The Queen Is Dead (The Immortal Empire) (27 page)

Penny seemed surprised. “Really? You’re going to do it? Even though it’s probably a trap?”

I looked her in the eye. “You offered yourself to get Val back. The least I can do is show up.” I pulled my pocket watch from my trousers. “I have to go. We can talk more about this later.” I gave her a quick hug and left the house. I wanted to make certain she was all right, but I hadn’t the time.

Right now I had to pay a visit to that piece of shit known as Ainsley.

Vex wasn’t around to come with me, and that was good because he’d probably keep me from ripping Ainsley apart. However, he was gone because of pack trouble, which was never good. From what I gleaned, his second was kicking up a fuss over his leadership abilities and his absence from the pack, which I assumed was my fault.

How was I able to cause so much trouble without intent or effort? This nonsense with the pack wasn’t my fault–I wasn’t going to nail myself to that cross–but I was still the root cause. Just because I was a freak. That was all it was. I was a genetic abnormality. But then, every step in evolution had started in just such a fashion. I reckoned that was why I was so troublesome and yet so popular–because I might very well be a taste of things to come.

And I wasn’t so bad. I might be a goblin who could walk about cobbleside–in the sun–but I’d yet to prove myself a dangerous, unpredictable killing machine.

Well, not entirely.

Still, it didn’t hurt to be thought a little intimidating. I had dressed for the trip in head-to-toe black, despite the late summer heat. Nothing frilly or girlie–just a corseted waistcoat, black trousers and black high-heeled boots that made me several inches taller. I’d pinned my hair up with matronesque severity and painted my face with black winged eyeliner and glossy lips. I looked a bit like a dominatrix whose latex gear was out being hosed down.

Sunset was still several hours away as I drove the Butler towards the Yard. There were those who still called it “New” Scotland Yard, but the buildings along Victoria Embankment just east of St James’s Park hadn’t been new in more than a hundred years. A big red-brick and white buildid wfasng with grey stone at the base, it looked like it should be some sort of academy, with its round turrets and neat trim.

I parked the Butler and walked into the main building like I owned it. It wasn’t difficult–I could practically taste Ainsley’s blood I wanted it so badly. I’m sure I projected a “don’t fuck with me” menace from Westminster to Chelsea.

There was a set of hounds just inside the door. I walked through their frames with confidence. I didn’t have any metal on me, or a gun. What I had was my trusty lonsdaelite dagger tucked into my corset. I should really carry more protection on me; claws and teeth weren’t much help when up against a hand cannon with fragmenting silver rounds filled with tetracycline. I had yet to find out if I was faster than a bullet. Last time I hadn’t been, but then I’d been shot in the back. Maybe I’d fare better if I saw it coming. Still, wasn’t something I wanted to try.

The humans in this section stared at me. I didn’t flatter myself that they all knew who I was. To several I’m sure I was
just a dressed-up halvie. But it was clear when Val’s superintendent came to greet me personally that I was not ordinary at all. Especially when the poor woman was pale and swallowed hard before offering me her hand.

“Lady Xandra, I’m Superintendent Chillingham.” She was a little shorter than me, with thick cobalt hair and the kind of exotic beauty associated with people of Indian descent.

I accepted the gesture, careful not to squeeze hard enough that it might be seen as a threat, but how could I not hate such a gorgeous woman? “I’ve heard many good things about you from my brother. Might I have a word?”

“Of course. Come with me.”

I followed her to the lift, aware of how all eyes followed us. The small box–I had a sinking feeling it was original to the building–slowly jerked us up two floors, and I then followed her to a small but tidy office.

“Would you like anything to drink?” she asked, then paled again.

I smiled at her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to tap a vein for me. Tea would be nice, if you have it.”

“Earl Grey?” she asked, plugging in an electric kettle.

“That would be lovely.”

She took two china cups from a small cupboard and fussed about with leaves and strainers. “I must apologise for my behaviour. It’s not every day we have royalty descend upon us.”

“Or a goblin,” I added.

Chillingham returned the smile. “Or a goblin. I hope I haven’t offended you. Valentine has told me many wonderful things about you.”

Valentine, eh? “I’ve been looking for him.”

All humour fled from her face. “As have I. Thank you for alerting me to his tracking device. We have our own monitoring system, which thanks to your find we now know was being bounced around the city. Many of our ranks have volunteered time to search. He is well respected in this office.”

“Bounced?” I tried to ignore the rolling of my gut. “That sounds professional.”

“Yes.” The kettle whistled and she made the tea, but not before I spied a hint of tears in her eyes. She more than respected Val.

She was all composure when she gave me my cup and took the seat behind her desk. “What did you want to talk about?”

I followed her lead, pulled myself together and got right to the point. “I’d like to talk to Lord Ainsley, if he’s still in custody.”

“He’s no longer being held, but he’s in the seclusion parlours. May I ask why you wish to see him?”

I took a sip of tea. It was delightful. “It’s personal.”

“Lady Xandra, I cannot just give you access to a peer of the realm without knowing why.”

I met her frank gaze. “I believe he knows something about Val’s disappearance.”

Chillingham put her cup down on her desk with a clatter. “What?”

I set my own tea aside. “Look, I don’t have time or patience for games, and
I suspect neither do you. It’s obvious you care for my brother, so I’m going to be frank with you: Ainsley was involved with a horror show; not just that, but I think he might know about the disappearances at Freak Show–the disappearances Val was investigating.” That was a bit of a stretch, but as a general rule my paranoia usually meant I was on to
something. “If I don’t talk to him now, I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance.” At least not one where he would be so vulnerable and off his guard.

