The Queen Is Dead (The Immortal Empire) (5 page)

Avery didn’t share the prince’s optimism when I showed her the photo from the goblins’ surveillance, and promptly burst into tears. Thankfully her Emma was there to comfort her, because I didn’t have it in me to do it myself. Not that I was
completely heartless, but I was still hurt that she had abandoned me when I needed her most.

I stayed long enough for a cup of tea–nature’s cure-all–and for my sister to regain her composure. She sat across from me, her eyes and nose swollen and red, in a black corset, black shirt and black and white striped bloomers. It was an odd palette for her, much more my style.

“So what do we do now?” she asked me, voice low and nasal.

“We wait,” I informed her. “If no one’s heard from him by tomorrow night, I’ll go poke around Freak Show and see what I can find out.”

“If Penny doesn’t know anything and she works there, how are you going to get information?”

I arched a brow–it was kind of an obnoxious habit. “Because I have a photo of the betties he left with. Someone might know who they are, or better yet, where I can find them.”

She didn’t quite meet my gaze. “I want to come with you.” Realisation hit me between the eyes. This wasn’t about Val; this was about Dede. Avery hadn’t thought there was anything strange about Dede disappearing, so she was going full-on paranoid about Val.

I folded my arms and rested them on the tabletop. Countless times I’d sat at this table with her, but now I felt like a stranger in what had been my home for several years. “We don’t even know that he’s missing. If we both go around asking questions, we might do more harm than good. If he doesn’t show up soon, you can follow up with Special Branch.” That lot wouldn’t confide anything to me now that I wasn’t a halvie. “Say nothing to Vardan. And go have tea with Sayuri. Val
might have told his mother what he was investigating. Then we’ll know if we should worry.”

“Why can’t you talk to her? She’s always preferred you over me.”

If it weren’t true I might have rolled my eyes at her petulant tone. “They won’t let me in the courtesan house,” I reminded her somewhat bitterly. “They’d never let a goblin close to the kids.”

Avery visibly jerked. “But they’ve known you your entire life.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied with a shake of my head. “I’m a goblin, Avery. A goblin who looks like a halvie, but still a gob. That changes things. Changes everything.”

It was obvious from the furrow of her pale brow that this was something she hadn’t considered. Avery was one of those self-absorbed types. It wouldn’t have occurred to her that there would be prejudice against me–she was only concerned with what she believed I’d done to
her
. In her mind, and in her perfect little bubble of a world, everyone and everything was wonderful until she declared otherwise.

“I have his rotary. It’s dead, but I’ll charge it and see what’s on there. I’ll talk to Sayuri too.”

Thet size=“Thanks.” I checked my pocket watch. It was after midnight. I’d only been up for eight hours, but it felt like an eternity. “I have to go. Vex is back tonight.”

“Give him our best.”

“I will.” I rose to my feet. “I’ll let you know what I find out. Ring me once you’ve talked to Sayuri or Special Branch.”

“I could always come over,” Avery suggested hesitantly. “Or you could come here.”

A smile grabbed hold of my lips and yanked them upwards,
despite the day I’d had. “I’d like that.” It might have been my imagination, but she looked relieved.

I didn’t hug her as I left–I was still a little too fragile for that. I climbed on to the Butler once more and sped east to my little corner of Leicester Square, where humans still wandered about heedless of the dark, laughing and carrying on whilst enjoying the balmy summer night.

I steered the motorrad down the narrow alley between my building and the next and parked round the back. The lights weren’t on, but I didn’t need them. The ambient light was more than enough for me to see to unlock the door and step inside. I tossed my keys on the table and turned to address the alarm.

It had already been deactivated.

“I was wondering when you’d get back.”

The familiar voice was a jolt straight to my heart–and my head. I’d been so preoccupied with my thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed there was someone in my house! A very sexy someone, but it could easily have been someone else.

