The Queen Is Dead (The Immortal Empire) (18 page)

After dropping her off at the club, I rang Avery to let her know that Penny had begun her shift, and then set off for home
once more. The past couple of days had been so insane, I was looking forward to a little quiet time with Vex, just to talk.

Part of my mind insisted that I be terrified for my brother twenty-four hours of the day, but that was just too exhausting, and not at all conducive to rational thought. Hope persisted and kept me from dwelling too much on the negative. Sometimes being determinedly myopic played in my favour.

I would find Val, just as I had found Dede, and he would be all right.

I stopped at a little American franchise not far from my place to pick up some greasy but oh so very delicious fried chicken takeaway. When I stepped up to the counter to place my order–practically drooling from the delicious smell of frying meat–I was surprised to find David, the kid who had nailed the rat to my door, standing on the other side.

Fang me, but that was an unfortunate uniform they made these kids wear. Red and white really only looked good on children and Father Christmas.

His eyes widened when his gaze met mine. “Hi,” he squeaked.

I smiled. “Hullo, David. Been behaving yourself, have you?”

He nodded, face white beneath a smattering of spots. “Yes. Did you come here to check up on me, ma’am?”

A frown pulled at my eyebrows. “Get over yourself. I’m here for food. Would you like to take my order?”

David shook his head as if trying to shake something loose. For all I knew, his little brain was bouncing from one side of his skull to the other. “Of… sure. What would you like?”

I glanced up at the menu board above his head. “A bucket of extra crispy, two large chips, coleslaw and beans.”

“Will that be all?”

I nodded. What we didn’t eat when I got home I’d save for later. He told me my total and I gave him my accrual card and waited for him to swipe it through the terminal. While the transaction wrap knsaater. Heped up, my attention was drawn to the far side of the restaurant, where a young girl was being harassed by five boys old enough to know better.

One was a skinhead, another had a mohawk and piercings while a third sported dyed black hair and eyeliner. Another was dressed very dapper and the last had a ginger pompadour and a fag tucked behind his ear. It was as though they were a boy band and each member represented his favourite subculture. Tossers.

“Who are they?” I asked David, jerking my head towards the five.

“Dickie boys,” he responded, as though I should know just what the fuck a dickie boy was. “They’re always doing shit like that.”

What exactly was “shit like that”? Did they just plan to harass the girl? Maybe make her cry? Or were they going to brutalise her one at a time?

“Why doesn’t anyone stop them?”

He looked at me as though I was hatters. “No one can stop them. They beat the snot out of anyone who tries.”

My first thought, I admit, was to take my food and just go home. Let the humans do whatever they were going to do–it wasn’t my problem. But the girl reminded me a little of Dede, and I hadn’t hit anyone today.

And yes, it occurred to me that if I stepped in, my popularity with the locals might improve, and that maybe saving a human girl would negate having killed a betty in public
opinion. That would just be the icing, though. The real reason to get involved was because I couldn’t stand bullies, especially five of them dressed like twats.

David handed me the receipt to sign. I scribbled my name, and slid the slip across the counter. “Be back in a sec.”

If possible, the poor boy went even paler. “What are you going to do?”

“I think it’s called ‘the right thing’.” I smiled at him. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not going to kill anyone.”

“That’s not what the rags say.”

“That guy committed suicide,” I informed him. “He was a betty dying of the plague long before I ever met him.” I left him with that to ponder and made my way to the other side of the restaurant.

The girl was crying now, and the dickies–what a bloody stupid name–were mocking her for it. One of them–the one with the pompadour–kept trying to grab her breasts. Meanwhile, twenty other customers sat and ate, pretending that nothing was wrong. Oh, but they all looked up from their meals to watch me saunter by.

“Oi,” I called out as I drew closer. “Leave her alone.”

The restaurant fell silent. It was an unnerving thing, silence. I could hear staff in the kitchen whispering that I was confronting the dickies, the oil bubbling in the fryers, the collective breath of everyone present.

“Mind your own fucking business,” Goth Boy snarled.

At this point I was within arm’s length. “This is my business. This is my neighbourhood.” I reached out and flicked him in the eye. Not too hard, but hard enough that it started to water and his make-up ran.

“Bitch.” Mohawk came at me, fists clenched. I jobbed
him in the nose with just enough force that cartilage crunched. He fell to his knees with a cry, hands trying to catch his blood.

His blood. For a pissant, he smelled divine. Fortunately, my brain grasped the fact that eating him would not win me kld siz the respect of these people. What my brain couldn’t suss out was why I wanted their respect in the first place.

I heard the familiar snick of a switchblade release. Metal flashed as the knife arched towards me. My hand shot out, wrapping around Skinhead’s wrist. I squeezed until he screamed. I had snapped it.

Dapper Dickie didn’t make any sudden moves. He just looked at me with his pretty blue eyes. “Do you know who we are?”

“Yeah. You’re dicks.” I smiled. Potty humour got me every time.

“We’re going to fuck you up,” he informed me with an unsettling conviction. This boy–he couldn’t be more than eighteen–would kill me if he got the chance, and he wouldn’t even blink.

And I’d thought I was the only monster in this particular postcode.

“Do you by any chance know who I am?” I enquired.

“You’re a cunt.”

There were times when that word was utterly appropriate and flush full of lowbrow eloquence. This was not one of them. This was one of those times when the guttural coarseness of it seriously pissed me off.

