The Queen Is Dead (The Immortal Empire) (8 page)

The building had been put up within the last five years, part of the “new Gothic” movement that took elements from the previous century and made them light and airy as opposed to dark and dreary. Red brick and dark pointed spires with lots of windows made of bevelled glass.

We parked at a pay post in the street. As we walked to the front door, I had that slightly prickly feeling on the back of my neck–like we were being watched. I’d left my pistol at home, and I cursed myself for it.

I glanced over my shoulder as Penny fumbled with her keys, gaze sweeping up and down the street, searching the shadows. Nothing. Not even a neighbour watching from a window. So why did I feel so naked?

The door opened and Penny entered the building. Vex nudged me to follow. “It’s fine,” he murmured in my ear as I passed him. “Nothing smells wrong.”

Scenting the air was exactly what I should have been doing, but I had forgotten just how incredible my sense of smell was now; it was one of those things you could ignore if you knew how. Still, I felt like a fucking rube. I was a freaking goblin–I should be the one determining if things smelled safe.

We followed Penny across the panelled foyer to the lift, and
went up three floors before stepping out. Her flat was at the end of the corridor.

“My flatmate’s still at work,” she said, slipping her key into the lock.

The door swung open before she turned the knob. She froze on the threshold, mouth dropping open. I shoved her aside, every instinct I had screaming that something was very, very wrong.

I smelled copper.

“Fucking hell,” Vex muttered, as we both looked inside.

The place had been
trashed–quite literally ripped apart. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Penny’s flatmate wasn’t at work–she was on the floor, face down in a puddle of blood.

Fucking hell indeed.

All that blood.

Thick, and so dark it was cherry-black in the lamplight. The copper-sweet scent went stry saight to my head. My vision narrowed, obliterating everything but the still body on the floor.

Meat
. And I was so fucking hungry.

I crossed the threshold first, Vex at my heels, and went straight for the girl, dropping to my knees beside her slight still body. Glistening darkness matted her light blue hair. Her face was turned toward me, eyes closed. So pale. Pretty little thing. She smelled so good. The blood seemed to have come from her nose and a shallow cut above her right eyebrow.

“Is she alive?” Penny’s voice was shrill, cutting through the fog in my brain.

Alive? I didn’t know. I almost hoped she wasn’t. She wouldn’t miss a little bite…

“Xandra.”

I lowered my head, closing the distance between my salivating mouth and that delectable little throat. Just a bite…

“
Xandra!
”

I snapped up straight, as though pulled by invisible strings. Clarity returned, razor sharp.

Albert’s fangs. I’d been about to eat this poor girl, and she
wasn’t
dead. I could see her back rise with every little breath. “She’s alive,” I rasped, stomach rolling.

“Oh, thank the fucking universe.” Penny practically cheered. She and Vex lifted the now stirring girl and helped her to the sofa. I stared at the blood on the floor. It mesmerised me, called to me. I glanced at my companions. Penny had found tissues to wipe the girl’s face, and they were cleaning her up, taking stock of her injuries and condition–asking her questions. They were paying me no attention whatsoever.

I gave in to the temptation. It was too great. Hunger pressed at the bones of my face. If I didn’t do something, I was going to gob out, and poor Penny and her friend had been through enough trauma for one night.

Palms braced on either side of the puddle, I lowered my torso. My tongue shot out and I dragged the flat of it through the thickest part, lapping up cooling, sticky blood like a cat at a saucer of cream. The floorboards were rough, but a splinter was the last thing on my mind.

I had to force myself to stop. The cramping in my stomach had stopped, replaced by a warm contentment–very similar to that of a nice toddy. I rolled up to my feet feeling strong and light.

“We need to get her to hospital,” I said, crossing into the living area. The entire flat looked like a dressing room for a
burlesque troupe. I’d never seen a lampshade made out of a corset before, nor so many different shades of pink. The girl sat on the sofa–a deep fuchsia–with her head tilted back and a tissue to her nose. Her head wound had stopped bleeding.

Vex turned his head when I came to stand beside him. His brows drew together.

“What?” I asked.

He lifted a hand and wiped the pad of his thumb across the tip of my nose. It came away smeared with blood.

“Oh, fuck.” I swiped the rest away with the back of my hand.

Vex didn’t say a word. He simply pulled his rotary from a pocket in his kilt and dialled 999. He told the operator what we’d found and gave the address before hanging up.

“What happened?” I asked. I stared at the girl whose blood I’d just licked up, but whose name I didn’t know.

“Betties,” Vex replied. “She says there were two of thma re two em. They told her to give them the file, but she didn’t know what they were talking about. They began to trash the place. When she tried to stop them, they punched her.”

“They have to be the same ones that took Val.” Penny gave voice to what I’d already thought. Shit. Val
was
in trouble. Ginormous trouble. Did Special Branch know what he was up to? If he’d been investigating the disappearances at Freak Show out of concern for Penny, then his superiors would have no more idea than I did of where to look for him.

“Go and find those notes, love,” Vex urged as Penny fussed over her friend.

“Do you think that’s what they were here for?” I asked, glancing anywhere but at the girl who I’d looked at as a snack just a few minutes ago. The wireless controller for the box was
on the coffee table. Someone had covered the thing in rhinestones.

“Perhaps. I think they were hoping Penny was at home.” What he didn’t say, but we both understood, was that Penny wouldn’t have got off as lightly as her flatmate.