Vex MacLaughlin, alpha of Britain’s wolves, was six-plus feet of brogue and muscle. He had dark wavy hair that was now just long enough that its natural curl was in danger of slipping out of control, and faded blue eyes that reflected a century and a half of living. He was at the hob, cooking up something that smelled like meaty heaven in my little kitchen that looked as though it hadn’t been renoed in the last sixty years.

And he was wearing a black kilt with a white shirt tucked into it, and leather boots.

“You come straight from a caber toss?” I asked with a grin as I went to kiss him. His hand caught me behind the neck,
holding me hostage as his mouth moved over mine. The man was a brilliant kisser, and for a few moments I didn’t think of anything but how good he smelled and tasted.

“Actually I came from a wedding,” he informed me. I’d missed the sound of his voice, and he’d only been gone a week. Most of the pack was in Scotland for the summer–safer during the longer daylight hours–and he tried to divide his time between London and there. He hadn’t asked me to go with him yet, and I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t like I was his mate or anything.

I didn’t ask about the pack. There were some who were giving him a hard time for being with me. And there were others who thought the goblins and wolves should join forces politically. There’d always been a little strife between vamps and weres, just as there had been between the Tories and Whigs of old.

“Is there enough for me?” I asked, peering at the pans on the stove. Sausages and eggs–all the protein a raw-meat-avoiding goblin could want.

“Of course.” He watched me closely. “Don’t you want to know about the wedding?”

I took a jar of almonds from the cupboard by my head and opened it. “Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I’m wedding mad.” Actually, I lbrictuallyiked a wedding as much as the next girl, just not at that moment.

“Never said it did.” He flipped the eggs. “It was two of my half-bloods. I performed the ceremony.”

Ah, so that was why he wanted to talk about it. Half-blood unions had been frowned upon at one time because they could lead to aristocrat births that weren’t of pure blood–or to goblins. Halvies had begun lobbying against them after the
Insurrection, but genetic screening had made it possible to assess the risk, and examine the foetus
in utero
.

“Big crowd?” I popped a couple of almonds into my mouth.

He didn’t look up from putting sausages on to two plates. “Fair. Your sister was there.”

All right,
this
was why he’d brought up the wedding, not societal politics. “Yeah?” I hadn’t talked to Ophelia, my maternal sister, since I’d attacked and almost killed her. She had a fantastic way of pushing all my buttons.

“She asked about you.” He plopped several over-easy eggs on both our plates. “Toast?”

“Of course. What did she ask?” I could pretend not to be interested, but what would that serve?

Vex switched the oven off before opening the door and removing a plate piled with toast. “Nothing specific–how you were, if you’d smacked Victoria in the mouth yet.” He smiled. “I told her you kept your hands to yourself. She did say that she had some things of Dede’s if you wanted them.”

I frowned. “I thought they got rid of her things.” It surprised me that they hadn’t, even though keeping them was the polite thing to do. The humans and half-bloods hiding out at Bedlam weren’t the first thing that came to mind when I thought of consideration.

He picked up our plates, so I took the toast and silverware and we sat down at the table–a small antique I’d moved in from the old pub room. “I think she hung on to them so you’d have an excuse to return to Bedlam.”

Vex was the only person who knew that my mother, my sister and their insurrectionist friends practically lived in the Bethlehem Hospital for the Mentally Insane. It was the perfect hideout, where no one would think to look. My mother
actually had a say in the running of the asylum as well. I’d seen some of the inmates, and she had my respect for taking a role in their care. Some of them had suffered horrible things.

“I won’t be going back there for a while,” I told him before attacking my food. The man knew how to cook. “I’m not ready.”

I felt the weight of his gaze on me without looking up. “I know you’re grieving, but those three words have become a regular part of your vocabulary of late.”

Fork halfway to my mouth, I paused. “I know.” I stuffed the egg and sausage into my mouth and chewed, then swallowed. “I realise I have to shit or get off the pot, but I have no idea how.” Saying those words was like lifting an anvil off my shoulders.