I grabbed him by the front of his jacket and whipped him around so fast and hard that the tweed ripped beneath my hands. His back slammed into the wall and I released him
quickly enough to get one hand under his jaw and lift. His toes dangled about my shins as he stared down at me in utter astonishment.

My fangs eased out of my gums, big and sharp. I felt the change in my eyes–the brightening of my vision that signalled the goblin in me coming to the surface. I managed to keep my face from changing too much. I wanted to be impressive to my audience, not terrifying.

“I’m the goblin everyone’s been talking about, and I won’t allow shits like you to hurt my neighbours any longer. If I hear of you so much as annoying anyone around these parts, I’ll eat your liver while it’s still inside you. Understood?”

A slight pressure on the hand beneath his jaw was the only indication that he had nodded, but it was good enough. I set him down. “Get out of here.”

I didn’t have to tell them twice. They scampered away with their injured tails tucked firmly between their legs. It might be the last I saw of them, but I doubted it. Someday, when he was older and more mental, Dapper Dickie was going to come looking for me, thinking he could settle an old score. Then I really would have to kill him.

A smattering of applause broke out once the door chimed shut behind them.

“That was brilliant,” David enthused, some colour in his cheeks.

“It was necessary.” I turned then and made for the door myself, but before I could leave, I was stopped by the girl the little bastards had been harassing. She didn’t say anything
; she just hugged me–a tad too desperately for my liking.

“There, there.” I patted her awkwardly on the back. “You’re all right.” I wished she was smart enough to know to stay away
from me when she reeked of fear and thankfulness. It was a delicious kind of vulnerability that appealed to my inner predator.

I had to peel her off me, and send her back to her friends, who started chattering away like birds the moment she was back in their booth. Like nothing had ever happened. Must be nice.

I walked out with my paper sack of chicken. I hoped it hadn’t gone cold.

Vex’s rotary smashed into the floor at my feet when I walked in the door. Bits of metal and plastic went flying. I jumped aside to avoid having a piece embedded in my leg.

He shoved a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell. I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

I could heal from a gunshot wound to the chest and he was concerned about rotary fragments. “Right as rain. Question is, are
you
?” I set the bag of chicken on the bar top.

“Lost my temper,” he said, a little sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to me. Apologise to your rotary.” It was a lame joke, but Vex rarely lost it, and to see him so agitated was odd. Not just that, but he’d been distracted since returning to London. I didn’t think our relationship was in trouble, but there was something going on with him.

I got plates and silverware from the little stash I kept behind the bar. “Come and eat.”

He smiled. “You’re not going to ask me about it, are you?”

I took the bucket of chicken out of the paper bag. “Do you want to tell me?”

“I want to eat.”

So we did. I tried not to take it personally that he didn’t want to talk right then. There had been a few times I didn’t want to discuss things, and he always gave me the time I needed to sort my head out. The least I could do was offer him the same courtesy.

I told him about my adventure at the chicken place instead.

“I’m beginning to think you shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house,” he said with a smile. “I’ve only been back a few days and already you’ve had more things happen to you than most people have in a year.”

“Reckon I’m just special.” I popped a chip into my mouth and looked down at my plate. “This stuff is so awful, yet so very good.”

“Better than haggis.”

“One of the tyres off the Butler would be better than haggis.”

Vex wiped his mouth with a paper napkin from the restaurant. He didn’t argue. “So, how did it feel to defend a mere human?”

I rolled my eyes at his teasing tone. “Fairly good, actually. Though I’m beginning to think that as a race they have a great capacity to pretend that reality is exactly as they want it. After those tossers left the shop, the girl went back to her friends and all was right with the world. And the rest of the customers
just sat there through the entire thing. They outnumbered those boys and could have easily overpowered them.”

Broad shoulders shrugged. “Fear does that to people. Look at how terrified everyone is of goblins.”

“With good reason,” I informed him, with a little pride. “But there are fewer goblins than there are aristos. Humans outnumber them by a fantastic degree, but they’ve yet to do anything about it.”

“True enough. Though you’d not find many–or any–aristos who would go against the gobs either.”

“No. The faction that aligns with the goblins wins. the gobb There was a touch of bitterness to his tone. Just enough to turn my head. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out, especially after my visit to Ophelia.

“Is the pack pressuring you to get an accord with me–with the goblins?” I wondered if Ophelia knew this and thought she’d butter me up so that I’d support her Bedlamites. I could see our mother putting her up to it. When I went to this faction meeting next week, would Victoria herself try to win my favour as well? That just might make going worthwhile–to see her suck up to me while trying to get rid of me at the same time.

Vex sighed. “Some arseholes are being fairly vocal about it, yeah. I had just finished talking to one when you came home.”

Hence the destroyed rotary.

“These people do know I haven’t decided if I’m going to be goblin queen or not?”

Grey-blue eyes turned to me. “I don’t think it matters. The goblins will still look to you regardless.”

He was right. “What would it mean if the pack and the goblins formed an alliance?”

“It would give us more leverage against the vampires.” The weres and vamps were considered equal as aristos, but the vampires looked down on the wolves for being animalistic. The monarch being a vamp didn’t help. It was an old struggle that usually amounted to nothing, but over the past few years the weres had been lobbying for change, as had the halvie and human parties. If push came to shove, the goblins would not only give a faction extra numbers; they would give them real physical power.

“There are a few suggesting I shouldn’t be alpha if I can’t get you to side with us.”

I scowled. “You tell them that you being alpha is the
only
way I’d side with the weres.” Bastards. How dare they try to pressure him like that.