“You think…” Chillingham swallowed. Her eyes glittered, hard like stones. “You reckon Ainsley has information on Val?” She didn’t bother to hide the emotion in her tone. This woman was involved with my brother–I’d stake my fangs on it.

I nodded. “I think he might.”

She pushed back her chair. Her entire body was like a spring ready to snap. “Come on. I’ll take you to the bastard myself.”

At that moment Superintendent Chillingham was my new best friend.

No need to tell me twice; I stood and followed her from the office. This time the lift took us down to the subterranean levels, where aristos would be kept if charged with a crime, or until the sun set or they contrived some way to get home during daylight hours.

We stopped in front of a door marked “3”. Chillingham knocked, and politely waited until Ainsley spoke before entering. “You have a visitor, Lord Ainsley.”

“Oh?” asked the ponce. “Who might that be?”

I stepped around the superintendent. “Me. Hullo, Ainsley.” He was sitting on a very comfortable, very expensive-looking sofa, sipping what might have been tea, or blood, watching a football match on the box. He looked rumpled and tired, but still an arrogant bugger.

I swear on Prince Albert’s grave, so long as I live I don’t
think I’ll ever see anything more satisfying than how he paled at the sight of me. Bastard was already downright pasty, but this… this was that beautiful moment when a bully realises he’s not the scariest thing in the playground.

Ainsley was a pretty sort of man. A few inches taller than me, though in my heels I would be almost the same height, with golden hair and pale blue eyes. He wore his sideburns long, in a style that widened along his jaw. They were trimmed short and in a pattern of peaks and swirls that had to take his valet hours to achieve.

“Fifteen mi="2In hair annutes is all I can give you,” Chillingham informed me, and left the room without so much as a look at Ainsley.

“I’ll have her job for this,” he seethed.

“You won’t.” I stood in front of him. Sitting would put me at his level, and I refused to go there. “Would you really have killed poor David, Ainsley?”

He scowled. “Who?”

“The boy you threatened into nailing the rat to my door. You know, the one you were going to bleed to death last night. And what about Maine? It must have been a real pain in the arse to realise that he’d escaped.”

Most people would have looked horrified that I knew. Ainsley just looked pissed off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t be like that, now. You know exactly what I’m talking about, because I’m the one who let them go and started the bloody fire.”

Ainsley’s eyes lit up like a struck match. The cup fell to the carpet as he sprang to his feet with an elastic grace that would have dropped a human’s jaw.

I wasn’t human, and I wasn’t impressed.

“You fucking bitch,” he snarled.

I flicked his nose–snapped the cartilage with my “fuck off” finger. “Manners, wanker. I want to know about the horror shows, and I want to know about the disappearances from Freak Show. I know you know about them.”

His pink lips curved cruelly. What had Dede ever seen in this waste of flesh? He was pretty enough, to be sure, but so… lacking in any sort of warmth. “You know nothing. You can prove nothing.”

I pulled the pages I had copied from inside my jacket and handed them to him. “Thanks to Church, I can prove this.”

I watched as his gaze scanned the pages and realised what they were. Even then he wouldn’t admit defeat. He tore them into pieces.

“Those were just copies. I have others at home.”

“You can’t prove anything. They could be forgeries.”

“Ainsley, does the blood on the ‘official’ record for your boy match the one your wife gave birth to, or the one my sister had? Because I’m pretty certain all it would take is a simple blood test to prove that that boy your wife dotes upon is not hers. And I’m pretty certain that I can make enough trouble for you that it won’t even matter.”

His jaw tightened. “I’ll kill you.”

That was when I smiled. “I just love the smell of desperation in the evening, don’t you? Take your best shot, you miserable little clunge. My goblins will eat you in your bed.” I also loved throwing my newly accepted status around. I should be careful, but I was simply having too much fun.

It was the mention of the goblins that seemed to finally get through to him. “What do you want?”

“Answers. Why did you want me arrested for David and Maine’s deaths?”

“I don’t care if you’re arrested or not. I just did what I was told.”

“By whom?”

His lips twisted. “Guess. Who would want you out of the way more than anyone else? It didn’t matter if it was for Churchill’s death or someone else’s.”

Fucking Victoria. I knew it–historically the queens of England did not react well to havin wefor g another queen on the scene. I was so not prepared to go toe to toe with her. She had almost two centuries of backstabbing and deceit under her belt, and I wasn’t three and twenty until November.

“Who’s behind the horror shows?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

I straightened. “You can, or I’ll eat your spleen myself.”

He swallowed. “I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. I’m just the middle man.”

“That’s fucking convenient, isn’t it?”

He stared at me, eyes widening. My temper was bringing out my goblin. I drew a calming breath. In the grand scheme of things that were important to me at that moment, the horror shows took a distant second. I had stopped one, but wasn’t naïve enough to think I’d made that much of a difference. Val was what mattered.

“What do you know about my brother’s disappearance?”

“Valentine?”

I nodded. “He was looking into the horror shows and the disappearance of halvies from Freak Show. I assume that some of those halvies have ended up as the star attraction in your
charming little shows, but what about the others? What about the experiments?”

“I don’t—”

I grabbed him by the lapels, hauled him close and bared my fangs. He jumped so high, I felt the pull of fabric against my fingers. I growled. “Don’t. Fuck. With. Me.”

Ainsley licked his lips, his face now completely bloodless. “The others–the ones that prove useful are taken to a laboratory, where they’re experimented on.”

“What sort of experiments?”

“Genetic mostly. It’s all about propagating the aristo race; surely you’ve figured that out.”

“Where are they taken?”

“I don’t know.”