“It doesn’t all have to be done at once. One thing at a time.” He took another piece of toast. “So, what did I miss while I was away?”

“Another rat was nailed to my door, but I found the kid. He says he was hired by an aristo to do it. And Val’s dropped off the face of the planet.”

Vex raised a brow. “Is he on an investigation?”

“Seems so, but the gobs got a photograph of him leaving Freak Show with two betthe ith twoies, and he left his rotary behind.”

My wolf kept his expression neutral, but he had to know I was a little worried. “Has anyone checked it? A man like Val doesn’t just forget his rotary, not unless he wants someone to find it.”

“Avery said she’d charge it, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“I leave for a week and all hell breaks loose. Tell me everything.”

So I did. I told him how I’d tracked the kid and what he’d said, and about Avery’s visit and my trip to the plague den. Then I showed him the photo of Val and the betties.

“You need to take this to Special Branch,” he said.

“I will, if I have to. Think you can do some sniffing around at some aristo functions for me? Maybe you can find out why someone wants to be a pain in my arse?”

Vex’s expression was grim. He could look very intimidating when he wanted–it was sexy. “And if I find the bastard?”

Call me old-fashioned, but there was something romantic about the murderous glint in his eyes. I could always tell when his wolf was close to the surface, because his eyes took on a bit of a golden cast. “I’d like to talk to him and show him what I think of his piss-poor excuse for a sense of humour.”

Vex nodded. One of the things I adored about him was he didn’t go all chest-thumping on me and treat me like a delicate flower. I knew he’d rip apart anyone who tried to hurt me, but he’d give me first crack at it.

“Are you really going to wait until tomorrow to check up on Val?” he asked.

I wiped up egg yolk from my plate with a piece of toast. “He was last seen at Freak Show. Feel like going out?” It was the last thing I wanted to do. Tonight had already been one of the longest nights of my life and dawn was still several hours away. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Vex and rub naked bits. But Val’s silence–and Avery’s melodramatics–had my attention more than I liked.

I wasn’t worried that he was dead. Not yet. First, he was a copper, which even a betty would think twice of ending. Second, if he
was
dead, we’d know, because when betties killed someone they either left the body in a high-traffic area
where it was certain to be found and cause a stir, or tossed it to the goblins. Either scenario and I was going to hear about it.

And I’d tear the heart out of the chest of whoever had taken him. I might even eat it.

Churchill’s heart in my hand, warm and still beating. Churchill’s blood on my lips, coating my tongue. Warm sweetness sliding down my throat as my goblins ripped him apart. At least he had stopped screaming.

I swallowed. Hard. It wasn’t guilt that had saliva flooding my mouth.

“Of course.” Vex took a bite of sausage, seemingly unaware of what I was truly hungry for. “I don’t want to poke a sore spot, but the goblins are going to want to know if you’re ever going to wear that crown they gave you.”

Made of an ancient skull affixed with metal and entwined with organic material, the crown looked like something a druid might have once worshipped. “I’m not ready for that either, but yeah. I know.”

There was a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes, but it was a faint one. “Some things you’ll never be ready for, sweetheart. You just have to do it. There are few people in this city–aristo>whity–a or otherwise–who will tango with you when you have the gobs at your back.”

“I know that.”

“Hiding from it doesn’t change the fact that you’re one of them.”

“Know that too.” There was more bite to my words than I liked, but I couldn’t hold it back.

Vex just chuckled. “Been thinking on it a wee bit, have you?”

I sighed and put down my silverware. “Second only to you.”

“Nice to know I take precedence.” He reached over and placed his much larger hand over mine. “It’s going to be all right, love.”

“You can’t know that.” I tried to pull my hand from his, but his fingers closed around mine like a vice–not painful, just firm. I could have forced it, but I didn’t want to wrestle with him.