I expected Penny to return empty-handed, but she emerged from the other room with a leather portfolio in her hands. Her face was pale and fear rolled off her like a tangible thing. I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t trust myself, not after lapping blood off the floor.

Vex took the portfolio from her and set it on the coffee table. “Xandra, put the kettle on, will you? Penny, why don’t you get some cloths and water so we can clean Samantha up.”

How the hell did he know the girl’s name? He must have learned that while I was… busy. I dutifully went to the kitchen. It was the best place for me at that moment, regardless of the fact that I resented being ordered about like a child or a puppy.

I could hear them talking in the other room. Vex asked Samantha if she could remember anything else about what had happened, to which she replied that she’d heard a noise and got out of bed, thinking it was Penny, but instead it was a couple of betties. That was all she remembered. She was lucky they hadn’t killed her, or decided to have a little sport with her while she was unconscious. It probably wasn’t luck at all, though. It was probably more a case of the betties being sent here for something or someone specific–like Penny and her notes on halvie disappearances. Given the circumstances, that was a logical assumption.

By the time I had tea made, Special Branch had shown up. Thankfully it wasn’t Cooke and Maine. Also fortunately, the
inspectors didn’t seem terribly keen on talking to me, so I let Vex handle them. I hung back in the tiny dining room and sipped my tea, watching and trying not to think about what those betties might be doing to my brother.

Vex never mentioned Penny’s notes on the disappearances from Freak Show. He let the inspectors think this was nothing more than a botched robbery. We just happened to be at the club enquiring after Val when Penny took ill, and we offered to drive her home.

Bless us.

He also omitted the bit about suspecting the betties of being the ones in the photo with Val, and that was a good thing. If the Yard went after the betties now, Val would be killed for certain.

By the time the medics had taken Samantha away, the peelers had left and Penny had packed her bags, dawn was breaking, and I was so tired my normally charming disposition wasn’t so charming any more. I was eyeing the congealed blood on the floor like it might be good on ice cream, disgusting as that was. I was going to have to do something bouo sometabout this hunger. It wasn’t unusual for me to eat a lot, with my raging metabolism, but this craving for blood and for meat was getting out of control. Eventually I was going to go hatters from it and seriously hurt someone, because licking blood off a floor wasn’t as low as I could get.

The three of us drove back to my place in relative silence. When we went inside, I took Penny to the guest room to get settled. Poor thing was pale, and her make-up was wearing off.

“You okay, dearest?” I asked, setting the smallest of her suitcases on the bed.

She nodded. “I wouldn’t be if Sam wasn’t going to be all
right, but at least now I know there really is something going on.”

I knew that feeling, that dread-wrapped relief that came when you realised that you were right and things really were as shit as you thought they were.

“Penny, the missing halvies. Have any of them turned up dead that you know of?”

She shook her head, and reached up to remove her wig. It was a little shocking to see her standing there with a nylon cap on her head rather than a huge head of hair. All of a sudden she was like an actor after final bows.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “We both know bodies tossed to the goblins will never be found.”

“That won’t happen to Val.” The gobs had come to me once after someone had dumped a friend of mine in their tunnels, I was sure they’d do the same if Val was left as an offering.

God, I couldn’t think about my brother being ripped apart like Churchill.

Penny began peeling off her false eyelashes. “Are you really their queen?”

“They want me to be.” I was too tired to discuss it. “You should get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I wanted to look over her notes as well, but more importantly I needed to sleep. I was no good to her or Val the way I was right now.

Penny hugged me. I gave her a good squeeze before leaving her to go to my own room.

When I walked in, Penny’s portfolio was on my bedside table and Vex stood beside the bed unbuttoning his shirt.

“How is she?” he asked, voice low.

“Better than you might expect,” I replied, pushing his hands out of the way so I could finish opening the buttons for him.
I enjoyed undressing him–there was a comfortable intimacy to the act.

“How are you?” He shrugged out of the shirt.

I chuckled and began divesting myself of my own kit. “Knackered. Fucked up. I licked that girl’s blood off the floor, Vex.”

He nodded, expression unperturbed. One of the things I loved about Vex was the way he seemed to accept me just as I was. “You’re a goblin, Xandra. You need to start eating like one. And don’t say you’re not ready.”

I closed my mouth. That was exactly what I’d been about to say. “Can we talk about this later? The last twelve hours have kicked my arse.”

He didn’t argue. I’d known he wouldn’t. Vex was alpha for many reasons, his patience being one of them. He knew when to push and when not to, just as I knew that he wouldn’t let me off that easily.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth before falling into bed. Vex was already between the sheets in the dark. He pulled me into his arms, our naked limbs entwining. He kissed meverHe kiss, and a few minutes later I wasn’t so exhausted any more–not that I needed that much energy as Vex did all the work. All I had to do was try to be quiet so as not to traumatise Penny.

Afterward, my muscles and bones felt like they were made of lovely lead. Vex gathered me close and I buried my face in his shoulder, letting sleep come for me.

I dreamed of the goblin lair, of sitting around a fire in the flickering torchlight as gobs presented me with meat. I saw Church’s face in the flames–pale in death, with unseeing eyes. I didn’t protest when the goblins fell on his corpse. Then he turned into Val and the prince offered me his heart. I took
it just as I had Churchill’s, and sank my teeth in for a big juicy bite.

I wish I could say I woke up screaming, but I didn’t. I didn’t wake up at all.