed. “Strong, she was. Wise. Kind. The first of us.” Then he smiled. “Couldn’t sing to save her life, but cared naught. She died protecting this den. Protecting her people on Insurrection Day. Humans killed her.”

I knew where this was going. “I know how you feel about humans—”

“Please, cease flapping, lady.”

My jaw snapped shut with a clack. William’s smile returned. “We followed her, and we follow you – wherever you lead, you take us with you. Believe in you, does the plague. Trust in you. Honour you. Fight for you as you have fought for us.” He turned the crown upside down. The lining had long since worn away, revealing the empty cavity of the skull. It was in that cavity that he placed the fresh heart.

The goblet came back half full of blood. William removed a small vial from inside his waistcoat. The stuff inside looked so red it was black.

“This is her blood – my mother, my queen.” He popped the top and poured the blood into the cup. Then he poured the contents over the heart in the bottom of the skull.

It beat. Just once, but it beat. I gasped.

William reached down and pulled the bloody, dripping organ from the crown. “You ate of the Churchill for vengeance. You have taken meat for sustenance. Now you will take the meat given by your plague. The blood of your plague, the strength
and hope of your plague. The heart of a mother. The blood of a mother. The blood of a warrior. Become what you are, lady. Know yourself as plague queen.”

It all sounded very dramatic. I stared at that glistening lump of meat in his hand, smelled the blood of my goblins on it. Smelled the blood of that brave dead queen. I knew what he was demanding of me. I had accepted being their queen months ago, but in my heart I continued to feel removed. How could I ever truly be one of them when I was so different?

He was asking me to let go of everything I once held true. To embrace whatever lurked inside me, not as my monster, or my goblin, but as me.

Fuck, he had impeccable timing. And he knew me far better than he ought.

I took the heart in my hand. It was still warm, and the blood warmed it still. I turned to face the hall of goblins, baby Alexandra still in my arms.

“Eat,” she said, prising my mouth open with her tiny dirty hands.

The goblins laughed. I laughed. And then I did what I was told – what I knew I had to do. What I wanted to do.

I ate the heart, and the cheers that echoed in the hall filled me as the blood and meat filled me, made my skin tingle and my veins pulse. After coming so close to death, I knew what this meant, what this moment was.

This was my rebirth.

The palace was crawling with press when I arrived. I could see them pressed up against the gates like Newgate prisoners begging for bread. They were hungry for details. Word had leaked out that Victoria – a most reclusive queen – had requested a meeting with the PM and high-ranking humans. Was it true that she wanted peace? Or would she drain them all and throw their bodies to the goblins?

Of course there were protesters too, and the prerequisite hatters job with silver foil wrapped round his head who always showed up wherever there were cameras. A woman carrying a rotting turnip tried to claim it was her baby who had been eaten by goblins.